‘You Took me Back to the sea:' Using Narrative to Explore and Inform the Practice of Social Work with Dying People

This article centres on a qualitative interview extract, the ‘Story of the Pebble', in which a West African Hospital Social Worker Ado, working in a UK context, and identifying as a Shaman, describes successfully trusting his instincts to create a symbol for a dying patient. Despite criticisms from colleagues, Ado's capacity to understand his patients needs are justified both before and after her death.The article discusses significant themes from the interview extract, including the meaning of professionalism, practice wisdom and cultural influences in a UK social work context, as well as through Ado's heritage and identification as a Shaman. The article considers holistic patient care in a medical context and suggests this has some useful lessons for social workers, particularly those involved with dying people. Although the extract, and wider research study from which it is drawn, pre-date the Covid 19 pandemic, this is referenced throughout, linking the interview extract to ways of helping practitioners and educators to consider people holistically at end of life. AD -, Chichester, UK ;, Chichester, UK

Behavioral finance: comparison of the level of financial risk aversion among healthcare professionals

Behavioral Finance is considered the new era of finance. Supported by its assumptions, this work aimed to detect and compare the levels of risk aversion in financial decisions of two groups of health professionals: one composed of those exposed to emergency situations (front line in the care of Covid-19 patients) and the other composed of those who work in non-urgent conventional hospital situations. With the application of a questionnaire to professionals from both groups, responses were obtained that made it possible to test the hypothesis that work in emergency situations generates a different influence on the feeling of risk aversion than conventional non-urgent hospital work. The results of the statistical analysis and the chi-square test revealed that there is a small difference in risk aversion between professionals in both groups, without showing, however, statistical significance. The results also revealed evidence that professionals who act/acted on the frontline against Covid19, in situations of gain, accepted to take greater risks, aiming at greater financial reward. The results also revealed evidence that professionals who act/acted on the frontline against Covid19, in situations of gain, accepted to take greater risks, aiming at greater financial reward. In situations involving losses, these same professionals were more risk averse than those in the other group.

ASSOCIATION RULE MINING FOR PREDICTION OF COVID-19

COVID-19 is a raging pandemic that has created havoc with its impact ranging from loss of millions of human lives to social and economic disruptions of the entire world. Therefore, error-free prediction, quick diagnosis, disease identification, isolation and treatment of a COVID patient have become extremely important. Nowadays, mining knowledge and providing scientific decision making for diagnosis of diseases from clinical datasets has found wide-ranging applications in healthcare sector. In this direction, among different data mining tools, association rule mining has already emerged out as a popular technique to extract invaluable information and develop important knowledge-base to help in intelligent diagnosis of distinct diseases quickly and automatically. In this paper, based on 5434 records of COVID cases collected from a popular data science community and using Rapid Miner Studio software, an attempt is put forward to develop a predictive model based on frequent pattern growth algorithm of association rule mining to determine the likelihood of COVID-19 in a patient. It identifies breathing problem, fever, dry cough, sore throat, abroad travel and attended large gathering as the main indicators of COVID-19. Employing the same clinical dataset, a linear regression model is also proposed having a moderately high coefficient of determination of 0.739 in accurately predicting the occurrence of COVID-19. A decision support system can also be developed using the association rules to ease out and automate early detection of other diseases. © 2023 by the authors.

Spatial clustering-based method for Italian marginal areas toward the sustainable regeneration

