Accessible Reading

Das Erlernen des Lesens hängt davon ab, in welchem Umfang Wissen erworben werden kann. Um Menschen mit Behinderungen beim Aufbau von Lesekompetenzen unterstützen zu können, sind mitunter Kenntnisse über verschiedene Behinderungsarten und Krankheitsbilder, rechtliche Rahmenbedingungen, bauliche und technische Gegebenheiten, Kommunikation, Bildung, Wissensvermittlung usw. erforderlich. In meinem Beitrag möchte ich mich folgenden Fragen widmen: Wie lesen Menschen mit Behinderungen? In welcher Form steht der für sie nutzbare Lesestoff zur Verfügung? Welche Angebote brauchen sie für einen selbständigen Zugang?Learning to read depends on the extent to which knowledge can be acquired. In order to be able to support people with disabilities in building reading skills, knowledge about different types of disabilities and medical conditions, legal framework, structural and technical conditions, communication, education, knowledge transfer, etc. is sometimes required. In my contribution I would like to address the following questions: How do people with disabilities read? In what form ist the reading material available that they can use? Which offers do they need for independent access

Special Challenges in Education and Training for Librarians with Physical Disabilities

Als kleinwüchsige Rollstuhlfahrerin bin ich in meiner Mobilität durch verschiedenste Hindernisse mehr oder weniger stark eingeschränkt. In diesem Artikel werde ich beschreiben, wie sich die Ausbildung für Bibliothekarinnen und Bibliothekare mit körperlichen Einschränkungen gestaltet. Ich schildere meine persönlichen Erfahrungen, die ich bei den Lehrgängen sowohl im ehrenamtlichen als auch im wissenschaftlichen Bereich, bei den dafür erforderlichen Praktika und Projekten sowie dem damit verbundenen bürokratischen und organisatorischen Aufwand gemacht habe. Abschließend werde ich auch auf die Möglichkeiten zur bibliothekarischen Weiterbildung kurz eingehen.As a wheelchair user of small stature, I am limited in my mobility to a greater or lesser extent by a wide variety of obstacles. In this article, I´ll point out how training for librarians with physical disabilities is organised. I will describe my personal experience of the training courses, both voluntary and academic, the internships and projects required for those, and the bureaucratic and organisational work involved. Finally, I will also briefly discuss the opportunities for continuing education in librarianship

Barrierefreies Lesen

Das Erlernen des Lesens hängt davon ab, in welchem Umfang Wissen erworben werden kann. Um Menschen mit Behinderungen beim Aufbau von Lesekompetenzen unterstützen zu können, sind mitunter Kenntnisse über verschiedene Behinderungsarten und Krankheitsbilder, rechtliche Rahmenbedingungen, bauliche und technische Gegebenheiten, Kommunikation, Bildung, Wissensvermittlung usw. erforderlich. In meinem Beitrag möchte ich mich folgenden Fragen widmen: Wie lesen Menschen mit Behinderungen? In welcher Form steht der für sie nutzbare Lesestoff zur Verfügung? Welche Angebote brauchen sie für einen selbständigen Zugang

Dual-energy CT collagen density mapping of wrist ligaments reveals tissue remodeling in CPPD patients: first results from a clinical cohort

Objectives: To evaluate differences in collagen density as detected by dual-energy computed tomography (DECT) of wrist ligaments between patients with calcium pyrophosphate-dihydrate deposition disease (CPPD) and a control group in order to gain insight into changes of the extracellular matrix in response to crystal deposition. Materials and methods: This retrospective study included 28 patients (18 with CPPD, 10 controls) who underwent DECT of the wrist. Collagen density maps were reconstructed from the DECT datasets and used to measure densities in regions of interest (ROIs) placed in the scapholunate (SL) ligament (dorsal, palmar, proximal), lunotriquetral (LT) ligament, and extensor carpi radialis (ECR) tendon, (n = 260 measurements). The presence of calcifications on standard CT images in these regions was assessed by a blinded reader. Densities were compared with nonparametric tests, and linear regression analysis was performed to investigate the impact of age, sex, and CT- detected calcium deposition on collagen density. Results: Collagen density in the SL ligament was significantly higher in CPPD patients than in controls (overall mean: 265.4 ± 32.1 HU vs. 196.3 ± 33.8 HU; p < 0.001). In the ECR tendon, collagen densities did not differ significantly (p = 0.672): 161.3 ± 20.1 HU in CPPD vs. 163.6 ± 12.0 HU in controls. Regression analysis showed that diagnosis, but not age or calcification, had a significant impact on collagen density. Conclusion: Collagen density of the SL ligament is significantly higher in CPPD patients than in control patients. Further research is needed to understand these changes in the extracellular matrix of ligaments in CPPD

Twenty-First Century Middle Schooling in New York: Teachers Share Experiences and Perspectives on Remote Teaching and Learning Early in the Global Pandemic

In early 2020, the Covid-19 virus hit many places, including New York City, with such a force that nobody could have foreseen the events following its spread. The education system was pushed to transition itself to meet with 21st century technology. This study explores this disruption in the education system and how middle school teachers in several New York counties responded. What are middle school teachers’ perspectives and practices during the rapid switch to remote teaching? Professor and graduate students in a Curriculum, Instruction, and Assessment class on middle level schooling designed the interview protocol focused on five related areas of the remote learning endeavor: 1) Preparation, 2) Teaching, Learning, and Participation, 3) Social and Emotional effects on Students, 4) Monitoring and Assessment, 5) Looking forward. The findings demonstrate a primarily reactive response and limited preparation. Teachers express a mixed review of successes and struggles with online teaching and the challenges of engagement, participation, and meeting the social emotional needs of restless students who sometimes do not have the parent support or the technological devices that could further assist their success with online learning. Each teacher had their own unique experiences and challenges teaching students through a computer screen

