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Given a real-world graph, how can we measure relevance scores for ranking and link prediction? Random walk with restart (RWR) provides an excellent measure for this and has been applied to various applications such as friend recommendation, community detection, anomaly detection, etc. However, RWR suffers from two problems: 1) using the same restart probability for all the nodes limits the expressiveness of random walk, and 2) the restart probability needs to be manually chosen for each application without theoretical justification. We have two main contributions in this paper. First, we propose R W E R (RWER), a random walk based measure which improves the expressiveness of random walks by using a distinct restart probability for each node. The improved expressiveness leads to superior accuracy for ranking and link prediction. Second, we propose SR (pervised start for RWER), an algorithm for learning the restart probabilities of RWER from a given graph. SR eliminates the need to heuristically and manually select the restart parameter for RWER. Extensive experiments show that our proposed method provides the best performance for ranking and link prediction tasks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Current literature presents conflicting findings concerning the effect of religiosity on attitudes towards redistribution. This paper attempts to reconcile these findings by arguing that the belief and social behavior dimensions of religiosity affect support for redistribution via different mechanisms, and that these effects are moderated by state welfare generosity. Using multilevel path analysis models on data from the World Values Survey, we show that the effect of the religious belief on attitudes towards redistribution is mediated by competing personal orientations—prosocial values and conservative identification—while the religious social behavior dimension significantly decreases support for redistribution via increased levels of happiness. Lower levels of welfare generosity increase the positive effect of prosocial orientations and weaken the negative effect conservative identification, leading to positive or null indirect effect of religiosity. These findings show the importance of taking into account the multiple dimensions of religiosity and institutional context when studying the relationship between religion and redistribution attitudes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we introduce a scalable machine learning approach accompanied by open-source software for identifying violent and peaceful forms of political protest participation using social media data. While violent political protests are statistically rare events, they often shape public perceptions of political and social movements. This is, in part, due to the extensive and disproportionate media coverage which violent protest participation receives relative to peaceful protest participation. In the past, when a small number of media conglomerates served as the primary information source for learning about political and social movements, viewership and advertiser demands encouraged news organizations to focus on violent forms of political protest participation. Consequently, much of our knowledge about political protest participation is derived from data collected about violent protests, while less is known about peaceful forms of protest. Since the early 2000s, the digital revolution shifted attention away from traditional news sources toward social media as a primary source of information about current events. This, along with developments in machine learning which allow us to collect and analyze data relevant to political participation, present us with unique opportunities to expand our knowledge of peaceful and violent forms of political protest participation through social media data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Temperament and Psychological Types can be defined as innate psychological characteristics associated with how we relate with the world, and often influence our study and career choices. Furthermore, understanding these features help us manage conflicts, develop leadership, improve teaching and many other skills. Assigning temperament and psychological types is usually made by filling specific questionnaires. However, it is possible to identify temperamental characteristics from a linguistic and behavioral analysis of social media data from a user. Thus, machine-learning algorithms can be used to learn from a user’s social media data and infer his/her behavioral type. This paper initially provides a brief historical review of theories on temperament and then brings a survey of research aimed at predicting temperament and psychological types from social media data. It follows with the proposal of a framework to predict temperament and psychological types from a linguistic and behavioral analysis of Twitter data. The proposed framework infers temperament types following the David Keirsey’s model, and psychological types based on the MBTI model. Various data modelling and classifiers are used. The results showed that Random Forests with the LIWC technique can predict with 96.46% of accuracy the Artisan temperament, 92.19% the Guardian temperament, 78.68% the Idealist, and 83.82% the Rational temperament. The MBTI results also showed that Random Forests achieved a better performance with an accuracy of 82.05% for the E/I pair, 88.38% for the S/N pair, 80.57% for the T/F pair, and 78.26% for the J/P pair. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Consideration of older adults’ quality of life (QoL) is becoming increasingly important in the evaluation, quality improvement and allocation of health and social care services. While numerous definitions and theories of QoL have been proposed, an overall synthesis of the perspective of older adults themselves is lacking. Methods: Qualitative studies were identified in PubMed, Ebsco/Psycinfo and Ebsco/CINAHL, through a search on 28 November 2018. Articles needed to meet all of the following criteria: (i) focus on perceptions of QoL, (ii) older adults living at home as main participants, (iii) use of qualitative methodology, (iv) conducted in a Western country and (v) published in English (vi) not focused on specific patient groups. A thematic synthesis was conducted of the selected studies, using the complete ‘findings/results’ sections from the papers. Results: We included 48 qualitative studies representing the views of more than 3,400 older adults living at home in 11 Western countries. The QoL aspects identified in the synthesis were categorized into nine QoL domains: autonomy, role and activity, health perception, relationships, attitude and adaptation, emotional comfort, spirituality, home and neighbourhood, and financial security. The results showed that although different domains can be distinguished, these are also strongly connected. Conclusion: QoL can be expressed in a number of domains and related subthemes that are important for older adults living at home. The findings further support that the concept of QoL should be seen as a dynamic web of intertwined domains. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Centile curves and standard scores are common in epidemiological research. However, standardised norms and centile growth curves for language disorder that reflect the entire UK local school population do not exist. Methods: Scores on six language indices assessing receptive and expressive functioning of children were obtained from the SCALES population survey. Monolingual English speaking participants were aged between five and nine years. Children who attended special schools at study intake, or who were learning English as an additional language were excluded. We constructed language norms using the LMS method of standardisation which allows for skewed measurements. We made use of probability weights that were produced from a two-step logistic model. Distributions of estimated standard scores from an intensively assessed sub-population and from the full population were contrasted to demonstrate the role of weights. Results: Non-overlapping centile curves and standardised scores at each age were obtained for the six language indices. The use of weights was essential at retrieving the target distribution of the scores. An online calculator that estimates standardised scores for the measures was constructed and made freely available. Conclusions: The findings highlight the usefulness and flexibility of the LMS method at dealing with the standardisation of linguistic and educational measures that are sufficiently continuous. The paper adds to the existing literature by providing population norms for a number of language tests that were calculated from the same group of individuals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Due to changes in Polish society resulting from a significant inflow of immigrants to Poland, the need to develop the cultural competences of various professional groups who have contact with immigrants in their work has increased. These groups should include healthcare professionals, especially because of the significant increase in the number of culturally diverse patients. Therefore, medical education in Poland has had to rapidly adapt to this novel situation. For instance, the teaching process should be now more focused on the development and evaluation of the cultural competences of prospective health care workers. However, there is still a lack of standardized, valid and reliable instruments to assess cross-cultural competences among healthcare professionals. The purpose of the present paper was to describe, for the first time, the translation, adaptation, and psychometric evaluation of the Polish version of the Cross-Cultural Competence Inventory. Methods: Across two studies, we examined psychometric properties of the Cross-Cultural Competence Inventory (CCCI) such as reliability (i.e. internal consistency, test-retest reliability, factor structure) and validity (i.e. theoretical, criteria, convergent). In the first study, 408 participants (75% were healthcare