Utilization of Multimedia Services in Libraries for Students with Disabilities

This study has two primary objectives: first, to determine whether or not students with visual impairments make use of multimedia services, and second, to compile a list of the challenges that handicapped face while attempting to use such services. This research was a descriptive qualitative field study that used a qualitative technique of qualitative description. In addition to interviews and written documentation, observation was another method that was used while compiling this data. The study is significant as it shows the availability of media services in schools’ libraries for students with disabilities. According to the findings of this investigation, pupils seem to make effective use of the multimedia services provided by the library for patrons with disabilities. The library offers a variety of services and amenities. Students use of technology, such as laptops and projectors, to get access to material via both visual and audible channels might be seen as evidence that they have achieved this goal. The inadequacy of the service infrastructure and the antiquated nature of the technology makes it difficult to make use of the benefits offered by multimedia services. In addition, there is a severe lack of librarians with experience working with multimedia technology in the worlds educational institutions at the present moment

The Role of Media in Educational Social Construction of Children with Special Needs

This study tries to explore the function that the media plays in supporting the social construction process within the context of inclusive education services. The impact of the media is one of the multiple variables that contribute to the broad adoption of inclusive education. Other contributing aspects include: To be more specific, what part do different kinds of media play in the social construction that makes up inclusive education? It is vital to do qualitative research to shed light on the function that the media plays in building and inviting classrooms to create. The selection of the test population to evaluate the performance of the inclusive education program required a great deal of attention to detail and consideration. The data for this research was gathered using a variety of methods, including observation, interviews, and written records. When looking at the data that was acquired, a descriptive qualitative analysis was performed. It has been found, after considerable discussion, that the speed with which social construction may occur in the classroom is closely tied to the efficacy of the media in aiding student comprehension. This conclusion was reached after much deliberation

Microbiome engineering to combat antimicrobial resistance and upsurge productivity of food animals: a systematic review

Extensive antimicrobial usage in animal farming plays a prominent role in the antimicrobial resistance (AMR) crisis and is repeatedly highlighted as an area needing development under the ‘One Health’ approach. Alternative therapies such as microbiome products can be used as prophylaxis to help avoid infectious disease. However, a limited number of studies have focused on AMR-targeted microbiome products. We conducted this systematic review by using PRISMA guidelines to screen for literature that have evaluated food animals’ health when administrated with microbiome products targeting antimicrobial resistance (AMR) or antibiotic-resistant genes (ARGs). We searched and examined studies from SCOPUS, Web of Science, Embase, and Science direct databases for studies published up to November 2021, restricted to the English language. The findings of this review showed that microbiome products have a promising capability to tackle specific AMR/ARGs coupled with animal’s health and productivity improvement. Furthermore, our study showed that probiotics were the most favorable tested microbiome products, with the most targeted resistance being to tetracycline, macrolides, and beta-lactams. While microbiome products are promising alternatives to antibiotic prophylactics, there is a dearth of studies investigating their efficacy in targeting AMR. Thus, it is highly recommended to further investigate, develop, and improve the microbiome, to better understand its utility and circumvent its limitations.The authors thank Barzan holdings for the financial support

Assessment of Indoor Air Quality of Four Primary Health Care Centers in Qatar.

