Communicating about risk: strategies for situations where public concern is high but the risk is low.

In this article, we summarise research that identifies best practice for communicating about hazards where the risk is low but public concern is high. We apply Peter Sandman’s ‘risk = hazard + outrage’ formulation to these risks, and review factors associated with the amplification of risk signals. We discuss the structures that determine the success of risk communication strategies, such as the capacity for early communication to ‘capture’ the dominant representation of risk issues, the importance of communicating uncertainty, and the usefulness of engaging with communities. We argue that, when facing trade-offs in probable outcomes from communication, it is always best to choose strategies that maintain or build trust, even at the cost of initial overreactions. We discuss these features of successful risk communication in relation to a range of specific examples, particularly opposition to community water fluoridation, Ebola, and routine childhood immunisation

Communicating with the public about the risks of naturally occurring asbestos.

Objectives: To explore the application of evidence based risk communication to community messaging about naturally occurring asbestos (NOA). Type of program or service: Risk communication education about NOA. Methods: We apply principles and determinants of risk communication to the topic of NOA. Results: We emphasise the importance of erring on the side of transparency and trust, even when officials may be concerned about inadvertently heightening needless public concern. We offer a range of practical suggestions for how to lower public concern and outrage relating to the issue of NOA when it arises in local contexts. Lessons learnt: Public concern and outrage can be reduced by favouring early and frequent communication, awareness and use of the ‘rule of threes’ in media communication, open acknowledgement of uncertainty, prioritising response to community concern above narrow myth-busting strategies, and supporting community action. Key points • Governments need to be patient with communities and willing to invest the time for public discussion of community concerns • Regardless of how well crafted a risk communication strategy is, the communicator cannot control how a message will be received • Public concern and outrage can be reduced by actions such as favouring early and frequent communication, open acknowledgement of uncertainty, and supporting community actio

RFI mitigation with phase-only adaptive beamforming

Connected radio interferometers are sometimes used in the tied-array mode: signals from antenna elements are coherently added and the sum signal applied to a VLBI backend or pulsar processing machine. Usually there is no computer-controlled amplitude weighting in the existing radio interferometer facilities. Radio frequency interference (RFI) mitigation with phase-only adaptive beamforming is proposed for this mode of observation. Small phase perturbations are introduced in each of the antenna's signal. The values of these perturbations are optimized in such a way that the signal from a radio source of interest is preserved and RFI signals suppressed. An evolutionary programming algorithm is used for this task. Computer simulations, made for both one-dimensional and two-dimensional array set-ups, show considerable suppression of RFI and acceptable changes to the main array beam in the radio source direction.Comment: 7 pages, 11 figure

Realising the technological promise of smartphones in addiction research and treatment: An ethical review

Background Smartphone technologies and mHealth applications (or apps) promise unprecedented scope for data collection, treatment intervention, and relapse prevention when used in the field of substance abuse and addiction. This potential also raises new ethical challenges that researchers, clinicians, and software developers must address. Aims This paper aims to identify ethical issues in the current uses of smartphones in addiction research and treatment. Methods A search of three databases (PubMed, Web of Science and PsycInfo) identified 33 studies involving smartphones or mHealth applications for use in the research and treatment of substance abuse and addiction. A content analysis was conducted to identify how smartphones are being used in these fields and to highlight the ethical issues raised by these studies. Results Smartphones are being used to collect large amounts of sensitive information, including personal information, geo-location, physiological activity, self-reports of mood and cravings, and the consumption of illicit drugs, alcohol and nicotine. Given that detailed information is being collected about potentially illegal behaviour, we identified the following ethical considerations: protecting user privacy, maximising equity in access, ensuring informed consent, providing participants with adequate clinical resources, communicating clinically relevant results to individuals, and the urgent need to demonstrate evidence of safety and efficacy of the technologies. Conclusions mHealth technology offers the possibility to collect large amounts of valuable personal information that may enhance research and treatment of substance abuse and addiction. To realise this potential researchers, clinicians and app-developers must address these ethical concerns to maximise the benefits and minimise risks of harm to users