In Italy, there is a clear disparity between cities and villages located in marginal areas. The progressive depopulation of inland areas and the urban polarization represent consolidated dynamics difficult to adapt to the new paradigm of sustainable development. The post-Covid-19 pandemic scenario offers the opportunity to redefine new parameters of intervention and new visions for the regeneration of villages in accord with the new challenges of decentralization and distancing. The project «Renaissance of villages for the revitalization of marginal areas» (2021) aims to create the conditions to repopulate and rebalance shrinking territories by establishing new centres of attractiveness. This project envisages the active involvement of municipalities to implement multi-sectoral analysis and spatial assessment approaches in planning processes. It intends to develop an interactive web dashboard for local authorities and spatial planners to create both a learning environment and a participative spatial decision support system for future local policy actions toward sustainable local development. This study presents the project's preliminary phase which aims to create the general framework of the web dashboard. A reconstruction of the village definition and the spatial selection of villages throughout Italy are presented as innovative aspects since the absence of an agreed definition of the village in the national and international level documents. Moreover, this study provides a quantitative spatial multivariate analysis cluster that analyzes, and groups Italian territories based on socioeconomic dynamics. The result of this analysis allows us to divide the territory into archetypes and to structure a framework that supports the definition of future scenarios for the regeneration of small urban areas considering the diversified needs and potential of the villages belonging to specific archetypes analyzed in the study.In Italia esiste una netta disparità tra città e borghi situati in aree marginali. Il progressivo spopolamento delle aree interne e la polarizzazione urbana rappresentano dinamiche consolidate poco affini ai paradigmi dello sviluppo sostenibile. Lo scenario post pandemico offre oggi l'opportunità di ridefinire nuovi parametri di inter- vento e nuove visioni per la rigenerazione dei borghi in accordo con le sfide imposte dal decentramento e dal distanziamento fisico. Il progetto «Rinascimento dei borghi per la rivitalizzazione delle aree marginali» (2021) mira a creare le condizioni per ripopolare e rigenerare i territori in contrazione. L'efficacia del progetto si fonda sul coinvolgimento attivo dei comuni nei processi di pianificazione e sull'integrazione in essi di analisi multisettoriali sperimentando un approccio basato sulla va- lutazione territoriale. Nell'ambito del progetto s'intende sviluppare un cruscotto web interattivo indirizzato alla pubblica amministrazione e ai pianificatori territoriali, al fine di creare un sistema partecipativo di supporto alle decisioni spaziali propedeutico allo sviluppo di scenari di sviluppo locale sostenibile. Questo studio presenta la fase preliminare del progetto in cui viene predisposta la struttura generale del cruscotto web. La ricerca e la ricostruzione della definizione di borgo, seguita dalla se- lezione spaziale dei borghi in tutta Italia, sono presentati come aspetti innovativi data l'attuale assenza di una definizione a livello nazionale e internazionale. Inoltre, questo studio fornisce un'analisi spaziale quantitativa multivariata che analizza e riunisce in cluster i territori italiani in base alle dinamiche socioeconomiche. Il risultato di questa analisi permette di suddividere il territorio in archetipi e di strutturare un quadro di riferimento che supporti la definizione di scenari futuri per la rigenerazione delle piccole aree urbane, considerando le esigenze e le potenzialità diversificate di ogni singolo borgo.

EVALUATING THE ETHICAL AND SOCIETAL IMPACTS OF MODELLING PANDEMIC CRISES: EXPERIENCES FROM A WORKSHOP

This paper describes a hybrid (virtual and online) workshop held as part of the EU STAMINA project that aimed to engage project partners to explore ethics and simulation modelling in the context of pandemic preparedness and response. The purpose of the workshop was to consider how the model's design and use in specific pandemic decision-making contexts could have broader implications for issues like transparency, explainability, representativeness, bias, trust, equality, and social injustices. Its outputs will be used as evidence to produce a series of measures that could help mitigate ethical harms and support the greater possible benefit from the use of the models. These include recommendations for policy, data-gathering, training, potential protocols to support end-user engagement, as well as guidelines for designing and using simulation models for pandemic decision-making. This paper presents the methodological approaches taken when designing the workshop, practical concerns raised, initial insights gained, and considers future steps. © SW 2023.All rights reserved

From Asymptomatics to Zombies: Visualization-Based Education of Disease Modeling for Children

Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, visualizations became commonplace in public communications to help people make sense of the world and the reasons behind government-imposed restrictions. Though the adult population were the main target of these messages, children were affected by restrictions through not being able to see friends and virtual schooling. However, through these daily models and visualizations, the pandemic response provided a way for children to understand what data scientists really do and provided new routes for engagement with STEM subjects. In this paper, we describe the development of an interactive and accessible visualization tool to be used in workshops for children to explain computational modeling of diseases, in particular COVID-19. We detail our design decisions based on approaches evidenced to be effective and engaging such as unplugged activities and interactivity. We share reflections and learnings from delivering these workshops to 140 children and assess their effectiveness. © 2023 Owner/Author.

