When disaster events capture global attention users of Twitter form transient interest communities that disseminate information and other messages online. This paper examines content related to ...Typhoon Haiyan (locally known as Yolanda) as it hit the Philippines and triggered international humanitarian response and media attention. It reveals how Twitter conversations about disasters evolve over time, showing an issue attention cycle on a social media platform. The paper examines different functions of Twitter and the information hubs that drive and sustain conversation about the event. Content analysis shows that the majority of tweets contain information about the typhoon or its damage, and disaster relief activities. There are differences in types of content between the most retweeted messages and posts that are original tweets. Original tweets are more likely to come from ordinary users, who are more likely to tweet emotions, messages of support, and political content compared with official sources and key information hubs that include news organizations, aid organization, and celebrities. Original tweets reveal use of the site beyond information to relief coordination and response.
This article applies a qualitative approach to the 2017 dengue vaccine controversy involving Sanofi Pasteur’s Dengvaxia to understand vaccine hesitancy and related anxieties in contemporary ...Philippines. Through a multisited project that investigated the health aspirations and lived experiences of low- and middle-income Filipinos across urban and rural Philippines, this article distills the perspectives of both ordinary community members and health workers in local and national capacities regarding the controversy—and how it altered their perceptions toward vaccines, health care, and government. Our study reveals widespread mistrust and fear in the communities toward both the state and health institutions following the controversy, with frontline health workers bearing the brunt of the communities’ apprehensions, and the media partly responsible in fomenting these fears. Given the repetitive nature of health and vaccine controversies, this article suggests the importance of responsible journalism, well-calibrated crisis communications, and a people-centered health paradigm that involves exploring local contexts of vaccine hesitancy and mining people’s lived experiences in tackling present and future health crises—especially now in the advent of COVID-19 vaccinations.
This paper examines the link between reliance on Facebook for news, political knowledge, and political engagement in the Philippines. We tested five hypotheses using data gathered from an online ...survey of 978 Filipinos conducted from February 1 to March 31, 2016. Findings support the hypothesis that those who rely less on social media as a news source exhibit higher levels of perceived knowledge about politics than those who rely more on it for news. Controlling for traditional news use, following political officials or institutions on social media is associated with higher levels of political interest and engagement, those with more politically active friends on Facebook have higher levels of exposure to political content online, and there is a positive correlation between Facebook being a source of information about politics and discussing politics more often with others. However, the hypothesis that those with more friends on their network who are politically active, will have greater political knowledge and more political engagement than those who have few politically active friends on their Facebook network is not supported.
Although mice are the most widely used mammalian model organism, genetic studies have suffered from limited mapping resolution due to extensive linkage disequilibrium (LD) that is characteristic of ...crosses among inbred strains. Carworth Farms White (CFW) mice are a commercially available outbred mouse population that exhibit rapid LD decay in comparison to other available mouse populations. We performed a genome-wide association study (GWAS) of behavioral, physiological and gene expression phenotypes using 1,200 male CFW mice. We used genotyping by sequencing (GBS) to obtain genotypes at 92,734 SNPs. We also measured gene expression using RNA sequencing in three brain regions. Our study identified numerous behavioral, physiological and expression quantitative trait loci (QTLs). We integrated the behavioral QTL and eQTL results to implicate specific genes, including Azi2 in sensitivity to methamphetamine and Zmynd11 in anxiety-like behavior. The combination of CFW mice, GBS and RNA sequencing constitutes a powerful approach to GWAS in mice.
This paper investigates how motivations that drive news use affect the process of learning political information from the news. A model that traces the influence of motivational factors on following ...news about general public affairs is proposed. Tests conducted with nationally representative surveys revealed that motivations for following general public affairs in the news are conceptually and empirically distinct. Results showed that certain psychological needs drive motivations toward following general news, and that various types of motives have independent effects on exposure and attention to news. Finally, we found that motivations have significant indirect effects on knowledge about politics. Implications on theoretical developments in political knowledge and learning are discussed.
Leucine-rich repeat-containing 8 (LRRC8) proteins have been identified as putative receptors involved in lymphocyte development and adipocyte differentiation. They remain poorly characterized, and no ...specific function has been assigned to them. There is no consensus on how this family of proteins might function because homology searches suggest that members of the LRRC8 family act not as plasma membrane receptors, but rather as channels that mediate cell-cell signaling. Here we provide experimental evidence that supports a role for LRRC8s in the transport of small molecules. We show that LRRC8D is a mammalian protein required for the import of the antibiotic blasticidin S. We characterize localization and topology of LRRC8A and LRRC8D and demonstrate that LRRC8D interacts with LRRC8A, LRRC8B, and LRRC8C. Given the suggested involvement in solute transport, our results support a model in which LRRC8s form one or more complexes that may mediate cell-cell communication by transporting small solutes.
Background: Leucine-rich repeat-containing 8 (LRRC8) proteins are involved in lymphocyte development and adipocyte differentiation.
Results: LRRC8D is required for the import of the antibiotic blasticidin S.
Conclusion: LRRC8D functions as a transporter of small molecules.
Significance: This suggests a mode of action for LRRC8 family members in lymphocyte development and adipocyte differentiation.
Institutional transmission of airborne infections such as tuberculosis (TB) is an important public health problem, especially in resource-limited settings where protective measures such as ...negative-pressure isolation rooms are difficult to implement. Natural ventilation may offer a low-cost alternative. Our objective was to investigate the rates, determinants, and effects of natural ventilation in health care settings.
