TriggerCit: Early Flood Alerting using Twitter and Geolocation - A Comparison with Alternative Sources

Rapid impact assessment in the immediate aftermath of a natural disaster is essential to provide adequate information to international organisations, local authorities, and first responders. Social media can support emergency response with evidence-based content posted by citizens and organisations during ongoing events. In the paper, we propose TriggerCit: an early flood alerting tool with a multilanguage approach focused on timeliness and geolocation. The paper focuses on assessing the reliability of the approach as a triggering system, comparing it with alternative sources for alerts, and evaluating the quality and amount of complementary information gathered. Geolocated visual evidence extracted from Twitter by TriggerCit was analysed in two case studies on floods in Thailand and Nepal in 2021.Comment: 12 pages Keywords Social Media, Disaster management, Early Alertin

Collaboration and Performance of Citizen Science Projects Addressing the Sustainable Development Goals

Measuring the progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) requires the collection of relevant and reliable data. To do so, Citizen Science can provide an essential source of non-traditional data for tracking progress towards the SDGs, as well as generate social innovations that enable such progress. At its core, citizen science relies on participatory processes involving the collaboration of stakeholders with diverse standpoints, skills, and backgrounds. The ability to measure these participatory processes is therefore key for the monitoring and evaluation of citizen science projects and to support the decisions of their coordinators. Here, we show that the monitoring of social interaction networks provides unique insights on the participatory processes and outcomes of citizen science projects. We studied fourteen early-stage citizen science projects that participated in an innovation cycle focused on SDG 13, Climate Action, as part of the Crowd4SDG project. We implemented a monitoring strategy to measure the collaborative profiles of citizen science teams. This allowed us to generate dynamic interaction networks across complementary dimensions, making visible both formal and informal interactions associated with the division of labor, collaborations, advice seeking, and communication processes of the projects during their development. Leveraging jury evaluation data, we showed that while team composition and communication are associated with project quality, measures of collaboration and activity are associated with engagement quality. Overall, monitoring social interaction dynamics helps build a more comprehensive picture of participatory processes, which is of importance for guiding citizen science projects and for designing initiatives leveraging citizen science to address the SDGs

Image-based Social Sensing: Combining AI and the Crowd to Mine Policy-Adherence Indicators from Twitter

Social Media provides a trove of information that, if aggregated and analysed appropriately can provide important statistical indicators to policy makers. In some situations these indicators are not available through other mechanisms. For example, given the ongoing COVID-19 outbreak, it is essential for governments to have access to reliable data on policy-adherence with regards to mask wearing, social distancing, and other hard-to-measure quantities. In this paper we investigate whether it is possible to obtain such data by aggregating information from images posted to social media. The paper presents VisualCit, a pipeline for image-based social sensing combining recent advances in image recognition technology with geocoding and crowdsourcing techniques. Our aim is to discover in which countries, and to what extent, people are following COVID-19 related policy directives. We compared the results with the indicators produced within the CovidDataHub behavior tracker initiative. Preliminary results shows that social media images can produce reliable indicators for policy makers.Comment: 10 pages, 9 figures, to be published in Proceedings of ICSE Software Engineering in Society, May 202

A Citizen Science Approach for Analyzing Social Media With Crowdsourcing

Social media have the potential to provide timely information about emergency situations and sudden events. However, finding relevant information among the millions of posts being added every day can be difficult, and in current approaches developing an automatic data analysis project requires time and technical skills. This work presents a new approach for the analysis of social media posts, based on configurable automatic classification combined with Citizen Science methodologies. The process is facilitated by a set of flexible, automatic and open-source data processing tools called the Citizen Science Solution Kit. The kit provides a comprehensive set of tools that can be used and personalized in different situations, particularly during natural emergencies, starting from images and text contained in the posts. The tools can be employed by citizen scientists for filtering, classifying, and geolocating the content with a human-in-the-loop approach to support the data analyst, including feedback and suggestions on how to configure the automated tools, and techniques to gather inputs from citizens. Using flooding scenario as a guiding example, this paper illustrates the structure and functioning of the different tools proposed to support citizens scientists in their projects, and a methodological approach to their use. The process is then validated by discussing three case studies based on the Albania earthquake of 2019, the Covid-19 pandemic, and the Thailand floods of 2021. The results suggest that a flexible approach to tools composition and configuration can support a timely setup of an analysis project by citizen scientists, especially in case of emergencies in unexpected locations.ISSN:2169-353

Knowledge, attitudes and preventive practices of primary health care professionals towards alcohol use: A national, cross-sectional study.

