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Comparing catastrophes : the influence of impacts and timelines on prioritising crises

  • Authors: Gell, Peter
  • Date: 2023
  • Type: Text , Journal article
  • Relation: AIP Conference Proceedings Vol. 2683, no. 1 (2023), p. 030001
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  • Description: Across time society has been confronted with a wide range of crises that have required measured responses. The COVID-19 pandemic was widely forecast, but governmental preparation was lacking. Even when it was spreading, its risks to society were downplayed in some quarters. The climate change crisis has also been widely forecast, and preparation has been slow, with vested interests also denying the science or downplaying the risk. The pandemic is an acute crisis with rapid onset and highly visible impacts on human life and wellbeing. Through vaccine technology, however, there is a short term and likely effective management measure available. Climate change is a diffuse crisis with long lead times. In contrast to Covid, it has momentum and, once thresholds are exceeded, measures to reverse the change will have limited effectiveness. While the implications of carbonising our atmosphere were known over 50 years ago, the socio-economic response is only now taking hold. The slow nature of this crisis has subdued the political response, and the Earth is now committed to considerable impacts, even if we collectively act decisively now. The gradual nature of this crisis, its opaque direct impacts on humanity, and the scale of its complexity render it a ‘wicked’ problem that will persist through this century and beyond. Scenarios of impact across multiple quarters assure us that the costs of unabated climate change will result in a global scale crisis, played out in many individual locations for many decades. Aware of this, society is already investing in adapting to the changes that are foreseen while also beginning the process of mitigating carbon emissions to limit the scale of the challenge. In some places, this may mean preparing economies for drier climates, while in others, it may mean a managed retreat from the present coastline. Providing refuge from heatwaves will be a widespread adaptation measure. For nature, its capacity to adapt will be strengthened if the pressure from humans is also mitigated.

Compliance with the zero suicide initiative by mental health clinicians at a regional mental health service : development and testing of a clinical audit tool

  • Authors: Porter, Joanne , Dabkowski, Elissa , Connolly, Owen , Prokopiv, Valerie
  • Date: 2023
  • Type: Text , Journal article
  • Relation: Nursing Reports Vol. 13, no. 1 (2023), p. 29-42
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  • Description: Aim: The aim of this study is to investigate the compliance of mental health clinicians in applying the Zero Suicide (ZS) approach to their clinical practice in a rural and regional health community setting. Methods: A retrospective clinical audit of six mental health teams was undertaken at a single site. A clinical audit tool was developed and validated using a six-step approach. The data was extracted and analysed via descriptive and inferential statistics and compared to a specialised mental health team, experienced with the ZS approach. Results: A total of 334 clinical records were extracted for January, April, August, November 2019 and June 2020. The clinical audit and analysis confirmed that the mental health teams are not consistently using the assessments from their training and are therefore not implementing all of these elements into their practice. This could have implications for the risk formulation and treatment for people at risk of suicide. Conclusions: The use of a validated clinical audit tool can be beneficial to establish compliance with the mental health clinicians and to determine any areas requiring further improvement. Further education and reinforcement may be required to ensure consistency with incorporating the elements of ZS into everyday clinical practice. © 2022 by the authors.

Compulsive exercise and its relationship with mental health and psychosocial wellbeing in recreational exercisers and athletes

