Lessons from Senegal's Database System for Case Management for Child Protection: A Pilot Project on Web?based and Mobile Technology

This case study on the Database System for Case Management for Child Protection in Senegal focuses on rapid monitoring for immediate use in service delivery and (thus) complements other country studies in this IDS Bulletin . The case provides an exciting initiative with much potential for improving child protection services, as well as additional information generation with the potential for broader monitoring, advocacy and operations research. The challenges centre on the need for clearer definition and agreement of roles and responsibilities between actors at different levels, as well as coming to an agreed balance of the sharing of data on individual cases with data protection, for confidentiality. The key lesson has been the importance of a collaborative process of developing the system with diverse actors in child protection, coupled with an accompanying consultative process of developing an inter?sectoral national child protection strategy: in other words, a way of establishing common standards together

Cognitive impairment, dementia and quality of life.

Peer reviewe

Simulation of an instrumental childbirth for the training of the forceps extraction: control algorithm and evaluation

International audienceThis paper presents the control algorithm implanted on the childbirth simulator BirthSIMin order to provide training to novice obstetricians. The forceps extraction is an obstetric manipulation learned by experience. However, nowadays the training is mainly provided during real childbirths. This kind of training could lead to dramatic consequences due to the lack of experience of some operators. This paper explains the approach which has been used to simulate the dynamic process of a childbirth on the BirthSIM simulator. We especially focus on one procedure which reproduces a difficult instrumental delivery. The recorded tractive force to extract the fetus corresponds to the literature results which confirms the realism of the simulator. The novice results emphasize the need of a childbirth simulator in order to gain initial experience without any risks

Model Transformations with Tom

International audienceModel Driven Engineering (MDE) advocates the use of Model Transformations (MT) in order to automate repetitive development tasks. Many different model transformation languages have been proposed with a significant tool development cost as common language elements like expressions, statements, ... must be built from scratch for each new language development tools. The Tom language is a shallow extension of Java tailored to describe and implement transformations of tree based data-structures. A key feature of Tom allows to map any Java data-structure to tree based data abstractions that can then be accessed by powerful non-linear, associative, commutative pattern matching. In this paper, we present how this approach can be used in order to develop model transformations, in particular relying on Eclipse Modeling Framework (EMF) based metamodeling facilities. This allows to provide a transformation language at a low cost both for the development of its tools and the training of its users

New Advances in the Kinetic Modeling of Thermal Oxidation of Epoxy-Diamine Networks

This article deals with the thermal oxidation mechanisms and kinetics of epoxy-diamine (EPO-DA) networks used as composite matrices reinforced with carbon fibers in the aeronautical field. The first part of this article is devoted to a detailed presentation of the new analytical kinetic model. The so-called “closed-loop” mechanistic scheme, developed in the last 3 decades in our laboratory in order to accurately describe the thermal oxidation kinetics of saturated hydrocarbon polymers, is recalled. Its main characteristics are also briefly recalled. Then, the system of differential equations derived from this oxidation mechanism is analytically solved without resorting to the usual simplifying assumptions that seriously degrade the reliability of all kinetic models. On the contrary, the generalization of the proportionalities observed between the steady concentrations of the different reactive species (i.e., hydroperoxides and alkyl and peroxy radicals) to the entire course of thermal oxidation gives a series of much sounder equations. From this basis, the kinetic model is completed by considering new structure/property relationships in order to predict the consequences of thermal oxidation on the thermomechanical properties, in particular on the glass transition temperature (Tg). To reach this second objective, the two main mechanisms responsible for the alteration of the macromolecular network structure are recalled: chain scissions and crosslinking. Like any other chemical species, their kinetics are directly expressed from the oxidation mechanistic scheme using the classical concepts of chemical kinetics. The second part of this article is devoted to the checking of the kinetic model reliability. It is shown that this latter accurately simulates the experimental curves of carbonyl build-up and Tg decrease versus time of exposure determined in our laboratory for three EPO-DA networks under study, exposed in a wide variety of thermal oxidative environments. The values determined by inverse solving method for the different model parameters are discussed and their temperature dependence are elucidated. Finally, an end-of-life criterion is proposed for predicting the lifetime of EPO-DA networks involving a predominant chain scission process

