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Judging a book by its cover: understanding the phenomenon of fake news propagation from an evolutionary psychology perspective
No full textWith fake news now a serious concern facing researchers, practitioners, and policymakers alike, research is increasingly exploring the factors that lead to its proliferation. However, there is limited research on the role of temporal orientation. i.e., emphasis on time. This paper examines whether a future temporal orientation (FTO), defined as a relative emphasis on the future observed in fake news titles and content, is associated with fake news sharing. We bring arguments grounded in evolutionary psychology to understand the underlying rationale driving this phenomenon. Our analysis of a Twitter dataset comprising 465519 tweets suggests that FTO characterizes fake news and is positively associated with fake news sharing. Notably, fake news titles and the accompanying text differ in their FTO. Specifically, we show an inverted U-shaped relationship between fake news sharing and the difference in FTO between the title and accompanying text. As a practical implication of this analysis, efforts to limit the spread of fake news should pay more attention to how such news emphasizes the future
Experiences of health services for adults with cerebral palsy, their support people, and service providers
No full textAimTo explore the experiences of health services among adults with cerebral palsy (CP) in Ireland, from the perspectives of adults with CP, their support people, and service providers.MethodA qualitative descriptive study design was used. In-depth semi-structured interviews were conducted between March and August 2021 with adults with CP, people who supported them, and health professionals. Thematic analysis was used to evaluate the data.ResultsTwenty-one adults with CP, seven support people (family carer[s], spouse or partner, or friend), and 15 service providers participated in the study. Adults had a mean age of 38 years 5 months (range 22–58 years) and were classified in Gross Motor Function Classification System levels I to V. Five themes were identified from the data: (1) access challenges in adult services; (2) knowledge and understanding of CP; (3) support people's role and care burden; (4) communication and interaction in adult services; and (5) health system challenges.ConclusionAdults with CP in Ireland face multiple challenges accessing the health services they need. Services were reported to be inadequate, with limited resources and understanding of CP. Participants highlighted a need for system-level interventions, including enhanced training for health professionals to effectively meet the needs of adults with CP.<br/
Amnesty in international relations
No full textAmnesties are legal or policy measures to bar ongoing or future criminal investigations or prosecutions for specified crimes or offenders. They have been used for millennia to resolve political crises and ongoing conflicts within and between states. This means that they are a common feature of peace agreements and are often integrated into processes to encourage armed groups to surrender or to encourage perpetrators to disclose the truth of their actions. These legal tools are thus closely connected to efforts to resolve political disputes. However, their application to genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity, and other gross human rights violations has become highly controversial due to the expansion of international criminal law and the turn toward criminal law within human rights. This expansion has taken the form of the elaboration of treaties to require states to investigate, prosecute, and punish specific international crimes; the creation of international or hybrid criminal courts; and the development of case law by international criminal tribunals and human rights institutions that argues that amnesties for international crimes and serious violations conflict with states’ obligations to investigate, prosecute, and punish those violations.It is often argued that these legal developments toward accountability have resulted in the emergence of an international norm that prohibits amnesties for international crimes and serious human rights violations. The obligations resulting from this norm are articulated by scholars, jurists, activists, and policymakers in different ways with respect to different actors. For example, it is viewed as requiring states to refrain from granting amnesties for international crimes and serious human rights violations, and in more expansive interpretations to require them to annul past amnesties for these crimes. The United Nations has interpreted the norm prohibiting amnesties to mean that its personnel cannot endorse peace agreements that provide amnesties for international crimes. In addition, it is often connected to the legal principle that national amnesties for international crimes and serious violations cannot bar prosecutions before international courts or extraterritorial prosecutions by other states.International relations scholars developed an expansive literature exploring the emergence, consolidation, contestation, and localization of the norms that require the investigation, prosecution, and punishment of international crimes and serious human rights violations. This literature has tended to only make limited reference to amnesty laws. However, it does yield important insights that could inform future research to explore how the antiamnesty norm emerged, examining measuring its robustness, and interpreting compliance or noncompliance with the norm.Key to understanding the normative status of the antiamnesty norm is understanding state compliance with the norm’s requirement that they should refrain from granting amnesties. Here, international relations scholarship is somewhat more developed that analyses of the emergence and contestation of amnesty norms. There is a growing body of publications that explore questions about when, where, and why amnesties are used and what impacts they have on peace and reconciliation. Most of these studies use qualitative analyses of single case study contexts, but a body of large-N quantitative analyses is emerging
