While sponsorship disclosure is proposed as a remedy for covert marketing, i.e., tactics such that the persuasive nature of the communication is not clear to consumers, little is known about whether ...or when disclosures prompt consumers to correct for persuasion. Three experiments reveal that covert marketing, in the form of subtle product placements, can increase brand recall and attitudes but that both instructions to avoid influence and mere disclosure of sponsorship can lead to correction. The first experiment demonstrates that consumers are able to correct both brand attitudes and stated recall when there are instructions to avoid influence. The following two experiments show that mere sponsorship disclosure can evoke use of persuasion knowledge for correction. However, disclosure timing differentially influences correction for recall and attitudes. Disclosure prior to exposure to the covert marketing tactic leads only to correction for effects on recall; attitude is as high with a prior disclosure as with placement with no disclosure. Disclosure after placement provides general correction of the impact of the covert marketing tactic on both recall and attitudes.
Five studies on the development and validation of the
Attitudes Regarding Bisexuality Scale (ARBS) were conducted. Factor
analysis of an initial pool of 80 items yielded 2 factors assessing
the ...degree to which bisexuality is viewed as a tolerable, moral
sexual orientation (Tolerance) and a legitimate, stable sexual
orientation (Stability). Three forms of the ARBS were created: a
form to assess attitudes about female and male bisexuality (i.e.,
ARBS-FM) and forms to assess attitudes about female bisexuality
(i.e., ARBS-F) and male bisexuality (ARBS-M). These forms evidenced
moderate-to-high internal consistency reliability in both lesbian
and gay samples and heterosexual samples. In heterosexual women and
men, subscales were most strongly related to attitudes toward
lesbians and gay men; frequency of religious attendance; political
ideology; and prior contact with lesbian, gay, and bisexual people.
In lesbians and gay men, subscales correlated with prior experiences
with bisexual people, desired contact with bisexual people, contact
with heterosexual people, and sexual orientation identity.
•On-phone text analysis can measure self-reported depression while preserving privacy.•Text messages reveal different depression characteristics than phone sensors.•Text message features improve ...future depression prediction over phone sensors alone.
Personal sensing has shown promise for detecting behavioral correlates of depression, but there is little work examining personal sensing of cognitive and affective states. Digital language, particularly through personal text messages, is one source that can measure these markers.
We correlated privacy-preserving sentiment analysis of text messages with self-reported depression symptom severity. We enrolled 219 U.S. adults in a 16 week longitudinal observational study. Participants installed a personal sensing app on their phones, which administered self-report PHQ-8 assessments of their depression severity, collected phone sensor data, and computed anonymized language sentiment scores from their text messages. We also trained machine learning models for predicting end-of-study self-reported depression status using on blocks of phone sensor and text features.
In correlation analyses, we find that degrees of depression, emotional, and personal pronoun language categories correlate most strongly with self-reported depression, validating prior literature. Our classification models which predict binary depression status achieve a leave-one-out AUC of 0.72 when only considering text features and 0.76 when combining text with other networked smartphone sensors.
Participants were recruited from a panel that over-represented women, caucasians, and individuals with self-reported depression at baseline. As language use differs across demographic factors, generalizability beyond this population may be limited. The study period also coincided with the initial COVID-19 outbreak in the United States, which may have affected smartphone sensor data quality.
Effective depression prediction through text message sentiment, especially when combined with other personal sensors, could enable comprehensive mental health monitoring and intervention.
Background
The high prevalence of chronic diseases, including congestive heart failure (CHF), chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), and diabetes mellitus (DM), accounts for a large burden of ...cost and poor health outcomes in US hospitals, and home telehealth (HT) monitoring has been proposed to improve outcomes.
Objective
To measure the association between HT initiation and 12-month inpatient hospitalizations, emergency department (ED) visits, and mortality in veterans with CHF, COPD, or DM.
Design
Comparative effectiveness matched cohort study.
Patients
Veterans aged 65 years and older treated for CHF, COPD, or DM.
Main Measures
We matched veterans initiating HT with veterans with similar demographics who did not use HT (1:3). Our outcome measures included a 12-month risk of inpatient hospitalization, ED visits, and all-cause mortality.
