Abernathykeller1135
Globally, geospatial concepts are becoming increasingly important in epidemiological and public health research. Individual level linked population-based data afford researchers with opportunities to undertake complex analyses unrivalled by other sources. However, there are significant challenges associated with using such data for impactful geohealth research. Issues range from extracting, linking and anonymising data, to the translation of findings into policy whilst working to often conflicting agendas of government and academia. Innovative organisational partnerships are therefore central to effective data use. To extend and develop existing collaborations between the institutions, in June 2019, authors from the Leeds Institute for Data Analytics and the Alan Turing Institute, London, visited the Geohealth Laboratory based at the University of Canterbury, New Zealand. This paper provides an overview of insight shared during a two-day workshop considering aspects of linked population-based data for impactful geohealth research. Specifically, we discuss both the collaborative partnership between New Zealand's Ministry of Health (MoH) and the University of Canterbury's GeoHealth Lab and novel infrastructure, and commercial partnerships enabled through the Leeds Institute for Data Analytics and the Alan Turing Institute in the UK. We consider the New Zealand Integrated Data Infrastructure as a case study approach to population-based linked health data and compare similar approaches taken by the UK towards integrated data infrastructures, including the ESRC Big Data Network centres, the UK Biobank, and longitudinal cohorts. We reflect on and compare the geohealth landscapes in New Zealand and the UK to set out recommendations and considerations for this rapidly evolving discipline.
This study examines US popular support for mechanisms that provide early release and "second chances" for individuals serving long-term prison sentences.
An experiment using a national sample of US adults (
=836).
Data showed moderate, consistent levels of general support for using a range of commonly available "second chance" mechanisms that also extended to offenders convicted of both violent and non-violent offenses. Levels of support significantly varied by race, gender, and age. There was significantly more support for using certain mechanisms in response to thetrafficking of serious drugs, which was fully mediated by participants' views on the importance of the cost of incarceration.
Members of the public appear open and supportive to utilizing "second chance" mechanisms in a variety of contexts. Yet the cost of incarceration to taxpayers appears to particularly motivate increased public interest in using such mechanisms for offenders convicted of thetrafficking of serious drugs.
Members of the public appear open and supportive to utilizing "second chance" mechanisms in a variety of contexts. Yet the cost of incarceration to taxpayers appears to particularly motivate increased public interest in using such mechanisms for offenders convicted of the trafficking of serious drugs.Across the world, measures were taken to contain the spreading of the COVID-19 virus. Many of these measures caused a sudden rupture in people's daily routines, thereby eliciting considerable uncertainty and potentially also hampering the satisfaction of individuals' psychological needs for autonomy, relatedness, and competence. Drawing upon Maslow's Hierarchical Need Theory and Self-Determination Theory, this study examined the unique role of felt insecurity and the psychological needs, as well as their dynamic interplay, in the prediction of mental health. A large and heterogeneous sample of adults (N = 5118; Mage = 43.45 years) was collected during the first ten days of the lockdown period in Flanders, Belgium. A subsample (N = 835, Mage = 41.39) participated during a second wave one week later. Hierarchical regression analyses indicated that felt insecurity, need satisfaction and need frustration all independently predicted various positive (life satisfaction, sleep quality) and negative indicators depressive symptoms, anxiety) of mental health, with little systematic evidence for interactions between the predictors. The pattern of findings obtained concurrently largely held in the longitudinal analyses. Finally, results showed that associations between felt insecurity and lower concurrent and prospective mental health were partially mediated by need satisfaction and frustration, with especially psychological need frustration predicting changes in mental health over time. Overall, the findings suggest that satisfaction of the psychological needs for autonomy, competence, and relatedness is not just a 'luxury good'. Satisfaction of these needs is important also in times of insecurity, while need frustration represents a risk factor for maladjustment during such times.
Lae City (LC) of Morobe Province is the second-largest city in Papua New Guinea. Due to the abundant natural resources it inherits, the resultant urbanization has led to an influx of the human population. This increase in population as a result of industrialization has led to increased municipal solid waste (MSW) accumulation. To address this exigent issue, which affects the nation's carbon footprint, it is imperative to review socio-economic and geographic factors to establish a feasible approach for managing MSW efficiently and sustainably. In the quest to achieve the same, the present assessment focuses on the 3 core waste management hierarchy systems to support sustainable development for LC by reviewing existing opportunities and challenges associated with the current MSW management system and the associated policies. The result shows that as a sustainable approach to MSW management of LC, a zero-waste campaign for resource recovery engaging all stakeholders can be implemented since the organic content of MSW generated in LC is as high as 70%. Moreover, the dumping of MSW at the dedicated dumpsite site can be minimized if policies are strengthened and the proposed waste avoidance pathway is implemented strictly. In addition to this, to avoid the contamination of groundwater and recovery of methane, the use of the Fukuoka approach in the existing landfills has been suggested to capture leachate without any huge expenditure.
