It’s not all about autism: The emerging landscape of anti-vaccination sentiment on Facebook

Background: Due in part to declining vaccination rates, in 2018 over 20 states reported at least one case of measles, and over 40,000 cases have been confirmed in Europe. Anti-vaccine posts on social media may be facilitating anti-vaccination behaviour. This study aimed to systematically characterize (1) individuals known to publicly post anti-vaccination content on Facebook, (2) the information they convey, and (3) the spread of this content. Methods: Our data set consisted of 197 individuals who posted anti-vaccination comments in response to a message promoting vaccination. We systematically analysed publicly-available content using quantitative coding, descriptive analysis, social network analysis, and an in-depth qualitative assessment. The final codebook consisted of 26 codes; Cohen’s κ ranged 0.71-1.0 after double-coding. Results: The majority (89%) of individuals identified as female. Among 136 individuals who divulged their location, 36 states and 8 other countries were represented. In a 2-mode network of individuals and topics, modularity analysis revealed 4 distinct sub-groups labelled as “trust,” “alternatives,” “safety,” and “conspiracy.” For example, a comment representative of “conspiracy” is that poliovirus does not exist and that pesticides caused clinical symptoms of polio. An example from the “alternatives” sub-group is that eating yogurt cures human papillomavirus. Deeper qualitative analysis of all 197 individuals’ profiles found that these individuals also tended to post material against other health-related practices such as water fluoridation and circumcision. Conclusions: Social media outlets may facilitate anti-vaccination connections and organization by facilitating the diffusion of centuries old arguments and techniques. Arguments against vaccination are diverse but remain consistent within sub-groups of individuals. It would be valuable for health professionals to leverage social networks to deliver more effective, targeted messages to different constituencies

Search for dark matter produced in association with bottom or top quarks in √s = 13 TeV pp collisions with the ATLAS detector

A search for weakly interacting massive particle dark matter produced in association with bottom or top quarks is presented. Final states containing third-generation quarks and miss- ing transverse momentum are considered. The analysis uses 36.1 fb−1 of proton–proton collision data recorded by the ATLAS experiment at √s = 13 TeV in 2015 and 2016. No significant excess of events above the estimated backgrounds is observed. The results are in- terpreted in the framework of simplified models of spin-0 dark-matter mediators. For colour- neutral spin-0 mediators produced in association with top quarks and decaying into a pair of dark-matter particles, mediator masses below 50 GeV are excluded assuming a dark-matter candidate mass of 1 GeV and unitary couplings. For scalar and pseudoscalar mediators produced in association with bottom quarks, the search sets limits on the production cross- section of 300 times the predicted rate for mediators with masses between 10 and 50 GeV and assuming a dark-matter mass of 1 GeV and unitary coupling. Constraints on colour- charged scalar simplified models are also presented. Assuming a dark-matter particle mass of 35 GeV, mediator particles with mass below 1.1 TeV are excluded for couplings yielding a dark-matter relic density consistent with measurements

Identifying mediators of socio-technical capital in a networked learning environment.

In addition to supporting immediate instructional objectives, online learning environments can enable participants to gain value from a network of scholars and resources. This potential value in a technology-mediated network has been termed socio-technical capital. Our software, Prometheus, is being used to support online university level education and teacher professional development under an open community model inspired by this idea. The analysis reported in this paper examines the extent to which people who come to the online environment for instrumental objectives such as taking a course encounter persons or products of others from outside their course workspace. Various digital media available in Prometheus—discussions, resources, user profiles, and wiki pages—are compared in terms of how they support these encounters. Results show that there is appreciable bridging across classes and programs, and that the effectiveness of media for socio-technical capital depends on whether they are owned by task-specific workspaces

Exploring how technology mediates the types of relationships formed in sociotechnical systems

Ph.D. University of Hawaii at Manoa 2012.Includes bibliographical references.This work presents an exploratory study of how technology mediates the different types of relationships that are formed in sociotechnical systems. More people each day are connecting with each other through social networks, online communities, and other forms of virtual environments. Whether for education, information seeking, friendship, professional work, or other reasons, diverse technology mediated relationships are being formed. This study explores the idea that these relationships are influenced by the affordances that technology provides. When a person navigates through a sociotechnical system, how they interact with other users can depend upon the mediating artifacts provided by the system. The resulting relationships that are built on these interactions are therefore reflected by the technology. This work offers a framework for understanding how technology, user interactions, and user relationships are connected within a sociotechnical system, and uses this framework to uncover the kinds of interactions that take place in such systems, the relationships that are constituted by these interactions, and the influence of technology on these processes. Implications are drawn for how system designs can be improved to increase sociotechnical capital