professionals) completed the Polish version of the CCCI and the Positive/Negative Attitude Towards Culturally Divergent People Questionnaire. In the second study, 317 participants (97% were healthcare professionals) completed the CCCI twice, with an interval of at least 22 days. In addition, across two study sessions, participants completed questionnaires constructed to measure (a) cultural intelligence, (b) need for cognitive closure, (c) emphatic sensitiveness, (d) emotional intelligence, (e) self-esteem, (f) social desirability, and (g) personality. Finally, to additionally examine the theoretical validity, 36 professional cross-cultural competence trainers completed the CCCI during a one-session study. Results: Our findings confirm the reliability and validity of the CCCI. More precisely, in study 1 we proved the theoretical validity and reliability (i.e. internal consistency) of the CCCI. While the assumed structure did not fit the data well, all items were significantly related to the general factor, thus providing strong support for the usage of the total score of the CCCI. In study 2, we additionally estimated the test-retest reliability and theoretical, criterion and convergent validity. Across two studies we were able to successfully confirm these psychometric properties. The reliability was satisfactory and ranged from .83 to .86. We also observed a high and significant positive correlation between CCCI and the Cultural Intelligence Scale, which measures a concept similar to the one measured by CCCI. In addition, a significant relationship between intercultural competences (CCCI) and other variables such as personality, empathic sensitivity, emotional intelligence, self-esteem (positive correlations) and the need for cognitive closure (mainly negative correlation) were demonstrated. Conclusions: The obtained results support the usage of the CCCI questionnaire in scientific research, such as, for example, among healthcare professionals (nurses, doctors) and students of medical fields (nursing, medicine). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Studio is critically important for design education, but few attempts have been made to demonstrate the parallels between studio factors and design performance. This paper adopts a coherent set of analyses to investigate the major studio factors and attempts to quantify the networking interactions among them. First, it describes how architectural studio is usually organised based on some major factors. Next, a theoretical model is established according to the described hypotheses and their mutual interactions. Third, the research method and statistical analysis with structural equation modelling (SEM) are presented. Finally, the results of this empirical examination are presented for discussion and suggestions. Our findings reveal that studio tutorials have no significant effect on undergraduate's design performance. In contrast, students’ subjective intention plays a more important role in shaping their behaviour, indicating the importance of transferring those exterior forces into internal benefits when the studio instructor attempts to optimise the pedagogy. These findings are also inspiring for all creative disciplines. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: As a result of global migration, health professionals in destination countries are increasingly being called upon to provide care for women and girls who have experienced female genital mutilation/cutting (FGM/C). There is considerable evidence to suggest that their care experiences are sub-optimal. This systematic review sought to illuminate possible reasons for this by exploring the views, experiences, barriers and facilitators to providing FGM-related healthcare in high income countries, from health professionals’ perspectives. Methods: Sixteen electronic databases/resources were searched from inception to December 2017, supplemented by reference list searching and suggestions from experts. Inclusion criteria were: qualitative studies (including grey literature) of any design, any cadre of health worker, from OECD countries, of any date and any language. Two reviewers undertook screening, selection, quality appraisal and data extraction using tools from the Joanna Briggs Institute (JBI). Synthesis involved an inductive thematic approach to identify descriptive themes and interpret these into higher order analytical constructs. Confidence in the review findings was assessed using GRADE-CERQual. The review protocol was registered with PROSPERO (CRD420150300042015). Results: Thirty papers (representing 28 distinct studies) from nine different countries were included. The majority of studies focused on maternity contexts. No studies specifically examined health professionals’ role in FGM/C prevention/safeguarding. There were 20 descriptive themes summarised into six analytical themes that highlighted factors perceived to influence care: knowledge and training, communication, cultural (mis)understandings, identification of FGM/C, clinical management practices and service configuration. Together, these inter-linked themes illuminate the ways in which confidence, communication and competence at provider level and the existence and enactment of pathways, protocols and specialist support at service/system level facilitate or hinder care. Conclusions: FGM/C is a complex and culturally shaped phenomenon. In order to work effectively across cultural divides, there is a need for provider training, clear guidelines, care pathways and specialist FGM/C centres to support mainstream services. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Nutrition outcomes among young children in Nigeria are among the worse globally. Mother’s limited knowledge about food choices, feeding, and health care seeking practices contributes significantly to negative nutrition outcomes for children in most developing countries. Much less is known about the relationship between mother’s nutrition-related knowledge and child nutritional outcomes in rural Nigeria. This paper investigates therefore: (i) the association of mother’s nutrition-related knowledge with nutrition outcomes of young children living in rural Nigeria, where access to education is limited, and (ii) whether mother’s education has a complementary effect on such knowledge in producing positive child nutrition outcomes in such settings. Methods: Using the Demographic and Health Survey data for Nigeria, we employ both descriptive and regression analyses approaches in analyzing the study’s objectives. In particular, we apply ordinary least square (OLS) to investigate the association of mother’s nutrition-related knowledge with child HAZ and WHZ while controlling for maternal, child, household and regional characteristics. An index was constructed for mother’s nutrition-related knowledge using information on dietary practices, disease treatment and prevention, child immunization, and family planning. Results: We found that mother’s knowledge is independently and positively associated with HAZ and WHZ scores in young children. Higher levels of mother’s education, typically above primary, have a significant, positive association with child HAZ and WHZ scores. We argue that mother’s knowledge of health and nutrition may substitute for education in reducing undernutrition in young children among populations with limited access to formal education. However, the present level of mother’s education in rural Nigeria appears insufficient to reinforce knowledge in producing better nutrition outcomes for children. Conclusions: This study suggests promotion of out-of-school (informal) education, such as adult literacy and numeracy classes where women without formal education can gain health and nutrition knowledge, and practices that could enhance child nutrition outcomes in Nigeria. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: Cultural changes faced by immigrants and ethnic minorities after moving to a host country may have a detrimental or beneficial influence on their oral health and oral health-related behaviors. Therefore, this paper reviews the literature to see the impact of acculturation on immigrants and ethnic minorities’ oral health outcomes. Methods: We searched seven electronic databases up to January 2018. All cross-sectional and longitudinal quantitative studies that examined associations between acculturation and oral health status and/or oral health behaviors among ethnic minority and immigrant population[s] were included. Study selection, data extraction, and risk of bias assessment were completed in duplicate. The Newcastle-Ottawa checklist was used to appraise the methodological quality of the quantitative studies. A meta-analytic approach was not feasible. Results: A total of 42 quantitative studies were identified. The studies showed a positive association between acculturation and oral health status/behaviors. The most frequently used acculturation indicators were language spoken by immigrant and ethnic minorities and length of stay at the host country. High-acculturated immigrant and ethnic minority groups demonstrated better oral health outcomes, oral health behaviors, dental care utilization, and dental knowledge. Conclusions: According to existing evidence, a positive effect of acculturation on oral health status and behaviors was found. Practical implications: Dental practitioners should be culturally competent to provide the appropriate services and treatments to immigrant and ethnic minorities. Policymakers should also be sensitive to cultural diversities and properly address the unique needs of each group in order to maintain oral health equity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: In this paper we present a model of parameters to aesthetically characterize films using a multi-disciplinary approach: by combining film theory, visual low-level video descriptors (modeled in order to supply aesthetic information) and classification techniques using machine and deep learning. Methods: Four different tests have been developed, each for a different application, proving the model's usefulness. These applications are: aesthetic style clustering, prediction of production