Consensus on COVID-19 vaccination in pediatric oncohematological patients, on behalf of infectious working group of Italian Association of Pediatric Hematology Oncology

Vaccines represent the best tool to prevent the severity course and fatal consequences of pandemic by new Coronavirus 2019 infection (SARS CoV 2). Considering the limited data on vaccination of pediatric oncohematological patients, we develop a Consensus document to support the Italian pediatric hematological oncological (AIEOP) centers in a scientifically correct communication with families and patients and to promote vaccination. The topics of the Consensus were: SARS CoV 2 infection and disease (COVID 19) in the pediatric subject s; COVID 19 vaccines (type, schedule); which and when to vaccinate; contraindications and risk of serious adverse events; rare adverse events; third dose and vaccination after COVID 19; and other general prevention measures. Using the Delphi methodology fo r Consensus, 21 statements and their corresponding rationale were elaborated and discussed with the representatives of 31 centers, followed by voting. AIEOP Centers showed an overall agreement on all the statements that were therefore approved. This consensus document highlights that children and adolescents affected by hematological and oncological diseases are a fragile category. Vaccination plays an important role to prevent COVID19, to permit the regular administration of chemotherapy or other treatmen ts, to perform control visits and hospital admissions, and to prevent treatment delays.

The Power of Social Attribution: Perspectives on the Healing Efficacy of Ayahuasca

During the last decades, ayahuasca gained much popularity among non-Indigenous and out-of-Amazonia based populations. In popular culture, it has been advertised as a natural remedy that was discovered by Indigenous peoples ante millennia and that has been used for shamanic healing of all kinds of ailments. This “neo-shamanic,” and often recreational, use of ayahuasca, however, has to be distinguished from traditional Indigenous praxes on the one hand, and, on the other hand, from medical investigation in the modern world. The former, Indigenous use mainly understands ayahuasca as an amplifying power for interacting with non-human beings in the animal, plant, or spirit realms. Within this paradigm, efficacy is not dependent on the drug, but on the correct communication between the healer (or sorcerer) and the non-human powers that are considered real and powerful also without resorting to ayahuasca. The latter, modern mode of understanding, contrastingly treats the neurochemical processes of MAO inhibition and dimethyltryptamine activity as trigger mechanisms for a series of psychological as well as somatic responses, including positive outcomes in the treatment of various mental conditions. I argue that there is an ontological incommensurability occurring especially between the Indigenous and medicinal concepts of ayahuasca use (with recreational use in its widest understanding trying to make sense from both sides). Modern medical applications of ayahuasca are so fundamentally different from Indigenous concepts that the latter cannot be used to legitimate or confirm the former (and vice versa). Finally, the deep coloniality in the process of appropriation of the Indigenous by the modern has to be questioned and resolved in any case of ayahuasca application.

Searching for an Optimal Hexagonal Shaped Enumeration Unit Size for Effective Spatial Pattern Recognition in Choropleth Maps

Thoughtful consideration of the enumeration unit size in choropleth map design is important to ensure the correct communication of spatial information. However, the enumeration unit size and its influence on pattern conveying in choropleth maps have not yet been the subject of in-depth empirical studies. This research aims to address this gap. We focused on the issue concerning whether the ability to recognize spatial patterns on an Equal Area Unit Map is related to the hexagonal enumeration unit size, defined by the number of pixels. The aim is to indicate the range of the enumeration unit sizes, namely, at what point the upper and lower borders of the range where the spatial patterns start, and where the end is visible and recognizable by users. To address this problem, we conducted an empirical study with 488 users. The results show that the enumeration unit size has an impact on the users’ spatial pattern recognition abilities. Choropleth maps with enumeration unit sizes of 26, 52, and 104 pixels were, in the majority, indicated by participants as those most suitable for indicating spatial patterns. This was in contrast to choropleth maps with enumeration unit sizes of 1664 and 3328 pixels, which users indicated as not being useful. However, there were some exceptions to this general finding. Thus, determining the optimal enumeration unit size is a challenging task, and requires further insightful investigations.

What you say and what I hear—Investigating differences in the perception of the severity of psychological and physical violence in intimate partner relationships

The correct communication of the severity of violence is essential in the context of legal trials, custody cases, support of victims, etc., for providing fair treatment. A narrator that communicates their experiences of interpersonal violence may rate the seriousness of the incident differently than a rater reading the narrator’s text, suggesting that there exist perceptual differences (PD) in severity ratings between the narrator and the rater. We propose that these perceptual differences may depend on whether the narrative is based on physical or psychological violence, and on gender differences. Physical violence may be evaluated as more serious by the receiver of the narrative than by the narrator (Calibration PD), whereas the seriousness of psychological violence may be difficult to convey, leading to a discrepancy in the seriousness ratings between the narrator and the rater (Accuracy PD). In addition, gender stereotypes may influence the seriousness rating (Gender PD), resulting in violence against women being perceived as more serious than the same violence against men. These perceptual differences were investigated in 3 phases using a new experimental procedure. In Phase 1, 113 narrators provided descriptions and seriousness ratings of self-experienced physical and psychological violence in relationships. In Phase 2, 340 independent raters rated the seriousness of 10 randomly selected narrations from Phase 1. In Phase 3, the genders in the narrations were changed to the opposite gender, and seriousness ratings were collected from 340 different raters. Our results confirmed the hypothesized perceptual differences. Violence to male victims was considerably more likely to be seen as severe when the raters were misled to believe the victim was a woman. We propose that these data provide practical guidelines for how to deal with misinformation in the communication of violence. The data also show that mean values and the confidence of such severity ratings need to be adjusted for several factors, such as whether it is self-experienced or communicated, the type of violence, and the gender of the victims and raters.

