scholarly journals Development and Actionability of the Dutch COVID-19 Dashboard: Descriptive Assessment and Expert Appraisal Study (Preprint)

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Véronique L L C Bos ◽  
Tessa Jansen ◽  
Niek S Klazinga ◽  
Dionne S Kringos
Keyword(s):  
Socioeconomic Status ◽  
Health System ◽  
General Public ◽  
Target Audience ◽  
Public Understanding ◽  
Fitness For Purpose ◽  
Dutch Health ◽  
The Right ◽  
Over Time ◽  
Epidemiological Information

BACKGROUND Web-based public reporting by means of dashboards has become an essential tool for governments worldwide to monitor COVID-19 information and communicate it to the public. The actionability of such dashboards is determined by their fitness for purpose—meeting a specific information need—and fitness for use—placing the right information into the right hands at the right time and in a manner that can be understood. OBJECTIVE The aim of this study was to identify specific areas where the actionability of the Dutch government’s COVID-19 dashboard could be improved, with the ultimate goal of enhancing public understanding of the pandemic. METHODS The study was conducted from February 2020 to April 2021. A mixed methods approach was carried out, using (1) a descriptive checklist over time to monitor changes made to the dashboard, (2) an actionability scoring of the dashboard to pinpoint areas for improvement, and (3) a reflection meeting with the dashboard development team to contextualize findings and discuss areas for improvement. RESULTS The dashboard predominantly showed epidemiological information on COVID-19. It had been developed and adapted by adding more in-depth indicators, more geographic disaggregation options, and new indicator themes. It also changed in target audience from policy makers to the general public; thus, a homepage was added with the most important information, using news-like items to explain the provided indicators and conducting research to enhance public understanding of the dashboard. However, disaggregation options such as sex, socioeconomic status, and ethnicity and indicators on dual-track health system management and social and economic impact that have proven to give important insights in other countries are missing from the Dutch COVID-19 dashboard, limiting its actionability. CONCLUSIONS The Dutch COVID-19 dashboard developed over time its fitness for purpose and use in terms of providing epidemiological information to the general public as a target audience. However, to strengthen the Dutch health system’s ability to cope with upcoming phases of the COVID-19 pandemic or future public health emergencies, we advise (1) establishing timely indicators relating to health system capacity, (2) including relevant data disaggregation options (eg, sex, socioeconomic status), and (3) enabling interoperability between social, health, and economic data sources.

OSNs as Cyberterrorist Weapons Against the General Public

2019 ◽  
pp. 265-279
Author(s):  
Nicholas Ayres ◽  
Leandros Maglaras ◽  
Helge Janicke
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Current Literature ◽  
General Public ◽  
Target Audience ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Terrorist Acts ◽  
National Infrastructure ◽  
Over Time

Conventional terrorism has been around for hundreds of years and even though its tactics and the weapons of choice have evolved over time as well as the use and deployment of weapons may have changed the root definition of terrorism has remained relatively untouched. With the advent of mass computing, cybercrime has increased year on year. This chapter will look at three differing viewpoints of cyberterrorism and its ultimate effects on society. Many industry and academic experts warn that it is only a matter of time before conventional terrorist acts will migrate to the digital arena in the form of cyberterrorism. Current literature suggests that a countries critical national infrastructure will be the main focus of attack for the cyberterrorist but this chapter will address another possible target for the cyberterrorist using a different type of cyber weapon: a mimetic virus. This chapter also looks at how a mimetic virus could use social media to spread throughout the target audience using what is known as Internet memes.

OSNs as Cyberterrorist Weapons against the General Public

2017 ◽  
pp. 179-197
Author(s):  
Nicholas Ayres ◽  
Leandros Maglaras ◽  
Helge Janicke
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Current Literature ◽  
General Public ◽  
Target Audience ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Terrorist Acts ◽  
National Infrastructure ◽  
Over Time

Conventional terrorism has been around for hundreds of years and even though its tactics and the weapons of choice have evolved over time as well as the use and deployment of weapons may have changed the root definition of terrorism has remained relatively untouched. With the advent of mass computing, cybercrime has increased year on year. This chapter will look at three differing viewpoints of cyberterrorism and its ultimate effects on society. Many industry and academic experts warn that it is only a matter of time before conventional terrorist acts will migrate to the digital arena in the form of cyberterrorism. Current literature suggests that a countries critical national infrastructure will be the main focus of attack for the cyberterrorist but this chapter will address another possible target for the cyberterrorist using a different type of cyber weapon: a mimetic virus. This chapter also looks at how a mimetic virus could use social media to spread throughout the target audience using what is known as Internet memes.

