Interactive audio-tactile maps for visually impaired people

International audienceVisually impaired people face important challenges related to orientation and mobility. Indeed, 56% of visually impaired people in France declared having problems concerning autonomous mobility. These problems often mean that visually impaired people travel less, which influences their personal and professional life and can lead to exclusion from society. Therefore this issue presents a social challenge as well as an important research area. Accessible geographic maps are helpful for acquiring knowledge about a city's or neighborhood's configuration, as well as selecting a route to reach a destination. Traditionally, raised-line paper maps with braille text have been used. These maps have proved to be efficient for the acquisition of spatial knowledge by visually impaired people. Yet, these maps possess significant limitations. For instance, due to the specificities of the tactile sense only a limited amount of information can be displayed on a single map, which dramatically increases the number of maps that are needed. For the same reason, it is difficult to represent specific information such as distances. Finally, braille labels are used for textual descriptions but only a small percentage of the visually impaired population reads braille. In France 15% of blind people are braille readers and only 10% can read and write. In the United States, fewer than 10% of the legally blind people are braille readers and only 10% of blind children actually learn braille. Recent technological advances have enabled the design of interactive maps with the aim to overcome these limitations. Indeed, interactive maps have the potential to provide a broad spectrum of the population with spatial knowledge, irrespective of age, impairment, skill level, or other factors. To this regard, they might be an efficient means for providing visually impaired people with access to geospatial information. In this paper we give an overview of our research on making geographic maps accessible to visually impaired people

Multiorgan MRI findings after hospitalisation with COVID-19 in the UK (C-MORE): a prospective, multicentre, observational cohort study

Introduction: The multiorgan impact of moderate to severe coronavirus infections in the post-acute phase is still poorly understood. We aimed to evaluate the excess burden of multiorgan abnormalities after hospitalisation with COVID-19, evaluate their determinants, and explore associations with patient-related outcome measures. Methods: In a prospective, UK-wide, multicentre MRI follow-up study (C-MORE), adults (aged ≥18 years) discharged from hospital following COVID-19 who were included in Tier 2 of the Post-hospitalisation COVID-19 study (PHOSP-COVID) and contemporary controls with no evidence of previous COVID-19 (SARS-CoV-2 nucleocapsid antibody negative) underwent multiorgan MRI (lungs, heart, brain, liver, and kidneys) with quantitative and qualitative assessment of images and clinical adjudication when relevant. Individuals with end-stage renal failure or contraindications to MRI were excluded. Participants also underwent detailed recording of symptoms, and physiological and biochemical tests. The primary outcome was the excess burden of multiorgan abnormalities (two or more organs) relative to controls, with further adjustments for potential confounders. The C-MORE study is ongoing and is registered with ClinicalTrials.gov, NCT04510025. Findings: Of 2710 participants in Tier 2 of PHOSP-COVID, 531 were recruited across 13 UK-wide C-MORE sites. After exclusions, 259 C-MORE patients (mean age 57 years [SD 12]; 158 [61%] male and 101 [39%] female) who were discharged from hospital with PCR-confirmed or clinically diagnosed COVID-19 between March 1, 2020, and Nov 1, 2021, and 52 non-COVID-19 controls from the community (mean age 49 years [SD 14]; 30 [58%] male and 22 [42%] female) were included in the analysis. Patients were assessed at a median of 5·0 months (IQR 4·2–6·3) after hospital discharge. Compared with non-COVID-19 controls, patients were older, living with more obesity, and had more comorbidities. Multiorgan abnormalities on MRI were more frequent in patients than in controls (157 [61%] of 259 vs 14 [27%] of 52; p<0·0001) and independently associated with COVID-19 status (odds ratio [OR] 2·9 [95% CI 1·5–5·8]; padjusted=0·0023) after adjusting for relevant confounders. Compared with controls, patients were more likely to have MRI evidence of lung abnormalities (p=0·0001; parenchymal abnormalities), brain abnormalities (p<0·0001; more white matter hyperintensities and regional brain volume reduction), and kidney abnormalities (p=0·014; lower medullary T1 and loss of corticomedullary differentiation), whereas cardiac and liver MRI abnormalities were similar between patients and controls. Patients with multiorgan abnormalities were older (difference in mean age 7 years [95% CI 4–10]; mean age of 59·8 years [SD 11·7] with multiorgan abnormalities vs mean age of 52·8 years [11·9] without multiorgan abnormalities; p<0·0001), more likely to have three or more comorbidities (OR 2·47 [1·32–4·82]; padjusted=0·0059), and more likely to have a more severe acute infection (acute CRP >5mg/L, OR 3·55 [1·23–11·88]; padjusted=0·025) than those without multiorgan abnormalities. Presence of lung MRI abnormalities was associated with a two-fold higher risk of chest tightness, and multiorgan MRI abnormalities were associated with severe and very severe persistent physical and mental health impairment (PHOSP-COVID symptom clusters) after hospitalisation. Interpretation: After hospitalisation for COVID-19, people are at risk of multiorgan abnormalities in the medium term. Our findings emphasise the need for proactive multidisciplinary care pathways, with the potential for imaging to guide surveillance frequency and therapeutic stratification

School of Education ICT Infrastructure Report to the FEHPS Resources Committee

This document reports on elements of the Faculty of Education, Health and Professional Studies technology infrastructure in response to changing needs which result from: the increasing use of electronic presentation materials in lectures and tutorials, the changes to preparation and presentation of unit materials to Compact Disc distribution, the DEST requirements of integration of technology in education, the provision of at least industry (school) standard teaching and learning computers, the requirements of effective staff and student data storage and backup, and the need for efficient effective computer maintenance provision. The DEST (2002) report Making Better Connections: Models of teacher professional development for the integration of information and communication technology into classroom practice noted that one of the biggest barriers to effective integration of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) was that schools often were inadequately prepared in terms of resources, expertise and classroom practice. In order to achieve successful integration, student teachers need to provide rich opportunities to develop the skills needed to successfully integrate ICT into the curriculum, as part of their classroom practice (DEST 2002)

Marijuana Effects On Human Forgetting Functions

It has long been known that acute marijuana administration impairs working memory (e.g., the discrimination of stimuli separated by a delay). The determination of which of the individual components of memory are altered by marijuana is an unresolved problem. Previous human studies did not use test protocols that allowed for the determination of delay-independent (initial discrimination) from delay-dependent (forgetting or retrieval) components of memory. Using methods developed in the experimental analysis of behavior and signal detection theory, we tested the acute effects of smoked marijuana on forgetting functions in 5 humans. Immediately after smoking placebo, a low dose, or a high dose of marijuana (varying in Δ(9)-THC content), subjects completed delayed match-to-sample testing that included a range of retention intervals within each test session (0.5, 4, 12, and 24 s). Performances (discriminability) at each dose were plotted as forgetting functions, as described and developed by White and colleagues (White, 1985; White & Ruske, 2002). For all 5 subjects, both Δ(9)-THC doses impaired delay-dependent discrimination but not delay-independent discrimination. The outcome is consistent with current nonhuman studies examining the role of the cannabinoid system on delayed matching procedures, and the data help illuminate one behavioral mechanism through which marijuana alters memory performance