Mitigating the adverse physical health risks associated with COVID-19 has been a priority of public health incentives. Less attention has been placed on understanding the psychological factors ...related to the global pandemic, especially among vulnerable populations. This qualitative study sought to understand the experiences of children and adolescents during COVID-19. This study interviewed 48 families during the COVID-19 pandemic restrictions, and a national lockdown, to understand its impacts. The study used an Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) methodology. Parents and children discussed the negative impact of the restrictions on young people's wellbeing. Children and adolescents experienced adverse mental health effects, including feelings of social isolation, depression, anxiety, and increases in maladaptive behaviour. Families with children with Autism Spectrum Disorders reported increased mental health difficulties during this period mostly due to changes to routine. The findings highlight the impact of severe restrictions on vulnerable populations' wellbeing and mental health outcomes, including children, adolescents, and those with Autism spectrum disorder (ASD).
While the technological revolution is accelerating, digital poverty is undermining the Sustainable Development Goals. This article introduces a justice-oriented digital framework which considers how ...fair access to digital capabilities, commodities, infrastructure, and governance can reduce global inequality and advance the SDGs.
The ability to perform computations on encrypted data is a powerful tool for protecting a client's privacy, especially in today's era of cloud and distributed computing. In terms of privacy, the best ...solutions that classical techniques can achieve are unfortunately not unconditionally secure in the sense that they are dependent on a hacker's computational power. Here we theoretically investigate, and experimentally demonstrate with Gaussian displacement and squeezing operations, a quantum solution that achieves the security of a user's privacy using the practical technology of continuous variables. We demonstrate losses of up to 10 km both ways between the client and the server and show that security can still be achieved. Our approach offers a number of practical benefits (from a quantum perspective) that could one day allow the potential widespread adoption of this quantum technology in future cloud-based computing networks.
This study analyses the water management system in Southern California through the lens of complexity theory as it responds to system stressors and shock caused by severe and sustained draught. The ...study is grounded on the thesis that self-organization in the complex space of the water governance system creates the capacity to absorb spatial shock, and through this absorption process the space experiences resiliency. This paper identifies the attributes of spatial complexity of the Southern California metropolitan water management system, and analyses a spatial shock case that ignited stakeholder action that nurtured, promoted and furthered resiliency within the system.
This article proposes a theoretical framework for analyzing, designing, and managing innovative institutional space. Innovative spaces generate macro-level, emergent outcomes. A fundamental challenge ...of the administrative and managerial sciences is to promulgate, adopt and enforce rules relevant and appropriate to specific goal-oriented spaces, while fostering spatial conditions that nurture the emergent, entrepreneurial properties of complex systems. Emphasizing the revelations of complexity theory, this article argues that differentiation and integration are essential components of an adaptive, progressive space, and that administrative and managerial rules not only define the parameters of space in question, but also influence the innovative, progressive nature of the space. The proposed theoretical framework suggests a two-part analytical process germane to the creation and maintenance of innovative space consisting of 1) the identification and comprehension of the space to be administered or managed, and 2) the identification and analysis of relevant rules (existing or proposed) that positively or negatively impact the emergent properties of such space.
Background:
The COVID-19 pandemic has placed severe restrictions on people’s behavior worldwide with school closures in many countries. These closures have shifted education from the classroom to the ...home. This change is unprecedented, and home-schooling has placed substantial stress on families across the world. As of 9 April 2020, 1.57 billion children were being educated by families that had little or no experience of protracted home-schooling. An essential but neglected issue related to COVID-19 is the psychological impact of home-schooling on family wellbeing, especially considering the other stressors they are experiencing including social isolation, fears of infection, frustration, boredom, inadequate information, and financial stress. This study explores the impact of home-schooling on family psychological wellbeing during COVID-19. These findings will help develop supports and interventions for this population.
Methods:
An exploratory qualitative study will be conducted using semi-structured interviews with a convenience sample of families (at least one parent and one child). Participants will be recruited using social media outlets, contacts of academic members and snowball sampling. Interviews will take place using Microsoft Teams and via telephone and recorded for transcription purposes. These transcripts will be analyzed using interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA). Ethical approval has been granted by the Social Research Ethics Subcommittee (SRESC) Maynooth University (2407411). The Science Foundation Ireland (SFI) has funded the research with the COVID-19 rapid response grant. The dissemination of findings will be through open access journal publications, distribution of lay summaries, press release and policy papers.
Discussion:
The research findings will discuss the impact that home-schooling has had on family psychological wellbeing. It will examine how parents are managing their children’s education and learning while handling the other stresses associated with COVID-19. A deeper understanding of the impact of school closures and home-schooling on family processes is essential if the psychological wellbeing of families is to be protected and supported during challenging times such as health-related disasters.
We present a very brief overview of entanglement swapping as it relates to continuous-variable quantum information. The technical background required is discussed and the natural link to quantum ...teleportation is established before discussing the nature of Gaussian entanglement swapping. The limitations of Gaussian swapping are introduced, along with the general applications of swapping in the context of to quantum communication and entanglement distribution. In light of this, we briefly summarize a collection of entanglement swapping schemes which incorporate a non-Gaussian ingredient and the benefits of such schemes are noted. Finally, we motivate the need to further study and develop such schemes by highlighting requirements of a continuous-variable repeater.
Broadly neutralizing antibodies (bNAbs) that target the trimeric HIV-1 envelope glycoprotein spike (Env) are tools that can guide the design of recombinant Env proteins intended to engage the ...predicted human germline precursors of bNAbs (gl-bNAbs). The protein components of gl-bNAb epitopes are often masked by glycans, while mature bNAbs can evolve to accommodate or bypass these shielding glycans. The design of germline-targeting Env immunogens therefore includes the targeted deletion of specific glycan sites. However, the processing of glycans on Env trimers can be influenced by the density with which they are packed together, a highly relevant point given the essential contributions under-processed glycans make to multiple bNAb epitopes. We sought to determine the impact of the removal of 15 potential N-glycan sites (5 per protomer) from the germline-targeting soluble trimer, BG505 SOSIP.v4.1-GT1, using quantitative, site-specific N-glycan mass spectrometry analysis. We find that, compared with SOSIP.664, there was little overall change in the glycan profile but only subtle increases in the extent of processing at sites immediately adjacent to where glycans had been deleted. We conclude that multiple glycans can be deleted from BG505 SOSIP trimers without perturbing the overall integrity of the glycan shield.
We propose a method to improve the performance of two entanglement-based continuous-variable quantum key distribution protocols using noiseless linear amplifiers. The two entanglement-based schemes ...consist of an entanglement distribution protocol with an untrusted source and an entanglement swapping protocol with an untrusted relay. Simulation results show that the noiseless linear amplifiers can improve the performance of these two protocols, in terms of maximal transmission distances, when we consider small amounts of entanglement, as typical in realistic setups.
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