A summary

Coinciding with the Open Access Week 2010 we publish a study on the perceptions and usage trends amongst CSIC scientific community as regards Open Access in general and CSIC institutional repository in particular.Peer reviewe

Fluorescence optical imaging for treatment monitoring in patients with early and active rheumatoid arthritis in a 1-year follow-up period

BACKGROUND: Fluorescence optical imaging (FOI) enables visualization of inflammation in the hands in rheumatic joint diseases with currently a lack of long-term follow-up studies. OBJECTIVE: To investigate FOI for treatment monitoring in a homogenous cohort of patients with early (disease duration  3.2) RA over a period of 12 months. METHODS: Thirty-five RA patients (24 (68.6%) females, mean age 53.3 years (SD 13.6)) were investigated clinically by DAS28, tender joint count (TJC) and swollen joint count (SJC) and by FOI in phases 1-3 and PrimaVistaMode (PVM) before therapy change and after 12 months. The FOI activity score (FOIAS) was calculated based on individual joint scores from 0 to 3 in 30 joints per patient, adding up to a sum score (0-90). RESULTS: We found a statistically significant reduction of FOIAS in phase 1 from baseline (median 5.0, IQR 24.96) to follow-up (median 1.0, IQR 4.0) in all patients (p = 0.0045), both in responders and non-responders according to EULAR response criteria by DAS28. Statistically significant reductions over 12 months were found for median DAS28(ESR) 5.61 to 3.31, TJC 7.0 to 1.0, and SJC 5.0 to 1.0 (each p <  0.001). No statistically significant correlations were detected between the FOIAS change in phase 1 and DAS28(ESR), TJC, or SJC. Correlations between the other phases and clinical outcomes were weak to moderate. CONCLUSION: Reduced early enhancement in FOI phase 1 can be observed in clinically responding and non-responding early RA patients under treatment. Regarding potential marker performance, FOI probably shows a reduction of inflammation more objectively

On the Use of Airborne Imaging Spectroscopy Data for the Automatic Detection and Delineation of Surface Water Bodies

There is economical and ecological relevance for remote sensing applications of inland and coastal waters: The European Union Water Framework Directive (European Parliament and the Council of the European Union, 2000) for inland and coastal waters requires the EU member states to take actions in order to reach a good ecological status in inland and coastal waters by 2015. This involves characterization of the specific trophic state and the implementation of monitoring systems to verify the ecological status. Financial resources at the national and local level are insufficient to assess the water quality using conventional methods of regularly field and laboratory work only. While remote sensing cannot replace the assessment of all aquatic parameters in the field, it powerfully complements existing sampling programs and offers the base to extrapolate the sampled parameter information in time and in space. The delineation of surface water bodies is a prerequisite for any further remote sensing based analysis and even can by itself provide up-to-date information for water resource management, monitoring and modelling (Manavalan et al., 1993). It is further important in the monitoring of seasonally changing water reservoirs (e.g., Alesheikh et al., 2007) and of shortterm events like floods (Overton, 2005). Usually the detection and delineation of surface water bodies in optical remote sensing data is described as being an easy task. Since water absorbs most of the irradiation in the near-infrared (NIR) part of the electromagnetic spectrum water bodies appear very dark in NIR spectral bands and can be mapped by simply applying a maximum threshold on one of these bands (Swain & Davis, 1978: section 5-4). Many studies took advantage of this spectral behaviour of water and applied methods like single band density slicing (e.g., Work & Gilmer, 1976), spectral indices (McFeeters, 1996, Xu, 2006) or multispectral supervised classification (e.g., Frazier & Page, 2000, Lira, 2006). However, all of these methods have the drawback that they are not fully automated since the analyst has to select a scene-specific threshold (Ji et al., 2009) or training pixels. Moreover there are certain situations where these methods lead to misclassification. For instance, water constituents in turbid water as well as water bottom reflectance and sun glint can raise the reflectance spectrum of surface water even in the NIR spectral range up to a reflectance level which is typical for dark surfaces on land such as dark rocks (e.g., basalt, lava), bituminous roofing materials and in particular shadow regions. Consequently, Carleer & Wolff (2006) amongst others found the land cover classes water and shadow to be highly confused in image classifications. This problem especially occurs in environments where both, a high amount of shadow and water regions can exist, such as urban landscapes, mountainous landscapes or cliffy coasts as well as generally in images with water bodies and cloud shadows. In this investigation we focus on the development of a new surface water body detection algorithm that can be automatically applied without user knowledge and supplementary data on any hyperspectral image of the visible and near-infrared (VNIR) spectral range. The analysis is strictly focused on the VNIR part of the electromagnetic spectrum due to the growing number of VNIR imaging spectrometers. The developed approach consists of two main steps, the selection of potential water pixels (section 4.1) and the removal of false positives from this mask (sections 4.2 and 4.3). In this context the separation between water bodies and shadowed surfaces is the most challenging task which is implemented by consecutive spectral and spatial processing steps (sections 4.3.1 and 4.3.2) resulting in very high detection accuracies