The number of new infections per day is a key quantity for effective epidemic management. It can be estimated relatively directly by testing of random population samples. Without such direct ...epidemiological measurement, other approaches are required to infer whether the number of new cases is likely to be increasing or decreasing: for example, estimating the pathogen‐effective reproduction number, R, using data gathered from the clinical response to the disease. For coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid‐19/SARS‐Cov‐2), such R estimation is heavily dependent on modelling assumptions, because the available clinical case data are opportunistic observational data subject to severe temporal confounding. Given this difficulty, it is useful to retrospectively reconstruct the time course of infections from the least compromised available data, using minimal prior assumptions. A Bayesian inverse problem approach applied to UK data on first‐wave Covid‐19 deaths and the disease duration distribution suggests that fatal infections were in decline before full UK lockdown (24 March 2020), and that fatal infections in Sweden started to decline only a day or two later. An analysis of UK data using the model of Flaxman et al. gives the same result under relaxation of its prior assumptions on R, suggesting an enhanced role for non‐pharmaceutical interventions short of full lockdown in the UK context. Similar patterns appear to have occurred in the subsequent two lockdowns.
Non parametric measures of stability were compared based on ranks of faba bean genotypes evaluated for the period of long term in the country. High yielding genotypes were HB13-48, HB13-10 and ...HB13-46 also selected by the Geometric Adaptability Index (GAI) along with larger values of Harmonic means (Har). Measure Si 1 selected HB13- 11, Vikrant and HB13-48 as opposed to HB13-15, HB13-6 and HB13-9 by Si 2 values. Vikrant, HB13-9 and HB13-6 genotypes considered by Si 3 and Si 4 measure selected HB13-15, Vikrant and HB13-9 faba bean genotypes. The next two Si 5andSi 6 pointed towards HB13-15, Vikrant and HB13-49 genotypes, while Si 7pointed for HB13-15, Vikrant and HB13-9 genotypes. Measure based on ranks as per corrected yield of genotypes CSi 1 selected HB13-15, HB13-9 and HB13-38, while CSi 2 found HB13-15, HB13-9 and HB13-6 as suitable candidates, while values of CSi 3 settled for HB13-15 HB13-9 and HB13-6 genotypes. Measure CSi 4 identified HB13-15, HB13-9, HB13-6 and CSi 5 pointed towardsHB13-15, HB13-38 and HB13-43, while CSi 6 observed suitability of HB13-15, HB13-9 and HB13-26 and lastly CSi 7 values identified HB13-15, HB13-9 and HB13-38 genotypes. Composite measures consider the ranks of genotypes as per yield and corrected yield simultaneously, values of NPi (1) measure the observed suitability of HB13- 11, HB13-38 and HB13-43.Whereas, as per NPi (2) valuesHB13-15, HB13-9 and HB13-18 would be genotypes of choice, while NPi (3) identifiedHB13-15, HB13-9 and HB13-6. NPi (4) found HB13-9, HB13-6 and Vikrant as suitable genotypes, while values of Z1 favoured HB13-16, HB13-2 and Vikrant and Z2 settled for HB13-2, Vikrant, HB13-18. Biplot graphical analysis observed NPi (1) had maintained a close relationship with CSi 3, CSi 6, CCVR, CSDR, CSi 5, CSi 2. SDR showed a strong association with Si 5, Si 2, Si 1, NP(2), NPi (3) , NPi (4) , CVR, Si 3, Si 6 and AvgR measures. Spearman rank correlation showed a highly significant positive correlation with GAI, Har, Si 3, Si 6, Coefficient of variation based on ranks (CVR), Median value based on ranks of genotypes (MedR), Average of ranks (AvgR) measures and significant positive correlation with NPi (2), NPi (3) and NPi, (4) while very weak relationships expressed with Geometric Adaptability Index based on corrected yield values (CGAI), Harmonic mean as per corrected yield values (Char), CSdr, Z1, Z2, CSi 1 ,CSi 2,CSi 3,CSi 4,CSi 5,CSi 6,CSi 7, NPi (1),CSdr measures. Highly significant positive correlation expressed by GAI with Har, MedR AvgR and CAvgR only and weak with Si 3, Si 6, more over weak negative correlations with remaining measures. Nonparametric measures would be quite useful to the breeders to put forward stable high yielder genotypes in changing climatic fluctuations.
