An essential factor toward ensuring the security of individuals and critical infrastructures is the timely detection of potentially threatening situations. To this end, especially in the law ...enforcement context, the availability of effective and efficient threat assessment mechanisms for identifying and eventually preventing crime- and terrorism-related threatening situations is of utmost importance. Toward this direction, this work proposes a hidden Markov model-based threat assessment framework for effectively and efficiently assessing threats in specific situations, such as public events. Specifically, a probabilistic approach is adopted to estimate the threat level of a situation at each point in time. The proposed approach also permits the reflection of the dynamic evolution of a threat over time by considering that the estimation of the threat level at a given time is affected by past observations. This estimation of the dynamic evolution of the threat is very useful, since it can support the decisions by security personnel regarding the taking of precautionary measures in case the threat level seems to adopt an upward trajectory, even before it reaches the highest level. In addition, its probabilistic basis allows for taking into account noisy data. The applicability of the proposed framework is showcased in a use case that focuses on the identification of potential threats in public events on the basis of evidence obtained from the automatic visual analysis of the footage of surveillance cameras.
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BFBNIB, FZAB, GIS, IJS, KILJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, SBCE, SBMB, UL, UM, UPUK
This paper critically examines competing media discourses about women's alcohol consumption as spectators at the Melbourne Cup, a historically prestigious annual Australian horse race. Taking a ...feminist poststructural lens, this paper identifies how print media representations of the female drinking subject can provide a multitude of subject positions that can be contradictory and subversive, offering possibilities for resistance to idealised middle-class gendered norms about women and drinking. This paper provides new insights into print media portrayals of "unruly" female spectators and their alcohol consumption at public events such as the Melbourne Cup.
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BFBNIB, NUK, PILJ, SAZU, UL, UM, UPUK
In the United States, cancer is common, with high morbidity and mortality; cancer incidence varies between states. Online searches reflect public awareness, which could be driven by the underlying ...regional cancer epidemiology.
The objective of our study was to characterize the relationship between cancer incidence and online Google search volumes in the United States for 6 common cancers. A secondary objective was to evaluate the association of search activity with cancer-related public events and celebrity news coverage.
We performed a population-based, retrospective study of state-level cancer incidence from 2004 through 2013 reported by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for breast, prostate, colon, lung, and uterine cancers and leukemia compared to Google Trends (GT) relative search volume (RSV), a metric designed by Google to allow interest in search topics to be compared between regions. Participants included persons in the United States who searched for cancer terms on Google. The primary measures were the correlation between annual state-level cancer incidence and RSV as determined by Spearman correlation and linear regression with RSV and year as independent variables and cancer incidence as the dependent variable. Temporal associations between search activity and events raising public awareness such as cancer awareness months and cancer-related celebrity news were described.
At the state level, RSV was significantly correlated to incidence for breast (r=.18, P=.001), prostate (r=-.27, P<.001), lung (r=.33, P<.001), and uterine cancers (r=.39, P<.001) and leukemia (r=.13, P=.003) but not colon cancer (r=-.02, P=.66). After adjusting for time, state-level RSV was positively correlated to cancer incidence for all cancers: breast (P<.001, 95% CI 0.06 to 0.19), prostate (P=.38, 95% CI -0.08 to 0.22), lung (P<.001, 95% CI 0.33 to 0.46), colon (P<.001, 95% CI 0.11 to 0.17), and uterine cancers (P<.001, 95% CI 0.07 to 0.12) and leukemia (P<.001, 95% CI 0.01 to 0.03). Temporal associations in GT were noted with breast cancer awareness month but not with other cancer awareness months and celebrity events.
Cancer incidence is correlated with online search volume at the state level. Search patterns were temporally associated with cancer awareness months and celebrity announcements. Online searches reflect public awareness. Advancing understanding of online search patterns could augment traditional epidemiologic surveillance, provide opportunities for targeted patient engagement, and allow public information campaigns to be evaluated in ways previously unable to be measured.
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DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
Marked by the killing of a senior ICT professional working for the Electoral Commission and the invalidation of the presidential election by the Supreme Court, the 2017 Kenyan elections make for a ...good case through which to study how digital technologies shape contemporary electoral practice. This article examines the practice of electoral transparency through technology and argues that it can be conceived as a socio-technical device based both on distancing people from knowledge of the electoral infrastructure and on staging a simplified discourse on public access to the electoral infrastructure. Drawing on interviews with key actors in election technology implementation and ethnographic observations of public events around it, the article argues that digital technology has had three sets of implications for elections. First, it has shaped the electoral infrastructure and the nature of the final result (now a paper and digital hybrid). Second, it has shaped the distribution of knowledge among electoral professionals, giving a central role to ICT actors, objects, and knowledge in the definition of electoral transparency. Third, the centrality of ICTs in elections and the order of knowledge they bring are highly controversial and criticized by other electoral actors who demand for material proof for understanding the inner workings of elections.
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NUK, OILJ, SAZU, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
The COVID-19 pandemic has increased the risk of participating in public events, among them elections. We assess whether the voter turnout in the 2020 local government elections in Italy was affected ...by the COVID-19 pandemic. We do so by exploiting the variation among municipalities in the intensity of the COVID-19 outbreak as measured by the mortality rate among the elderly. We find that a 1 percentage point increase in the elderly mortality rate decreased the voter turnout by 0.5 percentage points, with no gender differences in the behavioural response. The effect was especially strong in densely populated municipalities. We do not detect statistically significant differences in voter turnout among different levels of autonomy from the central government.
