Search

Two recent books, published in the Republic of Ireland, highlight the abuse perpetrated against economically and socially marginalized children, in industrial schools, in the period following partial independence from Britain in the early 1920s. Peter Tyrrell's autobiographical account, published in 2006, is freshly relevant following the publication of the Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse (2009). A book by the journalist Bruce Arnold, although flawed, also contains important messages for critical social policy analysis in the Republic and beyond. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

'Baby P', a 17 month old boy, died in August 2007 from severe injuries inflicted whilst he was in the care of his mother, her 'boyfriend' and a lodger in the household. In November 2008 two men were found guilty of causing or allowing the death of a child or vulnerable person. The mother had already pleaded guilty to the same charge. Importantly, for Children's Services, 'Baby P' had been subject to a child protection plan following concerns that he had been abused and neglected. Following the convictions, the death of 'Baby P', and the inadequate responses of child welfare professionals, began to dominate political and media discourses. This critical commentary initially focuses on media, particularly newspaper, reports on the case and identifies a number of key themes. It is then maintained, despite the largely pernicious newspaper accounts of the tragedy, there may now be room, following the publication of the joint area review (JAR) of Haringey Children's Services, to prompt more informed debates about 'reform' within the sector. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Antonio Gramsci (1891-1937), who died over 70 years ago, produced a complex body of theorisation which is mostly ignored within social work. In this paper it is maintained that there are a number of obstacles presented for those reading Gramsci. Nonetheless, these obstacles should not deter us from trying to engage with Gramsci. After briefly outlining his biography, the article focuses on just two of his key thematic preoccupations. First, the related ideas of Americanism, Fordism and Taylorism; second, the concept of hegemony. Although conceding that there are problems with his work, it will be argued that these theoretical formulations continue to be of potential use and might aid our understanding of social work and related forms of activity during a period of neoliberal inspired transformations. Furthermore, thinking with Gramsci, and other social theorists, might enable the social professions to help construct counter hegemonic strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, some attempts have been made to ascertain if the work of the late Pierre Bourdieu has relevance for the work of social workers and others located in the social professions. It is important to support this exploration, but to expand it by also seeking to incorporate the overtly 'political' Bourdieu and to highlight some of the issues which preoccupied him. It is argued that his work, when viewed in a more rounded way, may contain a number of key 'messages' for social work in the early twenty-first century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary: In Britain, the Laming Report has provided a lengthy exploration of the circumstances surrounding the death of Victoria Climbié and highlighted the failure of social work, health and police services to safeguard the child. However, the Report fails to engage in a satisfactory way with issues related to 'race' and 'place'.Findings: It is maintained that the Report's approach to 'race' is cursory and problematic. Furthermore, it is argued that 'place' and, more specifically, transnational migration is a core, but insufficiently examined, dimension to the tragedy. Important also, in terms of the Report's limited engagement with these issues, is the evolution of a neo-liberal order in which migrants to Britain are viewed with suspicion and are the focus of legislation and policy discourses which are increasingly punitive.Applications: The article seeks to promote debate on the issues raised and emphasizes the significance, for social work and associated child welfare professionals, of issues related to 'race' and 'place'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary: In the United Kingdom, following the death of Victoria Climbie child protection procedures are currently being reviewed once again. At the core of child protection activity is the police/social work relationship and the notion of 'working together' to respond to child abuse. However, there is often a failure to interrogate what rhetorical assertions about multi-disciplinary working actually amount to in terms of the micro-politics of 'joined up' endeavours. This police/social relationship needs to be analysed because of specific issues related to child protection, but also because of the creation of multi-disciplinary youth offending teams and the more encompassing popularity, within eee policy discourse of New Labour, of 'joined up' approaches to the delivery of child welfare services.Findings: Interviews conducted with police officers and social workers in three different locations illuminate how they view their roles. Respondents reveal the tensions in 'working together' and a police tendency to perceive themselves as the 'lead agency'. In addition, issues bound up with recruitment and selection are significant. Within joint police/social work specialist units, there is a blurring of the social work role.Applications: It is argued that joint working between social workers and police officers needs to be subject to reflexive scrutiny. Perhaps, in the past, aspects of policing have been inadequately examined in social work education and training. The creation of a new social work degree may provide, however, an opportunity to address this issue. More generally, et should allow course participants the space to comprehend critically other 'disciplines' and the social processes that underpin joint working paradigms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To navigate changes within a highly dynamic and complex environment, it is crucial to compare current visual representations of a scene to previously formed representations stored in memory. This process of mental comparison requires integrating information from multiple sources to inform decisions about changes within the environment. In the present article, we combine a novel systems factorial technology change detection task (Blunden et al., 2022) with a set size manipulation. Participants were required to detect 0, 1, or 2 changes of low and high detectability between a memory and probe array of 1-4 spatially separated luminance discs. Analyses using systems factorial technology indicated that the processing architecture was consistent across set sizes but that capacity was always limited and decreased as the number of distractors increased. We developed a novel model of change detection based on the statistical principles of basic sampling theory (Palmer, 1990; Sewell et al., 2014). The sample size model, instantiated parametrically, predicts the architecture and capacity results a priori and quantitatively accounted for several key results observed in the data: (a) increasing set size acted to decrease sensitivity ( d ') in proportion to the square root of the number of items in the display; (b) the effect of redundancy benefited performance by a factor of the square root of the number of changes; and (c) the effect of change detectability was separable and independent of the sample size costs and redundancy benefits. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Changing how we feel can be adaptive, but it is also difficult and may require effort. There is research on what people want to achieve in emotion regulation (motivational content), but there is little research on how intensely people pursue what they want to achieve (motivational intensity). We tested the role of motivational intensity in emotion regulation, by assessing (Studies 1-2, N s = 160 and 157) and manipulating (Study 3, N = 250) it in daily life. As predicted, when people were more motivated to make themselves feel better, they engaged more intensely in emotion-regulatory behaviors, experienced more desirable emotional experiences, and reported better psychological health. Furthermore, motivating people to make themselves feel better, increased their emotion-regulatory behaviors and led to better psychological health during COVID-19. Motivational intensity, therefore, may be an understudied factor facilitating emotional well-being., Competing Interests: Declaration of Conflicting InterestsThe author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

