Influencing Factors for Social Acceptance of Noma (Cancrum Oris) Patients in Niger: A Hospital-Based Cross-Sectional Study

Background: Noma, mostly identified in malnourished young children in the world’s low-income countries, causes severe orofacial disfigurement and significant mortality and morbidity. The majority of noma patients surviving with aesthetical effects are exposed to stigmatization and social rejection. Studies focusing on the socio-psychological impact of noma survivors have rarely been done. Our study aimed to identify the differences in social acceptance/rejection and the influencing factors associated with social acceptance in noma patients. Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted at the NGO-Sentinelles (Niger) reception center on patients with noma from Zinder, Maradi, and Tahoua regions between 9th May 2017 and 2nd June 2017. The survey was conducted through a face-to-face interview on patients admitted to the center and those discharged from the centre after the treatment. The interview questionnaire comprised 45 questions (Cronbach’s alpha coefficient = 0.812) with pathological information, sociodemographic characteristics, and socio-psychological qualitative information. Findings: We recorded 50 noma patients (43 from Zinder and 7 from Maradi and Tahoua). The younger patients (1 - 5 years old), noma patients who stayed in school during follow-up treatment, patients who were referred by a health structure, patients enrolled into the centre in a short time (<30 days), and patients in the acute phase of noma had a significantly high social acceptance rate with 60.0%, 82.9%, 60.0%, 57.1% and 94.3% respectively;whereas single adults and cheek lesion site had the highest social rejection rate when compared to their corresponding factors with 60.0% and 86.7% respectively. There were significant differences in victims’ perception of noma [χ2 = 45.536, (P < 0.001)] and acceptance of their new faces [P = 0.023], between the social acceptance and social rejection rate, therefore all patients who accepted their new faces felt social acceptance. Social acceptance was significantly highly correlated with pathological history (admission method, phase of noma, care, and treatment received at center) with rs ranging from 0.609 to 0.810, moderately correlated with patient’s sociodemographic characteristics (age, marital status, and region) with rs ranging from 0.381 to 0.474. Lowly correlated with clinical evolution after treatment (rs = 0.293). Logistic regression results showed that the likelihood of social acceptance increased when the patient’s age was young (≤15 years), their marital status was minor, they were enrolled at the school before noma appearance, they were referred to the centre after diagnosis, the admission time to the centre was short (≤30 days), acute phase of noma, and care received at the centre was non-surgery. The location of the lesion on the cheek was a risk factor for social acceptance, indicating cheek lesions from noma increased the likelihood of social rejection in our study. Conclusion: The sociodemographic characteristics, pathological history, and psychological aspects of noma patients were correlated and were found to be important factors influencing their social acceptance/rejection rate.

Social acceptance and associated risks of geothermal energy development in East Africa: perspectives from geothermal energy developers

Social acceptance is a challenging aspect that affects the development of geothermal energy and such issues have been reported in many countries,such as Germany,Japan,Greece,and Kenya.In this study,we discuss the barriers to social acceptance and associated risks faced by geothermal energy developers in East Africa.We have conducted semi-structured interviews with international organ-izations(38.5%),public companies(38.5%),and private companies(23.1%).The interviews were qualitatively analysed using inductive content analysis.The key barriers identified by respondents were the lack of political,market,and community awareness;lack of local political support;lack of public funding;human resource shortages;involuntary resettlement;local cultural aspects;employ-ment issues;and demographic change.The lack of awareness of geothermal energy affects public and private funding,and leads to negative risk perception by communities.Risks,such as air,soil,and water pollution,land acquisition,social exclusion,resource risks,and drilling and project costs,were considered important by our respondents.In this study,we emphasize the need for the following:raising awareness regarding geothermal energy;training professionals;implementing strong surface studies to reduce the risks asso-ciated with the exploration stage;and conducting environmental and social impact assessment reports to mitigate negative risks to local communities,while also ensuring their engagement and raising their awareness about the negative risks of geothermal energy.

UnIC: Towards Unmanned Intelligent Cluster and Its Integration into Society

Collaborative unmanned systems have emerged to meet our society’s wide-ranging grand challenges,with their advantages including high performance,efficiency,flexibility,and inherent resilience.Increasing levels of group/team autonomy have also been achieved due to the embodiment of artificial intelligence(AI).However,the current networked unmanned systems are primarily designed for and applicable to a narrow range of domain-specific missions,and do not have sufficient human-level intel-ligence and human needs fulfillment for the challenging missions in our lives.We propose in this paper a vision of human-centric networked unmanned systems:Unmanned Intelligent Cluster(UnIC).Within this vision,distributed unmanned systems and humans are connected via knowledge sharing and social awareness to achieve collaborative cognition.This paper details UnIC’s concept,sources of intelligence,and layered architecture,and reviews enabling technologies for achieving this vision.In addition to the technological aspects,the social acceptance issues are highlighted.

