Concept drift vs suicide: How one can help prevent the other?

International audienceSuicide has long been a troublesome problem for society and is an event that has far-reaching consequences. Health organizations such as the World Health Organization (WHO) and the French National Observatory of Suicide (ONS) have pledged to reduce the number of suicides by 10% in all countries by 2020. While suicide is a very marked event, there are often behaviours and words that can act as early signs of predisposition to suicide. The objective of this application is to develop a system that semi-automatically detects these markers through social networks. A previous work has proposed the classification of Tweets using vocabulary in topics related to suicide: sadness, psychological injuries, mental state, depression, fear, loneliness, proposed suicide method, anorexia, insults , and cyber bullying. During that training period, we added a new dimension, time to reflect changes in the status of monitored people. We implemented it with different learning methods including an original concept drift method. We have successfully used this method on synthetic and real data sets issued from the Facebook platform

Exploring indigenous knowledge practices concerning health and well-being: a case study of isiXhosa-speaking women in the rural Eastern Cape

This thesis explores, analyzes and conceptualizes the indigenous knowledge practices concerning health and well-being held by different generations of women and how they are reproduced cross-generationally in a rural isiXhosa-speaking community. It also explores how the relationship between concepts of self, personhood and Ubuntu informs women's agency. Additionally, this thesis explores how the indigenous knowledge practices might have the potential to augment inclusive and relevant tools for learning for young women, girls and youth. This study adopts a critical, holistic and interpretive approach through an ethnographic case study. Qualitative data was gathered over an 18-month period, through ethnographic observations, informal interactions, semi-structured interviews and one focus group. Observations provided insight into the social structure of the community, women's agency, and indigenous knowledge practices that support well-being. They also brought a greater awareness of the ways in which Ubuntu philosophy is embedded within indigenous practices that support individual and collective wellbeing. Interviews created a deeper understanding of women's agency and the choices women make regarding well-being, and how knowledge practices are reproduced. Evidence from this study is presented and findings are analyzed drawing from Giddens’ critical theory, with emphasis on social structure and agency, the philosophy of Ubuntu, Engeström’s Cultural Historical Activity Theory (CHAT), literatures on indigenous knowledge practices and systems, and theories of informal and situated learning, in three chapters, each dealing with "the ecology of the homestead"; "health practices"; and "childbirth and childrearing" respectively. Central findings indicate that indigenous knowledge practices are usually reproduced informally through rituals, ceremonies, and everyday tasks and skills for living within the homestead and are often situated in communities of practice. Other findings indicate that women choose biomedicine for childbirth while also using indigenous practices for health and well-being; NGO outreach workers and mentors often act as ‘boundary workers’, helping to narrow the boundaries between activity and knowledge systems. However, knowledge that is reproduced in more formal settings such as school often results in gaps in knowledge reproduction, especially among youth. Due to multiple knowledges being harnessed and reproduced simultaneously, this thesis concludes that different knowledges are practised, are valued and are integral to the choices women make around well-being, which illuminates the value of indigenous knowledge practices in facilitating cultural identity and ontological security. This thesis contributes to theories of knowledge and how knowledge and knowledge reproduction may be viewed and understood, particularly with regard to informal learning. These insights can be applied to developing curricula that acknowledge and are inclusive of indigenous knowledge practices, processes of informal knowledge reproduction and multiple knowledge practices or ways of knowing

EFFECTS OF SCHEMA-BASED INSTRUCTION DELIVERED THROUGH COMPUTER-BASED VIDEO INSTRUCTION ON MATHEMATICAL WORD PROBLEM SOLVING OF STUDENTS WITH AUTISM SPECTRUM DISORDER AND MODERATE INTELLECTUAL DISABILITY