Evolutionary game analysis of crowding risk control strategies during the COVID-19 Pandemic

To discuss the decision-making scheme of crowding risk management during the COVID-19 pandemic, this paper constructs an evolutionary game model based on the changes of pedestrian and government strategies, and simulates the strategy selection under different states. The results show that under the condition of pedestrian rationality, when the difference between the benefits and costs of the government's active response strategy is less than the benefits of inaction, the government will choose the strategy of inaction. If the benefit of rational action is less than the additional benefit of irrational action, pedestrians will choose irrational action. By establishing the replication dynamic equations of governments and pedestrians, the stability strategy of the system is analyzed. It is found that the values of R1, R2, R3, R4, R5, C1, C2, C3, C4, C5, C6, C7 will affect the strategy choices of the players, and how to measure the benefits and costs under different circumstances becomes the key to the problem. These findings provide a theoretical basis for the risk control decision of human crowding during the COVID-19 epidemic. © 2023 SPIE.

A fuzzy sustainable model for COVID-19 medical waste supply chain network

The COVID-19 has placed pandemic modeling at the forefront of the whole world's public policymaking. Nonetheless, forecasting and modeling the COVID-19 medical waste with a detoxification center of the COVID-19 medical wastes remains a challenge. This work presents a Fuzzy Inference System to forecast the COVID-19 medical wastes. Then, people are divided into five categories are divided according to the symptoms of the disease into healthy people, suspicious, suspected of mild COVID-19, and suspicious of intense COVID-19. In this regard, a new fuzzy sustainable model for COVID-19 medical waste supply chain network for location and allocation decisions considering waste management is developed for the first time. The main purpose of this paper is to minimize supply chain costs, the environmental impact of medical waste, and to establish detoxification centers and control the social responsibility centers in the COVID-19 outbreak. To show the performance of the suggested model, sensitivity analysis is performed on important parameters. A real case study in Iran/Tehran is suggested to validate the proposed model. Classifying people into different groups, considering sustainability in COVID 19 medical waste supply chain network and examining new artificial intelligence methods based on TS and GOA algorithms are among the contributions of this paper. Results show that the decision-makers should use an FIS to forecast COVID-19 medical waste and employ a detoxification center of the COVID-19 medical wastes to reduce outbreaks of this pandemic. © 2023, Crown.

Public health decisions in the COVID-19 pandemic require more than 'follow the science'

Although empirical evidence may provide a much desired sense of certainty amidst a pandemic characterised by uncertainty, the vast gamut of available COVID-19 data, including misinformation, has instead increased confusion and distrust in authorities' decisions. One key lesson we have been gradually learning from the COVID-19 pandemic is that the availability of empirical data and scientific evidence alone do not automatically lead to good decisions. Good decision-making in public health policy, this paper argues, does depend on the availability of reliable data and rigorous analyses, but depends above all on sound ethical reasoning that ascribes value and normative judgement to empirical facts. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved)

Perceptions and Intentions around Uptake of the COVID-19 Vaccination among Older People: A Mixed-Methods Study in Phuket Province, Thailand.

BACKGROUND: A 70% vaccination rate against COVID-19 in the general population was required for re-opening Phuket tourist industry. However, prior to this research, 39.61% of older people remained unvaccinated. This study aimed to examine perceptions and intentions around COVID-19 vaccination amongst older people and to explore the reasons and factors influencing their decisions to receive or refuse vaccination. METHODS: This was a mixed-methods approach with a sequential explanatory design. We conducted an online survey and semi-structured qualitative interview with a subsample. Multinomial logistic regression was applied and thematic content analysis was conducted. RESULTS: 92.4% of participants reported intention to receive the vaccine. Multinomial regression analysis revealed that perceived barriers (AdjOR = 0.032; 95% CI: 0.17-0.59), perceived benefit (AdjOR = 2.65; 95% CI: 1.49-4.71), good health (AdjOR = 3.51; 95% CI: 1.01-12.12) and health not good (AdjOR = 0.10; 95% CI: 0.02-0.49) were predictors of vaccine uptake. In the qualitative interviews, four key influences on up-take for the 28 vaccinated participants were: prevention and protection, convenience, fear of death from COVID-19, and trust in the vaccine. Four key influences on refusal of vaccination in the eight unvaccinated participants were: rarely leaving the house, fear of vaccine side-effects, fear of death after getting the vaccine, and not enough information for decision-making. CONCLUSION: Intervention and campaigns addressing COVID-19 vaccination should employ strategies, including the widespread use of social and other popular media to increase older people's perceived benefit of vaccination on their current and future health status, while decreasing perceived barriers to receiving the vaccine.