An analysis of the acquisition of a monetary function by cryptocurrency using a multi-agent simulation model

Many types of cryptocurrencies,which predominantly utilize blockchain technology,have emerged worldwide.Several issuers plan to circulate their original cryptocurrencies for monetary use.This study investigates whether issuers can stimulate cryptocurrencies to attain a monetary function.We use a multi-agent model,referred to as the Yasutomi model,which simulates the emergence of money.We analyze two scenarios that may result from the actions taken by the issuer.These scenarios focus on increases in the number of stores that accept cryptocurrency payments and situations whereby the cryptocurrency issuer designs the cryptocurrency to be attractive to people and conducts an airdrop.We find that a cryptocurrency can attain a monetary function in two cases.One such case occurs when 20%of all agents accept the cryptocurrency for payment and 50%of the agents are aware of this fact.The second case occurs when the issuer continuously airdrops a cryptocurrency to a specific person while maintaining the total volume of the cryptocurrency within a range that prevents it from losing its attractiveness.

Individual and local scale interactions and adaptations to wind energy development:A case study of Oklahoma,USA

Wind energy development receives broad support but is often opposed at the local level due to nuisance concerns and uncertainties about how it affects the landowners living due to the turbines and the broader community.Lo-cal opposition to wind energy development can be a powerful force slowing or even ending its implementation in a given region.Oklahoma,USA is currently ranked as 4^(th)in the United States in current wind energy production and has seen significant pushback from some local communities as a renewable energy resource.Previous studies have examined wind energy development’s impact on rural education income,and property values of different communities in Oklahoma.However,funding information on how wind energy development affects the individu-als living alongside the turbines are limited.Using fifteen interviews with landowners,site-managers,community representatives,and pro-wind non-profit organization representatives,this study finds that individuals who live in proximity to wind energy development,particularly those involved in the agricultural industry,have created novel and unique uses for wind farm infrastructure.It also finds that local perceptions of wind energy production are mostly positive and provides increased knowledge of how wind energy development affects the individuals and communities that are hosting the turbines and related infrastructure.

Existing Building Challenge and CONCERTO Project

If Europe is to achieve the planned transition to a low carbon economy by 2050, succeeding in improving the energy efficiency of the largely inefficient existing building stock will be pivotal. Certain energy efficiency retrofitting obligations have now emerged as part of the EU＇s Energy Performance in Buildings Directive and the Energy Efficiency Directive. Challenges for retrofitting currently include gaps in technical skills both amongst building trades and professionals, a lack of awareness of building owners and users, concerns about compromising cultural heritage as well as a lack of viable business models, comparatively high cost and resulting long pay-back periods currently hamper the progress. Lessons can be drawn here form the EU-funded initiative CONCERTO, which helped 58 communities in 23 countries to reduce their dependence on conventional energy supply by implementing energy efficiency measures and integrating renewable energy sources not at single building scale but community scale. Almost all of these entailed retrofitting activities bad to find solutions to the issues mentioned. This paper presents a selection of conclusions regarding retrofitting to be drawn from the analysis undertaken under the project CONCERTO premium, which analysed outcomes across the 58 projects on behalf of the European Commission and focuses in particular on the political relevance of outcomes.

Brain Systems Underlying Fundamental Motivations of Human Social Conformity

From birth to adulthood,we often align our behaviors,attitudes,and opinions with a majority,a phenomenon known as social conformity.A seminal framework has proposed that conformity behaviors are mainly driven by three fundamental motives:a desire to gain more information to be accurate,to obtain social approval from others,and to maintain a favorable self-concept.Despite extensive interest in neuroimaging investigation of social conformity,the relationship between brain systems and these fundamental motivations has yet to be established.Here,we reviewed brain imaging findings of social conformity with a componential framework,aiming to reveal the neuropsychological substrates underlying different conformity motivations.First,information-seeking engages the evaluation of social information,information integration,and modification of task-related activity,corresponding to brain networks implicated in reward,cognitive control,and tasks at hand.Second,social acceptance involves the anticipation of social acceptance or rejection and mental state attribution,mediated by networks of reward,punishment,and mentalizing.Third,self-enhancement entails the excessive representation of positive self-related information and suppression of negative self-related information,ingroup favoritism and/or outgroup derogation,and elaborated mentalizing processes to the ingroup,supported by brain systems of reward,punishment,and mentalizing.Therefore,recent brain imaging studies have provided important insights into the fundamental motivations of social conformity in terms of component processes and brain mechanisms.

