Tracing Medicinal Agencies : Antidepressants and life-effects

This article is inspired by the social life of methods approach, joining a movement among social scientists engaging with ‘big data’ to contribute to methodological innovation and conceptual development in research and knowledge translation. It explores human-drug associations using a computational tool, Medicine Radar, meanwhile raising questions about the ways a digital device pushes us to rethink how drugs are known in the everyday. Medicine Radar is an apparatus for exploring human-drug associations by means of Suomi24 (Finland24) data, containing 19 million health-related online posts spanning a period of 16 years. Using defined markers, Medicine Radar sorts the medicine talk in health-related discussions, thereby assisting us to ‘see’ the actions of the drug and human responses to them. This kind of approach distances the drug from the illness experience, drawing attention to the private details of the human-drug relationship. The empirical analysis separates three areas of antidepressant use: articulations of reactions, stabilizing the life effects of drugs and coming to terms with antidepressants. Together, the online posts urge us to think of everyday experience where the effects of drugs – intended or unintended – are always lived. The side effects of antidepressants, including drowsiness, ravenous hunger, loss of sexual desire and emotional numbness, become life effects. As will be demonstrated, the move from conceptualizing such fallout as side effects to understanding them as life effects has political ramifications. The computation tool adds collective weight to antidepressant experiences and calls for politicizing their effects on life.Peer reviewe

Lääketutka - Löytöretkeilyä ihmisten keskusteluihin omasta terveydestään

Peer reviewe

Effects of Corpus Size on Word Similarity Model

Tekstilouhinnan menetelmien avulla pystytään erottelemaan ja poimimaan oleellista tietoa suurista tekstiaineistoista. Näitä menetelmiä hyödyntäen voidaan tutkia Suomi24-keskustelupalstan viestejä ja sitä, miten käyttäjät puhuvat omasta terveydestään. Kahden käsitteen välistä semanttista samankaltaisuutta voidaan tarkastella vektoriavaruudessa kouluttamalla Word2Vec-malli, joka oppii sanojen väliset suhteet muodostamalla dataan sisältyville sanoille vektoriesitykset. Tutkielmassa selvitetään korpuksen koon vaikutusta sanojen samankaltaisuusmallien kouluttamisessa. Korpuksen koon vaikutusta tutkitaan vertaamalla mitattuja kosinin samankaltaisuuden etäisyyksiä sanojen vektoriesitysten välillä kahdessa vektoriavaruudessa, jotka ovat muodostettu hyödyntämällä erikokosia korpuksia. Työssä käytetään kahta korpusta, joista yksi sisältää vain viestejä Suomi24:n terveyskeskustelualueelta. Toinen korpus sisältää terveyskeskusteluviestien lisäksi viestejä muilta keskustelualueilta, jotka sisältävät terveysaiheisia sanoja. Kosinin samankaltaisuutta arvioidaan hyödyntämällä käsitelistoja olennaisista terveysaiheisista sanoista. Kun datan määrää kasvatetaan lähes 30 prosenttia, huomataan, että kasvattamisella ei ole huomattavaa vaikutusta datan ominaispiirteisiin. Tulokset eivät osoittaneet selkeää yhteyttä korpuksen koon ja mitattujen terveysaiheisten sanojen vektoriesitysten kosinin samankaltaisuuksien välillä.Text mining methods provide a solution to the task of extracting relevant information from large text datasets. These methods can be applied to extract the relevant parts of Suomi24 internet health discussion to analyze how people discuss and negotiate their health through words, which represents medication or symptoms. Semantic similarities between these two concepts can be examined by learning the word vector representations from data and exploring the vector space using Word2Vec, a popular word embedding method. This thesis reviews how the training of word similarity models is affected by increasing corpus size using text retrieval methods.The effects of corpus size are examined by comparing the measured cosine similarity distances between word vectors representations in two different vector spaces. Word vector representations are learned using two different sized corpora. The first corpus includes only messages from the health discussion area of Suomi24. The second corpus includes the same messages as the first corpus, but also messages from other discussion areas, which include health related words. Cosine similarities are evaluated on using concept vocabularies including relevant health related words. Increasing the number of training examples by almost 30% did not have a drastic effect on the qualities of the training data. The results did not indicate a distinct connection between corpus size and the measured cosine similarity distances between word vector representations of health related words

Modeling raccoon (Procyon lotor) habitat connectivity to identify potential corridors for rabies spread

