Mindful Use of Facebook as a Self-Help Therapeutic Tool in Psychological Settings

Social networking sites (SNS) such as Facebook have gained popularity over the years, acquiring billions of active users worldwide. There is much debate about the potential harm and benefits of using SNS. While some studies show that SNS such as Facebook can adversely affect the mental wellbeing of individuals, others show that Facebook use in therapeutic interventions can bring about positive results. According to past literature, ‘seeking gratification', particularly searching for positive emotions, is a key reason for using SNS. In this chapter, it is argued that SNS can be used mindfully to seek content that triggers positive emotions. The practical application of Facebook as a self-help tool to promote psychological well-being is explained through a hypothetical scenario. Further, a framework to educate individual users about the therapeutic potential of SNS is proposed. Practitioners in the fields of counselling and psychology may find the ideas presented in this chapter useful to their work with their clients/patients.

Estimating the impact of implementation and timing of COVID-19 vaccination program in Brazil: a counterfactual analysis

The vaccines developed in 2020-2021 against the SARS-CoV-2 virus were designed to prevent severity and deaths due to COVID-19. However, how effective this vaccination campaign was at saving lives remains a methodological challenge. In this work, we developed a Bayesian statistical model to estimate the number of deaths and hospitalizations in individuals above 60 years old in Brazil. Using the actual number of hospitalized and deaths from the Brazilian database, and also the coverage of second dose according to the National Immunization Program, we rebuilt the realized scenario as well as the hypothetical scenario without vaccination in Brazil in order to perform a counterfactual analysis. By computing the difference between the hypothetical and realized scenarios, we were able to estimate the direct effect of COVID-19 vaccination in Brazil. We also evaluated two other hypothetical, but not impossible, scenarios considering earlier vaccination roll-outs. We estimated that more than 165 thousand of 60+ years old individuals were not hospitalized due to COVID-19 until August 28, 2021, and other approximately 100 thousand individuals could not have been hospitalized if the immunization started as soon it was approved in Brazil. We also estimate that more than 75 thousand lives were saved in the period analysed for the same age group, and additional 48 thousand lives could have been saved if the Brazilian Government started the immunization 8 weeks earlier.

A methodology to assess indirect economic impacts of animal disease outbreaks

Indirect costs of animal disease outbreaks often significantly exceed the direct costs. Despite their importance, indirect costs remain poorly characterised due to their complexity. In this study, we developed a framework to assess the indirect costs of a hypothetical African Swine Fever outbreak in Switzerland. We collected data through international and national stakeholder interviews, analysis of national disease control regulations and industry data. We developed a framework to capture the resulting qualitative and quantitative data, categorise the impacts of these regulations, and rank the impacts in order of importance. We then developed a spreadsheet model to calculate the indirect costs of one category of control measure for an individual group of stakeholders. We developed a decision tree model to guide the most economically favourable implementation plan for a given control measure category, under different outbreak scenarios. Our results suggest that the most important measure/impact categories were ‘Transport logistics’, ‘Consumer demand’, ‘Prevention of wild boar and domestic pig contact’ and ‘Slaughter logistics’. In our hypothetical scenario, the greatest costs associated with ‘Prevention of wild boar and domestic pig contact’ were due to assumed partial or total depopulation of pig farms in order to reduce herd size to comply with the simulated control regulations. The model also provides suggestions on the most economically favourable strategy to reduce contact between wild boar and domestic pigs in control areas depending on the duration of the outbreak. Our approach provides a new framework to integrate qualitative and quantitative data to guide disease control strategy. This method could be useful in other countries and for other diseases, including in data- and resource-poor settings, or areas with limited experience of animal disease outbreaks.

Questioning the Role of Moral AI as an Adviser within the Framework of Trustworthiness Ethics

The main objective of this article is to demonstrate why despite the growing interest in justifying AI’s trustworthiness, one can argue for AI’s reliability. By analyzing why trustworthiness ethics in Nickel’s sense provides some wellgrounded hints for rethinking the rational, affective and normative accounts of trust in respect to AI, I examine some concerns about the trustworthiness of Savulescu and Maslen’s model of moral AI as an adviser. Specifically, I tackle one of its exemplifications regarding Klincewicz’s hypothetical scenario of John which is refracted through the lens of the HLEG’s fifth requirement of trustworthy artificial intelligence (TAI), namely, that of Diversity, non-discrimination and fairness.