Method for Evaluating the Degrees of Land Use Sustainability of Mountainous County and its Application in Yunnan Province,China

The evaluation of sustainable land use is the key issue in the field of studying the sustainable land utilization. In general analysis, the sustainable land use is evaluated respectively from its ecological sustainability, economic sustainability and social sustainability in China and other countries in recent years. Although this evaluation is an important work, it seems insufficient and hard to comprehensively reflect the whole degree of land use sustainability. Thus, to make up this deficiency, this paper brings forward the evaluation indexes, which make it possible to quantitatively reflect the whole degree of land use sustainability, namely, the concept of ＂degrees of overall land use sustainability＂ （Dos）, and research and measurement development of the method of and calculation in Dos. Taking the evaluation of the degree of land use sustainability in county regions of Yunnan Province as the actual example for analysis, results are basically as follows： 1） The degree of land use sustainability （Dos） is the ration index to organically and systematically integrate the degree of ecological friendliness （DeF）, the degree of economic viability （Dev） and the degree of social acceptability （Dsa）, able to comprehensively reflect the whole sustainability degree of regional land use 2） Based on the value of Dos, the grading system and standard for the sustainability of land use may be established and totally divided into five grades, namely, the high-degree sustainability, middle-degree sustainability, low-degree sustainability, conditional sustainability and non-sustainability. Meanwhile, the standard for distinguishing sustainability grades has also been confirmed so as to determine the nature of sustainability degrees in different grades. This makes the possibility for the combination of nature determination with ration in research result and provides with the scientific guideline and decision-making gist for better implementation of sustainable land use strategy. 3） The practice in evaluation of sustainability degree in county regional land use in Yunnan shows that the value of the degree of land use sustainability （Dos） of whole Yunnan Province is only 58.39, belonging to the grade of low-degree sustainability. Two thirds of counties in the whole province represent the grade of ＂conditional sustainability＂ and ＂non-sustainability＂ in the sustainability of land use. Among these counties, 11.11 % shows ＂non- sustainability＇. The lowest degree of land use sustainability appears especially in the middle plateau mountain region of Northeast Yunnan, where the value of Dos in most counties （districts） is below 40 %, belonging to the grade of ＂non-sustainability＂. The sustainability degree in the karst mountainous region in lower-middle plateau mountain region in Southeast Yunnan is generally low and the value of sustainability degree （Dos） in most of the counties （cities and districts） is below 55. The value of sustainability degree （Dos） in most of the counties （cities and districts） in the north, west, northwest and southwest parts of Yunnan is below 55. This article also analyzes the reasons of low degree of sustainability in land use in Yunnan and puts forward the countermeasures to increase the degree of sustainability in land use in the whole province.

Alternative Sanitation and Strategic Directives for the Well Water Security in Cotonou (Benin) and Lomé(Togo)

In the coastal cities of West Africa, land use change, rapid population growth, bad sanitation systems and poor environmental governance degrade the quality of groundwater. This study aimed to assess alternative, acceptable, affordable sanitation disposal and practices for groundwater quality rehabilitation in the cities of Cotonou and Lomé. The study was based on the participatory transdisciplinary approach, field surveys, feedback from interactions with stakeholders, experiences of the practitioners and institutional consultations. This multi-stakeholder approach helped to appreciate ecological aspects of sanitation disposal and its implications on water quality improvement. SWOT model was used to analyze the relevance of assessed ecological system. Well water quality is deteriorated by traditional waste management disposal. Ecological sanitation systems are septic tanks on polyethylene, above-ground latrines and phytoremediation technique in the swamp areas. Collected wastes are used for composting and biogas production. Based on the optimist scenario at 2030 horizon, kind success factors of groundwater security are participation of citizens, existence of sanitation market, valorization of the waste by category, low-cost disposal adaptable to the individual, household and neighborhood’s scales. The strategic directions rely on funding and public policies for WASH, ecological sanitation disposal, cultural environment and good sanitation practices for emergence of new sanitation system to secure and sustain well water quality. But the social acceptability of ecological disposal is limited by the society’s multicultural heritage. These findings could help in decision-making concerning urban groundwater quality protection in the African coastal cities.