Magic Glasses Research Articles

Examining the Acceptability of Helminth Education Packages "Magic Glasses Lower Mekong" and "Magic Glasses Opisthorchiasis" and Their Impact on Knowledge, Attitudes, and Practices Among Schoolchildren in the Lower Mekong Basin: Protocol for a Cluster Randomized Controlled Trial.

Helminths are a major global health issue, impacting health, educational, and socioeconomic outcomes. Infections, often starting in childhood, are linked to anemia, malnutrition, cognitive deficit, and in chronic cases of Opisthorchis viverrini (OV), cholangiocarcinoma. The main control strategy for helminth infection is mass drug administration; however, this does not prevent reinfection. As such, prevention strategies are needed. The "Magic Glasses" is a school-based cartoon health education package that has demonstrated success in improving knowledge, attitudes, and practices (KAP) surrounding soil-transmitted helminths (STH) in China and the Philippines. This study is designed to assess the acceptability and impact of the 2 new versions of the Magic Glasses targeting STH and OV designed for the Lower Mekong audience in Cambodia, Lao People's Democratic Republic (PDR), and Thailand. The objective of this study is to evaluate the acceptability of the "Magic Glasses Lower Mekong" and "Magic Glasses Opisthorchiasis" education packages among schoolchildren in the Lower Mekong Basin, and the impact of these education packages on students' KAP surrounding STH and OV, respectively. Schoolchildren will be recruited into a cluster randomized controlled trial with intervention and control arms in rural schools in Cambodia, Lao PDR, and Thailand. Schoolchildren's initial acceptability of the intervention will be evaluated using an adapted questionnaire. Sustained acceptability will be assessed at 9-month follow-up through focus group discussions with students and interviews with teachers. Impact will be evaluated by KAP questionnaires on STH and OV. KAP questionnaires will be administered to children at baseline and at follow-up. Indirect impact on parents' KAP of OV and STH will be assessed through focus group discussions at follow-up. The trial is in progress in Lao PDR and Thailand and is expected to commence in Cambodia in January 2024. The results of the study are expected to be available 18 months from the start of recruitment. We hypothesize that participants enrolled in the intervention arm of the study will have higher KAP scores for STH and OV, compared with the participants in the control arm at follow-up. We expect that students will have initial and sustained acceptability of these intervention packages. This trial will examine the acceptability of the "Magic Glasses Opisthorchiasis" and "Magic Glasses Lower Mekong" interventions and provide evidence on the effectiveness of the "Magic Glasses" on KAP related to OV and STH among schoolchildren in the Lower Mekong Basin. Study results will provide insight on acceptability and impact indicators and inform a scaling up protocol for the "Magic Glasses" education packages in Cambodia, Lao PDR, and Thailand. Australian New Zealand Clinical Trials Registry ACTRN12623000271606; https://www.anzctr.org.au/Trial/Registration/TrialReview.aspx?id=385315&isReview=true. DERR1-10.2196/55290.

Cost analysis for “The Magic Glasses Philippines” health education package to prevent intestinal worm infections among Filipino schoolchildren

