Parent Challenges, Perspectives and Experiences Caring for Children Who are Deaf or Hard-of-Hearing With Other Disabilities: A Comprehensive Review

Objective: The purpose of this literature review was to explore parent challenges in caring for children who are deaf or hard of hearing with other disabilities and discuss implications for audiologists related to supporting families. Design: A comprehensive literature review was conducted, and through qualitative analysis, emergent themes were identified, and a narrative summary generated. Study sample: Nine research studies were included in this review. Combined, these studies reflect a sample of 111 children, 23 families and 41 parents. Results: Three broad themes were identified, and include parent-reported challenges related to family, professional and child variables. Sub-themes were identified within each broad theme to further describe parent experiences, such as challenges related to decision-making and planning, interprofessional collaboration, and child communication and behaviours. Conclusions: Parents of children with hearing loss and additional disabilities face unique challenges related to family, professional and child variables that could impact how they manage their child’s hearing care

Counseling in Audiology: AuD Students’ Perspectives and Experiences

Counseling in audiology is an important aspect of service delivery. How audiologists interact with patients and foster counseling relationships to help patients and families understand and live with hearing loss can impact outcomes of audiological interventions. Currently, variability exists in how graduate training programs are teaching counseling skills, and the extent to which counseling skills development is supported in clinical experiences is unclear. This article seeks to explore the perspectives related to the importance of counseling and counseling training experiences received through clinical instruction of Au.D. students beginning their final year of study, to identify where counseling training might be limited, and to examine how counseling skills might be better supported. Findings revealed that students generally appreciate the importance of counseling in audiology. Data suggest that how students are supported in developing counseling skills appears to be variable and unstructured

Optimal Sectioning of Hydrocarbon Transport Pipeline by Volume Minimization, and Environmental and Social Vulnerability Assessment

PresentationSectioning is one of the key mitigation strategies in pipeline transport of liquid hydrocarbons. The valves located along pipelines reduce the maximum volume that may be spilled, decreasing economic, social and environmental losses. Defining the location and number of valves in a specific pipeline section is a challenge due to the countless combinations of these two design components (i.e., where and how many valves). In this work, we tackle the valve location problem (VLP) for sectioning. To solve the problem, we use an optimization approach which assesses the number and location of valves to minimize environmental and social consequences. This problem is modeled as a shortest path problem and it considers the maximum volume that could be spilled as well as environmental and social issues. To estimate and quantify the damages (environmental and social) a new framework is proposed. We present a case study for sectioning in a pipeline of Colombia; the problem is solved using a Bellman-Ford algorithm with CPU times up to 32 s. The results show reductions around 75% of the maximum possible spilled volume. The resulting valve configurations cover areas with high vulnerability, guarantying individual risks lower than the acceptable risk on all populated areas

Optimal signal states for quantum detectors

Quantum detectors provide information about quantum systems by establishing correlations between certain properties of those systems and a set of macroscopically distinct states of the corresponding measurement devices. A natural question of fundamental significance is how much information a quantum detector can extract from the quantum system it is applied to. In the present paper we address this question within a precise framework: given a quantum detector implementing a specific generalized quantum measurement, what is the optimal performance achievable with it for a concrete information readout task, and what is the optimal way to encode information in the quantum system in order to achieve this performance? We consider some of the most common information transmission tasks - the Bayes cost problem (of which minimal error discrimination is a special case), unambiguous message discrimination, and the maximal mutual information. We provide general solutions to the Bayesian and unambiguous discrimination problems. We also show that the maximal mutual information has an interpretation of a capacity of the measurement, and derive various properties that it satisfies, including its relation to the accessible information of an ensemble of states, and its form in the case of a group-covariant measurement. We illustrate our results with the example of a noisy two-level symmetric informationally complete measurement, for whose capacity we give analytical proofs of optimality. The framework presented here provides a natural way to characterize generalized quantum measurements in terms of their information readout capabilities.Comment: 13 pages, 1 figure, example section extende

Hearing Care and Management Priority Among Parents of Children with Down Syndrome: A Grounded Theory

Objective: This study qualitatively explored the factors that influence how parents of children who are Deaf or hard-of-hearing with Down syndrome prioritize hearing care and management and developed an associated theory to explain that priority. Design: Grounded theory was used for the purposes of this qualitative study. Data were collected using in-depth interviews which were analyzed using a three-tiered qualitative coding process. Study Sample: Eighteen mothers of children who are Deaf or hard-of-hearing with Down syndrome participated in this study. Results: The higher the extent of engaged professional support, perception of benefit for child, parent activation, and family engagement, the higher the priority for hearing care and management will likely be among parents of children who are Deaf or hard-of-hearing with Down syndrome. Conclusions: Understanding how parents of children who are Deaf or hard-of-hearing with Down syndrome decide to prioritize hearing care and management has implications for how hearing health providers and others provide care to parents to enhance priority for hearing-related needs

Population Density, Poor Sanitation, and Enteric Infections in Nueva Santa Rosa, Guatemala

Poor sanitation could pose greater risk for enteric pathogen transmission at higher human population densities because of greater potential for pathogens to infect new hosts through environmentally mediated and person-to-person transmission. We hypothesized that incidence and prevalence of diarrhea, enteric protozoans, and soil-transmitted helminth infections would be higher in high-population-density areas compared with low-population-density areas, and that poor sanitation would pose greater risk for these enteric infections at high density compared with low density. We tested our hypotheses using 6 years of clinic-based diarrhea surveillance (2007–2013) including 4,360 geolocated diarrhea cases tested for 13 pathogens and a 2010 cross-sectional survey that measured environmental exposures from 204 households (920 people) and tested 701 stool specimens for enteric parasites. We found that population density was not a key determinant of enteric infection nor a strong effect modifier of risk posed by poor household sanitation in this setting