Introduction Primary care (PC) professionals' knowledge about alcohol use has been identified as one of the barriers PC providers face in their clinic. Both PC professionals’ level of training and attitude are crucial in the clinical practice regarding alcohol use. Objective To evaluate the knowledge, attitude, and preventive practices of Spanish PC physicians and nurses towards alcohol use. Design An observational, descriptive, cross-sectional, multi-center study. Methodology Location: PC centers of the Spanish National Health System (NHS). Participants: PC physicians and nurses selected randomly from health care centers, and by sending an e-mail to semFYC and SEMERGEN members. Healthcare providers completed an online survey on knowledge, attitude, and follow-up recommendations for reducing alcohol intake. A descriptive, bivariate, and multivariate statistical analysis was conducted (p<0.05). Results Participants: 1,760 healthcare providers completed the survey (75.6% [95% CI 73.5–77.6] family physicians; 11.4% [95% CI 9.9–12.9] medical residents; and 12.5% [95% CI 10.9–14.1] nurses), with a mean age of 44.7 (SD 11.24, range: 26–64, 95% CI: 47.2–48.2). Knowledge was higher in family physicians (p<0.001), older professionals (Spearman's r = 0.11, p<0.001), and resident trainers (p<0.001). The PC professional most likely to provide advice for reducing alcohol use was: a nurse (p <0.001), female (p = 0.010), between 46 and 55 years old (p <0.001). Conclusions PC providers’ knowledge and preventive practices regarding alcohol use are scarce, hence specific training strategies to increase their knowledge and improve their attitude and skills with regard to this health problem should be considered a healthcare policy priority.post-print507 K

Bolničke infekcije urinarnog traktaposlije kateterizacije pacijenata u Općoj bolnici Dubrovnik Nosocomial infections of the urinary tract after catheterization of patients at the General Hospital Dubrovnik

Uvod: Kateterizacijamokraćnog sustava u početku je izvođena uporabom šupljihdrvenih cjevčica i palminog lišća. Danas se urinarni kateteri izrađuju od fleksibilnih lako sterilizirajućih materijala.Bolničke infekcije vodeći su uzrok morbiditeta i mortaliteta kod bolesnika u bolničkom režimu liječenja. Usporedo s razvojem materijala za izradu urinarnih katetera povećavala se i njihova uporaba, ali i incidencija infekcija mokraćnog sustava. Bilježenje, analiza i upotreba podataka o infekcijama važan su dio planiranja mjera kojima možemo utjecati na prevenciju, ali i na što učinkovitije liječenje već nastalih infekcija, i to posebice zbog potrebe kontinuiranog smanjenja direktnih i indirektnih troškova liječenja. Metode: Retrospektivno deskriptivno istraživanje. Istraživanje je provedeno u Općoj bolnici Dubrovnik u vremenu od 2011. do 2015. godine. Uključni su kriteriji bili, i to: ukupan broj bolesnika te onih kod kojih je učinjena kateterizacija mokraćnog mjehura; pacijenti s mikrobiološkom analizom verificiranim postojanje infekcija urotrakta, podatci o broju dana bolničkog liječenja, bolnički odjel, u razmatranje je uvršteno pet bolničkih odjela, verificirano postojanje antibiograma pretrage urina. U istraživanom razdoblju iznalazi se da je bolnički liječeno 10615 bolesnika, a uključne kriterije zadovoljavaju 204 bolesnika. Rezultati: Ukupni broj infekcija uzrokovan kateterizacijom mokraćnog sustava iznosio je 1,9%, s najvećom incidencijom u starosnoj dobi većoj od 65 godina [77,45%]. U odnosu na incidenciju, uzročnici infekcije mokračnog sustava bili su, i to: Pseudomonas (22,05%), Klebsiella (19,11%), Enterococcus (15,58%), Escherichia (15,58%) Enterobacter (8,33%). U odnosu na spol, značajno je niža pojavnost kod ženske populacije[54,42%], u odnosu na do danas publicirane rezultate. Značajno je niska pojavnost infekcija uzrokovanih zlatnim stafilokokom [1;0,49%]. Zastupljenost po spolovima u znatnoj je mjeri odstupala od očekivanih rezultata. Literaturni navodi usmjeravaju na očekivanje značajno višeg postotka žena sa IMS-u povezanim s kateterizacijom, u rasponu od 75–80%, ovisno o izvoru. U muškoj populaciji infekcija mokraćnog sutava zabilježena je u obimu od 45,58%. Zaključak: Prevalencija verificiranih infekcija mokraćnog sustava koje su uzrokovane kateterizacijom ne razlikuje se značajno od do danas publiciranih rezultata učinjenih studija. Međutim, iznalazi se značajno veća incidencija infekcije mokraćnog sustava u bolesnika muške populacije u odnosu na publicirane rezultate sličnih studija. Stoga se iznalazi potreba za dodatnom analizom pojavnosti infekcija mokraćnog trakta uzrokovanih kateterizacijom, u kojoj bi trebalo usporediti prevalenciju infekcije u odnosu na pojavnost po svakom pojedinom bolničkom odjelu i to u ovisnosti o sveukupnom broju hospitaliziranih pacijenata i verificiranih dijagnoza. Visoka incidencija infekcije kod bolesnika muške po-pulacije nije kompatibilna s dosad publiciranim rezultatima, te navedeno može biti značajan čimbenik u daljnjoj evaluaciji točnosti podataka informatičkog sustava Opće bolnice Dubrovnik i za provođenje budućih istraživanja