We re-examined whether different time scales such as week, day of week, and hour of day are independently used during memory retrieval as has been previously argued (i.e., independence of scales). To overcome the limitations of previous studies, we used experience sampling technology to obtain test stimuli that have higher ecological validity. We also used pointwise mutual information to directly calculate the degree of dependency between time scales in a formal way. Participants were provided with a smartphone and were asked to wear it around their neck for two weeks, which was equipped with an app that automatically collected time, images, GPS, audio and accelerometry. After a one-week retention interval, participants were presented with an image that was captured during their data collection phase, and were tested on their memory of when the event happened (i.e., week, day of week, and hour). We find that, in contrast to previous arguments, memories of different time scales were not retrieved independently. Moreover, through rendering recurrence plots of the images that the participants collected, we provide evidence the dependency may have originated from the repetitive events that the participants encountered in their daily life., Competing Interests: SD is the CEO of a startup called Unforgettable Technologies Pty Ltd. that specializes in providing privacy preserving experience sampling collection and analysis services. The remaining authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2024 Yim, Garrett, Baker, Cha, Sreekumar and Dennis.)

Previous research has presented conflicting evidence regarding whether Chinese characters are processed holistically. In past work, we applied Systems Factorial Technology (SFT) and discovered that native Chinese speakers exhibited limited capacity when processing characters and words. To pinpoint the source of this limitation, our current research delved further into the mental architecture involved in processing Chinese characters and English words, taking into consideration information from each component. In our current study, participants were directed to make the same/different judgments on characters/words presented sequentially. Our results indicated that participants utilized a parallel self-terminating strategy when both or neither of the left/right components differed (Experiment 1). Faced with the decisional uncertainty that either the left/right component would also differ, most participants processed with a parallel exhaustive architecture, while a few exhibited the coactive architecture (Experiment 2). Taken together, our work provides evidence that in word/character perception, there is weak holistic processing (parallel self-terminating processing) when partial information is sufficient for the decision; robust holistic processing (coactive or parallel exhaustive processing) occurs under decisional uncertainty. Our findings underscore the significant role that the task and presentation context play in visual word processing., Competing Interests: The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (© 2023 The Authors.)

