KICT's solution for monitoring massive infrastructures

A trailblazer for developing a new paradigm for structural monitoring

NATIONAL RESEARCH COUNCIL OF SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY

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IMAGE: COMPLEMENTARY DATA-FUSION FRAMEWORK USING MULTI-FIDELITY DATA view more 

CREDIT: KOREA INSTITUTE OF CIVIL ENGINEERING AND BUILDING TECHNOLOGY (KICT)

The Korea Institute of Civil Engineering and Building Technology (KICT) has announced the development of an effective structural monitoring technique to monitor massive infrastructures, such as long-span bridge. The method provides accurate and precise responses over whole structural system densely by fusing advantages of multi-fidelity data.

Rapid advances in sensing and information technologies have led to condition-based monitoring in civil and mechanical structural systems. The structural monitoring system plays a key role in condition-based monitoring to evaluate structural safety from responses measured by sensors. In other words, following method allows to examine the health of an existing structures, such as a long-span bridge. The structural monitoring system can enable early detection for an unsafe condition and enable proactive maintenance. As a result, it greatly reduces the inspection burden as well as maintenance costs. The prerequisite for the successful condition-based monitoring is to obtain accurate responses through the whole structural system. Especially in civil-infrastructures, high cost, and technical difficulty are some challenging issues.

In order to solve this problem, a research team in KICT, led by Dr. Seung-Seop Jin, has developed an effective as well as efficient data-fusion method for condition-based monitoring. With the following method, the complementary data-fusion for the point and distributed strain sensor is performed to combine their advantages in order to obtain the accurate strain distribution over whole infrastructures; thereby, responses can be estimated with high accuracy densely over whole infrastructures.

For structural response, the multi-fidelity data consists of point and distributed sensors, which have different fidelities. The point sensor provides high accurate and reproducible responses at discrete measurement positions (High-fidelity data, HF-data), while a distributed sensor utilizes the scattering-based or scanning sensing technique to obtain very dense responses using the quasi-continuous sensing (Low-fidelity data, LF-data). The LF data is relatively easy to acquire, so it is possible to produce large amounts of relatively inaccurate data for response trend over whole infrastructure. On the contrary, the HF data provides high accuracy; however, it is limited to acquire in terms of both time and technical limitations. Therefore, the limited amount of data is available and this can significantly impair the ability to diagnose structural conditions over whole infrastructures. Although they can be complemented each other, their complementary data-fusion has not been studied yet for the structural monitoring system. KICT firstly recognizes their potentials and developed the complementary data-fusion framework by exploiting a multi-fidelity modeling in Computational statistics and Geo-statistics. The basic concept of the developed method is to transfer knowledge of the abundant but potentially inaccurate LF-data (response trend) to enhance their accuracies by fusing the information from the HF-data (accuracy at some points).

The newly developed method was verified by a number of the numerical tests with other existing multi-fidelity data-fusion methods. In order to consider possible situations in real applications, the developed method was extensively evaluated through Monte Carlo simulations by varying the number and locations of multi-fidelity data with the noise. The results show that the prediction performance of the developed method is consistently superior to other existing methods. In both experiments, the relative percentages of accuracy (maximum absolute error) are improved up to 171.3% and 192 % to the existing methods.

The method is very versatile for structural monitoring, especially for massive infrastructures. The developed method is currently improved to make it more robust and efficient. For better generalized capability, the developed method requires flexible learning capability for extracting the information from both the HF-data and LF-data and fusing them. Such improvements include the following.

Dr. Jin said, "The rationale behind this improvement is similar to our decision-making in real life. We seek different options and combine them to make the best decision. Similar to our decision-making, we do not have high confidence on the unknown damages. In the current method, we have to utilize specific models and some parameters in these models. It should be noted that a best model and its parameters are case-dependent. Therefore, we pursue several options for flexible modeling. To deal with various conditions in infrastructures, we can adopt a flexible and self-learning framework such as optimal kernel learning for better data-fusion. This idea takes a step towards autonomous and efficient monitoring system for massive infrastructures."

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The Korea Institute of Civil Engineering and Building Technology (KICT) is a government sponsored research institute established to contribute to the development of Korea's construction industry and national economic growth by developing source and practical technology in the fields of construction and national land management.