The study was carried out in eight hospitals in Lima, Peru; five were hospitals of "old-fashioned" design built pre-1950, and three of "modern" design, built 1970-1990. In these hospitals 70 naturally ventilated clinical rooms where infectious patients are likely to be encountered were studied. These included respiratory isolation rooms, TB wards, respiratory wards, general medical wards, outpatient consulting rooms, waiting rooms, and emergency departments. These rooms were compared with 12 mechanically ventilated negative-pressure respiratory isolation rooms built post-2000. Ventilation was measured using a carbon dioxide tracer gas technique in 368 experiments. Architectural and environmental variables were measured. For each experiment, infection risk was estimated for TB exposure using the Wells-Riley model of airborne infection. We found that opening windows and doors provided median ventilation of 28 air changes/hour (ACH), more than double that of mechanically ventilated negative-pressure rooms ventilated at the 12 ACH recommended for high-risk areas, and 18 times that with windows and doors closed (p < 0.001). Facilities built more than 50 years ago, characterised by large windows and high ceilings, had greater ventilation than modern naturally ventilated rooms (40 versus 17 ACH; p < 0.001). Even within the lowest quartile of wind speeds, natural ventilation exceeded mechanical (p < 0.001). The Wells-Riley airborne infection model predicted that in mechanically ventilated rooms 39% of susceptible individuals would become infected following 24 h of exposure to untreated TB patients of infectiousness characterised in a well-documented outbreak. This infection rate compared with 33% in modern and 11% in pre-1950 naturally ventilated facilities with windows and doors open.
Opening windows and doors maximises natural ventilation so that the risk of airborne contagion is much lower than with costly, maintenance-requiring mechanical ventilation systems. Old-fashioned clinical areas with high ceilings and large windows provide greatest protection. Natural ventilation costs little and is maintenance free, and is particularly suited to limited-resource settings and tropical climates, where the burden of TB and institutional TB transmission is highest. In settings where respiratory isolation is difficult and climate permits, windows and doors should be opened to reduce the risk of airborne contagion.
Abstract
A long-recognized problem of healthcare devolution in many developing countries is its inextricability from the influences of local politics. This has been particularly self-evident in the ...Philippines, where, since the adoption of the Local Government Code of 1991, the devolution of health governance, planning, administration and service delivery has placed the health system largely under the control of individual provinces, cities, municipalities and villages or barangays. In this article, we utilize the notion of ‘kontra-partido’ (the Filipino term connoting ‘oppositional politics’) to concretize local, oppositional politics as a lived experience of health workers, government officials and ordinary citizens in the country. Through multi-sited qualitative fieldwork, we demonstrate how ‘kontra-partido’ politics ultimately worsens health outcomes in any locality. We show how such politics figures in the relational dynamics of health governance, often resulting in petty infighting and strained relationships among local health authorities; how it leads to the politicization of appointments and prevents the local workforce, especially those at the grassroots, from doing their jobs efficiently amid environments rife with hostile patronage; and how it impedes service delivery as politicians prioritize ‘visible’ projects (over sustainable ones) and selectively deliver health care to their known supporters. In turn, health workers and ordinary citizens alike have been actively negotiating their roles within this political milieu, either by joining the so-called political frontlines or by engaging in the transactional relationships that develop between politicians and their constituents during perennial election seasons. We conclude with a reflection on the vulnerability of health to politicization and the visceral consequences of ‘kontra-partido’ politics to health workers, as well as an identification of possible areas of intervention for future policy reform, given the deepening political polarization in the country and the upcoming implementation of the recently passed Universal Health Care Law.
Given school enrollments but in the absence of a student residence census, we present a gravity-like model to infer the residential distribution of enrolled students across various administrative ...units. Multi-scale analysis of the effects of aggregation across different administrative levels allows for the identification of administrative units with sub-optimally located schools and highlights the challenges in allocating resources. Using this method, we verify that the current scheme of free cross-enrollment across administrative boundaries is needed in achieving universal education in the Philippines.
Muscle bulk in adult healthy humans is highly variable even after height, age, and sex are accounted for. Low muscle mass, due to fewer and/or smaller constituent muscle fibers, would exacerbate the ...impact of muscle loss occurring in aging or disease. Genetic variability substantially influences muscle mass differences, but causative genes remain largely unknown. In a genome-wide association study (GWAS) on appendicular lean mass (ALM) in a population of 85,750 middle-aged (aged 38–49 years) individuals from the UK Biobank (UKB), we found 182 loci associated with ALM (p < 5 × 10−8). We replicated associations for 78% of these loci (p < 5 × 10−8) with ALM in a population of 181,862 elderly (aged 60–74 years) individuals from UKB. We also conducted a GWAS on hindlimb skeletal muscle mass of 1,867 mice from an advanced intercross between two inbred strains (LG/J and SM/J); this GWAS identified 23 quantitative trait loci. Thirty-eight positional candidates distributed across five loci overlapped between the two species. In vitro studies of positional candidates confirmed CPNE1 and STC2 as modifiers of myogenesis. Collectively, these findings shed light on the genetics of muscle mass variability in humans and identify targets for the development of interventions for treatment of muscle loss. The overlapping results between humans and the mouse model GWAS point to shared genetic mechanisms across species.
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