275 research outputs found
The mental health and well-being profile of young adults using social media
The relationship between mental health and social media has received significant research and policy attention. However, there is little population-representative data about who social media users are which limits understanding of confounding factors between mental health and social media. Here we profile users of Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat and YouTube from the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children population cohort (N = 4083). We provide estimates of demographics and mental health and well-being outcomes by platform. We find that users of different platforms and frequencies are not homogeneous. User groups differ primarily by sex and YouTube users are the most likely to have poorer mental health outcomes. Instagram and Snapchat users tend to have higher well-being than the other social media sites considered. Relationships between use-frequency and well-being differ depending on the specific well-being construct measured. The reproducibility of future research may be improved by stratifying by sex and being specific about the well-being constructs used
Views on social media and its linkage to longitudinal data from two generations of a UK cohort study
Background: Cohort studies gather huge volumes of information about a range of phenotypes but new sources of information such as social media data are yet to be integrated. Participant’s long-term engagement with cohort studies, as well as the potential for their social media data to be linked to other longitudinal data, could provide novel advances but may also give participants a unique perspective on the acceptability of this growing research area.
Methods: Two focus groups explored participant views towards the acceptability and best practice for the collection of social media data for research purposes. Participants were drawn from the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children cohort; individuals from the index cohort of young people (N=9) and from the parent generation (N=5) took part in two separate 90-minute focus groups. The discussions were audio recorded and subjected to qualitative analysis.
Results: Participants were generally supportive of the collection of social media data to facilitate health and social research. They felt that their trust in the cohort study would encourage them to do so. Concern was expressed about the collection of data from friends or connections who had not consented. In terms of best practice for collecting the data, participants generally preferred the use of anonymous data derived from social media to be shared with researchers.
Conclusion: Cohort studies have trusting relationships with their participants; for this relationship to extend to linking their social media data with longitudinal information, procedural safeguards are needed. Participants understand the goals and potential of research integrating social media data into cohort studies, but further research is required on the acquisition of their friend’s data. The views gathered from participants provide important guidance for future work seeking to integrate social media in cohort studies
PAH emission from Herbig AeBe stars
We present spectra of a sample of Herbig Ae and Be (HAeBe) stars obtained
with the Infrared Spectrograph on the Spitzer Space Telescope. All but one of
the Herbig stars show emission from polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) and
seven of the spectra show PAH emission, but no silicate emission at 10 microns.
The central wavelengths of the 6.2, 7.7--8.2, and 11.3 micron emission features
decrease with stellar temperature, indicating that the PAHs are less
photo-processed in cooler radiation fields. The apparent low level of photo
processing in HAeBe stars, relative to other PAH emission sources, implies that
the PAHs are newly exposed to the UV-optical radiation fields from their host
stars. HAeBe stars show a variety of PAH emission intensities and ionization
fractions, but a narrow range of PAH spectral classifications based on
positions of major PAH feature centers. This may indicate that, regardless of
their locations relative to the stars, the PAH molecules are altered by the
same physical processes in the proto-planetary disks of intermediate-mass
stars. Analysis of the mid-IR spectral energy distributions indicates that our
sample likely includes both radially flared and more flattened/settled disk
systems, but we do not see the expected correlation of overall PAH emission
with disk geometry. We suggest that the strength of PAH emission from HAeBe
stars may depend not only on the degree of radial flaring, but also on the
abundance of PAHs in illuminated regions of the disks and possibly on the
vertical structure of the inner disk as well.Comment: 52 pages, 12 figure
The mental health and well-being profile of young adults using social media
The relationship between mental health and social media has received significant research and policy attention. However, there is little population-representative data about who social media users are which limits understanding of confounding factors between mental health and social media. Here we profile users of Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat and YouTube from the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children population cohort (N = 4083). We provide estimates of demographics and mental health and well-being outcomes by platform. We find that users of different platforms and frequencies are not homogeneous. User groups differ primarily by sex and YouTube users are the most likely to have poorer mental health outcomes. Instagram and Snapchat users tend to have higher well-being than the other social media sites considered. Relationships between use-frequency and well-being differ depending on the specific well-being construct measured. The reproducibility of future research may be improved by stratifying by sex and being specific about the well-being constructs used
The effects of social service contact on teenagers in England
Objective: This study investigated outcomes of social service contact during teenage years.
Method: Secondary analysis was conducted of the Longitudinal Survey of Young People in England (N = 15,770), using data on reported contact with social services resulting from teenagers’ behavior. Outcomes considered were educational achievement and aspiration, mental health, and locus of control. Inverse-probability-weighted regression adjustment was used to estimate the effect of social service contact.
Results: There was no significant difference between those who received social service contact and those who did not for mental health outcome or aspiration to apply to university. Those with contact had lower odds of achieving good exam results or of being confident in university acceptance if sought. Results for locus of control were mixed.