The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS), Wildlife Services National Rabies Management Program has conducted cooperative oral rabies vaccination (ORV) programs since 1997. Understanding the eco-epidemiology of raccoon (Procyon lotor) variant rabies (raccoon rabies) is critical to successful management. Pine (Pinus spp.)-dominated landscapes generally support low relative raccoon densities that may inhibit rabies spread. However, confounding landscape features, such as wetlands and human development, represent potentially elevated risk corridors for rabies spread, possibly imperiling enhanced rabies surveillance and ORV planning. Raccoon habitat suitability in pine-dominated landscapes in Massachusetts, Florida, and Alabama was modeled by the maximum entropy (Maxent) procedure using raccoon presence, and landscape and environmental data. Replicated (n = 100/state) bootstrapped Maxent models based on raccoon sampling locations from 2012–2014 indicated that soil type was the most influential variable in Alabama (permutation importance PI = 38.3), which, based on its relation to landcover type and resource distribution and abundance, was unsurprising. Precipitation (PI = 46.9) and temperature (PI = 52.1) were the most important variables in Massachusetts and Florida, but these possibly spurious results require further investigation. The Alabama Maxent probability surface map was ingested into Circuitscape for conductance visualizations of potential areas of habitat connectivity. Incorporating these and future results into raccoon rabies containment and elimination strategies could result in significant cost-savings for rabies management here and elsewhere

Differences in opinions of occupational physicians on the required competencies by field of practice: results of an international Delphi study

Background: The activities and work demands of medical professionals, including occupational physicians (OPs), fall into three categories: clinical, academic, and administrative. Work demands of an OP consist of these three categories and additional specialty specific roles and competencies. Research on the core competencies and skills required for OPs have identified high levels of consensus amongst OPs internationally, however these opinions have not been examined between areas of practice specific groups. Furthermore, it has been identified that to a large extent academics are often the group who define the skills required of OPs. The aim of this study is to compare the opinions of OPs grouped by field of practice on the common core competencies required for occupational health (OH) practice using results from an international survey. Methods: An international modified Delphi study conducted among OPs, completed in two rounds (Rating-Round 1; Ranking-Round 2) using developed questionnaires based on the specialist training syllabus of a number of countries and expert discussions. Respondents were categorised as Physician, Manager/Physician, and Academic/Physician, based on self-reported job titles and place of work. Results: There was good agreement between the Physician and Manager/Physician groups, with the Academic/Physician group deviating the most. The top three and bottom three principle domains (PDs) were in good agreement across all groups. The top three were clinically based and would be considered core OH activities. The PDs with considerable intergroup variance were Environmental Issues Related to Work Practice and Communication Skills, categories which may reflect direct relevance and relative importance to the job tasks of respective groups. Conclusion: This study demonstrated general agreement between the three occupational groups. Academic/Physician opinions deviate the most, while good agreement is depicted between the Physician and Manager/Physician groups. The findings of this study can help identify potential gaps in training requirements for OPs and be used as a stepping stone to developing training programmes that are reflective of practice and tailored for those predominantly undertaking these specific roles

ReseArch with Patient and Public invOlvement: a RealisT evaluation - the RAPPORT study

Background Patient and public involvement (PPI) is a prerequisite for many funding bodies and NHS research ethics approval. PPI in research is defined as research carried out with or by the public rather than to, about or for them. While the benefits of PPI have been widely discussed, there is a lack of evidence on the impact and outcomes of PPI in research. Objectives To determine the types of PPI in funded research, describe key processes, analyse the contextual and temporal dynamics of PPI and explore the experience of PPI in research for all those involved. Mechanisms contributing to the routine incorporation of PPI in the research process were assessed, the impact of PPI on research processes and outcomes evaluated, and barriers and enablers to effective PPI identified. Design A three-staged realist evaluation drawing on Normalisation Process Theory to understand how far PPI was embedded within health-care research in six areas: diabetes mellitus, arthritis, cystic fibrosis, dementia, public health and learning disabilities. The first two stages comprised a scoping exercise and online survey to chief investigators to assess current PPI activity. The third stage consisted of case studies tracked over 18 months through interviews and document analysis. The research was conducted in four regions of England. Participants Non-commercial studies currently running or completed within the previous 2 years eligible for adoption on the UK Clinical Research Network portfolio. A total of 129 case study participants included researchers and PPI representatives from 22 research studies, and representatives from funding bodies and PPI networks