The psychological impact of the internet on young people with additional support needs (ASN)

INTRODUCTION: This thesis investigates the psychological impact of the internet on adolescents with Additional Support Needs (ASN). Benefits and risks related to internet use have been evidenced in the general population. Little research has considered these factors with young people with ASN.METHODOLOGY: Due to limited research having been completed with the ASN population with regards to the impact of internet use, a systematic review was conducted considering the long -term psychological impact of cyberbullying on children and adolescents in the mainstream population. In addition, an empirical study was conducted with a total of 36 young people with ASN (aged 13 -18) who participated in one of six focus groups. Group discussions were recorded, transcribed and analysed using Framework Analysis.RESULTS: Findings of the systematic review showed that a range of difficulties (including depression, quality of life outcomes, substance use and aggression) were considered to be linked to the experience of cyberbullying in the general child and adolescent population. Although variation between studies existed, the review does show a tentative trend that cyberbullying is linked to long -term negative psychological outcomes. The empirical study using Focus Group data identified two main themes: Identity and Connectedness and Issues relating to Risk. Theme one indicated that young people with ASN were making use of the internet to develop their own identity, competence and sense of social connectedness; suggesting that internet use for this group can have a positive impact on their psychological well- being. Some potential barriers to this were also identified. With regards to the second theme, it was shown that young people with ASN do experience risk on the internet. It was highlighted that young people with ASN are aware of a range of risks online, are able to make use of some risk management strategies to stay safe but also experience particular difficulties which can negatively impact on their ability to protect themselves against potential psychological harm as a result of internet use. Considered together it was therefore found that the internet may provide important opportunities for young people with ASN with the potential of having a positive psychological impact. This must be considered however in the context of risks present to this group when online and their ability to manage these effectively.DISCUSSION: Findings were discussed in relation to the relevant literature considering the specific advantages and risks relating to internet use by children and adolescents with ASN. Clinical implications and areas for future research were highlighted as well as the strengths and limitations of the current study.CONCLUSION: This thesis demonstrates that young people with ASN are making use of the internet and able to benefit from it in the same way as other children and adolescents. However, this population has also been shown to be at risk online and may be more vulnerable due to their impaired ability in particular areas of functioning, when compared to young people without ASN. Additional research into this area is required to ensure that this group are being adequately supported to remain safe online whilst taking full advantage of what the internet has to offer

The positive role of Internet use for young people with additional support needs:Identity and connectedness

This article documents findings, from one of the first studies in this field of research, considering young people with Additional Support Needs’ use of the internet and how this might contribute to the development of identity and social connectedness. Six focus groups, including 36 young people with Additional Support Needs (aged 13–18) were completed. Transcribed group discussions were analysed using Framework Analysis. Two themes were developed: ‘Identity and Connectedness’ and ‘Issues related to Risk’. The theme ‘Identity and Connectedness’ is detailed in the current article and encompassed three sub-themes (implicit belonging, explicit belonging and competence). The use of the internet by adolescents in the current study appears to allow the young people to engage in activities which support the development of identity, competence and a sense of connectedness and belonging within a social network, essential to healthy development and psychological well-being and areas that may present a challenge for this population in offline environments. Findings also indicate a need to consider how best to support this group, in relation to understanding the role of supervision, the range of cognitive ability within this population and additional social pressures, which may impact on safe and effective internet use and this populations’ ability to take full advantage of what the internet has to offer

Anatomic considerations for central venous cannulation

Central venous cannulation is a commonly performed procedure which facilitates resuscitation, nutritional support, and long-term vascular access. Mechanical complications most often occur during insertion and are intimately related to the anatomic relationship of the central veins. Working knowledge of surface and deep anatomy minimizes complications. Use of surface anatomic landmarks to orient the deep course of cannulating needle tracts appropriately comprises the crux of complication avoidance. The authors describe use of surface landmarks to facilitate safe placement of internal jugular, subclavian, and femoral venous catheters. The role of real-time sonography as a safety-enhancing adjunct is reviewed

The Internet and Young People with Additional Support Needs (ASN):Risk and Safety.

