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Authors: Mahbuba Kaneez Hasna

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Introductory Statement outlining the background: Little has been written about political ecology of urban gardening, such as a network of knowledge generation, technologies of food production and distribution, food consumption practices, and the regulation of ‘agricultural activities. For urban food gardens to sustain as a long-term food security enterprise, we will need to better understand the anthropological, ecological, political, and institutional factors influencing their development, management, and ongoing viability. Significance of the study: Dhaka as one of the fastest growing city. There are currently no studies regards to Bangladesh on how urban slum dwellerscope with the changing urban environment in the city, where they overcome challenges, and how they cope with the urban ecological cycle of food and vegetable production. It is also essential to understand the importance of their access to confined spaces in the slums they apply their indigenous knowledge. These relationships in nature are important factors in community and conservation ecology. Until now, there has been no significant published academic work on relationships between urban and environmental anthropology, urban planning, geography, ecology, and social anthropology with a focus on urban agriculture and how this contributes to the moral economies, indigenous knowledge, and government policies in order to improve the lives and livelihoods of slum dwellers surrounding parks and open spaces in Dhaka, Bangladesh. Methodology: it have applied participant observation, semi-structured questionnaire-based interviews, and focus group discussions to collect social data. Interviews were conducted with the urban agriculture practitioners who are slum dwellers who carry out their urban agriculture activities. Some of the interviews were conducted with non-government organisations (NGOs) and local and state government officials, using semi-structured interviews. Using these methods developed a clearer understanding of how green space cultivation, local economic self-reliance, and urban gardening are producing distinctive urban ecologies in Dhaka and their policy-implications on urban sustainability. Major findings of the study: The research provided an in-depth knowledge on the challenges that slum dwellers encounter in establishing and maintaining urban gardens, such as the economic development of the city, conflicting political agendas, and environmental constraints in areas within which gardening activities take place. The research investigated (i) How do slum dwellers perform gardening practices from rural areas to open spaces in the city? (ii) How do men and women’s ethno-botanical knowledge contribute to urban biodiversity; (iii) And how do slum dwellers navigate complex constellations of land use policy, competing political agendas, and conflicting land and water tenures to meet livelihood functions provided by their gardens. Concluding statement: Lack of infrastructure facilities such as water supply and sanitation, micro-drains and waste disposal areas, and poor access to basic health care services increase the misery of people in the slum areas. Lack of environmental health awareness information for farmers, such as the risks from the use of chemical pesticides in gardens and from grazing animals in contaminated fields or cropping and planting trees or vegetable in contaminated dumping grounds, can all cause high health risk to humans and their environment.

Keywords: gender, urban agriculture, ecosystem health, urban slum systems

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Authors: Manuel I. Capel, Antonio Tomeu, Alberto Salguero

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Tumor growth from a transformed cancer-cell up to a clinically apparent mass spans through a range of spatial and temporal magnitudes. Through computer simulations, Cellular Automata (CA) can accurately describe the complexity of the development of tumors. Tumor development prognosis can now be made -without making patients undergo through annoying medical examinations or painful invasive procedures- if we develop appropriate CA-based software tools. In silico testing mainly refers to Computational Biology research studies of application to clinical actions in Medicine. To establish sound computer-based models of cellular behavior, certainly reduces costs and saves precious time with respect to carrying out experiments in vitro at labs or in vivo with living cells and organisms. These aim to produce scientifically relevant results compared to traditional in vitro testing, which is slow, expensive, and does not generally have acceptable reproducibility under the same conditions. For speeding up computer simulations of cellular models, specific literature shows recent proposals based on the CA approach that include advanced techniques, such the clever use of supporting efficient data structures when modeling with deterministic stochastic cellular automata. Multiparadigm and multiscale simulation of tumor dynamics is just beginning to be developed by the concerned research community. The use of stochastic cellular automata (SCA), whose parallel programming implementations are open to yield a high computational performance, are of much interest to be explored up to their computational limits. There have been some approaches based on optimizations to advance in multiparadigm models of tumor growth, which mainly pursuit to improve performance of these models through efficient memory accesses guarantee, or considering the dynamic evolution of the memory space (grids, trees,…) that holds crucial data in simulations. In our opinion, the different optimizations mentioned above are not decisive enough to achieve the high performance computing power that cell-behavior simulation programs actually need. The possibility of using multicore and GPU parallelism as a promising multiplatform and framework to develop new programming techniques to speed-up the computation time of simulations is just starting to be explored in the few last years. This paper presents a model that incorporates parallel processing, identifying the synchronization necessary for speeding up tumor growth simulations implemented in Java and C++ programming environments. The speed up improvement that specific parallel syntactic constructs, such as executors (thread pools) in Java, are studied. The new tumor growth parallel model is proved using implementations with Java and C++ languages on two different platforms: chipset Intel core i-X and a HPC cluster of processors at our university. The parallelization of Polesczuk and Enderling model (normally used by researchers in mathematical oncology) proposed here is analyzed with respect to performance gain. We intend to apply the model and overall parallelization technique presented here to solid tumors of specific affiliation such as prostate, breast, or colon. Our final objective is to set up a multiparadigm model capable of modelling angiogenesis, or the growth inhibition induced by chemotaxis, as well as the effect of therapies based on the presence of cytotoxic/cytostatic drugs.

Keywords: cellular automaton, tumor growth model, simulation, multicore and manycore programming, parallel programming, high performance computing, speed up

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Authors: Rafael Carlos C. Aniceto, Bryce Abraham M. Anos, Don Christian A. Cornel, Marjerie Brianna S. Go, Samantha Nicole U. Roque, Earl Christian C. Te

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Indigenous peoples (IPs) in the Philippines are a vulnerable, marginalized group in terms of health and overall well-being due to social inequities and cultural differences. National standards regarding maternal healthcare are geared towards facility-based delivery with modern medicine, health services, and skilled birth attendants. Standards and procedures of care for pregnant mothers do not take into account cultural differences between indigenous people and the majority of the population. There do exist, however, numerous other factors that cause relatively poorer health outcomes among indigenous peoples (IPs). This analytic cross-sectional study sought to determine the association between social determinants of health (SDH), focusing on status as indigenous peoples, and maternal health-related knowledge and attitudes (KA), and health behavior of the Dumagat-Agta indigenous people of Barangay Catablingan and Barangay San Marcelino, General Nakar, Quezon Province, and their utilization of health facilities for antenatal care, facility-based delivery and postpartum care, which would affect their health outcomes (that were not within the scope of this study). To quantitatively measure the primary/secondary exposures and outcomes, a total of 90 face-to-face interviews with IP and non-IP mothers were done. For qualitative information, participant observation among 6 communities (5 IP and 1 non-IP), 11 key informant interviews (traditional and modern health providers) and 4 focused group discussions among IP mothers were conducted. Primary quantitative analyses included chi-squared, T-test and binary logistic regression, while secondary qualitative analyses involved thematic analysis and triangulation. The researchers spent a total of 15 days in the community to learn the culture and participate in the practices of the Dumagat-Agta more intensively and deeply. Overall, utilization of all MNCHN services measured in the study was lower for IP mothers compared to their non-IP counterparts. After controlling for confounders measured in the study, IP status (primary exposure) was found to be significantly correlated with utilization of and adherence to two MNCHN-prescribed services: number of antenatal care check-ups and place of delivery (secondary outcomes). Findings show that being an indigenous mother leads to unfavorable social determinants of health, and if compounded by a difference in knowledge and attitudes, would then lead to poor levels of utilization of MNCHN-prescribed services. Key themes from qualitative analyses show that factors that affected utilization were: culture, land alienation, social discrimination, socioeconomic status, and relations between IPs and non-IPs, specifically with non-IP healthcare providers. The findings of this study aim to be used to help and guide in policy-making, to provide healthcare that is not only adequate and of quality, but more importantly, that addresses inequities stemming from various social determinants, and which is socio-culturally acceptable to indigenous communities. To address the root causes of health problems of IPs, there must be full recognition and exercise of their collective rights to communal assets, specifically land, and self-determination. This would improve maternal and child health outcomes to one of the most vulnerable and neglected sectors in society today.

Keywords: child health, indigenous people, knowledge-attitudes-practices, maternal health, social determinants of health

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Authors: Delsy Salinas, Andreia Garcês, Augusto Silva, Paula Brilhante Simões

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Urinary tract infection (UTI) is a common disease affecting dogs and cats in both community and hospital environment. Bacteria is the most frequent agent isolated, fewer than 1% of infections are due to parasitic, fungal, or viral agents. Common symptoms and laboratory abnormalities includeabdominal pain, pyrexia, renomegaly, and neutrophilia with left shift. A rapid and precise identification of the bacterial agent is still a challenge in veterinarian laboratories. Therefore, this cross-sectional study aims to describe bacterial colony patterns of urine samples by using chromID™ CPS® EliteAgar (BioMérieux, France) from canine and feline specimens submitted to a veterinary laboratory in Portugal (INNO Veterinary Laboratory, Braga)from January to March2022. All urine samples were cultivated in CPS Elite Agar with calibrated 1 µL inoculating loop and incubated at 37ºC for 18-24h. Color,size, and shape (regular or irregular outline)were recorded for all samples. All colonies were classified as Gram-negative or Gram-positive bacteriausing Gram stain (PREVI® Color BioMérieux, France) and determined if they were pure colonies. Identification of bacteria species was performed using GP and GN cards inVitek 2® Compact(BioMérieux, France). A total of 256/1003 submitted urine samples presented bacterial growth, from which 172 isolates were included in this study. The sample’s population included 111 dogs (n=45 males and n=66 females) and 61 cats (n=35 males and n=26 females). The most frequent isolated bacteria wasEscherichia coli (44,7%), followed by Proteus mirabilis (13,4%). All Escherichia coli isolates presented red to burgundy colonies, a colony diameter between 2 to 6 mm, and regular or irregular outlines. Similarly, 100% of Proteus mirabilis isolates were dark yellow colonies with a diffuse pigment and the same size and shape as Escherichia coli. White and pink pale colonies where Staphylococcus species exclusively and S. pseudintermedius was the most frequent (8,2 %). Cian to blue colonies were mostly Enterococcusspp. (8,2%) and Streptococcus spp. (4,6%). Beige to brown colonies were Pseudomonas aeruginosa (2,9%) and Citrobacter spp. (1,2%).Klebsiella spp.,Serratia spp. and Enterobacter spp were green colonies. All Gram-positive isolates were 1 to 2 mm diameter long and had a regular outline, meanwhile, Gram-negative rods presented variable patterns. This results showed that theprevalence of E coli and P. mirabilis as uropathogenic agents follows the same trends in Europe as previously described in other studies. Both agents presented a particular color pattern in CPS Elite Agar to identify them without needing complementary tests. No other bacteria genus could be correlated strongly to a specific color pattern, and similar results have been observed instudies using human’s samples. Chromogenic media shows a great advantage for common urine bacteria isolation than traditional COS, McConkey, and CLEDAgar mediums in a routine context, especially when mixed fermentative Gram-negative agents grow simultaneously. In addition, CPS Elite Agar is versatile for Artificial Intelligent Reading Plates Systems. Routine veterinarian laboratories could use CPS Elite Agar for a rapid screening for bacteria identification,mainlyE coli and P.mirabilis, saving 6h to 10h of automatized identification.

