Spatially Explicit Data: Stewardship and Ethical Challenges in Science

Scholarly communication is at an unprecedented turning point created in part by the increasing saliency of data stewardship and data sharing. Formal data management plans represent a new emphasis in research, enabling access to data at higher volumes and more quickly, and the potential for replication and augmentation of existing research. Data sharing has recently transformed the practice, scope, content, and applicability of research in several disciplines, in particular in relation to spatially specific data. This lends exciting potentiality, but the most effective ways in which to implement such changes, particularly for disciplines involving human subjects and other sensitive information, demand consideration. Data management plans, stewardship, and sharing, impart distinctive technical, sociological, and ethical challenges that remain to be adequately identified and remedied. Here, we consider these and propose potential solutions for their amelioration

Television viewing in Thai infants and toddlers: impacts to language development and parental perceptions

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Effects of television to language development in infants and toddlers, especially in the Asian children, are inconclusive. This study aimed to (a) study time spent on television in Thai infants and toddlers (age < 2 years), (b) investigate the association between time spent on television (as recommended by the American Academy of Paediatrics (AAP), < 2 hours per day) and language development in Thai 2-year-old children, and (c) explore parental perceptions on television toward their child's development.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Two hundred and sixty children and their parents were recruited into the study. Time spent on television and parental perceptions on television viewing toward their child's development were recorded during face-to-face and telephone interviews. Language development was assessed at the age of 2 years using the Clinical Linguistic Auditory Milestone Scale (CLAMS), and parents' report. Association between delayed language development and time spent on television viewing, as well as other various parameters such as gender, maternal education and family income, were analysed using a multivariate logistic regression model.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Most Thai infants and toddlers watched television at the age of 6 months, 1 year and 2 years old (98.0, 95.3 and 96.7%, respectively). On average, 1-year-old children watched television 1.23 ± 1.42 hours per day. This increased to 1.69 ± 1.56 hours per day when they were 2 years old. However, watching television longer than 2 hours per day did not associate with delayed language development. On multivariate logistic regression analysis, gender (male) was the only significant factor associated with delayed language development (OR = 6.9, 95% CI = 1.5–31.3). Moreover, 75%, 71%, and 66% of Thai parents believed that television viewing yielded benefits to children's developments.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Thai children commenced watching television at an early age and the amount of television viewing time increased by age. Most parents had positive perceptions to television viewing. The study found no association between time spent on television viewing (≥ 2 hours per day) and delayed language development at the age of 2 years.</p> <p>Gender (male) was the only variable associated with delayed language development.</p

Constructing meaning about the delinquency of young girls in public-housing neighbourhoods

UID/SOC/04647/2013 SFRH/BPD/116119/2016Rooted in the theoretical approaches of social ecology and in childhood studies, the Ph.D. research project on which this paper is based aimed to achieve a better understanding of children’s socialization processes in multi-problematic spaces, particularly concerning their involvement in violence and delinquency. A case study based on ethnographic research and child-centred methods was carried out in six public-housing neighbourhoods in Portugal, which were chosen because they had relatively high levels of social deprivation, violence and crime. The specificity of the social group under study—children aged from 6 to 12 years old—and their living conditions, led us to extend the data collected by trying to learn, from the girls, the reasoning and the meanings they assign to their own actions in daily social practices. The intention was to study the features of girls’ socialization in the field through their own accounts of their lives and to examine their perspectives on offending behaviours. The genderized process of social learning in delinquency identified in the girls’ conversation is an important variable, as familial and social experiences tend to facilitate their entry into delinquency. The transmission of delinquent values takes place essentially within the female family circle or via female peers, rather than from the influence of male individuals.authorsversionpublishe

Homework self-regulation strategies: a gender and educational-level invariance analysis

This study investigates the measurement invariance as a function of gender and educational level of the Homework Behavior Questionnaire (Ktpc), an instrument developed to assess students' homework self-regulation strategies. A sample of 1400 elementary and middle school students was used. Results of confirmatory factor analysis indicated a good fit of the theoretical model composed of three dimensions: planning, execution and evaluation of the homework completion. The results also provided evidence for the existence of metric invariance and partial scalar measurement invariance across boys and girls and across the elementary school and the middle school students. The reliability of the scores in the three dimensions was high. Girls obtained higher scores than boys in planning, execution and evaluation. Middle school students had lower scores in planning compared to the elementary school students. These findings are discussed, and their implications for practice are highlighted.This study was partially conducted at the Psychology Research Centre (UID/PSI/01662/2013), University of Minho, and supported by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology and the Portuguese Ministry of Science, Technology and Higher Education, through national funds, and co-financed by FEDER, through COMPETE2020, under the PT2020 Partnership Agreement (POCI-01-0145-FEDER-007653). The first author is also supported by grant SFRH/BPD/102549/2014 from the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

The role of conversation in health care interventions: enabling sensemaking and learning

