Digitization and Preservation of City Landmarks Using Limited and Free Web Services

This paper presents a practical approach for digitizing city landmarks based on free and limited Web resources. The digital replicas are then placed on the Web using popular services, like Google earth, and are accessible to a huge user base. The method is easily applicable and quite valuable to organizations with limited funding

Peer support groups and peer mentoring in refugee adolescents and young adults: A literature review

Peer support and peer mentoring have been used in various contexts as interventions to improve mental health and help people cope with life difficulties. This literature review explores the application of these methods for adolescent refugees. It also attempts to determine the effectiveness of these interventions, the methodology of assessment of their effectiveness and the specific settings where they have been used. We conducted a review of studies that included peer support and peer mentoring interventions for adolescent refugees/asylum seekers. We searched Google Scholar, PUBMED and SCOPUS, for the period from 2011 to September 2021. The review identified only five studies that met our criteria in terms of demographic characteristics and type of intervention. Four of the five studies used only qualitative methods for their assessment. Only one of them used quantitative methods to determine the intervention’s effectiveness. The settings included schools, universities, and other general community spaces. The refugee status varied between asylum seekers and refugee status. There is a need for more rigorous and methodologically consistent research, using more quantitative methods to enable clearer comparison of evidence-based results. The usefulness of peer mentoring and peer support should also be explored in more contexts, such as in Reception and Identification Centers for asylum seekers. Despite these shortcomings of the current literature, all the reviewed papers outline a positive impact of the interventions on young refugees’ lives in terms of mental health benefits, coping with life difficulties, or gaining access to valuable resources

Peer support groups and peer mentoring in refugee adolescents and young adults: A literature review

Peer support and peer mentoring have been used in various contexts as interventions to improve mental health and help people cope with life difficulties. This literature review explores the application of these methods for adolescent refugees. It also attempts to determine the effectiveness of these interventions, the methodology of assessment of their effectiveness and the specific settings where they have been used. We conducted a review of studies that included peer support and peer mentoring interventions for adolescent refugees/asylum seekers. We searched Google Scholar, PUBMED and SCOPUS, for the period from 2011 to September 2021. The review identified only five studies that met our criteria in terms of demographic characteristics and type of intervention. Four of the five studies used only qualitative methods for their assessment. Only one of them used quantitative methods to determine the intervention’s effectiveness. The settings included schools, universities, and other general community spaces. The refugee status varied between asylum seekers and refugee status. There is a need for more rigorous and methodologically consistent research, using more quantitative methods to enable clearer comparison of evidence-based results. The usefulness of peer mentoring and peer support should also be explored in more contexts, such as in Reception and Identification Centers for asylum seekers. Despite these shortcomings of the current literature, all the reviewed papers outline a positive impact of the interventions on young refugees’ lives in terms of mental health benefits, coping with life difficulties, or gaining access to valuable resources

Työpaikalla homealtistuksesta oireilevien ja sairastuneiden sosiaaliturva ja kuntoutus

Opinnäytetyön aiheena on työpaikalla homealtistuksesta oireilevien ja sairastuneiden sosiaaliturvan ja kuntoutuksen toteutuminen. Tutkimuksen viitekehys muodostuu homealtistuksen aiheuttamien terveyshaittojen, sosiaaliturvan ja kuntoutuksen sekä psyko-sosiaalisen tuen käsitteistä. Tutkimukseni perustuu kvantitatiiviseen tutkimusotteeseen ja se on luonteeltaan survey-tutkimus. Tutkittavien joukkoon kuului sekä Työpaikalla homealtistuksesta sairastuneiden eli TYHOSA ry:n jäseniä että sellaisia työpaikalla homealtistuksesta oireilevia ja sairastuneita, jotka eivät kuulu homesairaiden yhdistykseen. Kyselylomakkeita lähetettiin kaikkiaan 135 työpaikalla homealtistuksesta oireileville ja sairastuneille. Kyselyn vastausprosentti oli 57 %. Tutkimusaineisto koostui sähköposti- ja postikyselyistä, jotka suoritettiin huhtikuussa 2004. Tiedonkeruussa käytetty kyselylomake sisälsi strukturoituja ja avoimia kysymyksiä yhteensä 10. Kyselylomakkeessa kysyin taustatiedot, kosteusvauriomikrobien aiheuttamat oireet ja sairaudet, sosiaaliturvan ja kuntoutuksen toteutumista sekä millaista tukea tutkittavat ovat saaneet. Tutkimusaineisto käsiteltiin manuaalisesti laskemalla. Tutkimuksestani kävi ilmi, että työpaikalla homealtistuksesta oireilevien ja sairastuneiden sosiaaliturvan, kuntoutuksen ja psykososiaalisen tuen saaminen ei toteudu asianmukaisesti. Rahalliset tukimuodotkin ovat sekavia eivätkä toteudu kaikkien kohdalla tasavertaisesti. Homealtistuksessa sairastuneet kaipaavat viranomaisilta, työyhteisöltä, lääkäreiltä ja työterveyshuollosta enemmän tietoa ja tukea oireilunsa ja sairastamisensa vuoksi sekä tietoa kuntoutuksesta ja ammatillisesta kuntoutuksesta. Ammattitautitutkimuksiin pääseminen on ollut myös vaikeaa ja sairastuneet ovat usein joutuneet hakemaan lähetteensä yksityislääkäreiltä, koska työterveyslääkäri ei ole suostunut sitä kirjoittamaan. Homesairaita on kaikissa ammattiryhmissä. Eniten homesairauksia oli hoitoalan työntekijöillä (21 %), toimistotyöntekijöillä (18 %) ja opettajilla (17 %). Suurin osa sairastuneista (45 %) oli ollut sairauslomalla alle puoli vuotta, mutta jopa seitsemän ja kahdeksan vuoden sairausloma-aikoja oli, henkilöiden saamatta kuitenkaan eläkettä. Työnantajat olivat irtisanoneet neljä työntekijää ja kahdelle oli ehdotettu irtisanoutumaan vapaaehtoisesti työstään, koska työnantajalla ei ollut osoittaa homeetonta työpaikkaa oireilevalle työntekijälle. Vakuutusyhtiöltä sai tapaturmaeläkettä 24,7 % vastaajista. Yksi henkilö sai viimesijaista tukimuotoa, eli toimeentulotukea. Vastaajista 54 % oli saanut kuntoutusta ja 46 % vastaajista ei ollut saanut mitään kuntoutusta. Neljä henkilöä oli hakenut kuntoutusta, mutta heidän hakemuksensa oli hylätty, koska heillä ei ollut diagnoosia sairaudestaan

