Schooling of hearing-impaired children and benefit of early diagnosis

AbstractObjectiveTo assess the impact of moderate-to-severe bilateral hearing loss on schooling and the factors influencing this impact, and to evaluate special schooling needs in addition to speech therapy.Material and methodsRetrospective study including children with moderate-to-severe bilateral hearing loss, born between 1992 and 2006, diagnosed and managed in our institution. The age and degree of hearing loss in the better ear, the type of schooling and the level of schooling at the time of the last visit were recorded for each patient.ResultsTwo hundred and twenty-five hearing-impaired children were included: 161 attended a regular school (58% of the 55 children with severe hearing loss and 76% of the 170 children with moderate hearing loss). The percentage of children with moderate hearing loss attending a regular school increased over time. This study did not demonstrate any difference in terms of grade retention according to the age at diagnosis for children with moderate hearing loss. No child with comorbidity affecting intellectual capacities attended a regular school.ConclusionThis study confirms that moderate-to-severe congenital bilateral hearing loss has an impact on the child's schooling, with grade retention that depends, but not exclusively, on the degree of hearing loss. A growing number of children with moderate bilateral hearing loss fitted with a hearing aid now attend a regular school

Twenty-One Years of Phytoplankton Bloom Phenology in the Barents, Norwegian, and North Seas

Phytoplankton blooms provide biomass to the marine trophic web, contribute to the carbon removal from the atmosphere and can be deadly when associated with harmful species. This points to the need to understand the phenology of the blooms in the Barents, Norwegian, and North seas. We use satellite chlorophyll-a from 2000 to 2020 to assess robust climatological and the interannual trends of spring and summer blooms onset, peak day, duration and intensity. Further, we also correlate the interannual variability of the blooms with mixed layer depth (MLD), sea surface temperature (SST), wind speed and suspended particulate matter (SPM) retrieved from models and remote sensing. The climatological spring blooms start on March 10th and end on June 19th. The climatological summer blooms begin on July 13th and end on September 17th. In the Barents Sea, years of shallower mixed layer (ML) driven by both calm waters and higher freshwaters input keeps the phytoplankton in the euphotic zone, causing the spring bloom to start earlier and reach higher biomass but end sooner due to the lack of nutrients upwelling from the deep. In the Norwegian Sea, a correlation between SST and the spring blooms is found. Here, warmer waters are correlated to earlier and stronger blooms in most regions but with later and weaker blooms in the eastern Norwegian Sea. In the North Sea, years of shallower ML reduces the phytoplankton sinking below the euphotic zone and limits the SPM increase from the bed shear stress, creating an ideal environment of stratified and clear waters to develop stronger spring blooms. Last, the summer blooms onset, peak day and duration have been rapidly delaying at a rate of 1.25-day year–1, but with inconclusive causes based on the parameters assessed in this study.publishedVersio

Understanding fish larvae’s feeding biology to improve aquaculture feeding protocols

Knowing that food ingestion and digestion are processes under neuroendocrine regulation, it is important to understand how fish larvae regulate these processes, when the digestive system itself is under development. This study aimed to analyze how gilthead seabream (Sparus aurata) larval feeding incidence and intensity were affected by time, light, and water temperature, through the analysis of gut content and how this affected cholecystokinin (CCK) content. Three short-term experiments were done: (A) 27 and 42 days post-hatch (DPH) larvae were analyzed at different intervals for 80 min, after feeding; (B) 38 and 48 DPH larvae were kept under different light intensities (0, 400, 1000 lux) for 30 min; (C) 41 DPH larvae were kept at 17, 19, 25 °C for 30 min. Feeding incidence below 100% was observed for 27 DPH larvae, and for 38 DPH larvae fed at 0 lux. Feeding intensity was several fold higher at older ages. However, the number of prey in the gut was lower at 0 lux, and higher at 25 °C. Overall, no clear pattern was observed for CCK, but at older ages increasing gut content resulted in higher CCK content. In conclusion, until 38 DPH light is important for gilthead sea bream larval feeding ability, and maturing functionality of CCK was only observed at later stages.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

The rheophysics of two athermal systems: dry granular media and non-Brownian suspensions

Summary The steady-state, pressure-controlled simple shear flow constitutes a paradigm for the study of flows of dense athermal systems such as dry grains or non-Brownian suspensions. The introduction of two dimensionless numbers called inertial and viscous was an important step. In an attempt to provide a common rheophysical framework to both systems, we relate their flow properties in the dense regime close to jamming transition to two basic constitutive laws or equations of state : both the free volume and the ratio of shear stress to particle pressure (in excess of a static friction coefficient) vary as power laws, with system-dependent exponents, of a Deborah number. The first law is derived from the Boltzmann equation expressed in the approximation of relaxation. The second law is deduced from the expression of the probability for a particle to belong to a transient cluster of particles in contact