Soil-transmitted helminth (STH) infections are a significant public health problem affecting over 900 million people globally. Health education has been shown to complement mass drug administration (MDA) for the control of these intestinal worms. We reported recently results of a cluster randomised control trial (RCT) showing the positive impact of the "The Magic Glasses Philippines (MGP)" health education package in reducing STH infections among schoolchildren in intervention schools with ≤15% STH baseline prevalence in Laguna province, the Philippines. To inform decision making on the economic implications of the MGP, we evaluated the in-trial costs and then quantified the costs of scaling up the intervention both regionally and nationally. Costs were determined for the MGP RCT conducted in 40 schools in Laguna province. We estimated the total cost and the costs incurred per student for the actual RCT and the total costs for regional and national scale-up in all schools regardless of STH endemicity. The costs associated with the implementation of standard health education (SHE) activities and mass drug administration (MDA) were determined with a public sector perspective. The cost per participating student in the MGP RCT was Php 58.65 (USD 1.15) but if teachers instead of research staff had been involved, the estimated cost would have been considerably lower at Php 39.45 (USD 0.77). Extrapolating the costs for regional scale-up, the costs per student were estimated to be Php 15.24 (USD 0.30). As it is scaled up at the national level to include more schoolchildren, the estimated cost was increased at Php 17.46 (USD 0.34). In scenario 2 and 3, consistently, labour/salary costs associated with the delivery of the MGP contributed most to overall programme expenditure. Furthermore, the estimated average cost per student for SHE and MDA were Php 117.34 (USD 2.30) and Php 58.17 (USD 1.14), respectively. Using national scale up estimates, the cost of combining the MGP with SHE and MDA was Php 192.97 (USD 3.79). These findings suggest that the integration of MGP into the school curriculum would be an affordable and scalable approach to respond to the continuous burden of STH infection among schoolchildren in the Philippines. National and Medical Research Council, Australia, and the UBS-Optimus Foundation, Switzerland.

Soil-transmitted helminth infections and nutritional indices among Filipino schoolchildren.

BackgroundSoil-transmitted helminth (STH) infections are still prevalent among schoolchildren in the Philippines. We evaluated the risk factors associated with STH and the relationship between STH and nutritional indices among schoolchildren aged 9–10 years in Laguna province, the Philippines.MethodsWe used the baseline data from 40 schools enrolled in a randomised controlled trial of the Magic Glasses Philippines health education package. Data on demographic and socio-economic variables, and STH related knowledge, attitudes and practices, were obtained through a questionnaire. Stool samples were collected and assessed for STH egg presence using the Kato-Katz technique. Haemoglobin levels and height and weight of study participants were also determined. The generalized estimating equations approach was used to construct logistic regression models to assess STH-associated risk factors, and the association between any STH infection and anaemia, child stunting, wasting and being underweight. The trial is registered with the Australian New Zealand Clinical Trials Registry (ACTRN12616000508471).FindingsAmong 1,689 schoolchildren, the prevalence of any STH was 23%. The prevalence of anaemia, stunting, being underweight and wasting was 13%, 20.2%, 19% and 9.5%, respectively. Age, socio-economic status, rural/urban classification of schools and knowledge of STH were significant risk factors for acquiring a STH infection. Moreover, infections with any STH were significantly associated with stunting (P = <0.001) and being underweight (P = <0.003), but not wasting (P = 0.375) or anaemia (P = 0.462) after controlling for confounding covariates.ConclusionThe study findings emphasise the need for sustainable deworming in tandem with other measures such as the provision of health education, improvements in sanitation and hygiene, and nutritional programs in order to control STH infections and improve morbidity outcomes in schoolchildren.Trial registrationAustralian New Zealand Clinical Trials Registry (ACTRN12616000508471).

“The Magic Glasses Philippines”: a cluster randomised controlled trial of a health education package for the prevention of intestinal worm infections in schoolchildren