France around 1968

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Félix Krawatzek
Keyword(s):  
Young People ◽  
Political Mobilization ◽  
Democratic Consolidation ◽  
Public Understanding ◽  
The Political ◽  
International Context ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Right ◽  
Political Groups ◽  
Over Time

The democratic consolidation in France around 1968 introduces variation into the comparative regime setting. The chapter discusses the historical and international context of that mobilization which over time has turned into the global symbol of youth revolt. The analysis highlights the links between the political mobilization of differing political groups of young people and the changing discursive contexts. In particular, it emphasizes the mobilizing impact of events abroad for changing the public understanding of youth. Youth mobilization was also closely linked to competing future imaginaries and alternative visions of the French past. However, youth mobilization failed to develop a coherent and unified vision for the country and many of the issues brought forward failed to gain traction in wider society. Therefore, youth revolt could be portrayed as being confined to youth which contributed to the possibility of the Right to triumph in the elections that followed.

scholarly journals Health needs: a temporary analysis of the social representations of the concept

2020 ◽  
Vol 30 (Supplement_5) ◽  
Author(s):  
M Winckler ◽  
F Zioni ◽  
G Johson
Keyword(s):  
Political Participation ◽  
Health System ◽  
Social Representations ◽  
Public Policies ◽  
Civil Society Organizations ◽  
Health Needs ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Right ◽  
Brazilian Health System ◽  
Universal Health

Abstract Background This study aims to analyse the social representations of health needs in a Brazilian municipality, questioning the capacity that public policies developed and implemented by the Brazilian Health System (SUS) had to meet these needs. Methods Qualitative case study in which the data were analysed by: 1) the Health Needs Taxonomy (Matsumoto, 1999), as an instrument for assessing health needs, formatting the interview guide and organizing the empirical data; 2) the Theory of Social Representations (Jovchelovitch, 2000), to capture health needs; 3) Content Analysis (Bardin, 2004), as an instrument of analysis and comparison of perceived needs. The methodological path used was the same in the two moments in which this research is based (2009 and 2016). The entire municipal territory was analyzed and 26 representatives of civil society organizations were interviewed. Results Based on the results given, we state that health is a permanent and timeless need, but the mediations for its satisfaction have changed historically. The interface between quantitative indicators and subjectivity in assessing needs reveals the authoritarian architecture of its decision-making process, which has ruined the necessary democracy for prioritising and meeting those needs. The asymmetrical relationships present in the Brazilian society have both undermined the collective character of health needs and promoted the distance between who care and who are cared for. Most of the priorities listed by the interviewees in 2009 remain composing the social context of the municipality in 2016. Conclusions The challenges for comprehensive health care remain critical given both the decrease in popular political participation and in institutional spaces, which leads to the annulment of the right to a universal health. Interdisciplinary and participatory diagnostics remain essential to understand the complexity of social changes and the challenges for the consolidation of meeting health needs. Key messages The capacity that public policies developed and implemented by the Brazilian Health System (SUS) had to meet these needs. The challenges for meeting health needs remain critical given both the decrease in political participation and in institutional spaces, which leads to the annulment of the right to a universal health.

