Chemical Engineering ULiège & CRM Group - FNRS
" The Chemical Engineering Department of the Faculty of Applied Sciences of the University of Liège has been producing protective visors by 3D printing since April 4 and provides various hospital services (CHU, Citadelle, Bois de l'Abbaye), rest homes, associations and health care practices. A team of members of the Department has been set up to ensure 24-hour production, which means that up to 90 visors can now be produced per day depending on demand. As the days go by, production optimization continues to lighten components, produce faster and reduce the amount of raw material needed. The Department also receives visor supports produced by 3D printing by people from the Metallurgical Research Centre (CRM), a privileged partner of the Faculty, in order to equip them with plastic sheets to produce visors. This equipment is then distributed with the rest of the production from Chemical Engineering. The milestone of 1000 visors...

Read more: Jérôme Schruyers, Researcher - Alexandre Léonard, Research logistician - Carlos Mendoza, Postdoc -...

Hôpital Erasme - ULB
" Background: In the Covid-19 pandemic context, all healthcare teams face clinical, organizational and technical challenges given the contagion, severity and mortality characteristics of the disease. Methods: A cross-sectional multicentric study (NCT04344145) aiming to compare levels of burnout, emotional distress and needs between frontline Covid-19 and non-Covid-19 healthcare workers has been conducted between April 16th and May 25th. Physicians, nurses and physiotherapists were recruited from emergency care units and Covid-19 care units (target group) and from non-Covid-19 care units (control group) from Erasme Hospital, Jolimont-Lobbes Hospital and Mons-Warquignies Hospital (N = 603). Participants completed self-reported questionnaires and scales. A mixed-mode data collection was carried out, either in paper form or web-based form. Assessment provided socio-demographic characteristics and professional information. It also measured professional fulfillment and...

Read more: Julien Tiete, Dr

UMONS
" The UMONS Health Research Institute, on the initiative of Justine Gaugue, Laurence Ris and Mandy Rossignol, in collaboration with the MUMONS, have set up a user-friendly and pleasant website (www.home-stress-home.com) for children and young people, containing information, resources and a link to an online survey to assess anxiety levels. The data will be collected for research purposes to better understand the development of anxiety disorders in often neglected populations: the children and the young adults in school or early working life. This interface, based on the results of the survey, will make it possible to provide personalized feedback to the user, in order to direct him/her towards relaxation strategies or specialists if the level of anxiety measured is very high. Other surveys and tools will be added later on to allow longitudinal monitoring of the impact on mental and physical health of the stress generated by the current crisis. The objective is to develop this...

Read more: Justine Gaugue, Professor, Laurence Ris, Professor - Mandy Rossignol, Professor

ULB
" CliPeDia is a website that makes science and mathematics lessons available free of charge to secondary school students. The project is led by Marc Haelterman, professor at the Brussels Polytechnic (ULB) as part of research in techno-pedagogy. Upon the announcement of the confinement, a communication campaign (Facebook and radio and TV press) was launched to invite students and their teachers to use CliPeDia as a course medium in the implementation of their distance courses. The result of this campaign has been remarkable in that, since the beginning of the containment measures, CliPeDia's audience has doubled. In just a few days, it actually went from 5,000 to more than 10,000 views per day. In the difficult learning conditions imposed by confinement, CliPeDia thus appears as a useful teaching tool for high school students and their teachers. "
Contact: Prof. Marc Haelterman Ecole polytechnique de Bruxelles, ULB Service OPERA-Photonique, CP 194/5 tél. 02 650 28 21 e-mail...

Read more: Marc Haelterman, Professor

UCLouvain, UNamur
" The measures that governments have taken in response to the current COVID-19 outbreak differ substantially across countries. On the initiative of the Erasmus University Rotterdam, researchers of twelve universities worldwide have been working together to study the response to these measures. Data has been collected of the self-reported behaviour and perception of students related to the COVID-19 measures. How important do they think the Covid-19 measures are, how serious do they take the measures, and to which degree do they follow or violate them? Furthermore, the relationship with perceived risk of COVID-19 and several personality traits will be studied. The success of the approach of governments is entirely dependent on the compliance of the population with the prescribed measures. Therefore, gaining insight in the determinants of compliance is important. The study will improve our understanding of behaviour in times of crisis and advance the development of...

Read more: Marcus Dejardin, Professor - Frank Janssen, Professor

ULB (centre ACTE) et Fondation SUSA Mons
Confinement lié au Covid-19 : le vécu de la famille et de l'enfant avec autisme." For almost two months, Belgian families have been confined at home because of the Covid-19 pandemic. This lockdown dramatically changed the daily life of families, especially those living with an autistic child, because social life and relationships are at the very heart of the autistic functioning. In some cases, changing daily habits and routines, closing of schools, stopping interventions and outdoor activities led to an increase of behavioral disorders and significantly impaired the quality of life of autistic people and their family. But, on the other hand, some families report an improvement of their child’s behavior, potentially due to a decrease of usual social demands. In order to understand how families with an autistic child dealt during this lockdown period, we conducted an on-line survey. To date, more than 250 French-speaking Belgian families...

Read more: Marielle WEYLAND, Speech Therapist, PhD Student.

ULiège + Mesylab SRL
" How to securely return to normalcy at work? All countries consider to lift the lockdown, but few have executed it. There are no "best practices". Questions abound: What are the risks? What are the most effective measures? Will communities follow? What are the consequences for our individual lives? Who decides how to proceed? AIMS OF THE PROJECT GIGA aims at defining the best possible approach to opening up again by involving its members. Your opinion matters. GIGA has sought assistance in conducting this real time experiment from political scientists, philosophers, lawyers and medical doctors. "
Contact: This project is supported by the GIGA office and is coordinated by the ad hoc Advisory Committee made up of expert political scientists in participation (Dr. F. Thoreau, Dr. C. Parotte, Dr. P. Delvenne, Dr. C. Fallon), a political and ethicist philosopher (Dr. F. Caeymaex) and doctors (Dr. Y. Beguin, Dr. G. Darcis).