•We study the impact of the COVID-19 on voter turnout in Italian municipalities.•We used Italian data at municipal level on voter turnout and mortality of elderly.•A 1 pp increase in the elderly mortality rate reduced the voter turnout by 0.5 pps.•We do not detect gender differences in the effect.•The effect is stronger in more densely populated municipalities.
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GEOZS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, UILJ, UL, UM, UPCLJ, UPUK, ZAGLJ, ZRSKP
En este artículo analizamos algunas obras artísticas exhibidas y producidas en el marco de dos eventos públicos que tuvieron como objetivo recordar el incendio de interfase urbano-forestal del 9 de ...marzo de 2021 en el noroeste del Chubut, Patagonia argentina. Este afectó particularmente a cuatro barrios asentados sobre tierras fiscales provinciales, motivo por el cual sus habitantes eran destinatarios de discursos estigmatizantes que los ubicaban, o bien como "peligrosos" o bien como necesitados a ser asistidos por el Estado. Nuestra hipótesis es que, así como el incendio logró visibilizar a esas personas como vecinos y vulnerables, los operativos de seguridad meses después del incendio terminaron por resquebrajar los marcos de visibilidad estigmatizantes. A partir de trabajo etnográfico en la zona y de entrevistas en profundidad a artistas y organizadores, analizamos de qué forma las obras artísticas lograron interpelar dichos marcos de visibilidad, y mostrar sujetos políticos agenciados.
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IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, UL, UM, UPUK
After the collapse of the Soviet Union, former Soviet republics became sovereign states and faced a challenge of building new political systems. While some of the countries have become authoritarian, ...democratic political systems were successfully built in a number of post-Soviet countries. In this study the focus is on these new democracies and their armed forces, as such states face questions related to the armed forces’ monopoly over the means of violence, their subservience to civilian politicians, the core values around which soldiers coalesce, and their legitimacy in the eyes of publics. How then does a military create a tradition in a new democracy? The term “military tradition” is used to refer to public events (ceremonies and performances), symbols (flags and adornments), and narratives (stories and lore) produced and reproduced in and around the armed forces. Accordingly, the article turns to the study of public events in order to further the study of military traditions in new democracies. As empirical focus, the authors propose to look at a key state-centered, national public event, the military parade through an exploratory case study of Estonia, a relatively young democracy of 30 years. The results of the study show that the form and practices of Estonia’s military parade simultaneously signal its subservience to elected officials, its role as defender of a democratic polity and its fate, its closeness and openness to society, and they reflect the wider societal developments centered on individualization, digitization, and marketization.
Lacking national direction, in 2020 Brazilian states adopted a variety of nonpharmaceutical interventions to combat COVID-19, adjusting their stringency over time. We took advantage of this variation ...across states and over time to estimate the independent effect of seven interventions on the growth rate ratios of COVID-19 cases and deaths. Panel regressions using daily data from March to December 2020 for twelve states show that two interventions, suspension of public events and masking mandates, significantly reduced the spread of the disease. Partial and full suspension of public events were equally effective. Full masking mandates were more effective than partial ones. Together, suspension of public events and full masking mandates reduced the growth rate ratios of both cases and deaths almost to 1, the point at which cases and deaths are no longer increasing. Policy makers may find this analysis useful as they aim to choose the most effective nonpharmaceutical interventions to reduce COVID-19s social and economic burdens.
Contemporary China is experiencing deeper reform and social transformation. The newly born social media have participated in the historical process of China’s reform and social change. Based on the ...existing literature of social media and internet public events, this article aims to study China’s internet public events through the perspective of social transformation theory, especially theories of the civic society and public sphere. This study has used case study to explore the role that social media play in social change in China through in-depth analysis of 57 typical cases. We found that social media are not only an important information source and means for online civil mobilization, but also provide citizens an open and free space for discussion of internet public events. The impact of social media in promoting social change was reflected in the supervision of governmental, judiciary and other public power; maintenance of justice and protection of disadvantaged groups; attracting the government’s attention, urging governmental information publicity and investigation of the events, and promoting social management innovation and institutional change. Social media are a helpful force in the construction of internet public sphere and civil society of contemporary China. Meanwhile, it is necessary to be cautious that social media is also likely to be a breeding ground for nationalist and populist discourses.
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GEOZS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, UL, UM, UPCLJ, UPUK, ZRSKP
To solve the problem of low efficiency of early warning in public security emergencies, this paper proposes a method for determining parameter weight in public events early warning model which was ...based on reinforcement learning. Firstly, using the calibrated conflict early warning label, using reinforcement learning algorithm to build the public early warning event model; secondly, through iterative training to obtain the arrival path of the agent to the abnormal sequence, that is, the public early warning event; finally, by analyzing the weight parameters in the neural network, to determine the early warning event. Simulation showed that under this algorithm, convergence happened when the number of steps was in the range from 500 to 800, 37.5% smaller than that when using the original data. This result of the experiment demonstrated that this method greatly improved the efficiency of early warning for public incidents.
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GEOZS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, UILJ, UL, UM, UPCLJ, UPUK, ZAGLJ, ZRSKP
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