This research project is funded by the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) grant funded by the Korea government (MSIT). (No. 2020R1C1C1009236). An article explaining the results of this research was published in Volume 157 of Mechanical Systems and Signal Processing, a renowned international journal in the ENGINEERING, MECHANICAL category (IF: 6.471, top 3.846% of JCR).

- Journal Paper

Jin et al. (2021), Combining point and distributed strain sensor for complementary data-fusion: A multi-fidelity approach, Mechanical Systems and Signal Processing, Vol. 157, 107725; https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ymssp.2021.107725

CAPTION

Basic concept of the developed method is to enhance the response trend from distributed sensor by fusing the accuracy from a few point sensors.

CREDIT

Korea Institute of Civil Engineering and Building Technology (KICT)

CAPTION

Experimental validation were performed with other methods (MFHKRG and MFKO). As a result, the developed method (MFGP-mapping(SE)) shows much lower maximum absolute error (MAE) than other method. More details can be found in the Journal paper in Mechanical Systems and Signal Processing (https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ymssp.2021.107725)

CREDIT

Korea Institute of Civil Engineering and Building Technology (KICT)

Social media and science show how ship's plastic cargo dispersed from Florida to Norway

UNIVERSITY OF PLYMOUTH

Research News

 

IMAGE: AN INK CARTRIDGE WASHED UP ON A BEACH IN CORNWALL AND RECOVERED BY THE LOST AT SEA PROJECT view more 

CREDIT: TRACEY WILLIAMS, LOST AT SEA PROJECT

A ship's container lost overboard in the North Atlantic has resulted in printer cartridges washing up everywhere from the coast of Florida to northern Norway, a new study has shown.

It has also resulted in the items weathering to form microplastics that are contaminated with a range of metals such as titanium, iron and copper.

The spillage is thought to have happened around 1,500 km east of New York, in January 2014, with the first beached cartridges reported along the coastline of the Azores in September the same year.

Since then, around 1,500 more have been reported on social media, with the greatest quantities along the coastlines of the UK and Ireland but also as far south as Cape Verde and north to the edge of the Arctic Circle.

The study was conducted by the University of Plymouth and the Lost at Sea Project, who have previously worked together on research suggesting LEGO bricks could survive in the ocean for up to 1,300 years.

For this new research, they combined sightings data reported by members of the public and oceanographic modelling tools to show how the cartridges reached their resting place.

Some were carried by the Azores and Canary currents around the North Atlantic Gyre, while others were transported northwards with the North Atlantic and Norwegian currents.

Writing in the journal Environmental Pollution, the researchers say the dates of first sightings suggested the cartridges travelled on average between 6 cm and 13 cm per second, demonstrating how quickly buoyant items can be dispersed across the oceans.

Through microscopic and X-ray fluorescence analyses, they also revealed a high degree of exterior weathering that resulted in the cartridge surfaces becoming chalky and brittle.

This has resulted in the formation of microplastics rich in titanium, the chemical fouling of interior ink foams by iron oxides, and, in some cases, the presence of an electronic chip containing copper, gold and brominated compounds.

Significantly, the study's authors say, the latter characteristic renders cartridges as electrical and electronic waste and means the finds are not governed by current, conventional regulations on plastic cargo lost at sea.

Lead author Dr Andrew Turner, Associate Professor (Reader) in Environmental Sciences at the University of Plymouth, said: "Cargo spillages are not common, but estimates suggest there could be several thousand containers lost at sea every year. They can cause harm to the seabed but, once ruptured, their contents can have an impact both where they are lost and - as shown in this study - much more widely. This research has also shown once again how plastics not designed to be exposed to nature can break down and become a source of microplastics in the environment. It also calls into question the relevance and robustness of current instruments and conventions that deal with plastic waste and its accidental loss at sea."

Tracey Williams, founder of the Cornwall-based Lost at Sea Project, added: "This study also highlights the potential usefulness of social media-led citizen science to marine research. Over many years, members of the public have helped us to show the amount of plastic in our seas and on our beaches. It is something people care passionately about and are committed to trying to solve."