UCLouvain - Royal Academy of Sciences, Letters and Fine Arts of Belgium
" International research project about the environmental/personal/family/economic factors influencing the risk of parental burnout during the COVID-19 crisis. Link to the Belgian French-speaking version version: https://uclpsychology.co1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_02LE6m47hjSYtr7 Creation of a hotline to help parents cope with their children and work during the COVID-19 crisis (SOS Parents: 0471/414.333) Project made possible thanks to the gracious help of 42 volunteering psychologists. Participation as expert in the media (written press, radio, TV). "
Funding: No funding
Contact: Hotline: SOS Parents (0471/414.333) Website: Advice to prevent parental burnout during the crisis: https://www.burnoutparental.com/ 

UCLouvain/Cliniques universitaires Saint-Luc 
" COVID-19 pandemic has an important impact on the health care provided by the anesthesiologists. Different societies of anesthesiology have provided guidelines and recommendations on how to manage patients who have been tested positive for COVID-19 or suspected to be infected. It is therefore important to know whether these guidelines have been implemented or were possible to be implemented. Otherwise patients who are presenting COVID-19 often show pulmonary complications. The airway management and the ventilation management of these patients can be therefore challenging and can possibly influence their outcome. It is thus important to obtain a large database with information about the characteristics of these patients, how these patients have been managed and their in-hospital outcome. Information regarding the correct implementation of guidelines is as well necessary for future guidance of health care providers. "
Funding: None
Contact...

Read more: Mona Momeni, MD, PhD

UNamur - Royal Academy of Sciences, Letters and Fine Arts of Belgium
" Vivre le confinement "
Funding: La recherche comporte deux phases successives. La première repose sur un questionnaire tout public comprenant quelques questions fermées et une question ouverte permettant aux répondants d'exprimer leurs ressentis du confinement. Une seconde phase par entretiens semi-directifs est envisagée en fonction des résultats de la phase 1.
Contact: https://www.unamur.be/coronavirus/enquetes https://survey.unamur.be/index.php/462198?lang=fr  
Comment: A ce jour, plus de 400 réponses ont été enregistrées.

USL-B 
" In the 4-year long research project "Fighting students' failure high rate - rethinking pedagogical relations", we explore and monitor i.a. the working and living conditions of university students, through qualitative and quantitative research tools. Particular attention is paid to the Covid's consequences on students' behavior and studying abilities. "
Funding: Université Saint-Louis - bruxelles
Contact: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

LHUB-ULB - Royal Academy of Medicine of Belgium
" "The purpose of this study is to map the healthcare workers exposure risk in Saint-Pierre University Hospital by combining molecular methods with serological assays. In summary, the short-term objective is threefold: (1) Provide an estimate of the sero-prevalence at baseline among high-risk health care workers (2) Determine prospectively the incidence of new SARS-CoV-2 infections among high-risk health care workers (3) Estimate the healthcare worker exposure to the virus by serological data to help our five partner hospitals in their day-to-day management of the ongoing pandemic The mid-term objectives are: (1) Establish an accurate mapping of the spread of the virus among our population allowing to identify the chain of transmission, (2) Identify predictive immunological markers of susceptibility to infection and disease severity to inform vaccine strategies and, (3) Establish solid diagnosis algorithm that will help adequate lockdown...

Read more: O. Vandenberg, Pr. - N. Clumeck, Pr. - C. Montesinos, Pr. - N. Dauby, MD, PhD - C. Gilles, MD - C....

UMONS 
" On the basis of the official figures published by the national crisis committee, Olivier Debauche ("Computing, Software and Artificial Intelligence" department, Faculty Poytechnique, UMONS) has published a graph every day (Facebook, LinkedIn, etc.) which shows the evolution of the pandemic situation in Belgium by means of GeoAI. The goal is to show graphs and especially to explain why and how the curves evolve. "
Publication References: https://covid.engineering
Contact: Olivier DEBAUCHE UMons / Faculty of Engineering Infortech / ILIA Unit rue de Houdain 9 B-7000 Mons Belgium Phone: +32 65 37 40 59
Comment: Member of the consortium "covid-19 Mathematical Modelisation"

UCLouvain - FNRS
" We investigated the respective role of socio-demographic, cognitive, and emotional factors that can facilitate or impair three health behaviors recommended to limit the spreading of the covid19 pandemic (hand-washing, limitation of public transports' use and limitation of social contacts) "
Funding: No funding
Publication References: summary to be published in special issue of LouvainMedical Full report to be submitted in health psychology journal
Contact: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

ULiège. ULiège Library
" In order to highlight the Open Access research published by our scholars, ULiège Library has launched a harvesting project (called "Mosa") of existing Belgian and Luxembourgish Open Access publication platforms and academic bibliographies. Mosa aims to act as an aggregator of institutional and federal publication platforms. At this time, Mosa harvests more than 10 repositories from KCE, KU Leuven, UAntwerp, UCLouvain, UGent, ULB, ULiège, UNamur, Unilu, and USL-B on a daily basis. To get integrated into Mosa, harvested records need to have at least one full text in open access or in restricted access. Mosa contains more than 590,000 records (327,000 research articles, 66,000 proceedings, 47,000 dissertations, 40,000 lectures and posters, 35,000 book chapters…). A dedicated search slot containing only Belgian and Luxembourgish research publications and communications around COVID-19 has been created within Mosa. "
Contact: Paul Thirion &lt...

Read more: Paul Thirion, Chief Librarian - François Renaville, Head of Library Systems