Cutting-Edge Turbulence Simulation Methods for Wind Energy and Aerospace Problems

The availability of reliable and efficient turbulent flow simulation methods is highly beneficial for wind energy and aerospace developments. However, existing simulation methods suffer from significant shortcomings. In particular, the most promising methods (hybrid RANS-LES methods) face divergent developments over decades, there is a significant waste of resources and opportunities. It is very likely that this development will continue as long as there is little awareness of conceptional differences of hybrid methods and their implications. The main purpose of this paper is to contribute to such clarification by identifying a basic requirement for the proper functioning of hybrid RANS-LES methods: a physically correct communication of RANS and LES modes. The state of the art of continuous eddy simulations (CES) methods (which include the required mode communication) is described and requirements for further developments are presented.

Social media use to improve communication on children and adolescent’s health: the role of the Italian Paediatric Society influencers

Background Fake news on children’s and adolescent health are spreading. Internet availability and decreasing costs of media devices are contributing to an easy access to technology by families. Public health organizations are working to contrast misinformation and promote scientific communication. In this context, a new form of communication is emerging social media influencers. Aim of this study is to evaluate the role of paediatric influencers (PI) in communicating information about children and adolescents’ health. Materials and methods A group of PI was enrolled from December 2019 to January 2020 by a scientific commission nominated by the Italian Paediatric Society (SIP). PI were asked to share Facebook messages from the official page of the SIP to their own network. Social media tools have been evaluated across 12 months, from July 28, 2019, to July 11, 2020. For the purposes of clarity, we schematically divided the study period as follows: the period of PIs activity (January 6, 2020, to July 11, 2020) and the period when PIs were not yet active (July 28, 2019, to January 4, 2020). Information on Facebook page (lifetime total likes, daily new likes, daily page engaged, daily total reach) and on published post (lifetime post total reach, lifetime post organic reach, lifetime engaged users) were evaluated. Results A significant increase in Facebook daily new likes, page engagement and total reach, as well as in lifetime post total and organic reach was evidenced. As for PI, they reported a positive experience in most cases. Discussion In the digital era, communication strategies are becoming more important, so that the scientific community has to be actively involved in social media communication. Our pilot study demonstrated that the recruitment of paediatric influencers has increased communication and interaction of the SIP Facebook page. Conclusion Our study shows the potential role of influencers: spreading health messages via PI seems to be a successful strategy to promote correct communication about children’s and adolescents’ health.

Study of Obtaining Informed Consent in Pediatric Wards from the Viewpoint of Physicians and Children’s Parents

Background: Obtaining informed consent for diagnostic and therapeutic procedures is of great moral and legal importance, which is more important in the field of pediatrics due to its specific issues. Objectives: Obtaining informed consent in the pediatric field is specific because of many factors, including the age of the patients and the necessity of obtaining consent from parents or legal guardians. This study aimed to evaluate the process of obtaining informed consent from the viewpoint of substitute decision-makers (parents or guardians) and physicians. Attention to the differences between the views of these two groups by establishing appropriate and correct communication skills between them can lead to greater satisfaction and increased effectiveness of treatments. Methods: In this descriptive study, the data were collected through questionnaires completed by 188 parents and 23 physicians. Finally, the statistical analysis was conducted using the one-sample t test method in SPSS 16. Results: In 96.3% of the cases, parents believed that where the patient, their relatives, and the medical team disagreed about the kind of treatment, the final decision was made by the medical team. One-third of them did not receive enough information or received no information at all. Informing parents about other possible treatments, complications of the procedures, considering the patients and their relatives’ opinions for the final decision, informing the child about his/her disease and treatment plans, and informing the parents about the possible outcomes were not in the favorable range. Physicians believed that decision about the treatment was made based on the opinion of the parents and the clinical committee, and only in 3.4% of the cases, their opinion was the basis for decision-making. Conclusions: The results showed that there was a gap between the parents and physicians’ opinions about informed consent, as the physicians believed that they act as the patients’ parents wish and the parents believed that their opinion played no important role in the final decision regarding the health of their children. Thus, it seems necessary to institutionalize the culture of participatory decision-making by physicians and parents in decisions related to the diagnosis and treatment of children, and more emphasis should be placed on establishing the right relationship between treatment staff and patients and their relatives.

Errata for "Cerebro: a data system for optimized deep learning model selection"

We discovered that there was an inconsistency in the communication cost formulation for the decentralized fine-grained training method in Table 2 of our paper [1]. We used Horovod as the archetype for decentralized fine-grained approaches, and its correct communication cost is higher than what we had reported. So, we amend the communication cost of decentralized fine-grained to [EQUATION]

Distributed Intelligence at the Edge on IoT Networks

The Internet of Things (IoT) has revolutionized innovation to collect and store the information received from physical objects or sensors. The smart devices are linked to a repository that stores intelligent information executed by sensors on IoT-based smart objects. Now, the IoT is shifted from knowledge-based technologies to operational-based technologies. The IoT integrates sensors, smart devices, and a smart grid of implementations to deliver smart strategies. Nowadays, the IoT has been pondered to be an essential technology. The transmission of information to or from the cloud has recently been found to cause many network problems to include latency, power usage, security, privacy, etc. The distributed intelligence enables IoT to help the correct communication available at the correct time and correct place. Distributed Intelligence could strengthen the IoT in a variety of ways, including evaluating the integration of different big data or enhancing efficiency and distribution in huge IoT operations. While evaluating distributed intelligence in the IoT paradigm, the implementation of distributed intelligence services should take into consideration the transmission delay and bandwidth requirements of the network. In this article, the distributed intelligence at the Edge on IoT Networks, applications, opportunities, challenges and future scopes have been presented.