Keywords: cats, CPS elite agar, dogs, urine pathogens

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Authors: Majed Al Otaibi, Melissa Lessard-Beaudoin, Amel Loudghi, Raphael Chouinard-Watkins, Melanie Plourde, Frederic Calon, C. Alexandre Castellano, Stephen Cunnane, Helene Payette, Pierrette Gaudreau, Denis Gris, Rona K. Graham

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Introduction: Alzheimer disease (AD) is a chronic disorder that affects millions of individuals worldwide. Symptoms include memory dysfunction, and also alterations in attention, planning, language and overall cognitive function. Olfactory dysfunction is a common symptom of several neurological disorders including AD. Studying the mechanisms underlying the olfactory dysfunction may therefore lead to the discovery of potential biomarkers and/or treatments for neurodegenerative diseases. Objectives: To determine if olfactory dysfunction predicts future cognitive impairment in the aging population and to characterize the olfactory system in a murine model expressing a genetic factor of AD. Method: For the human study, quantitative olfactory tests (UPSIT and OMT) have been done on 93 subjects (aged 80 to 94 years) from the Quebec Longitudinal Study on Nutrition and Successful Aging (NuAge) cohort accepting to participate in the ORCA secondary study. The telephone Modified Mini Mental State examination (t-MMSE) was used to assess cognition levels, and an olfactory self-report was also collected. In a separate cohort, olfactory cortical volume was calculated using MRI results from healthy old adults (n=25) and patients with AD (n=18) using the AAL single-subject atlas and performed with the PNEURO tool (PMOD 3.7). For the murine study, we are using Western blotting, RT-PCR and immunohistochemistry. Result: Human Study: Based on the self-report, 81% of the participants claimed to not suffer from any problem with olfaction. However, based on the UPSIT, 94% of those subjects showed a poor olfactory performance and different forms of microsmia. Moreover, the results confirm that olfactory function declines with age. We also detected a significant decrease in olfactory cortical volume in AD individuals compared to controls. Murine study: Preliminary data demonstrate there is a significant decrease in expression levels of the proform of caspase-3 and the caspase substrate STK3, in the olfactory bulb of mice expressing human APOE4 compared with controls. In addition, there is a significant decrease in the expression level of the caspase-9 proform and caspase-8 active fragment. Analysis of the mature neuron marker, NeuN, shows decreased expression levels of both isoforms. The data also suggest that Iba-1 immunostaining is increased in the olfactory bulb of APOE4 mice compared to wild type mice. Conclusions: The activation of caspase-3 may be the cause of the decreased levels of STK3 through caspase cleavage and may play role in the inflammation observed. In the clinical study, our results suggest that seniors are unaware of their olfactory function status and therefore it is not sufficient to measure olfaction using the self-report in the elderly. Studying olfactory function and cognitive performance in the aging population will help to discover biomarkers in the early stage of the AD.

Keywords: Alzheimer's disease, APOE4, cognition, caspase, brain atrophy, neurodegenerative, olfactory dysfunction

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Authors: Catherine S. Fichten, Tali Heiman, Mary Jorgensen, Mai Nhu Nguyen, Rhonda Amsel, Dorit Olenik-Shemesh

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The study examined Canadian and Israeli students' perceptions related to their intention to graduate from their program of studies. Canada and Israel are dissimilar in many ways that affect education, including language and alphabet. In addition, the postsecondary education systems differ. For example, in some parts of Canada (e.g., in Quebec, Canada’s 2nd largest province), students matriculate after 11 years of high school; in Israel, this typically occurs after 12 years. In addition, Quebec students attend two compulsory years of junior college before enrolling in a three-year university Bachelor program; in Israel students enroll in a three-year Bachelor program directly after matriculation. In addition, Israeli students typically enroll in the army shortly after high school graduation; in Canada, this is not the case. What the two countries do have in common is concern about the success of postsecondary students with disabilities. The present study was based on Ajzen’s Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB); the model suggests that behavior is influenced by Intention to carry it out. This, in turn, is predicted by the following correlated variables: Perceived Behavioral Control (i.e., ease or difficulty enacting the behavior - in this case graduation), Subjective Norms (i.e., perceived social/peer pressure from individuals important in the student’s life), and Attitude (i.e., positive or negative evaluation of graduation). A questionnaire was developed to test the TPB in previous Canadian studies and administered to 845 Canadian college students (755 nondisabled, 90 with LD/ADHD) who had completed at least one semester of studies) and to 660 Israeli university students enrolled in a Bachelor’s program (537 nondisabled, 123 with LD/ADHD). Because Israeli students were older than Canadian students we covaried age in SPSS-based ANOVA comparisons and included it in regression equations. Because females typically have better academic outcomes than males, gender was included in all analyses. ANOVA results indicate only a significant gender effect for Intention to graduate, with females having higher scores. Four stepwise regressions were conducted, with Intention to graduate as the predicted variable, and Gender and the three TPB predictors as independent variables (separate analyses for Israeli and Canadian samples with and without LD/ADHD). Results show that for samples with LD/ADHD, although Gender and Age were not significant predictors, the TPB predictors were, with all three TPB predictors being significant for the Canadian sample (i.e., Perceived Behavioral Control, Subjective Norms, Attitude, R2=.595), and two of the three (i.e., Perceived Behavioral Control, Subjective Norms) for the Israeli sample (R2=.528). For nondisabled students, the results for both countries show that all three TPB predictors were significant along with Gender: R2=.443 for Canada and R2=.332 for Israel; age was not significant. Our findings show that despite vast differences between our Canadian and Israeli samples, Intention to graduate was related to the three TPB predictors. This suggests that our TPB measure is valid for diverse samples and countries that it can be used as a quick, inexpensive way to predict graduation rates, and that strengthening the three predictor variables may result in higher graduation rates.

Keywords: disability, higher education, students, theory of planned behavior

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Authors: Ning Chia

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Each of the three different language texts (Manchu, Russian, and Latin) of the 1689 Treaty of Nerchinsk bore official seals from Imperial Russia and Qing China. These seals have received no academic attention, yet they can reveal a site of a layered and shared material, cultural, political, and diplomatic world of the time in Eastern Eurasia. The very different seal selections from both empires while ratifying the Treaty of Beijing in 1860 have obtained no scholarly advertency either; they can also explicate a tremendously changed relationship with visual and material manifestation. Exploring primary sources in Manchu, Russian, and Chinese languages as well as the images of the visual seals, this study investigates the reasons and purposes of utilizing official seals for the treaty agreement. A refreshed understanding of Russian-Qing diplomacy will be developed by pursuing the following aspects: (i) Analyzing the iconographic meanings of each seal insignia and unearthing a competitive, yet symbols-delivered and seal-generated, 'dialogue' between the two empires (ii) Contextualizing treaty seals within the historical seal cultures, and discovering how domestic seal system in each empire’s political institution developed into treaty-defined bilateral relations (iii) Expounding the seal confiding in each empire’s daily governing routines, and annotating the trust in the seal as a quested promise from the opponent negotiator to fulfill the treaty terms (iv) Contrasting the two seal traditions along two civilization-lines, Eastern vs. Western, and dissecting how the two styles of seal emblems affected the cross-cultural understanding or misunderstanding between the two empires (v) Comprehending the history-making events from the substantial resources such as the treaty seals, and grasping why the seals for the two treaties, so different in both visual design and symbolic value, were chosen in the two relationship eras (vi) Correlating the materialized seal 'expression' and the imperial worldviews based on each empire’s national/or power identity, and probing the seal-represented 'rule under the Heaven' assumption of China and Russian rising role in 'European-American imperialism … centered on East Asia' (Victor Shmagin, 2020). In conclusion, the impact of official seals on diplomatic treaties needs profound knowledge in seal history, insignia culture, and emblem belief to be able to comprehend. The official seals in both Imperial Russia and Qing China belonged to a particular statecraft art in a specific material and visual form. Once utilized in diplomatic treaties, the meticulously decorated and politically institutionalized seals were transformed from the determinant means for domestic administration and social control into the markers of an empire’s sovereign authority. Overlooked in historical practice, the insignia seal created a wire of 'visual contest' between the two rival powers. Through this material lens, the scholarly knowledge of the Russian-Qing diplomatic relationship will be significantly upgraded. Connecting Russian studies, Qing/Chinese studies, and Eurasian studies, this study also ties material culture, political culture, and diplomatic culture together. It promotes the study of official seals and emblem symbols in worldwide diplomatic history.