Key Results
A total of 139,790 veterans with CHF, 65,966 with COPD, and 192,633 with DM were included in this study. In the year after HT initiation, the risk of hospitalization was not different in those with CHF (adjusted odds ratio aOR 1.01, 95% confidence interval 95%CI 0.98–1.05) or DM (aOR 1.00, 95%CI 0.97–1.03), but it was higher in those with COPD (aOR 1.15, 95%CI 1.09–1.21). The risk of ED visits was higher among HT users with CHF (aOR 1.09, 95%CI 1.05–1.13), COPD (1.24, 95%CI 1.18–1.31), and DM (aOR 1.03, 95%CI 1.00–1.06). All-cause 12-month mortality was lower in those initiating HT monitoring with CHF (aOR 0.70, 95%CI 0.67–0.73) and DM (aOR 0.79, 95%CI 0.75–0.83), but higher in COPD (aOR 1.08, 95%CI 1.00–1.16).
Conclusions
The initiation of HT was associated with increased ED visits, no change in hospitalizations, and lower all-cause mortality in patients with CHF or DM, while those with COPD had both higher healthcare utilization and all-cause mortality.
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•New U-Pb zircon ages provide regional markers for the gas-bearing Walloon Coal Measures.•New ages and palynology data place the formation in Callovian to Oxfordian.•Tuffs are derived ...from a continental subduction zone in eastern Gondwana.
The Surat Basin hosts significant coal and coal seam gas resources. New high-precision CA-TIMS U/Pb zircon ages from tuffs and Bayesian age stratigraphic models are combined with palynology from fine-grained sedimentary rocks and zircon trace elements to provide further chronostratigraphic and biostratigraphic constrains on the Walloon Coal Measures in the eastern margin of the Surat Basin and infer the palaeoenvironment and tectonic setting. The tuff ages range from 165.88 ± 0.11 Ma to 158.84 ± 0.05 Ma, with those from the stratigraphically lower Taroom Coal Measures ranging from 165.88 ± 0.11 to 163.05 ± 0.08 Ma and Juandah Coal Measures ranging from 159.91 ± 0.04 to 158.84 ± 0.05 Ma. This corroborates that the lower part of the Walloon Coal Measures is Callovian and the upper part is Oxfordian. The palynology results from mudstones show that all samples are dominated by microfossils of spore-pollen with conifers being the most abundant. Our samples fall within Price’s (1997) stratigraphic zonation of APJ4.2 and APJ4.3. Posterior ages for palynology samples were estimated through Bayesian age stratigraphic modelling using stratigraphic depths and U-Pb zircon ages. The palaeoenvironment in the eastern portion of the basin is inferred to be predominantly fluvial, with spores and pollen derived from fresh water or terrestrial plants. Higher concentrations of green algae in one sample suggest that at times the water was somewhat stagnant. The zircons were derived from predominantly intermediate magmas, as indicated by the generally low Ti, Ta, and Nb values. The tectonic environment that the zircons were derived from was most likely a continental subduction zone due to their high U/Yb, low Nb/Yb and relatively low Hf concentrations. These new data support previous conclusions of the Surat Basin palaeoenvironment, contribute to the ongoing discussion about the tectonic setting of the basin and add new regional age marker horizons.
OBJECTIVES
The ACURATE TA™ Aortic Bioprosthesis and Delivery System (Symetis S.A., Ecublens, Switzerland) is a new transcatheter aortic valve designed for transapical implantation. The six-month ...results from the completed first-in-man study are reported.
METHODS
The Symetis ACURATE TA™ is composed of a porcine biological tissue valve attached to a self-expandable nitinol stent. It allows for anatomical orientation and facilitates intuitive implantation providing tactile feedback. Since November 2009, a total of 40 high-risk elderly patients have been treated.
RESULTS
The mean age of enrolled patients was 83.2 ± 4.0; 60.0% were female, with a mean logistic EuroSCORE of 21.2 ± 10.8% and a mean Society of Thoracic Surgeons (STS) score of 9.0 ± 4.7%. All implants were delivered successfully in the intra-annular and subcoronary position. One patient was converted to conventional surgery due to coronary impingement (after valve-in-valve implantation). One additional patient received valve-in-valve treatment (SAPIEN THV TA™). Five patients expired within 30 days and two additional patients expired during the 6-month follow-up due to non-valve-related causes resulting in a mid-term survival rate of 82.5%. Two patients suffered a stroke and another three required new onset pacemaker implantation. The mean aortic gradient significantly improved and remained stable throughout the follow-up (baseline: 51.9 ± 14.3 mmHg, 30 days: 12.3 ± 5.1 mmHg, 6 months: 11.9 ± 5.8 mmHg). At the 6-month follow-up, 96.7% of patients demonstrated either none/trace or mild (1+/4) paravalvular leakage only. According to the Valve Academic Research Council the device's success rate was 92.5%, with a 30-day safety profile of 25%.