SummaryBackgroundSoil-transmitted helminths (STH) cause substantial disease and disability globally. Health education has proven complementary to school-based drug administration programs for STH control. We determined the generalizability of the impact of “The Magic Glasses” health education package for STH prevention in schoolchildren in Laguna province, the Philippines, having previously shown its positive impact in China.MethodsWe conducted a cluster-randomised controlled trial, in schoolchildren, aged 9–10 years, across 40 schools over one year. Schools were randomly assigned either to the “Magic Glasses Philippines” health education intervention package (consisting of a cartoon video, classroom discussions, drawing and essay competition) complementing the standard health education activities of the Philippines Departments of Health and Education, or to a control group, which involved only the standard health education activities. The primary trial outcomes were the proportion of STH infected schoolchildren and their knowledge, attitude and behaviour of STH assessed in both groups at baseline and through two follow-up surveys undertaken immediately prior to the semi-annual national mass administration of albendazole. The outcomes between the study arms were compared using generalized estimating equation models, accounting for clustering at the school level. The trial is registered with Australian New Zealand Clinical Trials Registry number: ACTRN12616000508471.FindingsAt follow-up assessments, the mean knowledge and behaviour scores in the intervention group were, respectively, 5·3 (95% confidence interval [CI]:4·2—6·5; p=<0.001) and 1·1 (95% CI: 0·4—1·7; p=0.002) percentage points higher than the control group. There was no overall effect on helminth infections (any STH; adjusted odds ratio [aOR]:1·0; 95% CI: 0·8—1·3; p=0·856), Ascaris lumbricoides; aOR:1·0; 95% CI: 0·7—1·6; p=0·894, or Trichuris trichiura; aOR:1·7; 95% CI: 0·9—1·6; p=0·315) but sub-group analysis showed a 60% reduction in the odds of any STH infection resulting from the “Magic Glasses” intervention in schools with a baseline prevalence ≤15% (aOR: 0·4; 95% CI: 0·2—0·7; p=0·001).InterpretationThe health-education package demonstrated a modest but statistically significant impact on the students’ overall STH knowledge and changes in their behaviour but was only effective in preventing STH infections in intervention schools where the baseline prevalence was ≤15%.FundingNational Health and Medical Research Council, Australia, and the UBS-Optimus Foundation, Switzerland.

Determining the Impact of a School-Based Health Education Package for Prevention of Intestinal Worm Infections in the Philippines: Protocol for a Cluster Randomized Intervention Trial.

BackgroundRepeated mass drug administration (MDA) of antihelminthics to at-risk populations is still the main strategy for the control of soil-transmitted helminth (STH) infections. However, MDA, as a stand-alone intervention, does not prevent reinfection. Accordingly, complementary measures to prevent STH reinfection, such as health education and improved sanitation, as part of an integrated control approach, are required to augment the effectiveness of MDA for optimal efficiency and sustainability.ObjectiveThe aim of this study is to determine the impact and generalizability of a school-based health education package entitled The Magic Glasses for STH prevention in the Philippines.MethodsWe conducted a cluster randomized controlled intervention trial, involving 2020 schoolchildren aged 9-10 years, in 40 schools in Laguna Province, Philippines, to evaluate the impact of the school-based health education package for the prevention of STHs. The trial was conducted over the course of 1 year (June 2016 to July 2017). A total of 20 schools were randomly assigned to the intervention arm, in which The Magic Glasses Philippines health education package was delivered with the standard health education activities endorsed by the Philippines Department of Health (DOH) and the Department of Education (DepEd). The other 20 schools comprised the control arm of the study, where the DOH/DepEd’s standard health education activities were done. At baseline, parasitological assessments and a knowledge, attitude, and practice survey were carried out in all schools. In addition, height, weight, and hemoglobin levels were obtained from each child (after parental consent), and their school attendance and academic performance in English and mathematics were accessed from the school records. The baseline and 2 follow-up surveys were completed using the same study measurements and quality-control assessments.ResultsKey results from this cluster randomized intervention trial will shed light on the impact that The Magic Glasses health education package will have against STH infections in schoolchildren in the province of Laguna, located on the Island of Luzon, in the Calabarzon Region of the Philippines.ConclusionsThe results of the trial will be used to assess the generalizability of the impact of The Magic Glasses health education package in different epidemiological and cultural settings, providing evidence for translation of this health education package into public health policy and practice in the Asian region and beyond.Trial RegistrationAustralian New Zealand Clinical Trials Registry number ACTRN12616000508471; https://www.anzctr.org.au/Trial/Registration/TrialReview.aspx?id=368849International Registered Report Identifier (IRRID)DERR1-10.2196/18419

Magic Glasses: From 2D to 3D

This paper proposes a virtual 3D eyeglasses try-on system driven by a 2D Internet image of a human face wearing with a pair of eyeglasses. The main technical challenge of this system is the automatic 3D eyeglasses model reconstruction from the 2D glasses on a frontal human face. Against this challenge, this paper first proposes an eyeglasses segmentation method using a convolutional neural network-based parsing algorithm to label the glasses pixels, followed with a proposed symmetry-based level-set optimization algorithm to refine the contour of the eyeglasses. With the precisely extracted silhouette image, we take advantages of the smoothness and the symmetry priors of the eyeglasses, and propose a silhouette-based 3D deformation method to deform a 3D eyeglasses model selected from a predefined 3D model database. The obtained model is plausibly approximated to the input 2D eyeglasses after a texture mapping step. Finally, we develop a virtual try-on system to interactively synthesize the reconstructed eyeglasses on a moving target face in real time. The experimental results demonstrate the efficient and convincing virtual try-on performance of our approach and the commercial potential of our proposed system.