Integrating academic and professional integrity: a co-designed serious game for nursing students - a multi-methods study
No full textAcademic integrity constitutes a cornerstone of higher education, epitomising values such as honesty, trust, fairness, respect, and responsibility. However, breaches in academic integrity persist among nursing students. Current responses to breaches predominantly adopt reactive and punitive measures, lacking proactive initiatives that cultivate active learning. Moreover, traditional didactic teaching methodologies may fail to resonate with the digital-native characteristics of contemporary students. Consequently, a discernible gap exists regarding novel approaches to instilling and upholding academic integrity within nursing education. The aim of this study is to explore and evaluate whether a co-designed serious game linking academic integrity and professionalism promotes motivation for self-perceived learning for first year undergraduate nursing students at one university in Northern Ireland. Using multi-methods, this study employed a pre-post validated 34-item Motivated Strategies for Learning Questionnaire before and after students played the game, and qualitative focus groups that explored the students’ experience of playing the game and impact on academic practice. Quantitative results (n = 233) showed significance across the 6 sub-scales of the Modified Strategies for Learning Questionnaire including self-efficacy, peer learning and help-seeking. Three themes were developed from focus groups (n = 39) in relation to usability, professional values and transferable skills. The study findings indicate the game had a positive impact on motivation, critical thinking, and self-regulation among participants and successfully correlated academic integrity with universally shared nursing values, such as honesty, accountability, and openness. Suggesting that the integration of case-based learning within a serious game offers a proactive, rather than punitive, approach to academic misconduct education, with potential applicability across diverse cultural and professional contexts.<br/
A taxonomy for assessing whether HRQoL value sets are obsolete
No full textProviding health-related quality of life (HRQoL) value sets to enable estimation of quality adjusted life years (QALYs) is important in facilitating economic evaluation and in supporting reliable decision-making about healthcare. However, as the field matures, many value sets across a range of HRQoL instruments are now old, based on potentially outdated valuation methodologies and preference data from samples that no longer represent the contemporary population. Having a clear strategy for identification and mitigation of obsolescence is important to ensure policy makers retain confidence in their country-specific value sets. In this Current Opinion, we develop a taxonomy of value set obsolescence. We then explore how the different types of obsolescence might be identified and how methodologists might work with local policymakers to address obsolescence and therefore ensure HRQoL instruments remain relevant for use. The taxonomy of obsolescence consists of four main areas: (1) the value set no longer aligns with current normative health technology assessment (HTA) requirements; (2) the methods used to generate it are no longer considered robust or adequately close to best practice; (3) the population composition has moved too far from the characteristics of the sample in which the original value set was derived; and (4) even after controlling for population differences, preferences are likely to have changed since the original data collection. Through identification of the type of obsolescence that applies in a particular setting, we then suggest a range of possible solutions to each, ranging from recommending particular sensitivity analyses, through reweighting of existing data to better account for population differences, to collecting new data for an updated value set. Obsolescence of existing value sets is driven by more than just time since data collection is often a matter of judgment rather than based on a clear definition. The taxonomy presented here provides a tool for assessing whether value sets are obsolete and what the appropriate response to this obsolescence should be. Working closely with local policymakers and involving discussions regarding the ongoing appropriateness of existing value sets should form an important part of future activities. This should include the consideration of updating value sets in contemporary populations using current best-practice methods. However, the benefits of updating value sets have to be balanced against the cost of doing so, including the challenges faced by policymakers when new values sets require a transition to new local decision-making processes.</p
Trends in gabapentinoid prescribing: a nationwide Danish drug utilization study
