Accelerating global ocean observing: monitoring the coastal ocean through broadly accessible, low-cost sensor networks

© The Author(s), 2021. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. The definitive version was published in Wang, Z. A., Michel, A. P. M., & Mooney, T. A. Accelerating global ocean observing: monitoring the coastal ocean through broadly accessible, low-cost sensor networks. Marine Technology Society Journal, 55(3), (2021): 82–83, https://doi.org/10.4031/MTSJ.55.3.52.The global coastal ocean provides food and other critical resources to human societies. Yet this habitat, for which many depend, has experienced severe degradation from human activities. The rates of human-induced changes along the coast demand significantly improved coverage of ocean observations in order to support science-based decision making and policy formation tailored to specific regions. Our proposal envisions developing a global network of low-cost, easily produced and readily deployed oceanographic sensors for use on a wide variety of platforms in the coastal ocean. A substantially large number of these sensors can thus be installed on existing infrastructure, ships of opportunity, and fishing fleets, or even individually along the coast, particularly in vulnerable and disadvantaged regions. This would vastly increase the spatiotemporal resolution of the current data coverage along the coast, allowing greater equitable access. It would also offer significant opportunities for partnership with communities, NGOs, governments, and other stakeholders, as well as a wide range of commercial and industrial sectors to develop and deploy sensors in scalable networks transmitting data in near-real time. Finally, it presents a vastly lowered bar for participation by citizen scientists and other engaged members of the public to address location-specific coastal problems anywhere in the world.National Science Foundation; Project Title “Collaborative Research: IDBR: Type A: A High-resolution bio-sensor to simultaneously measure the behavior, vital rates and environment of key marine organisms”; Award Number 1455593 to ZAW and TAM

Using Balanced Time Perspective to Explain Well-Being and Planning in Retirement

This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.The notion of whether people focus on the past, present or future, and how it shapes their behavior is known as Time Perspective. Fundamental to the work of two of its earliest proponents, Zimbardo and Boyd (2008), was the concept of balanced time perspective and its relationship to wellness. A person with balanced time perspective can be expected to have a flexible temporal focus of mostly positive orientations (past-positive, present-hedonistic, and future) and much less negative orientations (past-negative and present-fatalistic). This study measured deviation from balanced time perspective (DBTP: Zhang et al., 2013) in a sample of 243 mature adults aged 45 to 91 years and explored relationships to Retirement Planning, Depression, Anxiety, Stress, Positive Mood, and Negative Mood. Results indicate that DBTP accounts for unexplained variance in the outcome measures even after controlling for demographic variables. DBTP was negatively related to Retirement Planning and Positive Mood and positively related to Depression, Anxiety, Stress, and Negative Mood. Theoretical and practical implications regarding balanced time perspective are discussed

Sustainability and the tourism and hospitality workforce : a thematic analysis

This paper is about the position of workforce and employment considerations within the sustainable tourism narrative. It addresses the relative neglect of this area within discussion of sustainable tourism and highlights reference to it within the UN's 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Discussion follows of the merging field of sustainable HRM and the contribution that this can make to meeting both the sustainable development goals and to enhancing recognition of workforce and employment issues within related debate in tourism. The body of the paper consists of examples of how key dimensions of work and employment in tourism where sustainability is of increasing consequence and significance. The paper concludes by drawing together the implications of these 'mini-cases' and locating them within key principles of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development

Development of an Explainable Clinical Decision Support System for the Prediction of Patient Quality of Life in Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis

The 36th ACM/SIGAPP Symposium on Applied Computing (SAC 2021), Virtual Event, 22-26 March 2021Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) is a rare neurodegenerative and currently incurable disease. It causes a rapid decline in motor functions and has a fatal trajectory. The aim of the treatment is mostly to alleviate symptoms and improve the patient’s quality of life (QoL). The goal of this study is to develop a Clinical Decision Support System (CDSS) in order to alert clinicians when a patient is at risk of experiencing a low QoL, so that they are better supported. The source of the data was the Irish ALS Registry and interviews with the 90 patients and their primary informal caregiver at three time-points. In this dataset, there were two different scores to measure a person’s overall QoL, based on the McGill QoL (MQoL) Questionnaire and we worked towards the prediction of both. The method we used for the development of the predictive models was Extreme Gradient Boosting (XGBoost), which was compared to a logistic regression baseline model. We used the SHAP (SHapley Additive exPlanations) values as a technique to provide local and global explanations to the outputs as well as to select the most important features. The total calculated MQoL score was predicted accurately by three features, with a F1-score on the test set equal to 0.81, a recall score of 0.78, and a precision score of 0.84, while, the addition of two features produced similar outcomes (0.79, 0.70 and 0.90 respectively). The three most important features were the age at disease onset, ALSFRS score for orthopnoea and the caregiver’s status pre-caregiving.European Commission - European Regional Development FundScience Foundation IrelandHealth Research BoardAmerican ALS Associatio