Improvement in prefrontal thalamic connectivity during the early course of the illness in recent-onset psychosis: a 12-month longitudinal follow-up resting-state fMRI study

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-9
Author(s):  
Daniel Bergé ◽  
Tyler A. Lesh ◽  
Jason Smucny ◽  
Cameron S. Carter
Keyword(s):  
Resting State ◽  
Resting State Fmri ◽  
Functional Changes ◽  
Recent Onset ◽  
Fmri Study ◽  
Clinical Meaning ◽  
Mixed Pattern ◽  
The Right ◽  
Over Time

Abstract Background Previous research in resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (rs-fMRI) has shown a mixed pattern of disrupted thalamocortical connectivity in psychosis. The clinical meaning of these findings and their stability over time remains unclear. We aimed to study thalamocortical connectivity longitudinally over a 1-year period in participants with recent-onset psychosis. Methods To this purpose, 129 individuals with recent-onset psychosis and 87 controls were clinically evaluated and scanned using rs-fMRI. Among them, 43 patients and 40 controls were re-scanned and re-evaluated 12 months later. Functional connectivity between the thalamus and the rest of the brain was calculated using a seed to voxel approach, and then compared between groups and correlated with clinical features cross-sectionally and longitudinally. Results At baseline, participants with recent-onset psychosis showed increased connectivity (compared to controls) between the thalamus and somatosensory and temporal regions (k = 653, T = 5.712), as well as decreased connectivity between the thalamus and left cerebellum and right prefrontal cortex (PFC; k = 201, T = −4.700). Longitudinal analyses revealed increased connectivity over time in recent-onset psychosis (relative to controls) in the right middle frontal gyrus. Conclusions Our results support the concept of abnormal thalamic connectivity as a core feature in psychosis. In agreement with a non-degenerative model of illness in which functional changes occur early in development and do not deteriorate over time, no evidence of progressive deterioration of connectivity during early psychosis was observed. Indeed, regionally increased connectivity between thalamus and PFC was observed.

scholarly journals The impact of quarantine on Covid-19 infections

2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (s1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Pablo Marshall
Keyword(s):  
Health System ◽  
Infection Rate ◽  
District Level ◽  
Infection Model ◽  
Social Distancing ◽  
Proposed Model ◽  
Lower Infection ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Lower Infection Rate ◽  
Over Time

Abstract Objectives: Coronavirushas had profound effects on people’s lives and the economy of many countries, generating controversy between the need to establish quarantines and other social distancing measures to protect people’s health and the need to reactivate the economy. This study proposes and applies a modification of the SIR infection model to describe the evolution of coronavirus infections and to measure the effect of quarantine on the number of people infected. Methods: Two hypotheses, not necessarily mutually exclusive, are proposed for the impact of quarantines. According to the first hypothesis, quarantine reduces the infection rate, delaying new infections over time without modifying the total number of people infected at the end of the wave. The second hypothesis establishes that quarantine reduces the population infected in the wave. The two hypotheses are tested with data for a sample of 10 districts in Santiago, Chile. Results: The results of applying the methodology show that the proposed model describes well the evolution of infections at the district level. The data shows evidence in favor of the first hypothesis, quarantine reduces the infection rate; and not in favor of the second hypothesis, that quarantine reduces the population infected. Districts of higher socio-economic levels have a lower infection rate, and quarantine is more effective. Conclusions: Quarantine, in most districts, does not reduce the total number of people infected in the wave; it only reduces the rate at which they are infected. The reduction in the infection rate avoids peaks that may collapse the health system.

scholarly journals Radiation-Induced Metabolic Shifts in the Hepatic Parenchyma: Findings from 18F-FDG PET Imaging and Tissue NMR Metabolomics in a Mouse Model for Hepatocellular Carcinoma

Molecules ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 26 (9) ◽  
pp. 2573
Author(s):  
Yi-Hsiu Chung ◽  
Cheng-Kun Tsai ◽  
Ching-Fang Yu ◽  
Wan-Ling Wang ◽  
Chung-Lin Yang ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Fdg Pet ◽  
Liver Parenchyma ◽  
Metabolic Alterations ◽  
Nmr Metabolomics ◽  
Post Irradiation ◽  
The Third ◽  
Radiation Induced ◽  
18F Fdg ◽  
The Right ◽  
Over Time