  • Authors: Cosh, Suzanne , McNeil, Dominic , Tully, Phillip
  • Date: 2023
  • Type: Text , Journal article
  • Relation: Journal of Science and Medicine in Sport Vol. 26, no. 7 (2023), p. 338-344
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  • Description: Objectives: Better understanding of compulsive exercise is needed in sports medicine. Whilst compulsive exercise may impact mental health, the limited research exploring the relationship between compulsive exercise and psychosocial outcomes is equivocal. The majority of studies have examined eating disorder populations where the eating disorder pathology might account for distress. This study explores relationships between compulsive exercise and mental health. Design: Cross-sectional observational study. Methods: Australian recreational exercisers and athletes (N = 1157; Mage 36.4, standard deviation = 12.9, 77 % female) recruited through sporting organisations, clubs, and gyms, completed measures of compulsive exercise, depression, anxiety, stress, life satisfaction, social physique anxiety, and self-esteem. Regression analyses examined relationships between dimensions of compulsive exercise and wellbeing. Results: After adjustment for eating disorder symptoms and sporting level, compulsive exercise was associated with increased risk of clinically-significant anxiety, depression, and stress symptoms. Compulsive exercise was also associated with lower life satisfaction and self-esteem, and higher social physique anxiety. Notably, different dimensions of compulsive exercise had varying relationships with outcomes, and avoidance and rule-driven behaviour and lack of exercise enjoyment were associated with poorer mental health and wellbeing. Conclusions: Results suggest that compulsive exercise is uniquely associated with a range of psychosocial and mental health outcomes. Results support the need to improve identification and treatment of compulsive exercise in sport and exercise settings. Results highlight that mental health intervention is an important component of treatment, and treatments targeting symptoms related to avoidance and rule-driven behaviour, and anhedonia may be valuable treatment components for those with compulsive exercise. © 2023 The Author(s)

Conceptualising social media addiction: a longitudinal network analysis of social media addiction symptoms and their relationships with psychological distress in a community sample of adults

  • Authors: Tullett-Prado, Deon , Doley, Jo , Zarate, Daniel , Gomez, Rapson , Stavropoulos, Vasileios
  • Date: 2023
  • Type: Text , Journal article
  • Relation: BMC Psychiatry Vol. 23, no. 1 (2023), p.
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  • Description: Background: Problematic social media use has been identified as negatively impacting psychological and everyday functioning and has been identified as a possible behavioural addiction (social media addiction; SMA). Whether SMA can be classified as a distinct behavioural addiction has been debated within the literature, with some regarding SMA as a premature pathologisation of ordinary social media use behaviour and suggesting there is little evidence for its use as a category of clinical concern. This study aimed to understand the relationship between proposed symptoms of SMA and psychological distress and examine these over time in a longitudinal network analysis, in order better understand whether SMA warrants classification as a unique pathology unique from general distress. Method: N = 462 adults (M age = 30.8, SD age = 9.23, 69.3% males, 29% females, 1.9% other sex or gender) completed measures of social media addiction (Bergen Social Media Addiction Scale), and psychological distress (DASS-21) at two time points, twelve months apart. Data were analysed using network analysis (NA) to explore SMA symptoms and psychological distress. Specifically, NA allows to assess the ‘influence’ and pathways of influence of each symptom in the network both cross-sectionally at each time point, as well as over time. Results: SMA symptoms were found to be stable cross-sectionally over time, and were associated with, yet distinct, from, depression, anxiety and stress. The most central symptoms within the network were tolerance and mood-modification in terms of expected influence and closeness respectively. Depression symptoms appeared to have less of a formative effect on SMA symptoms than anxiety and stress. Conclusions: Our findings support the conceptualisation of SMA as a distinct construct occurring based on an underpinning network cluster of behaviours and a distinct association between SMA symptoms and distress. Further replications of these findings, however, are needed to strengthen the evidence for SMA as a unique behavioural addiction. © 2023, The Author(s).

Concussion assessment and management — what do community-level cricket participants know?

  • Authors: Kodikara, Dulan , Plumb, Mandy , Twomey, Dara
  • Date: 2023
  • Type: Text , Journal article
  • Relation: Journal of Science and Medicine in Sport Vol. 26, no. 9 (2023), p. 448-453
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  • Description: Objectives: To explore Australian cricket participants' knowledge of concussion assessment and management, and awareness of current concussion guidelines. Design: Cross-sectional survey. Methods: Novel and validated surveys were disseminated online, among over 16 year Australian cricket players and officials at the end of the 2018/19 cricket season. Data were collected on knowledge and awareness of concussion and analysed using descriptive statistics and crosstabulations. Further comparisons were made for the players between injured and non-injured, and helmet wearers and non-helmet wearers using Fisher's exact statistical test. Results: Both players (n = 224, 93 %) and officials (n = 36, 100 %) demonstrated strong knowledge of the importance of immediately evaluating suspected concussions. In comparison with players without helmets (n = 11), those using helmets (n = 135) considered replacing their helmets after a concussion to be vital to concussion assessment (p = 0.02). Overall, 80–97 % of players and 81–97 % of officials understood the importance of many factors regarding concussion management. When concussion management knowledge was compared by injury status, injured players (n = 17, 94 %) believed someone with a concussion should be hospitalised immediately, in contrast to non-injured players (n = 154, 69 %) (p = 0.04). Players (63 %) were less aware of concussion guidelines than officials (81 %). Conclusions: Overall, the knowledge of concussion assessment and management was satisfactory. However, there were discrepancies among players on some aspects of awareness of concussion guidelines. Increasing players' familiarity and experience in using the concussion guidelines is warranted. Targeted campaigns are needed to further improve concussion recognition and treatment at community-level cricket, so all participants play a role in making cricket a safe sport. © 2023