Keywords: Russia-Qing diplomatic relation, Treaty of Beijing (1860), Treaty of Nerchinsk (1689), Treaty seals

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Authors: Dongping Fang, Lian Duan, Xiaojing Yuan, Mike Xu, Allyn Klunder, Kevin Tan, Suiting Cao, Yeqing Ji

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Accurate prediction of a medical condition with straight clinical evidence is a long-sought topic in the medical management and health insurance field. Although great progress has been made with machine learning algorithms, the medical community is still, to a certain degree, suspicious about the model's accuracy and interpretability. This paper presents an innovative hierarchical attention deep learning model to achieve good prediction and clear interpretability that can be easily understood by medical professionals. This deep learning model uses a hierarchical attention structure that matches naturally with the medical history data structure and reflects the member’s encounter (date of service) sequence. The model attention structure consists of 3 levels: (1) attention on the medical code types (diagnosis codes, procedure codes, lab test results, and prescription drugs), (2) attention on the sequential medical encounters within a type, (3) attention on the medical codes within an encounter and type. This model is applied to predict the occurrence of stage 3 chronic kidney disease (CKD3), using three years’ medical history of Medicare Advantage (MA) members from a top health insurance company. The model takes members’ medical events, both claims and electronic medical record (EMR) data, as input, makes a prediction of CKD3 and calculates the contribution from individual events to the predicted outcome. The model outcome can be easily explained with the clinical evidence identified by the model algorithm. Here are examples: Member A had 36 medical encounters in the past three years: multiple office visits, lab tests and medications. The model predicts member A has a high risk of CKD3 with the following well-contributed clinical events - multiple high ‘Creatinine in Serum or Plasma’ tests and multiple low kidneys functioning ‘Glomerular filtration rate’ tests. Among the abnormal lab tests, more recent results contributed more to the prediction. The model also indicates regular office visits, no abnormal findings of medical examinations, and taking proper medications decreased the CKD3 risk. Member B had 104 medical encounters in the past 3 years and was predicted to have a low risk of CKD3, because the model didn’t identify diagnoses, procedures, or medications related to kidney disease, and many lab test results, including ‘Glomerular filtration rate’ were within the normal range. The model accurately predicts members A and B and provides interpretable clinical evidence that is validated by clinicians. Without extra effort, the interpretation is generated directly from the model and presented together with the occurrence date. Our model uses the medical data in its most raw format without any further data aggregation, transformation, or mapping. This greatly simplifies the data preparation process, mitigates the chance for error and eliminates post-modeling work needed for traditional model explanation. To our knowledge, this is the first paper on an interpretable deep-learning model using a 3-level attention structure, sourcing both EMR and claim data, including all 4 types of medical data, on the entire Medicare population of a big insurance company, and more importantly, directly generating model interpretation to support user decision. In the future, we plan to enrich the model input by adding patients’ demographics and information from free-texted physician notes.

Keywords: deep learning, interpretability, attention, big data, medical conditions

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Authors: Sarah Niklas, Lynne Chester, Mark Diesendorf

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Geopolitical tensions, climate change and recent movements favouring a transformative shift in institutional power structures have influenced the economics of conventional energy supply for decades. This study takes a multi-dimensional approach to illustrate the potential of renewable energy (RE) technology to provide a pathway to a low-carbon economy driven by ecologically sustainable, independent and socially just energy. This comparative analysis identifies economic, political and social drivers that shaped the adoption of RE policy in two significantly different economies, Germany and Australia, with strong and weak commitments to RE respectively. Two complementary political-economy theories frame the document-based analysis. Régulation Theory, inspired by Marxist ideas and strongly influenced by contemporary economic problems, provides the background to explore the social relationships contributing the adoption of RE within the macro-economy. Varieties of Capitalism theory, a more recently developed micro-economic approach, examines the nature of state-firm relationships. Together these approaches provide a comprehensive lens of analysis. Germany’s energy policy transformed substantially over the second half of the last century. The development is characterised by the coordination of societal, environmental and industrial demands throughout the advancement of capitalist regimes. In the Fordist regime, mass production based on coal drove Germany’s astounding economic recovery during the post-war period. Economic depression and the instability of institutional arrangements necessitated the impulsive seeking of national security and energy independence. During the postwar Flexi-Fordist period, quality-based production, innovation and technology-based competition schemes, particularly with regard to political power structures in and across Europe, favoured the adoption of RE. Innovation, knowledge and education were institutionalized, leading to the legislation of environmental concerns. Lastly the establishment of government-industry-based coordinative programs supported the phase out of nuclear power and the increased adoption of RE during the last decade. Australia’s energy policy is shaped by the country’s richness in mineral resources. Energy policy largely served coal mining, historically and currently one of the most capital-intense industry. Assisted by the macro-economic dimensions of institutional arrangements, social and financial capital is orientated towards the export-led and strongly demand-oriented economy. Here energy policy serves the maintenance of capital accumulation in the mining sector and the emerging Asian economies. The adoption of supportive renewable energy policy would challenge the distinct role of the mining industry within the (neo)-liberal market economy. The state’s protective role of the mining sector has resulted in weak commitment to RE policy and investment uncertainty in the energy sector. Recent developments, driven by strong public support for RE, emphasize the sense of community in urban and rural areas and the emergence of a bottom-up approach to adopt renewables. Thus, political economy frameworks on both the macro-economic (Regulation Theory) and micro-economic (Varieties of Capitalism theory) scales can together explain the strong commitment to RE in Germany vis-à-vis the weak commitment in Australia.

Keywords: political economy, regulation theory, renewable energy, social relationships, energy transitions

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Authors: Oluwaseun Adeleke, Samuel O. Ikani, Fidelis Edet, Anthony Nwala, Mopelola Raji, Simeon Christian Chukwu

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Background: The DISC project collaborated with partners to implement demand creation and service delivery interventions, including the MoT (Moment of Truth) innovation, in over 500 health facilities across 15 states. This has increased the voluntary conversion rate to self-injection among women who opt for injectable contraception. While some facilities recorded an increasing trend in key performance indicators, few others persistently performed sub-optimally due to provider and system-related barriers. Methodology: Twenty-two facilities performing sub-optimally were selected purposively from three Nigerian states. Low productivity was appraised using low reporting rates and poor SI conversion rates as indicators. Interviews were conducted with health providers across these health facilities using a rapid diagnosis tool. The project also conducted a data quality assessment that evaluated the veracity of data elements reported across the three major sources of family planning data in the facility. Findings: The inability and sometimes refusal of providers to support clients to self-inject effectively was associated with the misunderstanding of its value to their work experience. It was also observed that providers still held a strong influence over clients’ method choices. Furthermore, providers held biases and misconceptions about DMPA-SC that restricted the access of obese clients and new acceptors to services – a clear departure from the recommendations of the national guidelines. Additionally, quality of care standards was compromised because job aids were not used to inform service delivery. Facilities performing sub-optimally often under-reported DMPA-SC utilization data, and there were multiple uncoordinated responsibilities for recording and reporting. Additionally, data validation meetings were not regularly convened, and these meetings were ineffective in authenticating data received from health facilities. Other reasons for sub-optimal performance included poor documentation and tracking of stock inventory resulting in commodity stockouts, low client flow because of poor positioning of health facilities, and ineffective messaging. Some facilities lacked adequate human and material resources to provide services effectively and received very few supportive supervision visits. Supportive supervision visits and Data Quality Audits have been useful to address the aforementioned performance barriers. The project has deployed digital DMPA-SC self-injection checklists that have been aligned with nationally approved templates. During visits, each provider and community mobilizer is accorded special attention by the supervisor until he/she can perform procedures in line with best practice (protocol). Conclusion: This narrative provides a summary of a range of factors that identify health facilities performing sub-optimally in their provision of DMPA-SC services. Findings from this assessment will be useful during project design to inform effective strategies. As the project enters its final stages of implementation, it is transitioning high-impact activities to state institutions in the quest to sustain the quality of service beyond the tenure of the project. The project has flagged activities, as well as created protocols and tools aimed at placing state-level stakeholders at the forefront of improving productivity in health facilities.

Keywords: family planning, contraception, DMPA-SC, self-care, self-injection, barriers, opportunities, performance

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Authors: Chales Mumbere Musavandalo, Lucie B. Mugherwa, Gloire Kayitoghera Mulondi, Naanson Bweya, Muyisa Musongora, Francis Lelo Nzuzi

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The landscape of the Okapi Wildlife Reserve in the Democratic Republic of Congo harbors a large community of Mbuti indigenous peoples, often described as the guardians of nature. Living in and off the forest has long been a sustainable strategy for preserving natural resources. This strategy, seen as a form of eco-responsible citizenship, draws upon ethnobotanical knowledge passed down through generations. However, these indigenous communities are facing socio-cultural upheaval, which impacts their traditional way of life. This study aims to assess the relationship between the Mbuti indigenous people’s way of life and the preservation of the Okapi Wildlife Reserve. The study was conducted under the assumption that, despite socio-cultural upheavals, the forest and its resources remain central to the Mbuti way of life. The study was conducted in six encampments, three of which were located inside the forest and two in the anthropized zone. The methodological approach initially involved group interviews in six Mbuti encampments. The objective of these interviews was to determine how these people perceive the various services provided by the forest and the resources obtained from this habitat. The technique of using pebbles was adopted to adapt the exercise of weighting services and resources to the understanding of these people. Subsequently, the study carried out ethnobotanical surveys to identify the wood resources frequently used by these communities. This survey was completed in third position by a transect inventory of 1000 m length and 25 m width in order to enhance the understanding of the abundance of these resources around the camps. Two transects were installed in each camp to carry out this inventory. Traditionally, the Mbuti communities sustain their livelihood through hunting, fishing, gathering for self-consumption, and basketry. The Manniophyton fulvum-based net remains the main hunting tool. The primary forest and the swamp are two habitats from which these peoples derive the majority of their resources. However, with the arrival of the Bantu people, who introduced agriculture based on cocoa production, the Mbuti communities started providing services to the Bantu in the form of labor and field guarding. This cultural symbiosis between Mbute and Bantu has also led to non-traditional practices, such as the use of hunting rifles instead of nets and fishing nets instead of creels. The socio-economic and ecological environment in which Mbuti communities live is changing rapidly, including the resources they depend on. By incorporating the time factor into their perception of ecosystem services, only their future (p-value = 0, 0,121), the provision of wood for energy (p-value = 0,1976), and construction (p-value = 0,2548) would be closely associated with the forest in their future. For other services, such as food supply, medicine, and hunting, adaptation to Bantu customs is conceivable. Additionally, the abundance of wood used by the Mbuti people has been high around encampments located in intact forests and low in those in anthropized areas. The traditional way of life of the Mbuti communities is influenced by the cultural symbiosis, reflected in their habits and the availability of resources. The land tenure security of Mbuti areas is crucial to preserve their tradition and forest biodiversity. Conservation efforts in the Okapi Wildlife Reserve must consider this cultural dynamism and promote positive values for the flagship species. The oversight of subsistence hunting is imperative to curtail the transition of these communities to poaching.

