Health seeking behaviour of parents of burned children in Bangladesh is related to family socioeconomics

Objective: The study was design to explore the health seeking behaviour of Bangladeshi parents for their children during burn injuries. Methods: A population-based cross-sectional survey was conducted between January and December 2003 in Bangladesh. Nationally representative data were collected from 171,366 rural and urban households comprising of a total population of 819,429, including 351,651 children of 0–18 years. Mothers or heads of households were interviewed with a structured questionnaire in obtaining the information. Results: About sixty percent parents seek health care from unqualified service providers for their children during a childhood burn injury. Educated and the higher income groups parents choose qualified service provider at significantly higher rate compared to illiterate and poor. Higher proportion of parents of urban residence chooses qualified service provider compared to rural. No significant difference of health seeking behaviour of parent in choosing care provider was found in relation to sex of the children. Conclusion: Education, economic condition and place of residence were found as the contributory factors in choosing service provider. Education to the parents can contribute in changes in health seeking behaviour which ultimately contribute in reducing morbidity and mortality from childhood burn injuries. Including parent's education a national burn prevention program needs to be developed to combat the devastating child injury, burn

The Complex Degradation Mechanism of Copper Electrodes on Lead Halide Perovskites

Lead halide perovskite solar cells have reached power conversion efficiencies during the past few years that rival those of crystalline silicon solar cells, and there is a concentrated effort to commercialize them. The use of gold electrodes, the current standard, is prohibitively costly for commercial application. Copper is a promising low cost electrode material that has shown good stability in perovskite solar cells with selective contacts. Furthermore, it has the potential to be self passivating through the formation of CuI, a copper salt which is also used as a hole selective material. Based on these opportunities, we investigated the interface reactions between lead halide perovskites and copper in this work. Specifically, copper was deposited on the perovskite surface, and the reactions were followed in detail using synchrotron based and in house photoelectron spectroscopy. The results show a rich interfacial chemistry with reactions starting upon deposition and, with the exposure to oxygen and moisture, progress over many weeks, resulting in significant degradation of both the copper and the perovskite. The degradation results not only in the formation of CuI, as expected, but also in the formation of two previously unreported degradation products. The hope is that a deeper understanding of these processes will aid in the design of corrosion resistant copper based electrode

Guillain-Barré syndrome and adjuvanted pandemic influenza A (H1N1) 2009 vaccines: A multinational self-controlled case series in Europe

Background: The risk of Guillain-Barré syndrome (GBS) following the United States' 1976 swine flu vaccination campaign in the USA led to enhanced active surveillance during the pandemic influenza (A(H1N1)pdm09) immunization campaign. This study aimed to estimate the risk

Mind your step: the effects of mobile phone use on gaze behavior in stair climbing

Stair walking is a hazardous activity and a common cause of fatal and non-fatal falls. Previous studies have assessed the role of eye movements in stair walking by asking people to repeatedly go up and down stairs in quiet and controlled conditions, while the role of peripheral vision was examined by giving participants specific fixation instructions or working memory tasks. We here extend this research to stair walking in a natural environment with other people present on the stairs and a now common secondary task: Using one's mobile phone. Results show that using the mobile phone strongly draws one's attention away from the stairs, but that the distribution of gaze locations away from the phone is little influenced by using one's phone. Phone use also increased the time needed to walk the stairs, but handrail use remained low. These results indicate that limited foveal vision suffices for adequate stair walking in normal environments, but that mobile phone use has a strong influence on attention, which may pose problems when unexpected obstacles are encountered

Including Pathogen Risk in Life Cycle Assessment of Wastewater Management. 1. Estimating the Burden of Disease Associated with Pathogens

The environmental performance of wastewater and sewage sludge management is commonly assessed using life cycle assessment (LCA), whereas pathogen risk is evaluated with quantitative microbial risk assessment (QMRA). This study explored the application of QMRA methodology with intent to include pathogen risk in LCA and facilitate a comparison with other potential impacts on human health considered in LCA. Pathogen risk was estimated for a model wastewater treatment system (WWTS) located in an industrialized country and consisting of primary, secondary, and tertiary wastewater treatment, anaerobic sludge digestion, and land application of sewage sludge. The estimation was based on eight previous QMRA studies as well as parameter values taken from the literature. A total pathogen risk (expressed as burden of disease) on the order of 0.2–9 disability-adjusted life years (DALY) per year of operation was estimated for the model WWTS serving 28 600 persons and for the pathogens and exposure pathways included in this study. The comparison of pathogen risk with other potential impacts on human health considered in LCA is detailed in part 2 of this article series

Femtosecond and Attosecond Electron-Transfer Dynamics in PCPDTBT : PCBM Bulk Heterojunctions

Charge separation efficiency is a crucial parameter for photovoltaic devices-polymers consisting of alternating electron-rich and electron-deficient parts can achieve high such efficiencies, for instance, together with a fullerene electron acceptor. This offers a viable path toward solar cells with organic bulk heterojunctions. Here, we measured the charge-transfer times in the femtosecond and attosecond regimes via the decay of sulfur is X-ray core excited states (with the core-hole clock method) in blends of a low-band gap polymer {PCPDTBT [poly[2,6-(4,4-bis (2-ethylhexyl)-4H-cyclopenta [2,1-b;3,4-1/1 dithiophene)-alt-4,7- (2,1,3-benzothiadiazole)]]} consisting of a cyclopentadithiophene electron-rich part and a benzothiadiazole electron-deficient part. The constituting parts of the bulk heterojunction were varied by adding the fullerene derivative PCBM ([6,6]-phenyl-C-61-butyric acid methyl ester) (weight ratio of polymer/PCBM as 1:0, 1:1, 1:2, and 1:3). For low-energy excitations, the charge-transfer time varies to the largest extent for the thiophene donor part. The charge-transfer time in the 1:2 blend is reduced by 86% compared to that of pristine PCPDTBT. At higher energy excitations, the charge-transfer time does not vary with the chemical environment, as this regime is dominated by intramolecular conduction that yields ultrafast charge-transfer times for all blends, approaching 170 as. We thus demonstrate that the core-hole clock method applied to a series with changing composition can give information about local electron dynamics (with chemical specificity) at interfaces between the constituting parts the crucial part of a bulk heterojunction where the initial charge separation occurs