Search results for "ICT"
showing 10 items of 7961 documents
Here and now: perceptions of Indian Ocean islanders on the climate change and migration nexus
2017
Empirical studies exploring the links between climate change and migration are increasing. Often, perceptions are not fully explored from the people most affected by the climate change and migration nexus. This article contributes to filling this gap by eliciting and analyzing perceptions regarding climate change and migration from an understudied population labelled as being amongst those most immediately and directly affected by climate change: Indian Ocean islanders. Open-ended, semi-structured interviews were conducted in two case study communities in Maldives (Kaafu Guraidhoo with 17 interviews and Raa Dhuvafaaru with 18 interviews) and two case study communities in Lakshadweep, India …
An appraisal of the fit of a cognitive behavioural model of headache in University students
2018
The aim of this study was to evaluate the fit of a cognitive behavioural model of headache in the population of University students, from Córdoba,Argentina. The direct and indirect contributions to pain intensity of control beliefs, beliefs and thoughts about pain and coping strategies weredetermined, as were the direct contributions of pain behaviours and disability. The sample was comprised of 382 students of both genders fromseveral Universities. Multiple instruments were administered to measure the variables proposed in the cognitive behavioural model of headachefollowed by a descriptive and exploratory analysis of the data. Structural equation modelling was used and revealed an accepta…
The spatial distribution of population exposure to outdoor air pollution in Valencia (Spain) and its association with a privation index
2013
Objetivo: Evaluar la variación espacial de la exposición a dióxido de nitrógeno (NO2) en la ciudad de Valencia y su relación con la privación socioeconómica y la edad. Métodos: La población por sección censal (SC) procede del Instituto Nacional de Estadística. Los niveles de NO2 se midieron en 100 puntos del área de estudio, mediante captadores pasivos, en tres campañas entre 2002 y 2004. Se utilizó regresión por usos del suelo (LUR) para obtener el mapa de los niveles de NO2. Las predicciones del LUR se compararon con las proporcionadas por: a) el captador más cercano de la red de vigilancia, b) el captador pasivo más cercano, c) el conjunto de captadores en un entorno y d) kriging. Se asi…
Use of ICT to support epidemiological surveillance on a community of university students during SARS-CoV-2 phase 3 pandemic
2021
Populations documenting to date low incidence rates of SARS-CoV-2 infection are immunologically susceptible and at high exposure risk of new COVID-19 outbreaks during phase 3 of the pandemic. Following the experience documented by other countries with regard to the use of Information Communication Technology (ICT) to counteract the current pandemic, Italy has implemented a contact tracing system based on a mobile application. In this work, we describe the proposal of a complementary ICT-based prototypal model of COVID-19 prevention and surveillance system, involving the university students as sentinels acting both in the academic community and the general population.
Inclusive fitness and sexual conflict: How population structure can modulate the battle of the sexes
2014
Competition over reproductive opportunities among members of one sex often harms the opposite sex, creating a conflict of interest between individual males and females. Recently, this battle of the sexes has become a paradigm in the study of intersexual coevolution. Here, we review recent theoretical and empirical advances suggesting that – as in any scenario of intraspecific competition – selfishness (competitiveness) can be influenced by the genetic relatedness of competitors. When competitors are positively related (e.g. siblings), an individual may refrain from harming its competitor(s) and their mate(s) because this can improve the focal individual's inclusive fitness. These findings r…
Mental States of Addiction
2015
An increasing number of studies have examined lay meanings of addiction. The purpose of this study was to explore whether a generalized conception of an addiction mind-set was evident in the beliefs of a sample of 1,062 Norwegian adults responding to an online survey. The respondents were given a rating task in the following form: “Addiction to [substance/behavior] is/represents [descriptive term].” For each of the nine different addictive behaviors (cocaine, cannabis, alcohol, gambling, smoking, amphetamine, sedatives, snus, and heroin), the respondents rated their endorsement of 11 descriptive terms (mental states): reduced self-determination, obsession, strong urge, strong appetite, stro…
Positive mood induction procedures for virtual environments designed for elderly people
2012
Positive emotions have a significant influence on mental and physical health. Their role in the elderly’s wellbeing has been established in numerous studies. It is therefore worthwhile to explore ways in which elderly people can increase the number of positive experiences in their daily lives. This paper describes two Virtual Environments (VEs) that were used as mood induction procedures (MIPs) for this population. In addition, the VEs’ efficacy at increasing joy and relaxation in elderly users is analyzed. The VEs contain exercises for generating positive-autobiographic memories, mindfulness and slow breathing rhythms. The total sample comprised 18 participants over 55 years old who used t…
Evidence from mtDNA RFLP analysis for the introduction of Fundulus heteroclitus to southwestern Spain
1996
Restriction analysis of mitochondrial DNA confirmed the taxonomic status of a southwestern Iberian Peninsula population of Fundulus heteroclitus and its probable origin in North America.
Population and Query Interface for a Content-Based Video Database
2002
In this paper we describe the first full implementation of a content-based indexing and retrieval system for MPEG-2 and MPEG-4 videos. We consider a video as a collection of spatiotemporal segments called video objects; each video object is a sequence of video object planes. A set of representative video object planes is used to index each video object. During the database population, the operator, using a semi-automatic outlining tool we developed, manually selects video objects and insert some semantical information. Low-level visual features like color, texture, motion and geometry are automatically computed. The system has been implemented on a commercial relational DBMS and is based on…
Cannabis and Psychosis: A Causal Association
2021
Nowadays, the use of cannabis is widespread around the world and THC content of confiscated cannabis has increased in the last years. This fact has raised some consequences, especially in the mental health of the people. Although there have existed some initial controversies about the relationship between cannabis and psychosis, at the present time there are some certainties of the causal association between them. Through the Bradford Hill postulates, we will try to demonstrate that cannabis produces psychosis. The strength of the association, the consistency along the studies, biological gradient, temporality, plausibility, coherence, experimentation, and analogies support the cause-effect…