Early interventions following exposure to traumatic events: psychological debriefing and the law

Defines Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and discusses the advantages of providing "Critical Incident Stress Debriefing" (CISD) to those who have witnessed traumatic events to prevent them developing PTSD. Outlines the development of CISD, the procedure itself and concerns arising from medical studies into its effectiveness. Examines the legal implications, including the existence of a duty of care to provide CISD or liability for debriefings which are negligently provided. Sets out briefly the status of psychological debriefing amongst support organisations

Developing a Competency Model for Highway Safety Engineers: A Delphi Method

The primary purpose of this study was to determine the core competencies needed by State DOT Highway Safety Engineers as perceived by Highway Safety experts in the United States. First, a list of competencies was identified. Next, a panel of Highway Safety experts determined the importance of each identified competency for the current year (2020) and for the future (year 2030). Finally, ratings provided by the panel were tested for the presence of consensus. For this study, the researcher used a Delphi Method as classified by Delbecq, Van de Ven, and Gaustafson (1975). Through this method, a panel of forward-thinking experts in the field of Highway Safety were surveyed to find consensus of important and needed technical competencies for current and future Highway Safety Engineers (Gupta & Clarke, 1996). Through three rounds, these panel members were able to suggest and rate competencies, with the option to provide any feedback they deemed necessary. Based on previous literature, a review of various professional organizations, and extensive interviews, 50 competencies were generated. During Round 1, this list of competencies was sent to identified highway safety experts across the U.S. and asked, “Is this competency important for Highway Safety Engineers for the year 2020 (or 2030)?” Here, the panel suggested edits to 9 currently listed competencies and defined 18 additional competencies. In Round 2, participants rated all 68 competencies on a five-point anchored scale. In Round 3, the panel was provided the median scores for each competency listed in Round 2 and asked to keep or change their rating to match the group’s rating and provide any justification as necessary. At the conclusion of Round 3, all competencies were listed as achieving consensus as established a’ priori at greater than 50% indicating a set of core competencies essential to the role of Highway Safety engineers in the year 2020 and 2030. Since the panel was shown to be effective and forward-thinking in their views, the researcher recommends state DOTs and national organizations involved in trainings regarding highway safety engineers move toward the inclusion of all competencies rated substantial or high importance in required training

CORRUPTION AND OBSTACLES FOR CONDUCTING BUSINESS IN FORMER FRENCH WEST AFRICA

This study examines the extent of corruption and obstacles to conducting business in some former French West Africa countries. Methodology: This study uses business owner’s and mangers perceptions about the use of gifts or informal payments and obstacles to conducting business in five African countries.  Data comes from the World Bank Institute and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development’s Business Environment and Economic Performance study.  Data from Benin, Burkina Faso, Niger, Senegal, and Togo were examined.  Univariate general linear analysis was used to discover statistical differences between factors by country. Main Findings: Results show Senegalese managers and owners perceived the lowest obstacles to conducting business among the five countries.  Togo business managers and owners are slightly less positive about obstacles they face in their businesses.  Businesses in the five countries on average pay about eight percent of their annual sales as gifts/informal payments. Limitations: The study uses data that is about ten years old.  The political and economic environment may have changed in these countries since data collection. Social Implications: The significant level of obstacles business faces in these countries may significantly reduce foreign direct investment in these countries.  Electricity is an obstacle in most of these countries reducing the ability if not the interest in conducting business. Originality/Novelty of the Study: The French strategy in this region for three hundred years was to rule through the military not the development of economic systems.  The results of this strategy may still be apparent in the number and degree of obstacles facing business only 50 years after independence

SensePath: understanding the sensemaking process through analytic provenance

Sensemaking is described as the process of comprehension, finding meaning and gaining insight from information, producing new knowledge and informing further action. Understanding the sensemaking process allows building effective visual analytics tools to make sense of large and complex datasets. Currently, it is often a manual and time-consuming undertaking to comprehend this: researchers collect observation data, transcribe screen capture videos and think-aloud recordings, identify recurring patterns, and eventually abstract the sensemaking process into a general model. In this paper, we propose a general approach to facilitate such a qualitative analysis process, and introduce a prototype, SensePath, to demonstrate the application of this approach with a focus on browser-based online sensemaking. The approach is based on a study of a number of qualitative research sessions including observations of users performing sensemaking tasks and post hoc analyses to uncover their sensemaking processes. Based on the study results and a follow-up participatory design session with HCI researchers, we decided to focus on the transcription and coding stages of thematic analysis. SensePath automatically captures user’s sensemaking actions, i.e., analytic provenance, and provides multi-linked views to support their further analysis. A number of other requirements elicited from the design session are also implemented in SensePath, such as easy integration with existing qualitative analysis workflow and non-intrusive for participants. The tool was used by an experienced HCI researcher to analyze two sensemaking sessions. The researcher found the tool intuitive and considerably reduced analysis time, allowing better understanding of the sensemaking process

Analytic provenance for sensemaking: a research agenda

Sensemaking is a process of find meaning from information, and often involves activities such as information foraging and hypothesis generation. It can be valuable to maintain a history of the data and reasoning involved, commonly known as provenance information. Provenance information can be a resource for “reflection-in-action” during analysis, supporting collaboration between analysts, and help trace data quality and uncertainty through analysis process. Currently, there is limited work of utilizing analytic provenance, which captures the interactive data exploration and human reasoning process, to support sensemaking. In this article, we present and extend the research challenges discussed in a IEEE VIS 2014 workshop in order to provide an agenda for sensemaking analytic provenance