Latent Effects of Stress on Delayed Modulation of Chronic Low Back Pain: Case Series

Purpose: The purpose of the study was to investigate the temporal relationship between psychogenic stress and perceived intensity of chronic low back pain (LBP). LBP was chosen as a pilot condition prefacing a larger research effort to determine which variants of chronic pain may manifest latent psychogenic modulation based on previous studies of neuropathic pain conditions. Methods: The study consisted of five subjects, one male and four females, ranging from 19-32 years old and chronicity of pain ranging from 5 months to 6+ years since diagnosis. Over 12-15 weeks, participants completed daily visual analog pain, stress, and pain-related function scales. Temporal relationships between stress and perceived pain were analyzed using serial lag correlation coefficients up to a 10-day lag. Daily medication, quality of pain perception changes, and menstrual cycles for females were reported. Results: Serial lag correlations revealed variation between participants regarding the number of elapsed days between high stress and the strongest correlation with increased LBP intensity. Collapsed data across participants showed the strongest overall correlation at the 0-day time lag, indicating pain spikes the day of the stressful episode. Unlike previous studies involving neuropathic pain, there were no significant correlations between stress and LBP occurring ten days later. Conclusion: Chronic low back pain does not appear to be influenced by the same delayed psychogenic neuromodulation mechanism as chronic neuropathic pain conditions previously studied. This study supports the position that not all chronic pain should be clinically approached in the same manner

Condom negotiation across different relationship types by young women engaged in sex work in Phnom Penh, Cambodia

Cambodia’s 100% Condom Use Programme is credited with an increase in consistent condom use in commercial sexual interactions and a decrease in HIV prevalence among female sex workers (FSWs). There has been little improvement in condom use between FSWs and non-commercial partners, prompting calls for more innovative approaches to increasing condom use in these relationships. To understand why condoms are used or not used in sexual interactions involving FSWs we examined condom negotiation across different types of relationship. We conducted 33 in-depth interviews with young (15 to 29 years) women engaged in sex work in Phnom Penh. There was an important interplay between the meanings of condom use and the meanings of women’s relationships. Commercial relationships were characterised as inherently risky and necessitated condom use. Despite a similar lack of sexual fidelity, sweetheart relationships were rarely construed as risky and typically did not involve condom use. Husbands and wives constructed their sexual interactions with each other differently, making agreement on condom use difficult. The lack of improvements in condom use in FSWs’ non-commercial sexual relationships needs to be understood in relation to both sex work and the broader Cambodian sexual culture within which these relationships take place. Keywords: Female sex workers; condoms; sexually transmitted infections; HIV; Cambodia IntroductionNational Institutes of Health (NIH) grants: U01AI0154241, 1R21 DA025441, and 1R01NR01099

Condom Negotiation across Different Relationship Types by Young Women Engaged in Sex Work in Phnom Penh, Cambodia

Cambodia’s 100% Condom Use Programme is credited with an increase in consistent condom use in commercial sexual interactions and a decrease in HIV prevalence among female sex workers (FSWs). There has been little improvement in condom use between FSWs and non-commercial partners, prompting calls for more innovative approaches to increasing condom use in these relationships. To understand why condoms are used or not used in sexual interactions involving FSWs, we examined condom negotiation across different types of relationships. We conducted 33 in-depth interviews with young (15 to 29 years) women engaged in sex work in Phnom Penh. There was an important interplay between the meanings of condom use and the meanings of women’s relationships. Commercial relationships were characterised as inherently risky and necessitated condom use. Despite a similar lack of sexual fidelity, sweetheart relationships were rarely construed as risky and typically did not involve condom use. Husbands and wives constructed their sexual interactions with each other differently, making agreement on condom use difficult. The lack of improvement in condom use in FSWs’ non-commercial sexual relationships needs to be understood in relation to both sex work and the broader Cambodian sexual culture within which these relationships are embedded