Search

BackgroundThe COVID-19 pandemic has impacted people’s lives at unprecedented speed and scale, including how they eat and work, what they are concerned about, how much they move, and how much they can earn. Traditional surveys in the area of public health can be expensive and time-consuming, and they can rapidly become outdated. The analysis of big data sets (such as electronic patient records and surveillance systems) is very complex. Google Trends is an alternative approach that has been used in the past to analyze health behaviors; however, most existing studies on COVID-19 using these data examine a single issue or a limited geographic area. This paper explores Google Trends as a proxy for what people are thinking, needing, and planning in real time across the United States. ObjectiveWe aimed to use Google Trends to provide both insights into and potential indicators of important changes in information-seeking patterns during pandemics such as COVID-19. We asked four questions: (1) How has information seeking changed over time? (2) How does information seeking vary between regions and states? (3) Do states have particular and distinct patterns in information seeking? (4) Do search data correlate with—or precede—real-life events? MethodsWe analyzed searches on 38 terms related to COVID-19, falling into six themes: social and travel; care seeking; government programs; health programs; news and influence; and outlook and concerns. We generated data sets at the national level (covering January 1, 2016, to April 15, 2020) and state level (covering January 1 to April 15, 2020). Methods used include trend analysis of US search data; geographic analyses of the differences in search popularity across US states from March 1 to April 15, 2020; and principal component analysis to extract search patterns across states. ResultsThe data showed high demand for information, corresponding with increasing searches for coronavirus linked to news sources regardless of the ideological leaning of the news source. Changes in information seeking often occurred well in advance of action by the federal government. The popularity of searches for unemployment claims predicted the actual spike in weekly claims. The increase in searches for information on COVID-19 care was paralleled by a decrease in searches related to other health behaviors, such as urgent care, doctor’s appointments, health insurance, Medicare, and Medicaid. Finally, concerns varied across the country; some search terms were more popular in some regions than in others. ConclusionsCOVID-19 is unlikely to be the last pandemic faced by the United States. Our research holds important lessons for both state and federal governments in a fast-evolving situation that requires a finger on the pulse of public sentiment. We suggest strategic shifts for policy makers to improve the precision and effectiveness of non-pharmaceutical interventions and recommend the development of a real-time dashboard as a decision-making tool.

BACKGROUND To compare the pharmacological treatment of hypotension and orthostatic hypotension (OH) initiated based upon a blood pressure (BP) threshold, regardless of symptoms (TXT), to usual care pharmacological treatment of symptomatic hypotension (UC), during acute inpatient rehabilitation (AIR) following spinal cord injury (SCI). METHODS Block randomization, based on the neurological level of injury as: cervical lesions (C1–C8); high thoracic lesions (T1–T5), and low thoracic lesions (T6–T12), was used to determine responses to the primary question " was the therapy session affected by low BP or concern for low BP development? " Study participants and therapists were unaware of the group assignment. RESULTS A total of 66 participants enrolled; 25 (38%) in the TXT group, 29 (44%) in the UC group, and 12 (18%) withdrew. Responses to the primary question were recorded for 32 participants, 15 in the TXT, and 17 in the UC group. There was an average of 81 ± 51 therapy sessions/participant in the TXT and 60 ± 27 sessions/participant in the UC group. Of those therapy sessions, low BP or concerns for low BP affected an average of 9 ± 8 sessions/participant in the TXT group and 10 ± 12 sessions/participant in the UC group. Neither the total number of therapy sessions (P  = 0.16) nor group assignment (P  = 0.83) significantly predicted the number of sessions affected by low BP. CONCLUSIONS These data are not conclusive but indicate that the treatment of asymptomatic hypotension and OH does not increase time spent in therapy compared to UC treatment of symptomatic hypotension and OH in newly injured patients with SCI. CLINICAL TRIALS REGISTRATION #NCT02919917. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on the example of mainland China's online diffusion-proofing practices against Hong Kong's Anti-Extradition Bill Movement, we identify a platform-based tactic of diffusion-proofing. We argue that this tactic manifested the orchestration of top-down statist governance and bottom-up grassroots practices, as well as within-border and cross-border discursive dynamics. Facilitated by the technical affordances of social media platforms, a faction of netizens both from mainland China and Hong Kong followed the state and its agents online to co-construct discourses for preventing the potential spillover of the Movement to mainland China. We further suggest that this tactic was enabled by the hybridization of both technical logic and discursive logic. The platform affordances, especially different types of hashtags, allowed the state and its agents to practice digitally mediated discursive production, reacting to the momentum of the Movement. As a result, a discourse was constructed, which delegitimatized protest actions and ignited nationalistic