CAPTION

A selection of the printer cartridges found along the coastlines of the North Atlantic and then analysed in laboratories at the University of Plymouth

CREDIT

Andrew Turner, University of Plymouth

Team builds better tool for assessing infant brain health

UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS AT URBANA-CHAMPAIGN, NEWS BUREAU

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IMAGE: BECKMAN INSTITUTE RESEARCHER RYAN LARSEN AND HIS COLLEAGUES HAVE DEVELOPED A NEW METHOD FOR ASSESSING METABOLITE LEVELS IN THE INFANT BRAIN. THEIR OPEN-ACCESS TOOL WILL HELP DOCTORS AND RESEARCHERS COMPARE... view more 

CREDIT: PHOTO BY FRED ZWICKY

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. -- Researchers have created a new, open-access tool that allows doctors and scientists to evaluate infant brain health by assessing the concentration of various chemical markers, called metabolites, in the brain. The tool compiled data from 140 infants to determine normal ranges for these metabolites.

Published in the journal NMR in Biomedicine, the study describes an easier and more reliable way to evaluate metabolite concentrations in the infant brain than was previously available, said study lead Ryan Larsen, a researcher at the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.

Metabolites play an important role in normal brain growth, development and function, said study co-author Dr. Ellen Grant, the director of the Fetal Neo-Natal Neuroimaging and Developmental Science Center at Boston Children's Hospital and a professor of radiology and of pediatrics at Harvard Medical School. High or low metabolite levels in the brain may be the first sign of problems with brain function or development.

"For example, we look at choline, which plays a role in building myelin, the sheath that allows electrical impulses to travel along neurons," Grant said. "Another metabolite, called NAA, is important to the healthy growth and proliferation of dendrites, the branches on neurons that receive signals from other neurons."

By measuring the concentration of key metabolites like these, researchers can spot some problems early - allowing interventions in time to prevent damage to the growing brain, she said.

Assessing metabolites in the brain normally involves proton magnetic resonance spectroscopy, a technology that uses an MRI not for visual imaging but to detect and identify specific molecules in the tissues of interest. The most common approach requires extensive imaging and detailed calculations of the amount of water inside and outside brain tissues to standardize these measures, a costly and time-consuming approach.

To address this difficulty, Grant and study co-author Borjan Gagoski, a radiology instructor at Boston Children's Hospital, used proton MRS to scan the brains of 140 infants at approximately one month and three months of age. In addition to using water as a reference, the team also compiled data from several key metabolites in their calculations. This allowed them to create a tool that makes use of standard values for several metabolites when assessing the concentration of any one metabolite in an infant's brain.

"What most everybody does is they look at a simple ratio between metabolite 1 and metabolite 2," Larsen said. "But if that ratio is low, does that mean that metabolite 1 is low or that metabolite 2 is high? It becomes a problem of interpretation."

Instead, the team painstakingly assessed relationships between seven key metabolites to build a database of normal values for each one at different time points, and to show how metabolite concentrations change in relation to one another as the infant's brain develops.

The tool the team developed offers a checklist of reference brain metabolites that users can select in different combinations to more clearly understand an individual infant's profile.

"Spectroscopy is really tough to do but when it's done in the right way, it can help us find out more about the brain," Gagoski said. "This approach has great potential because we can detect abnormalities and diseases before we can actually see anything on the structural scans. And it's really important to monitor brain health at this stage of life."

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This work is funded by Abbott through the Center for Nutrition, Learning, and Memory at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.

A video explaining how to use the new tool, "Introduction to a database of magnetic resonance spectroscopy results from infants scanned at Boston Children's Hospital," is available here.

The paper "Quantification of magnetic resonance spectroscopy data using a combined reference: Application in typically developing infants" is available from the U. of I. News Bureau.

Kratom use rare, but more common among people with opioid use disorder

Substance used by 0.7% of US population and 10.3% of people with opioid use disorder

NEW YORK UNIVERSITY

Research News

 

Less than one percent of people in the United States use kratom, a plant-based substance commonly used to manage pain and opioid withdrawal, according to a study published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine. However, the use of kratom--which is legal but carries the risk of addiction and harmful side effects--is more prevalent among people who use other drugs, particularly those with opioid use disorder.

Derived from a tree native to Southeast Asia, kratom can be taken as a pill, capsule, or extract, or brewed as a tea. It acts on the brain's opioid receptors; at low doses, kratom is a stimulant, while at higher doses, it can relieve pain. Some people report using kratom as a substitute for opioids in an effort to limit their opioid use and ameliorate withdrawal. Others use kratom recreationally for relaxation or to self-treat pain, anxiety, or depression.