Anticipatory prescribing in community end-of-life care: systematic review and narrative synthesis of the evidence since 2017.

BACKGROUND: The anticipatory prescribing of injectable medications is recommended practice in controlling distressing symptoms in the last days of life. A 2017 systematic review found practice and guidance was based on inadequate evidence. Since then, there has been considerable additional research, warranting a new review. AIM: To review the evidence published since 2017 concerning anticipatory prescribing of injectable medications for adults at the end-of-life in the community, to inform practice and guidance. DESIGN: Systematic review and narrative synthesis. METHODS: Nine literature databases were searched from May 2017 to March 2022, alongside reference, citation and journal hand-searches. Gough's Weight of Evidence framework was used to appraise included studies. RESULTS: Twenty-eight papers were included in the synthesis. Evidence published since 2017 shows that standardised prescribing of four medications for anticipated symptoms is commonplace in the UK; evidence of practices in other countries is limited. There is limited data on how often medications are administered in the community. Prescriptions are 'accepted' by family caregivers despite inadequate explanations and they generally appreciate having access to medications. Robust evidence of the clinical and cost-effectiveness of anticipatory prescribing remains absent. CONCLUSION: The evidence underpinning anticipatory prescribing practice and policy remains based primarily on healthcare professionals' perceptions that the intervention is reassuring, provides effective, timely symptom relief in the community and prevents crisis hospital admissions. There is still inadequate evidence regarding optimal medications and dose ranges, and the effectiveness of these prescriptions. Patient and family caregiver experiences of anticipatory prescriptions warrant urgent investigation. PROSPERO REGISTRATION: CRD42016052108.

Managing DNACPR Recommendations in Residential Care: Towards Improved Training for Social Care and Capacity Professionals

The use of 'Do Not Attempt Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation' (DNACPR) recommendations has come under scrutiny during the COVID-19 pandemic, and the Care Quality Commission (CQC) has issued a call for new standards, guidance and training. One group for whom new training is required is 'capacity professionals' working in and with residential care facilities. These professionals (including Independent Mental Capacity Advocates and Best Interests Assessors) typically have a social work background and have specialist training regarding the 2005 Mental Capacity Act, the provisions of which have a direct relevance to DNACPR recommendations. We report on a survey and focus groups that probed the experiences of this professional group during the pandemic. We recruited 262 participants by approaching civil society organisations in which capacity professionals are well represented;twenty-two participated in follow-on focus groups. We used manifest content analysis and descriptive statistics to analyse the results. Our findings contribute to an emerging picture of what transpired in residential care homes during the first year of the pandemic and help to provide an empirical and normative basis for the development of the new guidance and training for which the CQC has called. The use of 'Do Not Attempt Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation' (DNACPR) recommendations during the COVID-19 pandemic has been a topic of continuing interest and concern. We report on the experiences of a distinctive group of professionals who worked in and with residential care homes during the pandemic. The results contribute to an emerging picture of what happened in care homes during the first year of the pandemic and help provide an empirical and normative basis for the development of the new guidance and training for which the Care Quality Commission has called. Participants reported on blanket applications of DNACPRs, failure of adequate consultation, inadequate or inadequately documented grounds for DNACPR recommendations, and reliance on DNACPR recommendations beyond their designated use. We identify five areas in need of clarification in relation to existing guidance and training and recommend modifications to the procedures used to record and review DNACPR recommendations.