No full textAimsPregabalin and gabapentin are increasingly used for pain and other conditions. Concerns exist about overuse as well as potential misuse and abuse. To guide rational prescribing practices, we provide detailed nationwide data on the use of gabapentinoids in Denmark.MethodsWe conducted a nationwide descriptive drug utilization study using the Danish healthcare registries to describe the use of gabapentinoids among Danish adults 2010–2023. We described overall use patterns, temporal trends, user characteristics, skewness of use, treatment duration and concomitant medication use.ResultsThe prevalence of gabapentinoid use increased almost four-fold from 11 per 1000 adults in 2010 to 41 in 2023 with the highest use among individuals aged 80+ years (96 per 1000 in 2023). Gabapentin and pregabalin were used equally. The median age of users increased from 58 years in 2010 to 63 years in 2023, while a decline was observed in the proportion with concomitant use of other drug classes, including benzodiazepines or opioids. Only 7% of patients were continuously treated for 3 years following initiation, while 22% were currently treated after 3 years (allowing treatment breaks). The use of gabapentinoids were somewhat skewed with 1% of users accounting for 7.3% of use in 2023.ConclusionThe use of gabapentinoids has increased dramatically in recent years, in particular, among the elderly, and adherence was low. Increased attention to the increasing use of gabapentinoids is warranted to ensure rational use of this drug class.<br/
Evaluation of magnetic teawaste-based biochar particles for removal of cadmium from aqueous solutions
No full textThe Response Surface Methodology (RSM), specifically the face-centred central design, was employed to determine the optimal pyrolysis conditions for producing magnetic biochar from teawaste with the highest capacity for removing cadmium (Cd2+) ions. Several process conditions were investigated, including pyrolysis temperature (200, 350, 500 °C), duration of pyrolysis (2, 3, 4 h), and the concentration of iron chloride added (0.02, 0.05, 0.09 g/g). The sample obtained through pyrolysis at a temperature of 200 °C for a duration of 4 h with an iron chloride concentration of 0.09 g/g exhibited the highest removal efficiency of 80% for Cd2+. Results show that the magnetic teawaste biochar (MTWBC) possessed a maximum Langmuir capacity of 7.23 mmol/g at 298 K. The experimental data obtained for the three temperatures studied were best described by the Freundlich isotherm model. As for the kinetics of the experiment, the Modified Freundlich Kinetic model provided the most accurate fit. The Fourier Transform Infrared (FT-IR) analysis conducted on the MTWBC samples, both before and after adsorption, demonstrated that the removal of Cd2+ by MTWBC involved chemisorption, which engaged specific functional groups present on the surface of MTWBC. Overall, these results highlight the promising potential of MTWBC as an economically viable bio-adsorbent for the removal of cadmium from contaminated water sources.<br/
Biostimulant strategies to enhance performance and quality of Italian ryegrass (<i>Lolium multiflorum</i>)
No full textApplications for cell-free fetal DNA testing beyond common aneuploidy
No full textKey content• Cell-free fetal DNA (cffDNA) screening test performance for sex chromosome aneuploidies (SCAs), copy number variants (CNVs), rare autosomal trisomies (RATs) and single gene disorders.•cffDNA screening for detection of pre-eclampsia and malignancy.•Investigation of recurrent miscarriage using cffDNA.•Alternative approaches to interrogating free fetal DNA.Learning objectives•To appreciate there is a lack of robust evidence regarding cffDNA screening test performance for expanded applications.•To understand that some but not all countries endorse SCA screening and screening for some CNVs such as 22q.11.2 microdeletion syndrome.•To be aware that expanded applications of cffDNA screening pose interpretational and ethical challenges.•To be aware that the diagnostic confirmatory test of choice following a high-chance screening result for the aforementioned conditions is an amniocentesis.Ethical issues•Indirect sex determination may occur with SCA screening.•Expanded applications for cffDNA screening in the UK fall outside recommendations.<br/
Application of Western models of posttraumatic stress disorder in Nepal: Confirmatory factor analysis in earthquake survivors and in spinal cord injury patients
No full textPosttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is often diagnosed by counting the number of symptoms experienced in specified symptom clusters, as outlined by the American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM) of mental illness. However, PTSD measurement tools and this method of diagnosing and treating PTSD, even in non-Western countries, is based on Western concepts of the underlying factor structure. While some research has suggested that PTSD is a disorder found in Western, or “WEIRD” (White, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic) countries and it may not translate to non-Western cultural contexts, other research has documented PTSD in a variety of non-Western countries including India, China, and the Philippines. We examined if the underlying factor structure of PTSD was evident in another non-Western context—in Nepal. We translated and back-translated the PTSD Checklist Specific Stress Version (PCL-S), adapting it for use with populations with low literacy affected by two life changing traumas. We then tested a series of theoretical models of PTSD across two different trauma samples—in survivors of the 2015 earthquake (N = 392) and in people who experienced a life-changing spinal cord injury (N = 163). Using confirmatory factor analysis, we found some evidence that PTSD symptoms appear to map onto Western factors, with evidence of the four-factor Dysphoria model (Re-experiencing, Avoidance, Dysphoria, and Hyperarousal symptoms) in both populations, and demonstrating scalar invariance across samples. However, exploratory factor analyses suggested a different underlying structure. Further, measurement invariance testing suggested gendered responses to PTSD items. The results demonstrate PTSD symptoms in this non-Western context somewhat fit hypothesized Western concepts of PTSD but point to a holistic approach to diagnosing PTSD in such contexts, as opposed to using clusters or PTSD cut-offs.</p