Airborne bacteria pose a potential risk to human health upon inhalation in the indoor environments of health care facilities. Airborne bacteria may originate from various sources, including patients, workers, and daily visitors. Hence, this study investigates the quantity, size, and identification of airborne bacteria indoors and outdoors of four Primary Health Care Centers (PHCC) in Doha, Qatar. Air samples were collected from the lobby, triage room, and outside environment of the centers, including, Qatar University (QU-HC), Al-Rayyan (AR-HC), Umm-Ghuwailina (UG-HC), and Old Airport (OA-HC) between August 2020 and March 2021, throughout both the hot and the cold seasons. Samples were collected using an Anderson six-stage cascade impactor. The mean of the total colony-forming units was calculated per cubic meter of air (CFU/m). QU-HC had the lowest mean of total bacterial count compared with other centers in the indoor and outdoor areas with 100.4 and 99.6 CFU/m, respectively. In contrast, AR-HC had the highest level, with 459 CFU/m indoors, while OA-HC recorded the highest bacterial concentration of the outdoor areas with a total mean 377 CFU/m. In addition, 16S rRNA sequencing was performed for genera identification. , , , and were the four most frequently identified bacterial genera in this study. The abundance of airborne bacteria in the four health centers was higher in the cold season. About 46% of the total airborne bacterial count for three PHCC centers exceeded 300 CFU/m, making them uncompliant with the World Health Organization's (WHO) recommendation for indoor settings. Consequently, an IAQ standards should be shaped to establish a baseline for measuring air pollution in Qatar. Additionally, it is crucial to understand seasonal fluctuations better so that hospitals can avoid rising and spreading infection peaks.This research was funded partially by Primary Health Care Corporation, grant number PHCC/RC/18/06/002

Cement degradation in CO2 storage sites: a review on potential applications of nanomaterials

© 2018 The Author(s) Carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) has been employed to reduce global warming, which is one of the critical environmental issues gained the attention of scientific and industrial communities worldwide. Once implemented successfully, CCS can store at least 5 billion tons of CO2per year as an effective and technologically safe method. However, there have been a few issues raised in recent years, indicating the potential leakages paths created during and after injection. One of the major issues might be the chemical interaction of supercritical CO2with the cement, which may lead to the partial or total loss of the cement sheath. There have been many approaches presented to improve the physical and mechanical properties of the cement against CO2attack such as changing the water-to-cement ratio, employing pozzolanic materials, and considering non-Portland cements. However, a limited success has been reported to the application of these approaches once implemented in a real-field condition. To date, only a few studies reported the application of nanoparticles as sophisticated additives which can reinforce oil well cements. This paper provides a review on the possible application of nanomaterials in the cement industry where physical and mechanical characteristics of the cement can be modified to have a better resistance against corrosive environments such as CO2storage sites. The results obtained indicated that adding 0.5 wt% of Carbon NanoTubes (CNTs) and NanoGlass Flakes (NGFs) can reinforce the thermal stability and coating characteristics of the cement which are required to increase the chance of survival in a CO2sequestrated site. Nanosilica can also be a good choice and added to the cement by as much as 3.0 wt% to improve pozzolanic reactivity and thermal stability as per the reports of recent studies

Renewable, ethical? Assessing the energy justice potential of renewable electricity

Energy justice is increasingly being used as a framework to conceptualize the impacts of energy decision making in more holistic ways and to consider the social implications in terms of existing ethical values. Similarly, renewable energy technologies are increasingly being promoted for their environmental and social benefits. However, little work has been done to systematically examine the extent to which, in what ways and in what contexts, renewable energy technologies can contribute to achieving energy justice. This paper assesses the potential of renewable electricity technologies to address energy justice in various global contexts via a systematic review of existing studies analyzed in terms of the principles and dimensions of energy justice. Based on publications including peer reviewed academic literature, books, and in some cases reports by government or international organizations, we assess renewable electricity technologies in both grid integrated and off-grid use contexts. We conduct our investigation through the rubric of the affirmative and prohibitive principles of energy justice and in terms of its temporal, geographic, socio-political, economic, and technological dimensions. Renewable electricity technology development has and continue to have different impacts in different social contexts, and by considering the different impacts explicitly across global contexts, including differences between rural and urban contexts, this paper contributes to identifying and understanding how, in what ways, and in what particular conditions and circumstances renewable electricity technologies may correspond with or work to promote energy justice

Population and fertility by age and sex for 195 countries and territories, 1950–2017: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2017