Considering the need for movement variability in motor imagery training : implications for sport and rehabilitation

Construction of generalized shape functions over arbitrary polytopes based on scaled boundary finite element method's solution of Poisson's equation

  • Authors: Xiao, B. , Natarajan, Sundararajan , Birk, Carolin , Ooi, Ean Hin , Song, Chongmin , Ooi, Ean Tat
  • Date: 2023
  • Type: Text , Journal article
  • Relation: International Journal for Numerical Methods in Engineering Vol. 124, no. 17 (2023), p. 3603-3636
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  • Description: A general technique to develop arbitrary-sided polygonal elements based on the scaled boundary finite element method is presented. Shape functions are derived from the solution of the Poisson's equation in contrast to the well-known Laplace shape functions that are only linearly complete. The application of the Poisson shape functions can be complete up to any specific order. The shape functions retain the advantage of the scaled boundary finite element method allowing direct formulation on polygons with arbitrary number of sides and quadtree meshes. The resulting formulation is similar to the finite element method where each field variable is interpolated by the same set of shape functions in parametric space and differs only in the integration of the stiffness and mass matrices. Well-established finite element procedures can be applied with the developed shape functions, to solve a variety of engineering problems including, for example, coupled field problems, phase field fracture, and addressing volumetric locking in the near-incompressibility limit by adopting a mixed formulation. Application of the formulation is demonstrated in several engineering problems. Optimal convergence rates are observed. © 2023 The Authors. International Journal for Numerical Methods in Engineering published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Converting optimum compaction properties of fine-grained soils between rational energy levels

  • Authors: Soltani, Amin , Azimi, Mahdieh , O'Kelly, Brendan , Horpibulsuk, Suksun
  • Date: 2023
  • Type: Text , Journal article
  • Relation: Transportation Geotechnics Vol. 42, no. (2023), p.
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  • Description: This study introduces a practical energy conversion (EC)-type modeling framework capable of converting the optimum compaction properties of fine-grained soils between any two rational compaction energy levels (CELs). Model development/calibration was carried out using a database of 242 compaction test results — the largest and most diverse database of its kind, to date, entailing 76 fine-grained soils (covering liquid limits of 16–256%), with each soil tested for at least three different CELs. On establishing the framework, an independent database of 91 compaction test results (consisting of 34 fine-grained soils tested for varying CELs) was employed for its validation. The proposed EC-based models employ measured optimum water content (OWC) and maximum dry unit weight (MDUW) values obtained for a rational CEL (preferably standard Proctor) to predict the same for higher and/or lower compactive efforts (covering 214–5416 kJ/m3). The 95% lower and upper statistical agreement limits between the predicted/converted and measured OWCs were obtained as

Coping strategies to overcome psychological distress and fear during COVID-19 pandemic in Kuwait

