Functional constituency members in Hong Kong's Legislative Council : a study of governance, legitimacy and accountability in action / y Cheung Hin Kei, Hankie, Ho Sing Yan, Simon, Li Man Pong, Charles, Tse Tsz Ying, Amy, Wong Man Ting, Mandy

published_or_final_versionPolitics and Public AdministrationMasterMaster of Public Administratio

Chinese Social Media Reaction to the MERS-Cov and Avian Influenza A (H7N9) Outbreaks

Background: As internet and social media use have skyrocketed, epidemiologists have begun to use online data such as Google query data and Twitter trends to track the activity levels of influenza and other infectious diseases. In China, Weibo is an extremely popular microblogging site that is equivalent to Twitter. Capitalizing on the wealth of public opinion data contained in posts on Weibo, this study used Weibo as a measure of the Chinese people’s reactions to two different outbreaks: the 2012 Middle East Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus (MERS-CoV) outbreak, and the 2013 outbreak of human infection of avian influenza A(H7N9) in China. Methods: Keyword searches were performed in Weibo data collected by The University of Hong Kong’s Weiboscope project. Baseline values were determined for each keyword and reaction values per million posts in the days after outbreak information was released to the public. Results: The results show that the Chinese people reacted significantly to both outbreaks online, where their social media reaction was two orders of magnitude stronger to the H7N9 influenza outbreak that happened in China than the MERS-CoV outbreak that was far away from China. Conclusions: These results demonstrate that social media could be a useful measure of public awareness and reaction to disease outbreak information released by health authorities

Results from the centers for disease control and prevention's predict the 2013-2014 Influenza Season Challenge

Background: Early insights into the timing of the start, peak, and intensity of the influenza season could be useful in planning influenza prevention and control activities. To encourage development and innovation in influenza forecasting, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) organized a challenge to predict the 2013-14 Unites States influenza season. Methods: Challenge contestants were asked to forecast the start, peak, and intensity of the 2013-2014 influenza season at the national level and at any or all Health and Human Services (HHS) region level(s). The challenge ran from December 1, 2013-March 27, 2014; contestants were required to submit 9 biweekly forecasts at the national level to be eligible. The selection of the winner was based on expert evaluation of the methodology used to make the prediction and the accuracy of the prediction as judged against the U.S. Outpatient Influenza-like Illness Surveillance Network (ILINet). Results: Nine teams submitted 13 forecasts for all required milestones. The first forecast was due on December 2, 2013; 3/13 forecasts received correctly predicted the start of the influenza season within one week, 1/13 predicted the peak within 1 week, 3/13 predicted the peak ILINet percentage within 1 %, and 4/13 predicted the season duration within 1 week. For the prediction due on December 19, 2013, the number of forecasts that correctly forecasted the peak week increased to 2/13, the peak percentage to 6/13, and the duration of the season to 6/13. As the season progressed, the forecasts became more stable and were closer to the season milestones. Conclusion: Forecasting has become technically feasible, but further efforts are needed to improve forecast accuracy so that policy makers can reliably use these predictions. CDC and challenge contestants plan to build upon the methods developed during this contest to improve the accuracy of influenza forecasts. © 2016 The Author(s)

Meta-analysis Followed by Replication Identifies Loci in or near CDKN1B, TET3, CD80, DRAM1, and ARID5B as Associated with Systemic Lupus Erythematosus in Asians

Systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) is a prototype autoimmune disease with a strong genetic involvement and ethnic differences. Susceptibility genes identified so far only explain a small portion of the genetic heritability of SLE, suggesting that many more loci are yet to be uncovered for this disease. In this study, we performed a meta-analysis of genome-wide association studies on SLE in Chinese Han populations and followed up the findings by replication in four additional Asian cohorts with a total of 5,365 cases and 10,054 corresponding controls. We identified genetic variants in or near CDKN1B, TET3, CD80, DRAM1, and ARID5B as associated with the disease. These findings point to potential roles of cell-cycle regulation, autophagy, and DNA demethylation in SLE pathogenesis. For the region involving TET3 and that involving CDKN1B, multiple independent SNPs were identified, highlighting a phenomenon that might partially explain the missing heritability of complex diseases

Global Handwashing Day 2012: a qualitative content analysis of Chinese social media reaction to a health promotion event

Background: Global Handwashing Day (GHD) is a handwashing promotion campaign organized by the Global Public-Private Partnership of Handwashing with Soap. In China, it has been promoted by the Chinese public health authorities, international organizations and multinational corporations through various channels including social media such as Sina Weibo, the leading Chinese microblogging site similar to Twitter. The objective of this study is to qualitatively assess Chinese social media users’ reactions to a health promotion campaign using Global Handwashing Day (GHD) 2012 as an example. Methods: We conducted a qualitative content analysis of 552 Weibo posts generated on GHD 2012 by Weibo users with 1000 or more followers with the Chinese keyword for “handwashing”. We categorized the Weibo posts into groups by keywords that frequently appeared in the data set. These groups were either exact reposts of an original post, or they conveyed similar information. Results: We observed the interconnections between traditional media and social media in handwashing promotion. Social media were found to serve as amplifiers of contents provided by traditional media. We observed the contextualization of global hygiene messages in a unique national social media market in China. Discussion: Our study showed that social media and traditional media are two interconnected arms of the GHD campaign in China. Our analysis demonstrated that public health campaigns in China can be evaluated using social media data. The themes and topics identified in this study will help public health practitioners evaluate future social media handwashing promotion campaigns

Effects of rhythmic auditory stimulation on upper-limb movement speed in patients with schizophrenia spectrum disorders

Movement slowness, linked to dysfunctional basal ganglia and cerebellum, is prevalent but lacks effective therapy in patients with schizophrenia spectrum disorders. This study was to examine immediate effects of rhythmic auditory stimulation (RAS) on upper-limb movement speed in patients. Thirty patients and 30 psychiatrically healthy people executed the right-hand task and the both-hand task of the Purdue Pegboard Test when listening to RAS with two tempi: normal (equal to the fastest movement tempo for each participant without RAS) and fast (120% of the normal tempo). The testing order of the RAS tempi for each participant was randomized. Patients had lower scores of right-hand and both-hand tasks than did psychiatrically healthy people. Scores of right-hand and both-hand tasks were higher in the fast-RAS condition than the normal-RAS condition in participants. This is the first study to explore the possibility of applying RAS to movement therapy for patients with schizophrenia spectrum disorders. The results demonstrated that faster RAS was effective in inducing faster upper-limb movements in patients and psychiatrically healthy people, suggesting that manipulating RAS may be a feasible therapeutic strategy utilized to regulate movement speed. The RAS may involve alternative neural pathways to modulate movement speed and thus to compensate for impaired function of basal ganglia and cerebellum in patients