Piloting an Educational Response to Violence in Uganda: Prospects for a New Curriculum

This pilot study assessed Mato-Oput5 (hereafter the curriculum), a new peace education curriculum, for indications of beneficial efficacy, specifically the capacity to reduce negative attitudes towards conflict and violence, and injury and violence rates. A cluster randomisedcontrol design was used. Three of the six purposively selected schools were exposed to the curriculum. Mato-Oput5 is a value-based, formalised curriculum taught by specifically trainedteachers. Its learning areas include conflict, conscience, violence, non-violence, impulse control, anger management, kindness, forgiveness, empathy and reconciliation. The results showed the baseline and post-intervention bio-demographic characteristics of the treatment arms to be comparable, thus suggesting baseline group equivalence and randomisation success. The follow-up loss was 9%. The mean pre- and post-intervention intentional incidentrates of the intervention and control groups were 270/1000 and 370/1000, and 190/1000 and 350/1000, respectively: these differences were not significant. The intervention had no effect onpost-intervention intentional incident rates. There were indications of beneficial efficacy in the curriculum, especially its ability to cause attitude shifts in support of non-violence. Statisticallysignificant behavioural effects were not detected although a downward rate trend was seen in the intervention group

Piloting an Educational Response to Violence in Uganda: Prospects for a New Curriculum

This pilot study assessed Mato-Oput5 (hereafter the curriculum), a new peace education curriculum, for indications of beneficial efficacy, specifically the capacity to reduce negative attitudes towards conflict and violence, and injury and violence rates. A cluster randomised control design was used. Three of the six purposively selected schools were exposed to the curriculum. Mato-Oput5 is a value-based, formalised curriculum taught by specifically trained teachers. Its learning areas include conflict, conscience, violence, non-violence, impulse control, anger management, kindness, forgiveness, empathy and reconciliation. The results showed the baseline and post-intervention bio-demographic characteristics of the treatment arms to be comparable, thus suggesting baseline group equivalence and randomisation success. The follow-up loss was 9%. The mean pre- and post-intervention intentional incident rates of the intervention and control groups were 270/1000 and 370/1000, and 190/1000 and 350/1000, respectively: these differences were not significant. The intervention had no effect on post-intervention intentional incident rates. There were indications of beneficial efficacy in the curriculum, especially its ability to cause attitude shifts in support of non-violence. Statistically significant behavioural effects were not detected although a downward rate trend was seen in the intervention group

Hygrotermic Treatment of Chesnut Logs Infected with Cryphonectria parasitica

Due to the reduced availability of large-sized chestnut logs in Europe, many European timber industries currently get their supplies from non-European countries, mainly from the Caucasian region, which are often not immune to chestnut blight. Given the high risk of introducing new virulent strains incompatible with local hypovirulent ones, the European Union regulation requires that chestnut logs, imported from so-called “third party” nations where Cryphonectria parasitica is present, reach the European boundaries bark free: this prevents the production of veneers, which are highly remunerative, but whose first workmanship phases require barked logs. Following a multilevel investigation, the authors propose a stem-flow protocol that can devitalise the parasite in barked logs while preserving the commodity characteristics of the wood, through a fast, simple and low-cost treatment, that can be performed at the European borders whenever C. parasitica is or might be present

Scene Segmentation Driven by Deep Learning and Surface Fitting

This paper proposes a joint color and depth segmentation scheme exploiting together geometrical clues and a learning stage. The approach starts from an initial over-segmentation based on spectral clustering. The input data is also fed to a Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) thus producing a per-pixel descriptor vector for each scene sample. An iterative merging procedure is then used to recombine the segments into the regions corresponding to the various objects and surfaces. The proposed algorithm starts by considering all the adjacent segments and computing a similarity metric according to the CNN features. The couples of segments with higher similarity are considered for merging. Finally the algorithm uses a NURBS surface fitting scheme on the segments in order to understand if the selected couples correspond to a single surface. The comparison with state-of-the-art methods shows how the proposed method provides an accurate and reliable scene segmentation

Injury characteristics and outcome of road traffic crash victims at Bugando Medical Centre in Northwestern Tanzania

