Predicting Mental Health Status in Remote and Rural Farming Communities: Computational Analysis of Text-Based Counseling

Background: Australians living in rural and remote areas are at elevated risk of mental health problems and must overcome barriers to help seeking, such as poor access, stigma, and entrenched stoicism. e-Mental health services circumvent such barriers using technology, and text-based services are particularly well suited to clients concerned with privacy and self-presentation. They allow the client to reflect on the therapy session after it has ended as the chat log is stored on their device. The text also offers researchers an opportunity to analyze language use patterns and explore how these relate to mental health status. Objective: In this project, we investigated whether computational linguistic techniques can be applied to text-based communications with the goal of identifying a client’s mental health status. Methods: Client-therapist text messages were analyzed using the Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count tool. We examined whether the resulting word counts related to the participants’ presenting problems or their self-ratings of mental health at the completion of counseling. Results: The results confirmed that word use patterns could be used to differentiate whether a client had one of the top 3 presenting problems (depression, anxiety, or stress) and, prospectively, to predict their self-rated mental health after counseling had been completed. Conclusions: These findings suggest that language use patterns are useful for both researchers and clinicians trying to identify individuals at risk of mental health problems, with potential applications in screening and targeted intervention

Overcoming inertia : drivers of the outsourcing process

Almost all managers have directly or indirectly been involved in the practice of outsourcing in recent years. But as they know, outsourcing is not straightforward. Outsourcing inertia, when companies are slow to adapt to changing circumstances that accommodate higher outsourcing levels, may undermine a firm’s performance. This article investigates the presence of outsourcing inertia and the factors that help managers overcome it. Using statistical evidence, we show that positive performance effects related to outsourcing can accumulate when circumstances change. This is then followed by rapid increases in outsourcing levels (i.e. outsourcing processes). We investigate what gives rise to these outsourcing processes through follow-up interviews with sourcing executives, which suggest five drivers behind outsourcing processes: managerial initiative (using outside experience); hierarchy (foreign headquarters); imitation (of competitors and of similar firms); outsider advice (from external institutions); knowledge sources (using external information). These five drivers all offer scope for managerial action. We tie them to academic literatures and suggest ways of investigating their presence and impact on the outsourcing process. Overall, we conclude that while economizing factors play a key role in explaining how much firms outsource, it is socializing factors that tend to drive outsourcing processes

Seleção de linhagens elite de arroz de terras altas em ensaios de VCU em GO - safra 2013-14.

O objetivo deste trabalho foi avaliar e selecionar linhagens elite de arroz de terras altas do programa de melhoramento genético da Embrapa

Rendimento do consórcio milho-braquiária brizantha afetado pela localização do adubo e aplicação de herbicida.

O consórcio milho-braquiária brizantha (Zea mays-Brachiaria brizantha) é a tecnologia de maior interesse na integração lavoura-pecuária. Para estudar esse consórcio, foram testadas diferentes estratégias de adubação de base tanto na linha quanto nas entrelinhas do milho e o uso de subdoses de herbicida para controle do crescimento da braquiária, em solo com fertilidade corrigida. O crescimento e a produtividade do milho não foram afetados pelo consórcio com braquiária, mesmo sem controle químico da forrageira, bem como pela localização do fertilizante de base. Por outro lado, o crescimento da braquiária foi menor quando consorciada e cresceu menos na linha do milho, em comparação às plantas da entrelinha. O herbicida retardou o crescimento da braquiária. O maior crescimento da braquiária da entrelinha em comparação àquela da linha foi atribuído tanto à menor pressão exercida pelo milho quanto à adubação dessa faixa de solo. Os resultados alcançados permitem recomendar, para solo já recuperado quimicamente, a adubação de base do consórcio milho + braquiária na proporção de 33,3-33,3-33,3 ou 25-50-25% de adubo em sulcos de plantio do milho + braquiária, e laterais somente com braquiária, para sistemas de integração lavoura-pecuária, em detrimento da recomendação atual de 100% do adubo na linha de semeadura do milho (00-100-00)