Numerical simulation of the flow of wet granular materials

We use a DEM method to simulate the shear flow of dense assemblies of 3D monosized frictional spherical grains under a fixed normal stress P in steady-state, either dry or in the presence of a small amount of an interstitial liquid, which gives rise to capillary menisci and attractive forces. Dry grain assemblies are used as a reference system for which the rheological properties - in particular the approach to the quasistatic critical state – are rather well known and can be measured with good accuracy. The system behavior is characterized by the dependence of internal friction coefficient, solid fraction, normal stress differences and internal state parameters on two dimensionless control parameters: the inertial number, I and the reduced pressure, P*, comparing confining forces to contact tensile strength. Capillary forces have a significant effect on the macroscopic behavior of the system, up to P* values of several unities, especially for longer force ranges associated with larger menisci. We relate this effect to fabric anisotropy parameters of contact and distant interactions. The sensitivity of the results to the chosen model for liquid bridge formation and volume distribution for bonding and debonding pairs has also been studied

A discrete element study of settlement in vibrated granular layers: role of contact loss and acceleration

This paper deals with the vibration of granular materials due to cyclic external excitation. It highlights the effect of the acceleration on the settlement speed and proves the existence of a relationship between settlement and loss of contacts in partially confined granular materials under vibration. The numerical simulations are carried out using the Molecular Dynamics method, where the discrete elements consist of polygonal grains. The data analyses are conducted based on multivariate autoregressive models to describe the settlement and permanent contacts number with respect to the number of loading cycles

Atlas of Global Surface Water Dynamics

It is impossible to overstate the importance of freshwater in our daily lives – for proof, try going without it for any length of time. Surface waterbodies (lakes, ponds, rivers, creeks, estuaries… it doesn't matter what name they go under) are particularly important because they come into direct contact with us and our biophysical environment. But our knowledge concerning where and when waterbodies might be found was, until recently, surprisingly sparse. The paucity of information was because trying to map a moving target is actually very difficult – and waterbodies undeniably move, in both geographical space and time. By 2013 the U.S. Geological Survey and NASA were making petabyte scale archives of satellite imagery freely available, archives that covered the entire planet's surface and stretched back decades. Other's such as the European Commission / European Space Agency Copernicus programme were also putting full free and open data access policies into place, and Google's Earth Engine had become a mature, powerful cloud-based platform for processing very large geospatial datasets. Back in 2013 a small team working at the European Commission's Joint Research Centre were looking at ways satellite imagery could be used to capture surface waterbody dynamics, and create new maps that accurately incorporated time dimensions. Concurrently the Google Earth Engine team were focussing their massive computational capabilities on major issues facing humanity, such as deforestation, food security, climate change - and water management. The two teams came together in a partnership based not on financial transactions but on a mutual exchange of complementary capabilities, and devoted thousands of person hours and thousands of CPU years into turning petabytes of Landsat satellite imagery into unique, validated surface water maps, first published in 2016, and made available to everyone through a dedicated web portal, the Global Surface Water Explorer. Since then satellites have continued to image the Earth, surface water has continued to change and the JRC Goole Earth Engine partnership has continued to work on improving our knowledge of surface water dynamics and making sure this knowledge benefits as many people as possible. This Atlas is part of the outreach; it is not a guide to the Global Surface Water Explorer, it is not a Google Earth Engine tutorial (though if it inspires you to visit either of these resources then it has achieved one of its objectives), but it is a stand-alone window into how people and nature affect, and are affected by the 4.46 million km2 of the Earth's landmass that have been under water at some time over the past 35 years.JRC.D.5-Food Securit

Synchronization of patient data among health facilities through electronic medical records system: a case study of Kabgayi District Hospital

Background: The use of modern technology in healthcare system aims to increase the reliability, accessibility and productivity of delivered services. In most developing countries, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa, Electronic Medical Records (EMRs) has been dominated by paper-based system. In Rwanda, EMRs started in 2011 with a baseline of 8% and reached 50% in 2017 within 516 health facilities, but patient data synchronization among health facilities is still a problem. The aim of this research was to identify factors hindering EMRs implementation and propose applied solutions.Methods: A cross-sectional descriptive study design with qualitative and quantitative approach was used. A purposive method to select the research participants among the target population was also used.Results: It was found that, despite the improvement of hospitals’ management and healthcare efficiency via EMRs system, factors affecting synchronization of patients’ data among health facilities still persist. The study also revealed the need for the interoperability in the integration of EMRs system among health facilities.Conclusion: The OpenMRS EMR-based data synchronization can reduce gaps in HIV care. It avoids a duplication of patient identification number (PID) at the same health facility for more than one visit and missing data among health facilities. As part of implementable solutions for effective service delivery, cloud-based server and patient identification were suggested as solutions for much more success in Open MRS EMRs system.Keywords: Electronic Medical Record, Data synchronization, Cloud computing technolog

Renewed global partnerships and redesigned roadmaps for rabies prevention and control

Canine rabies, responsible for most human rabies deaths, is a serious global public health concern. This zoonosis is entirely preventable, but by focusing solely upon rabies prevention in humans, this "incurable wound" persists at high costs. Although preventing human deaths through canine rabies elimination is feasible, dog rabies control is often neglected, because dogs are not considered typical economic commodities by the animal health sector. Here, we demonstrate that the responsibility of managing rabies falls upon multiple sectors, that a truly integrated approach is the key to rabies elimination, and that considerable progress has been made to this effect. Achievements include the construction of global rabies networks and organizational partnerships; development of road maps, operational toolkits, and a blueprint for rabies prevention and control; and opportunities for scaling up and replication of successful programs. Progress must continue towards overcoming the remaining challenges preventing the ultimate goal of rabies elimination