Keywords: traditional life, conservation, Indigenous people, cultural symbiosis, forest

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Authors: Maria Areias, Diogo Simões, Ana Figueiredo, Anishur Rahman, Filipa Figueiredo, João Nunes

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It is expected that close to 7 billion people will live in urban areas by 2050. In order to improve the sustainability of the territories and its transition towards circular economy, it’s necessary to understand its metabolism and promote and guide the entrepreneurship answer. The study of a macroeconomic metabolism involves the quantification of the inputs, outputs and storage of energy, water, materials and wastes for an urban region. This quantification and analysis representing one opportunity for the promotion of green entrepreneurship. There are several methods to assess the environmental impacts of an urban territory, such as human and environmental risk assessment (HERA), life cycle assessment (LCA), ecological footprint assessment (EF), material flow analysis (MFA), physical input-output table (PIOT), ecological network analysis (ENA), multicriteria decision analysis (MCDA) among others. However, no consensus exists about which of those assessment methods are best to analyze the sustainability of these complex systems. Taking into account the weaknesses and needs identified, the CiiM - Circular Innovation Inter-Municipality project aims to define an uniform and globally accepted methodology through the integration of various methodologies and dynamic approaches to increase the efficiency of macroeconomic metabolisms and promoting entrepreneurship in a circular economy. The pilot territory considered in CiiM project has a total area of 969,428 ha, comprising a total of 897,256 inhabitants (about 41% of the population of the Center Region). The main economic activities in the pilot territory, which contribute to a gross domestic product of 14.4 billion euros, are: social support activities for the elderly; construction of buildings; road transport of goods, retailing in supermarkets and hypermarkets; mass production of other garments; inpatient health facilities; and the manufacture of other components and accessories for motor vehicles. The region's business network is mostly constituted of micro and small companies (similar to the Central Region of Portugal), with a total of 53,708 companies identified in the CIM Region of Coimbra (39 large companies), 28,146 in the CIM Viseu Dão Lafões (22 large companies) and 24,953 in CIM Beiras and Serra da Estrela (13 large companies). For the construction of the database was taking into account data available at the National Institute of Statistics (INE), General Directorate of Energy and Geology (DGEG), Eurostat, Pordata, Strategy and Planning Office (GEP), Portuguese Environment Agency (APA), Commission for Coordination and Regional Development (CCDR) and Inter-municipal Community (CIM), as well as dedicated databases. In addition to the collection of statistical data, it was necessary to identify and characterize the different stakeholder groups in the pilot territory that are relevant to the different metabolism components under analysis. The CIIM project also adds the potential of a Geographic Information System (GIS) so that it is be possible to obtain geospatial results of the territorial metabolisms (rural and urban) of the pilot region. This platform will be a powerful visualization tool of flows of products/services that occur within the region and will support the stakeholders, improving their circular performance and identifying new business ideas and symbiotic partnerships.

Keywords: circular economy tools, life cycle assessment macroeconomic metabolism, multicriteria decision analysis, decision support tools, circular entrepreneurship, industrial and regional symbiosis

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Authors: Sonja Giese, Tess N. Peacock

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South African based Innovation Edge is experimenting with technology to drive positive behavior change, enable data-driven decision making, and scale quality early years services. This paper uses five case studies to illustrate how technology can be used in resource-constrained environments to first, encourage parenting practices that build early language development (using a stage-based mobile messaging pilot, ChildConnect), secondly, to improve the quality of ECD programs (using a mobile application, CareUp), thirdly, how to affordably scale services for the early detection of visual and hearing impairments (using a mobile tool, HearX), fourthly, how to build a transparent and accountable system for the registration and funding of ECD (using a blockchain enabled platform, Amply), and finally enable rapid data collection and feedback to facilitate quality enhancement of programs at scale (the Early Learning Outcomes Measure). ChildConnect and CareUp were both developed using a design based iterative research approach. The usage and uptake of ChildConnect and CareUp was evaluated with qualitative and quantitative methods. Actual child outcomes were not measured in the initial pilots. Although parents who used and engaged on either platform felt more supported and informed, parent engagement and usage remains a challenge. This is contrast to ECD practitioners whose usage and knowledge with CareUp showed both sustained engagement and knowledge improvement. HearX is an easy-to-use tool to identify hearing loss and visual impairment. The tool was tested with 10000 children in an informal settlement. The feasibility of cost-effectively decentralising screening services was demonstrated. Practical and financial barriers remain with respect to parental consent and for successful referrals. Amply uses mobile and blockchain technology to increase impact and accountability of public services. In the pilot project, Amply is being used to replace an existing paper-based system to register children for a government-funded pre-school subsidy in South Africa. Early Learning Outcomes Measure defines what it means for a child to be developmentally ‘on track’ at aged 50-69 months. ELOM administration is enabled via a tablet which allows for easy and accurate data collection, transfer, analysis, and feedback. ELOM is being used extensively to drive quality enhancement of ECD programs across multiple modalities. The nature of ECD services in South Africa is that they are in large part provided by disconnected private individuals or Non-Governmental Organizations (in contrast to basic education which is publicly provided by the government). It is a disparate sector which means that scaling successful interventions is that much harder. All five interventions show the potential of technology to support and enhance a range of ECD services, but pathways to scale are still being tested.

Keywords: assessment, behavior change, communication, data, disabilities, mobile, scale, technology, quality

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Authors: Ina Filkobski, Eran Shor

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This article explores how newspapers cover murder of women by family members and intimate partners. Three major Israeli newspapers were compared in order to analyse the coverage of Jewish and Arab victims and culprits and to examine whether and in what ways the media contribute to the construction of symbolic boundaries between minority and dominant social groups. A sample of some 459 articles that were published between 2013 and 2015 was studied using a systematic qualitative content analysis. Our findings suggest that the treatment of murder cases by the media varies according to the ethnicity of both victims and culprits. The murder of Jews by family members or intimate partners was framed as a shocking and unusual event, a result of the individual personality or pathology of the culprit. Conversely, when Arabs were the killers, murders were often explained by focusing on the culture of the ethnic group, described as traditional, violent, and patriarchal. In two-thirds of the cases in which Arabs were involved, so-called ‘honor killing’ or other cultural explanations were proposed as the motive for the murder. This was often the case even before a suspect was detected, while police investigation was at its very early stages, and often despite forceful denials from victims’ families. In case of Jewish culprits, more than half of the articles in our sample suggested mental disorder to explain the acts and cultural explanations were almost entirely absent. Beyond the emphasis on psychological vs. cultural explanations, newspaper articles also tend to provide much more detail about Jewish culprits than about Arabs. Such detailed examinations convey a desire to make sense of the event by understanding the supposedly unique and unorthodox nature of the killer. The detailed accounts were usually absent from the reports on Arab killers. Thus, even if reports do not explicitly offer cultural motivations for the murder, the fact that reports often remain laconic leaves people to draw their own conclusions, which would then be likely based on existing cognitive scripts and previous reports on family murders among Arabs. Such treatment contributes to the notion that Arab and Muslim cultures, religions, and nationalities are essentially misogynistic and adhere to norms of honor and shame that are radically different from those of modern societies, such as the Jewish-Israeli one. Murder within the family is one of the most dramatic occurrences in the social world, and in societies that see themselves as modern it is a taboo; an ultimate signifier of danger. We suggest that representations of murder provide a valuable prism for examining the construction of group boundaries. Our analysis, therefore, contributes to the scholarly effort to understand the creation and reinforcement of symbolic boundaries between ‘society’ and its ‘others’ by systematically tracing the media constructions of ‘otherness’. While our analysis focuses on Israel, studies on the United States, Canada, and various European countries with ethnically and racially heterogeneous populations, make it clear that the stigmatisation and exclusion of visible, religious, and language minorities are not unique to the Israeli case.

Keywords: comparative study of media coverege of minority and majority groups, construction of symbolic group boundaries, murder of women by family members and intimate partners, Israel, Jews, Arabs

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Authors: L. R. Valencia Pérez, J. M. Peña Aguilar, A. Lamadrid Álvarez, A. Pastrana Palma, H. F. Valencia Pérez, M. Vivanco Vargas

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This work proposes a Cooperation-Competitive (Coopetitive) approach that allows coordinated work among the Secretary of Public Education (SEP), the Autonomous University of Querétaro (UAQ) and government funds from National Council for Science and Technology (CONACYT) or some other international organizations. To work on an overall knowledge transfer strategy with e-learning over the Cloud, where experts in junior high and high school education, working in multidisciplinary teams, perform analysis, evaluation, design, production, validation and knowledge transfer at large scale using a Cloud Computing platform. Allowing teachers and students to have all the information required to ensure a homologated nationally knowledge of topics such as mathematics, statistics, chemistry, history, ethics, civism, etc. This work will start with a pilot test in Spanish and initially in two regional dialects Otomí and Náhuatl. Otomí has more than 285,000 speaking indigenes in Queretaro and Mexico´s central region. Náhuatl is number one indigenous dialect spoken in Mexico with more than 1,550,000 indigenes. The phase one of the project takes into account negotiations with indigenous tribes from different regions, and the Information and Communication technologies to deliver the knowledge to the indigenous schools in their native dialect. The methodology includes the following main milestones: Identification of the indigenous areas where Otomí and Náhuatl are the spoken dialects, research with the SEP the location of actual indigenous schools, analysis and inventory or current schools conditions, negotiation with tribe chiefs, analysis of the technological communication requirements to reach the indigenous communities, identification and inventory of local teachers technology knowledge, selection of a pilot topic, analysis of actual student competence with traditional education system, identification of local translators, design of the e-learning platform, design of the multimedia resources and storage strategy for “Cloud Computing”, translation of the topic to both dialects, Indigenous teachers training, pilot test, course release, project follow up, analysis of student requirements for the new technological platform, definition of a new and improved proposal with greater reach in topics and regions. Importance of phase one of the project is multiple, it includes the proposal of a working technological scheme, focusing in the cultural impact in Mexico so that indigenous tribes can improve their knowledge about new forms of crop improvement, home storage technologies, proven home remedies for common diseases, ways of preparing foods containing major nutrients, disclose strengths and weaknesses of each region, communicating through cloud computing platforms offering regional products and opening communication spaces for inter-indigenous cultural exchange.

