Contagious respiratory diseases, such as COVID-19, depend on sufficiently prolonged exposures for the successful transmission of the underlying pathogen. It is important that organizations evaluate the efficacy of non-pharmaceutical interventions aimed at mitigating viral transmission among their personnel. We have developed a operational risk assessment simulation framework that couples a spatial agent-based model of movement with an agent-based SIR model to assess the relative risks of different intervention strategies. By applying our model on MIT’s Stata center, we assess the impacts of three possible dimensions of intervention: one-way vs unrestricted movement, population size allowed onsite, and frequency of leaving designated work location for breaks. We find that there is no significant impact made by one-way movement restrictions over unrestricted movement. Instead, we find that reducing the frequency at which individuals leave their workstations combined with lowering the number of individuals admitted below the current recommendations lowers the likelihood of highly connected individuals within the contact networks that emerge, which in turn lowers the overall risk of infection. We discover three classes of possible interventions based on their epidemiological effects. By assuming a direct relationship between data on secondary attack rates and transmissibility in the agent-based SIR model, we compare relative infection risk of four respiratory illnesses, MERS, SARS, COVID-19, and Measles, within the simulated area, and recommend appropriate intervention guidelines.
Las controversias socio-científicas sobre las vacunas que han surgido en los últimos años en Chile muestran nuevas tensiones entre expertos y ciudadanía. Gran parte de los estudios que abordan estas problemáticas se centran en analizar a quienes rechazan la vacunación, pero no a otros actores relevantes de las controversias como son los expertos. A partir de un enfoque cualitativo, en este artículo se analizan los discursos, estrategias y prácticas comunicativas de los expertos en salud, buscando comprender su punto de vista respecto a quienes rechazan la vacunación. La investigación muestra que, si bien existe unanimidad sobre la relevancia de las vacunas como medida preventiva, hay diversidad entre las posiciones de los expertos frente a quienes son críticos con la vacunación. Esto se refleja en distintos modelos de comunicación pública de la ciencia y la tecnología, con una clara vigencia del modelo del déficit cognitivo y su perspectiva alfabetizador.
Meeting global sustainability targets under the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals and the Paris Agreement requires paying attention to major land-use sectors such as forestry and agriculture. These sectors play a large role in national emissions, biodiversity conservation, and human well-being. There are numerous possible pathways to sustainability in these sectors and potential synergies and trade-offs along those pathways. This paper reports on the use of a model for Canada’s land use to 2050 to assess three different pathways (one based on current trends and two with differing levels of ambition for meeting sustainability targets). This was done as part of a large international consortium, Food, Agriculture, Biodiversity, Land and Energy (FABLE), which allows for incorporating international trade in meeting both national and global sustainability targets. The results show not only the importance of increasingly stringent policies in meeting the targets, but also the role that population and consumption (e.g., diets) play in meeting the targets. Both the medium and high ambition sustainability pathways can drastically reduce greenhouse gas emissions while protecting forestland.
Supplementary Information
The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s11625-022-01213-z.
Este artículo aborda la cuestión del ciberactivismo feminista, centrándose en la experiencia del Observatorio Contra el Acoso Callejero (OCAC) en Chile entre los años 2014 y 2017. A partir de un análisis enfocado en su estrategia digital, el artículo explora sus efectos en tres ámbitos: la organización del colectivo, su identidad y su capacidad para instalar el tema de la violencia de género en la agenda pública siendo propulsor del proyecto de ley llamado “Respeto Callejero”. Se utilizaron diversas técnicas de estudio, como entrevistas con las participantes del movimiento y análisis de las métricas de Facebook y de palabras claves en medios tradicionales y digitales. Como parte de los resultados destaca el hecho de que antes del surgimiento de esta organización no existía en Chile cobertura mediática sobre acoso callejero y es, por tanto, la estrategia digital de posicionamiento y llamado a la acción que desarrolla el OCAC lo que provoca un cambio paulatino en estas materias, instalando el tema de la violencia de género en espacios públicos.
Purpose: The use of robot-assisted surgery for rectal cancer is increasing, but the pathological outcomes have not been fully clarified. We compared the surgical and pathological outcomes between robot-assisted and open surgery in specimens from patients operated on for rectal cancer. Methods: All patients who underwent resection for rectal cancer from 2016 to 2018 were included. Specimens were divided into 3 sections to analyze the pathology of the lymph nodes (LNs) (n = 137). Results: The total specimen lengths were shorter in the robot-assisted group than in the open surgery group (mean ± standard deviation: 29.1 ± 8.6 cm vs. 33.8 ± 9.9 cm, P = 0.004) because of a shorter proximal resection margin (21.7 ± 8.7 vs. 26.4 ± 10.6 cm, P = 0.006). The number of recruited LNs (35.8 ± 21.8 vs. 39.6 ± 16.5, P = 0.604) and arterial vessel length (8.84 ± 2.6 cm vs. 8.78 ± 2.4 cm, P = 0.891) did not differ significantly between the 2 surgical approaches. LN metastases were found in 33 of 137 samples (24.1%), but the numbers did not differ significantly between the procedures. Among these 33 cases, metastatic LNs were located in the mesorectum (75.8%), in the sigmoid colon mesentery (33.3%), and at the arterial ligation site of the inferior mesenteric artery (12.1%). The circumferential resection margin and the proportion of complete mesorectal fascia were comparable between the groups. Conclusion: There were no significant differences between the 2 surgical approaches regarding arterial vessel length, recruitment of LN metastases, and resection margins.
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