  • Authors: Elaidy, Asmaa , Hammoud, Majeda , N. Albatineh, Ahmed , Ridha, Fatma , Hammoud, Sabri , Elsadek, Hala , Rahman, Muhammad Aziz
  • Date: 2023
  • Type: Text , Journal article
  • Relation: Middle East Current Psychiatry Vol. 30, no. 1 (2023), p.
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  • Description: Background: The COVID-19 pandemic has detrimental effects on both physical and psychological well-being of community people worldwide. The purpose of this research was to determine coping strategies and the factors associated with psychological distress and fear among adults in Kuwait during the COVID-19 pandemic. Results: Participants with good-excellent mental health perception had significantly lower prevalence of reporting high psychological distress, while those identified as patients as used health services in the past 4 weeks had significantly higher prevalence of reporting high psychological distress. On the other hand, individuals born in the same country of residence, whose financial situation was impacted by COVID-19 had significantly lower prevalence of reporting high levels of fear from COVID-19. Those with an income source, with co-morbidities, tested negative to COVID-19, being frontline or essential worker, reported medium to high psychological distress and had significantly higher prevalence of high levels of fear of COVID-19. Conclusions: Mental health services should be provided in addition to the existing services in primary healthcare settings, so that the impact of ongoing pandemic on psychological wellbeing of people in Kuwait can be addressed. © 2023, The Author(s).

Corporate social responsibility and performance measurement systems in Iran : a levers of control perspective

  • Authors: Asiaei, Kaveh , O'Connor, Neale , Moghaddam, Majid , Bontis, Nick , Sidhu, Jasvinder
  • Date: 2023
  • Type: Text , Journal article
  • Relation: Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management Vol. 30, no. 2 (2023), p. 574-588
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  • Description: This study draws on Simons' levers of control model to explore how companies rely on the balanced use of diagnostic and interactive performance measurement systems (PMS) to translate corporate social responsibility (CSR) into superior performance. Data were collected based on a survey data set from 98 CFOs of public listed companies in Iran. The theoretical model was tested using partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM, SmartPLS 3.0), which enjoys minimum demands concerning normality assumptions and sample size. The findings show that CSR is positively associated with PMS and organizational performance. Moreover, CSR is indirectly related to organizational performance through the mediating effect of PMS. This study extends the previous literature by simultaneously incorporating resource orchestration theory in the management accounting and CSR settings. The findings provide further insights into the issue of how adopting proper management control mechanisms (e.g., balanced use of PMS) can support organizations in orchestrating the social, environmental, and economic impacts more effectively. © 2022 The Authors. Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management published by ERP Environment and John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Corrosion and coating defect assessment of Coal Handling and Preparation Plants (CHPP) using an ensemble of deep convolutional neural networks and decision-level data fusion

  • Authors: Yu, Yang , Hoshyar, Azadeh , Samali, Bijan , Zhang, Guang , Rashidi, Maria , Mohammadi, Masoud
  • Date: 2023
  • Type: Text , Journal article
  • Relation: Neural Computing and Applications Vol. 35, no. 25 (2023), p. 18697-18718
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  • Description: In view of the problems of ineffective feature extraction and low detection accuracy in existing detection system, this study presents a novel machine vision-based approach composed of an ensemble of deep convolutional neural networks (CNNs) and improved Dempster-Shafer (D-S) theory-based data fusion to evaluate corrosion and coating defect of coal handling and preparation plants. To start with, the structural surface image is sent to each transferred CNN for initial defect identification. Then, an improved D-S fusion algorithm is proposed to combine the identification results from different CNNs, which are vectors consisting of statistical indicators of all the potential damage severity categories. The decision-level fusion of different CNNs can effectively improve image classification. To validate the performance of the proposed method, a dataset made of 3593 surface images with different defect severities captured from mining infrastructure in field is established together with data augmentation. The validation result demonstrates that the proposed method is able to effectively improve the recognition accuracy of defect severity and reduce the wrong recognition rate. Finally, the robustness of the proposed approach is also appraised by polluting the images with different types and intensities of noise, with satisfactory results. © 2023, The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag London Ltd., part of Springer Nature.