Background: Population estimates underpin demographic and epidemiological research and are used to track progress on numerous international indicators of health and development. To date, internationally available estimates of population and fertility, although useful, have not been produced with transparent and replicable methods and do not use standardised estimates of mortality. We present single-calendar year and single-year of age estimates of fertility and population by sex with standardised and replicable methods. Methods: We estimated population in 195 locations by single year of age and single calendar year from 1950 to 2017 with standardised and replicable methods. We based the estimates on the demographic balancing equation, with inputs of fertility, mortality, population, and migration data. Fertility data came from 7817 location-years of vital registration data, 429 surveys reporting complete birth histories, and 977 surveys and censuses reporting summary birth histories. We estimated age-specific fertility rates (ASFRs; the annual number of livebirths to women of a specified age group per 1000 women in that age group) by use of spatiotemporal Gaussian process regression and used the ASFRs to estimate total fertility rates (TFRs; the average number of children a woman would bear if she survived through the end of the reproductive age span [age 10–54 years] and experienced at each age a particular set of ASFRs observed in the year of interest). Because of sparse data, fertility at ages 10–14 years and 50–54 years was estimated from data on fertility in women aged 15–19 years and 45–49 years, through use of linear regression. Age-specific mortality data came from the Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries, and Risk Factors Study (GBD) 2017 estimates. Data on population came from 1257 censuses and 761 population registry location-years and were adjusted for underenumeration and age misreporting with standard demographic methods. Migration was estimated with the GBD Bayesian demographic balancing model, after incorporating information about refugee migration into the model prior. Final population estimates used the cohort-component method of population projection, with inputs of fertility, mortality, and migration data. Population uncertainty was estimated by use of out-of-sample predictive validity testing. With these data, we estimated the trends in population by age and sex and in fertility by age between 1950 and 2017 in 195 countries and territories. Findings: From 1950 to 2017, TFRs decreased by 49\ub74% (95% uncertainty interval [UI] 46\ub74–52\ub70). The TFR decreased from 4\ub77 livebirths (4\ub75–4\ub79) to 2\ub74 livebirths (2\ub72–2\ub75), and the ASFR of mothers aged 10–19 years decreased from 37 livebirths (34–40) to 22 livebirths (19–24) per 1000 women. Despite reductions in the TFR, the global population has been increasing by an average of 83\ub78 million people per year since 1985. The global population increased by 197\ub72% (193\ub73–200\ub78) since 1950, from 2\ub76 billion (2\ub75–2\ub76) to 7\ub76 billion (7\ub74–7\ub79) people in 2017; much of this increase was in the proportion of the global population in south Asia and sub-Saharan Africa. The global annual rate of population growth increased between 1950 and 1964, when it peaked at 2\ub70%; this rate then remained nearly constant until 1970 and then decreased to 1\ub71% in 2017. Population growth rates in the southeast Asia, east Asia, and Oceania GBD super-region decreased from 2\ub75% in 1963 to 0\ub77% in 2017, whereas in sub-Saharan Africa, population growth rates were almost at the highest reported levels ever in 2017, when they were at 2\ub77%. The global average age increased from 26\ub76 years in 1950 to 32\ub71 years in 2017, and the proportion of the population that is of working age (age 15–64 years) increased from 59\ub79% to 65\ub73%. At the national level, the TFR decreased in all countries and territories between 1950 and 2017; in 2017, TFRs ranged from a low of 1\ub70 livebirths (95% UI 0\ub79–1\ub72) in Cyprus to a high of 7\ub71 livebirths (6\ub78–7\ub74) in Niger. The TFR under age 25 years (TFU25; number of livebirths expected by age 25 years for a hypothetical woman who survived the age group and was exposed to current ASFRs) in 2017 ranged from 0\ub708 livebirths (0\ub707–0\ub709) in South Korea to 2\ub74 livebirths (2\ub72–2\ub76) in Niger, and the TFR over age 30 years (TFO30; number of livebirths expected for a hypothetical woman ageing from 30 to 54 years who survived the age group and was exposed to current ASFRs) ranged from a low of 0\ub73 livebirths (0\ub73–0\ub74) in Puerto Rico to a high of 3\ub71 livebirths (3\ub70–3\ub72) in Niger. TFO30 was higher than TFU25 in 145 countries and territories in 2017. 33 countries had a negative population growth rate from 2010 to 2017, most of which were located in central, eastern, and western Europe, whereas population growth rates of more than 2\ub70% were seen in 33 of 46 countries in sub-Saharan Africa. In 2017, less than 65% of the national population was of working age in 12 of 34 high-income countries, and less than 50% of the national population was of working age in Mali, Chad, and Niger. Interpretation: Population trends create demographic dividends and headwinds (ie, economic benefits and detriments) that affect national economies and determine national planning needs. Although TFRs are decreasing, the global population continues to grow as mortality declines, with diverse patterns at the national level and across age groups. To our knowledge, this is the first study to provide transparent and replicable estimates of population and fertility, which can be used to inform decision making and to monitor progress. Funding: Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

