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In Hong Kong, Indonesian migrant domestic workers (IMDWs) are forced to leave behind young children in their home country. Often spending the majority of their time in their employer's households, they must manage their limited personal time to maintain connections with their families back home. Many women IMDWs try to overcome distance limitations by performing transnational mothering using any available media to reach their children and to manage and witness their development. By using communication tools such as Internet-mediated calls for distance nurturing, they are able to keep up with their children's lives and monitor day-to-day developments. This research examines the role of communication technologies with an emphasis on the use of social media by women IMDWs in maintaining connections with their families back home. It examines the role social media plays in caregiving for women IMDWs, for whom the family and children's wellbeing back home are one of their most important concerns. This research incorporates netnography, which aims to understand online social interactions. The research was conducted from 2013 to 2019 physically in Hong Kong and through virtual channels. The findings indicate how social media is used as an emotional outlet by women IMDWs in Hong Kong, and how emotional care can be maintained to empower the migrant mothers. Social media and information and communication technology (ICT) have greatly improved channels of communication for IMDWs and created a new space of intimacy. Yet social media also has the possibility of creating tensions and anxiety for IMDWs. Keywords: Migrant, Mothers, Indonesia, Hong Kong, Netnography, Social Media, Introduction Migrant laborers and their activities in their host country cannot be separated from issues of gender. Migration is heavily gendered and most Indonesian migrant domestic workers (IMDWs) in Hong [...]

This special issue of the Journal of International Women's Studies gathers its articles from presentations delivered at the 2022 8th International Conference on Contemporary Social and Political Affairs on Society [...]

The building sector is a major player in the world’s contribution to climate change, partly due to its dependence on large quantities of materials. The circular economy model of material flow has been gaining attention in the past decade as it seeks to promote the use of construction, renovation, and demolition (CRD) waste as inputs for new buildings or other applications, which would result in the diversion of materials from landfills. Developing a system capable of handling such waste requires a comprehensive knowledge of the composition of the building stock materials. This information, however, is rarely available. Thus, this research is proposing a conceptual model to aid city planners when considering the existing built environment as a resource for new construction. The methodology followed by this review includes a thorough analysis of 82 articles on quantity takeoff methods in the Urban Mining (UM) and CRD Waste Management (WM) fields. These articles were analyzed by considering a framework of four layers, i.e., (i) the approach, (ii) the analysis method, (iii) the granularity, and (iv) the performance analysis. The comprehensive analysis of the literature has highlighted the fact that the existing quantity takeoff methods need to consider more in-depth attributes and that the works performed by using machine learning methods are very important in the path toward the direction of improving these methods. With this conceptual model, waste management planners can select the appropriate methodology based on the available input data, and the type of output that they are looking.

Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is the leading neurodegenerative pathology in aged individuals, but many questions remain on its pathogenesis, and a cure is still not available. Recent research efforts have generated measurements of multiple omics in individuals that were healthy or diagnosed with AD. Although machine learning approaches are well-suited to handle the complexity of omics data, the models typically lack interpretability. Additionally, while the genetic landscape of AD is somewhat more established, the proteomic landscape of the diseased brain is less well-understood. Here, we establish a deep learning method that takes advantage of an ensemble of autoencoders (AEs) — EnsembleOmicsAE–to reduce the complexity of proteomics data into a reduced space containing a small number of latent features. We combine brain proteomic data from 559 individuals across three AD cohorts and demonstrate that the ensemble autoencoder models generate stable latent features which are well-suited for downstream biological interpretation. We present an algorithm to calculate feature importance scores based on the iterative scrambling of individual input features (i.e., proteins) and show that the algorithm identifies signaling modules (AE signaling modules) that are significantly enriched in protein–protein interactions. The molecular drivers of AD identified within the AE signaling modules derived with EnsembleOmicsAE were missed by linear methods, including integrin signaling and cell adhesion. Finally, we characterize the relationship between the AE signaling modules and the age of death of the patients and identify a differential regulation of vimentin and MAPK signaling in younger compared with older AD patients.

Abstract Background Despite being a major advancement in modern medicine, vaccines face widespread hesitancy and refusal, posing challenges to immunization campaigns. The COVID-19 pandemic accentuated vaccine hesitancy, emphasizing the pivotal role of beliefs in efficacy and safety on vaccine acceptance rates. This study explores the influence of efficacy and safety perceptions on vaccine uptake in Italy during the pandemic. Methods We administered a 70-item questionnaire to a representative sample of 600 Italian speakers. Participants were tasked with assessing the perceived effectiveness and safety of each vaccine dose, along with providing reasons influencing their vaccination choices. Additionally, we conducted an experimental manipulation, exploring the effects of four framing messages that emphasized safety and/or efficacy on participants’ willingness to receive a hypothetical fourth vaccine dose. Furthermore, participants were asked about their level of trust in the scientific community and public authorities, as well as their use of different information channels for obtaining COVID-19-related information. Results Our study reveals a dynamic shift in vaccine efficacy and safety perceptions throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, potentially influencing vaccination compliance. Initially perceived as more effective than safe, this assessment reversed by the time of the third dose. Beliefs regarding safety, rather than efficacy, played a significant role in anticipating future vaccinations (e.g., the booster dose). Safety-focused messages positively affected vaccination intent, while efficacy-focused messages showed limited impact. We also observed a changing trend in reasons for vaccination, with a decline in infection-related reasons and an increase in social related ones. Furthermore, trust dynamics evolved differently for public authorities and the scientific community. Conclusions Vaccine perception is a dynamic process shaped by evolving factors like efficacy and safety perceptions, trust levels, and individual motivations. Our study sheds light on the complex dynamics that underlie the perception of vaccine safety and efficacy, and their impact on willingness to vaccinate. We discuss these results in light of bounded rationality, loss aversion and classic utility theory.

