Future Campaigns Research Articles

Preventable Disease, the Case of Colorado: School District Demographics and Childhood Immunizations.

The objective of this study was to evaluate the impact of selected sociodemographic factors on childhood vaccination hesitancy and to define their role according to specific exemptions. This population-based cohort study utilized vaccination rate and sociodemographic data from 1st to 12th grade from 2017 to 2021 for all school districts in Colorado. Data included immunization status and exemptions for each vaccine, race, ethnicity, and free and reduced meal status. Data were evaluated through dimensional analysis and Generalized Linear Mixed Models. School districts with a higher representation of White students had lower immunization rates and use more personal exemptions while school districts with larger Hispanic populations and higher proportions of free and reduced lunches had higher vaccination rates and used more religious exemptions. Black and Pacific Islander populations had higher rates of incomplete vaccination records while Asian American population displayed increased vaccination compliance. Colorado is a robust example of how socioeconomic and cultural differences are important factors with a direct influence on vaccination rates. Future childhood vaccination campaigns and legislation should consider complex socioeconomic and cultural factors.

Identifying areas of archaeological potential in the Swiss Alps using satellite-derived time-series of snow cover estimates

The Alps have historically been crossed by populations moving between northern and southern Europe for various purposes. Testimonies of such human presence were long preserved from decomposition being covered and protected by perennial ice and snow. However, with ongoing climate change, large portion of these permanent snowed and frozen areas are being freed up exposing artifacts to rapid deterioration. Consequently, archaeologists are requiring new methods to monitor the cryosphere enabling them to efficiently identify potential areas of conservation and protection of archaeological remains. Herein, we used a 34-year satellite-derived time-series of snow cover estimates to identify potential zones for conservation of archaeological remains in the Valais alpine region (Switzerland). Findings suggest that over the considered analysis period (1984–2018), snow cover has declined of about 15% during the summer maximum melting season releasing a surface of approximately 45 km2 in the study area. Moreover, crossing snow probabilities with Topographic Position Index (TPI) and slope data allowed to compute an Archaeological Potential (AP) map to derive zones with high potential of current or imminent release of archaeological remains. Combining this map with density of wood artifacts found on the field in a test area showed that 92.5% are inside identified receding snow/ice areas. Results of this analysis demonstrate that the proposed methodology can be a valid approach to monitor snow/ice minimum extension and identify perennial snowed and iced fields with archaeological potential. It provides the basis for defining new archaeological protection areas, preventing the loss of threatened ancient organic remains and enhances future field research campaigns in mountainous regions.

The way forward to achieve high COVID-19 vaccination and revaccination coverage in a city amid a period of tranquility.

BackgroundAmid the current COVID-19 pandemic, there is an urgent need for both vaccination and revaccination (“boosting”). This study aims to identify factors associated with the intention to receive a booster dose of the coronavirus (COVID-19) vaccine among individuals vaccinated with two doses and characterize their profiles in Hong Kong, a city with a low COVID-19 incidence in the initial epidemic waves. Among the unvaccinated, vaccination intention is also explored and their profiles are investigated.MethodsFrom December 2021 - January 2022, an online survey was employed to recruit 856 Hong Kong residents aged 18 years or over from an established population-based cohort. Latent class analysis and multivariate logistic regression modeling approaches were used to characterize boosting intentions.ResultsOf 638 (74.5%) vaccinated among 856 eligible subjects, 42.2% intended to receive the booster dose. Four distinct profiles emerged with believers having the highest intention, followed by apathetics, fence-sitters and skeptics. Believers were older and more likely to have been vaccinated against influenza. Older age, smoking, experiencing no adverse effects from a previous COVID-19 vaccination, greater confidence in vaccines and collective responsibility, and fewer barriers in accessing vaccination services were associated with higher intentions to receive the booster dose. Of 218 unvaccinated, most were fence-sitters followed by apathetics, skeptics, and believers.ConclusionThis study foretells the booster intended uptake lagging initial vaccination across different age groups and can help refine the current or future booster vaccination campaign. Given the fourth COVID-19 vaccine dose may be offered to all adults, strategies for improving boosting uptake include policies targeting young adults, individuals who experienced adverse effects from previous doses, fence-sitters, apathetics, and the general public with low trust in the health authorities.