A standalone electrochemical method for detecting the bacterium Escherichia coli in water was developed using a nickel electrode and no biorecognition element. Electric current responses from different E. coli concentrations were recorded based on their interaction with a locally formed electrocatalyst. A rotating disk electrode was used to minimize the mass transport limitations at the interface. Results from experiments with the rotating disk electrode also paved the way for hypothesizing the detection mechanism. The operating conditions were established for sensing the electric current responses in the presence of E. coli. The least-squares linear regression model was fit to the data obtained from currents of some known E. coli concentrations. This probe had a detection limit in the order of 104 CFU/ml. The response time to detect the presence/absence of E. coli was less than half a second, while the total assay time, including quantification of its concentration, was 10 min. The electric current response from a solution mixed with E. coli and S. aureus showed current similar to E. coli only solution indicating the specificity of the sensor to respond to signals from E. MK 733 coli. This electrochemical microbial sensor's uniqueness lies in its ability to rapidly detect E. coli by forming the catalyst locally on demand without the attachment of biorecognition elements.The COVID-19 pandemic has forced governments worldwide to impose movement restrictions on their citizens. Although critical to reducing the virus' reproduction rate, these restrictions come with far-reaching social and economic consequences. In this paper, we investigate the impact of these restrictions on an individual level among software engineers who were working from home. Although software professionals are accustomed to working with digital tools, but not all of them remotely, in their day-to-day work, the abrupt and enforced work-from-home context has resulted in an unprecedented scenario for the software engineering community. In a two-wave longitudinal study (N = 192), we covered over 50 psychological, social, situational, and physiological factors that have previously been associated with well-being or productivity. Examples include anxiety, distractions, coping strategies, psychological and physical needs, office set-up, stress, and work motivation. This design allowed us to identify the variables that explained unique variance in well-being and productivity. Results include (1) the quality of social contacts predicted positively, and stress predicted an individual's well-being negatively when controlling for other variables consistently across both waves; (2) boredom and distractions predicted productivity negatively; (3) productivity was less strongly associated with all predictor variables at time two compared to time one, suggesting that software engineers adapted to the lockdown situation over time; and (4) longitudinal analyses did not provide evidence that any predictor variable causal explained variance in well-being and productivity. Overall, we conclude that working from home was per se not a significant challenge for software engineers. Finally, our study can assess the effectiveness of current work-from-home and general well-being and productivity support guidelines and provides tailored insights for software professionals.The article presents selected aspects of the empirical qualitative research conducted by the authors at the end of the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic in Poland, in July and August 2020. As in March 2020 SARS-CoV-2 virus started to spread, the Polish Ministry of Education decided to close nearly all educational institutions, and teachers were forced to carry out lessons using the means of distance education. The authors of this paper tried to establish how teachers of English as a second language (ESL) working with young learners in three different types of institutions (public and private (pre-primary and primary) schools, language schools) coped with the situation of teaching a foreign language under these unusual circumstances. One of the results showed that teachers in three types of settings received different support. This either helped them to cope with the new situation of remote teaching, e.g. by choosing a platform for online teaching or providing meetings with a methodologist (private settings and language schools) or caused more confusion by leaving the decisions to the teachers (public settings). The findings of the study may contribute to the knowledge of remote education development and implementation of new technologies in teaching English to young learners, which may result in better quality language education in the future.To date, coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) continues to be considered a pandemic worldwide, with a mild to severe disease presentation that is sometimes associated with serious complications that are concerning to global health authorities. Scientists are working hard to understand the pathogenicity of this novel virus, and a great deal of attention and effort has been focused on identifying therapeutics and vaccines to control this pandemic.
This study used tonsils removed from twelve patients who underwent an elective tonsillectomy in the ear, nose, and throat (ENT) department at Saudi Germany Hospital, Madinah, Saudi Arabia. Tonsillar mononuclear cells (MNCs) were separated and co-cultured in RPMI complete medium in the presence and absence of viral spike (S) proteins (the full-length S, S1 subunit, and S2 subunit proteins). Enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) was used to measure secreted antibody concentrations following stimulation.
The
human nasal-associated lymphoid tissue (NALT) cell culture model was successfully used to evaluate the humoral immune response against SARS-CoV-2- S protein.