Keywords: Mexicans indigenous tribes, education, knowledge transfer, cloud computing, otomi, Náhuatl, language

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Authors: Fiona Whittington-Walsh

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Including All Citizens Pathway (IACP) is addressing the systems wide discrimination that students with disabilities experience throughout the education system. IACP offers a wide, institutional support structure so that all students, including students with intellectual/developmental disabilities, are included and can succeed. The entire process from admissions, course selection, course instruction, graduation is designed to address systemic discrimination while supporting learners and faculty. The inclusive and accessible pedagogical model that is the foundation of IACP opens the doors of post-secondary education by making existing academic courses environments where all students can participate and succeed. IACP is about transforming teaching, not modifying, or adapting the curriculum or essential knowledge and skill sets that are required learning outcomes. Universal Design for Learning (UDL) principles are applied to instructional teaching strategies such as lectures, presentations, and assessment tools. Created in 2016 as a research pilot, IACP is one of the first fully inclusive for credit post-secondary options available. The pilot received numerous external and internal grants to support its initiative to investigate and assess the teaching strategies and techniques that support student learning of essential knowledge and skill sets. IACP pilot goals included: (1) provide a successful pilot as a model of inclusive and accessible pedagogy; (2) create a teacher’s guide to assist other instructors in transforming their teaching to reach a wide range of learners; (3) identify policy barriers located within the educational system; and (4) provide leadership and encouraging innovative and inclusive pedagogical practices. The pilot was a success and in 2020 the first cohort of students graduated with an exit credential that pre-exists IACP and consists of ten academic courses. The University has committed to continue IACP and has developed a sustainable model. Each new academic year a new cohort of IACP students starts their post-secondary educational journey, while two additional instructors are mentored with the pedagogy. The pedagogical foundation of IACP has far-reaching potential including, but not limited to, programs that offer services for international students whose first language is not English as well as influencing pedagogical reform in secondary and post-secondary education. IACP also supports universities in satisfying educational standards that are or will be included in accessibility/disability legislation. This session will present information about IACP, share examples of systems transformation, hear from students and instructors, and provide participatory experiential activities that demonstrate the transformative techniques. We will be drawing from the experiences of a recent course that explored research documenting the lived experiences of students with disabilities in post-secondary institutes in B.C (Whittington-Walsh). Students created theatrical scenes out of the data and presented it using Forum Theatre method. Forum Theatre was used to create conversations, challenge stereotypes, and build connections between ableism, disability justice, Indigeneity, and social policy.

Keywords: disability justice, inclusive education, pedagogical transformation, systems transformation

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Authors: V. Saccà, A. Sarica, F. Novellino, S. Barone, T. Tallarico, E. Filippelli, A. Granata, P. Valentino, A. Quattrone

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The work aim was to evaluate how well Random Forest (RF) and Support Vector Machine (SVM) algorithms could support the early diagnosis of Multiple Sclerosis (MS) from resting-state functional connectivity data. In particular, we wanted to explore the ability in distinguishing between controls and patients of mean signals extracted from ICA components corresponding to 15 well-known networks. Eighteen patients with early-MS (mean-age 37.42±8.11, 9 females) were recruited according to McDonald and Polman, and matched for demographic variables with 19 healthy controls (mean-age 37.55±14.76, 10 females). MRI was acquired by a 3T scanner with 8-channel head coil: (a)whole-brain T1-weighted; (b)conventional T2-weighted; (c)resting-state functional MRI (rsFMRI), 200 volumes. Estimated total lesion load (ml) and number of lesions were calculated using LST-toolbox from the corrected T1 and FLAIR. All rsFMRIs were pre-processed using tools from the FMRIB's Software Library as follows: (1) discarding of the first 5 volumes to remove T1 equilibrium effects, (2) skull-stripping of images, (3) motion and slice-time correction, (4) denoising with high-pass temporal filter (128s), (5) spatial smoothing with a Gaussian kernel of FWHM 8mm. No statistical significant differences (t-test, p < 0.05) were found between the two groups in the mean Euclidian distance and the mean Euler angle. WM and CSF signal together with 6 motion parameters were regressed out from the time series. We applied an independent component analysis (ICA) with the GIFT-toolbox using the Infomax approach with number of components=21. Fifteen mean components were visually identified by two experts. The resulting z-score maps were thresholded and binarized to extract the mean signal of the 15 networks for each subject. Statistical and machine learning analysis were then conducted on this dataset composed of 37 rows (subjects) and 15 features (mean signal in the network) with R language. The dataset was randomly splitted into training (75%) and test sets and two different classifiers were trained: RF and RBF-SVM. We used the intrinsic feature selection of RF, based on the Gini index, and recursive feature elimination (rfe) for the SVM, to obtain a rank of the most predictive variables. Thus, we built two new classifiers only on the most important features and we evaluated the accuracies (with and without feature selection) on test-set. The classifiers, trained on all the features, showed very poor accuracies on training (RF:58.62%, SVM:65.52%) and test sets (RF:62.5%, SVM:50%). Interestingly, when feature selection by RF and rfe-SVM were performed, the most important variable was the sensori-motor network I in both cases. Indeed, with only this network, RF and SVM classifiers reached an accuracy of 87.5% on test-set. More interestingly, the only misclassified patient resulted to have the lowest value of lesion volume. We showed that, with two different classification algorithms and feature selection approaches, the best discriminant network between controls and early MS, was the sensori-motor I. Similar importance values were obtained for the sensori-motor II, cerebellum and working memory networks. These findings, in according to the early manifestation of motor/sensorial deficits in MS, could represent an encouraging step toward the translation to the clinical diagnosis and prognosis.

Keywords: feature selection, machine learning, multiple sclerosis, random forest, support vector machine

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Authors: Zeinab Zaremohzzabieh, Syasya Firzana Azmi, Haslinda Abdullah, Soh Kim Geok, Aini Azeqa Ma'rof, Hayrol Azril Mohammed Shaffril

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The escalating prevalence of doping in sports, casting a shadow over both high-performance and recreational settings, has emerged as a formidable concern, particularly within the realm of young athletes. Doping, characterized by the surreptitious use of prohibited substances to gain a competitive edge, underscores the pressing need for comprehensive and efficacious preventive measures. This study aims to address a crucial void in current research by unraveling the motivations that drive clean adolescent athletes to steadfastly abstain from performance-enhancing substances. In navigating this intricate landscape, the study adopts a positive psychology perspective, investigating into the conditions and processes that contribute to the holistic well-being of individuals and communities. At the heart of this exploration lies the application of the PERMA model, a comprehensive positive psychology framework encapsulating positive emotion, engagement, relationships, meaning, and accomplishments. This model functions as a distinctive lens, dissecting intervention results to offer nuanced insights into the complex dynamics of clean sport behavior. The research is poised to usher in a paradigm shift from conventional anti-doping strategies, predominantly fixated on identifying deficits, towards an innovative approach firmly rooted in positive psychology. The objective of this study is to evaluate the efficacy of a positive education intervention program tailored to promote clean sport behavior among Malaysian adolescent athletes. Representing unexplored terrain within the landscape of anti-doping efforts, this initiative endeavors to reshape the focus from deficiencies to strengths. The meticulously crafted pilot study engages thirty adolescent athletes, divided into a control group of 15 and an experimental group of 15. The pilot study serves as the crucible to assess the effectiveness of the prepared intervention package, providing indispensable insights that will meticulously guide the finalization of an all-encompassing intervention program for the main study. The main study adopts a pioneering two-arm randomized control trial methodology, actively involving adolescent athletes from diverse Malaysian high schools. This approach aims to address critical lacunae in anti-doping strategies, specifically calibrated to resonate with the unique context of Malaysian schools. The study, cognizant of the imperative to develop preventive measures harmonizing with the cultural and educational milieu of Malaysian adolescent athletes, aspires to cultivate a culture of clean sport. In conclusion, this research aspires to contribute unprecedented insights into the efficacy of positive education interventions firmly rooted in the PERMA model. By unraveling the intricacies of clean sport behavior, particularly within the context of Malaysian adolescent athletes, the study seeks to introduce transformative preventive methods. The adoption of positive psychology as an avant-garde anti-doping tool represents an innovative and promising approach, bridging a conspicuous gap in scholarly research and offering potential panaceas for the sporting community. As this study unfurls its chapters, it carries the promise not only to enrich our understanding of clean sport behavior but also to pave the way for positive metamorphosis within the realm of adolescent sports in Malaysia.

Keywords: positive education interventions, a pilot study, clean sport behavior, adolescent athletes, Malaysia

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Authors: Amber Dhoot, Tarush Gupta, Andrea Gurr, William Jenkins, Sandro Pietrunti, Alexis Tang

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Background: The COVID-19 pandemic has driven pharmacovigilance towards a new paradigm. Nowadays, more people than ever before are recognising and reporting adverse reactions from medications, treatments, and vaccines. In the modern era, with over 3.8 billion users, social media has become the most accessible medium for people to voice their opinions and so provides an opportunity to engage with more patient-centric and accessible pharmacovigilance. However, the pharmaceutical industry has been slow to incorporate social media into its modern pharmacovigilance strategy. This project aims to make social media a more effective tool in pharmacovigilance, and so reduce drug costs, improve drug safety and improve patient outcomes. This will be achieved by firstly uncovering and categorising the barriers facing the widespread adoption of social media in pharmacovigilance. Following this, the potential opportunities of social media will be explored. We will then propose realistic, practical recommendations to make social media a more effective tool for pharmacovigilance. Methodology: A comprehensive systematic literature review was conducted to produce a categorised summary of these barriers. This was followed by conducting 11 semi-structured interviews with pharmacovigilance experts to confirm the literature review findings whilst also exploring the unpublished and real-life challenges faced by those in the pharmaceutical industry. Finally, a survey of the general public (n = 112) ascertained public knowledge, perception, and opinion regarding the use of their social media data for pharmacovigilance purposes. This project stands out by offering perspectives from the public and pharmaceutical industry that fill the research gaps identified in the literature review. Results: Our results gave rise to several key analysis points. Firstly, inadequacies of current Natural Language Processing algorithms hinder effective pharmacovigilance data extraction from social media, and where data extraction is possible, there are significant questions over its quality. Social media also contains a variety of biases towards common drugs, mild adverse drug reactions, and the younger generation. Additionally, outdated regulations for social media pharmacovigilance do not align with new, modern General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR), creating ethical ambiguity about data privacy and level of access. This leads to an underlying mindset of avoidance within the pharmaceutical industry, as firms are disincentivised by the legal, financial, and reputational risks associated with breaking ambiguous regulations. Conclusion: Our project uncovered several barriers that prevent effective pharmacovigilance on social media. As such, social media should be used to complement traditional sources of pharmacovigilance rather than as a sole source of pharmacovigilance data. However, this project adds further value by proposing five practical recommendations that improve the effectiveness of social media pharmacovigilance. These include: prioritising health-orientated social media; improving technical capabilities through investment and strategic partnerships; setting clear regulatory guidelines using multi-stakeholder processes; creating an adverse drug reaction reporting interface inbuilt into social media platforms; and, finally, developing educational campaigns to raise awareness of the use of social media in pharmacovigilance. Implementation of these recommendations would speed up the efficient, ethical, and systematic adoption of social media in pharmacovigilance.

