Parents\u27 Perceptions and Awareness of Cyberbullying of Children and Adolescents

New communication technology, including Facebook, Twitter, cell phones, and instant messaging, has connected people in ways that were unknown. The benefits for people contacting each other at a moment\u27s notice are profound; however, these benefits bring new risks, such as, cyberbullying, which is a development from traditional bullying. Cyberbullying is the use of the internet to perpetrate deliberate, repeated, and hostile behavior by an individual or group that is intended to harm another person or others. Cyberbullying affects large numbers of children and adolescents, but its psychological impact is not clearly understood, apart from people hearing anecdotes on the suicides of cyberbullied youth. Furthermore, parental perceptions of cyberbullying, including its extent and impact, are largely unknown. The present study examined parents\u27 perceptions and awareness of cyberbullying (PPAC) of children and adolescents. An online PPAC survey included a Likert-type questionnaire and several open ended questions interspersed within the instrument that addressed research hypotheses and questions on cyberbullying of school and undergraduate students. The PPAC showed high internal consistency reliability. Significant findings included the following: participants believed that cyberbullying is a problem that needs to be addressed; that traditional bullying is more harmful than cyberbullying; that participants were more likely to have learned about cyberbullying from television than any other media; that they were familiar with social media, particularly Facebook and Twitter; and that school and law involvement was believed to be more helpful prevention than parental involvement. Participants\u27 comments richly expanded on their answers to the quantitative items. Using qualitative thematic analyses, many themes emerged, the most common being: fear is a major obstacle preventing youth from getting help; awareness needs to be raised about cyberbullying; and talking with other parents plays a major role in learning about cyberbullying. The discussion of the results and their implications provide an understanding of parental beliefs, attitudes, and needs with regards to cyberbullying and the preventative and intervention methods that could be used by them, schools, and the law. Importantly, parents indicated low self-efficacy beliefs, a helpless observer stance, or an attribution blame orientation toward other parents about the advent of cyberbullying. There is a discussion of educational programming for students and parents, policy-making actions, future directions in research, and limitations of the study

Deep Learning Discovery of Demographic Biomarkers in Echocardiography

Deep learning has been shown to accurately assess 'hidden' phenotypes and predict biomarkers from medical imaging beyond traditional clinician interpretation of medical imaging. Given the black box nature of artificial intelligence (AI) models, caution should be exercised in applying models to healthcare as prediction tasks might be short-cut by differences in demographics across disease and patient populations. Using large echocardiography datasets from two healthcare systems, we test whether it is possible to predict age, race, and sex from cardiac ultrasound images using deep learning algorithms and assess the impact of varying confounding variables. We trained video-based convolutional neural networks to predict age, sex, and race. We found that deep learning models were able to identify age and sex, while unable to reliably predict race. Without considering confounding differences between categories, the AI model predicted sex with an AUC of 0.85 (95% CI 0.84 - 0.86), age with a mean absolute error of 9.12 years (95% CI 9.00 - 9.25), and race with AUCs ranging from 0.63 - 0.71. When predicting race, we show that tuning the proportion of a confounding variable (sex) in the training data significantly impacts model AUC (ranging from 0.57 to 0.84), while in training a sex prediction model, tuning a confounder (race) did not substantially change AUC (0.81 - 0.83). This suggests a significant proportion of the model's performance on predicting race could come from confounding features being detected by AI. Further work remains to identify the particular imaging features that associate with demographic information and to better understand the risks of demographic identification in medical AI as it pertains to potentially perpetuating bias and disparities.Comment: 2450 words, 2 figure, 3 table

Fiber Scanning Array for 3 Dimensional Topographic Imaging

We report on the design and development of a fiber optic scanning 3-D LIDAR employing a switched fiber array. This design distributes ns length laser pulses over a sample field, collects the return pulses, and assembles them into a 3-D image. This instrument is a reduced size version consisting of 35 beams, and will serve as a proof-of-principle demonstration for a planned 1000 beam instrument for Earth and planetary topographical missions

