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BackgroundHearing loss is one of the most common chronic conditions in older adults. In audiology literature, several studies have examined the attitudes and behavior of people with hearing loss; however, not much is known about the manner in which society in general views and perceives hearing loss. This exploratory study was aimed at understanding the social representation of hearing loss (among the general public) in the countries of India, Iran, Portugal, and the UK. We also compared these social representations.Materials and methodsThe study involved a cross-sectional design, and participants were recruited using the snowball sampling method. A total of 404 people from four countries participated in the study. Data were collected using a free-association task where participants were asked to produce up to five words or phrases that came to mind while thinking about hearing loss. In addition, they were also asked to indicate if each word they presented had positive, neutral, or negative associations in their view. Data were analyzed using various qualitative and quantitative methods.ResultsThe most frequently occurring categories were: assessment and management; causes of hearing loss; communication difficulties; disability; hearing ability or disability; hearing instruments; negative mental state; the attitudes of others; and sound and acoustics of the environment. Some categories were reported with similar frequency in most countries (eg, causes of hearing loss, communication difficulties, and negative mental state), whereas others differed among countries. Participants in India reported significantly more positive and fewer negative associations when compared to participants from Iran, Portugal, and the UK. However, there was no statistical difference among neutral responses reported among these countries. Also, more differences were noted among these countries than similarities.ConclusionThese findings provide useful insights into the public perception of hearing loss that may prove useful in public education and counseling.

In this paper, the reservoir characteristics and fluid properties of a reservoir of the Bohai Sea oil field were taken as the research platform. It was confirmed that there exists compatibility between hydrophobically-associating-polymer (HAP) molecular aggregation and pore-throat size. The experiment for oil displacement in heterogeneous cores indicated that there exists applicability of HAP for a heterogeneous reservoir and the applicability can be influenced by polymer concentration. The experiment for oil displacement of parallel cores demonstrated the effect of polymer concentration on the applicability of HAP for reservoir heterogeneity from two aspects of the dynamic behavior of oil displacement and the effectiveness of oil displacement. The results show that with the increase of HAP concentration, the association degree between polymer molecules increases, molecular-clew dimension enlarges, and the compatible size of pore throats of the core increases. The change of HAP concentration not only has an effect on the amount of liquid suctioned by different permeability layers and on the time of profile inversion, but also has an effect on the displacement ability of polymer solution within different layers. As polymer concentration changes, the adaptability of HAP for reservoir heterogeneity changes and the oil-recovery efficiency also changes.