Psychosocial and socioeconomically aspects of mothers having a child with cleft lip and/or palate (CL/P) : a pilot-study during the first year of life

The emotional impact on parents at the birth of their new-born with cleft lip and/or palate (CL/P) can be traumatic for parents, especially mothers, and affect the sensitive early parent-child relationship. Unlike many other congenital malformations facial deformities are visible to all. The uncommon facial appearance creates feelings and reactions in the mother, families and other people. Only few studies deal with this psychosocial burden of these mothers. This pilot-study deals with mothers? early experiences (n=84) having a child with CL/P. Mothers were asked to complete a questionnaire at diagnosis, birth and after lip surgery. The questions were focused on the social background of the mother (educational degree, marital status, lifestyle and prenatal care), the medical information at diagnosis and the following reaction. The surveys were administrated from 01/2014 ? 12/2016. 84 mothers of affected children (CL/P) replied the completed questionnaire (84/103, 81.5%). At diagnosis 65 mothers (77%) lived in a solid partnership and 44% worked full-time (40h). The diagnosis caused fear among the mothers (60.7%, p?0.01), despair (27.4%, p?0.01), grief (17.9%, p?0.01) and guilt (16.7%, p?0.01). Despite the emotional stress after the diagnosis only 5 mothers asked for psychological support (6.0%). The medical information by the gynecologist (41.6%) or maxillofacial surgeon (32.2%) was rated as ?good? (n=26) or ?very good? (n=26) in 60.2%. A lack of medical information and care was rated with ?insufficient? (11.9%) or ?poor? (14.3%). There are only few studies about mothers? early feelings and emotions having a child with a CL/P. We found high parental stress, physical and emotional strain among the mothers after diagnosis, mostly caused due to insufficient information?s. This stress was not correlated with the educational level and CLP appearance showed no relation about the socioeconomic status

張州雑志の世界

Cities are increasingly exposed to extreme climate events such as floods and droughts. Land use change is also expected to reduce the availability of green spaces and intensify extreme heat events. Given these pressures on the quality of life of urban dwellers, there is a great need to improve the integrated management of water to enable sustainable development of rapidly growing cities and improve human well-being. A promising way to make urban communities more liveable is to invest in green water technologies, that is, decentralised and low-energy water supply, wastewater and stormwater solutions, to foster the transition to more sustainable and resilient cities. However, the adoption of multifunctional water technologies is a complex issue that requires cross-disciplinary approaches, demanding innovative thinking and practice. Despite the increasing body of literature on the benefits of decentralised water technologies, several barriers to their adoption remain. This paper uses an agent-based model that integrates social and environmental factors, as well as economic evaluation of water services provided by water technologies to assess the decision-making of two types of agents. The model is applied to evaluate incentive-based strategies to increase the adoption of rainwater tanks in Melbourne, a city that has suffered from severe droughts over the last decades. The model shows that using economic evaluation may not be adequate to understand the dynamics of rainwater tank uptake. Social factors such as public education might have played a role on decisions of households. This tool will be further tested and validated to explore policies and robust strategies to enable sustainable water management in rapidly developing cities.</p

A preliminary modelling approach for Escherichia coli removal in stormwater biofilters

To reduce the risks imposed by faecal microorganisms contained in stormwater, biofilters have been developed for the microbial treatment. To better understand the mechanisms of faecal microbial removal in biofilters, and to optimize the operation of biofilters based on the predictions of long-term removal effects, modelling is an effective tool. In this study, a comprehensive model, which could represent the microbial transport and fate throughout the biofilters and includes the major processes and operational factors, is developed. The model was calibrated with the measured data of Escherichia coli (E.coli) removal that obtained in 8-month laboratory experiments. Generally high Nash Sutcliffe Efficiencies (>0.60) indicate that the calibrated model is in good agreement with measured data. Also, the optimized parameter values are comparable with values reported in the literature and obtained from lab work