Faces of the Aftermath of Visible & Invisible Violence & Loss: Radical Resiliency of Justice & Healing

As a victim/cosurvivor, my experiences with the criminal justice system have called me to confront hard truths and the brutal facts of coming to terms with death, life, meaning, responsibility, and healing in innumerable ways. The real and tangible balance as a practitioner, victim, and healer are oftentimes disconnected from theory, practice, and life and death experiences. What does it mean to be human in the processes of restoration and reconciliation while hosting complexities, contradictions, and complacencies that all too often reduce victims/cosurvivors to being forgotten, dismissed, and neglected within the criminal justice system? Why do communities of people who long for and deserve trauma-informed interconnectedness, restoration, healing, and reconciliation continue to suffer from the absence of them? My multidimensional perspective as a victim and advocate grapples with my role as a practitioner as it relates to bodies of evidence, theories, best practices, and justice policies.

Data combination method in Remote Sensing tasks in case of conflicting information sources

Nowadays technologies of UAV-based Remote Sensing are used in different areas, such as: ecological monitoring, agriculture tasks, exploring for minerals, oil and gas, forest monitoring and warfare. Drones provide information more rapidly than piloted aerial vehicles and give images of a very high resolution, sufficiently low cost and high precision.Let’s note, that processing of conflicting information is the most important task in remote sensing. Dempster’s rule of data combination is widely used in solution of different remote sensing tasks, because it can processes incomplete and vague information. However, Dempster’s rule has some disadvantage, it can not deal with highly conflicted data. This rule of data combination yields wrong results, when bodies of evidence highly conflict with each other. That’s why it was proposed a data combination method in UAV-based Remote Sensing. This method has several important advantages: simple calculation and high accuracy. In this paper data combination method based on application of Jaccard coefficient and Dempster’s rule of combination is proposed. The described method can deal with conflicting sources of information. This data combination method based on application of evidence theory and Jaccard coefficient takes into consideration the associative relationship of the evidences and can efficiently handle highly conflicting sources of data (spectral bands).The frequency approach to determine basic probability assignment and formula to determine Jaccard coefficient are described in this paper too. Jaccard coefficient is defined as the size of the intersection divided by the size of the union of the sample sets. Jaccard coefficient measures similarity between finite sets. Some numerical examples of calculation of Jaccard coefficient and basic probability assignments are considered in this work too.This data combination method based on application of Jaccard coefficient and Dempster’s rule of combination can be applied in exploring for minerals, different agricultural, practical and ecological tasks.

Evaluating agreement between bodies of evidence from randomised controlled trials and cohort studies in nutrition research: meta-epidemiological study

Objective To evaluate the agreement between diet-disease effect estimates of bodies of evidence from randomised controlled trials and those from cohort studies in nutrition research, and to investigate potential factors for disagreement. Design Meta-epidemiological study. Data sources Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, and Medline. Review methods Population, intervention or exposure, comparator, outcome (PI/ECO) elements from a body of evidence from cohort studies (BoE(CS)) were matched with corresponding elements of a body of evidence from randomised controlled trials (BoE(RCT)). Pooled ratio of risk ratios or difference of mean differences across all diet-disease outcome pairs were calculated. Subgroup analyses were conducted to explore factors for disagreement. Heterogeneity was assessed through I 2 and τ 2 . Prediction intervals were calculated to assess the range of possible values for the difference in the results between evidence from randomised controlled trials and evidence from cohort studies in future comparisons. Results 97 diet-disease outcome pairs (that is, matched BoE(RCT) and BoE(CS)) were identified overall. For binary outcomes, the pooled ratio of risk ratios comparing estimates from BoE(RCT) with BoE(CS) was 1.09 (95% confidence interval 1.04 to 1.14; I 2 =68%; τ 2 =0.021; 95% prediction interval 0.81 to 1.46). The prediction interval indicated that the difference could be much more substantial, in either direction. We further explored heterogeneity and found that PI/ECO dissimilarities, especially for the comparisons of dietary supplements in randomised controlled trials and nutrient status in cohort studies, explained most of the differences. When the type of intake or exposure between both types of evidence was identical, the estimates were similar. For continuous outcomes, small differences were observed between randomised controlled trials and cohort studies. Conclusion On average, the difference in pooled results between estimates from BoE(RCT) and BoE(CS) was small. But wide prediction intervals and some substantial statistical heterogeneity in cohort studies indicate that important differences or potential bias in individual comparisons or studies cannot be excluded. Observed differences were mainly driven by dissimilarities in population, intervention or exposure, comparator, and outcome. These findings could help researchers further understand the integration of such evidence into prospective nutrition evidence syntheses and improve evidence based dietary guidelines.

