Plurality in the Measurement of Social Media Use and Mental Health: An Exploratory Study Among Adolescents and Young Adults

On a daily basis, individuals between 12 and 25 years of age engage with their mobile devices for many hours. Social Media Use (SMU) has important implications for the social life of younger individuals in particular. However, measuring SMU and its effects often poses challenges to researchers. In this exploratory study, we focus on some of these challenges, by addressing how plurality in the measurement and age-specific characteristics of SMU can influence its relationship with measures of subjective mental health (MH). We conducted a survey among a nationally representative sample of Dutch adolescents and young adults (N=3,669). Using these data, we show that measures of SMU show little similarity with each other, and that age-group differences underlie SMU. Similar to the small associations previously shown in social media-effects research, we also find some evidence that greater SMU associates to drops and to increases in MH. Albeit nuanced, associations between SMU and MH were found to be characterized by both linear and quadratic functions. These findings bear implications for the level of association between different measures of SMU and its theorized relationship with other dependent variables of interest in media-effects research

Evidence for diagnosis of early chronic pancreatitis after three episodes of acute pancreatitis : a cross-sectional multicentre international study with experimental animal model

Chronic pancreatitis (CP) is an end-stage disease with no specific therapy; therefore, an early diagnosis is of crucial importance. In this study, data from 1315 and 318 patients were analysed from acute pancreatitis (AP) and CP registries, respectively. The population from the AP registry was divided into AP (n=983), recurrent AP (RAP, n=270) and CP (n=62) groups. The prevalence of CP in combination with AP, RAP2, RAP3, RAP4 and RAP5+was 0%, 1%, 16%, 50% and 47%, respectively, suggesting that three or more episodes of AP is a strong risk factor for CP. Laboratory, imaging and clinical biomarkers highlighted that patients with RAP3+do not show a significant difference between RAPs and CP. Data from CP registries showed 98% of patients had at least one AP and the average number of episodes was four. We mimicked the human RAPs in a mouse model and found that three or more episodes of AP cause early chronic-like morphological changes in the pancreas. We concluded that three or more attacks of AP with no morphological changes to the pancreas could be considered as early CP (ECP).The new diagnostic criteria for ECP allow the majority of CP patients to be diagnosed earlier. They can be used in hospitals with no additional costs in healthcare.Peer reviewe

2015/16 seasonal vaccine effectiveness against hospitalisation with influenza a(H1N1)pdm09 and B among elderly people in Europe: Results from the I-MOVE+ project

We conducted a multicentre test-negative caseâ\u80\u93control study in 27 hospitals of 11 European countries to measure 2015/16 influenza vaccine effectiveness (IVE) against hospitalised influenza A(H1N1)pdm09 and B among people aged â\u89¥ 65 years. Patients swabbed within 7 days after onset of symptoms compatible with severe acute respiratory infection were included. Information on demographics, vaccination and underlying conditions was collected. Using logistic regression, we measured IVE adjusted for potential confounders. We included 355 influenza A(H1N1)pdm09 cases, 110 influenza B cases, and 1,274 controls. Adjusted IVE against influenza A(H1N1)pdm09 was 42% (95% confidence interval (CI): 22 to 57). It was 59% (95% CI: 23 to 78), 48% (95% CI: 5 to 71), 43% (95% CI: 8 to 65) and 39% (95% CI: 7 to 60) in patients with diabetes mellitus, cancer, lung and heart disease, respectively. Adjusted IVE against influenza B was 52% (95% CI: 24 to 70). It was 62% (95% CI: 5 to 85), 60% (95% CI: 18 to 80) and 36% (95% CI: -23 to 67) in patients with diabetes mellitus, lung and heart disease, respectively. 2015/16 IVE estimates against hospitalised influenza in elderly people was moderate against influenza A(H1N1)pdm09 and B, including among those with diabetes mellitus, cancer, lung or heart diseases