COVID-19 : factors associated with the psychological distress, fear and resilient coping strategies among community members in Saudi Arabia

  • Authors: Alharbi, Talal , Alqurashi, Alaa , Mahmud, Ilias , Alharbi, Rayan , Islam, Sheikh , Almustanyir, Sami , Maklad, Ahmed , AlSarraj, Ahmad , Mughaiss, Lujain , Al-Tawfiq, Jaffar , Ahmed, Ahmed , Barry, Mazin , Ghozy, Sherief , Alabdan, Lulwah , Alif, Sheikh , Sultana, Farhana , Salehin, Masudus , Banik, Biswajit , Cross, Wendy , Rahman, Muhammad Aziz
  • Date: 2023
  • Type: Text , Journal article
  • Relation: Healthcare (Switzerland) Vol. 11, no. 8 (2023), p.
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  • Description: (1) Background: COVID-19 caused the worst international public health crisis, accompanied by major global economic downturns and mass-scale job losses, which impacted the psychosocial wellbeing of the worldwide population, including Saudi Arabia. Evidence of the high-risk groups impacted by the pandemic has been non-existent in Saudi Arabia. Therefore, this study examined factors associated with psychosocial distress, fear of COVID-19 and coping strategies among the general population in Saudi Arabia. (2) Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted in healthcare and community settings in the Saudi Arabia using an anonymous online questionnaire. The Kessler Psychological Distress Scale (K-10), Fear of COVID-19 Scale (FCV-19S) and Brief Resilient Coping Scale (BRCS) were used to assess psychological distress, fear and coping strategies, respectively. Multivariate logistic regressions were used, and an Adjusted Odds Ratio (AOR) with 95% Confidence Intervals (CIs) was reported. (3) Results: Among 803 participants, 70% (n = 556) were females, and the median age was 27 years; 35% (n = 278) were frontline or essential service workers; and 24% (n = 195) reported comorbid conditions including mental health illness. Of the respondents, 175 (21.8%) and 207 (25.8%) reported high and very high psychological distress, respectively. Factors associated with moderate to high levels of psychological distress were: youth, females, non-Saudi nationals, those experiencing a change in employment or a negative financial impact, having comorbidities, and current smoking. A high level of fear was reported by 89 participants (11.1%), and this was associated with being ex-smokers (3.72, 1.14–12.14, 0.029) and changes in employment (3.42, 1.91–6.11, 0.000). A high resilience was reported by 115 participants (14.3%), and 333 participants (41.5%) had medium resilience. Financial impact and contact with known/suspected cases (1.63, 1.12–2.38, 0.011) were associated with low, medium, to high resilient coping. (4) Conclusions: People in Saudi Arabia were at a higher risk of psychosocial distress along with medium-high resilience during the COVID-19 pandemic, warranting urgent attention from healthcare providers and policymakers to provide specific mental health support strategies for their current wellbeing and to avoid a post-pandemic mental health crisis. © 2023 by the authors.

COVID-19 : psychological distress, fear, and coping strategies among community members across the United Arab Emirates

COVID-19 effects on public finance and SDG priorities in developing countries : comparative evidence from Bangladesh and Sri Lanka

  • Authors: Colombage, Sisira , Barua, Suborna , Nanayakkara, Madurika , Colombage, Udari
  • Date: 2023
  • Type: Text , Journal article
  • Relation: European Journal of Development Research Vol. 35, no. 1 (2023), p. 85-111
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  • Description: The COVID-19 pandemic, an unprecedented global health crisis, rapidly transferred into a global economic and social crisis. The pandemic has threatened the world’s commitment to achieve Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030 as governments in developing countries have shifted their priorities from attaining SDGs, to providing urgent financial needs to save lives and prevent recession in hopes for a rapid economic recovery. The rerouting of public funding priorities has undermined the progress and achievement of SDGs. We employed a mixed-method and carried out a comparative study using pre- and post-public financial data of two developing countries in South Asia; Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. A threefold analysis was conducted to investigate the evolution of the COVID-19 pandemic in two countries, the impact of the pandemic on external and internal public finance and the effect of the pandemic in shifting the policy priorities from SDGs to economic survival. This study found that both countries are highly vulnerable to the COVID-19 pandemic and are suffering from the lack of financing from external sources through the private sector as well as an increasing foreign debt. There is mounting pressure on the fiscal balance in both countries. © 2022, The Author(s).