year, genre detection and influence on film popularity. Results: The results are compared against high-level information to determine the accuracy of the model to classify films without knowing such information previously. The main difference with other film characterization approaches is that we are able to isolate the influence of high-level descriptors to really understand the relevance of low-level features and, accordingly propose a useful set of low-level visual descriptors for that purpose. This model has been tested with a representative number of films to prove that it can be used for different applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposes a weighted generalization of the recently developed Euclidean Index. The weighting mechanism is designed to reflect the reputation of the journal within which an article appears. The weights are constructed using the Eigenfactor Article Influence percentiles scores. The rationale for assigning weights is that citations in more prestigious journals should be adjusted to logically reflect higher costs of production and higher vetting standards, and to partially counter several pragmatic issues surrounding truncated citation counts. Simulated and empirical demonstrations of the proposed approaches are included, which emphasize the flexibility and efficacy of the proposed generalization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As a sustainable mode of transportation, public bicycles significantly improve daily mobility. The location of stations is a key element for the success of a public bicycle system, as a long walking distance will reduce people’s willingness to use this mode of transportation. Building forms in China are different from the open type seen abroad. Many residential, office and school areas are enclosed by walls, and pedestrian flow is concentrated at the entrances/exits of these areas. Therefore, the station must be located close to the building entrance/exit. Previous studies on station location located the stations only per zone, without providing the exact locations of the stations in the zones. This paper considers the optimal distance between the building entrance/exit and the station to determine the exact station locations. The results can serve as a reference for the planning and optimization of public bicycle stations. A questionnaire survey was conducted in Beijing to determine users’ walking distances to the stations. The results indicated that the walking distance decay laws of stations were different for different land uses. Moreover, a binary logistic model was developed to verify that users with different travel purposes have different walking distances. Based on the above results, we explored the optimal distances and tolerable distances between the building entrance/exit and the station for different land uses. These distances can be used to determine exact station locations to meet users’ physiological and psychological needs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Earthworms are primary candidates for national soil health monitoring as they are ecosystem engineers that benefit both food production and ecosystem services associated with soil security. Supporting farmers to monitor soil health could help to achieve the policy aspiration of sustainable soils by 2030 in England; however, little is known about how to overcome participation barriers, appropriate methodologies (practical, cost-effective, usefulness) or training needs. This paper presents the results from a pilot #60minworms study which mobilised farmers to assess over >1300 ha farmland soils in spring 2018. The results interpretation framework is based on the presence of earthworms from each of the three ecological groups at each observation (20 x 20 cm x 20 cm pit) and spatially across a field (10 soil pits). Results showed that most fields have basic earthworm presence and abundance, but 42% fields may be over-worked as indicated by absence/rarity of epigeic and/or anecic earthworms. Tillage had a negative impact (p < 0.05) on earthworm populations and organic matter management did not mitigate tillage impacts. In terms of farmer participation, Twitter and Farmers Weekly magazine were highly effective channels for recruitment. Direct feedback from participants included excellent scores in trust, value and satisfaction of the protocol (e.g. 100% would do the test again) and 57% would use their worm survey results to change their soil management practices. A key training need in terms of earthworm identification skills was reported. The trade-off between data quality, participation rates and fieldwork costs suggests there is potential to streamline the protocol further to #30minworms (5 pits), incurring farmer fieldwork costs of approximately £1.48 ha-1. At national scales, £14 million pounds across 4.7 M ha-1 in fieldwork costs per survey could be saved by farmer participation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: In many sub-Saharan African countries, confronting the dual epidemic of HIV and NCDs is a public health priority especially in high HIV burden countries such as South Africa. Evidence shows that poor health as a consequence of NCDs and HIV among the workforce increases absenteeism and leads to decrease in productivity. However, the prevalence of these co-occurring chronic conditions and associated factors is unknown in the educator workforce. Improved understanding has implications for their management and wellbeing of educators. This paper reports the prevalence of selected NCDs and associated factors among HIV positive educators in South Africa using the 2015/6 survey of Educators in Public Schools in South Africa. Methods: This was a second-generation surveillance undertaken among educators in selected public schools in all nine provinces in South Africa. A multi-stage stratified cluster design with probability proportional to size sampling was used to draw a random sample of schools. Factors associated with presence of NCDs were determined using a multivariate backward stepwise logistic regression analysis. Results: A total of 1 365 schools were sampled within which 21 495 (85.5%) educators were interviewed. Out of 2691, HIV Positive educators that responded to the questions on NCDs, 36.9% reported having NCDs. The most commonly reported NCDs were high blood pressure (17.4%), and stomach ulcers (13.5%). The increased odds of reporting the presence of NCDs was significantly associated with being female than male [aOR = 1.5: 95% CI (1.1–1.9), p<0.002], age 45 to 54 years [aOR = 1.8: 95% CI (1.4–2.2), p = p<0.001], and age 55 years and older than those 18 to 24 years [aOR = 2.7: 95% CI (1.8–3.9), p<0.001). The decreased odds of reporting the presence of NCDs was significantly associated with not being absent from school for health reasons [aOR = 0.7: 95% CI (0.6–0.9), p = 0.003]. Conclusion: NCDs care and active screening should be an integral part of HIV programmes including interventions such as prevention, treatment, care and support amongst public school educators in SA. The education department will need to invest in health promotion intervention programmes to prevent and mitigate the negative impact of NCDs and HIV on the sector. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A recurrent criticism concerning the use of online social media data in political science research is the lack of demographic information about social media users. By employing a face-recognition algorithm to the profile pictures of Facebook users, the paper derives two fundamental demographic characteristics (age and gender) of a sample of Facebook users who interacted with the most relevant British parties in the two weeks before the Brexit referendum of 23 June 2016. The article achieves the goals of (i) testing the precision of the algorithm, (ii) testing its validity, (iii) inferring new evidence on digital mobilisation, and (iv) tracing the path for future developments and application of the algorithm. The findings show that the algorithm is reliable and that it can be fruitfully used in political and social sciences both to confirm the validity of survey data and to obtain information from populations that are generally unavailable within traditional surveys. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Group buying (GB) is a popular business model in e-commerce. With the rise of online social media, the positive network effect of buying with others is more important than price discount for consumers to choose GB. However, the negative network effect of GB is also significant for some consumers. In this paper, we classify consumers into two segments considering both positive and negative network effects, and three possible sales strategies as well as their optimal decisions on price are presented. We find that GB strategy dominates individual buying (IB) strategy when the positive network effect is sufficiently high or the proportion of consumers with low valuation is relatively large. We also find that MIX strategy offering both IB and GB is always better than IB, while the relationship between MIX and GB is depending on actual market situations. Some other managerial insights are also discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a new public-use dataset for community-level life satisfaction in Canada, based on more than 500,000 observations from the Canadian Community Health Surveys and the General Social Surveys. The country is divided into 1216 similarly sampled geographic regions, using natural, built, and administrative boundaries. A cross-validation exercise suggests that our choice of minimum sampling thresholds approximately maximizes the predictive power of our estimates. The resulting dataset reveals robust differences in life satisfaction between and across urban and rural communities. We compare aggregated life satisfaction data with a range of key census variables to illustrate some of the ways in which lives differ in the most and least happy communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aim: We aimed to identify and evaluate the quality and evidence of the motor learning literature about intervention studies regarding the