The aim of this study was to investigate the understanding of online risks by young people with Additional Support Needs and this group’s ability to manage these risks. Six focus groups with 36 young people (13–18) were run in local schools. Discussions were recorded, transcribed and analysed using Framework Analysis. Two themes were identified ‘Identity and Connectedness’ and ‘Issues relating to Risk’. The theme ‘Issues relating to Risk’ is presented in the current article. Results showed that young people with ASN are aware of a range of risks online and have developed some strategies to manage these. Issues including supervision and the diverse range of ability within the population are also shown to present barriers to ensuring online safety. The results were discussed in light of literature relating to online risk, safety and potential psychological impact indicating that the internet may also provide important opportunities for young people with ASN to improve psychological well-being

Large expert-curated database for benchmarking document similarity detection in biomedical literature search

Document recommendation systems for locating relevant literature have mostly relied on methods developed a decade ago. This is largely due to the lack of a large offline gold-standard benchmark of relevant documents that cover a variety of research fields such that newly developed literature search techniques can be compared, improved and translated into practice. To overcome this bottleneck, we have established the RElevant LIterature SearcH consortium consisting of more than 1500 scientists from 84 countries, who have collectively annotated the relevance of over 180 000 PubMed-listed articles with regard to their respective seed (input) article/s. The majority of annotations were contributed by highly experienced, original authors of the seed articles. The collected data cover 76% of all unique PubMed Medical Subject Headings descriptors. No systematic biases were observed across different experience levels, research fields or time spent on annotations. More importantly, annotations of the same document pairs contributed by different scientists were highly concordant. We further show that the three representative baseline methods used to generate recommended articles for evaluation (Okapi Best Matching 25, Term Frequency-Inverse Document Frequency and PubMed Related Articles) had similar overall performances. Additionally, we found that these methods each tend to produce distinct collections of recommended articles, suggesting that a hybrid method may be required to completely capture all relevant articles. The established database server located at https://relishdb.ict.griffith.edu.au is freely available for the downloading of annotation data and the blind testing of new methods. We expect that this benchmark will be useful for stimulating the development of new powerful techniques for title and title/abstract-based search engines for relevant articles in biomedical research.Peer reviewe

Macrophage-Targeting Poly(lactide-co-glycolic acid) Nanoparticles Decorated with Multifunctional Brush Polymers

This study examines the potential of poly(lactic-co-glycolic acid) (PLGA) nanoparticles functionalized with poly(zwitterion)-mannose brushes to target macrophages. Uptake studies with RAW 264.7 macrophages indicate that multiple mannose-binding sites in the grafted brushes facilitate interaction with the mannose receptor of the macrophages, resulting in approximately four times higher cellular uptake than nanoparticles with mannose monolayer coatings. To test the feasibility of the nanoparticles as long-circulating drug delivery vehicles, their multicomponent aggregation in blood plasma is analyzed using nanoparticle tracking analysis and compared to poly(ethylene glycol)-coated (PEGylated) particles, which are known to reduce aggregation. There is no significant difference in the aggregation behavior of the poly(zwitterion)-mannose grafted particles and the PEGylated control particles (≈760 particles in aggregates per 105 particles). In addition, the particle size in blood plasma is compared, which includes the protein corona, after 0, 8, and 15 h. Whereas there is no significant difference at longer time scales, the overall particle size of the poly(zwitterion)-mannose brush-grafted nanoparticles is ≈130 nm smaller than that of the PEGylated nanoparticles at shorter time scales, suggesting a smaller protein corona. All these results suggest that poly(lactic-co-glycolic acid nanoparticles functionalized with poly(zwitterion)-mannose brush grafts may be excellent candidates for targeted drug delivery to macrophages.In this study, the potential of poly(lactic-co-glycolic acid) nanoparticles with a functional coating of poly(zwitterion)-mannose brushes to target macrophages is examined. Furthermore, the aggregation behavior of the nanoparticles in blood plasma is evaluated to determine their potential to be employed as drug delivery vehicles.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/172791/1/ppsc202100284-sup-0001-SuppMat.pdfhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/172791/2/ppsc202100284_am.pdfhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/172791/3/ppsc202100284.pd

Women\u27s Choir

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