The Word Superiority Effect (WSE) refers to the phenomenon where a single letter is recognized more accurately when presented within a word, compared to when it is presented alone or in a random string. However, previous research has produced conflicting findings regarding whether this effect also occurs in the processing of Chinese characters. The current study employed the capacity coefficient, a measure derived from the Systems Factorial Technology framework, to investigate processing efficiency and test for the superiority effect in Chinese characters and English words. We hypothesized that WSE would result in more efficient processing of characters/words compared to their individual components, as reflected by super capacity processing. However, contrary to our predictions, results from both the "same" (Experiment 1) and "different" (Experiment 2) judgment tasks revealed that native Chinese speakers exhibited limited processing capacity (inefficiency) for both English words and Chinese characters. In addition, results supported an English WSE with participants integrating English words and pseudowords more efficiently than nonwords, and decomposing nonwords more efficiently than words and pseudowords. In contrast, no superiority effect was observed for Chinese characters. To conclude, the current work suggests that the superiority effect only applies to English processing efficiency with specific context rules and does not extend to Chinese characters., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare no conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2023 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Background: In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, countries are introducing digital passports that allow citizens to return to normal activities if they were previously infected with (immunity passport) or vaccinated against (vaccination passport) SARS-CoV-2. To be effective, policy decision-makers must know whether these passports will be widely accepted by the public and under what conditions. This study focuses attention on immunity passports, as these may prove useful in countries both with and without an existing COVID-19 vaccination program; however, our general findings also extend to vaccination passports., Objective: We aimed to assess attitudes toward the introduction of immunity passports in six countries, and determine what social, personal, and contextual factors predicted their support., Methods: We collected 13,678 participants through online representative sampling across six countries-Australia, Japan, Taiwan, Germany, Spain, and the United Kingdom-during April to May of the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic, and assessed attitudes and support for the introduction of immunity passports., Results: Immunity passport support was moderate to low, being the highest in Germany (775/1507 participants, 51.43%) and the United Kingdom (759/1484, 51.15%); followed by Taiwan (2841/5989, 47.44%), Australia (963/2086, 46.16%), and Spain (693/1491, 46.48%); and was the lowest in Japan (241/1081, 22.94%). Bayesian generalized linear mixed effects modeling was used to assess predictive factors for immunity passport support across countries. International results showed neoliberal worldviews (odds ratio [OR] 1.17, 95% CI 1.13-1.22), personal concern (OR 1.07, 95% CI 1.00-1.16), perceived virus severity (OR 1.07, 95% CI 1.01-1.14), the fairness of immunity passports (OR 2.51, 95% CI 2.36-2.66), liking immunity passports (OR 2.77, 95% CI 2.61-2.94), and a willingness to become infected to gain an immunity passport (OR 1.6, 95% CI 1.51-1.68) were all predictive factors of immunity passport support. By contrast, gender (woman; OR 0.9, 95% CI 0.82-0.98), immunity passport concern (OR 0.61, 95% CI 0.57-0.65), and risk of harm to society (OR 0.71, 95% CI 0.67-0.76) predicted a decrease in support for immunity passports. Minor differences in predictive factors were found between countries and results were modeled separately to provide national accounts of these data., Conclusions: Our research suggests that support for immunity passports is predicted by the personal benefits and societal risks they confer. These findings generalized across six countries and may also prove informative for the introduction of vaccination passports, helping policymakers to introduce effective COVID-19 passport policies in these six countries and around the world., (©Paul M Garrett, Joshua P White, Simon Dennis, Stephan Lewandowsky, Cheng-Ta Yang, Yasmina Okan, Andrew Perfors, Daniel R Little, Anastasia Kozyreva, Philipp Lorenz-Spreen, Takashi Kusumi, Yoshihisa Kashima. Originally published in JMIR Public Health and Surveillance (https://publichealth.jmir.org), 15.07.2022.)