sentiment for the purpose of diffusion-proofing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Studies on the "protest paradigm" have long explored how a society's mass media system frames the social movements occurring within that society. This study adopts a social movement diffusion perspective to sharpen the transborder dimension of the protest paradigm. Specifically, we introduce the concept of the "diffusion-proofing" protest paradigm, given that an understudied and undertheorized function of the protest paradigm is the prevention of the import of exogenous social movements. Taking the Hong Kong Anti-Extradition Law Amendment Bill Movement as an example, we investigate how mainland China's mass media acted to prevent movement diffusion. Four transborder components of the diffusion-proofing protest paradigm are proposed: reactions, attributions, consequences, and solutions. Through content analysis, we argue that by highlighting these transborder components, China's newspapers attributed the movement's rise to foreign intervention, emphasized the movement's negative effects on both Hong Kong and mainland China, and revealed the uncompromising nature of China's reaction and the urgency of cross-border cooperation for containing the movement and its diffusion. Further, we identify two modes of reporting: a mainly descriptive mode that relied on a local framework to depict the movement and its local context and an evaluative mode that emphasized the level of deviance and foreign intervention, thus amplifying the movement's transborder effects and the need to prevent its diffusion. Notably, the level of deviance acts as a mediating channel between the two modes, transforming the local framework into a transborder one. The diffusion-proofing protest paradigm is also found to vary across media types and periods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: To determine whether maribavir is effective at treating ganciclovir-resistant cytomegalovirus retinitis. Methods: Retrospective case report of a lung-transplant patient with bilateral cytomegalovirus retinitis documented with serum and aqueous humor studies and color fundus photographs. Results: A 72-year-old lung-transplant patient with active ganciclovir-resistant cytomegalovirus was treated with intravitreal foscarnet therapy in one eye. Retinitis developed in the contralateral eye and was managed with systemic maribavir alone. Active retinitis regressed in both the eye treated with intravitreal foscarnet and the uninjected eye. Conclusion: This patient's results suggest that systemic maribavir is an effective treatment for treatment-resistant cytomegalovirus retinitis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scholars have researched the 'wildness' or 'tameness' of public screens for staging image events. This study argues that in non-democratic contexts, public screens are not totally wild or tame but are constrained by institutional limits, straddling the tame and the wild. In networked public screens, activists should keep a careful balance between tameness and wildness, staging 'interactive' image events to conduct bottom–up social mobilization to pressure the local state while avoiding being perceived as a threat. Through a case study of environmental activism in China, we identified two interactive strategies that were organized around image events. One was a visible interaction through which activists manipulated the mediated visibility of environmental problems by constructing image events. The other was an invisible interplay through which states and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) engaged in closed-door negotiations to solve the problems exposed, without relinquishing the potential for social mobilization by constructing image events. These two forms of interactions, visible and invisible, form a circuit and are interconvertible in specific situations. With the shrinking of institutional space, invisible interaction is becoming the dominant mode of interaction with the state. The formation of such an interactive circuit has largely constrained the power of environmental images in social mobilization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The LauePt program is a popular and easy-to-use crystallography tool for indexing and simulating X-ray Laue patterns, but its previous versions lack search functions for recognizing Laue patterns taken from crystals with unknown orientations. To overcome this obstacle, a major upgrade of the program, called LauePt4, is presented with three robust search schemes implemented: (i) crystal rotation along a single diffraction vector, (ii) a look-up method to search for reflection pairs matching the interplanar angle of two selected diffraction spots, and (iii) a more efficient look-up scheme to search for reflection triplets matching three interplanar angles. Extensive tests show that all these schemes, together with the convenient graphical user interfaces and highly optimized computing algorithms, are reliable and powerful for recognizing and fitting Laue patterns of any crystal taken under any diffraction geometry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although much has been done to understand employee social media uses, our knowledge of how public social media affect information experiences during organisational socialisation is limited. Filling this gap, this study explores organisational newcomers' use of WeChat, the most popular public social media in China. Findings from interviews with organisational newcomers who primarily use WeChat for work suggest that they find useful official and unofficial information from their companies' WeChat public accounts, WeChat workgroups, and their coworkers' posts. Affordances of