Evidence of somatic hypermutation in the antigen binding sites of patients with CLL harboring IGHV genes with 100% germline identity

Classification of patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) based on the somatic hypermutation (SHM) status of the clonotypic immunoglobulin heavy variable (IGHV) gene has established predictive and prognostic relevance. The SHM status is assessed based on the number of mutations within the IG heavy variable domain sequence, albeit only over the rearranged IGHV gene excluding the variable heavy complementarity determining region 3 (VH CDR3). This may lead to an underestimation of the actual impact of SHM, in fact overlooking the most critical region for antigen-antibody interactions, i.e. the VH CDR3. Here we investigated whether SHM may be present within the VH CDR3 of cases bearing ‘truly unmutated’ IGHV genes (i.e. 100% germline identity across VH FR1-VH FR3) employing Next Generation Sequencing. We studied 16 patients bearing a ‘truly unmutated’ CLL clone assigned to stereotyped subsets #1 (n=12) and #6 (n=4). We report the existence of SHM within the germline-encoded 3’IGHV, IGHD, 5’IGHJ regions of the VH CDR3 in both the main IGHV-IGHD-IGHJ gene clonotype and its variants. Recurrent somatic mutations were identified between different patients of the same subset, supporting the notion that they represent true mutational events rather than technical artefacts; moreover, they were located adjacent to/within AID hotspots, pointing to SHM as the underlying mechanism. In conclusion, we provide immunogenetic evidence for intra-VH CDR3 variations, attributed to SHM, in CLL patients carrying ‘truly unmutated’ IGHV genes. Although the clinical implications of this observation remain to be defined, our findings offer a new perspective into the immunobiology of CLL, alluding to the operation of VH CDR3-restricted SHM in U-CLL

Auralization of a car pass-by inside an urban canyon using measured impulse responses

Development of methodologies for the auralization of moving cars can be of great value for a virtual acoustic experience of urban areas. In this paper1 a methodology for the auralization of car pass-by based on measured binaural impulse responses (BIRs) is presented. Measured BIRs for different locations in a street canyon were convolved with dry synthesized car signals in which cross-fade windows were applied in order to create a smooth transition between the source positions. Next, the convolved signals are summed in order to create the final car pass-by auralizations. A same/different listening test was carried out in order to investigate if increasing the angular spacing between the discrete source positions affects the perception of the auralizations. The experiments revealed that the auralizations with a larger angular increment (up to 16∘) are perceptually different to the reference auralizations (2∘ spacing), even in the case where the increment increased by only 2∘ compared to the reference. Compared to previous listening experiments of a car pass-by in the scenario without buildings it was shown that the discrimination performance of the subjects was significantly better compared to the test conditions where buildings are absent, where subjects found it very difficult to distinguish differences between auralizations of larger and smaller increment

Characterization of the acoustic impedance of in-situ vegetated roofs

Vegetated roof systems can act as absorbers to mitigate traffic noise. Various properties of vegetated roofs, such as open porosity, are important for sound absorption and scattering in urban environments. Substratum has been identified as the major contributor to the acoustic absorption of vegetated roofs. However, the coverage of the substratum by plants may have a significant effect on its acoustic absorption. Most existing studies on the determination of the acoustic absorption of vegetated roofs are based either on laboratory experiments or numerical models. So far, little research has focused on the prediction of vegetated roofs’ impedance based on in-situ measurements. This research modified the existing Nordtest Method for measurements at vegetated roofs. It was modified to an extended reacting double-layer medium with a variable reference surface, surface roughness was included and the three-parameter Miki impedance model was used. Using measurements on four different in-situ green roofs, a good agreement between measured and predicted results was obtained with the modified Nordtest Method. Finally, some simplifications in the modified Nordtest Method were found to reduce the complexity of the prediction without sacrificing accuracy too much