Kratom is legal at the federal level and in most states, but safety concerns have led to multiple warnings from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the Drug Enforcement Administration identifying it as a "drug of concern." Long-term or frequent use can lead to dependence, and adverse events, ranging from mild to severe, have been reported. Kratom has been linked to thousands of poisonings and hundreds of deaths in the U.S., although most involve the use of other drugs, especially opioids.

"Few national studies have examined kratom use among the general population, and such studies can give us a better idea regarding who has been using the substance," said study author Joseph Palamar, PhD, MPH, an associate professor of population health at NYU Grossman School of Medicine and an affiliated researcher with the Center for Drug Use and HIV/HCV Research (CDUHR) at NYU School of Global Public Health.

Using the 2019 National Survey on Drug Use and Health, which captured data on 56,136 adolescents and adults in the U.S., Palamar examined how many people use kratom and what other substances they use. He found that an estimated 0.7 percent of adults and adolescents used kratom in the past year.

Kratom use was more prevalent among people who use other drugs, including cannabis, stimulants, and cocaine, and was particularly common among those who misuse prescription opioids, with 10.3 percent of people with opioid use disorder reporting kratom use.

Men, white people, and those with depression and serious mental illness were also more likely to report using kratom. Teens and adults over 50 were less likely to report use.

"This study adds to our understanding of kratom's prevalence and its connection to opioid misuse," said Palamar. "More research is needed to determine the substance's effectiveness in treating opioid withdrawal, and more research is needed to determine how safe this substance is when combined with other drugs."

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The research was supported by the National Institute on Drug Abuse, part of the National Institutes of Health (R01DA044207).

About CDUHR

The mission of the Center for Drug Use and HIV/HCV Research (CDUHR) is to end the HIV and HCV epidemics in drug using populations and their communities by conducting transdisciplinary research and disseminating its findings to inform programmatic, policy, and grass roots initiatives at the local, state, national, and global levels. CDUHR is a Core Center of Excellence funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (Grant #P30 DA011041). It is the first center for the socio-behavioral study of substance use and HIV in the United States and is located at the NYU School of Global Public Health. For more information, visit http://www.cduhr.org.

About NYU Langone Health

NYU Langone Health is a world-class, patient-centered, integrated academic medical center, known for its excellence in clinical care, research, and education. Included in the 260+ locations throughout the New York area are six inpatient locations: Tisch Hospital, its flagship acute-care facility in Manhattan; Rusk Rehabilitation, ranked as one of the top 10 rehabilitation programs in the country; NYU Langone Orthopedic Hospital, a dedicated inpatient orthopedic hospital in Manhattan with all musculoskeletal specialties ranked top 10 in the country; Hassenfeld Children's Hospital at NYU Langone, a comprehensive pediatric hospital, also in Manhattan, supporting a full array of children's health services; NYU Langone Hospital--Brooklyn, a full-service teaching hospital and level 1 trauma center located in Sunset Park, Brooklyn; and NYU Langone Hospital--Long Island, a full-service teaching hospital and level 1 trauma center located in Nassau County on Long Island. Also part of NYU Langone Health is the Laura and Isaac Perlmutter Cancer Center, a National Cancer Institute-designated comprehensive cancer center; NYU Grossman School of Medicine, which since 1841 has trained thousands of physicians and scientists who have helped to shape the course of medical history; and NYU Long Island School of Medicine. For more information, go to nyulangone.org, and interact with us on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Instagram.

About NYU School of Global Public Health

At the NYU School of Global Public Health (NYU GPH), we are preparing the next generation of public health pioneers with the critical thinking skills, acumen, and entrepreneurial approaches necessary to reinvent the public health paradigm. Devoted to employing a nontraditional, interdisciplinary model, NYU GPH aims to improve health worldwide through a unique blend of global public health studies, research, and practice. The School is located in the heart of New York City and extends to NYU's global network on six continents. Innovation is at the core of our ambitious approach, thinking and teaching. For more, visit: http://publichealth.nyu.edu/

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Treating dental pain with opioids linked to higher risk of overdose in patients & families

Study also shows certain patients have an even greater risk of overdose if they fill opioid prescriptions, and strengthens argument against use of opioids for most dental pain

MICHIGAN MEDICINE - UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN

Research News

 

When they go to the dentist to get a tooth pulled or another procedure, patients might not think that the prescription they receive to ease their pain could put them or their family at risk of an opioid overdose.