Keywords: adverse drug reaction, drug safety, pharmacovigilance, social media

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Authors: Maari Sugawara

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This ethnographic research interrogates female masochism within contemporary Japan, focusing on fifteen female BDSM (Bondage, Discipline, Dominance, Submission, Sadism, and Masochism) practitioners who identify as masochists, bottoms, and/or submissives. The study employs semi-structured interviews with these practitioners, representing diverse backgrounds and ages, to explore the intersection of sexuality and individual and/or collective trauma. The study focuses on a specific group of sadomasochists who, as survivors of gender and sexual violence, reenact their trauma through BDSM practices. This exploration draws on feminist performance studies, postcolonial studies, psychoanalysis, and affect analysis to highlight the complexities of female masochism. In a cultural milieu that often reduces female masochism to mere compliance with heteropatriarchy, this study argues that specific masochistic practices transcend submission, serving as vital strategies for confronting trauma and dismantling entrenched cultural narratives. Engaging with Lacan’s concept of feminine jouissance and the notion of "creative masochism" in the context of Japan's proximity to the imperial US, the study facilitates a nuanced exploration of female masochistic enjoyment. The study shows that these practices can act as both a means of survival and a mode of resilience, challenging dominant narratives that portray masochism solely as a form of subjugation, drawing on feminist performance studies, postcolonial studies, psychoanalysis, and affect analysis. It interprets masochism as a complex terrain of affective engagement, where shared suffering and consensual pain foster transformative possibilities. By analyzing BDSM as a cultural site, this research reframes masochism not only as a personal negotiation of pain but also as a broader allegory for Japan’s ongoing geopolitical self-positioning. Central to this analysis is the concept of "creative masochism," which positions masochism as both a metaphor and a practice through which Japan addresses its historical subordination to the United States. This framework allows for a deeper understanding of how participants' lived desires intersect with national narratives, illuminating the relationship between personal experiences and larger socio-political dynamics. It incorporates sadomasochistic metaphors into Japan-U.S. interactions, reflecting underlying patterns of submission, resistance, and cultural negotiation. Additionally, this research examines the effects, affects, and limitations of masochism within the post-WWII Japanese context, providing insights into how masochism can reshape one's relationship with their surroundings. This study challenges the notion that female masochism is entirely subsumed by hegemonic structures, revealing instead that subjects can assert their autonomy within their experiences of pleasure and pain. The consensual enactment of violence within these encounters emerges as a complex and ambivalent process, wherein pain transforms into a generative force for reimagining alternative forms of sociality and belonging. Additionally, the research identifies contradictions and connections between the personal and political, examining how kink practices shape participants' daily lives and identities, and vice versa, highlighting the profound impact of these practices on their sense of self and community. Ultimately, it reaffirms agency in the face of pervasive heteronormative power dynamics, suggesting that masochism can serve as a site of both resistance and redefinition.

Keywords: female masochism, BDSM, Japan, masochism, trauma, sexual violence

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Authors: Lam Pham, Peter Hubber, Russell Tytler

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Students’ conceptual understandings of chemistry concepts/phenomena involve capability to coordinate across the three levels of Johnston’s triangle model. This triplet model is based on reasoning about chemical phenomena across macro, sub-micro and symbolic levels. In chemistry education, there is a need for further examining inquiry-based approaches that enhance students’ conceptual learning and problem solving skills. This research adopted a directed inquiry pedagogy based on students constructing and coordinating representations, to investigate senior school students’ capabilities to flexibly move across Johnston’ levels when learning dilution and molar concentration concepts. The participants comprise 50 grade 11 and 20 grade 10 students and 4 chemistry teachers who were selected from 4 secondary schools located in metropolitan Melbourne, Victoria. This research into classroom practices used ethnographic methodology, involved teachers working collaboratively with the research team to develop representational activities and lesson sequences in the instruction of a unit on solution chemistry. The representational activities included challenges (Representational Challenges-RCs) that used ‘representational tools’ to assist students to move across Johnson’s three levels for dilution phenomena. In this report, the ‘representational tool’ called ‘cross and portion’ model was developed and used in teaching and learning the molar concentration concept. Students’ conceptual understanding and problem solving skills when learning with this model are analysed through group case studies of year 10 and 11 chemistry students. In learning dilution concepts, students in both group case studies actively conducted a practical experiment, used their own language and visualisation skills to represent dilution phenomena at macroscopic level (RC1). At the sub-microscopic level, students generated and negotiated representations of the chemical interactions between solute and solvent underpinning the dilution process. At the symbolic level, students demonstrated their understandings about dilution concepts by drawing chemical structures and performing mathematical calculations. When learning molar concentration with a ‘cross and portion’ model (RC2), students coordinated across visual and symbolic representational forms and Johnson’s levels to construct representations. The analysis showed that in RC1, Year 10 students needed more ‘scaffolding’ in inducing to representations to explicit the form and function of sub-microscopic representations. In RC2, Year 11 students showed clarity in using visual representations (drawings) to link to mathematics to solve representational challenges about molar concentration. In contrast, year 10 students struggled to get match up the two systems, symbolic system of mole per litre (‘cross and portion’) and visual representation (drawing). These conceptual problems do not lie in the students’ mathematical calculation capability but rather in students’ capability to align visual representations with the symbolic mathematical formulations. This research also found that students in both group case studies were able to coordinate representations when probed about the use of ‘cross and portion’ model (in RC2) to demonstrate molar concentration of diluted solutions (in RC1). Students mostly succeeded in constructing ‘cross and portion’ models to represent the reduction of molar concentration of the concentration gradients. In conclusion, this research demonstrated how the strategic introduction and coordination of chemical representations across modes and across the macro, sub-micro and symbolic levels, supported student reasoning and problem solving in chemistry.

Keywords: cross and portion, dilution, Johnston's triangle, molar concentration, representations

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Authors: Ziara Carmelli G. Tan, Irene Carmelle S. Tan

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Background: Trichotillomania (TTM) and Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) are two psychiatric conditions that frequently co-occur, presenting a significant challenge for treatment due to their complex interplay. TTM involves repetitive hair-pulling, leading to noticeable hair loss and distress, while MDD is characterized by persistent low mood and loss of interest or pleasure, leading to dysfunctionality. This case report examines the intricate relationship between TTM and MDD in a young adult female, emphasizing the need for a comprehensive, multifaceted therapeutic approach to address both disorders effectively. Case Presentation: The patient is a 21-year-old female college student and youth church leader who presented with chronic hair-pulling and depressive symptoms. Her premorbid personality was marked by low self-esteem and a strong need for external validation. Despite her academic and social responsibilities and achievements, she struggled with managing her emotional distress, which was exacerbated by her family dynamics and her role within her church community. Her hair-pulling and mood symptoms were particularly triggered by self-esteem threats and feelings of inadequacy. She was diagnosed with Trichotillomania, Scalp and Major Depressive Disorder. Intervention/Management: The patient’s treatment plan was comprehensive, incorporating both pharmacological and non-pharmacological interventions. Initial pharmacologic management was Fluoxetine 20mg/day up, titrated to 40mg/day with no improvement; hence, shifted to Escitalopram 20mg/day and started with N-acetylcysteine 600mg/day with noted significant improvement in symptoms. Psychotherapeutic strategies played a crucial role in her treatment. These included supportive-expressive psychodynamic psychotherapy, which helped her explore and understand underlying emotional conflicts. Cognitive-behavioral techniques were employed to modify her maladaptive thoughts and behaviors. Grief processing was integrated to help her cope with significant losses. Family therapy was done to address conflicts and collaborate with the treatment process. Psychoeducation was provided to enhance her understanding of her condition and to empower her in her treatment journey. A suicide safety plan was developed to ensure her safety during critical periods. An interprofessional approach, which involved coordination with the Dermatology service for co-management, was also a key component of her treatment. Outcome: Over the course of 15 therapy sessions, the patient demonstrated significant improvement in both her depressive symptoms and hair-pulling behavior. Her active engagement in therapy, combined with pharmacological support, facilitated better emotional regulation and a more cohesive sense of self. Her adherence to the treatment plan, along with the collaborative efforts of the interprofessional team, contributed to her positive outcomes. Discussion: This case underscores the significance of addressing both TTM and its comorbid conditions to achieve effective treatment outcomes. The intricate interplay between TTM and MDD in the patient’s case highlights the importance of a comprehensive treatment plan that includes both pharmacological and psychotherapeutic approaches. Supportive-expressive psychodynamic psychotherapy, Cognitive-behavioral techniques, and Family therapy were particularly beneficial in addressing the complex emotional and behavioral aspects of her condition. The involvement of an interprofessional team, including dermatology co-management, was crucial in providing holistic care. Future practice should consider the benefits of such a multidisciplinary approach to managing complex cases like this, ensuring that both the psychological and physiological aspects of the disorders are adequately addressed.

Keywords: cognitive-behavioral therapy, interprofessional approach, major depressive disorder, psychodynamic psychotherapy, trichotillomania

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Authors: Agboka Komi Mensah, John Odindi, Elfatih M. Abdel-Rahman, Onisimo Mutanga, Henri Ez Tonnang

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Ecosystems are networks of organisms and populations that form a community of various species interacting within their habitats. Such habitats are defined by abiotic and biotic conditions that establish the initial limits to a population's growth, development, and reproduction. The habitat’s conditions explain the context in which species interact to access resources such as food, water, space, shelter, and mates, allowing for feeding, dispersal, and reproduction. Dispersal is an essential life-history strategy that affects gene flow, resource competition, population dynamics, and species distributions. Despite the importance of dispersal in population dynamics and survival, understanding the mechanism underpinning the dispersal of organisms remains challenging. For instance, when an organism moves into an ecosystem for survival and resource competition, its progression is highly influenced by extrinsic factors such as its physiological state, climatic variables and ability to evade predation. Therefore, greater spatial detail is necessary to understand organism dispersal dynamics. Understanding organisms dispersal can be addressed using empirical and mechanistic modelling approaches, with the adopted approach depending on the study's purpose Cellular automata (CA) is an example of these approaches that have been successfully used in biological studies to analyze the dispersal of living organisms. Cellular automata can be briefly described as occupied cells by an individual that evolves based on proper decisions based on a set of neighbours' rules. However, in the ambit of modelling individual organisms dispersal at the landscape scale, we lack user friendly tools that do not require expertise in mathematical models and computing ability; such as a visual analytics framework for tracking and forecasting the dispersal behaviour of organisms. The term "visual analytics" (VA) describes a semiautomated approach to electronic data processing that is guided by users who can interact with data via an interface. Essentially, VA converts large amounts of quantitative or qualitative data into graphical formats that can be customized based on the operator's needs. Additionally, this approach can be used to enhance the ability of users from various backgrounds to understand data, communicate results, and disseminate information across a wide range of disciplines. To support effective analysis of the dispersal of organisms at the landscape scale, we therefore designed Pydisp which is a free visual data analytics tool for spatiotemporal dispersal modeling built in Python. Its user interface allows users to perform a quick and interactive spatiotemporal analysis of species dispersal using bioecological and climatic data. Pydisp enables reuse and upgrade through the use of simple principles such as Fuzzy cellular automata algorithms. The potential of dispersal modeling is demonstrated in a case study by predicting the dispersal of Fopius arisanus (Sonan), endoparasitoids to control Bactrocera dorsalis (Hendel) (Diptera: Tephritidae) in Kenya. The results obtained from our example clearly illustrate the parasitoid's dispersal process at the landscape level and confirm that dynamic processes in an agroecosystem are better understood when designed using mechanistic modelling approaches. Furthermore, as demonstrated in the example, the built software is highly effective in portraying the dispersal of organisms despite the unavailability of detailed data on the species dispersal mechanisms.