Design and prototyping soft–rigid tendon-driven modular grippers using interpenetrating phase composites materials

Advances in soft robotics and material science have enabled rapid progress in soft grippers. The ability to 3D print materials with softer, more elastic materials properties is a recent development and a key enabling technology for the rapid development of soft robots. However, obtaining the desired mechanical properties (e.g., stiffness) of the soft joints and information about the parameters to select in 3D printers is often not straightforward. In this article, we propose the use of interpenetrating phase composites (IPCs) materials with mathematically generated topologies based on triply periodic minimal surfaces for the development of soft grippers with desired mechanical properties. The flexible joints of the gripper can be realized through two or more phases that are topologically interconnected such that each phase represents a standalone cellular structure. As a case study, we present the design and development of a two-finger soft gripper as an example to demonstrate the application scenario of our approach. The flexible parts with desired stiffness values are realized by using IPCs materials in which the reinforcement distribution can be regulated on the basis of mathematical models. We characterized the properties of the material through a set of quantitative experiments on IPCs material specimens, and then we realized qualitative grasping tests with the gripper and a set of objects with different shapes and sizes. We showed that by properly regulating the properties of IPCs material it is possible to design modular grippers with the same structure, but different closure motions. Grippers can be customized for different tasks by easily assembling and disassembling fingers

Bacterial indoor air contaminations in hospitals in MENA region: a systematic review

Poor indoor air quality in healthcare settings has been tied with the increase in hospital-acquired infections. Thus, this systematic review was conducted to assess the levels and compositions of bacteria in indoor hospital air in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. We examined results provided by different search engines published between 2000 and 2021. Our data showed that most studies were conducted in Iran (80.9%) with a bacterial concentration mean of 172.9 CFU/m3. Comparing sensitive and non-sensitive areas of hospitals, no significant difference was detected in the mean bacterial concentration. The most investigated sensitive hospital areas were operating rooms and intensive care units with mean indoor bacterial concentrations of 180.3 CFU/m3 and 204.6 CFU/m3, respectively. Staphylococcaceae, Enterobacteriaceae, Pseudomonadaceae, and Bacillaceae were commonly identified bacterial families. In conclusion, the mean concentrations of the airborne bacteria were within the acceptable limit compared to WHO standards (300 CFU/m3) for the air in areas occupied by immunosuppressed people.Barzan Holdings and Primary Health Care Research Department (PHCC) reference no. PHCC/RC/18/06/002

The Sorption of Erythrosine E127 Dye onto Commercial Kaolin Thermokinetic Studies

In this study, a highly efficient and economical method was used to remove E127 dye using commercial kaolin (CK) as the adsorbent. The optimal pH for adsorption was found to be 4.7, and the maximum surface concentration of the dye was 53.8 mg.g-1 when 125 mg of adsorbent was used. The Freundlich isotherm was used to describe the adsorption process, which suggested that the active sites in the adsorption process were randomly selected. The adsorption capacity (qmax), enthalpy (?H), and entropy (?S) were calculated to be 74.6 mg.g-1, -12.3 KJ.mol-1, and 75.0 J.mol-1, respectively. Both thermodynamic and kinetic analyses indicated that the adsorption process was spontaneous, involved physical adsorption, and followed the pseudo-second-order (PSO) model. The method was effective in extracting the E127 dye up to four times