Comparing public knowledge around value of hand and respiratory hygiene, vaccination, and pre- and post-national COVID-19 lockdown in England

ObjectivesThe COVID-19 pandemic spotlighted the importance of infection prevention and control (IPC) measures. Existing literature focuses on healthcare professionals, whereas this article explores changes in public knowledge of IPC, where knowledge is comparably sparse. Study designNational surveys were conducted before (March 2020) and after (March 2021) the COVID-19 lockdown across England. MethodsA telephone survey of 1676 adults (2021) and a face-to-face survey of 2202 adults (2020) across England were conducted. Key demographics were representative of the population. Weighted logistic regression with composite Wald P-values was used to investigate knowledge change from 2020 to 2021. ResultsCompared with 2020, significantly more respondents correctly stated that infections can spread by shaking hands (86% post vs 79% pre; P < .001) and that microbes are transferred through touching surfaces (90% vs 80%; P < .001). More knew that hand gel is effective at removing microbes if water and soap are unavailable (94% vs 92%; P = .015); that when you cough, you may infect other people near you in a room (90% vs 80%; P < .001). Knowledge that vaccination protects others from infection also increased (63% post vs 50% pre; P < .001). There was also significant increase in those confident in their answers. ConclusionKnowledge of IPC measures was higher in 2021 than before the pandemic. Future public health hygiene campaigns should capitalise on this and emphasise that continuing hygiene behaviours, and vaccination can help prevent acquisition and illnesses with other non-COVID-19 infections, thus reducing the strain on the national health service.

Understanding the dynamic relation between wastewater SARS-CoV-2 signal and clinical metrics throughout the pandemic

Wastewater surveillance (WWS) of SARS-CoV-2 was proven to be a reliable and complementary tool for population-wide monitoring of COVID-19 disease incidence but was not as rigorously explored as an indicator for disease burden throughout the pandemic. Prior to global mass immunization campaigns and during the spread of the wildtype COVID-19 and the Alpha variant of concern (VOC), viral measurement of SARS-CoV-2 in wastewater was a leading indicator for both COVID-19 incidence and disease burden in communities. As the two-dose vaccination rates escalated during the spread of the Delta VOC in Jul. 2021 through Dec. 2021, relations weakened between wastewater signal and community COVID-19 disease incidence and maintained a strong relationship with clinical metrics indicative of disease burden (new hospital admissions, ICU admissions, and deaths). Further, with the onset of the vaccine-resistant Omicron BA.1 VOC in Dec. 2021 through Mar. 2022, wastewater again became a strong indicator of both disease incidence and burden during a period of limited natural immunization (no recent infection), vaccine escape, and waned vaccine effectiveness. Lastly, with the populations regaining enhanced natural and vaccination immunization shortly prior to the onset of the Omicron BA.2 VOC in mid-Mar 2022, wastewater is shown to be a strong indicator for both disease incidence and burden. Hospitalization-to-wastewater ratio is further shown to be a good indicator of VOC virulence when widespread clinical testing is limited. In the future, WWS is expected to show moderate indication of incidence and strong indication of disease burden in the community during future potential seasonal vaccination campaigns.

Examining the Prevailing Negative Sentiments Related to COVID-19 Vaccination: Unsupervised Deep Learning of Twitter Posts over a 16 Month Period.

Despite the demonstrated efficacy, safety, and availability of COVID-19 vaccines, efforts in global mass vaccination have been met with widespread scepticism and vaccine hesitancy or refusal. Understanding the reasons for the public’s negative opinions towards COVID-19 vaccination using Twitter may help make new headways in improving vaccine uptake. This study, therefore, examined the prevailing negative sentiments towards COVID-19 vaccination via the analysis of public twitter posts over a 16 month period. Original tweets (in English) from 1 April 2021 to 1 August 2022 were extracted. A bidirectional encoder representations from transformers (BERT)-based model was applied, and only negative sentiments tweets were selected. Topic modelling was used, followed by manual thematic analysis performed iteratively by the study investigators, with independent reviews of the topic labels and themes. A total of 4,448,314 tweets were analysed. The analysis generated six topics and three themes related to the prevailing negative sentiments towards COVID-19 vaccination. The themes could be broadly understood as either emotional reactions to perceived invidious policies or safety and effectiveness concerns related to the COVID-19 vaccines. The themes uncovered in the present infodemiology study fit well into the increasing vaccination model, and they highlight important public conversations to be had and potential avenues for future policy intervention and campaign efforts.

