Learning About Viruses: Representing Covid-19

Covid-19 has significantly impacted children’s lives, requiring them to process multiple messages with significant emotional, social, and behavioural implications. Yet, the vast majority of these messages solely focus on behaviour. This is an oversight as children and young people can understand the biological properties and mechanisms of viruses when supported appropriately, thereby presenting an important opportunity for educators. However, like many other invisible scientific phenomena, understanding of viruses greatly depends upon how they are represented. Thus, we sought to understand the relative benefits and limitations of different forms for learning about the underlying biology of Covid-19. Applying an embodied learning lens, we analysed pictures, 3d models, gestures, dynamic visualisations, interactive representations, and extended reality identified through a state-of-the art-review. In so doing, we address the affordances and limitations of these forms in general and variation within them. We used this to develop a representational checklist that teachers and other adults can use to help them support children and young people’s learning about the biology of Covid-19.

Constructing efficient and secure batch signature schemes

In ordinary signature schemes, such as RSA, DSA, ECDSA, the signing process is performed only for a single message. Due to performance issues, in some contexts, the above solutions will become unsuitable if a party needs to sign multiple messages simultaneously. For example, in the authenticated key exchange protocols based on signatures between client and server, the server is expected to handle multiple key exchange requests from different clients simultaneously. Batch signing is a solution that generates signatures for multi-messages simultaneously with a single (ordinary) signature generation. In this article, we will consider some of the existing batch signing solutions and point out a few of their weakness. To deal with these problems, the paper also proposes two secure types of batch signature schemes, but still ensures the same efficiency as the existing batch signing solution.

596 Although teen pregnancy, defined by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as pregnancies between the ages of 15 and 19, has declined in the US over recent years to 16.7 births per 1000 girls, it continues to represent an enormous risk factor for poorer economic, educational, and health outcomes, both for the teen and the baby.1 Sexually transmitted infections (STIs) also continue to be a concern among this age group, with nearly half of the 26 million new STIs reported each year occurring in young people aged 15 to 24.2 To mitigate this problem, the US Department of Health and Human Services (USDHHS) provides funding to organizations and communities to prevent teen pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections (STIs). Unfortunately, reviews of the evaluations of these programs show limited positive impacts on pregnancy, sexual delay, and STI prevention methods or contraceptive use.3,4 Juras et al4 conducted a meta-analysis of 34 of the 43 adolescent pregnancy prevention program evaluations funded by the USDHHS between 2010 and 2016. On average, the programs showed small, statistically non-significant improvements in sexual risk behaviors and in pregnancy and STI Kayla Knopp, University of California San Diego School of Medicine, San Diego, CA, United States. Galena K. Rhoades, Research Professor, Department of Psychology, University of Denver, Denver, CO, United States. Lisa A. Rue, Senior Advisor for Adolescent and Behavioral Health at cliexa, Denver, CO, United States. Michael A. Floren, Assistant Professor of Data Analytics, Department of Finance, Economics and Data Analytics, University of North Alabama, Florence, AL, United States. Kiley M. Floren, Director of Evaluation Services at Practical Statistics, Florence, AL, United States. Correspondence Dr Knopp; [email protected] Messaging Considerations in Teen Pregnancy and Sexually Transmitted Infection Prevention

Objective: Teen pregnancy and sexually transmitted infection (STI) prevention are top public health goals. Despite decades of research, programs to prevent adverse sexual health outcomes among adolescents show limited effectiveness in broad dissemination. In the current study, we aimed to identify understudied factors that may impact effectiveness of teen pregnancy and STI prevention (TPP) programs, with goals of informing innovation in program development and outlining future research priorities. Methods: A panel of experts in TPP programs generated a list of understudied constructs in evaluation research, distilled to 3 considerations regarding messaging: single versus multiple messages, adverse effects of safety messages, and sociocultural context. We conducted an exploratory search of published literature in health promotion fields targeted toward messaging strategies, and we synthesized information from relevant empirical and review papers. Results: Limited evidence was found suggesting multiple messages or adverse message impacts are likely to impair TPP program effectiveness overall, although both may emerge in certain contexts and populations. In contrast, considerable evidence highlighted the importance of cultural context and individual differences. Conclusions: Effective TPP program messaging should be consistent, tailored, and systemic. Future research should evaluate these messaging strategies to determine whether they may enhance program impacts.

The captivating effect of electric organ discharges: species, sex, and orientation are embedded in every single received image

Some fish communicate using pulsatile, stereotyped electric organ discharges (EODs) that exhibit species- and sex-specific time courses. To ensure reproductive success, they must be able to discriminate conspecifics from sympatric species in the muddy waters they inhabit. We have previously shown that they use the electric field lines as a tracking guide to approach conspecifics (electrotaxis) in both Gymnotus and Brachyhypopomus genera. Here we show that the social species Brachyhypopomus gauderio uses electrotaxis to arrive abreast a conspecific, coming from behind. Stimulus image analysis shows that, even in a uniform field, every single EOD causes an image in which the gradient and the local field time courses contain enough information to allow the fish to evaluate conspecific sex, and to find the path to reach it. Using a forced-choice test we show that sexually mature individuals orient themselves along a uniform field in the direction encoded by the time course characteristic of the opposite sex. This indicates that these fish use the stimulus image profile as a spatial guidance clue to find a mate. Embedding species, sex, and orientation cues is a particular example of how species can encode multiple messages in the same self-generated communication signal carrier, allowing for other signal parameters (e.g., EOD timing) to carry additional, often circumstantial, messages. This ‘multiple messages’ EOD embedding approach expressed in this species is likely to be a common and successful strategy widespread across evolutionary lineages and among varied signaling modalities.

Emphasize personal health benefits to boost COVID-19 vaccination rates

The rapid development of COVID-19 vaccines is a tremendous scientific response to the current global pandemic. However, vaccines per se do not save lives and restart economies. Their success depends on the number of people getting vaccinated. We used a survey experiment to examine the impact on vaccine intentions of a variety of public health messages identified as particularly promising: three messages that emphasize different benefits from the vaccines (personal health, the health of others, and the recovery of local and national economies) and one message that emphasizes vaccine safety. Because people will likely be exposed to multiple messages in the real world, we also examined the effect of these messages in combination. Based on a nationally quota representative sample of 3,048 adults in the United States, our findings suggest that several forms of public messages can increase vaccine intentions, but messaging that emphasizes personal health benefits had the largest impact.

A Nemetic Model for Transmedia Organizational Literacy

The increasing diversification of interconnected media platforms, which provide a complex discourse, demands an effective use of the space that is now called “transmedia”. This article provides terms and definitions for transmedia and for the new set of personal skills and abilities required to participate in it: “transliteracy”. It also presents the nemetic system, which facilitates analyzing, tracking and visualizing communication interactions in virtual transmedia environments. Learning to use these new media platforms requires skills beyond the traditional listening and reading, to be able to integrate multiple messages in multiple codes, as an essential skill both for personal and professional communication. This transliteracy is a complex ability of intertextual navigation, the strategy for coding and decoding the multidiscourse in the digital ecosystem.