Epigenetic Modulation of Gremlin-1/NOTCH Pathway in Experimental Crescentic Immune-Mediated Glomerulonephritis

Crescentic glomerulonephritis is a devastating autoimmune disease that without early and properly treatment may rapidly progress to end-stage renal disease and death. Current immunosuppressive treatment provides limited efficacy and an important burden of adverse events. Epigenetic drugs are a source of novel therapeutic tools. Among them, bromodomain and extraterminal domain (BET) inhibitors (iBETs) block the interaction between bromodomains and acetylated proteins, including histones and transcription factors. iBETs have demonstrated protective effects on malignancy, inflammatory disorders and experimental kidney disease. Recently, Gremlin-1 was proposed as a urinary biomarker of disease progression in human anti-neutrophil cytoplasmic antibody (ANCA)-associated crescentic glomerulonephritis. We have now evaluated whether iBETs could regulate Gremlin-1 in experimental anti-glomerular basement membrane nephritis induced by nephrotoxic serum (NTS) in mice, a model resembling human crescentic glomerulonephritis. In NTS-injected mice, the iBET JQ1 inhibited renal Gremlin-1 overexpression and diminished glomerular damage, restoring podocyte numbers. Chromatin immunoprecipitation assay demonstrated BRD4 enrichment of the Grem-1 gene promoter in injured kidneys, consistent with Gremlin-1 epigenetic regulation. Moreover, JQ1 blocked BRD4 binding and inhibited Grem-1 gene transcription. The beneficial effect of iBETs was also mediated by modulation of NOTCH pathway. JQ1 inhibited the gene expression of the NOTCH effectors Hes-1 and Hey-1 in NTS-injured kidneys. Our results further support the role for epigenetic drugs, such as iBETs, in the treatment of rapidly progressive crescentic glomerulonephritis

Ciencias Sociales: Economía y Humanidades HANDBOOK T-I

Se presenta un breve examen de la producción y comercialización de rosa en México; un estudio en México sobre el ingreso mínimo de las familias que identifica la línea de pobreza alimentaria en el área rural del sur de México, 2012; un pequeño estudio donde hablará sobre el análisis comparado del Sector Gubernamental y la Economía Mexicana desde la perspectiva de los eslabonamientos productivos Hirshman-Rasmuss; un estudio sobre los canales de comercialización de limón persa en el municipio de Martínez de la Torre, Veracruz; una análisis del comercio estratégico en el TLCAN: El Estado en la política agrícola de biocombustibles; también se expresan acerca de la importancia de la comercialización del café en México; un diagnóstico, retos del comercio electrónico en el Sector Agroindustrial Mexicano; trabajo nos muestra y habla sobre la inversión extranjera directa y su impacto en crecimiento de México, un análisis en prospectiva: 1999-2010; un estudio acerca sobre la importancia de la Banca en México; un trabajo acerca de la competitividad de la producción agrícola en México, un análisis regional; se analizan todo acerca de el SIAL productor de quesos en Poxtla, competividad y territorio; se habla acerca de la intermediación financiera al servicio de la comunidad indígena: el fondo regional indígena Tarhiata Keri; ademas un estudio acerca de la demanda de Importaciones de durazno (Prunus pérsica L. Batsch) en México procedentes de Estados Unidos de América (1982-2011); Loera y Sepúlveda analizan los parámetros de la productividad forestal en la producción de madera en rollo; un análisis de factores sociales, ambientales y económicos del territorio rural cercano a la ciudad de México; un estudio acerca de la crisis económica mundial y su efecto sobre los flujos migratorios de América Latina; Magadán, Hernández y Escalona presentan la tipología de los sujetos sociales que intervienen en el mercado campesino de Ocotlán Oaxaca; la normalización del proceso de compostaje: una opción para desarrollar el mercado de la composta; acerca de la reestructuración del capitalismo y crisis política en México; la rentabilidad de la producción de miel en el municipio de León, Guanjuato; la economía del maíz en la región metropolitana, Chiapas, 2014; análisis de los centros de educación y cultura ambiental, necesidad de profesionalización Pedagógica de facilitadores ambientales; los Costos y competitividad de la producción del limón persa en el municipio de Martínez de la Torre, Veracruz