Acute and chronic health risk assessment for inhalation and ingestion exposure in acrylic acid leak accidents

We established a hypothetical acrylic acid leak accident scenario, conducted a health risk assessment of local residents, and compared an actual accident case to the hypothetical scenario. The exposed subjects were divided into four age groups, and a noncarcinogenic health risk assessment was conducted for inhalation and soil ingestion. In the hypothetical scenario, 40 tons of acrylic acid was leaked in Ulsan for 1 h from midnight on January 1, 2017. In the actual accident case, 3 L of acrylic acid was leaked in Hwaseong, Gyeonggi Province, for 1 h from 11:00 am on March 5, 2020. The environmental concentration of acrylic acid was calculated using the dynamic multimedia environmental model. Noncarcinogenic assessment of the hypothetical scenario showed the hazard quotient exceeded 1 across all age groups, suggesting that a health risk is likely to occur due to inhalation exposure to acrylic acid resulting from a chemical accident. In addition, Hazardacute exceeded 1 until 2 h after the accident under the hypothetical scenario, indicating the likelihood of a health risk. Thus, we propose a methodology that can assess changing concentrations in a hazardous chemical leak from a chemical accident based on the time, place, the chemical’s behaviors in different environmental media, and the health risk posed by the exposure of the chemical to local residents in the area affected by the accident.

Guiding placement of health facilities using multiple malaria criteria and an interactive tool

Background Access to healthcare is important in controlling malaria burden and, as a result, distance or travel time to health facilities is often a significant predictor in modelling malaria prevalence. Adding new health facilities may reduce overall travel time to health facilities and may decrease malaria transmission. To help guide local decision-makers as they scale up community-based accessibility, the influence of the spatial allocation of new health facilities on malaria prevalence is evaluated in Bunkpurugu-Yunyoo district in northern Ghana. A location-allocation analysis is performed to find optimal locations of new health facilities by separately minimizing three district-wide objectives: malaria prevalence, malaria incidence, and average travel time to health facilities. Methods Generalized additive models was used to estimate the relationship between malaria prevalence and travel time to the nearest health facility and other geospatial covariates. The model predictions are then used to calculate the optimisation criteria for the location-allocation analysis. This analysis was performed for two scenarios: adding new health facilities to the existing ones, and a hypothetical scenario in which the community-based healthcare facilities would be allocated anew. An interactive web application was created to facilitate efficient presentation of this analysis and allow users to experiment with their choice of health facility location and optimisation criteria. Results Using malaria prevalence and travel time as optimisation criteria, two locations that would benefit from new health facilities were identified, regardless of scenarios. Due to the non-linear relationship between malaria incidence and prevalence, the optimal locations chosen based on the incidence criterion tended to be inequitable and was different from those based on the other optimisation criteria. Conclusions This study findings underscore the importance of using multiple optimisation criteria in the decision-making process. This analysis and the interactive application can be repurposed for other regions and criteria, bridging the gap between science, models and decisions.

Energy Performance Analysis and Modelling of LoRa Prototyping Boards

LoRaWAN has gained significant attention for Internet-of-Things (IOT) applications due to its low power consumption and long range potential for data transmission. While there is a significant body of work assessing LoRA coverage and data transmission characteristics, there is a lack of data available about commercially available LoRa prototyping boards and their power consumption, in relation to their features. It is currently difficult to estimate the power consumption of a LoRa module operating under different transmission profiles, due to a lack of manufacturer data available. In this study, power testing has been carried out on physical hardware and significant variation was found in the power consumption of competing boards, all marketed as “extremely low power”. In this paper, testing results are presented alongside an experimentally-derived power model for the lowest power LoRa module, and power requirements are compared to firmware settings. The power analysis adds to existing work showing trends in data-rate and transmission power settings effects on electrical power consumption. The model’s accuracy is experimentally verified and shows acceptable agreement to estimated values. Finally, applications for the model are presented by way of a hypothetical scenario and calculations performed in order to estimate battery life and energy consumption for varying data transmission intervals.

