The Development Process of Making a Communication Application for Severe Non-Verbal Autistic Students

This research focuses on the development of an application to aide non-verbal autistic students. The purpose of this study is to determine the unique aspects of developing software, as well as the similarities and differences compared to the traditional development process, for students with special needs, as well as laying the groundwork for an Open Distribution program under SWOSU for future developers. The special needs community can be a very niche market depending on the type and severity of the condition, and is often overlooked by software application developers. This study follows the development of an Android based communication application for a low cost tablet; this product is a work in progress

Control of Water Tree Length and Density in Cable Insulation Polyethylenes

This paper was presented at the IEEE International Symposium on Electrical Insulation, June 2006. ©2006 IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. However, permission to reprint/republish this material for advertising or promotional purposes or for creating new collective works for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or to reuse any copyrighted component of this work in other works must be obtained from the IEEE.Digital Object Identifier: 10.1109/ELINSL.2006.1665284The goal of this paper is to study the influence of the chemical crosslinking of polyethylene on the water tree initiation and propagation in polymer insulation. For this, the water tree resistances of crosslinked and thermoplastic low density polyethylene were compared. Three types of crosslinked polyethylene systems were evaluated: one containing only peroxide and the other two having, beside peroxide, a free retarding additive system. The results were compared with those obtained on their thermoplastic correspondents. The data show that there are differences in both the water tree length and density that can be ascribed to the polyethylene systems. However, only differences in the water tree density could be ascribed to the material form (thermoplastic or crosslinked). The observed results are consistent with differences, on microscopic level, in permittivities and local breakdown strengths.This work was partly supported by the Romanian Ministry of Education and Research, in the frame of Grant CNCSIS A-1461

HIV infection among refugees, asylum seekers and unaccompanied foreign minors attending an outpatient clinic in Reggio Emilia (Northern Italy) in 2022–2023

Abstract Introduction In Europe, migrant populations demonstrated a high risk of infection disease, possibly due to both pre-migratory and post-migratory factors. In particular, investigating HIV infection prevalence is a public health priority. In this study, we aimed to assess the prevalence of HIV infection in refugees, asylum seekers and unaccompanied foreign minors (UFM) accessing a targeted outpatient clinic in the province of Reggio Emilia, Northern Italy. Methods We analyzed data from the serological screening for HIV carried out among refugees, asylum seekers and UFM by a dedicated “Centre for Health of Foreign Family”, at the time of the first medical examination in the 2022–2023 period. Results Of 1351 subjects (mean age 25.3 ± 7.9), 85.2% were males and 19.5% were under 18 years. The majority (74.6%) were from Africa (51.4% and 23.2% from the sub-Saharan area and North Africa, respectively), and 20.5% from Asia (11.8% from Bangladesh, 7.7% from Pakistan and 1% from Afghanistan, respectively). We found 10 (0.74%) HIV-positive people, with a prevalence increasing from 0.26% (1/389) in 2022 to 0.94% (9/962) in 2023 with a relative risk of infection of 3.6 (95% CI 0.5–28.7). All positive cases were from sub-Saharan Africa (60% from Ivory Coast), and 80% were females aged between 23 and 44 years. Conclusions Our findings suggest a possible increased risk of HIV infection among refugees and asylum seekers in 2023 compared to 2022, especially in females and in relation to the sub-Saharan area