Conclusions: Attention is needed to the role of social services in supporting the education of young people in difficulty. Further research is needed on the outcomes of social services contact
Application of heavy-quark effective theory to lattice QCD: III. Radiative corrections to heavy-heavy currents
We apply heavy-quark effective theory (HQET) to separate long- and
short-distance effects of heavy quarks in lattice gauge theory. In this paper
we focus on flavor-changing currents that mediate transitions from one heavy
flavor to another. We stress differences in the formalism for heavy-light
currents, which are discussed in a companion paper, showing how HQET provides a
systematic matching procedure. We obtain one-loop results for the matching
factors of lattice currents, needed for heavy-quark phenomenology, such as the
calculation of zero-recoil form factors for the semileptonic decays . Results for the Brodsky-Lepage-Mackenzie scale are also
given.Comment: 35 pages, 17 figures. Program LatHQ2QCD to compute matching one-loop
coefficients available at http://theory.fnal.gov/people/kronfeld/LatHQ2QCD
An Insurance Value Modeling Approach That Captures the Wider Value of a Novel Antimicrobial to Health Systems, Patients, and the Population
**Background:** Traditional health economic evaluations of antimicrobials currently underestimate their value to wider society. They can be supplemented by additional value elements including insurance value, which captures the value of an antimicrobial in preventing or mitigating impacts of adverse risk events. Despite being commonplace in other sectors, constituents of the impacts and approaches for estimating insurance value have not been investigated.
**Objectives:** This study assessed the insurance value of a novel gram-negative antimicrobial from operational healthcare, wider population health, productivity, and informal care perspectives.
**Methods:** A novel mixed-methods approach was used to model insurance value in the United Kingdom: (1) literature review and multidisciplinary expert workshops to identify risk events for 4 relevant scenarios: ward closures, unavoidable shortage of conventional antimicrobials, viral respiratory pandemics, and catastrophic antimicrobial resistance (AMR); (2) parameterizing mitigable costs and frequencies of risk events across perspectives and scenarios; (3) estimating insurance value through a Monte Carlo simulation model for extreme events and a dynamic disease transmission model.
**Results:** The mean insurance value across all scenarios and perspectives over 10 years in the UK was £718 million, should AMR remain unchanged, where only £134 million related to operational healthcare costs. It would be 50%-70% higher if AMR steadily increased or if a more risk-averse view (1-in-10 year downside) of future events is taken.
**Discussion:** The overall insurance value if AMR remains at current levels (a conservative projection), is over 5 times greater than insurance value from just the operational healthcare costs perspective, traditionally the sole perspective used in health budgeting. Insurance value was generally larger for nationwide or universal (catastrophic AMR, pandemic, and conventional antimicrobial shortages) rather than localized (ward closure) scenarios, across perspectives. Components of this insurance value match previously published estimates of operational costs and mortality impacts.
**Conclusions:** Insurance value of novel antimicrobials can be systematically modeled and substantially augments their traditional health economic value in normal circumstances. These approaches are generalizable to similar health interventions and form a framework for health systems and governments to capture broader value in health technology assessments, improve healthcare access, and increase resilience by planning for adverse scenarios
Epicosm -a framework for linking online social media in epidemiological cohorts
Motivation
Social media represent an unrivalled opportunity for epidemiological cohorts to collect large amounts of high-resolution time course data on mental health. Equally, the high-quality data held by epidemiological cohorts could greatly benefit social media research as a source of ground truth for validating digital phenotyping algorithms. However, there is currently a lack of software for doing this in a secure and acceptable manner. We worked with cohort leaders and participants to co-design an open-source, robust and expandable software framework for gathering social media data in epidemiological cohorts.
Implementation
Epicosm is implemented as a Python framework that is straightforward to deploy and run inside a cohort’s data safe haven.
General features
The software regularly gathers Tweets from a list of accounts and stores them in a database for linking to existing cohort data.
Availability
This open-source software is freely available at [https://dynamicgenetics.github.io/Epicosm/]
Differential (2+1) Jet Event Rates and Determination of alpha_s in Deep Inelastic Scattering at HERA
Events with a (2+1) jet topology in deep-inelastic scattering at HERA are
studied in the kinematic range 200 < Q^2< 10,000 GeV^2. The rate of (2+1) jet
events has been determined with the modified JADE jet algorithm as a function
of the jet resolution parameter and is compared with the predictions of Monte
Carlo models. In addition, the event rate is corrected for both hadronization
and detector effects and is compared with next-to-leading order QCD
calculations. A value of the strong coupling constant of alpha_s(M_Z^2)=
0.118+- 0.002 (stat.)^(+0.007)_(-0.008) (syst.)^(+0.007)_(-0.006) (theory) is
extracted. The systematic error includes uncertainties in the calorimeter
energy calibration, in the description of the data by current Monte Carlo
models, and in the knowledge of the parton densities. The theoretical error is
dominated by the renormalization scale ambiguity.Comment: 25 pages, 6 figures, 3 tables, submitted to Eur. Phys.
Multiplicity Structure of the Hadronic Final State in Diffractive Deep-Inelastic Scattering at HERA
The multiplicity structure of the hadronic system X produced in
deep-inelastic processes at HERA of the type ep -> eXY, where Y is a hadronic
system with mass M_Y< 1.6 GeV and where the squared momentum transfer at the pY
vertex, t, is limited to |t|<1 GeV^2, is studied as a function of the invariant
mass M_X of the system X. Results are presented on multiplicity distributions
and multiplicity moments, rapidity spectra and forward-backward correlations in
the centre-of-mass system of X. The data are compared to results in e+e-
annihilation, fixed-target lepton-nucleon collisions, hadro-produced
diffractive final states and to non-diffractive hadron-hadron collisions. The
comparison suggests a production mechanism of virtual photon dissociation which
involves a mixture of partonic states and a significant gluon content. The data
are well described by a model, based on a QCD-Regge analysis of the diffractive
structure function, which assumes a large hard gluonic component of the
colourless exchange at low Q^2. A model with soft colour interactions is also
successful.Comment: 22 pages, 4 figures, submitted to Eur. Phys. J., error in first
submission - omitted bibliograph
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