Towards a monolithic optical cavity for atom detection and manipulation

We study a Fabry-Perot cavity formed from a ridge waveguide on a AlGaAs substrate. We experimentally determined the propagation losses in the waveguide at 780 nm, the wavelength of Rb atoms. We have also made a numerical and analytical estimate of the losses induced by the presence of the gap which would allow the interaction of cold atoms with the cavity field. We found that the intrinsic finesse of the gapped cavity can be on the order of F ~ 30, which, when one takes into account the losses due to mirror transmission, corresponds to a cooperativity parameter for our system C ~ 1

Differential regulation of the human versus the mouse apolipoprotein AV gene by PPARalpha Implications for the study of pharmaceutical modifiers of hypertriglyceridemia in mice

Mice have been used widely to define the mechanism of action of fibric acid derivatives. The fibrates are pharmacological agonists of the peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor α (PPARα), whose activation in human subjects promotes potent reduction in plasma levels of triglycerides (TG) with concomitant increase in those of HDL-cholesterol. The impact of PPARα agonists on gene expression in humans and rodents is however distinct; such distinctions include differential regulation of key genes of lipid metabolism. We evaluated the question as to whether the human and murine genes encoding apolipoprotein apoAV, a regulator of plasma concentrations of TG-rich lipoproteins, might be differentially regulated in response to fibrates. Fenofibrate, a classic PPARα agonist, repressed expression of mouse Apoa5 in vivo in a mouse model transgenic for the human APOA5 gene; by contrast, expression of the human ortholog was up-regulated. Our findings are consistent with the presence of a functional PPAR-binding element in the promoter of the human APOA5 gene; this element is however degenerate and non-functional in the corresponding mouse Apoa5 sequence, as demonstrated by reporter assays and gel shift analyses. These data further highlights the distinct mechanisms which are implicated in the metabolism of TG-rich lipoproteins in mice as compared to man. They equally emphasize the importance of the choice of a mouse model for investigation of the impact of pharmaceutical modifiers on hypertriglyceridemia

Heat capacities of different amine aqueous solutions at pressures up to 25 MPa for CO2 capture

Producción CientíficaA high-pressure flow calorimeter is used to determine isobaric heat capacities for aqueous solutions of some amines such as MEA, DEA TEA, DMAE, MDEA, PZ from T = (293.15 to 353.15) K and up to 25 MPa. The experimental device can measure heat capacities with an estimated total uncertainty better than 1% for a coverage factor k = 2. The isobaric heat capacity values are analysed in conjunction with their temperature and pressure dependencies. Furthermore, empirical equations are proposed to fit isobaric heat capacities as functions of temperature and pressure for given conditions, for this kind of mixtures, obtaining standard deviations within the uncertainty of the measurements. Finally, DMAE shows the highest value of heat capacity and TEA the lowest value, when they are compared at the same conditions of temperature, pressure and composition.Junta de Castilla y León - EU-FEDER (VA280P18 y CLU-2019-04)Fellowship “Beatriz Galindo Senior” (BEAGAL18/00259

Towards a general kinetic model for the thermal oxidation of epoxy-diamine networks. Effect of the molecular mobility around the glass transition temperature

The kinetic model previously established for describing the thermal oxidation of polymethylenic substrates has been successfully generalized to a series of six epoxy-diamine networks (EPO-DA) characterized by very different glass transition temperatures. This model is derived from the so-called “closed-loop” mechanistic scheme which consists in a radical chain reaction initiated by the decomposition of hydroperoxides and propagating via the C-H bonds located in α of heteroatoms (N and O). The numerous model parameters were determined by applying a “step by step” procedure combining experiment and simulation. On the one hand, oxygen transport properties (i.e. coefficients of oxygen diffusion and solubility) were estimated from a compilation of literature data. On the other hand, rate constants and formation yields were determined by inverse solving method from the measurements of oxygen consumption and carbonyl build-up performed on six different EPO-DA networks between 25 and 200 °C and between 0.16 and 20 bars of oxygen partial pressure in our laboratory or in the literature. It was found that the molecular mobility mainly affects the rate constants of the elementary reactions involving the reactive species in the lowest concentration, i.e. peroxy radicals. In fact, the rate constant k6 of the apparent termination of peroxy radicals is reduced by about five orders of magnitude when passing from rubbery to glassy state due to the freezing of large amplitude cooperative molecular movements. In contrast, the rate constant k3 of the propagation of oxidation, involving peroxy radicals but also the polymer substrate, is only changed by one order of magnitude around the glass transition temperature. The introduction of the effect of molecular mobility into the Arrhenius laws of k6 and k3 allows building master curves and finally, proposing a single kinetic model for the whole family of EPO-DA networks