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Misinformation is hypothesized to be more heavily monetized than other kinds of online content. We test this hypothesis with several scalable measures of website monetization. We examine over 400,000 links shared in more than 400 vaccine-related Facebook groups/pages, comparing anti-vaccine venues to pro-vaccine venues. Contrary to expectations, websites promoted in pro-vaccine venues are more monetized than those promoted in anti-vaccine venues. This is a consequence of the heavy monetization of news websites -- pro-vaccine venues are roughly 1.7 times more likely to share links to news. The specific news sites shared by anti-vaccine venues are rated less credible by fact-checking organizations, but we find no significant differences in monetization. However, non-news sites, such as blogs, shared by anti-vaccine actors were significantly more monetized. These results emphasize the need to interpret measures of monetization within the context of the broader "attention economy."

Peer reviewed: True, Home parenteral support (HPS) is an essential but potentially burdensome treatment that can affect quality of life (QoL). The aims of this longitudinal study were to understand whether any changes in HPS over time were associated with QoL. The Parenteral Nutrition Impact Questionnaire (PNIQ) was used, and data were collected on HPS prescribed at three time points. Data were analysed using multi-level mixed regression models presented as effect size and were adjusted for confounders. Study recruited 572 participants from 15 sites. Of these, 201 and 145 completed surveys at second and third time-points, respectively. PNIQ score was out of 20 with a higher score indicating poorer QoL. Any reduction in HPS infusions per week was associated with an improved PNIQ score of -1.10 (95% CI -2.17, -0.02) unadjusted and -1.34 (95% CI -2.45, -0.24) adjusted. Per day change to the number of infusions per week was associated with a change in the PNIQ score of 0.32 (95% CI -0.15, 0.80) unadjusted and 0.34 (95% CI -0.17, 0.85) adjusted. This is the largest national study to demonstrate improvements in QoL associated with HPS reduction over time using an HPS-specific and patient-centric tool, adding unique data for use of therapies in intestinal failure.

Monitoring trends in animal populations in arid regions is challenging due to remoteness and low population densities. However, detecting species' tracks or sign is an effective survey technique for monitoring population trends across large spatial and temporal scales. In this study, we developed a simulation framework to evaluate the performance of alternative track-based monitoring designs at detecting change in species distributions in arid Australia. We collated presence-absence records from 550 2-ha track-based plots for 11 vertebrates over 13 years and fitted ensemble species distribution models to predict occupancy in 2018. We simulated plausible changes in species' distributions over the next 15 years, and with estimates of detectability, simulated monitoring to evaluate the statistical power of three alternative monitoring scenarios: 1) when surveys were restricted to existing 2-ha plots; 2) when surveys were optimised to target all species equally; 3) when surveys were optimised to target two species of conservation concern. Across all monitoring designs and scenarios, we found that power was higher when detecting increasing occupancy trends compared to decreasing trends due to relatively low levels of initial occupancy. Our results suggest that surveying 200 of the existing plots annually (with a small subset re-surveyed twice within a year) will have at least an 80% chance at detecting 30% declines in occupancy for 4 of the 5 invasive species modelled and 1 of the 6 native species. This increased to 10 of the 11 species assuming larger (50%) declines. When plots were positioned to target all species equally, power improved slightly for most compared to the existing survey network. When plots were positioned to target two species of conservation concern (crest-tailed mulgara and dusky hopping mouse), power to detect 30% declines increased by 29% and 31% for these species, respectively, at the cost of reduced power for remaining species. The effect of varying survey frequency depended on its trade-off with the number of sites sampled and requires further consideration. Nonetheless, our research suggests that track-based surveying is an effective and logistically feasible approach for monitoring broad-scale occupancy trends in desert species with both widespread and restricted distributions.

The construction of low-cost nanogrids could help speed up the electrification rate in remote communities in sub-Saharan Africa. One of the challenges in nanogrid design for these communities is the uncertainty in future load demand profiles impacting the cabling topology. We propose two new wiring design approaches for radial direct current power distribution systems. The first one is a modified minimum spanning tree (MST) algorithm and the second one is an adaptive shuffled frog leaping algorithm (SFLA). Their objective is to identify the optimal cable path and the lowest cost wiring characteristics to electrify rural areas with poor infrastructural development. A comparative study of computation burdens has shown the applicability limits relative to the SFLA based approach and encouraged the implementation of the MST as it is faster and does not imply any limitation regarding the number of dwellings to electrify, while providing low-cost wiring design option. The latter is applied to a village located in Kenya and demonstrated more than 25% savings on the entire system cabling cost compared to a classical wiring design based on shortest-path calculation.