Reflectivity of Venus’s Dayside Disk During the 2020 Observation Campaign: Outcomes and Future Perspectives

We performed a unique Venus observation campaign to measure the disk brightness of Venus over a broad range of wavelengths in 2020 August and September. The primary goal of the campaign was to investigate the absorption properties of the unknown absorber in the clouds. The secondary goal was to extract a disk mean SO2 gas abundance, whose absorption spectral feature is entangled with that of the unknown absorber at ultraviolet wavelengths. A total of three spacecraft and six ground-based telescopes participated in this campaign, covering the 52–1700 nm wavelength range. After careful evaluation of the observational data, we focused on the data sets acquired by four facilities. We accomplished our primary goal by analyzing the reflectivity spectrum of the Venus disk over the 283–800 nm wavelengths. Considerable absorption is present in the 350–450 nm range, for which we retrieved the corresponding optical depth of the unknown absorber. The result shows the consistent wavelength dependence of the relative optical depth with that at low latitudes, during the Venus flyby by MESSENGER in 2007, which was expected because the overall disk reflectivity is dominated by low latitudes. Last, we summarize the experience that we obtained during this first campaign, which should enable us to accomplish our second goal in future campaigns.

Community Awareness of Assistance Dog Public Access Rights among Australian Adults

Assistance dogs fill a wide variety of disability assistance roles. In many jurisdictions, assistance dogs have the legal right to enter public places with their handlers, including those that are typically off-limits to pet animals. Unfortunately, unlawful denial of access to these places is common, which may be due to lack of understanding about these access rights. The aim of this exploratory study was to determine awareness of assistance dog public access rights among the general population of Australian adults. An online survey was completed by 328 Australian residents, only six of whom had ever lived with an assistance dog. Analyses were primarily descriptive. About half (51%) worked in an environment in which occasional encounters with an assistance dog and handler team would be possible, but most participants reported rarely or never encountering an assistance dog in their community or workplace. Nonetheless, awareness of assistance dog public access rights was generally high, with nearly all participants aware that ‘pet dog’ is not a synonym for assistance dog, and that assistance dogs have the legal right to access shopping centres and public transport. Awareness was lower for limitations on these access rights, such as gatekeepers’ (i.e., people who determine whether a person enters their premises) right to ask for evidence that the dog is an assistance dog, and the right to deny access to a dog that is not well-controlled. Women had significantly higher knowledge about this topic than men, and age was positively correlated with knowledge, but both had weak effect sizes. Future educational campaigns should aim to increase awareness of assistance dogs’ legal rights and obligations, to reduce the likelihood of unlawful access denials in the future.

Impact assessment of a provider-targeted national vaccine messaging campaign on human papillomavirus vaccination rates among US adolescent males

Initial uptake of the cancer-preventative human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine in the US was slow, especially among adolescent males. To address this, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) partnered with the Hager Sharp communications development company to launch a national campaign in 2015 to improve physician counseling and rebrand the vaccine as cancer prevention. In this study, we compared HPV vaccination rates among 13–17-year-old males before (2010–2014) and after (2015–2019) the CDC-Hager Sharp campaign using National Immunization Survey-Teen data to determine the potential impact of this campaign on improving vaccine uptake among adolescent males. Employing provider-verified vaccination data available for 49,644 males from 2010 to 2014 and 47,943 males from 2015 to 2019, we found that the adjusted prevalence ratios of 13–17-year-old males who initiated and completed the vaccine series increased approximately 5-fold between the 2010–2014 and 2015–2019 periods. Increases in post-campaign initiation/completion rates were greatest among respondents with mothers who were married or had attended college, respondents who lived in the Northeast or Midwest, and those from households with annual incomes > $75,000. Together, these data suggest that the campaign contributed to the observed increase in HPV vaccine uptake among adolescent males. Although sociodemographic disparities were identified, the greater improvement in vaccination rates observed among individuals with higher socio-demographic status may simply reflect their relatively poorer rates of initial vaccine uptake. Overall, the data suggest that provider-targeted campaigns can be a useful tool to boost vaccinations and should be considered for inclusion in future vaccination campaigns.

Comparison of hydrophobicity scales for predicting biophysical properties of antibodies.