Keywords: cellular automata, fuzzy logic, landscape, spatiotemporal

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Authors: Evelyn Castle, Adam Thompson

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Background: In 2013, the Kano State Primary Health Care Management Board redesigned its Routine immunization supply chain from diffused pull to direct delivery push. It addressed issues around stockouts and reduced time spent by health facility staff collecting, and reporting on vaccine usage. The health care board sought the help of a 3PL for twice-monthly deliveries from its cold store to 484 facilities across 44 local governments. eHA’s Health Delivery Systems group formed a 3PL to serve 326 of these new facilities in partnership with the State. We focused on designing and implementing a technology system throughout. Basic methodologies: GIS Mapping: - Planning the delivery of vaccines to hundreds of health facilities requires detailed route planning for delivery vehicles. Mapping the road networks across Kano and Bauchi with a custom routing tool provided information for the optimization of deliveries. Reducing the number of kilometers driven each round by 20%, - reducing cost and delivery time. Direct Delivery Information System: - Vaccine Direct Deliveries are facilitated through pre-round planning (driven by health facility database, extensive GIS, and inventory workflow rules), manager and driver control panel customizing delivery routines and reporting, progress dashboard, schedules/routes, packing lists, delivery reports, and driver data collection applications. Move: Last Mile Logistics Management System: - MOVE has improved vaccine supply information management to be timely, accurate and actionable. Provides stock management workflow support, alerts management for cold chain exceptions/stock outs, and on-device analytics for health and supply chain staff. Software was built to be offline-first with user-validated interface and experience. Deployed to hundreds of vaccine storage site the improved information tools helps facilitate the process of system redesign and change management. Findings: - Stock-outs reduced from 90% to 33% - Redesigned current health systems and managing vaccine supply for 68% of Kano’s wards. - Near real time reporting and data availability to track stock. - Paperwork burdens of health staff have been dramatically reduced. - Medicine available when the community needs it. - Consistent vaccination dates for children under one to prevent polio, yellow fever, tetanus. - Higher immunization rates = Lower infection rates. - Hundreds of millions of Naira worth of vaccines successfully transported. - Fortnightly service to 326 facilities in 326 wards across 30 Local Government areas. - 6,031 cumulative deliveries. - Over 3.44 million doses transported. - Minimum travel distance covered in a round of delivery is 2000 kms & maximum of 6297 kms. - 153,409 kms travelled by 6 drivers. - 500 facilities in 326 wards. - Data captured and synchronized for the first time. - Data driven decision making now possible. Conclusion: eHA’s Vaccine Direct delivery has met challenges in Kano and Bauchi State and provided a reliable delivery service of vaccinations that ensure t health facilities can run vaccination clinics for children under one. eHA uses innovative technology that delivers vaccines from Northern Nigerian zonal stores straight to healthcare facilities. Helped healthcare workers spend less time managing supplies and more time delivering care, and will be rolled out nationally across Nigeria.

Keywords: direct delivery information system, health delivery system, GIS mapping, Northern Nigeria, vaccines

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Authors: Anne E. Goodenough

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One of the most important roles of higher education professionals is to ensure that graduates have excellent employment prospects. This means providing students with the skills necessary to be immediately effective in the workplace. Increasingly, universities are seeking to achieve this by moving from lecture-based and campus-delivered curricula to more varied delivery, which takes students out of their academic comfort zone and allows them to engage with, and be challenged by, real world issues. One popular approach is integration of problem-based learning (PBL) projects into curricula. However, although the potential benefits of PBL are considerable, it can be difficult to devise projects that are meaningful, such that they can be regarded as mere ‘hoop jumping’ exercises. This study examines three-way partnerships between academics, students, and external link organizations. It studied the experiences of all partners involved in different collaborative projects to identify how benefits can be maximized and challenges overcome. Focal collaborations included: (1) development of real-world modules with novel assessment whereby the organization became the ‘client’ for student consultancy work; (2) frameworks where students collected/analyzed data for link organizations in research methods modules; (3) placement-based internships and dissertations; (4) immersive fieldwork projects in novel locations; and (5) students working as partners on staff-led research with link organizations. Focus groups, questionnaires and semi-structured interviews were used to identify opportunities and barriers, while quantitative analysis of students’ grades was used to determine academic effectiveness. Common challenges identified by academics were finding suitable link organizations and devising projects that simultaneously provided education opportunities and tangible benefits. There was no ‘one size fits all’ formula for success, but careful planning and ensuring clarity of roles/responsibilities were vital. Students were very positive about collaboration projects. They identified benefits to confidence, time-keeping and communication, as well as conveying their enthusiasm when their work was of benefit to the wider community. They frequently highlighted employability opportunities that collaborative projects opened up and analysis of grades demonstrated the potential for such projects to increase attainment. Organizations generally recognized the value of project outputs, but often required considerable assistance to put the right scaffolding in place to ensure projects worked. Benefits were maximized by ensuring projects were well-designed, innovative, and challenging. Co-publication of projects in peer-reviewed journals sometimes gave additional benefits for all involved, being especially beneficial for student curriculum vitae. PBL and student projects are by no means new pedagogic approaches: the novelty here came from creating meaningful three-way partnerships between academics, students, and link organizations at all undergraduate levels. Such collaborations can allow students to make a genuine contribution to knowledge, answer real questions, solve actual problems, all while providing tangible benefits to organizations. Because projects are actually needed, students tend to engage with learning at a deep level. This enhances student experience, increases attainment, encourages development of subject-specific and transferable skills, and promotes networking opportunities. Such projects frequently rely upon students and staff working collaboratively, thereby also acting to break down the traditional teacher/learner division that is typically unhelpful in developing students as advanced learners.

Keywords: higher education, employability, link organizations, innovative teaching and learning methods, interactions between enterprise and education, student experience

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Authors: Ananya Pappu, Sneha Mishra

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Introduction: The South Asian population experiences unique health challenges that predisposes this demographic to cardiometabolic diseases at lower BMIs. South Asians may therefore benefit from recommendations specific to their cultural needs. Here, we focus on current BMI guidelines for Asians with a discussion of South Asian dietary practices and culturally tailored interventions. By integrating traditional dietary practices with modern nutritional recommendations, this manuscript aims to highlight effective strategies to improving health outcomes among South Asians. Background: The South Asian community, including individuals from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka, experiences high rates of cardiovascular diseases, cancers, diabetes, and strokes. Notably, the prevalence of diabetes and cardiovascular disease among Asians is elevated at BMIs below the WHO's standard overweight threshold. As it stands, a BMI of 25-30 kg/m² is considered overweight in non-Asians, while this cutoff is reduced to 23-27.4 kg/m² in Asians. This discrepancy can be attributed to studies which have shown different associations between BMI and health risks in Asians compared to other populations. Given these significant challenges, optimizing lifestyle management for cardiometabolic risk factors is crucial. Tailored interventions that consider cultural context seem to be the best approach for ensuring the success of both dietary and physical activity interventions in South Asian patients. Adopting a whole food, plant-based diet (WFPD) is one such strategy. The WFPD suggests that half of one meal should consist of non-starchy vegetables. In the South Asian diet, this includes traditional vegetables such as okra, tindora, eggplant, and leafy greens including amaranth, collards, chard, and mustards. A quarter of the meal should include plant-based protein sources like cooked beans, lentils, and paneer, with the remaining quarter comprising healthy grains or starches such as whole wheat breads, millets, tapioca, and barley. Adherence to the WFPD has been shown to improve cardiometabolic risk factors including weight, BMI, total cholesterol, HbA1c, and reduces the risk of developing non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD). Another approach to improving dietary habits is timing meals. Many of the major cultures and religions in the Indian subcontinent incorporate religious fasting. Time-restricted eating (TRE), also known as intermittent fasting, is a practice akin to traditional fasting, which involves consuming all daily calories within a specific window. TRE has been shown to improve insulin resistance in prediabetic and diabetic patients. Common regimens include completing all meals within an 8-hour window, consuming a low-calorie diet every other day, and the 5:2 diet, which involves fasting twice weekly. These fasting practices align with the natural circadian rhythm, potentially enhancing metabolic health and reducing obesity and diabetes risks. Conclusion: South Asians develop cardiometabolic disease at lower BMIs; hence, it is important to counsel patients about lifestyle interventions that decrease their risk. Traditional South Asian diets can be made more nutrient-rich by incorporating vegetables, plant proteins like lentils and beans, and substituting refined grains for whole grains. Ultimately, the best diet is one to which a patient can adhere. It is therefore important to find a regimen that aligns with a patient’s cultural and traditional food practices.