Personal experience of osteoarthritis and pain questionnaires: mapping items to themes

Purpose. The aim of this study was to examine the correspondence between qualitative and quantitative methods of coding experience of pain reported by participants with osteoarthritis (OA) of the knee. Method. A mapping grid was produced to record the correspondence between subthemes that emerged from thematic analysis of interviews with 24 participants with knee OA, and from questionnaire items which were used in a study of 192 knee OA participants. Items were rated according to their degree of correspondence between subthemes and questionnaire items and an overall correspondence score was produced for each subtheme and questionnaire measure. Results. The subthemes that corresponded well with the questionnaire items were those that related to socio-emotional functioning, the overall experience of pain and the impact of pain on physical functioning. The questionnaire items did not relate to participants' knowledge about their condition and their experience of the medical system. Conclusions. The study indicated that many aspects of pain experience reported by patients in qualitative interviews are also assessed by commonly used questionnaire outcome measures for people with pain. However, although participants reported that knowledge about their condition and their experience of the medical system were important aspects of the overall pain experience, these are rarely used as outcome measures. Questionnaires that address these additional aspects ofthe pain experience could be useful to further evaluate the experience of pain and may help to address importance concerns raised by patients with OA of the knee

The East Greenland Coastal Current : structure, variability, and forcing

Author Posting. © Elsevier B.V. , 2008. This is the author's version of the work. It is posted here by permission of Elsevier B.V. for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Progress In Oceanography 78 (2008): 58-77, doi:10.1016/j.pocean.2007.09.006.The subtidal circulation of the southeast Greenland shelf is described using a set of high-resolution hydrographic and velocity transects occupied in summer 2004. The main feature is the East Greenland Coastal Current (EGCC), a low-salinity, high-velocity jet with a wedge-shaped hydrographic structure characteristic of other surface buoyancydriven currents. The EGCC was observed along the entire Greenland shelf south of Denmark Strait, while the transect north of the strait showed only a weak shelf flow. This observation, in conjunction with water mass considerations and other supporting evidence, suggests that the EGCC is an inner branch of the East Greenland Current (EGC) that forms south of Denmark Strait. It is argued that bathymetric steering is the most likely reason why the EGC apparently bifurcates at this location. Repeat sections occupied at Cape Farewell between 1997 and 2004 show that the alongshelf wind stress can have a strong influence on the structure and strength of the EGCC and EGC on timescales of 2-3 days. Accounting for the wind-induced effects, the volume transport of the combined EGCC/EGC system is roughly constant (~2 Sv) over the study domain, from 68°N to Cape Farewell near 60°N. The corresponding freshwater transport increases by roughly 60% over this distance (59 to 96 mSv, referenced to a salinity of 34.8). This trend is consistent with a simple freshwater budget of the EGCC/EGC system that accounts for meltwater runoff, melting sea-ice and icebergs, and net precipitation minus evaporation.This work was funded by the National Science Foundation grant OCE-0450658. DS was also partially supported by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution Academic Programs Office

Functional selectivity and classical concepts of quantitative pharmacology

The concept of intrinsic efficacy has been enshrined in pharmacology for half of a century, yet recent data have revealed that many ligands can differentially activate signaling pathways mediated via a single G protein-coupled receptor in a manner that challenges the traditional definition of intrinsic efficacy. Some terms for this phenomenon include functional selectivity, agonist-directed trafficking, and biased agonism. At the extreme, functionally selective ligands may be both agonists and antagonists at different functions mediated by the same receptor. Data illustrating this phenomenon are presented from serotonin, opioid, dopamine, vasopressin, and adrenergic receptor systems. A variety of mechanisms may influence this apparently ubiquitous phenomenon. It may be initiated by differences in ligand-induced intermediate conformational states, as shown for the β2-adrenergic receptor. Subsequent mechanisms that may play a role include diversity of G proteins, scaffolding and signaling partners, and receptor oligomers. Clearly, expanded research is needed to elucidate the proximal (e.g., how functionally selective ligands cause conformational changes that initiate differential signaling), intermediate (mechanisms that translate conformation changes into differential signaling), and distal mechanisms (differential effects on target tissue or organism). Besides the heuristically interesting nature of functional selectivity, there is a clear impact on drug discovery, because this mechanism raises the possibility of selecting or designing novel ligands that differentially activate only a subset of functions of a single receptor, thereby optimizing therapeutic action. It also may be timely to revise classic concepts in quantitative pharmacology and relevant pharmacological conventions to incorporate these new concepts