Numerical Simulations of Hyperfine Transitions of Antihydrogen

One of the ASACUSA (Atomic Spectroscopy And Collisions Using Slow Antiprotons) collaboration's goals is the measurement of the ground state hyperfine transition frequency in antihydrogen, the antimatter counterpart of one of the best known systems in physics. This high precision experiment yields a sensitive test of the fundamental symmetry of CPT. Numerical simulations of hyperfine transitions of antihydrogen atoms have been performed providing information on the required antihydrogen events and the achievable precision

Metric for Security Activities assisted by Argumentative Logic

International audienceRecent security concerns related to future embedded systems make enforcement of security requirements one of the most critical phases when designing such systems. This paper introduces an approach for efficient enforcement of security requirements based on argumentative logic, especially reasoning about activation or deactivation of different security mechanisms under certain functional and non-functional requirements. In this paper, the argumentative logic is used to reason about the rationale behind dynamic enforcement of security policies

An organic fluorophore-nanodiamond hybrid sensor for photostable imaging and orthogonal, on-demand biosensing

Organic fluorescent probes are widely used to detect key biomolecules; however, they often lack the photostability required for extended intracellular imaging. Here we report a new hybrid nanomaterial (peroxynanosensor, PNS), consisting of an organic fluorescent probe bound to a nanodiamond, that overcomes this limitation to allow concurrent and extended cell-based imaging of the nanodiamond and ratiometric detection of hydrogen peroxide. Far-red fluorescence of the nanodiamond offers continuous monitoring without photobleaching, while the green fluorescence of the organic fluorescent probe attached to the nanodiamond surface detects hydrogen peroxide on demand. PNS detects basal production of hydrogen peroxide within M1 polarised macrophages and does not affect macrophage growth during prolonged co-incubation. This nanosensor can be used for extended bio-imaging not previously possible with an organic fluorescent probe, and is spectrally compatible with both Hoechst 33342 and MitoTracker Orange stains for hyperspectral imaging.Malcolm S. Purdey, Patrick K. Capon, Benjamin J. Pullen, Philipp Reineck, Nisha Schwarz, Peter J. Psaltis, Stephen J. Nicholls, Brant C. Gibson and Andrew D. Abel

Senses of ‘argument’ in instantiated argumentation frameworks

Abstract Argumentation Frameworks (AFs) provide a fruitful basis for exploring issues of defeasible reasoning. Their power largely derives from the abstract nature of the arguments within the framework, where arguments are atomic nodes in an undifferentiated relation of attack. This abstraction conceals different senses of argument, namely a single-step reason to a claim, a series of reasoning steps to a single claim, and reasoning steps for and against a claim. Concrete instantiations encounter difficulties and complexities as a result of conflating these senses. To distinguish them, we provide an approach to instantiating AFs in which the nodes are restricted to literals and rules, encoding the underlying theory directly. Arguments in these senses emerge from this framework as distinctive structures of nodes and paths. As a consequence of the approach, we reduce the effort of computing argumentation extensions, which is in contrast to other approaches. Our framework retains the theoretical and computational benefits of an abstract AF, distinguishes senses of argument, and efficiently computes extensions. Given the mixed intended audience of the paper, the style of presentation is semi-formal

Invasive Haemophilus influenzae type b disease in elderly nursing home residents: two related cases.

We investigated two fatal cases of invasive Haemophilus influenzae type b (Hib) infection in a community nursing home in western Sydney, Australia. Two elderly women had lived in the same room, and the onset of their illness was 5 days apart. Hib isolates from blood cultures showed identical profiles by pulsed field gel electrophoresis. These findings suggest that Hib infection was transmitted within this nursing home. Serious Hib disease may be underrecognized in this setting. Continued surveillance and serotyping of invasive H. influenzae disease is essential for identifying groups at increasing risk that may benefit from immunization against Hib