BackgroundProgrammed cell death ligand 1 (PD-L1) inhibitors have limited efficacy as monotherapy in patients with recurrent/metastatic (R/M) Human Papilloma Virus (HPV) oropharyngeal squamous cell carcinoma (OPSCC). A phase I study of the therapeutic HPV-16 DNA vaccine AMV002 in curatively treated patients with OPSCC demonstrated a measurable immune response against HPV while being associated with high safety and tolerability. This prospective phase Ib single centre pilot study aims to test the safety and tolerability of combined PD-L1 inhibitor, Durvalumab, with AMV002 in 12 patients with recurrent OPSCC.MethodsParticipants had evidence of R/M HPV-associated OPSCC. They received three intradermal administrations of AMV002 with Durvalumab followed by Durvalumab maintenance. Safety and tolerability data was the primary endpoint. The study was conducted with ethical approval (HREC/2018/QMS/47293) in Brisbane, Australia.FindingsThe most common adverse event (AE) related to vaccine administration was erythema at the injection site. There were no grade 3 or 4 vaccine related AEs. There was one presumed immune-related grade 3 elevation in lipase secondary to Durvalumab with no intervention required. No patient ceased study due to treatment-related AEs. At week 16, objective response rate was 8% (N=1) and disease control rate was 17% (N=2). At a median follow up of 25.6 (20.0-26.6) months there was one long term complete response while all other participants developed progressive disease. Of the 11 evaluated patients, 9, (82%) had E6 and/or E7-specific T cell responses to the vaccine.ConclusionThe combination of AMV002 therapeutic HPV-16 vaccine and Durvalumab was found to be safe and well tolerated with no increased safety signals generated. T cell responses to vaccine were observed but further work will be required to improve efficacy.

The mobile food record™ (mFR™) is a novel app that allows for the tracking of individual food waste and addresses the limitations of current methods to accurately quantify food waste. Extension educators may use data from the mFR™ to create educational initiatives for food waste prevention and education that may be implemented in settings such as schools and universities. The mFR is an innovative application that simplifies the process of collecting food-based data and accurately quantifying food waste for use in Extension.

Climate change and water security are among the grand challenges of the 21st century, but literacy on these matters among high-school students is often unsystematic and/or detached from the real world. This study aims to introduce the educational objectives, methods, and early results of “Water and Us”, a three-module initiative that can contribute to advancing water education in a warming climate by focusing on the natural and anthropogenic water cycle, climate change, and emerging water conflicts. The method of Water and Us revolves around storytelling to aid understanding and generate new knowledge, learning by doing, a flipped-classroom environment, and a constant link to examples from the real world (such as ongoing droughts across the world or seeds of conflict regarding transnational river basins). Water and Us was established in 2021–2022 and, during that school year, involved ≥200 students as part of a proof of concept to test the complete didactic approach using small-scale experiments. Results from ≥40 h of proof-of-concept events confirmed the effectiveness of this approach with respect to conveying the essential elements of the natural and anthropogenic water cycle, the most commonly recurring concepts related to climate change and water as well as the possible conflicts and solutions related to water scarcity in a warming climate. The Water and Us team remains interested in networking with colleagues and potential recipients to upscale and further develop this work.

Abstract Recently, crowdsourcing has been proposed as a tool for fighting misinformation online. Will internet users listen to crowdsourced fact-checking, and how? In this experiment we test how participants follow others’ opinions to evaluate the validity of a science-themed Facebook post and examine which factors mediate the use of this information. Participants observed a post presenting either scientific information or misinformation, along with a graphical summary of previous participants’ judgements. Even though most participants reported not having used information from previous raters, their responses were influenced by previous assessments. This happened regardless of whether prior judgements were accurate or misleading. Presenting crowdsourced fact-checking however did not translate into the blind copying of the majority response. Rather, participants tended to use this social information as a cue to guide their response, while also relying on individual evaluation and research for extra information. These results highlight the role of individual reasoning when evaluating online information, while pointing to the potential benefit of crowd-sourcing-based solutions in making online users more resilient to misinformation.