Keywords: BMI, diet, obesity, South Asian, time-restricted eating

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Authors: Zdravko Trivic, John Chye Fung, Ruzica Bozovic-Stamenovic

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Within the context of rapidly ageing population in Singapore and the pressing demands on both caregivers and care providers, an integrated approach to ageing-friendly and ability-sensitive enabling environment becomes an imperative. This particularly applies to nursing home environments and their immediate surroundings, as they are becoming one of the main available options of long-term care for many senior adults who are unable to age at home. Yet, despite the considerable efforts to break the still predominant clinical approach to eldercare and to introduce more home-like design and person-centric care model, nursing homes keep being stigmatised and perceived as not so desirable environments to grow old in. The challenges are further emphasised by the associated physical, sensorial, psychological and cognitive declines that are the common consequences of ageing. Such declines have an immense impact on almost all aspects of older adults’ daily functioning, including problems with mobility and spatial orientation, difficulties in communication, withdrawal from social interaction, higher level of depression and decreased sense of independence and autonomy. However, typical nursing home designs tend to neglect the full capacities of balanced and carefully integrated multisensory stimuli as active component of care and ability building. This paper outlines part of a larger multi-disciplinary study of six nursing homes in Singapore, with overarching objectives to create new models of supportive nursing home environments that go beyond the clinical care model and encourage community integration with the nursing home settings. The paper focuses on the largely neglected aspects of sensorial comfort and multi-sensorial properties of nursing homes, including both indoor and immediate outdoor spaces (boundaries). The objective was to investigate the sensory rhythms and explore their role in nursing home users’ daily routine and therapeutic capacities. Socio-sensory rhythms were captured and analysed through a combination of on-site sensory recordings of “objective” quantitative sensory data (air temperature and humidity, sound level and luminance) using multi-function environment meter, perceived experienced data, spatial mapping, first-person observations of nursing home users’ activity patterns, and interviews. This was done in addition to employment of available assessment tools, such as Wisconsin Person Directed Care assessment tool, Dementia Quality of Life [DQoL] instrument, and Resident Environment Impact Scale [REIS], as these tools address the issues of sensorial experience insufficiently and selectively. Key findings indicate varied levels of sensory comfort, as well as diversity, intensity, and customisation of multi-sensory conditions within different nursing home spaces. Sensory stimulation is typically concentrated in communal living areas of the nursing homes or in the areas that often provide controlled or limited access, including specifically designed sensory rooms and outdoor green spaces (gardens and terraces). Opportunities for sensory stimulation are particularly limited for bed-bound senior residents and within more functional areas, such as corridors. This suggests that the capacities of nursing home designs to provide more diverse and better integrated pleasant sensory conditions as integrated “therapeutic devices” to build nursing home residents’ physical and mental abilities, encourage activity and improve wellbeing are far from exhausted.

Keywords: ageing-supportive environment, enabling design, multi-sensory assessment, nursing home environment

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Authors: Mohammadreza Kashizadeh, Mohammadamin Hashemi

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This paper explores a kinetic building facade designed for optimal energy capture and architectural expression. The system integrates photovoltaic panels with soft robotic actuators for precise solar tracking, resulting in enhanced electricity generation compared to static facades. Driven by the growing interest in dynamic building envelopes, the exploration of facade systems are necessitated. Increased energy generation and regulation of energy flow within buildings are potential benefits offered by integrating photovoltaic (PV) panels as kinetic elements. However, incorporating these technologies into mainstream architecture presents challenges due to the complexity of coordinating multiple systems. To address this, the design leverages soft robotic actuators, known for their compliance, resilience, and ease of integration. Additionally, the project investigates the potential for employing Large Language Models (LLMs) to streamline the design process. The research methodology involved design development, material selection, component fabrication, and system assembly. Grasshopper (GH) was employed within the digital design environment for parametric modeling and scripting logic, and an LLM was experimented with to generate Python code for the creation of a random surface with user-defined parameters. Various techniques, including casting, Three-dimensional 3D printing, and laser cutting, were utilized to fabricate physical components. A modular assembly approach was adopted to facilitate installation and maintenance. A case study focusing on the application of this facade system to an existing library building at Polytechnic University of Milan is presented. The system is divided into sub-frames to optimize solar exposure while maintaining a visually appealing aesthetic. Preliminary structural analyses were conducted using Karamba3D to assess deflection behavior and axial loads within the cable net structure. Additionally, Finite Element (FE) simulations were performed in Abaqus to evaluate the mechanical response of the soft robotic actuators under pneumatic pressure. To validate the design, a physical prototype was created using a mold adapted for a 3D printer's limitations. Casting Silicone Rubber Sil 15 was used for its flexibility and durability. The 3D-printed mold components were assembled, filled with the silicone mixture, and cured. After demolding, nodes and cables were 3D-printed and connected to form the structure, demonstrating the feasibility of the design. This work demonstrates the potential of soft robotics and Artificial Intelligence (AI) for advancements in sustainable building design and construction. The project successfully integrates these technologies to create a dynamic facade system that optimizes energy generation and architectural expression. While limitations exist, this approach paves the way for future advancements in energy-efficient facade design. Continued research efforts will focus on cost reduction, improved system performance, and broader applicability.

Keywords: artificial intelligence, energy efficiency, kinetic photovoltaics, pneumatic control, soft robotics, sustainable building

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Authors: Ron Dick, P. S. D. V. Prasadarao, Glenn Coltman

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Agenesis of the corpus callosum (ACC) is a failure to develop corpus callosum - the large bundle of fibers of the brain that connects the two cerebral hemispheres. It can occur as a partial or complete absence of the corpus callosum. In the general population, its estimated prevalence rate is 1 in 4000 and a wide range of genetic, infectious, vascular, and toxic causes have been attributed to this heterogeneous condition. The diagnosis of ACC is often achieved by neuroimaging procedures. Though persons with ACC can perform normally on intelligence tests they generally present with a range of neuropsychological and social deficits. The deficit profile is characterized by poor coordination of motor movements, slow reaction time, processing speed and, poor memory. Socially, they present with deficits in communication, language processing, the theory of mind, and interpersonal relationships. The present paper illustrates the role of neuropsychological assessment with implications to psychosocial management in a case of agenesis of the corpus callosum. Method: A 27-year old left handed Caucasian male with a history of ACC was self-referred for a neuropsychological assessment to assist him in his employment options. Parents noted significant difficulties with coordination and balance at an early age of 2-3 years and he was diagnosed with dyspraxia at the age of 14 years. History also indicated visual impairment, hypotonia, poor muscle coordination, and delayed development of motor milestones. MRI scan indicated agenesis of the corpus callosum with ventricular morphology, widely spaced parallel lateral ventricles and mild dilatation of the posterior horns; it also showed colpocephaly—a disproportionate enlargement of the occipital horns of the lateral ventricles which might be affecting his motor abilities and visual defects. The MRI scan ruled out other structural abnormalities or neonatal brain injury. At the time of assessment, the subject presented with such problems as poor coordination, slowed processing speed, poor organizational skills and time management, and difficulty with social cues and facial expressions. A comprehensive neuropsychological assessment was planned and conducted to assist in identifying the current neuropsychological profile to facilitate the formulation of a psychosocial and occupational rehabilitation programme. Results: General intellectual functioning was within the average range and his performance on memory-related tasks was adequate. Significant visuospatial and visuoconstructional deficits were evident across tests; constructional difficulties were seen in tasks such as copying a complex figure, building a tower and manipulating blocks. Poor visual scanning ability and visual motor speed were evident. Socially, the subject reported heightened social anxiety, difficulty in responding to cues in the social environment, and difficulty in developing intimate relationships. Conclusion: Persons with ACC are known to present with specific cognitive deficits and problems in social situations. Findings from the current neuropsychological assessment indicated significant visuospatial difficulties, poor visual scanning and problems in social interactions. His general intellectual functioning was within the average range. Based on the findings from the comprehensive neuropsychological assessment, a structured psychosocial rehabilitation programme was developed and recommended.

Keywords: agenesis, callosum, corpus, neuropsychology, psychosocial, rehabilitation

Procedia PDF Downloads 275

Authors: Marilena Fatigante

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Contemporary psychoanalysis is increasingly acknowledging the existential demands of clients in psychotherapy. A significant aspect of the personal crises that patients face today is often rooted in the difficulty to find meaning in their own existence, even after working through or resolving traumatic memories and experiences. Tracing back to the correspondence between Freud and Romain Rolland (1927), psychoanalysis could not ignore that investigation of the psyche also encompasses the encounter with deep, psycho-sensory experiences, which involve a sense of "being one with the external world as a whole", the well-known “oceanic feeling”, as Rolland posed it. Despite the recognition of Non-ordinary States of Consciousness (NSC) as catalysts for transformation in clinical practice, highlighted by neuroscience and results from psychedelic-assisted therapies, there is few research on how psychoanalytic knowledge can integrate with other treatment traditions. These traditions, commonly rooted in non -Western, unconventional, and non-formal psychological knowledge, emphasize the individual’s innate tendency toward existential integrity and transcendence of self-boundaries. Inspired by an autobiographical account, this paper examines narratives of 12 individuals, who engaged in psychoanalytic therapy and also underwent treatment involving a non-formal helping relationship with an expert guide in consciousness, which included experience of this nature. The guide relies on 35 yrs of experience in Psychological, multidisciplinary studies in Human Sciences and Art, and demonstrates knowledge of many wisdom traditions, ranging from Eastern to Western philosophy, including Psychoanalysis and its development in cultural perspective (e.g, Ethnopsychiatry). Analyses focused primarily on two dimensions that research has identified as central in assessing the degree of treatment “success” in the patients’ narrative accounts of their therapies: agency and coherence, defined respectively as the increase, expressed in language, of the client’s perceived ability to manage his/her own challenges and the capacity, inherent in “narrative” itself as a resource for meaning making (Bruner, 1990), to provide the subject with a sense of unity, endowing his /her life experience with temporal and logical sequentiality. The present study reports that, in all narratives from the participants, agency and coherence are described differently than in “common” psychotherapy narratives. Although the participants consistently identified themselves as responsible agentic subject, the sense of agency derived from the non-conventional guidance pathway is never reduced to a personal, individual accomplishment. Rather, the more a new, fuller sense of “Life” (more than “Self”) develops out of the guidance pathway they engage with the expert guide, the more they “surrender” their own sense of autonomy and self-containment. Something, which Safran (2016) identified as well talking about the sense of surrender and “grace” in psychoanalytic sessions. Secondly, narratives of individuals engaging with the expert guide describe coherence not as repairing or enforcing continuity but as enhancing their ability to navigate dramatic discontinuities, falls, abrupt leaps and passages marked by feelings of loss and bereavement. The paper ultimately explores whether valid criteria can be established to analyze experiences of non-conventional paths of self-evolution. These paths are not opposed or alternative to conventional ones, and should not be simplistically dismissed as exotic or magical.

Keywords: oceanic feeling, non conventional guidance, consciousness, narratives, treatment outcomes

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