The Influence of Formal Features in Popular Film on Audience Empathy

Over the past two decades, empathy, or the social-cognitive process of vicariously understanding the content of the minds of others, has been a frequent topic of discussion and research among neuroscientists and psychologists as an essential aspect of our healthy and successful social functioning (Lockwood, 2016). Similarly, researchers of narratives across media have come to stress the importance of empathy to narrative processes such as engagement, persuasion, comprehension, and enjoyment (Coplan, 2008; Green et al., 2002; Kneepkens & Zwaan, 1995; Plantinga, 2009). However, discussions on the importance of reader or viewer empathy in narrative studies tend to focus on viewer traits and story content, rather than on the formal or structural aspects of the narrative. Cognitive film scholars have long held that form influences viewer engagement, as narrative responses arise from the interplay between form and content (Bordwell, 1985). Recent empirical evidence demonstrating, for example, the influence of shot scale on viewer empathy (Rooney & Bálint, 2018) or the interplay between shot duration, shot scale, and narrative comprehension (Smith et al., 2012) are in line with the idea that the audiovisual format of the filmic medium can, in and of itself, impact cognitive processing and subsequent narrative response – including viewer empathy. Thus, this line of research can be said to follow turn-of-the-century efforts in communication research grounded in Lang’s limited capacity model (Lang, 2000) that aimed to elucidate the impact of form on message reception (Lang et al., 1999, 2000; Morgan et al., 2003; Stephenson & Palmgreen, 2001). These empirical forages into the effects of film form, however, have generally only considered a small subset of features in even fewer films, limiting the generalizability of the results to a wider range of film and curtailing a more comprehensive understanding of the link between form and viewer responses independent of story content. The goal of this study is to take a broad exploratory approach to the question of form and engagement, with empathy as the primary variable of interest. Empathy was chosen as key construct not only because of its previously established importance to various types of narrative engagement and narrative effects, but also because of its central role in wider social cognition and prosocial behaviour (Eisenberg & Fabes, 1990; Van der Graaff et al., 2018)

Diagnostics and control of transverse coupled-bunch instabilities in third generation electron storage rings

© 2011 Dr. David PeakeThe Australian Synchrotron is a newly commissioned third-generation light source situated in Melbourne, Australia. Synchrotron radiation is produced from the 216 metre circumference storage ring where 3 GeV electrons are trapped within a lattice formed by dipole bending magnets and multipole focussing magnets. The appearance of coupled-bunch instabilities form the primary limitation of modern storage rings. Instabilities enforce an upper limit on stored current and can reduce the utility of radiation production by increasing the effective emittance of the ring. Stored current limitations due to beam instabilities were discovered early in the commissioning phase of the Australian Synchrotron storage ring and were initially controlled by substantially increasing the chromaticity of the lattice from (ξx; ξy) = (2; 2) to (ξx; ξy) = (3:5; 13). Subsequent additions to the ring have resulted in an increase of the strength of destructive instabilities to the point where detrimental side-effects from chromatic corrections reduce the ability of the ring to damp instabilities. This increase in instability strength has lead to the shift from purely passive methods of instability control to the design and construction of an active transverse feedback system. This thesis describes the commissioning of a bunch-by-bunch transverse feedback system designed to combat coupled-bunch instabilities, allowing for the reduction of chromaticity within the storage ring lattice back to the initial design values (ξx; ξy) = (2; 2). Reducing the chromaticity also removes detrimental effects such as the reduction of the dynamic aperture and an increase in the lifetime of the beam. Novel methods for tuning the system and maximising the damping rate of the beam are introduced. Using these methods, the feedback system was successfully commissioned and was shown to have the stability required for user-mode storage ring operations. The bunch-by-bunch transverse feedback system can also be leveraged as a powerful diagnostic tool. New data acquisition techniques have been designed to allow for the study of different instability mechanisms as well as parameters present in the equations of motion for stored particles. These techniques and the suite of results achieved are presented

Plurality in the Measurement of Social Media Use and Mental Health: An Exploratory Study Among Adolescents and Young Adults

On a daily basis, individuals between 12 and 25 years of age engage with their mobile devices for many hours. Social Media Use (SMU) has important implications for the social life of younger individuals in particular. However, measuring SMU and its effects often poses challenges to researchers. In this exploratory study, we focus on some of these challenges, by addressing how plurality in the measurement and age-specific characteristics of SMU can influence its relationship with measures of subjective mental health (MH). We conducted a survey among a nationally representative sample of Dutch adolescents and young adults (N = 3,669). Using these data, we show that measures of SMU show little similarity with each other, and that age-group differences underlie SMU. Similar to the small associations previously shown in social media-effects research, we also find some evidence that greater SMU associates to drops and to increases in MH. Albeit nuanced, associations between SMU and MH were found to be characterized by both linear and quadratic functions. These findings bear implications for the level of association between different measures of SMU and its theorized relationship with other dependent variables of interest in media-effects research