contextual interference (CI) effect (blocked vs. random practice order) in children with brain lesions and typically developing (TD) children. Method: Eight databases (Cinahl, Cochrane, Embase, PubMed, Pedro, PsycINFO, Scopus and Web of Knowledge) were searched systematically with predefined search terms. Controlled studies examining the CI effect in children (with brain lesions or TD) were included. Evidence level, conduct quality, and risk of bias were evaluated by two authors independently. A best evidence synthesis was performed. Results: Twenty-five papers evaluating TD children were included. One of these studies also assessed children with cerebral palsy. Evidence levels were I, II, or III. Conduct quality was low and the risk of bias high, due to methodological issues in the study designs or poor description thereof. Best evidence synthesis showed mainly no or conflicting evidence. Single tasks showed limited to moderate evidence supporting the CI effect in TD children. Conclusion: There is a severe limitation of good-quality evidence about the CI effect in children who practice different tasks in one session, especially in children with brain lesions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Adequate provision of safe water, basic sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) facilities and behavior change can reduce pupil absence and infectious disease. Increased drinking water quantity may also improve educational outcomes through the effect of hydration on attention, concentration, and short-term memory. A pilot study was conducted to adapt field measures of short-term cognitive performance and hydration, to evaluate levels of hydration, and to investigate the impact of providing supplementary drinking water on the cognitive performance of pupils attending water-scarce schools in rural Mali. Using a cross-over trial design, data were collected under normal school conditions (control condition) on one visit day; on the other, participants were given a bottle of water that was refilled throughout the day (water condition). Morning and afternoon hydration was assessed using specific gravity and urine color. Cognitive performance was evaluated using six paper-based tests. Three percent of pupils were dehydrated on the morning of each visit. The prevalence of dehydration increased in the afternoon, but was lower under the water condition. Although there was a trend indicating drinking water may improve cognitive test performance, as has been shown in studies in other settings, results were not statistically significant and were masked by a “practice effect.” [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is increasing concern about online communities that promote eating disorder (ED) behaviors through messages and/or images that encourage a “thin ideal” (i.e., promotion of thinness as attractive) and harmful weight loss/weight control practices. The purpose of this paper is to assess the content of body image and ED-related content on Twitter and provide a deeper understanding of EDs that may be used for future studies and online-based interventions. Tweets containing ED or body image-related keywords were collected from January 1-January 31, 2015 (N = 28,642). A random sample (n = 3000) was assessed for expressions of behaviors that align with subscales of the Eating Disorder Examination (EDE) 16.0. Demographic characteristics were inferred using a social media analytics company. The comprehensive research that we conducted indicated that 2,584 of the 3,000 tweets were ED-related; 65% expressed a preoccupation with body shape, 13% displayed issues related to food/eating/calories, and 4% expressed placing a high level of importance on body weight. Most tweets were sent by girls (90%) who were ≤19 years old (77%). Our findings stress a need to better understand if and how ED-related content on social media can be used for targeting prevention and intervention messages towards those who are in-need and could potentially benefit from these efforts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We propose an agent-based model leading to a decrease or an increase of hostility between agents after a major cultural threat such as a terrorist attack. The model is inspired from the Terror Management Theory and the Social Judgement Theory. An agent has a cultural identity defined through its acceptance segments about each of three different cultural worldviews (i.e., Atheist, Muslim, Christian) of the considered society. An agent’s acceptance segment is composed from its acceptable positions toward a cultural worldview, including its most acceptable position. An agent forms an attitude about another agent depending on the similarity between their cultural identities. When a terrorist attack is perpetrated in the name of an extreme cultural identity, the negatively perceived agents from this extreme cultural identity point of view tend to decrease the width of their acceptance segments in order to differentiate themselves more from the threatening cultural identity. We generated a set of populations with cultural identities compatible with data from a survey on attitudes among a large sample representative of the population of France; we then simulated the reaction of these agents facing a terrorist attack from Muslim extremists. For most populations, the average attitude toward Muslims becomes more negative. However, for some specific populations, we noticed the opposite effect as the average attitude of the population toward Muslims becomes less negative. In these populations, the Muslim agents strongly differentiate themselves from the terrorists’ extreme cultural identity, and the other agents are aware of these changes. These reactions are due to particular properties of their cultural identities that are identified in this paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Our aim was to develop a widely available educational program in which students conducted authentic research that met the expectations of both the scientific and educational communities. This paper describes the development and implementation of a citizen science project based on DNA barcoding of reptile specimens obtained from the Museums Victoria frozen tissue collection. The student program was run by the Gene Technology Access Centre (GTAC) and was delivered as a “one day plus one lesson” format incorporating a one-day wet laboratory workshop followed by a single lesson at school utilising online bioinformatics tools. The project leveraged the complementary resources and expertise of the research and educational partners to generate robust scientific data that could be analysed with confidence, meet the requirements of the Victorian state education curriculum, and provide participating students with an enhanced learning experience. During two 1-week stints in 2013 and 2014, 406 students mentored by 44 postgraduate university students participated in the project. Students worked mainly in pairs to process ~200 tissue samples cut from 53 curated reptile specimens representing 17 species. A total of 27 novel Cytochrome Oxidase subunit 1 (CO1) sequences were ultimately generated for 8 south-east Australian reptile species of the families Scincidae and Agamidae. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The reasons for the persistence of risky sexual behaviours among adolescents and young adults in sub-Saharan Africa despite the increasing knowledge about the associated risks continue to attract scholarly debates. Drawing from a cross-sectional study conducted among male and female Nigerian university students, we examined the relationship between family structure, family support and transactional sex. Methods: A pre-validated questionnaire was administered to 800 male and female students selected using stratified sampling; however, we performed the analysis on 630 participants who had ever engaged in sex. Transactional sex was operationalised as self-reporting of giving or receiving money, gifts or favour in exchange for sex. We fitted a list-wise logistic regression model to examine the relationship between family structure, family support and transactional sex while controlling for essential covariates. Results: Of the 630 participants included in the analysis, 17.9% had given and 23.8% had received money, gift or favour in exchange for sex. Our bivariate analysis shows that individuals from polygamous families had higher odds of reporting that they have ever given (AOR: 1.89; CI: 1.05–3.39) or received (AOR: 1.85; CI: 1.85–3.19) money, gift or favour in exchange for sex; however, the relationship was not statistically significant after controlling for relevant covariates. After controlling for essential covariates, the odds of giving or receiving money, gift or favour in exchange for sex was 56% lower in individuals who received adequate family support compared to those who received no or insufficient family support. Conclusion: In conclusion, this paper lends support to the assertion that family structure and family support are protective factors against transactional sex among adolescents and young adults. Future surveys need to include a larger sample in order to explore the effect of single-parent and polygamous family on transactional sex in Nigeria where family formation is changing rapidly. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Sexual and physical abuse in childhood creates a great health burden including on mental and reproductive health. A possible link between child abuse and HIV infection has increasingly attracted attention. This paper investigated whether a history of child physical and sexual abuse is associated with HIV infection among adult women. Methods: A cross sectional survey was conducted among 2042 postnatal women (mean age = 26y) attending six public primary health care clinics in Harare, Zimbabwe within 6 weeks post-delivery. Clinic records were reviewed for mother’s antenatal HIV status. Participants were interviewed about childhood abuse including physical or sexual abuse before 15 years of age, forced first sex before 16, HIV risk factors such as age difference at first sex before age 16. Multivariate analyses assessed the associations between mother’s HIV status and child physical and sexual abuse while controlling for confounding variables. Results: More than one in four (26.6%) reported abuse before the age of 15: 14.6% physical abuse and 9.1% sexual abuse,14.3% reported forced first sex and 9.0% first sex before 16 with someone 5+ years older. Fifteen percent of women tested HIV positive during the recent antenatal care visit. In multivariate analysis, childhood physical abuse (aOR 3.30 95%CI 1.58–6.90), sexual abuse (3.18 95%CI: 1.64–6.19), forced first sex (aOR 1.42, 95%CI: 1.00–2.02), and 5+ years age difference with first sex partner (aOR 1.66 95%CI 1.09–2.53) were independently associated with HIV infection. Conclusion: This study highlights that child physical and/or sexual abuse may increase risk for HIV acquisition. Further research is needed to assess the pathways to HIV acquisition from childhood to adulthood. Prevention of child abuse must form part of the HIV prevention agenda in Sub-Saharan Africa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Agent-based models are a tool that can be used to better understand the dynamics of an infectious disease outbreak. An infectious disease outbreak is influenced by many factors including vaccination or immunity levels, population density, and the age structure of the population. We hypothesize that these factors along with interactions of factors and the actions of individuals would lead to outbreaks of different size and severity even in two towns that appear similar on paper. Thus, it is necessary to implement a model that is able to capture these interactions and the actions of individuals. Using openly available data we create a data-driven agent-based model to simulate the spread of an airborne infectious disease in an Irish town. Agent-based models have been known to produce results that include the emergence of patterns and behaviours that are not directly programmed into the model. Our model is tested by simulating an outbreak of measles that occurred in Schull, Ireland in 2012. We simulate the same outbreak in 33 different towns and look at the correlations between the model results and the town characteristics (population, area, vaccination rates, age structure) to determine if the results of the model are affected by interactions of those town characteristics and the decisions on the agents in the model. As expected our results show that the outbreaks are not strongly correlated with any of the main characteristics of the towns and thus the model is most likely capturing such interactions and the agent-based model is successful in capturing the differences in the outbreaks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Vaccine hesitancy has been little studied in low- and middle-income countries but is a potential concern because vaccine refusal may increase the burden of infectious diseases and impede control efforts. The aim of this study was to compare vaccine hesitancy between locals, long-time city residents, and non-locals, who have more recently moved to the city from either other urban or rural areas, in Shanghai, China. Methods: Parents of infants ≤3 months of age were surveyed at immunization clinics in Shanghai, China. Participants completed a paper questionnaire utilizing the 10-item Vaccine Hesitancy Scale, which was developed by the World Health Organization Strategic Advisory Group of Experts on Immunization. Items were grouped based on internal consistency, and regressed onto demographic variables using a negative binomial model. Results: In total, 1,188 (92.5%) individuals participated. For most items on the scale, parents expressed positive beliefs about vaccines. However, about half of parents somewhat or strongly agreed that new vaccines carried more risks than older vaccines, and 71.6% somewhat or strongly agreed that they were concerned about serious adverse effects. Seven items from the Vaccine Hesitancy Scale were highly correlated and mapped onto “lack of confidence”; the other three items were analysed separately. Compared to mothers, fathers had less lack of confidence (β: -0.06, 95% CI: -0.12, -0.01), and individuals living in the outer suburbs (β: 0.13, 95% CI: 0.01, 0.25) and rural non-locals (β: 0.10, 95% CI: 0.02, 0.18) had greater lack of confidence in vaccines compared to their urban or local counterparts, respectively. Discussion: Shanghai parents professed confidence in certain vaccine benefits, but vaccine messaging could focus on addressing misconceptions about vaccines for diseases no longer common, newer vaccines, and adverse effects associated with vaccination. These messages may need to be separately tailored to locals and non-locals, who have differing concerns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) are associated with poor health outcomes, underlining the significance of early identification and intervention. Currently, there is no validated tool to screen for ACEs exposure in childhood. To fill this gap, we designed and implemented a pediatric ACEs questionnaire in an urban pediatric Primary Care Clinic. Questionnaire items were selected and modified based on literature review of existing childhood adversity tools. Children twelve years and under were screened via caregiver report, using the developed instrument. Cognitive interviews were conducted with caregivers, health providers, and clinic staff to assess item interpretation, clarity, and English/Spanish language equivalency. Using a rapid cycle assessment, information gained from the interviews were used to iteratively change the instrument. Additional questions assessed acceptability of screening within primary care and preferences around administration. Twenty-eight (28) caregivers were administered the questionnaire. Cognitive interviews conducted among caregivers and among 16 health providers and clinic staff resulted in the changes in wording and addition of examples in the items to increase face validity. In the final instrument, no new items were added; however, two items were merged and one item was split into three separate items. While there was a high level of acceptability of the overall questionnaire, some caregivers reported discomfort with the sexual abuse, separation from caregiver, and community violence items. Preference for methods of administration were split between tablet and paper formats. The final Pediatric ACE and other Determinants of Health Questionnaire is a 17-item instrument with high face validity and acceptability for use within primary care settings. Further evaluation on the reliability and construct validity of the instrument is being conducted prior to wide implementation in pediatric practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Holocene climate variability in the Mediterranean Basin is often cited as a potential driver of societal change, but the mechanisms of this putative influence are generally little explored. In this paper we integrate two tools–agro-ecosystem modeling of potential agricultural yields and spatial analysis of archaeological settlement pattern data–in order to examine the human consequences of past climatic changes. Focusing on a case study in Provence (France), we adapt an agro-ecosystem model to the modeling of potential agricultural productivity during the Holocene. Calibrating this model for past crops and agricultural practices and using a downscaling approach to produce high spatiotemporal resolution paleoclimate data from a Mediterranean Holocene climate reconstruction, we estimate realistic potential agricultural yields under past climatic conditions. These serve as the basis for spatial analysis of archaeological settlement patterns, in which we examine the changing relationship over time between agricultural productivity and settlement location. Using potential agricultural productivity (PAgP) as a measure of the human consequences of climate changes, we focus on the relative magnitudes of 1) climate-driven shifts in PAgP and 2) the potential increases in productivity realizable through agricultural intensification. Together these offer a means of assessing the scale and mechanisms of the vulnerability and resilience of Holocene inhabitants of Provence to climate change. Our results suggest that settlement patterns were closely tied to PAgP throughout most of the Holocene, with the notable exception of the period from the Middle Bronze Age through the Early Iron Age. This pattern does not appear to be linked to any climatically-driven changes in PAgP, and conversely the most salient changes in PAgP during the Holocene cannot be clearly linked to any changes in settlement pattern. We argue that this constitutes evidence that vulnerability and resilience to climate change are strongly dependent on societal variables. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives: To describe level of education and work participation among adults with congenital unilateral upper limb deficiency (CUULD) in Norway and to explore associations between work participation and demographic and clinical factors. Methods: Cross-sectional study. In 2012, a postal questionnaire was sent to 186 persons with congenital limb deficiency (CLD), age ≥ 20 years, registered at the TRS National Resource Center for Rare Disorders. In the original CLD study, 77 persons with CUULD responded. In this paper 64 persons with CUULD of working age (20–67 years) are included. Data on demographic factors as education level and work participation, and clinical factors including limb deficiency characteristics, chronic pain (Standardized Nordic Questionnaire), fatigue (Fatigue Severity Scale), physical and mental health (SF-36) were analyzed through descriptive and comparable statistics and logistic regression analyses. Results: Sixty-four persons participated, mean age 43.4 (SD 13.7; range 20–67 years), 45 were women. Education level >13 years was reported by 34. Forty- three of the 64 participants were employed, 21 were prematurely retired (disability benefits). 11 of the 43 employed, and 6 of the 21 prematurely retired had completed vocational education. Physically demanding occupations (work activities that required standing, walking and lifting) were reported by 25 of the 43 employed and 13 of the 21 prematurely retired. 