Narcissism in Political Participation Fazekas, Zoltán; Hatemi, Peter K.
Personality & social psychology bulletin,
03/2021, Letnik:
47, Številka:
3
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Much attention has focused on the social, institutional, and mobilization factors that influence political participation, with a renewed interest in psychological motivations. One trait that has a ...deep theoretical connection to participation, but remains underexplored, is narcissism. Relying on three studies in the United States and Denmark, two nationally representative, we find that those scoring higher in narcissism, as measured by the Narcissistic Personality Inventory–40 (NPI-40), participate more in politics, including contacting politicians, signing petitions, joining demonstrations, donating money, and voting in midterm elections. Both agentic and antagonistic components of narcissism were positively and negatively related to different types of political participation when exploring the subfactors independently. Superiority and Authority/Leadership were positively related to participation, while Self Sufficiency was negatively related to participation. In addition, the combined Entitlement/Exploitativeness factor was negatively related to turnout, but only in midterm elections. Overall, the findings support a view of participation that arises in part from instrumental motivations.
We conduct a large (N = 6567) online experiment to measure the features of non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) that citizens of six European countries perceive to lower the risk of transmission ...of SARS-Cov-2 the most. We collected data in Bulgaria (n = 1069), France (n = 1108), Poland (n = 1104), Italy (n = 1087), Spain (n = 1102) and Sweden (n = 1097). Based on the features of the most widely adopted public health guidelines to reduce SARS-Cov-2 transmission (mask wearing vs not, outdoor vs indoor contact, short vs 90 min meetings, few vs many people present, and physical distancing of 1 or 2 m), we conducted a discrete choice experiment (DCE) to estimate the public's perceived risk of SARS-CoV-2 transmission in scenarios that presented mutually exclusive constellations of these features. Our findings indicate that participants' perception of transmission risk was most influenced by the NPI attributes of mask-wearing and outdoor meetings and the least by NPI attributes that focus on physical distancing, meeting duration, and meeting size. Differentiating by country, gender, age, cognitive style (reflective or intuitive), and perceived freight of COVID-19 moreover allowed us to identify important differences between subgroups. Our findings highlight the importance of improving health policy communication and citizens' health literacy about the design of NPIs and the transmission risk of SARS-Cov-2 and potentially future viruses.
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether, when and how customer orientation may contribute to success in introduction of new products (SINP).
Design/methodology/approach
With a ...multi-phase and multi-source data collection approach, this study tested the proposed theoretical model by applying multiple regression with SPSS Process Macro.
Findings
Customer orientation positively influences cross-functional integration (CFI), which in turn facilitates SINP; a firm’s new product introduction (NPI) strategy moderates customer orientation–CFI link.
Originality/value
This study empirically tests whether, why and when customer orientation may contribute to SINP. By suggesting the important role of customer orientation in improving SINP, the mediating effect of CFI and the moderating effect of NPI strategy, the current study should enrich the extant literature on customer orientation, CFI and NPI.
In a large nationally representative study in the United States, we explored the role of grandiose and vulnerable narcissism on adhering to protective measures against COVID-19. Controlling for one’s ...politics, perception of risk, state policies, and important demographics, we find higher grandiose narcissism predicts less vaccination and less mask-wearing, but more telling other people to wear a mask, if one wears a mask. The individual facets of higher entitlement/exploitativeness predicted less mask-wearing and less vaccination while higher authority/leadership-seeking predicted telling others to wear a mask, but not getting vaccinated. Regarding vulnerable narcissism, higher self-centered/egocentrism predicted less mask-wearing or vaccination, while higher oversensitivity-to-judgement predicted more mask-wearing and vaccination. Our results are consistent with expectations that reflect narcissism’s multidimensionality, and present a nuanced picture of narcissism’s role in adhering to protective policies.
