As Internet use becomes widespread at home, parents are trying to maximize their children's online opportunities while also minimizing online risks. We surveyed parents of 6‐ to 14‐year‐olds in 8 ...European countries (N = 6,400). A factor analysis revealed 2 parental mediation strategies. Enabling mediation is associated with increased online opportunities but also risks. This strategy incorporates safety efforts, responds to child agency, and is employed when the parent or child is relatively digitally skilled, so may not support harm. Restrictive mediation is associated with fewer online risks but at the cost of opportunities, reflecting policy advice that regards media use as primarily problematic. It is favored when parent or child digital skills are lower, potentially keeping vulnerable children safe yet undermining their digital inclusion.
Many different countries have been under lockdown or extreme social distancing measures to control the spread of COVID-19. The potentially far-reaching side effects of these measures have not yet ...been fully understood. In this study we analyse the results of a multi-country survey conducted in Italy (N = 3,504), Spain (N = 3,524) and the United Kingdom (N = 3,523), with two separate analyses. In the first analysis, we examine the elicitation of citizens' concerns over the downplaying of the economic consequences of the lockdown during the COVID-19 pandemic. We control for Social Desirability Bias through a list experiment included in the survey. In the second analysis, we examine the data from the same survey to predict the level of stress, anxiety and depression associated with being economically vulnerable and having been affected by a negative economic shock. To accomplish this, we have used a prediction algorithm based on machine learning techniques. To quantify the size of this affected population, we compare its magnitude with the number of people affected by COVID-19 using measures of susceptibility, vulnerability and behavioural change collected in the same questionnaire. We find that the concern for the economy and for "the way out" of the lockdown is diffuse and there is evidence of minor underreporting. Additionally, we estimate that around 42.8% of the populations in the three countries are at high risk of stress, anxiety, and depression, based on their level of economic vulnerability and their exposure to a negative economic shock.
Celotno besedilo
Dostopno za:
DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
Objective
To systematically review the existing evidence of mobile health (mHealth) tools for the treatment of eating disorders (ED).
Method
Electronic databases (Pubmed, PsycInfo, and SCOPUS) were ...searched, and PRISMA guidelines were followed. Selected studies were divided into three categories according to the intended purpose of the mHealth tools used: (a) sole means of support, (b) complementary to standard face‐to‐face treatment, and (c) for relapse prevention. Additionally, studies were assessed on efficacy, qualitative information, and methodological quality.
Results
Fifteen studies were identified. Most studies using mHealth as a sole means of intervention or adjunct to traditional therapy showed no effects, although an improvement at postassessment was present in vodcast, smartphone application, and text‐messaging interventions. Between group effects were only found for a text‐messaging intervention for relapse prevention. Qualitative analyses showed that most mHealth interventions were considered as acceptable, supporting, and motivating by patients and therapists, although different important problems were observed in individual studies.
Conclusions
Limited effects were found for mHealth interventions to reduce ED‐related symptoms. A common evaluation framework for ED mHealth interventions should be proposed to assess the validity of interventions before implementing them on a larger scale in clinical practice.
In this article, we examine the expectations of the economic outlook, fear of the future, and behavioural change during the first Covid-19 wave, for three European countries (Spain, the United ...Kingdom, and Italy) that have been severely hit. We use a novel dataset that we collected to monitor the three countries during the crisis. As outcome variables, we used expectations (e.g., economic outlook, labour market situation, recovery), fear (e.g., scenario of new outburst, economic depression, restriction to individual rights and freedom), and behavioural change across the following dimensions: savings, cultural consumption, social capital, and risky behaviour. We provide descriptive evidence that is representative of the population of interest, and we estimate the impact of exposure to shock occurred during the crisis on the same outcome variables, using matching techniques. Our main findings are the following: we detected systematically negative expectations regarding the future and the recovery, majoritarian fears of an economic depression, a new outbreak, and a permanent restriction on freedom, a reduction in saving and in social capital. Exposure to shocks decreased expected job prospects, increased withdrawal from accumulated savings, and reduced contacts with the network relevant to job advancement, whereas it had inconclusive effects over fears.