Decision-making to limit epidemics spread based on fuzzy-soft and topological spaces

Real-world applications process enormous amounts of data, especially in the area of large-dimension features. This work aims to present new classes of functions based on SM*-open sets that are a modification of simply open sets;namely, SM*-continuous, SM*-irresolute, proper continuous, SM*-open, SM*-closed, strongly SM*-irresolute, Pre SM*-irresolute, Pre SM*-open, super SM*-open and completely irresolute. The idea of fuzzy soft multifunction between fuzzy soft topological spaces, developed by Metin, is frequently used. Our current research project uses our suggested idea to introduce coronavirus application and infer the most important causal symptoms of coronavirus patients. Furthermore, we created an algorithm to demonstrate the applicability of our proposed technique based on the presented concept. Additionally, the results obtained using MATLAB programming. Finally, realistic WHO-compliant results were achieved for the most serious symptoms of coronavirus patients, as well as a suggested strategy that is competitive. Therefore, decision-making in the future needs to consider our suggestion. In order to promote the long-term wellbeing of both nature and humanity. Our proposed approach is reasonable and effective. The results showed that the methodology we used was reliable as it was consistent with World Health Organization publications.

COVID-19 and the Indoor Environment - observations from a joint National Academies of Engineering seminar series

The SARS-CoV-2 virus and its variants and COVID-19 disease have affected every aspect of society. The US National Academy of Sciences has been providing scientific insights and advice to aid policymakers and researchers in their quest to respond to the pandemic. Since 2020, it has produced numerous reports and workshop proceedings intended to integrate science into national preparedness and response decision-making, to explore lessons learned and best practices from previous preparedness and response efforts, and to consider strategies for addressing misinformation (NASEM, 2021). Among these was a 2021 symposium series that analyzed engineering's role in catalyzing COVID-19 response, recovery, and resilience, examining topics including the mitigation of exposure in public transit systems, engineering solutions to managing pathogens indoors, and the factors influence the transmission of infectious diseases in cities. Speaker presentations addressing these indoor environment topics are summarized here. © 2022 17th International Conference on Indoor Air Quality and Climate, INDOOR AIR 2022. All rights reserved.

Impact of COVID-19 Pandemic on Treatment Decisions of Patients Treated by Hematologists in Saudi Arabia

BACKGROUND: As on March 12, 2020, the WHO declared COVID-19 as a global pandemic. Its rapid spread has posed major challenges to the management of health-care systems. Patients with hematological disorders, being immunocompromised in more ways than one, face a lot of challenges. Most of these patients require frequent visits to health-care facilities for transfusion support, infusions, surveillance, and follow-ups, which increase the risk of exposure and hence infection with severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2. AIM: We assessed the impact of the pandemic on the decisions of hematologists in Saudi Arabia. Method(s): An online survey was done through questionnaires, to understand the decisions and course of clinical treatments taken. 45 hematologist answered 20-questions structured questionnaires through online link. RESULT(S): The majority of hematologist have used virtual clinics in managing patients and have delayed or canceled well visits. Although some hematologist delayed treatment in stable patients like autologous stem cell transplantation for myeloma patients, the majority did not delay induction or consolidation therapies for patients with leukemia with curative intent plans. CONCLUSION(S): The crisis brought along with it challenges and opportunities to improve patient care through research and clinical practice. Telemedicine was sought for supporting outpatients. Malignancies were taken care of, with due precautions. Observations of decisions of hematologists resulted in the patients still being closely followed up and urgent treatments being attended to. The hematologists expressed satisfaction with the use of telemedicine. Online consultations and monitoring of patients could probably be taken as an alternative resource in such situations.Copyright © 2023 Journal of Applied Hematology Published by Wolters Kluwer - Medknow.

The social representation and social action effect of critical issues: autonomic system and self-report measures

By combining words and images that impact emotions and generate empathetic storytelling, advertising (ADV) has evolved into a form of communication for promoting consumer awareness, positive social change, and ADV-related decisional processes, even on topics of high-social relevance such as crisis communication. This study explored consumers' emotional and cognitive responses to crisis-related ADVs using implicit (autonomic) and explicit (self-report) measurements. Nineteen participants watched twelve high-impact social communications about Covid-19, personal health, safety, and prosociality, while autonomic and self-report data were collected. Personal health, safety, and prosociality had higher skin conductance than Covid-19 stimuli, indicating higher arousal and engagement. Personal health reported lower heart rate variability values than Covid-19, suggesting greater emotional reactions for personal health topics, but also lesser mental load for Covid-19 stimuli. Self-report results confirmed autonomic findings. In conclusion, communications about personal health, safety, and prosociality generate higher emotional impact and allow for effective storytelling that facilitates viewer identification, developing a high level of empathy.