Ciencias Sociales: Economía y Humanidades

Este volumen I contiene 29 capítulos arbitrados que se ocupan de estos asuntos en Tópicos Selectos de Ciencias Sociales: Economía y Humanidades, elegidos de entre las contribuciones, reunimos algunos investigadores y estudiantes.Gómez, presenta un breve examen de la producción y comercialización de rosa en México; Arpi y Portillo realiza un estudio en México sobre el ingreso mínimo de las familias que identifica la línea de pobreza alimentaria en el área rural del sur de México, 2012; Bravo realiza un pequeño estudio donde hablará sobre el análisis comparado del Sector Gubernamental y la Economía Mexicana desde la perspectiva de los eslabonamientos productivos Hirshman-Rasmuss; Caamal, Pat, Jerónimo y Romero realizan un estudio sobre los canales de comercialización de limón persa en el municipio de Martínez de la Torre, Veracruz; Macías y Perales nos hablarán sobre una análisis del comercio estratégico en el TLCAN: El Estado en la política agrícola de biocombustibles; Figueroa, Pérez y Godínez se expresan acerca de la importancia de la comercialización del café en México; Sepúlveda, Sepúlveda y Pérez realizan un diagnóstico, retos del comercio electrónico en el Sector Agroindustrial Mexicano; Duana mediante su trabajo nos muestra y habla sobre la inversión extranjera directa y su impacto en crecimiento de México, un análisis en prospectiva: 1999-2010; Figueroa, Pérez y Ramírez hacen un estudio acerca sobre la importancia de la Banca en México; Pérez, Figueroa, Godínez y Pérez presenta un trabajo acerca de la competitividad de la producción agrícola en México, un análisis regional; Rodríguez, Espinosa y Márquez analizan todo acerca de el SIAL productor de quesos en Poxtla, competividad y territorio; Garza nos habla acerca de la intermediación financiera al servicio de la comunidad indígena: el fondo regional indígena Tarhiata Keri; Arroyo, Aguilar, Santoyo y Muñoz realizan un estudio acerca de la demanda de Importaciones de durazno (Prunus pérsica L. Batsch) en México procedentes de Estados Unidos de América (1982-2011); Loera y Sepúlveda analizan los parámetros de la productividad forestal en la producción de madera en rollo; Pérez, Morett y Tecpan realizan un análisis de factores sociales, ambientales y económicos del territorio rural cercano a la ciudad de México; Godínez, Figueroa y Pérez realizan un estudio acerca de la crisis económica mundial y su efecto sobre los flujos migratorios de América Latina; Magadán, Hernández y Escalona presentan la tipología de los sujetos sociales que intervienen en el mercado campesino de Ocotlán Oaxaca; Tavera y Cobos nos hablan de la normalización del proceso de compostaje: una opción para desarrollar el mercado de la composta; Piña y Pérez hablan acerca de la reestructuración del capitalismo y crisis política en México; Gonzáles, Rucoba y Ramírez realizan un estudio de la rentabilidad de la producción de miel en el municipio de León, Guanjuato; Ramírez, Gutiérrez y Figueroa realizan un estudio acerca de la economía del maíz en la región metropolitana, Chiapas, 2014; Bueno, Méndez y Cruz realizan un estudio y análisis de los centros de educación y cultura ambiental, necesidad de profesionalización Pedagógica de facilitadores ambientales; Pat, Caamal, Jerónimo y Mendoza presentan un estudio acerca de los Costos y competitividad de la producción del limón persa en el municipio de Martínez de la Torre, Veracruz. Vizuet presenta un trabajo de la construcción polisémica e histórica del concepto de la pobreza; Navarrete, Ríos y Arévalo presentan un estudio acerca de la producción ejidal de tomate rojo (Lycopersicum esculentum) en el DR-017, y su huella hídrica; Pérez y Piña hablan acerca de la productividad e inversión extranjera: La industria de Alimentos; Pérez, Figueroa, Godínez y Gómez presentan el trabajo sobre el sector primario en México; Pérez, Figueroa, Godínez y Gómez presentan acerca de los subsidios al campo como instrumento de política económica en México; Venegas, Perales y Del Valle realizan un estudio de rentabilidad de biodigestores y motogeneradores para diferentes tamaños de granjas porcinas en Michoacán