VHE BL Lacs through the MAGIC glasses

AbstractIn this contribution an overview of the latest results on the study of BL Lac objects with the MAGIC telescopes at the very high energy (VHE, E&gt;100 GeV) gamma-rays is presented. Three new VHE sources were detected during 2014, two BL Lac objects and the gravitational lensed blazar S3 0218+357. MAGIC detected very fast intra-night variability from IC 310. This detection points to smaller emitting regions than the event horizon, this is hard to be explained in the framework of the current theoretical models. The long term multi wavelength (MWL) study of the BL Lac PKS 1424+240 shows correlation between the radio and optical emission, pointing to a common origin. The MWL SED is not well fitted by a one-zone synchrotron-self Compton (SSC) model, but a two-zone SSC model can explain both, the MWL light curve and the SED. Spectral curvature has been found in the observed VHE spectrum from PG 1553+113. This is the first time that spectral curvature compatible with the EBL absorption is found in an individual object.

Development of an educational cartoon to prevent worm infections in Chinese schoolchildren

BackgroundWith more than two billion people infected worldwide, soil-transmitted helminths (STH) are the most widespread infections. To date, STH control efforts rely predominantly on recurrent mass drug administration (MDA), which does not prevent reinfection. Additional public health measures including novel health educational tools are required for more sustained integrated control of STH. We describe the development of an educational cartoon video (The Magic Glasses) targeting STH infections in Chinese schoolchildren and its pilot testing in China.We applied an extensive community-based mixed methods approach involving input from the target group of 9–10 year old schoolchildren and key informants, such as teachers, doctors and parents, in order to identify potential STH infection risks in the study area and to formulate key messages for the cartoon. The development of the educational cartoon included three major steps: formative research, production, and pilot testing and revision.ResultsWe found that most adults and approximately 50% of the schoolchildren were aware of roundworm (Ascaris) infection, but knowledge of transmission, prevention and treatment of STH was poor. Observations in the study area showed that unhygienic food practices, such as eating raw and unwashed fruit or playing in vegetable gardens previously fertilised with human faeces, posed major STH infection risks.ConclusionsIt was crucial to assess the intellectual, emotional, social and cultural background of the target population prior to video production in order to integrate the key messages of the cartoon into everyday situations. Overall, our strategy for the development of the cartoon and its incorporation into a health education package proved successful, and we provide a summary of recommendations for the development of future educational videos based on our experiences in China.

“Everything comes to an end”: An intuitive rule in physics and mathematics

AbstractThe present research deals with the perception of matter in young children, inquiring if it is perceived as discrete or continuous. It investigates the existence of the intuitive rule “everything can be divided in two” in elementary school children (K‐6) by using questions on the subdivision of mathematical and material objects. In addition, we included questions for studying students' conceptions of the particulate nature of matter, such as drawing of objects seen through “magic glasses” or describing the process of dissolving of sugar in water.The results show that an intuitive rule exists in elementary school children: “everything comes to an end,” meaning that subdivisions must eventually cease. This newly found rule seems to be less frequent as the children mature, parallel to an increase in the appearance of the intuitive rule “everything can be divided in two” and the emergence of the discrete concept of matter. An agglomeration of intuitive rules such as these can probably form the infrastructure for early explanatory frameworks. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Sci Ed 88:594–609, 2004