Rehabilitation System based on the Use of Biomechanical Analysis and Videogames through the Kinect Sensor

El presente artículo muestra la creación de un novedoso sistema para la rehabilitación física de pacientes con múltiples patologías, a través de dinámicas con videojuegos de ejercicio (exergames) y el análisis de los movimientos de los pacientes usando un software desarrollado. Este sistema está basado en el uso del sensor Kinect para ambos fines: divertir al paciente en su terapia a través de exergames y proporcionarle al especialista una herramienta para el registro y análisis de datos de captura de movimiento (MoCap) tomados a través del sensor Kinect y procesados utilizando análisis biomecánico mediante la transformación angular de Euler. Todo el sistema interactivo se encuentra instalado en un centro de rehabilitación y actualmente se realizan investigaciones con diferentes patologías (stroke, IMOC, trauma craneoencefálico, entre otros), los pacientes realizan sus sesiones con el sistema interactivo mientras el especialista registra los datos para un posterior análisis, el cual se realiza en un software creado para dicho fin. El software arroja gráficas de movimiento en los planos sagital, frontal y rotacional de 20 puntos distribuidos en el cuerpo. El sistema final es portable, no-invasivo, económico, de interacción natural con el paciente y de fácil implementación por parte del personal médico.  This paper presents development of a novel system for physical rehabilitation of patients with multiple pathologies, through dynamic with exercise videogames (exergames) and analysis of the movements of patients using developed software. This system is based on the use of the Kinect sensor for both purposes: amusing the patient in therapy through of specialist exergames and provide a tool to record and analyze MoCap data taken through the Kinect sensor and processed using biomechanical analysis through Euler angles. All interactive system is installed in a rehabilitation center and works with different pathologies (stroke, IMOC, craneoencephallic trauma, etc.), patients interact with the platform while the specialist records data for later analysis, which is performed by software designed for this purpose. The motion graphics are shown in the sagittal, frontal and rotationalplanefrom20 points distributed in the body. The final system is portable, non-invasive, inexpensive, natural interaction with the patient and easily implemented for medical purposes

eHealth Parent Education for Hearing Aid Management: A Pilot Randomized Controlled Trial

Objective: Parents frequently experience challenges implementing daily routines important for consistent hearing aid management. Education that supports parents in learning new information and gaining confidence is essential for intervention success. We conducted a pilot study to test an eHealth program to determine if we could implement the program with adherence and affect important behavioral outcomes compared to treatment as usual. Design: Randomized controlled trial Study sample: Parents of children birth to 42 months who use hearing aids. Eighty-two parents were randomly assigned to the intervention or treatment-as-usual group. Four parents assigned to the intervention group did not continue after baseline testing. Results: The intervention was delivered successfully with low drop out (10%), high session completion (97%), and high program adherence. The intervention conditions showed significantly greater gains over time for knowledge, confidence, perceptions, and monitoring related to hearing aid management. Significant differences between groups were not observed for hearing aid use time. Conclusion: We found that we could successfully implement this eHealth program and that it benefitted the participants in terms of knowledge and confidence with skills important for hearing aid management.Future research is needed to determine how to roll programs like this out on a larger scale

Self-assembled MgxZn1−xO quantum dots (0 ≤ x ≤ 1) on different substrates using spray pyrolysis methodology

By using the spray pyrolysis methodology in its classical configuration we have grown self-assembled MgxZn1−xO quantum dots (size [similar]4–6 nm) in the overall range of compositions 0 ≤ x ≤ 1 on c-sapphire, Si (100) and quartz substrates. Composition of the quantum dots was determined by means of transmission electron microscopy-energy dispersive X-ray analysis (TEM-EDAX) and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy. Selected area electron diffraction reveals the growth of single phase hexagonal MgxZn1−xO quantum dots with composition 0 ≤ x ≤ 0.32 by using a nominal concentration of Mg in the range 0 to 45%. Onset of Mg concentration about 50% (nominal) forces the hexagonal lattice to undergo a phase transition from hexagonal to a cubic structure which resulted in the growth of hexagonal and cubic phases of MgxZn1−xO in the intermediate range of Mg concentrations 50 to 85% (0.39 ≤ x ≤ 0.77), whereas higher nominal concentration of Mg ≥ 90% (0.81 ≤ x ≤ 1) leads to the growth of single phase cubic MgxZn1−xO quantum dots. High resolution transmission electron microscopy and fast Fourier transform confirm the results and show clearly distinguishable hexagonal and cubic crystal structures of the respective quantum dots. A difference of 0.24 eV was detected between the core levels (Zn 2p and Mg 1s) measured in quantum dots with hexagonal and cubic structures by X-ray photoemission. The shift of these core levels can be explained in the frame of the different coordination of cations in the hexagonal and cubic configurations. Finally, the optical absorption measurements performed on single phase hexagonal MgxZn1−xO QDs exhibited a clear shift in optical energy gap on increasing the Mg concentration from 0 to 40%, which is explained as an effect of substitution of Zn2+ by Mg2+ in the ZnO lattice