SensePath: Understanding the Sensemaking Process Through Analytic Provenance

Sensemaking is described as the process of comprehension, finding meaning and gaining insight from information, producing new knowledge and informing further action. Understanding the sensemaking process allows building effective visual analytics tools to make sense of large and complex datasets. Currently, it is often a manual and time-consuming undertaking to comprehend this: researchers collect observation data, transcribe screen capture videos and think-aloud recordings, identify recurring patterns, and eventually abstract the sensemaking process into a general model. In this paper, we propose a general approach to facilitate such a qualitative analysis process, and introduce a prototype, SensePath, to demonstrate the application of this approach with a focus on browser-based online sensemaking. The approach is based on a study of a number of qualitative research sessions including observations of users performing sensemaking tasks and post hoc analyses to uncover their sensemaking processes. Based on the study results and a follow-up participatory design session with HCI researchers, we decided to focus on the transcription and coding stages of thematic analysis. SensePath automatically captures user's sensemaking actions, i.e., analytic provenance, and provides multi-linked views to support their further analysis. A number of other requirements elicited from the design session are also implemented in SensePath, such as easy integration with existing qualitative analysis workflow and non-intrusive for participants. The tool was used by an experienced HCI researcher to analyze two sensemaking sessions. The researcher found the tool intuitive and considerably reduced analysis time, allowing better understanding of the sensemaking process

Analytic provenance for sensemaking: A research agenda

Sensemaking is a process of finding meaning from information that often involves activities such as information foraging and hypothesis generation. It can be valuable to maintain a history of the data and reasoning involved. This history, commonly known as provenance information, can be a resource for 'reflection-in-action'' during analysis, supporting collaboration between analysts, and can help trace data quality and uncertainty through the analysis process. Currently, there is limited work on utilizing analytic provenance, which captures the interactive data exploration and human reasoning process, to support sensemaking. This article presents and extends the research challenges discussed in a IEEE VIS 2014 workshop on this topic to provide an agenda for sensemaking analytic provenance

HIV-1 infection and CD4 T cell depletion in the humanized Rag2(-/-)γc(-/- )(RAG-hu) mouse model

BACKGROUND: The currently well-established humanized mouse models, namely the hu-PBL-SCID and SCID-hu systems played an important role in HIV pathogenesis studies. However, despite many notable successes, several limitations still exist. They lack multi-lineage human hematopoiesis and a functional human immune system. These models primarily reflect an acute HIV infection with rapid CD4 T cell loss thus limiting pathogenesis studies to a short-term period. The new humanized Rag2(-/-)γc(-/- )mouse model (RAG-hu) created by intrahepatic injection of CD34 hematopoietic stem cells sustains long-term multi-lineage human hematopoiesis and is capable of mounting immune responses. Thus, this model shows considerable promise to study long-term in vivo HIV infection and pathogenesis. RESULTS: Here we demonstrate that RAG-hu mice produce human cell types permissive to HIV-1 infection and that they can be productively infected by HIV-1 ex vivo. To assess the capacity of these mice to sustain long-term infection in vivo, they were infected by either X4-tropic or R5-tropic HIV-1. Viral infection was assessed by PCR, co-culture, and in situ hybridization. Our results show that both X4 and R5 viruses are capable of infecting RAG-hu mice and that viremia lasts for at least 30 weeks. Moreover, HIV-1 infection leads to CD4 T cell depletion in peripheral blood and thymus, thus mimicking key aspects of HIV-1 pathogenesis. Additionally, a chimeric HIV-1 NL4-3 virus expressing a GFP reporter, although capable of causing viremia, failed to show CD4 T cell depletion possibly due to attenuation. CONCLUSION: The humanized RAG-hu mouse model, characterized by its capacity for sustained multi-lineage human hematopoiesis and immune response, can support productive HIV-1 infection. Both T cell and macrophage tropic HIV-1 strains can cause persistent infection of RAG-hu mice resulting in CD4 T cell loss. Prolonged viremia in the context of CD4 T cell depletion seen in this model mirrors the main features of HIV infection in the human. Thus, the RAG-hu mouse model of HIV-1 infection shows great promise for future in vivo pathogenesis studies, evaluation of new drug treatments, vaccines and novel gene therapy strategies

Risk assessment based on indirect predation cues: revisiting fine-grained variation

To adaptively express inducible defenses, prey must gauge risk based on indirect cues of predation. However, the information contained in indirect cues that enable prey to fine-tune their phenotypes to variation in risk is still unclear. In aquatic systems, research has focused on cue concentration as the key variable driving threat-sensitive responses to risk. However, while risk is measured as individuals killed per time, cue concentration may vary with either the number or biomass killed. Alternatively, fine-grained variation in cue, that is, frequency of cue pulses irrespective of concentration, may provide a more reliable signal of risk. Here, we present results from laboratory experiments that examine the relationship between red-eyed treefrog tadpole growth and total cue, cue per pulse, and cue pulse frequency. We also reanalyze an earlier study that examined the effect of fine-grained variation in predator cues on wood frog tadpole growth. Both studies show growth declines with increasing cue pulse frequency, even though individual pulses in high-frequency treatments contained very little cue. This result suggests that counter to earlier conclusions, tadpoles are using fine-grained variation in cue arising from the number of predation events to assess and respond to predation risk, as predicted by consumer–resource theory.ECU Open Access Publishing Support Fund; National Science Foundation Grant Numbers: 0716923, 071722