But a new study from the University of Michigan shows that overdose rates were two and a half times higher among patients who filled a prescription for an opioid medication after a dental procedure, compared with those who didn't fill such a prescription.

Overdose rates were also higher among the family members of such patients - possibly from misuse of the leftover pills.

The study is published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine by a team from the U-M Medical School and School of Dentistry. It used data from 8.5 million teen and adult patients who had dental procedures between 2011 and 2018, and whose care was covered by Medicaid or private dental insurance. Nearly 27% of these patients filled a prescription for an opioid such as hydrocodone or oxycodone.

The researchers identified 2,700 overdoses that occurred in the 90 days after a tooth extraction or 119 other dental procedures. That works out to about three overdoses for every 10,000 dental procedures. The rate was 5.8 per 10,000 among those who filled an opioid prescription within three days of their procedure, compared with 2.2 per 10,000 among those who didn't.

The researchers note that other data have shown that in 2016 alone, dentists wrote 11.4 million prescriptions for opioids. The new study's findings suggest that 1,700 overdoses a year could be happening because of dental opioid prescriptions.

Risks among family members

The study also used data from 3.5 million privately insured dental procedure patients to examine overdoses within 90 days in the patients' family members. The rate of overdose was 1.7 per 10,000 procedures in family members of privately insured patients who filled opioid prescriptions, compared with 1 per 10,000 procedures among those who didn't.

In the study, 400 family members of patients were treated for opioid overdoses in the 90-day period after the dental patient's procedure. In all, 42% of these overdoses were in the child of the patient who had a procedure, and another 25% were in a spouse; the rest were in parents and siblings.

Kao-Ping Chua, M.D., Ph.D., led the analysis. "Our paper shows that when patients fill dental opioid prescriptions, the risk of opioid overdose increases both for themselves and their family members," he says. "This underscores the importance of avoiding dental opioid prescribing when non-opioids like ibuprofen and acetaminophen are effective options for pain control, as is the case for the majority of dental procedures. Our finding of increased overdose risk in family members also shows the importance of emphasizing safe storage and disposal when prescribing opioids to dental patients."

Chua is a pediatrician at Michigan Medicine, a health care researcher at the Susan B. Meister Child Health Evaluation Research Center, and a member of the U-M Institute for Healthcare Policy and Innovation.

"To me, this is one of the most powerful truths we've unlocked in our 'big data' research on dental opioid prescribing," says senior author Romesh Nalliah, D.D.S., M.H.C.M. "That when a dentist, like me, prescribes an opioid to a patient I am putting their entire family at risk of overdose. Dentists should consider, if the family concerned was yours, would you take that risk?" Nalliah is associate dean for patient services at U-M School of Dentistry and a member of IHPI, and has led other research on dental opioid use.

The authors are part of the Michigan Opioid Prescribing Engagement Network (Michigan OPEN), which has developed guidelines for dentists and surgeons to reduce or eliminate the prescribing of opioids for many procedures and operations, while still providing effective pain relief. Michigan OPEN recommends that dentists avoid prescribing opioids for most dental procedures because non-opioids are just as effective for pain.

Groups at higher risk of overdose after receiving dental opioids

The study also identifies specific groups of dental patients who are at a higher risk of opioid overdose after receiving opioid prescriptions.

Those groups include patients with diagnosed mental health conditions and substance use disorders, and those with Medicaid health coverage.

This knowledge could help dentists and oral surgeons choose the pain treatment for their patients more carefully, and include a prescription for the overdose treatment naloxone if they prescribe opioids to someone with a higher risk of overdose.

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The study was funded by the Benter Foundation, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, U-M Precision Health, and the National Institute on Drug Abuse (DA048110). In addition to Chua and Nalliah, the study's authors are Brooke Kenney, M.P.H., and Michigan-OPEN co-directors Jennifer F. Waljee, M.D., M.S., and Chad M. Brummett, M.D., who are also members of IHP

THE FULLER BRUSH MAN

Expressing variety of emotions earns

entrepreneurs funding

WASHINGTON STATE UNIVERSITY

Research News

 

VANCOUVER, Wash. - Putting on a happy face might not be enough for entrepreneurs to win over potential investors.