US Cosmic Visions: New Ideas in Dark Matter 2017: Community Report

This white paper summarizes the workshop "U.S. Cosmic Visions: New Ideas in Dark Matter" held at University of Maryland on March 23-25, 2017.Comment: 102 pages + reference

Mechanical, structural and dissolution properties of heat treated thin-film phosphate based glasses

Here we show the deposition of 2.7 μm thick phosphate based glass films produced by magnetron sputtering, followed by post heat treatments at 500 °C. Variations in degradation properties pre and post heat treatment were attributed to the formation of Hematite crystals within a glass matrix, iron oxidation and the depletion of hydrophilic P-O-P bonds within the surface layer. As deposited and heat treated coatings showed interfacial tensile adhesion in excess of 73.6 MPa; which surpassed ISO and FDA requirements for HA coatings. Scratch testing of coatings on polished substrates revealed brittle failure mechanisms, amplified due to heat treatment and interfacial failure occurring from 2.3 to 5.0 N. Coatings that were deposited onto sandblasted substrates to mimic commercial implant surfaces, did not suffer from tensile cracking or trackside delamination showing substantial interfacial improvements to between 8.6 and 11.3 N. An exponential dissolution rate was observed from 0 to 2 h for as deposited coatings, which was eliminated via heat treatment. From 2 to 24 h ion release rates ordered P > Na > Mg > Ca > Fe whilst all coatings exhibited linear degradation rates, which reduced by factors of 2.4–3.0 following heat treatments

Geography, private costs and uptake of screening for abdominal aortic aneurysm in a remote rural area

BACKGROUND: The relationship between geographical location, private costs, health provider costs and uptake of health screening is unclear. This paper examines these relationships in a screening programme for abdominal aortic aneurysm in the Highlands and Western Isles of Scotland, a rural and remote area of over 10,000 square miles. METHODS: Men aged 65–74 (n = 9323) were invited to attend screening at 51 locations in 50 settlements. Effects of geography, deprivation and age on uptake were examined. Among 8,355 attendees, 8,292 completed a questionnaire detailing mode of travel and costs incurred, time travelled, whether accompanied, whether dependants were cared for, and what they would have been doing if not attending screening, thus allowing private costs to be calculated. Health provider (NHS) costs were also determined. Data were analysed by deprivation categories, using the Scottish Indices of Deprivation (2003), and by settlement type ranging from urban to very remote rural. RESULTS: Uptake of screening was high in all settlement types (mean 89.6%, range 87.4 – 92.6%). Non-attendees were more deprived in terms of income, employment, education and health but there was no significant difference between non-attendees and attendees in terms of geographical access to services. Age was similar in both groups. The highest private costs (median £7.29 per man) and NHS screening costs (£18.27 per man invited) were observed in very remote rural areas. Corresponding values for all subjects were: private cost £4.34 and NHS cost £15.72 per man invited. CONCLUSION: Uptake of screening for abdominal aortic aneurysm in this remote and rural setting was high in comparison with previous studies, and this applied across all settlement types. Geographical location did not affect uptake, most likely due to the outreach approach adopted. Private and NHS costs were highest in very remote settings but still compared favourably with other published studies