Creative arts intervention in support of women experiencing a high-risk pregnancy : a qualitative descriptive thematic analysis

  • Authors: Anolak, Helena , Lau, Farrah , Davis, Deborah , Browne, Jenny , Watt, Bec
  • Date: 2023
  • Type: Text , Journal article
  • Relation: Sexual and Reproductive Healthcare Vol. 36, no. (2023), p.
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  • Description: Background: Mental illness can have negative effects on both the pregnant woman and her unborn child. Studies that use the creative arts as interventions have proven to be beneficial to women's antenatal mental health and wellbeing, however, these studies are limited and emergent. Music, drawing and narrative (MDN) is an established music therapy intervention, stemming from guided imagery and music (GIM), that has the potential to support positive mental health and wellbeing. Yet, to date, there have been limited studies on the use of this form of therapy with inpatient antenatal women. Aim: To describe antenatal inpatient women's experiences of participating in a MDN session. Methods: Qualitative data were collected from a sample of 12 inpatient pregnant women who participated in MDN group sessions of drawing to music. Post intervention interviews explored the mental and emotional health of participants. A thematic analysis of the transcribed interview data was performed. Findings: Through reflection women were supported to acknowledge both the positives and difficulties of pregnancy as well as establish meaningful connections through shared experience. These thematic findings highlighted that MDN enabled this group of pregnant women to better communicate their feelings, validate emotions, engage in positive distractions, develop greater connections, improve optimism, experience calmness, and learn from others. Conclusion: This project demonstrates that MDN may offer a viable method for supporting women experiencing high risk pregnancies. © 2023 Elsevier B.V.

Critical data detection for dynamically adjustable product quality in IIoT-enabled manufacturing

  • Authors: Sen, Sachin , Karmakar, Gour , Pang, Shaoning
  • Date: 2023
  • Type: Text , Journal article
  • Relation: IEEE Access Vol. 11, no. (2023), p. 49464-49480
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  • Description: The IIoT technologies, due to the widespread use of sensors, generate massive data that are key in providing innovative and efficient industrial management, operation, and product quality control processes. The significance of data has prompted relevant research communities and application developers how to harness the values of these data in secure manufacturing. Critical data analysis, identification of critical factors to improve the manufacturing process and critical data associated with product quality have been investigated in the current literature. However, the current works on product quality control are mainly based on static data analysis, where data may change, but there is no way to adjust them dynamically. Thus, they are not applicable for product quality control, at which point their adjustment is instantly required. However, many manufacturing systems exist, like beverages and food, where ingredients must be adjusted instantaneously to maintain product quality. To address this research gap, we introduce a method that identifies the critical data based on their ranking by exploiting three criticality assessment criteria that capture the instantaneous product quality change during manufacturing. These three criteria are - (1) correlation, (2) percentage quality change and (3) sensitivity for the assessment of data criticality. The product quality is estimated using polynomial regression (POLY), SVM, and DNN. The proposed method is validated using wine manufacturing data. Our proposed method accurately identifies critical data, where SVM produces the lowest average production quality prediction error (10.40%) compared with that of POLY (11%) and DNN (14.40%). © 2013 IEEE.

Cross disciplinary teaching : a pedagogical model to support teachers in the development and implementation of outdoor learning opportunities

  • Authors: Neville, Ian , Petrass, Lauren , Ben, Francis
  • Date: 2023
  • Type: Text , Journal article
  • Relation: Journal of Outdoor and Environmental Education Vol. 26, no. 1 (2023), p. 1-21
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  • Description: There is a growing body of empirical evidence documenting the positive effects associated with participation in environmental education and outdoor learning for students, teachers and the wider community. Despite this, there has been a substantial reduction in outdoor learning opportunities for school students, possibly due to the focus on evidenced-based outcomes, high-stakes standardised testing programs, and a lack of teacher knowledge, confidence and expertise in teaching and learning outdoors. Accordingly, this study presents an evidenced based model to support teaching practice. The model will assist teachers in the development and implementation of outdoor learning opportunities and offers applied examples that address curriculum outcomes. A comprehensive literature review methodology was implemented to identify peer-reviewed literature on teaching and learning outdoors and outdoor pedagogies. A thematic synthesis and constant comparative technique enabled development of themes, from which three themes emerged: the environment; the learner; and the educator, which inform the proposed model offered by the authors. The three interrelated components (the environment, the learner and the educator) require consideration for students to gain maximum benefit from outdoor learning experiences. The model, coupled with the applied examples, supports teachers to plan and facilitate immersive outdoor experiences that promote learning. © 2022, The Author(s).