Despite perceptions that entrepreneurs should always be positive about their ventures, a study led by a Washington State University researcher found that entrepreneurs whose facial expressions moved through a mix of happiness, anger and fear during funding pitches were more successful.

"Our findings show that there's a role for different emotions in pitches," said Ben Warnick, WSU assistant professor in WSU's Carson College of Business and lead author on the study published in the Journal of Business Venturing. "For example, an angry facial expression can convey how much you care about something, instead of just smiling, which on the extreme end can come off as insincere or overoptimistic. It's good to balance that out. There are different reasons for using different expressions."

While previous research--and advice for entrepreneurs--has focused on using happy or positive attitudes in pitches, Warnick and his co-authors looked at several emotions: happiness, anger, fear and sadness.

For the study, the researchers analyzed nearly 500 pitch videos from the online crowdfunding site, Kickstarter. They used facial analysis software to code the presenters' facial expressions for the four emotions as well as neutral expressions for every frame of each video. They measured the percentage of the pitch that the entrepreneurs expressed each emotion. Then, they compared the display of these emotional expressions with the ultimate success of the pitch by three measures: whether the entrepreneurs met their stated fundraising goal, total amount raised and how many people contributed.

The study showed that those who used a variety of three emotional expressions--happiness, anger and fear--had the most fundraising success. The only emotion that had a negative effect on funding was sadness.

In a qualitative analysis, the authors found that many successful entrepreneurs used different emotional expressions at different points in the pitch. For instance, many entrepreneurs would start their pitch in a happy way, introducing themselves and talking about how proud they are of their team. They would then use anger to talk about their determination or the problem they were trying to address. When the entrepreneurs talked about obstacles, the risk they were taking or need for resources, they would often use facial expressions conveying fear.

In contrast, people who expressed very little emotion on their faces did not do well in garnering funds even if the words they were saying were compelling. Entrepreneurs who stuck to just one emotion also did not do as well.

Yet there were limits to the use of emotion in pitches, even if it was varied.

"There's a Goldilocks point where you can have too little or too much," said Warnick. "Expressing happiness, anger and fear all promote funding up to a point. But if you express any one of these emotions too frequently, you're hurting your funding prospects."

This study only looked at the use of facial expressions. Warnick suggested that further research might look into other channels of expression or at the connection between what people actually feel and what they express, as the two don't always align.

"Some people might be very expressive, where what they're feeling on the inside shows quite readily to other people," said Warnick. "Others might be engaging in impression management, in other words, faking it."

Study: New York City nurses experienced anxiety, depression during first wave of COVID-19

Research highlights how hospitals can support nurses during public health crises to protect their mental health

NEW YORK UNIVERSITY

Research News

 

New York nurses caring for COVID-19 patients during the first wave of the pandemic experienced anxiety, depression, and illness--but steps their hospitals took to protect them and support from their coworkers helped buffer against the stressful conditions, according to a study led by researchers at NYU Rory Meyers College of Nursing.

"A critical part of the public health response to the COVID-19 pandemic should be supporting the mental health of our frontline workers. Our study demonstrates that institutional resources--such as supportive staff relationships, professional development, providing temporary housing, and access to personal protective equipment--were associated with lower levels of anxiety and depression among nurses," said Christine T. Kovner, RN, PhD, the Mathey Mezey Professor of Geriatric Nursing at NYU Meyers and the study's lead author.

The COVID-19 pandemic has strained health systems around the world. The public health crisis has subjected nurses--the largest group of healthcare professionals responding to the pandemic--and other frontline workers to situations of unparalleled stress, as routine roles and responsibilities were disrupted. Not only have nurses worked tirelessly to care for very ill patients, many of whom died, but they themselves have been at risk of exposure to a life-threatening disease and worry about bringing it home to their loved ones.

Research shows that nurses responding to disasters can experience anxiety and depression, but a variety of factors--both personal and in the workplace--can help nurses cope with, adapt to, and recover from stressful conditions. This study, published in Nursing Outlook, examined what factors helped nurses responding to COVID-19 thrive and what factors may have challenged their mental health.