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Road traffic crash is of growing public health importance worldwide contributing significantly to the global disease burden. There is paucity of published data on road traffic crashes in our local environment. This study was carried out to describe the injury characteristics and outcome of road traffic crash victims in our local setting and provide baseline data for establishment of prevention strategies as well as treatment protocols.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>This was a prospective hospital based study of road traffic crash victims carried out at Bugando Medical Centre in Northwestern Tanzania between March 2010 and February 2011. After informed consent to participate in the study, all patients were consecutively enrolled into the study. Data were collected using a pre-tested questionnaire and analyzed using SPSS computer software version 15.0.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>A total of 1678 road traffic crash victims were studied. Their male to female ratio was of 2.1:1. The patients ages ranged from 3 to 78 years with the mean and median of 29.45 (± 24.22) and 26.12 years respectively. The modal age group was 21-30 years, accounting for 52.1% patients. Students (58.8%) and businessmen (35.9%) were the majority of road traffic crash victims. Motorcycle (58.8%) was responsible for the majority of road traffic crashes. Musculoskeletal (60.5%) and the head (52.1%) were the most common body region injured. Open wounds (65.9%) and fractures (26.3%) were the most common type of injuries sustained. The majority of patients (80.3%) were treated surgically. Wound debridement was the most common procedure performed in 81.2% of the patients. The complication rate was 23.7%. The overall average length of hospital stay (LOS) was 23.5 ± 12.3 days. Mortality rate was 17.5%. According to multivariate logistic regression analysis, patients who had severe trauma (Kampala Trauma Score II ≤ 6) and those with long bone fractures stayed longer in the hospital and this was significant (P < 0.001) whereas the age of the patient, severe trauma (Kampala Trauma Score II ≤ 6), admission Systolic Blood Pressure < 90 mmHg and severe head injury (Glasgow Coma Score = 3-8) significantly influenced mortality (P < 0.001).</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Road traffic crashes constitute a major public health problem in our setting and contribute significantly to unacceptably high morbidity and mortality. Urgent preventive measures targeting at reducing the occurrence of road traffic crashes is necessary to reduce the morbidity and mortality resulting from these injuries. Early recognition and prompt treatment of road traffic injuries is essential for optimal patient outcome.</p

Citywide Trauma Experience in Mwanza, Tanzania: A Need for Urgent Intervention.

Trauma remains a leading cause of morbidity and mortality in resource limited countries. There is paucity of published reports on trauma care in Tanzania, particularly the study area. This study was carried out to describe our experiences in trauma management outlining the etiological spectrum, injury characteristics and treatment outcome of trauma patients at our local setting and compare our results with those from other centers in the world. A descriptive prospective study of trauma patients was conducted at Bugando Medical Centre from April 2010 to March 2012. Statistical data analysis was done using SPSS software version 17.0. A total of 5672 trauma patients were enrolled in the study. The male to female ratio was 2.3: 1. The majority of patients were in the 2nd decade of life. Road traffic accident was the most common cause of trauma accounting for 60.7% of cases. The majority of patients (76.6%) sustained blunt injuries. Musculoskeletal (68.5%) and head/neck (52.6%) were the most frequent body region injured. Soft tissue injuries (open wounds) and fractures were the most common injuries accounting for 82.8% and 76.8% respectively. Majority of patients (74.4%) were treated surgically with wound debridement (94.0%) being the most frequently performed procedure. Postoperative complications were recorded in 31.5% of cases.The overall median duration of hospitalization was 26 days (range 1 day to 144 days). Mortality rate was 16.7%. Patients who had polytrauma, burn injuries and those who had tetanus and long bone fractures stayed longer in the hospital and this was statistically significant (P < 0.001), whereas the age > 65 years, severe trauma, admission Systolic Blood Pressure < 90 mmHg, presence of tetanus, severe head injury, the duration of loss of consciousness, the need for intensive care unit admission and finding of space occupying lesion on CT scan of the brain significantly influenced mortality (P < 0.001). Trauma resulting from road traffic accidents remains a major public health problem in this part of Tanzania. Urgent preventive measures targeting at reducing the occurrence of road traffic accidents is necessary to reduce the incidence of trauma in this region

Epidemiology of injuries presenting to the national hospital in Kampala, Uganda: implications for research and policy

BackgroundDespite the growing burden of injuries in LMICs, there are still limited primary epidemiologic data to guide health policy and health system development. Understanding the epidemiology of injury in developing countries can help identify risk factors for injury and target interventions for prevention and treatment to decrease disability and mortality.AimTo estimate the epidemiology of the injury seen in patients presenting to the government hospital in Kampala, the capital city of Uganda.MethodsA secondary analysis of a prospectively collected database collected by the Injury Control Centre-Uganda at the Mulago National Referral Hospital, Kampala, Uganda, 2004-2005.ResultsFrom 1 August 2004 to 12 August 2005, a total of 3,750 injury-related visits were recorded; a final sample of 3,481 records were analyzed. The majority of patients (62%) were treated in the casualty department and then discharged; 38% were admitted. Road traffic injuries (RTIs) were the most common causes of injury for all age groups in this sample, except for those under 5 years old, and accounted for 49% of total injuries. RTIs were also the most common cause of mortality in trauma patients. Within traffic injuries, more passengers (44%) and pedestrians (30%) were injured than drivers (27%). Other causes of trauma included blunt/penetrating injuries (25% of injuries) and falls (10%). Less than 5% of all patients arriving to the emergency department for injuries arrived by ambulance.ConclusionsRoad traffic injuries are by far the largest cause of both morbidity and mortality in Kampala. They are the most common cause of injury for all ages, except those younger than 5, and school-aged children comprise a large proportion of victims from these incidents. The integration of injury control programs with ongoing health initiatives is an urgent priority for health and development