Disentangling prefectural similarities in the capital structure of Japanese SMEs through pairwise testing

We investigate the capital structure of small- and medium-sized enterprises in Japan during 2007-2019 to identify whether firm-specific determinants of leverage exhibit locational differences among Japanese prefectures. To do so, we propose a testing scheme that disentangles potential similarities across prefecture pairs. When we apply the proposed testing scheme by creating 1081 prefecture pairs, we find that the impact of the firm-specific determinants of leverage does not greatly differ between prefecture pairs in terms of both sign and magnitude in contrast to the significant difference found by conventional hypothesis testing. As a convenient tool for other geographical research, we also discuss that the proposed testing scheme is helpful for regional policy-making, specifically during period of external shocks, the latest of which could be regarded as the COVID-19 pandemic.

Vitamin D levels in hospice in-patients.

OBJECTIVE: Serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D was obtained alongside routine blood tests in all suitable patients admitted to the St Cuthbert's Hospice Inpatient Unit for a period of 12 months. Supplementation was offered to exclude vitamin D insufficiency or deficiency as a contributor to the complex pain and symptom profile of our patients. METHODS: During admission, and alongside routine blood tests, a serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D test was requested for suitable patients. Supplementation was offered to patients with serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D less than 50 nmol/L. RESULTS: This audit identified that 79.73% of patients assessed had a 25-hydroxyvitamin D level less than 50 nmol/L and were therefore insufficient or deficient in vitamin D. The results of the audit were discussed within the clinical team at the hospice and guidance changed to obtain serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D levels in all suitable patients. A reaudit highlighted that some patients were missed from testing and therefore reminders were sent to the clinical team. CONCLUSIONS: Most patients admitted to St Cuthbert's Hospice had either insufficient or deficient levels of vitamin D. It seems reasonable for all suitable palliative care patients to have their vitamin D level checked and to be started on a suitable dose of vitamin D replacement therapy.

Every penny counts: The effect of holistic-analytic thinking style on donation decisions in the times of COVID-19

This research explores how individual differences in holistic-analytic thinking style affect people's donation intentions and decisions. Specifically, we find that individuals with a more holistic thinking style are more likely to make donations compared to individuals with a less holistic thinking style, and the effect is mediated by the belief that every penny counts. In the first two studies, we examine the impact of cognitive style on donation for a Covid-19-related cause. This context is important because ensuring that individual donors believe their contributions matter is crucial when raising donations for a cause that impacts a large number of beneficiaries, such as fighting Covid-19. We establish the underlying mechanism of the impact of cognitive style on donation intention and donation amount. A third study shows that our findings can be extended beyond the context of Covid-19 and generalized to other nonprofit projects. In conclusion, taking into account an individual-difference variable, such as holistic-analytic thinking style, is important to explain donation decisions and might be worth considering when designing and implementing social interventions, especially during pandemic situations like the one produced by Covid-19. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved)

Visual analysis of the trend of mental health changes among Chinese college students in the context of the normalisation of the new crown epidemic

Public health events are sudden, public in nature and have serious social hazards. The COVID-19 outbreak coincided with the Lunar New Year, which had a direct or indirect impact on all areas of society. Previous studies related to emergencies have found that a considerable number of college students lacked experience in dealing with emergencies, were not emotionally stable enough, lacked analysis and decision-making ability, were easily suggestible and acted more impulsively. Therefore, in this paper, based on the existing actual information, combined with the awareness and understanding of college students' mental health, and based on the existing research results, the Hopfield-mental health model is used as a theoretical basis to study the trend of changes in college students' mental health. The results of the study show that 83.21% of the people are more concerned about the situation of this new crown pneumonia epidemic and they think that the new crown epidemic has seriously affected their living habits;65.45% thought that this new crown pneumonia epidemic did not have any major impact on their school life. The five sources of psychological stress, including academic, employment, economic, interpersonal relationship and love, were calculated and analysed in the model, which showed that employment stress, academic stress and economic stress were the largest sources of psychological stress among college students in this new pneumonia epidemic, accounting for 89%, 81% and 93%, respectively. They were followed by interpersonal and romantic stress, with 31% and 52%, respectively. © 2022 Liping Zhang.