The Common Core State Standards initiative calls for all students to be college and career ready with 21st century skills by high school graduation, yet the question remains how to prepare students with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) and moderate intellectual disability (ID) with higher order mathematical concepts. Mathematical problem solving is a critical, higher order skill that students need to have in order to solve real-world problems, but there is currently limited research on teaching problem solving to students with ASD and moderate ID. This study investigated the effects of schema- based instruction (SBI) delivered through computer-based video instruction (CBVI) on the acquisition of mathematical problem solving skills, as well as the ability to discriminate problem type, to three elementary-aged students with ASD and moderate ID using a single-case multiple probe across participants design. The study also examined participant’s ability to generalize skills to a paper-and-pencil format. Results showed a functional relation between SBI delivered through CBVI and the participants’ mathematical word problem solving skills, ability to discriminate problem type, and generalization to novel problems in paper-and-pencil format. The findings of this study provide several implications for practice for using CBVI to teach higher order mathematical content to students with ASD and moderate ID, and offers suggestions for future research in this area

Excessive Acquisition: What Is It? What Makes It Happen?

This qualitative study draws on the philosophical concept of hermeneutics and theories of the self and self-regulation to investigate the underlying meanings expressed and experienced by the self and the other in the behavior of excessive acquisition. In accordance with the methods outlined by the phenomenological and grounded theory traditions, data were collected from 15 persons afflicted with excessive acquisition, defined as the self and 12 persons afflicted by excessive acquisition, defined as the other. The data content collected from in-depth interviews, field notes, observations, and electronic messages formulated the emergent Parent Themes of Emotion, Space, Economics, and Time. These four themes were supported by 10 Intermediate Categories and detailed by 72 Subcategories. The Parent Themes and their internal content described the behavioral process and defined excessive acquisition: the frequently repeated dynamic process of an autonomous act initiated by cues producing a self-unregulated desire to acquire tangible objects of epistemic value for the self through haptic experiences resulting in short-term satisfaction engendering persistent behavior despite adverse consequences. In addition to defining the behavior and constructing a behavioral process model, the question of “Why tangibles?” was answered. Five pivotal junctures in the data collection process resulted in an all-encompassing Grand Theme. These “eureka” moments extrapolated from within the hundreds of pages of notes and transcripts identified distinguishing behavioral characteristics contributing to the excessive acquisition of tangibles. First, SPs over-obtained objects intrinsically for the self. Second, the excessively acquired objects promoted their self-image through physical adornment and professionally-related possessions. Third, the motivational goal of the excessive acquirer was self-satisfaction through control. Fourth, the behavioral act was consistently and repeatedly conducted autonomously. Fifth, before acquisition satisfaction could be achieved, the haptic experience needed to be fulfilled. Merged with the content of Parent Themes, these findings answered the question of “Why Tangibles?” and re-labeled Excessive Acquisition as Narcissistic Commoditism. The excessive acquirers in this study focused on their own interests to the exclusion of others in the self-directed, frequently repeated selfish pursuit of objects promoting their own self-image

Corporal Punishment and Child Development

Growing academic, political, and media pressure has persuaded twenty countries to ban physical discipline—that is, to take children from their families because of spanking...However, if youth violence and dysfunction is increasing at the same time that corporal punishment is decreasing, we should be open enough to consider whether the two trends are related. Maybe there is no connection. But maybe lawmakers and child welfare workers should pay more attention to the research suggesting that physical discipline can be helpful in certain contexts...To function in society, people must learn to control themselves enough to not break the law or harm other people. While not every child learns this the same way, a number of them seem to learn it through at least some corporal discipline—a tangible tool that can complement their primitive learning stages

Assaults on law enforcement officers: a spatial and theoretical analysis through social disorganization.