OBJECTIVES
To explore how neuropsychiatric symptoms (NPS) are associated with number of falls and how exercise modifies the risk of falling in community‐dwelling people with Alzheimer's disease (AD) ...and NPS.
DESIGN
Secondary analysis of a randomized controlled trial.
SETTING
Community.
PARTICIPANTS
Community‐dwelling individuals with AD (N=210) who completed the Neuropsychiatric Inventory (NPI) (N = 179).
INTERVENTION
Participants were randomized into 3 groups: group‐based exercise (4‐hour sessions with approximately 1 hour of training) and tailored home‐based exercise (1 hour of training) twice a week for 1 year and a control group receiving usual community care. In this secondary analysis, we merged the home‐based and group‐based exercise groups and compared this group with the control group.
MEASUREMENTS
NPS were measured using the NPI at baseline, and spousal caregivers recorded falls in daily fall diaries during 1 year of follow‐up.
RESULTS
The number of falls increased linearly with NPI score in the control group. Fall rates were 1.48 (95% confidence interval (CI)=1.26–1.73) per person‐year in the intervention group and 2.87 (95% CI=2.43–3.35) in the control group. Adjusted for age, sex, Mini‐Mental State Examination (MMSE) score, and Short Physical Performance Battery (SPPB) score, incidence rate ratio (IRR) was 0.48 (95% Cl=0.39–0.60, p < .001). Main effects for fall rate were significant for group (p < .001) and NPI total (p < .02); the interaction effect was also significant (p = .009) (adjusted for sex, age, MMSE score, SPPB score, and psychotropic medication use).
CONCLUSION
Exercise may decrease the risk of falling in community‐dwelling individuals with AD and NPS. Future exercise trials should confirm this finding in participants with significant NPS.
TRIAL REGISTRATION
ACTRN12608000037303. J Am Geriatr Soc 66:2377–2381, 2018.
Background
Non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPI) during the COVID-19 pandemic aimed at prevention of SARS-CoV-2 transmission also influenced transmission of viruses other than SARS-CoV-2. The aim of ...this study was to describe and compare the burden of common viral respiratory and gastrointestinal infections in children admitted to Berlin University Children's Hospital (BCH) before and during the COVID-19 pandemic at different levels of public NPI measures.
Methods
In this retrospective study, we analyzed the frequency of detection of common human respiratory and gastrointestinal viruses from January 2016 through January 2022 in all patients admitted to BCH. We compared virus detection before and during the COVID-19 pandemic at different levels of public NPI measures.
Results
The frequency of detection of seasonal enveloped and non-enveloped viruses Boca-, Corona-, Influenza-, Metapneumo-, Parainfluenza-, Rota-, and Respiratory Syncytial Viruses (RSV) was diminished during the COVID-19 pandemic, whereas detection rates of non-seasonal viruses (Rhino-/Entero-, and Adenoviruses) were stable during the pandemic. After withdrawal of major NPI measures, we observed an out of season surge of the detection rates of Boca-, Corona-, Parainfluenzaviruses, and RSV. In contrast, no increased detection frequency was observed for Influenza-, Metapneumo-, and Rotaviruses as of January 2022.
Conclusion
Corona-, Boca-, Parainfluenzaviruses, and RSV returned as frequently detected pathogens after withdrawal of major NPI measures. The out of season rise might be attributed to an “immune-debt” due to missing contact to viral antigens resulting in waning of population immunity during the COVID-19 pandemic.
In this paper, we consider the problem of planning non-pharmaceutical interventions to control the spread of infectious diseases. We propose a new model derived from classical compartmental models; ...however, we model spatial and population-structure heterogeneity of population mixing. The resulting model is a large-scale non-linear and non-convex optimisation problem. In order to solve it, we apply a special variant of covariance matrix adaptation evolution strategy. We show that results obtained for three different objectives are better than natural heuristics and, moreover, that the introduction of an individual’s mobility to the model is significant for the quality of the decisions. We apply our approach to a six-compartmental model with detailed Poland and COVID-19 disease data. The obtained results are non-trivialand sometimes unexpected; therefore, we believe that our model could be applied to support policy-makers in fighting diseases at the long-term decision-making level.