Adding Standards and Procedures to the Prevention Services Clearinghouse Handbook on the Transparency, Openness, and Reproducibility of Research on Programs and Services to Enhance Support for Children and Families and Prevent Foster Care Placements

The credibility of Prevention Services Clearinghouse designations of programs and services as “promising,” “supported,” and “well supported” are threatened by the prevalence of questionable research practices (e.g., selective non-reporting of results) in the bodies of evidence that the Clearinghouse reviews. Internationally accepted standards for reporting and interpreting the results of systematic reviews of evidence—including the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) and Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development and Evaluation (GRADE)—recommend that reviews take steps to mitigate bias associated with these questionable research practices. Moreover, Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) policies require that contractors and grantees engage in transparent, open, and reproducible research. We propose that the Clearinghouse adopt standards to mitigate the effects of these questionable research practices, which would be consistent with international guidelines and with complementary HHS policies and procedures.

Sociology of Chronic Pain

Chronic pain is a common, costly, and consequential health problem. However, despite some important analytic contributions, sociological research on pain has not yet coalesced into a unified subfield. We present three interrelated bodies of evidence, and illustrative new empirical findings using 2010-2018 NHIS data, to argue that pain should have a central role in sociological investigations of health. Specifically, we contend that (1) pain is a sensitive barometer of population health and wellbeing; (2) pain is emblematic of many contested and/or chronic conditions; and (3) pain and pain treatment reflect, and have wide-ranging implications for, public policy. Overall, whether we analyze pain quantitatively or qualitatively—focusing on its distribution in the population, its social causes and consequences, or its subjective meanings for individuals—pain reflects the social conditions, sociopolitical context, and health-related beliefs of a society. Pain is thus an important frontier for future sociological research.

COVID-19, Governance, and Conflict: Emerging Impacts and Future Evidence Needs

This paper reviews emerging evidence of the impact of COVID-19 on governance and conflict, using a “governance and conflict first” approach in contrast to other research and synthesis on COVID-19 in the social sciences that tends to be structured through a public health lens. It largely focuses on evidence on low- and middle-income countries but also includes a number of examples from high-income countries, reflecting the global nature of the crisis. It is organised around four cross-cutting themes that have enabled the identification of emerging bodies of evidence and/or analysis: Power and legitimacy; Effectiveness, capacity, and corruption; Violence, unrest, and conflict; and Resilience, vulnerability, and risk. The paper concludes with three over-arching insights that have emerged from the research: (1) the importance of leadership; (2) resilience and what “fixing the cracks” really means; and (3) why better ways are needed to add up all the “noise” when it comes to COVID-19 and evidence.

Abstract P864: Use of the American Stroke Association Patient Time Tracker Tool to Reduce DTN Times in Stroke

Introduction: More expedient door-to-needle (DTN) times with IV Alteplase in stroke have proven to result in better patient outcomes. Despite multiple bodies of evidence that support this conclusion, there remains challenges in accomplishing rapid times to treatment. The American Stroke Association (ASA) has developed in Target Stroke Phase III, criteria that requires DTN times within 45 minutes for at least 75% of applicable patients and DTN times within 30 minutes for at least 50 % of applicable patients. Despite various quality improvement projects many hospitals still struggle to shorten DTN times. Objective: An internal review of data from January 2019 to December 2019 revealed that despite more experience in acute stroke thrombolytic therapy, treatment times were prolonged. In order to shorten DTN times, a method to highlight time targets in evaluation and treatment was instituted. The ASA Time Tracker Tool was utilized to provide feedback on all stroke patients receiving IV Alteplase with the goal of better exploring reasons for delay in a timely manner that included input from the treatment team. Methods: In March 2020 the utilization of the ASA Time Tracker Tool was introduced. The tool was completed for every stroke patient receiving IV t-PA within 48-72 hours of thrombolytic administration. Each case included reasons for delay that was documented in the EMR. Professional staff including nursing and medicine were provided each case and asked for input regarding perceived delays to treatment to better discern obstacles to care. Results: Prior to institution of the ASA Time Tracker Tool the median DTN time was 41.7 minutes for 2019. After the tool was instituted the DTN times fell in Quarter 2 2020 to 38 minutes. Residents and nurses alike verbalized positively about receiving the tool as a mechanism for valuable feedback as well as an opportunity to provide their own input on potentially correctable areas to reduce DTN times. Conclusion: The use of the ASA Time Tracker Tool to share crucial time sensitive targets in the acute treatment of ischemic stroke is one method to reduce DTN times. Further study is needed to determine frequently occurring obstacles from the treatment team’s point of view with attention to correcting those barriers that prolong DTN times.