Kovner and her colleagues surveyed 2,495 nurses across four hospitals in the New York City area that are part of NYU Langone Health. This study was conducted from May through July 2020, during the first wave of the pandemic.

Key findings include:

Anxiety and depression were common among nurses during COVID-19's first wave.

• Roughly 27 percent of nurses surveyed reported anxiety and 17 percent reported depression.
• The more that nurses cared for patients with COVID-19, the higher their depression and anxiety.
• Younger nurses were more likely to be anxious and depressed than were older nurses.
• Nurses working in intensive care units were more likely to be depressed than were those in other settings.

Workplace support protected nurses' wellbeing.

• When asked what helped the nurses to carry out their care of patients, the most common responses were coworker support (75 percent), followed by support from family and friends (58 percent).
• More than half of the respondents were assigned to a new unit as part of their hospital's response to the pandemic. Of those, 77 percent felt that they had received sufficient support from staff at the new unit.
• Less anxiety and depression were associated with more support in the workplace, better physician-nurse work relations, and access to hospital resources (e.g., adequate personal protective equipment, or PPE). Anxiety and depression were higher among those with more organizational constraints.

Nurses experienced COVID-19's impact not only at work, but in their personal and home lives as well.

• Thirteen percent of nurses reported having contracted COVID-19 and 24 percent had family or a close friend with the illness.
• Almost half of the nurses surveyed had to self-isolate and nearly one in five lived in temporary housing provided by the hospital.
• Conflict between work and home responsibilities was linked to higher levels of depression and anxiety; residing in temporary housing was linked to lower depression and anxiety.

Nurses valued professional development and training tailored to the pandemic.

• Training in the proper donning, doffing, and disposal of PPE was one of the top factors the majority of nurses identified as helping them care for patients with COVID-19.
• Having a sense of mastery at work was the most protective factor against depression and anxiety.
• Prior education and experience did not necessarily translate to a pandemic with a novel virus: 24 percent of nurses had prior experience with epidemics, and only 23 percent reported that their nursing education was helpful in caring for COVID-19 patients.

"Hospitals can play a role in building and sustaining resiliency in their workforces by understanding the triggers that contribute to stress, depression, and anxiety, and by developing resources to minimize these factors, particularly during crises," said Kovner.

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In addition to Kovner, study authors include Victoria H. Raveis of NYU College of Dentistry; Nancy Van Devanter, Gary Yu, and Kimberly Glassman of NYU Meyers; and Laura Jean Ridge of the University of Michigan School of Nursing. The research was supported by NYU Langone Health.

About NYU Rory Meyers College of Nursing (@NYUNursing)

NYU Rory Meyers College of Nursing is a global leader in nursing and health. Founded in 1932, the College offers B.S., M.S., DNP and Ph.D. degree programs providing the educational foundation to prepare the next generation of nursing leaders and researchers. NYU Meyers has several programs that are highly ranked by U.S. News & World Report and is among the top 10 nursing schools receiving NIH funding, thanks to its research mission and commitment to innovative approaches to health care worldwide.

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Show me your playlist and I'll tell you who you are

TEL-AVIV UNIVERSITY

Research News

According to the researchers, three songs from a playlist are enough to identify the person who chose the songs. Hence, companies like YouTube and Spotify can accumulate a great deal of information about their users based only on their musical preferences.

The study was led by Dr. Ori Leshman of the Jaime and Joan Constantiner School of Education at Tel Aviv University and Dr. Ron Hirschprung of the Department of Management and Industrial Engineering at Ariel University. The study was published in the journal Telematics and Informatics.

The study included about 150 young people (all undergraduate students), in 4 groups of about 35 people each. Participants were asked to identify group members based on only three songs from their favorite playlist. The variety of the students' musical preferences was wide and very diverse, including, for example, both old and new Israeli music (from Sasha Argov to Kaveret, Zohar Argov, Omer Adam and Hanan Ben Ari), classic rock and pop (from the Beatles and Pink Floyd to Beyonce and Ariana Grande), Israeli and international hip hop (from Kendrick Lamar and Eminem to Hadag Nahash and Tuna) and more. The analysis of the choices was carried out according to a mathematical model developed by the scholars.

The findings surprised even the researchers. The analysis of the data showed that the group members were able to identify the study participants according to their musical taste at a very high level of between 80 and 100%, even though the group members did not know each other well and had no prior knowledge of each other's musical preferences.