Modeling the Impact of Prehospital Triage on a True-Life Drip and Ship Mechanical Thrombectomy Urban Patient Cohort

<b><i>Objective:</i></b> The aim of the study was to model the effect of prehospital triage of emergent large vessel occlusion (ELVO) to endovascular capable center (ECC) on the timing of thrombectomy and intravenous (IV) thrombolysis using real-world data from a multihospital system. <b><i>Methods:</i></b> We selected a cohort of 77 consecutive stroke patients who were brought by emergency medical services (EMS) to a nonendovascular capable center and then transferred to an ECC for mechanical thrombectomy (MT) (“actual” drip and ship [DS] cohort). We created a hypothetical scenario (bypass model [BM]), modeling transfer of the patients directly to an ECC, based on patients’ initial EMS pickup address and closest ECC. Using another cohort of 73 consecutive patients, who were brought directly to an ECC by EMS and underwent endovascular intervention, we calculated mean door-to-needle and door-to-arterial puncture (AP) times (“actual” mothership [MS] cohort). Timings in the actual MS cohort and the actual DS cohort were compared to timings from the BM cohort. <b><i>Results:</i></b> Median first medical contact (FMC) to IV thrombolysis time was 87.5 min (interquartile range [IQR] = 38) for the DS versus 78.5 min (IQR = 8.96) for the BM cohort, with <i>p</i> = 0.1672. Median FMC to AP was 244 min (IQR = 97) versus 147 min (IQR = 8.96) (<i>p</i> &#x3c; 0.001), and median FMC to TICI 2B+ time was 299 min (IQR = 108.5) versus 197 min (IQR = 8.96) (<i>p</i> &#x3c; 0.001) for the DS versus BM cohort, respectively. <b><i>Conclusions:</i></b> Modeled EMS prehospital triage of ELVO patients’ results in shorter MT times without a change in thrombolysis times. As triage tools increase in sensitivity and specificity, EMS triage protocols stand to improve patient outcomes.

Increasing the deterrence of airport security checks by managing expectations through communication: a hypothetical scenario experiment

Selective security screenings are discussed as a potential strategy to reduce costs and waiting times at airports, while keeping security high. However, the limited literature suggests that traditional security screenings, where all passengers are screened, are perceived as more deterrent for criminal activity and more secure from passengers’ perspectives. The goal of this study was to investigate whether targeted communication on an airport’s website can counteract the detrimental effect of randomised airport security checks on deterrence. The study results confirm prior findings that people with illegal intentions prefer randomised security checks compared to traditional security checks. However, there are hints that tactical communication could be a tool to improve security at airports. All in all, the insights gathered in this study should be taken as a sign of caution, when considering switching to selective security screenings. Future directions for investigating the effect of tactical communication are discussed.

Secondary Sexting: A Restorative Framework for Understanding and Addressing the Harms of Sexting Behaviour among Secondary School Students

<p>In New Zealand there is a growing concern over the engagement of teenagers in sexting, especially so-called ‘secondary sexting’, the non-consensual distribution of intimate images. This thesis aims to analyse the behaviour of sexting through a restorative lens and to outline the role of restorative responses can make in a New Zealand context. It combines a review of international literature on the subject with a pilot study of senior students at a New Zealand secondary school, a school that has deemed itself to be a “restorative school”. The empirical study employs a mixed-methods approach. The quantitative phase involved students (n=125) in Year 11 -13 completing a survey to ascertain the prevalence of sexing and their attitudes towards criminalization of different types of sexting. The qualitative phase involved focus groups with students (n=13), one-on-one interviews with staff (n=7) and parents (n=17) discussing how they would respond to a hypothetical scenario of secondary sexting. The study finds that although only a small percentage of students engaged in secondary sexting, secondary sexting is the cause of significant harm and there is need for an effective response. This thesis argues that restorative response has the most promise at addressing these harms. It also shows that applying a restorative framework to the analysis of the practice enables us to identify and challenge victim blaming tendencies in both popular opinion and official responses. It proposes that for New Zealand to adequately respond to sexting there needs to be a shift away from viewing secondary sexting as a result of poor choices to one that focuses on respectful relationships and the obligations that go with them.</p>