Taiwan has been a world leader in controlling the spread of SARS-CoV-2 during the COVID-19 pandemic. Recently, the Taiwan Government launched its COVID-19 tracing app, 'Taiwan Social Distancing App'; however, the effectiveness of this tracing app depends on its acceptance and uptake among the general population. We measured the acceptance of three hypothetical tracing technologies (telecommunication network tracing, a government app, and the Apple and Google Bluetooth exposure notification system) in four nationally representative Taiwanese samples. Using Bayesian methods, we found a high acceptance of all three tracking technologies, with acceptance increasing with the inclusion of additional privacy measures. Modeling revealed that acceptance increased with the perceived technology benefits, trust in the providers' intent, data security and privacy measures, the level of ongoing control, and one's level of education. Acceptance decreased with data sensitivity perceptions and a perceived low policy compliance by others among the general public. We consider the policy implications of these results for Taiwan during the COVID-19 pandemic and in the future.

The COVID-19 pandemic has seen one of the first large-scale uses of digital contact tracing to track a chain of infection and contain the spread of a virus. The new technology has posed challenges both for governments aiming at high and effective uptake and for citizens weighing its benefits (e.g., protecting others' health) against the potential risks (e.g., loss of data privacy). Our cross-sectional survey with repeated measures across four samples in Germany ([Formula: see text]) focused on psychological factors contributing to the public adoption of digital contact tracing. We found that public acceptance of privacy-encroaching measures (e.g., granting the government emergency access to people's medical records or location tracking data) decreased over the course of the pandemic. Intentions to use contact tracing apps-hypothetical ones or the Corona-Warn-App launched in Germany in June 2020-were high. Users and non-users of the Corona-Warn-App differed in their assessment of its risks and benefits, in their knowledge of the underlying technology, and in their reasons to download or not to download the app. Trust in the app's perceived security and belief in its effectiveness emerged as psychological factors playing a key role in its adoption. We incorporate our findings into a behavioral framework for digital contact tracing and provide policy recommendations., (© 2021. The Author(s).)

Taiwan has been successful in controlling the spread of SARS-CoV-2 during the COVID-19 pandemic; however, without a vaccine the threat of a second outbreak remains. Young adults who show few to no symptoms when infected have been identified in many countries as driving the virus' spread through unidentifiable community transmission. Mobile tracking technologies register nearby contacts of a user and notifies them if one later tests positive to the virus, potentially solving this issue; however, the effectiveness of these technologies depends on their acceptance by the public. The current study assessed attitudes towards three tracking technologies (telecommunication network tracking, a government app, and Apple and Google's Bluetooth exposure notification system) among four samples of young Taiwanese adults (aged 25 years or younger). Using Bayesian methods, we find high acceptance for all three tracking technologies (>75%), with acceptance for each technology surpassing 90% if additional privacy measures were included. We consider the policy implications of these results for Taiwan and similar cultures.

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, many Governments are instituting mobile tracking technologies to perform rapid contact tracing. However, these technologies are only effective if the public is willing to use them, implying that their perceived public health benefits must outweigh personal concerns over privacy and security. The Australian federal government recently launched the 'COVIDSafe' app, designed to anonymously register nearby contacts. If a contact later identifies as infected with COVID-19, health department officials can rapidly followup with their registered contacts to stop the virus' spread. The current study assessed attitudes towards three tracking technologies (telecommunication network tracking, a government app, and Apple and Google's Bluetooth exposure notification system) in two representative samples of the Australian public prior to the launch of COVIDSafe. We compared these attitudes to usage of the COVIDSafe app after its launch in a further two representative samples of the Australian public. Using Bayesian methods, we find widespread acceptance for all tracking technologies, however, observe a large intention-behaviour gap between people's stated attitudes and actual uptake of the COVIDSafe app. We consider the policy implications of these results for Australia and the world at large., Competing Interests: The authors have read the journal’s policy and have the following competing interests: author S.D. is the CEO of Unforgettable Research Services Pty Ltd (URS) that specializes in providing privacy-preserving experience-sampling collection and analysis services. This does not alter our adherence to PLOS ONE policies on sharing data and materials. There are no patents, products in development or marketed products associated with this research to declare.