In the context of the current COVID-19 pandemic, households throughout the world have to cope with negative shocks. Previous research has shown that negative shocks impair cognitive function and ...change risk, time and social preferences. In this study, we analyze the results of a longitudinal multi-country survey conducted in Italy (N = 1652), Spain (N = 1660) and the United Kingdom (N = 1578). We measure cognitive function using the Cognitive Reflection Test and preferences traits (risk, time and social preferences) using an experimentally validated set of questions to assess the differences between people exposed to a shock compared to the rest of the sample. We measure four possible types of shocks: labor market shock, health shock, occurrence of stressful events, and mental health shock. Additionally, we randomly assign participants to groups with either a recall of negative events (more specifically, a mild reinforcement of stress or of fear/anxiety), or to a control group (to recall neutral or joyful memories), in order to assess whether or not stress and negative emotions drive a change in preferences. Results show that people affected by shocks performed worse in terms of cognitive functioning, are more risk loving, and are more prone to punish others (negative reciprocity). Data do not support the hypotheses that the result is driven by stress or by negative emotions.
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Carbon dots have garnered significant attention owing to their versatile and highly tunable optical properties; however, the origins and the underlying mechanism remains a subject of ...debate especially for dual fluorescent systems. Here, we have prepared carbon dots from glutathione and formamide precursors via a one-pot solvothermal synthesis. Steady state and dynamic techniques indicate that these dual fluorescent dots possess distinct emissive carbon-core and a molecular states, which are responsible for the blue and red optical signatures, respectively. To further glean information into the fluorescence mechanism, electrochemical analysis was used to measure the bandgaps of the two fluorescent states, while femtosecond transient absorption spectroscopy evidenced the two-state model based on the observed heterogeneity and bimodal spectral distribution. Our findings provide novel and fundamental insights on the optical properties of dual fluorescent dots, which can translate to more effective and targeted application development particularly in bioimaging, multiplexed sensing and photocatalysis.
Despite the worldwide growth in mobile health (mHealth) tools and the possible benefits for both patients and health care providers, the overall adoption levels of mHealth tools by health ...professionals remain relatively low.
This study aimed (1) to investigate attitudes of health care providers and mHealth experts toward mHealth tools in the health context in general, and this study aimed (2) to test the acceptability and feasibility of a specific mHealth tool for patients with an eating disorder (ED), called TCApp, among patients and ED specialists.
To this purpose, we conducted an explorative qualitative study with 4 in-depth group discussions with several groups of stakeholders: our first focus group was conducted with 11 experts on mHealth from the Catalan Association of Health Entities; the second focus group included 10 health care professionals from the Spanish College of Doctors of Barcelona; the third focus group involved 9 patients with an ED who had used the TCApp over a 12-week period, and the fourth and last focus group involved 8 ED specialists who had monitored such ED patients on the Web.
The focus groups showed that health care providers and mHealth experts reported barriers for mHealth adoption more often than facilitators, indicating that mHealth techniques are difficult to obtain and use. Most barriers were attributed to external factors relating to the human or organizational environment (ie, lack of time because of workload, lack of direct interest on a legislative or political level) rather than being attributed to internal factors relating to individual obstacles. The results of the mHealth intervention study indicate that the TCApp was considered as easy to use and useful, although patients and the ED specialists monitoring them on the Web reported different adoption problems, such as the inability to personalize the app, a lack of motivational and interactive components, or difficulties in adhering to the study protocol.
In general, this paper indicates that both health professionals and patients foresee difficulties that need to be addressed before comprehensive adoption and usage of mHealth techniques can be effectively implemented. Such findings are in line with previous studies, suggesting that although they acknowledge their possible benefits and cost-effectiveness, health care providers are quite resistant and conservative about integrating mHealth technologies in their daily practice.
Non-attendance to scheduled hospital outpatient appointments may compromise healthcare resource planning, which ultimately reduces the quality of healthcare provision by delaying assessments and ...increasing waiting lists. We developed a model for predicting non-attendance and assessed the effectiveness of an intervention for reducing non-attendance based on the model.