The purpose of the present study was to gain a better understanding of assaults on law enforcement officers to identify correlations and spatial concentrations related to theoretical constructs of social disorganization. The present study was based on official assault on law enforcement officer data from a major metropolitan area within a southeastern state for the years 2010-2019. In addition to bivariate and multivariate statistical testing (e.g., Pearson correlation coefficient and multiple linear regression), multiple spatial analyses were utilized to understand the statistical significance, visualize results, and compare to previous theoretical explanations of crime concentration. The findings revealed that assaults on law enforcement officers are spatially concentrated in census tracts in the downtown urban core that exhibit indicators of social disorganization. More specifically, assaults on law enforcement officers are spatially concentrated within downtown urban core areas with high levels of the following characteristics of social disorganization: Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefit receivership, vacant housing units, and disrupted families

Essays on the Economics of Reproductive Health Care

Reproductive health care is the ability to have a satisfying and safe sex life, the capability to reproduce, and the freedom to decide if, when, and how often to do so. Access to reproductive health care has improved due to technological advances and information dissemination in the last few decades. However, this access is still heterogeneous and, therefore, not everyone has the same ability to use reproductive technology and control their fertility choices. In this dissertation, I use quasi-experimental methods and non-experimental data to study the health and economic implications of access to reproductive controls in the US. In chapter 2, we study the long-run impacts of access to oral contraception and abortion on women’s education and earnings. We find evidence that access to these reproductive controls improved high school graduation among Black women. We also observe increases in women’s probability of working in a Social Security-covered job in women’s 20s and 30s associated with early access to oral contraception and abortion, but we find no evidence of positive effects on women’s earnings in their 50s. In chapter 3, we evaluate the effects of a Tennessee law enacted in 2015 that requires women to make an additional trip to abortion providers for state-directed counseling at least 48 hours before obtaining an abortion. We find that the introduction of this policy caused increases in the share of abortions obtained during the second trimester, and we find inconclusive evidence of changes in overall abortion rates. Finally, in chapter 4, we study how women’s exposure to targeted regulations to abortion providers (TRAP laws) in adolescence affects their fertility and educational attainment. We find that the exposure to these policies increases Black teen births in states that implemented these policies relative to states without such restrictions. We offer evidence that these impacts are driven by reductions in abortion access, abortion use, and contraception use among Black teens. We further document that adolescent exposure to TRAP laws before age 18 reduces the probability of initiating and completing college

Nervous conditions: cultural difference, political rifts, and mental health care in Israel

Based on fourteen months of ethnographic fieldwork conducted in Israel between 2013 and 2016, this dissertation examines how clinicians and patients deal with the issues of cultural difference and diversity in Israel’s mental health care settings, which are increasingly called upon to practice “cultural competence.” In 2010s, the Israeli Ministry of Health started to design and execute policy measures intended to target inter-group health disparities and introduce cultural competence in health care institutions. Although modest in scope, these policies are also emblematic of the much larger tectonic shifts that have been reshaping Israeli society over the last three decades, including a neoliberal restructuring of Israeli economy and a decline of the secular Ashkenazi hegemony in political and cultural spheres. In this context, the Ministry of Health measures may be understood as a reaction of a particular segment of the Israeli political elite to the new realities and as an attempt to address mounting public anxieties, while also working within the existing neoliberal and largely non-pluralist political-economic framework. The specific discourses of the cultural competence policies construe culture as a property of individual patients that individual clinicians and institutions should learn to accommodate, without attending to structural or political considerations. And yet, the actual implementation of the governmental agenda in the sphere of cultural competence training is almost never a mere passive reflection of the official discourses: While echoing some of the essentializing and implicitly hierarchical rhetoric of the official policies, the training also smuggles in quietly subversive approaches to cultural difference and recognition. The impact of this training on actual clinical practice is, unsurprisingly, very limited, and clinicians themselves rarely find the discourses of “cultural competence” resonant or relevant. At the same time, they are constantly engaged in complex moral reasoning and ethical decision-making over the nature and limits of empathy and recognition in the face of cultural alterity and political difference. This dissertation contributes to an interdisciplinary literature on the so-called “psy” or psychological disciplines (psychiatry, psychology, psychoanalysis etc.) by proposing an approach that is informed by the anthropology of ethics and morality