One Language, Two Tongues: George Fitzmaurice’s Use of Hiberno-English Dialect

ONE LANGUAGE, TWO TONGUES: GEORGE FITZMAURICE’S USE OF HIBERNO-ENGLISH DIALECT DONALD MCNAMARA To grow a second tongue, as harsh a humiliation as twice to be born. Decades later that child’s grandchild’s speech stumbles over lost syllables of an old order. John Montague, “A Grafted Tongue” george fitzmaurice is generally regarded as a talented but neglected playwright whose personal peculiarities kept him from achieving acclaim or even recognition. Many critics lament the fact that Fitzmaurice’s reserved nature, perhaps with roots in his personal history, prevented him from making much effort to promote his work or himself, and to have his plays produced. The tenth of twelve children of a Church of Ireland clergyman and a Catholic peasant woman, Fitzmaurice was suspended between two cultures right from birth. His was a Protestant family in an overwhelmingly Catholic area near Listowel in County Kerry. The tension only increased for the family after the father’s death in 1891, when George was fourteen. Although the family could be considered landed gentry, the widow and children had to leave Bedford House, the ancestral home outside Listowel , for lack of money. Having little formal education and no aptitude for farming, George Fitzmaurice found clerical work first in Cork and then in the civil service in Dublin, where he lived from 1901 until his death in 1963. He never married (nor did any of his siblings), and he had few acquaintances and almost no friends. GEORGE FITZMAURICE’S USE OF HIBERNO-ENGLISH DIALECT 72 Critical consideration of Fitzmaurice’s work often concentrates on the effect of his personality on efforts to see his plays through to production or focuses on the fact that audiences, as well as producers, were not always sure what Fitzmaurice was trying to accomplish. Some of his plays were realistic, such as The Country Dressmaker (1907), the first of his plays to be produced by the Abbey Theatre. Others were fantastic, such as The Dandy Dolls. Still others were a mixture of realism, fantasy, and folklore, such as The Ointment Blue. W.B. Yeats thought The Country Dressmaker was as inflammatory as J.M. Synge’s The Playboy of the Western World, because of Fitzmaurice’s comic depiction of rural Irish characters, and Yeats was quite surprised when Dressmaker drew applause rather than rioting (Hogan 1967:166). One element that tends to be overlooked in the critical evaluation of Fitzmaurice’s oeuvre is his use of Hiberno-English dialect reflecting the speech he would have heard in his native Kerry. Cóilín Owens and Joan Radner, editors of Irish Drama 1900–1980, which includes Fitzmaurice’s one-act tragicomedy The Magic Glasses, argue that Fitzmaurice’s use of idiom was attested as accurate by natives of the Kerry area and that his representation of dialect was more than the “plethora of colloquialisms” that contemporary viewers perceived it to be (Owens and Radner 1990:210–11). Here I argue that the Hiberno-English dialect employed by Fitzmaurice does more than lend verisimilitude to his work: his use of idiom adds thematic depth to his plays and goes a great way toward delivering the impact of his drama. The speech of his characters is an essential part of his writing , enforcing his portrayal of the Gaelic Irish: people trying, mostly unsuccessfully, to negotiate the world in which they find themselves, one over which they have little control, if any, whether they contend with the forces of nature or man. Fitzmaurice’s use of Hiberno-English is as integral to his drama as characterization, setting, or plot. The North Kerry area in which Fitzmaurice grew up had retained the Irish language long after most of the island had been Anglicized, but during his youth it was changing from Irish-speaking to English-speaking.1 The transition forced its inhabitants to deal with a modernized and fastpaced culture while equipped with the cultural modes and language of an older, slower one. In addition, the colonialist attitude, which viewed Irish Gaelic as a barbarous language reflecting social and economic backwardness , combined with a feeling of powerlessness and led to an “unconscious GEORGE FITZMAURICE’S USE OF HIBERNO-ENGLISH DIALECT 73 1 Fitzmaurice...