The study was conducted in three stages: (1) model development, (2) prospective validation of the model with new data, and (3) a clinical assessment with a pilot study that included the model as a stratification tool to select the patients in the intervention. Candidate models were built using retrospective data from appointments scheduled between January 1, 2015, and November 30, 2018, in the dermatology and pneumology outpatient services of the Hospital Municipal de Badalona (Spain). The predictive capacity of the selected model was then validated prospectively with appointments scheduled between January 7 and February 8, 2019. The effectiveness of selective phone call reminders to patients at high risk of non-attendance according to the model was assessed on all consecutive patients with at least one appointment scheduled between February 25 and April 19, 2019. We finally conducted a pilot study in which all patients identified by the model as high risk of non-attendance were randomly assigned to either a control (no intervention) or intervention group, the last receiving phone call reminders one week before the appointment.
Decision trees were selected for model development. Models were trained and selected using 33,329 appointments in the dermatology service and 21,050 in the pneumology service. Specificity, sensitivity, and accuracy for the prediction of non-attendance were 79.90%, 67.09%, and 73.49% for dermatology, and 71.38%, 57.84%, and 64.61% for pneumology outpatient services. The prospective validation showed a specificity of 78.34% (95%CI 71.07, 84.51) and balanced accuracy of 70.45% for dermatology; and 69.83% (95%CI 60.61, 78.00) for pneumology, respectively. The effectiveness of the intervention was assessed on 1,311 individuals identified as high risk of non-attendance according to the selected model. Overall, the intervention resulted in a significant reduction in the non-attendance rate to both the dermatology and pneumology services, with a decrease of 50.61% (p<0.001) and 39.33% (p=0.048), respectively.
The risk of non-attendance can be adequately estimated using patient information stored in medical records. The patient stratification according to the non-attendance risk allows prioritizing interventions, such as phone call reminders, to effectively reduce non-attendance rates.
Celotno besedilo
Dostopno za:
CEKLJ, DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
Seed commerce is a highly profitable global market. Most commercialized seeds are hybrid seeds originating from a controlled cross between two selected parental lines. The market value of hybrid ...seeds depends on their hybrid genetic purity. DNA molecular markers are a reliable and widespread tool to genotype plant materials; however, DNA extraction from seeds is challenging, often laborious and expensive. With the ultimate goal of creating a tomato and melon hybrid seeds purity test, various challenges arise. To overcome these problems and with the purpose of crude DNA extraction, a simple, fast, inexpensive and easily scalable adaptation of the hot sodium hydroxide and tris method coupled to a competitive allele-specific PCR genotyping method is proposed.
Adaptation of hot sodium hydroxide and tris method for easy, fast and cheap DNA extraction for seed genotyping.
A simple adaptation of the hot sodium hydroxide and tris method was established for molecular marker assessment in purity check analysis for tomato and melon seed lots.
Inorganic shelling is a key strategy to address unwanted, surface-mediated nonradiative pathways in semiconductor nanocrystals. Improved passivation particularly advances the use of the smallest ...nanocrystals because complex photophysics arise as nanomaterials approach the molecular limit. However, shelling strategies developed for larger/more-robust nanocrystals are not always applicable in this size regime. Herein, we introduce the direct synthesis of ultrasmall (ø < 2 nm) PbS nanocrystals shelled with a range of metal-halide-perovskite-like monolayers by employing the appropriate two-dimensional perovskite as a precursor at the point of nanocrystal growth. These passivated nanocrystals possess improved photoluminescence quantum yields, reduced dynamic spectral red-shifting after photoexcitation, and longer, more-monoexponential photoluminescence dynamicsconsistent with a reduction in defect-mediated exciton–phonon coupling. We then apply these shelled, ultrasmall PbS nanocrystals as sensitizers in a triplet-fusion upconversion architecture and observe 2-fold improved triplet yields. This demonstration emphasizes the photophysical benefits realized via our 2D perovskite shelling strategy, which can be applied to other nanocrystalsespecially to small particles that are similarly vulnerable to existing strategies for post-synthetic modifications.
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