Purpose: By taking advantage of 18F-FDG PET imaging and tissue nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) metabolomics, we examined the dynamic metabolic alterations induced by liver irradiation in a mouse model for hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). Methods: After orthotopic implantation with the mouse liver cancer BNL cells in the right hepatic lobe, animals were divided into two experimental groups. The first received irradiation (RT) at 15 Gy, while the second (no-RT) did not. Intergroup comparisons over time were performed, in terms of 18F-FDG PET findings, NMR metabolomics results, and the expression of genes involved in inflammation and glucose metabolism. Results: As of day one post-irradiation, mice in the RT group showed an increased 18F-FDG uptake in the right liver parenchyma compared with the no-RT group. However, the difference reached statistical significance only on the third post-irradiation day. NMR metabolomics revealed that glucose concentrations peaked on day one post-irradiation both, in the right and left lobes—the latter reflecting a bystander effect. Increased pyruvate and glutamate levels were also evident in the right liver on the third post-irradiation day. The expression levels of the glucose-6-phosphatase (G6PC) and fructose-1, 6-bisphosphatase 1 (FBP1) genes were down-regulated on the first and third post-irradiation days, respectively. Therefore, liver irradiation was associated with a metabolic shift from an impaired gluconeogenesis to an enhanced glycolysis from the first to the third post-irradiation day. Conclusion: Radiation-induced metabolic alterations in the liver parenchyma occur as early as the first post-irradiation day and show dynamic changes over time.

The Dutch health system in 2019: Many major reforms, but still work in progress

Health Policy ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 123 (3) ◽  
pp. 249-251 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patrick Jeurissen ◽  
Ewout van Ginneken
Keyword(s):  
Health System ◽  
Work In Progress ◽  
Dutch Health

Explaining the Epigraphic Habit in the Roman Empire: The Evidence of Epitaphs

1990 ◽  
Vol 80 ◽  
pp. 74-96 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elizabeth A. Meyer
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
North Africa ◽  
Legal Status ◽  
The Third ◽  
The Right ◽  
Political Economic ◽  
Over Time

It is now notorious that the production of inscriptions in the Roman Empire was not constant over time, but rose over the first and second centuries A.D. and fell in the third. Ramsay MacMullen pointed this out more than five years ago, with conclusions more cautionary than explanatory: ‘history is not being written in the right way’, he said, for historians have deduced Rome's decline from evidence that–since it appears only epigraphically–has merely disappeared for its own reasons, or have sought general explanations of decline in theories political, economic, or even demographic in nature, none of which can, in turn, explain the disappearance of epigraphy itself. Why this epigraphic habit rose and fell MacMullen left open to question, although he did postulate control by a ‘sense of audience’. The purpose of this paper is to propose that this ‘sense of audience’ was not generalized or generic, but depended on a belief in the value of romanization, of which (as noted but not explained by MacMullen's article) the epigraphic habit is also a rough indicator. Epitaphs constitute the bulk of all provincial inscriptions and in form and number are (generally speaking) the consequence of a provincial imitation of characteristically Roman practices, an imitation that depended on the belief that Roman legal status and style were important, and that may indeed have ultimately depended, at least in North Africa, on the acquisition or prior possession of that status. Such status-based motivations for erecting an epitaph help to explain not only the chronological distribution of epitaphs but also the differences in the type and distribution of epitaphs in the western and eastern halves of the empire. They will be used here moreover to suggest an explanation for the epigraphic habit as a whole.

Self-Esteem and Socioeconomic Status: A Meta-Analytic Review

2002 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 59-71 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jean M. Twenge ◽  
W. Keith Campbell
Keyword(s):  
Socioeconomic Status ◽  
Young Adulthood ◽  
Asian Americans ◽  
Effect Size ◽  
Social Indicator ◽  
Middle Age ◽  
Meta Analysis ◽  
Self Esteem ◽  
Analytic Review ◽  
Over Time

Socioeconomic status (SES) has a small but significantrelationship with self-esteem (d = .15, r = .08) in a meta-analysis of 446 samples (total participant N = 312,940). Higher SES individuals report higher self-esteem. The effect size is very small in young children, increases substantially during young adulthood, continues higher until middle age, and is then smaller for adults over the age of 60. Gender interacts with birth cohort: The effect size increased over time for women but decreased over time for men. Asians and Asian Americans show a higher effect size, and occupation and education produce higher correlations with self-esteem than income does. The results are most consistent with a social indicator or salience model.

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