While antibody-based therapeutics have grown to be one of the major classes of novel medicines, some antibody development candidates face significant challenges regarding expression levels, solubility, as well as stability and aggregation, under physiological and storage conditions. A major determinant of those properties is surface hydrophobicity, which promotes unspecific interactions and has repeatedly proven problematic in the development of novel antibody-based drugs. Multiple computational methods have been devised for in-silico prediction of antibody hydrophobicity, often using hydrophobicity scales to assign values to each amino acid. Those approaches are usually validated by their ability to rank potential therapeutic antibodies in terms of their experimental hydrophobicity. However, there is significant diversity both in the hydrophobicity scales and in the experimental methods, and consequently in the performance of in-silico methods to predict experimental results. In this work, we investigate hydrophobicity of monoclonal antibodies using hydrophobicity scales. We implement several scoring schemes based on the solvent-accessibility and the assigned hydrophobicity values, and compare the different scores and scales based on their ability to predict retention times from hydrophobic interaction chromatography. We provide an overview of the strengths and weaknesses of several commonly employed hydrophobicity scales, thereby improving the understanding of hydrophobicity in antibody development. Furthermore, we test several datasets, both publicly available and proprietary, and find that the diversity of the dataset affects the performance of hydrophobicity scores. We expect that this work will provide valuable guidelines for the optimization of biophysical properties in future drug discovery campaigns.

Tactics of resistance and post-conflict judicial independence

Scholars have found that nonviolent resistance is more effective than violence at promoting post-campaign democratization. We explore whether this relationship extends to judicial systems, specifically. Courts have been shown to be important for promoting and protecting economic development and political rights, yet they have been largely ignored in quantitative studies of post-conflict democratization. We posit that leaders who hold power after domestic unrest will be more inclined to use independent courts as a mechanism to prevent future campaigns–but they do so primarily when fearing a significant mobilization threat and when expecting legal action to be an acceptable channel for dispute resolution by dissidents. As such, we anticipate that levels of judicial independence are higher following nonviolent campaigns as compared to violent conflicts. Using quantitative data from violent and nonviolent campaigns globally, we find that judicial independence is indeed higher in the aftermath of nonviolent, as compared to violent, resistance campaigns. Furthermore, a campaign’s outcome does not matter; post-conflict judicial independence appears to be associated with tactics, not dissident success.

Barriers to and facilitators for making emergency calls – a qualitative interview study of stroke patients and witnesses

Background and objectivesEarly access to hospital for diagnosis and treatment is strongly recommended for patients with acute stroke. Unfortunately, prehospital delay frequently occurs. The aim of the current study was to gain in-depth insight into patient experience and behavior in the prehospital phase of a stroke. MethodsWe conducted qualitative interviews with a purposive sample of 11 patients and six witnesses within four weeks post stroke. The interviews were audio recorded, transcribed, and analyzed utilizing Systematic Text Condensation. ResultsThe material was classified according to two main categories each containing three subgroups. The first category contained the diversity of sudden changes that all participants noticed. The subgroups were confusing functional changes, distinct bodily changes and witnesses’ observations of abnormal behavior or signs. The second category was delaying and facilitating factors. To trivialize or deny stroke symptoms, or having a high threshold for contacting emergency services, led to time delay. Factors facilitating early contact were severe stroke symptoms, awareness of the consequences of stroke or a witness standing by when the stroke occurred. ConclusionsPrehospital delays involved interrelated elements: (1) Difficulties in recognition of a stroke when symptoms were mild, odd and/or puzzling; (2) Recognition of a stroke or need for medical assistance were facilitated by interaction/communication; (3) High threshold for calling emergency medical services, except when symptoms were severe. The findings may be helpful in planning future public stroke campaigns and in education and training programs for health personnel.

Effectiveness of a COVID-19 Vaccine Rollout in a Highly Affected American Indian Community, San Carlos Apache Tribe, December 2020-February 2021.

COVID-19 has disproportionately affected American Indian Tribes, including the San Carlos Apache Tribe, which resides on 1.8 million acres in Arizona and has 16 788 official members. High vaccination rates among American Indian/Alaska Native people in the United States have been reported, but information on how individual Tribes achieved these high rates is scarce. We describe the COVID-19 epidemiology and vaccine rollout in the San Carlos Apache Tribe using data extracted from electronic health records from the San Carlos Apache Healthcare Corporation (SCAHC). By mid-December 2020, 19% of the San Carlos Apache population had received a positive reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction test for SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. The Tribe prioritized for vaccination population groups with the highest risk for severe COVID-19 outcomes (eg, those aged ≥65 years, who had a 46% risk of hospitalization if infected vs 13% overall). SCAHC achieved high early COVID-19 vaccination rates in the San Carlos community relative to the state of Arizona (47.6 vs 25.2 doses per 100 population by February 27, 2021). These vaccination rates reflected several strategies that were implemented to achieve high COVID-19 vaccine access and uptake, including advance planning, departmental vaccine education sessions within SCAHC, radio and Facebook postings featuring Tribal leaders in the Apache language, and pop-up community vaccine clinics. The San Carlos Apache Tribe's vaccine rollout strategy was an early success story and may provide a model for future vaccination campaigns in other Tribal nations and rural communities in the United States.

