Variation in caesarean section rates in Cyprus, Italy and Iceland: an analysis of the role of the media.

INTRODUCTION: Cyprus has Europe's highest rate of births by caesarean section (CS). In 2015 56% of all babies were born by CS. This compares with 36% in Italy, and 16% in Iceland, which is among the lowest rates in Europe. There is some evidence that CS rates are partly driven by maternal request and media representation. The aim of this review is to explore the depiction of childbirth by CS in the media, and more specifically in newspapers, television, web and informational leaflets in Cyprus, Italy and Iceland. EVIDENCE ACQUISITION: A thematic review of the depiction of CS in the media of Cyprus, Italy and Iceland was carried out through an examination of newspapers, television, web, and informational material published or presented in the included countries in 2017. Materials were identified by searches in PubMed and Google Scholar, using pre-determined key words, inclusion and exclusion criteria, and inclusion was agreed by at least two of the authors. Key themes in each data source were triangulated with each other and between the three countries. EVIDENCE SYNTHESIS: The review comprised 81 articles, 10 videos, six birth shows, two informational leaflets and one scientific paper. The central themes were: 1) CS as risky and unnecessary intervention, failure of maternity system; 2) CS as a necessary, life-saving intervention; 3) the ethical dimensions of CS; 4) the changing landscape of childbirth and medicalization; and 5) informed choices. In both Cyprus and Italy, the media focus was on a need to reduce high levels of CS. The focus in Iceland was on normal birth and midwife led care. The differing media messages in the three countries could partly explain the differing CS rates, suggesting that high CS rates are a social phenomenon, rather than a result of clinical need. The media may have a significant influence on the beliefs and choices of maternity service users, their families, and society in general, as well as health professionals and policy makers. CONCLUSIONS: Those working in the media have an ethical responsibility to critically examine the impact of high national CS rates, and to report on solutions that could optimize both the safety and the wellbeing of mothers and babies

Variants with large effects on blood lipids and the role of cholesterol and triglycerides in coronary disease

Sequence variants affecting blood lipids and coronary artery disease (CAD) may enhance understanding of the atherogenicity of lipid fractions. Using a large resource of whole-genome sequence data, we examined rare and low-frequency variants for association with non-HDL cholesterol, HDL cholesterol, LDL cholesterol, and triglycerides in up to 119,146 Icelanders. We discovered 13 variants with large effects (within ANGPTL3, APOB, ABCA1, NR1H3, APOA1, LIPC, CETP, LDLR, and APOC1) and replicated 14 variants. Five variants within PCSK9, APOA1, ANGPTL4, and LDLR associate with CAD (33,090 cases and 236,254 controls). We used genetic risk scores for the lipid fractions to examine their causal relationship with CAD. The non-HDL cholesterol genetic risk score associates most strongly with CAD (P = 2.7 x 10(-28)), and no other genetic risk score associates with CAD after accounting for non-HDL cholesterol. The genetic risk score for non-HDL cholesterol confers CAD risk beyond that of LDL cholesterol (P = 5.5 x 10(-8)), suggesting that targeting atherogenic remnant cholesterol may reduce cardiovascular risk

Social signal processing: the research agenda

The exploration of how we react to the world and interact with it and each other remains one of the greatest scientific challenges. Latest research trends in cognitive sciences argue that our common view of intelligence is too narrow, ignoring a crucial range of abilities that matter immensely for how people do in life. This range of abilities is called social intelligence and includes the ability to express and recognise social signals produced during social interactions like agreement, politeness, empathy, friendliness, conflict, etc., coupled with the ability to manage them in order to get along well with others while winning their cooperation. Social Signal Processing (SSP) is the new research domain that aims at understanding and modelling social interactions (human-science goals), and at providing computers with similar abilities in human–computer interaction scenarios (technological goals). SSP is in its infancy, and the journey towards artificial social intelligence and socially aware computing is still long. This research agenda is twofold, a discussion about how the field is understood by people who are currently active in it and a discussion about issues that the researchers in this formative field face