17 of the 64 reported need for further adaptions in their workplaces. The strongest predictors of work participation were younger age (OR 0.86) and good physical health (OR 1.21). Conclusion: Two thirds of persons with CUULD were employed; while one third was prematurely retired and had left work earlier than expected. This suggests that persons with CUULD may experience challenges in work participation. Although levels of education were relatively high, several had chosen careers that required physical strain. Younger age and good physical health were the most important factors mediating work participation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates a brain-based approach for visual merchandising display (VMD) in fashion stores. In marketing, VMD has become a research topic of interest. However, VMD research using brain activation information is rare. We examine the hemodynamic responses (HRs) in the prefrontal cortex (PFC) using functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) while positive/negative displays of four stores (menswear, womenswear, underwear, and sportswear) are shown to 20 subjects. As features for classifying the HRs, the mean, variance, peak, skewness, kurtosis, t-value, and slope of the signals for a 20-sec time window for the activated channels are analyzed. Linear discriminant analysis is used for classifying two-class (positive and negative displays) and four-class (four fashion stores) models. PFC brain activation maps based on t-values depicting the data from the 16 channels are provided. In the two-class classification, the underwear store had the highest average classification result of 67.04%, whereas the menswear store had the lowest value of 64.15%. Men’s classification accuracy for the underwear stores with positive and negative displays was 71.38%, whereas the highest classification accuracy obtained by women for womenswear stores was 73%. The average accuracy over the 20 subjects for positive displays was 50.68%, while that of negative displays was 51.07%. Therefore, these findings suggest that human brain activation is involved in the evaluation of the fashion store displays. It is concluded that fNIRS can be used as a brain-based tool in the evaluation of fashion stores in a daily life environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many studies have demonstrated the existence of simple, unidimensional socioeconomic gradients in body mass index (BMI). However, in the present paper we move beyond such traditional analyses by simultaneously considering multiple demographic and socioeconomic dimensions. Using the Spanish National Health Survey 2011–2012, we apply intersectionality theory and multilevel analysis of individual heterogeneity and discriminatory accuracy (MAIHDA) to analyze 14,190 adults nested within 108 intersectional strata defined by combining categories of gender, age, income, educational achievement and living situation. We develop two multilevel models to obtain information on stratum-specific BMI averages and the degree of clustering of BMI within strata expressed by the intra-class correlation coefficient (ICC). The first model is a simple variance components analysis that provides a detailed mapping of the BMI disparities in the population and measures the accuracy of stratum membership to predict individual BMI. The second model includes the variables used to define the intersectional strata as a way to identify stratum-specific interactions. The first model suggests moderate but meaningful clustering of individual BMI within the intersectional strata (ICC = 12.4%). Compared with the population average (BMI = 26.07 Kg/m2), the stratum of cohabiting 18-35-year-old females with medium income and high education presents the lowest BMI (-3.7 Kg/m2), while cohabiting 36-64-year-old females with low income and low education show the highest BMI (+2.6 Kg/m2). In the second model, the ICC falls to 1.9%, suggesting the existence of only very small stratum specific interaction effects. We confirm the existence of a socioeconomic gradient in BMI. Compared with traditional analyses, the intersectional MAIHDA approach provides a better mapping of socioeconomic and demographic inequalities in BMI. Because of the moderate clustering, public health policies aiming to reduce BMI in Spain should not solely focus on the intersectional strata with the highest BMI, but should also consider whole population polices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many national (US) and International guidelines for physical activity provide guidance that under-active and sedentary adults can begin by accumulating moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA) in bouts as brief as 10 minutes. This guidance fits well with Goal Setting theory in that goals should be realistic and achievable, and is also consistent with Social Cognitive theory since achieving small goals should boost self-efficacy and thus, encourage continued physical activity. In contrast, Behavioral Economics might suggest that fewer, longer bouts would be more conducive to the adoption of physical activity due to the costs incurred with each separate bout of MVPA. This paper examines patterns of MVPA adoption among a sample of under-active adults from the perspective of goal setting theory and behavioral economics to explore specific strategies to help people who are in the early stages of PA activity adoption. Under-active men and women (N = 225; mean age = 46 ± 10; mean BMI = 28 ± 4.48) who enrolled in a PA intervention participated in a single goal setting session at enrollment. Participants were encouraged to set realistic goals and to increase their activity to meet national recommendations (150 minutes/week of moderate to vigorous physical activity [MVPA]) by the 6-month follow up. This process included identifying a specific frequency goal (days/week) and session duration goal (minutes/day). At baseline, participants reported average weekly MVPA of 14.59 min (± 24), which increased to an average of 140.52 (± 143.55) at 6 months. MVPA goals at baseline averaged 33.24 min/day (± 18.08) and 3.85 days/week (± 1.31). Analyses showed that longer session duration goals set at baseline were associated with more weekly minutes of MVPA at 6 months (b = 1.26, SE = 0.58, t = 2.17, p = 0.03). There was no significant association between goals for number of days per week (frequency) or total minutes of weekly MVPA (minutes x frequency) and MVPA at 6 months. Widely promoted guidelines for uptake of physical activity recommend accumulating physical activity in bouts as short as 10 minutes. This recommendation may ultimately hinder the adoption of physical activity among under-active and sedentary individuals. For the purposes of behavioral adoption of MVPA, more ambitious session duration goals appear to result in higher levels of physical activity participation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The establishment of trust between researchers and participants is critical to advance HIV and HCV prevention particularly among people who inject drugs (PWID) and other marginalized populations, yet empirical research on how to establish and maintain trust in the course of community health research is lacking. This paper documents ideas about trust between research participants and researchers amongst a sub-sample of PWID who were enrolled in a large, multi-year community health study of social networks and HIV/HCV risk that was recently conducted in rural Puerto Rico. Methods: Qualitative research was nested within a multi-year Social Network and HIV/HCV Risk study involving N = 360 PWID > 18 years of age living in four small, rural Puerto Rican communities. Semi-structured interviews were conducted between March 2017 and April 2017 with a subset of 40 active PWID who had been enrolled in the parent study. Interview questions invited participants to draw upon their recent experience as research participants to better understand how PWID perceive and understand participant-researcher trust within the context of HIV/HCV-related epidemiological research. Results: Fear of police, stigma and concerns regarding confidentiality and anonymity were identified as structural factors that could compromise participation in HIV/HCV-related research for PWID. While monetary compensation was an important motivation, participants also valued the opportunity to learn about their HIV/HCV status. During their participation in the study, gaining knowledge of safe injection practices was perceived as a valuable benefit. Participant narratives suggested that PWID may adopt an incremental and ongoing approach in their assessment of the trustworthiness of researchers, continuously assessing the extent to which they trust the research staff throughout the course of the research. Trust was initially generated through peer Respondent Driven Sampling recruitment. Research staff who maintained a presence in the community for the entire duration of the prospective study reinforced trust between participants and the research team. Conclusion: Although PWID face numerous structural barriers to research-related trust in HIV/HCV research, we found that using a peer-based recruitment method like RDS, and employing a research staff who are knowledgeable about the targeted population, culturally sensitive to their needs, and who maintain a long-term presence in the community may help mitigate many of these barriers. The reputation of the research is built incrementally as participants join the study. This contributes to a “street reputation” that grows as current or former participants vouch for the study. Establishing trust was identified as only the first step towards building a collaborative relationship with participants, and our findings suggest that steps to address criminalization and stigmatization also are necessary to support research trust. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Audio description (AD) is one of the main methods that people who are blind or low vision (B/LV) use to access film, television, and theatre content. AD is a second audio track inserted into the space(s) where speech is absent, which tends to be only a few seconds. Contained in that second track is an audio description of the important visual information contained within a specific scene. However, as there is insufficient time to describe all visual information, decisions about what is important to describe and how to present that information (style) to optimize a B/LV viewer’s entertainment experience are required. Most research to date has considered only short-term, single-episode experiences to gauge viewers’ reactions to the AD content. In addition, this research typically has used a monotone, single style of audio description, which is defined as “the conventional style” in this paper. We use an integrative style instead, that is defined as ‘AD designed to fit a specific show”, and differed between shows. We carried out a within-subjects longitudinal study with eight episodes of a dark comedy, using different description styles and describers in order to assess viewer engagement and preferences for AD describer style, language use, timing, and fit to the show. Twenty-four blind participants viewed and rated all eight episodes. Major findings included that most participants found the integrative style entertaining, a fit with the specific episodes, and enjoyable. Some participants, however, preferred the conventional style and struggled with the language and topic of a dark comedy and its associated descriptions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Attitudes and beliefs about menstruation can place restrictions on menstruating women and girls, limiting their ability to fully participate in community life, education and employment. This paper presents evidence on menstruation-related beliefs contributing to restrictive practices in Papua New Guinea (PNG), Solomon Islands (SI) and Fiji. Focus group discussions and interviews were undertaken with 307 adolescent girls, women and men in a rural and urban site in each country. Data were analysed using an inductive thematic approach. Participants described a range of attitudes and beliefs that restrict the behaviour of menstruating women and girls. Themes include the belief that menstrual blood is ‘dirty’; that when menstruating, girls and women can bring ‘bad luck’ to men; secrecy and shame associated with menstruation; and beliefs about the impact of certain behaviours on menstruation and health. Restrictive practices were more frequently reported in PNG and SI than Fiji, and more common in rural compared with urban sites. Some restrictions, such as avoidance of household chores, were perceived as desirable or driven by women themselves. However participants identified other restrictions, such as not being able to attend church or hygienically wash menstrual hygiene materials, as unwanted, in some cases impacting on participation in school, work and community life. Education initiatives guided by women and girls, implemented by local stakeholders and grounded in a sound understanding of specific contexts are needed to address discriminatory attitudes and beliefs that contribute to unwanted restrictions, and to support enabling attitudes and beliefs regarding menstruation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The modelling of deceptions in game theory and decision theory has not been well studied, despite the increasing importance of this problem in social media, public discourse, and organisational management. This paper presents an improved formulation of the extant information-theoretic models of deceptions, a framework for incorporating these models of deception into game and decision theoretic models of deception, and applies these models and this framework in an agent based evolutionary simulation that models two very common deception types employed in “fake news” attacks. The simulation results for both deception types modelled show, as observed empirically in many social systems subjected to “fake news” attacks, that even a very small population of deceivers that transiently invades a much larger population of non-deceiving agents can strongly alter the equilibrium behaviour of the population in favour of agents playing an always defect strategy. The results also show that the ability of a population of deceivers to establish itself or remain present in a population is highly sensitive to the cost of the deception, as this cost reduces the fitness of deceiving agents when competing against non-deceiving agents. Diffusion behaviours observed for agents exploiting the deception producing false beliefs are very close to empirically observed behaviours in social media, when fitted to epidemiological models. We thus demonstrate, using the improved formulation of the information-theoretic models of deception, that agent based evolutionary simulations employing the Iterated Prisoner’s Dilemma can accurately capture the behaviours of a population subject to deception attacks introducing uncertainty and false perceptions, and show that information-theoretic models of deception have practical applications beyond trivial taxonomical analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To what extent does our online activity reveal who we are? Recent research has demonstrated that the digital traces left by individuals as they browse and interact with others online may reveal who they are and what their interests may be. In the present paper we report a systematic review that synthesises current evidence on predicting demographic attributes from online digital traces. Studies were included if they met the following criteria: (i) they reported findings where at least one demographic attribute was predicted/inferred from at least one form of digital footprint, (ii) the method of prediction was automated, and (iii) the traces were either visible (e.g. tweets) or non-visible (e.g. clickstreams). We identified 327 studies published up until October 2018. Across these articles, 14 demographic attributes were successfully inferred from digital traces; the most studied included gender, age, location, and political orientation. For each of the demographic attributes identified, we provide a database containing the platforms and digital traces examined, sample sizes, accuracy measures and the classification methods applied. Finally, we discuss the main research trends/findings, methodological approaches and recommend directions for future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines how gender proportions at the workplace affect the extent to which individual networks support the career progress (i.e. time to promotion). Previous studies have argued that men and women benefit from different network structures. However, the empirical evidence about these differences has been contradictory or inconclusive at best. Combining social networks with tokenism, we show in a longitudinal academic study that gender-related differences in the way that networks affect career progress exist only in situations where women are in a token position. Our empirical results further show that women not in severely underrepresented situations benefit from the same network structure as men. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Bhutan, a small land-locked country in the eastern Himalayas has been undergoing an epidemiological and nutritional transition in the last two decades. The objective of this paper was to determine the prevalence and explore the risk factors of self-reported diabetes among Bhutanese adults. Methods: We conducted a secondary data analysis among adults 18 years and older Bhutanese using the data from the National Health Survey 2012 (NHS, 2012) of Bhutan. The self-reported information on risk factors was obtained using standard protocols of the WHO STEPwise approach to Surveillance. The outcome of interest was self-reported diabetes on medication. Adjusted and unadjusted logistic regression analyses were performed to identify the risk factor of diabetes. Results: A total of 31,066 participants aged 18 years and older were included for the analysis. The prevalence of self-reported hypertension was 1.8% (491). Risk factors for diabetes were: age groups: 35–44 years adjusted odds ratio (AOR) = 2.82 (95% CI, 1.07, 7.41), 45–54 years AOR = 6.02 (95% CI, 2.29, 15.83), 55–64 year AOR = 15.7 (95% CI 5.93, 41.55) and >65 years AOR = 19.60 (95% CI, 6.93, 55.71); high school and diploma/certificate education AOR = 2.57, (95% CI 1.62, 4.07) and AOR = 3.92 (95% CI 1.70, 9.07); and urban dwellers AOR = 2.37, (95% 1.58, 3.57); hypertension AOR = 3.3, (95% CI 2.47, 4.41); and fruit servings of 1–3 per week AOR = 1.63 (95% CI 1.15, 2.31). Conclusion: The number of Bhutanese adults with diabetes and co-morbidities associated with it is likely to increase with the ageing of the population, nutrition transition, and high rural-urban migration in the near future. This calls for an urgent need to implement strategies to prevent diabetes in the Bhutanese population targeting risk factors including healthy lifestyle with increased physical activities and reduced smoking. At the same time treating other chronic morbidities including hypertension. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies whether intentionality is more prevalent than fairness in social preferences. We do this by introducing a new three-player game in which the choices of neutral third-party arbiters are isolated from any monetary or strategic concerns. This allows us to study the normative preferences of subjects, and to compare the relative weight they give to intentions and inequality. The results show that arbiters are mainly concerned with inequality, while other’s (selfish) intentions seem to play a minor role in their preferences. This result is robust to a series of experimental designs, suggesting that the role of intentions in social preferences might be smaller than implied by the previous literature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We introduce a new agent-based model of opinion dynamics in which binary opinions of each agent can be measured and described regarding both pre- and post-influence at both of two levels, public and private, vis-à-vis the influence source. The model combines ideas introduced within the q-voter model with noise, proposed by physicists, with the descriptive, four-dimensional model of social response, formulated by social psychologists. We investigate two versions of the same model that differ only by the updating order: an opinion on the public level is updated before an opinion on the private level or vice versa. We show how the results on the macroscopic scale depend on this order. The main finding of this paper is that both models produce the same outcome if one looks only at such a macroscopic variable as the total number of the individuals with positive opinions. However, if also the level of internal harmony (viz., dissonance) is measured, then significant, qualitative differences are seen between these two versions of the model. All results were obtained simultaneously within Monte Carlo simulations and analytical calculations. We discuss the importance of our studies and findings from three points of view: the theory of phase transitions, agent-based modeling of social systems, and social psychology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper introduces a new method for acquiring and interpreting data on cognitive (or perceptual) networks. The proposed method involves the collection of multiple reports on randomly chosen pairs of individuals, and statistical means for aggregating these reports into data of conventional sociometric form. We refer to the method as “perceptual tomography” to emphasize that it aggregates multiple 3rd-party data on the perceived presence or absence of individual properties and pairwise relationships. Key features of the method include its low respondent burden, flexible interpretation, as well as its ability to find “robust intransitive” ties in the form of perceived non-edges. This latter feature, in turn, allows for the application of conventional balance clustering routines to perceptual tomography data. In what follows, we will describe both the method and an example of the implementation of the method from a recent community study among Alaska Natives. Interview data from 170 community residents is used to ascribe 4446 perceived relationships (2146 perceived edges, 2300 perceived non-edges) among 393 community members, and to assert the perceived presence (or absence) of 16 community-oriented helping behaviors to each individual in the community. Using balance theory-based partitioning of the perceptual network, we show that people in the community perceive distinct helping roles as structural associations among community members. The fact that role classes can be detected in network renderings of “tomographic” perceptual information lends support to the suggestion that this method is capable of producing meaningful new kinds of data about perceptual networks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, I examine whether inducing gender/professional identity compatibility prior to a self-advocacy negotiation, may enhance women’s assertiveness in a compensation negotiation and mitigate potential social backlash concerns for assertiveness. In two experimental lab studies where women negotiated with a male counterpart as sellers and job candidates, I found evidence supporting the causal link between state gender/profession identity integration and higher levels of assertiveness in women’s self-advocacy compensation negotiations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Participative branding is a process by which DMOs, locals and visitors contribute, through their activity in social media, to the definition of the emotional values associated to a destination. From the communicative point of view it is particularly important that DMOs and local citizens work together in the transmission of a set of coherent values that compose a personalised identity. This paper presents a novel methodology, based on semantic similarity measures, that permits to make an automated analysis of the emotional values transmitted by official tourist offices and by local citizens through social media. A study of 54,000 tweets from 9 main European tourist destinations highlights the lack of a strategy towards the communication of a distinctive brand and a strong gap between the official view transmitted by the DMOs of the destinations and the one communicated by their residents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Moral licensing, equivalently called “self-licensing”, is the instrumental use of a Good Act to cover up a Bad Act. This paper’s thesis is that “instrumental apology” i.e., bad-faith apology, is a case of moral licensing. A decision maker may issue an apology (Good Act) after committing a Bad Act, but if the decision maker uses the apology instrumentally, he or she is using the apology to justify the Bad Act. Hence, the apology is insincere. Sincerity is the fine line between a good-faith apology or, more generally, a Good Act, on one hand, and an instrumental apology or, more generally, moral licensing, on the other. In this light, moral licensing should be separated from genuine apology that attains moral equilibrium, which is called in the literature moral “self-regulation’ and “conscience accounting.” According to Kantian ethics, not just the consequences of an act matter, but also the sincerity with which the act was conducted. This pits Kant against the utilitarian view, which downplays intentions and focuses on consequences. We take Kant to the lab. Participants play a modified ultimatum game, where proposers in some treatments have the option of issuing apology messages and responders have both costly and costless options for rewarding or punishing proposers. We introduce different treatments of the apology message to allow responders to form doubts about the sincerity of the apology messages. Our results support the Kantian position: responders, once they become suspicious of the sincerity of the proposers’ apology, exhibit “insincerity aversion” and punish proposers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The accuracy and diversity of recommendation algorithms have always been the research hotspot of recommender systems. A good recommender system should not only have high accuracy and diversity, but also have adequate robustness against spammer attacks. However, the issue of recommendation robustness has received relatively little attention in the literature. In this paper, we systematically study the influences of different spammer behaviors on the recommendation results in various recommendation algorithms. We further propose an improved algorithm by incorporating the inner-similarity of user’s purchased items in the classic KNN approach. The new algorithm effectively enhances the robustness against spammer attacks and thus outperforms traditional algorithms in recommendation accuracy and diversity when spammers exist in the online commercial systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Telomere length (TL) has been associated with a range of aging outcomes as well as mortality. Recent research has shown both high heritability (~70%) of TL as well as moderate spousal similarity (r~0.3) using European datasets. This paper explores the level of spousal concordance in telomere length in the Health and Retirement Study, a national sample of adults in the US. The results show that the spousal correlations are lower (r~0.11). Regression-based associations in TL in the US are low (beta~0.08) and also vary by the number of times respondents have been married, where spouses married a single time have higher associations in TL (beta~.12) than spouses married more once (beta~0.03). I also find variation in spousal TL association levels based on husband’s education level. These findings suggest the possibility of both assortative mating patterns related to telomere length as well as likelihood of shared environmental factors that cause TL similarity in people who are socially connected. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Violence against women by an intimate partner (DV) is a serious public health and human rights issue. Attitudes justifying DV strongly predict its perpetration and victimisation. This paper presents gendered ecological analyses of the societal acceptance of DV in 49 low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) across geographical regions. Methods and findings: We utilised data from 49 Demographic and Health Surveys conducted between 2005 and 2017, United Nations Statistics and topic-specific meta-databases. DV acceptance was measured as the justification of ‘wife-beating’ in at least one of five circumstances, and by the summative scale. Stepwise multiple linear regression examined country-level social, economic and political empowerment predictors of societal acceptance of DV amongst women, men, and the aggregate gender difference. Women were more likely than men to justify DV in Sub-Saharan Africa and South (east) Asia with societal acceptance of DV being more widespread in these regions compared with Latin America, the Caribbean, Central/West Asia and Europe. Political conflict and limited economic rights for women were associated with higher levels of DV acceptance amongst women and men. Men in more democratic countries were less likely to justify DV. Amongst women, higher national female literacy rates predicted lower levels of justification. There were higher levels of DV acceptance amongst women and a wider aggregate gender difference in countries with a larger representation of women in national parliament. Conclusion: Justification of DV is widespread amongst women and men in LMICs with acceptance rates varying across countries and regions. Gender differences in the impact of contextual factors on DV acceptance supports a gendered approach to national-level interventions. Our findings highlight the need for tailored interventions targeting DV acceptance in conflict-impacted societies. The emphasis of inter(national) policies on the ‘empowerment’ domains of widely-used gender (in)equality indices need to be coupled with strategies tackling discriminatory gender norms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]