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Those attempting to implement changes in health care settings often find that intervention efforts do not progress as expected. Unexpected outcomes are often attributed to variation and/or error in implementation processes. We argue that some unanticipated variation in intervention outcomes arises because unexpected conversations emerge during intervention attempts. The purpose of this paper is to discuss the role of conversation in shaping interventions and to explain why conversation is important in intervention efforts in health care organizations. We draw on literature from sociolinguistics and complex adaptive systems theory to create an interpretive framework and develop our theory. We use insights from a fourteen-year program of research, including both descriptive and intervention studies undertaken to understand and assist primary care practices in making sustainable changes. We enfold these literatures and these insights to articulate a common failure of overlooking the role of conversation in intervention success, and to develop a theoretical argument for the importance of paying attention to the role of conversation in health care interventions.</p> <p>Discussion</p> <p>Conversation between organizational members plays an important role in the success of interventions aimed at improving health care delivery. Conversation can facilitate intervention success because interventions often rely on new sensemaking and learning, and these are accomplished through conversation. Conversely, conversation can block the success of an intervention by inhibiting sensemaking and learning. Furthermore, the existing relationship contexts of an organization can influence these conversational possibilities. We argue that the likelihood of intervention success will increase if the role of conversation is considered in the intervention process.</p> <p>Summary</p> <p>The generation of productive conversation should be considered as one of the foundations of intervention efforts. We suggest that intervention facilitators consider the following actions as strategies for reducing the barriers that conversation can present and for using conversation to leverage improvement change: evaluate existing conversation and relationship systems, look for and leverage unexpected conversation, create time and space where conversation can unfold, use conversation to help people manage uncertainty, use conversation to help reorganize relationships, and build social interaction competence.</p

The Importance of Tree Size and Fecundity for Wind Dispersal of Big-Leaf Mahogany

Seed dispersal by wind is a critical yet poorly understood process in tropical forest trees. How tree size and fecundity affect this process at the population level remains largely unknown because of insufficient replication across adults. We measured seed dispersal by the endangered neotropical timber species big-leaf mahogany (Swietenia macrophylla King, Meliaceae) in the Brazilian Amazon at 25 relatively isolated trees using multiple 1-m wide belt transects extended 100 m downwind. Tree diameter and fecundity correlated positively with increased seed shadow extent; but in combination large, high fecundity trees contributed disproportionately to longer-distance dispersal events (>60 m). Among three empirical models fitted to seed density vs. distance in one dimension, the Student-t (2Dt) generally fit best (compared to the negative exponential and inverse power). When seedfall downwind was modelled in two dimensions using a normalised sample, it peaked furthest downwind (c. 25 m) for large, high-fecundity trees; with the inverse Gaussian and Weibull functions providing comparable fits that were slightly better than the lognormal. Although most seeds fell within 30 m of parent trees, relatively few juveniles were found within this distance, resulting in juvenile-to-seed ratios peaking at c. 35–45 m. Using the 2Dt model fits to predict seed densities downwind, coupled with known fecundity data for 2000–2009, we evaluated potential Swietenia regeneration near adults (≤30 m dispersal) and beyond 30 m. Mean seed arrival into canopy gaps >30 m downwind was more than 3× greater for large, high fecundity trees than small, high-fecundity trees. Tree seed production did not necessarily scale up proportionately with diameter, and was not consistent across years, and this resulting intraspecific variation can have important consequences for local patterns of dispersal in forests. Our results have important implications for management and conservation of big-leaf mahogany populations, and may apply to other threatened wind-dispersed Meliaceae trees

Longitudinal Associations Between Perceived Parent-Child Relationship Quality and Depressive Symptoms in Adolescence

This longitudinal study examined bidirectional paths between perceived parent-adolescent relationship quality and depressive symptoms, as well as the moderating role of sex, age, and personality type. 1313 Dutch adolescents (51% girls) from two cohorts (923 12-year olds and 390 16-year olds at Wave 1) reported on their personality, depressive symptoms, and perceived relationship quality to parents in four waves. Consistent with a relationship erosion perspective, depressive symptoms negatively predicted perceived relationship quality with parents. Relationship quality to mothers predicted depressive symptoms for boys and girls, but relationship quality to fathers predicted depressive symptoms only for boys. Personality type only moderated initial associations between relationship quality with mothers and depressive symptoms, which were stronger for Overcontrollers and Undercontrollers than for Resilients. Results thus reveal a pattern of mutual influence between perceived relationship quality and depressive symptoms that is moderated by the interplay among parent and adolescent sex and adolescent personality type

Genome-Wide Screen of Three Herpesviruses for Protein Subcellular Localization and Alteration of PML Nuclear Bodies

Herpesviruses are large, ubiquitous DNA viruses with complex host interactions, yet many of the proteins encoded by these viruses have not been functionally characterized. As a first step in functional characterization, we determined the subcellular localization of 234 epitope-tagged proteins from herpes simplex virus, cytomegalovirus, and Epstein–Barr virus. Twenty-four of the 93 proteins with nuclear localization formed subnuclear structures. Twelve of these localized to the nucleolus, and five at least partially localized with promyelocytic leukemia (PML) bodies, which are known to suppress viral lytic infection. In addition, two proteins disrupted Cajal bodies, and 19 of the nuclear proteins significantly decreased the number of PML bodies per cell, including six that were shown to be SUMO-modified. These results have provided the first functional insights into over 120 previously unstudied proteins and suggest that herpesviruses employ multiple strategies for manipulating nuclear bodies that control key cellular processes