social media, such as persistence of information and visibility of content, enable distinctive experiences of information receiving and seeking for newcomers. Organisational newcomers obtain information that is otherwise not available in offline settings and seek information in unique ways, such as extracting information from chat histories. Observing conversations in WeChat groups and reading their coworkers' posts enables ambient awareness of their coworkers and companies, which facilitates organisational identification. Despite the information benefits, the participants also perceived paradoxes in their experience, struggling with whether they should always keep an eye on information from WeChat, being overwhelmed by too much irrelevant information, and being uncertain about which information strategies were appropriate. Implications of this study on research and practice are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the current digital era, crucial questions include whether and how nondemocratic regimes retain information control in the face of proliferating new communication technologies. The scholarship has long cited China as a prime example of how authoritarian regimes implement internet censorship. Echoing emergent studies that have called attention to the highly fragmented nature of China's censorship agencies, which operate at different government levels, this research addresses local censorship agencies and their practices. Combining participatory observations and in-depth interviews conducted in a district in H City, one of China's digital economy hubs, this research explores how the local censorship regime deploys soft forms of maintaining control over information. Based on an institutional approach, the findings show that the local censorship regime has adopted proactive strategies to build a reciprocal relationship with local news start-ups, forming a variant of 'contingent symbiosis'. The local censorship regime uses policy and economic stimulus to co-opt news start-ups, inducing them to distance themselves from politically sensitive issues and local negative news and boost local propaganda agendas. These internet organisations have attempted to sustain positive relationships with the local censorship regime to acquire government resources and patronage, which would ensure their stable operation and survival under stiff competition in a precarious institutional environment. This research further explains the conditions of fragmented governance and platformisation under which this contingent symbiosis forms and the routinised practices that sustain it. This relational governance is covert and brings new challenges to the free flow of information. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using an example of China's environmental data activism, this study explores the state–society interactive mode of socialization in the politics of open government data. Drawing on an interactionist approach, this study argues that in this intermediate situation, NGOs are relatively autonomous, organizing their campaigns and initiatives independently instead of partnering with the state. However, these two sides both spur and exploit each other, shaping an 'interactive field.' Data actors use the state's open data agenda as an opportunity to initiate spin-off data activism to counteract the deficiencies of data disclosure by the government. In response, state agencies adjust and enhance their data disclosure practices, thus performing reactive data governance. We identified several dynamics of this interactive field: (1) It involves multiple grassroots data actors in the form of NGOs that attempt to expand the autonomy of their data advocacy by forming activist networks to bargain with state bureaucracy. (2) The interactive strategies mainly involve tactics of 'rightful resistance' but are hybridized with other boundary-spanning strategies that straddle the demarcation of confrontation and non-confrontation. (3) Although the state and nonstate actors are not partnered, they exert mutual influence over each other's actions and strategies. The shrinking of institutional space has caused NGOs to reorganize interactive strategies. Our study also highlights the local geopolitical dynamics that condition such interactions: besides the inter-administrative dynamics that afford political opportunities, the trans-local advocacy network coordinates actors and resources to exercise data counterpower. Also, the selection of advocacy strategies is varied with targeted government agencies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives  The objective of this study is to elucidate the impact of income on short-term outcomes in a cerebellopontine angle (CPA) tumor resection population. Design  This is a retrospective regression analysis. Setting  This study was done at a single, multihospital, urban academic medical center. Participants  Over 6 years (from June 7, 2013, to April 24, 2019), 277 consecutive CPA tumor cases were reviewed. Main Outcome Measures  Outcomes studied included readmission, emergency department evaluation, unplanned return to surgery, return to surgery after index admission, and mortality. Univariate analysis was conducted among the entire population with significance set at a p -value <0.05. The population was divided into quartiles based on median household income and univariate analysis conducted between the lowest (quartile 1 [Q1]) and highest (quartile 4 [Q4]) socioeconomic quartiles, with significance set at a p -value <0.05. Stepwise regression was conducted to determine the correlations among study variables and to identify confounding factors. Results  Regression analysis of 273 patients demonstrated decreased rates of unplanned reoperation (p  = 