Herb's Pajamas (review)

both of which overshadow the function of paradox, the real source of poetry's transcendent beauty. For Simic, poetry boils down to two themes: "How strange I should be alive in this very moment. How strange the knowledge that I shall die one day." Such wonderment in the face of the sublime has long been a staple of his poetry yet, as he reveals in these essays, his mysticism is unalloyed by metaphysical speculation, which he deems to be an obstacle to the experience of mystery and awe. (KH) Life Among the Trolls by Maura Stanton Carnegie Mellon University Press, 1998, 86 pp., $11.95 Maura Stanton's fourth book of poems is a beautiful and uneasy examination of what it means tobe a human and a writer. The poems persistently return to realizations of the grotesque underpinnings of art and life. The title poem chronicles the speaker's mutation into one of the trolls that "try to look like humans/ In their wigs and smiling masks/ Hiding their bristly humps,/Their bulbous eyes and horns." The speaker remembers, "Once sponge/ Slipped off a hand I was shaking/ And I felt the hooked claw/Quivering , exposed." The best poems in this collection enact similar transformations , the hand turned to claw, the familiar changed into the foreign. The images that evoke revelations of how monstrous it is to be alive and writing are often grim or violent: a fall in a parking lot that reveals a blood clot, a poetess who is imprisoned and forced to burn her work, the student with a tumor in her chest. These poems juxtapose tales of how the body can fail with stories of how art might also falter. In "Ornaments," a gradeschool child is horrified by the amateurish Christmas ornament she creates: "I held it up, shocked that my eager hands/ Had turned desire for beauty into nothing." And in "Drugstore Trolls," the uncannily "half-human," garishly outfitted troll dolls, which include an artist troll, are "given lives/So like our lives they seem like mockery." Stanton's poems are plain-spoken narratives, but just when they begin to seem too prosy they take startling leaps, as in "Letters from Paradise," in which, describing an exotic landscape , the poet suddenly divulges that "the insects/That seem like butterflies , drifting, gorgeous,/Are really pieces of thehuman mind." This alternation between ambitious imagery and everyday detail mirrors the tension in the collection between the permanence of art and the unreliability of the body. At times, the poems that are overtly about writing become too heavyhanded , as in "Ballad of the Magic Glasses," where the speaker is doomed to wear glasses that allow her to see the ugly truths of the world around her. But for the most part the verse is sure-footed, successfully risktaking . In this beguiling collection, Stanton maps what appears to be familiar territory while gradually revealing its true strangeness. (TH) Herb's Pajamas by Abigail Thomas Algonquin, 1998, 210 pp., $17.95 The Missouri Review · 217 Longtime New Yorker Thomas describes the lives of four of the city's apartment dwellers in this collection of long short stories. Bunny, Edith, Walter, and Belle inhabit the same city block on the Upper West Side and live overlapping lives— walking by the same stores, talking to some of the same people—but never develop relationships with each other despite each person's need for companionship. Thomas' writing relies on small but telling details about each character : Bunny, a fifteen-year-old runaway , carries a small silver button in her pocket that she found on the ground and believes her missing sister left as a clue. Edith buys herself a piece of sexy lingerie, though she is fifty-three and has never seen a man naked. Walter takes comfort in the fact that he can walk through his apartment in the dark and never trip over a piece of furniture. And Belle makes her married lover put on her dead husband's pajamas before going out to smoke a cigarette in the middle of the night. All have lost someone close to them and are trying to fill the void in their own ways: Edith...

Children's perception of emotion and empathic responses.

48 white first grade boys were told the beginning of a cartoon story in which the hero buys a pair of magic glasses with which he can see the invisible Schufloss. One third of the Ss then finished the story when the hero was depicted as feeling either Happy, Fearful, or Neutral. Ss were extremely accurate in identifying the hero's emotional state indicating Ss' social insight. Next Ss were told they could put on a pair of magic glasses and go into a magic forest if they wished to look for the Schufloss. Ss under both emotional conditions reported feeling similar to the hero, suggesring an empathetic response. Finally, the perception of emotion and/or the empathetic response had a significant effect on Ss' subsequent behavior—willingness to enter the forest.

Book Review: Animal-land Children, Or the Contest for the Magic Glasses

Book Review: Animal-land Children, Or the Contest for the Magic Glasses