Dr. Leshman and Dr. Hirschprung explain: "Music can become a form of characterization, and even an identifier. It provides commercial companies like Google and Spotify with additional and more in-depth information about us as users of these platforms. In the digital world we live in today, these findings have far-reaching implications on privacy violations, especially since information about people can be inferred from a completely unexpected source, which is therefore lacking in protection against such violations. Visiting YouTube is perceived by the ordinary person as an innocuous act, but this study shows that it can reveal a lot about that person. On the other hand, this knowledge can be used as a bridge between people and perhaps in the future lead to the creation of new diagnostic methods and fascinating intervention programs that will make use of people's favorite music."

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This study was made available online in January 2021 ahead of final publication in issue in June 2021.

Socioeconomic deprivation modifies genetic influence on higher education

UPPSALA UNIVERSITY

Research News

A comprehensive study from Uppsala University demonstrates that socioeconomic deprivation modifies genetic effects on higher education and abstract reasoning. The paper illustrates how genes play a greater role in educational attainment in more socioeconomically deprived regions of the United Kingdom. The study was recently published in the American Journal of Psychiatry.

Education is an important factor in an individual's life and strongly linked to economic outcomes and quality of life. The likelihood of completing higher education is partly determined by genetic factors. Common genetic variants have previously been estimated to contribute 11-13% of the variance in whether an individual completes higher education. This heritability is an estimate of how much a trait is influenced by genes.

In the current study, scientists at Uppsala University assessed the heritability of higher educational attainment and performance on a verbal and numerical reasoning test. Heritability was compared across the socioeconomic spectrum in more than 350,000 participants in the UK Biobank cohort.

The researchers found that common genetic variants contributed 13% of the variance in the least socioeconomically deprived, but almost 26% in the most deprived. "We were surprised to find that the heritability was higher in participants from more socioeconomically deprived regions of the UK. This is the opposite of what previous twin studies have found," says the lead author of the study, Dr Mathias Rask-Andersen. This type of difference in heritability across the socioeconomic spectrum is likely to represent an interaction between genes and the environment, where socioeconomic deprivation modifies genetic effects.

Previous studies in the field have mainly been performed in small twin cohorts from the United States. According to Dr Rask-Andersen, the contrasting results of the current study indicate that national differences may influence genetic effects. For instance, differences in access to and quality of education across the socioeconomic spectrum may play an important role, as well as welfare support systems and healthcare.

The current study illustrates how the environment determines how an individual's genetic makeup is propagated. "More and more studies demonstrate that environmental factors influence genetic effects," explains Dr Åsa Johansson, group leader at the Department of Immunology, Genetics and Pathology at Uppsala University. "We have previously seen similar gene-environment interactions for other traits, such as body mass index, and it is likely that interactions also exist for many human diseases."

In the long run, gene-environment interactions offer an additional layer of information on the contribution of genetics to human traits and diseases. Identifying these interactions can potentially lead to more precise forms of interventions, not only for preventing and treating disease, but also for increasing the likelihood of successful educational outcomes.

The results from this study also have implications for notions of equality of outcome and opportunity. "The larger influence of genetic factors in more socioeconomically deprived regions could reflect greater challenges for higher education in these regions," says Dr Rask-Andersen. "Someone who is more vulnerable due to genetic factors would then face even greater challenges in a more socioeconomically deprived region."

How the study was conducted:

UK Biobank is a cross-sectional cohort of almost half a million UK residents aged 40-70 years old who were recruited in 2006-2010. Participants answered extensive questionnaires and were tested for abstract verbal and numerical reasoning. Educational attainment was determined from the self-reported professional qualifications of each participant. The level of socioeconomic deprivation for each participant was assessed from census data. Each participant was thus assigned a score for socioeconomic deprivation based on their place of residence. Each participant was genotyped and the effects of genetic variants on educational attainment and abstract reasoning were determined by association tests, providing an estimate of the effect of each genetic variant on educational attainment and abstract reasoning. The researchers divided the cohort into five quintiles based on socioeconomic deprivation and performed association tests in each quintile. The heritability in each quintile was then estimated by examining how much the genetic effects contributed to the outcomes. The researchers then compared heritabilities between quintiles.

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