0.015) and reoperation after index admission (p  = 0.035) at 30 days with higher standardized income. Logistic regression between the lowest (Q1) and highest (Q4) socioeconomic quartiles demonstrated decreased unplanned reoperation (p  = 0.045) and decreasing but not significant reoperation after index admission (p  = 0.15) for Q4 patients. No significant difference was observed for other metrics of morbidity and mortality. Conclusion  Higher socioeconomic status is associated with decreased risk of unplanned reoperation following CPA tumor resection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Suicide and depression among orthopaedic surgeons have recently emerged as rising concerns. Prior research has suggested that orthopaedic surgeons have the highest prevalence of suicide among surgical specialties. We sought to determine the factors associated with depression and suicidal ideation (SI) in orthopaedics, including subspecialty.Methods: A survey including demographic questions, the Beck Depression Inventory, and the Columbia-Suicide Severity Rating Scale was administered electronically via a listserv to the orthopaedic subspecialties of trauma, adult reconstruction, hand and upper extremity, shoulder and elbow, foot and ankle, spine, pediatrics, sports medicine, and oncology. The responses were quantified according to previously published criteria. The associations of demographic factors, training, and current practice environment with depression and suicidality were assessed using Fisher exact tests. Reverse stepwise multivariable logistic regression models were developed to identify factors associated with depression and SI.Results: The responses were obtained from 661 board-certified, practicing orthopaedic surgeons. In this study, 156 surgeons (23.6%) endorsed some level of active SI in their lifetime, 200 surgeons (30.3%) reported either active or passive SI in their lifetime, and 33 surgeons (5%) reported that, on at least 1 occasion in their lifetime, they had experienced active SI with a specific plan and intention to harm themselves. Gender, relationship status, having children, and residency and/or current practice region were significantly associated with depression and/or SI. Younger age, divorce, adult reconstruction and foot and ankle subspecialties, and attending residency in the Western U.S. were found on multivariable testing to be associated with symptoms of depression and SI (odds ratios, 1.03 [per 1-year decrease in age] to 8.28).Conclusions: Symptoms of depression and suicidality are not uncommon among orthopaedic surgeons, and variation by gender, relationship status, and geographic location are supported by prior research. Based on our results, depression and/or SI likely affect someone close to you or someone with whom you work. The normalization of discussions surrounding emotional well-being, depression, and SI is imperative. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is well documented that the interaction between many social factors can affect clinical outcomes. However, the independent effects of economics on outcomes following surgery are not well understood. The goal of this study is to investigate the role socioeconomic status has on postoperative outcomes in a cerebellopontine angle (CPA) tumor resection population. Over 6 years (07 June 2013 to 24 April 2019), 277 consecutive CPA tumor cases were reviewed at a single, multihospital academic medical center. Patient characteristics obtained included median household income, Charlson Comorbidity Index (CCI), race, BMI, tobacco use, amongst 23 others. Outcomes studied included readmission, ED evaluation, unplanned return to surgery (during and after index admission), return to surgery after index admission, and mortality within 90 days, in addition to reoperation and mortality throughout the entire follow-up period. Univariate analysis was conducted amongst the entire population with significance set at a p value <0.05. The population was divided into quartiles based on median household income and univariate analysis conducted between the lowest (Q1) and highest (Q4) socioeconomic quartiles, with significance set at a p value <0.05. Stepwise regression was conducted to determine the correlations amongst study variables and identify confounding factors. Regression analysis of 273 patients did not find household income to be associated with any of the long-term outcomes assessed. Similarly, a Q1 vs Q4 comparison did not yield significantly different odds of outcomes assessed. Although not statistically significant, the odds ratios suggest socioeconomic status may have a clinically significant effect on postsurgical outcomes. Further studies in larger, matched populations are necessary to validate these findings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study explores how a citizen-led environmental data initiative first emerged as bottom-up data activism and was then co-opted by a state-sponsored environmental campaign in China. This research employs the social movement institutionalization perspective to explore the interplay between environmental data activism and authoritarian political institutions. It investigates how grassroots activists contest and collaborate with institutional actors, thereby reshaping data activism tactics and strategies under a specific political opportunity structure. Our analysis demonstrates the institutionalization of data activism, which results in the coexistence of contention and collaboration between civil and institutional actors. This study is expected to advance the scholarship on data activism by highlighting the institutional environment within which data activism is shaped in a nondemocratic context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]