Display omitted
•The application of mobility and spatial epidemiology models allows for long-term optimization of decisions diversified within the country.•Non-linear and non-convex approach enables the optimization of NPI decisions that differ in terms of spatial distribution and population structure.•Higher granularity of the model allows for better decisions but brings a computational burden; we propose the covariance matrix adaptation evolution strategy to solve a large-scale model with a detailed spread disease model and aggregated.•NPIs have wide-ranging effects on the social well-being of populations, and the proposed model and algorithm can support policy-makers in making NPI policy plans.
Improvement of the corrosion situation during nuclear power plant (NPP) operation is associated with the enhancement of construction steel resistance against general (uniform) corrosion, with the ...routes of chemical transformations and corrosion product mass transfer in the coolant under different water chemistry conditions. Based on a look-back analysis of the obtained research results and a comparison of these results with those in available publications, the following conclusions were made:
1. The morphology of corrosion products formed on the inside surfaces of NPP systems has a four-layer structure.
a. A layer of solid corrosion deposits tightly bonded with the surface is formed above the oxide film.
b. Tightly bonded deposits are under loosely bonded ("loose" or dissipative) corrosive deposit layers that are dynamically balanced with the corrosion product particles dispersed in the water coolant.
2. By an aggregate state, the coarse/medium fractions (particle size more than 0.45 µm) and the fine fractions (particle size less than 0.45 µm) are conventionally referred to as nonsoluble and conditionally soluble corrosion products, respectively.
3. The chemical composition of all corrosion products depends on the presence of iron compounds, including the alloy element impurities (Cr, Ni, Mn, and Ti).
4. The radionuclide composition of all corrosion products is qualitatively the same and is presented by the activation products of reactor materials, such as
51
Cr,
59
Fe,
54
Mn,
58
Co, and
60
Co.
5. The phase composition of solid corrosion products depends on the presence of ferrous (II) and ferric (III) iron oxide-hydroxide compounds whose ratio depends on water chemistry conditions:
a. Under reducing water chemistry conditions, the phase composition of all corrosion products is determined by a spinel structure of magnetite (Fe
3
O
4
).
b. Under oxidizing water chemistry conditions, the partial oxidation of ferrous (II) iron ions results in the formation of a defect structure of nonstoichiometric magnetite Fe
А
3+
Fe
2+
1-х
Fe
3+
B
O
4-х
, where А and B are two nonequivalent positions in the magnetite structure. At х = 1, a nonstoichiometric magnetite structure changes into hematite, a α-Fe
2
O
3
or maghemite γ-Fe
2
O
3
structure.
It is noted that the mathematical models nowadays used for describing the mass exchange and mass transfer of corrosion products in NPP primary systems do not consider physicochemical processes leading to the formation of such complex (phase, disperse, chemical, radionuclide) compositions of corrosion products. A widely known electrochemical mechanism that considers corrosion as a coupled anodic-cathodic process fails to explain actually observed steel dissolution and the contribution of soluble iron forms to oxide film formation on the corroding steel surface at potentials of cathodic polarization and anodic dissolution.
This paper presents a diffusion model for corrosion product mass exchange and mass transfer in the steel-water coolant system as an alternative to the electrochemical model for general corrosion. This model is based on Frank-Kamenetkiy's Diffusion and Heat Transfer in Chemical Kinetics, Nauka (1987) concept of the macroscopic kinetics of heterogeneous processes with simultaneous chemical transformations of the corrosion product ionic forms and the formation of solid-phase products in the water coolant and on the surface of corrosive steel. The diffusion model provided better insight into understanding how the phase, disperse, chemical, and radionuclide compositions of steel corrosion products are formed in the coolant of the NPP primary system.
PDF