Cross-sectional study of soil-transmitted helminthiases in black belt region of Alabama, USA

  • Authors: Poole, Claudette , Barker, Troy , Bradbury, Richard , Capone, Drew , Chatham, Amy , Handali, Sukwan , Rodriguez, Eduardo , Qvarnstrom, Yvonne , Brown, Joe
  • Date: 2023
  • Type: Text , Journal article
  • Relation: Emerging Infectious Diseases Vol. 29, no. 12 (2023), p. 2461-2470
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  • Description: We conducted a cross-sectional study to determine the prevalence of soil-transmitted helminthiases (STH) in areas of rural Alabama, USA, that have sanitation deficits. We enrolled 777 children; 704 submitted stool specimens and 227 a dried blood spot sample. We microscopically examined stool specimens from all 704 children by using Mini-FLOTAC for helminth eggs. We tested a subset by using molecular techniques: real-time PCR analysis for 5 STH species, TaqMan Array Cards for enteric helminths, and digital PCR for Necator americanus hookworm. We analyzed dried blood spots for Strongyloides stercoralis and Toxocara spp. roundworms by using serologic testing. Despite 12% of our cohort reporting living in homes that directly discharge untreated domestic wastewater, stool testing for STH was negative; however, 5% of dried blood spots were positive for Toxocara spp. roundworms. Survey data suggests substantial numbers of children in this region may be exposed to raw sewage, which is itself a major public health concern. © 2023 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). All rights reserved.

Cyberbullying, mental health, and lesbian, gay, and bisexual youth with disabilities : intersectionalities and environmental risks

  • Authors: Gates, Trevor , Bills, Kaycee , Bennett, Bindi , Kelly, Brian
  • Date: 2023
  • Type: Text , Journal article
  • Relation: Journal of Child and Family Studies Vol. 32, no. 10 (2023), p. 3159-3166
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  • Description: Lesbian, gay, and bisexual youth with disabilities are at risk for being cyberbullied. Additionally, these risks can be compounded by other intersectional factors, such as cultural identity. Youth with multiple marginalized identities are at risk for stress, discrimination, and poor mental health outcomes as a result of bullying. However, research exploring the intersections between risk, sexual identity, and disability is sparse. In this article, we begin to address this gap in a diverse sample of lesbian, gay, and bisexual youth who have reported being cyberbullied in the Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System. We discuss implications for child and family studies, identifying opportunities for further discussion on risk, mental health, and person-in-environment factors for lesbian, gay, and bisexual youth with disabilities. © 2023, The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature.

Data evolution governance for ontology-based digital twin product lifecycle management

  • Authors: Ren, Zijie , Shi, Jianhua , Imran, Muhammad
  • Date: 2023
  • Type: Text , Journal article
  • Relation: IEEE Transactions on Industrial Informatics Vol. 19, no. 2 (2023), p. 1791-1802
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  • Description: Product lifecycle management (PLM) is an effective method for enhancing the market competitiveness of modern manufacturing industries. The digital twin is characterized by a profound integration of physics and information systems, which provides a technical means for integrating multisource information and breaking the time and space barrier of communication at each link of the lifecycle. Currently, however, the application of this technology focuses primarily on the product itself and 'service-oriented' application results. There is a lack of focus on twin data and its internal evolutionary mechanisms separately. In the management of global data resources, the benefits of digital twin technology cannot be fully realized. This article applies ontology technology in an innovative manner to the field of the digital twin to increase the reusability of twin data. Initially, a four-layered ontology-based twin data management architecture is presented. Then, a three-dimensional and three-granularity unified evolution model of full lifecycle twin data is proposed, as well as its ontology model. Then, the service mode of data components at each stage of the lifecycle is defined, a knowledge-sharing plane is established in the digital twin, and a data governance method based on ontology reasoning using data components on the shared plane is proposed. The ICandyBox simulation platform is then used to demonstrate the concept of the proposed method, and future research directions are proposed. © 2005-2012 IEEE.