CONCLUSIONS
At the 6-month follow-up, the ACURATE TA™ device showed stable valve function with low rates of paravalvular leakages. The cohort of high-risk patients demonstrated good clinical outcomes and 6-month survival.
One of the most challenging and recurring problems when modeling plasmas is the lack of data on the key atomic and molecular reactions that drive plasma processes. Even when there are data for some ...reactions, complete and validated datasets of chemistries are rarely available. This hinders research on plasma processes and curbs development of industrial applications. The QDB project aims to address this problem by providing a platform for provision, exchange, and validation of chemistry datasets. A new data model developed for QDB is presented. QDB collates published data on both electron scattering and heavy-particle reactions. These data are formed into reaction sets, which are then validated against experimental data where possible. This process produces both complete chemistry sets and identifies key reactions that are currently unreported in the literature. Gaps in the datasets can be filled using established theoretical methods. Initial validated chemistry sets for SF6/CF4/O2 and SF6/CF4/N2/H2 are presented as examples.
User engagement is key to the effectiveness of digital mental health interventions. Considerable research has examined the clinical outcomes of overall engagement with mental health apps (eg, ...frequency and duration of app use). However, few studies have examined how specific app use behaviors can drive change in outcomes. Understanding the clinical outcomes of more nuanced app use could inform the design of mental health apps that are more clinically effective to users.
This study aimed to classify user behaviors in a suite of mental health apps and examine how different types of app use are related to depression and anxiety outcomes. We also compare the clinical outcomes of specific types of app use with those of generic app use (ie, intensity and duration of app use) to understand what aspects of app use may drive symptom improvement.
We conducted a secondary analysis of system use data from an 8-week randomized trial of a suite of 13 mental health apps. We categorized app use behaviors through a mixed methods analysis combining qualitative content analysis and principal component analysis. Regression analyses were used to assess the association between app use and levels of depression and anxiety at the end of treatment.
A total of 3 distinct clusters of app use behaviors were identified: learning, goal setting, and self-tracking. Each specific behavior had varied effects on outcomes. Participants who engaged in self-tracking experienced reduced depression symptoms, and those who engaged with learning and goal setting at a moderate level (ie, not too much or not too little) also had an improvement in depression. Notably, the combination of these 3 types of behaviors, what we termed "clinically meaningful use," accounted for roughly the same amount of variance as explained by the overall intensity of app use (ie, total number of app use sessions). This suggests that our categorization of app use behaviors succeeded in capturing app use associated with better outcomes. However, anxiety outcomes were neither associated with specific behaviors nor generic app use.
This study presents the first granular examination of user interactions with mental health apps and their effects on mental health outcomes. It has important implications for the design of mobile health interventions that aim to achieve greater user engagement and improved clinical efficacy.
An important role of modern forensic and clinical toxicologists is to monitor the adverse events of novel psychoactive substances (NPS). Following a prior review from 2013-2016, this critical ...literature review analyzes and evaluates published case reports for NPS from January 2017 through December 2020. The primary objective of this study is to assist in the assessment and interpretation of these cases as well as provide references for confirmation methods. Chemistry, pharmacology, adverse events, and user profiles (e.g., polypharmacy) for NPS are provided including case history, clinical symptoms, autopsy findings, and analytical results. Literature reviews were performed in PubMed and Google Scholar for publications using search terms such as NPS specific names, general terms (e.g., "designer drugs," "novel psychoactive substances"), drug classes (e.g., "designer stimulants,"), and outcome-based terms (e.g., "overdose," "death"). Government and website drug surveillance databases and abstracts published by professional forensic science organizations were also searched. Toxicological data and detailed case information were extracted, tabulated, analyzed, and organized by drug category. Case reports included overdose fatalities (378 cases), clinical treatment and hospitalization (771 cases), and driving under the influence of drugs (170 cases) for a total of 1,319 cases providing details of adverse events associated with NPS. Confirmed adverse events with associated toxidromes of more than 60 NPS were reported to include synthetic cannabinoid, NPS stimulant, NPS hallucinogen, NPS benzodiazepine, and NPS opioid cases. Fifty of these NPS were reported for the first time in January 2017 through December 2020 as compared to the previous four years surveyed. This study provides insight and context of case findings described in the literature and in digital government surveillance databases and websites during a recent four-year period. This review will increase awareness of adverse events associated with NPS use to better characterize international emerging drug threats.
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