Cognitive control is required in situations that involve uncertainty or change, such as when resolving conflict, selecting responses and switching tasks. Recently, it has been suggested that cognitive control can be conceptualised as a mechanism which prioritises goal-relevant information to deal with uncertainty. This hypothesis has been supported using a paradigm that requires conflict resolution. In this study, we examine whether cognitive control during task switching is also consistent with this notion. We used information theory to quantify the level of uncertainty in different trial types during a cued task-switching paradigm. We test the hypothesis that differences in uncertainty between task repeat and task switch trials can account for typical behavioural effects in task-switching. Increasing uncertainty was associated with less efficient performance (i.e., slower and less accurate), particularly on switch trials and trials that afford little opportunity for advance preparation. Interestingly, both mixing and switch costs were associated with a common episodic control process. These results support the notion that cognitive control may be conceptualised as an information processor that serves to resolve uncertainty in the environment.

Rationale: The role of procalcitonin (PCT), a widely used sepsis biomarker, in critically ill patients with sepsis is undetermined., Objectives: To investigate the effect of a low PCT cut-off on antibiotic prescription and to describe the relationships between PCT plasma concentration and sepsis severity and mortality., Methods: This was a multicenter (11 Australian intensive care units [ICUs]), prospective, single-blind, randomized controlled trial involving 400 patients with suspected bacterial infection/sepsis and expected to receive antibiotics and stay in ICU longer than 24 hours. The primary outcome was the cumulative number of antibiotics treatment days at Day 28., Measurements and Main Results: PCT was measured daily while in the ICU. A PCT algorithm, including 0.1 ng/ml cut-off, determined antibiotic cessation. Published guidelines and antimicrobial stewardship were used in all patients. Primary analysis included 196 (PCT) versus 198 standard care patients. Ninety-three patients in each group had septic shock. The overall median (interquartile range) number of antibiotic treatment days were 9 (6-21) versus 11 (6-22), P = 0.58; in patients with positive pulmonary culture, 11 (7-27) versus 15 (8-27), P = 0.33; and in patients with septic shock, 9 (6-22) versus 11 (6-24), P = 0.64; with an overall 90-day all-cause mortality of 35 (18%) versus 31 (16%), P = 0.54 in the PCT versus standard care, respectively. Using logistic regression, adjusted for age, ventilation status, and positive culture, the decline rate in log(PCT) over the first 72 hours independently predicted hospital and 90-day mortality (odds ratio [95% confidence interval], 2.76 [1.10-6.96], P = 0.03; 3.20 [1.30-7.89], P = 0.01, respectively)., Conclusions: In critically ill adults with undifferentiated infections, a PCT algorithm including 0.1 ng/ml cut-off did not achieve 25% reduction in duration of antibiotic treatment. Clinical trial registered with http://www.anzctr.org.au (ACTRN12610000809033).

Near-hanging is an increasing presentation to hospitals in Australasia. We reviewed the clinical management and outcome of these patients as they presented to public hospitals in Queensland. A retrospective clinical record audit was made at five public hospitals between 1991 and 2000. Of 161 patients enrolled, 82% were male, 8% were indigenous and 10% had made a previous hanging attempt. Chronic medical illnesses were documented in 11% and previous psychiatric disorders in 42%. Of the 38 patients with a Glasgow Coma Scale score (GCS) of 3 on arrival at hospital, 32% returned to independent living and 63% died. Fifty-two patients received CPR, of whom 46% had an independent functional outcome. Independent predictors of mortality were a GCS on hospital arrival of 3 (AOR 150, CI 95% 12.4-1818, P<0.001), taking plain X-rays of the cervical spine (AOR 0.06, CI 95% 0.004-0.97, P=0.047) and contact with the ground (AOR 0.03, CI 95% 0.002-0.62, P=0.02). Only 66% had imaging of the cervical spine performed with other imaging performed infrequently. There were three laryngeal, two hyoid bone and three cervical spine injuries and one carotid dissection. The number of cervical spine X-rays required to find a significant cervical spine fracture was 54. Near-hanging presenting to hospital with a poor conscious state or even cardiac arrest can have a favourable clinical outcome. Radiological investigations are infrequently performed despite a low GCS precluding early accurate assessment. Given the general favourable outcome, an aggressive approach to searching for correctable injuries is recommended.

Acute right heart failure in a young person is an unusual presentation and drug overdose is a rare cause. A case is described where the patient presented with striking clinical signs of acute pulmonary hypertension and right heart failure, which were confirmed by transthoracic echocardiography. The precipitating event appeared to be poisoning by tramadol. There were features in keeping with tramadol toxicity and serotonin syndrome. The possible pathophysiology behind the process is discussed.