Quantifying the impact of context on the quality of manual hate speech annotation

AbstractThe quality of annotations in manually annotated hate speech datasets is crucial for automatic hate speech detection. This contribution focuses on the positive effects of manually annotating online comments for hate speech within the context in which the comments occur. We quantify the impact of context availability by meticulously designing an experiment: Two annotation rounds are performed, one in-context and one out-of-context, on the same English YouTube data (more than 10,000 comments), by using the same annotation schema and platform, the same highly trained annotators, and quantifying annotation quality through inter-annotator agreement. Our results show that the presence of context has a significant positive impact on the quality of the manual annotations. This positive impact is more noticeable among replies than among comments, although the former is harder to consistently annotate overall. Previous research reporting that out-of-context annotations favour assigning non-hate-speech labels is also corroborated, showing further that this tendency is especially present among comments inciting violence, a highly relevant category for hate speech research and society overall. We believe that this work will improve future annotation campaigns even beyond hate speech and motivate further research on the highly relevant questions of data annotation methodology in natural language processing, especially in the light of the current expansion of its scope of application.

COVID-19 Vaccine Effectiveness against Omicron Variant among Underage Subjects: The Veneto Region's Experience.

Even if most of the complications due to COVID-19 are observed in the elderly, in Italy the impact of COVID-19 among young people has not been negligible. Furthermore, their contribution to SARS-CoV-2 circulation is still unclear. These reasons have driven policy makers to involve subjects aged 5 to 17 years in the COVID-19 vaccination campaign. However, the trade-off of vaccinating this age-group should be further investigated, especially in view of the rise of new immunologically evasive variants of concern (VOCs). We used regional databases to retrospectively estimate vaccine effectiveness over time of each approved vaccination schedule among children (5–11) and adolescents (12–17). Our findings suggest that COVID-19 vaccines were highly effective and their protection levels lasted longer during a period of Delta variant predominance, whereas they offered just mild to moderate levels of protection—apparently affected by a rapid waning effect—in a period of Omicron variant predominance. Considering these results, it is plausible to evaluate a reformulation of possible future COVID-19 vaccination campaigns among underage subjects. However, effectiveness against serious complications due to COVID-19, as well as indirect benefits of underage vaccinations, should first be addressed. Furthermore, vaccine effectiveness should be kept monitored, as new VOCs may arise, but also new adapted vaccines may start being administered.

The method for efficiently releasing samarium vapor to generate artificial plasma clouds in the ionosphere

Vaporized samarium (Sm) has been released in the ionosphere for artificially creating plasma clouds, which can tailor radio propagation of information systems. The titanium-boron (Ti-B) self-propagating high-temperature synthesis (SHS) reaction can be used to vaporize Sm for releasing in the ionosphere. In this paper, a one-dimensional Fourier combustion model of Sm vaporizing by Ti-B reaction is established, based on the principle of chemical reaction and heat conduction. The Gauss-Seidel iterative algorithm is used to numerically simulate the SHS process of titanium-boron-samarium (Ti-B-Sm) system. This study first investigates the impact of different green compact porosity and content of Sm on the temperature field distribution, stable temperature and wave rate of the combustion process. The calculation shows that the porosity has little effect on the stable combustion temperature. With the increase of porosity, the stable combustion temperature remains basically unchanged, while the combustion wave rate shows a downward trend. The amount of Sm has a significant negative effect on the stable combustion temperature and the combustion wave rate. The higher the amount of Sm is, the more quickly the stable combustion temperature and the combustion wave rate decrease. The theoretical result indicates that, Sm could not exceed 35 % for being heated and vaporized. And the porosity could not exceed 52 % for efficient vaporization of Sm and stability of combustion wave. Finally, taking the Ti-B-Sm system with 30 % Sm contents as an example, several experiments were carried out using green compacts with different porosity. The experiments show that the maximum temperature of the compact during the combustion process is very close when the porosity varies from 30 % to 45 %, about 2075 K, which is in agreement with the simulation. The combustion wave rate is distributed from 5 mm/s to 8 mm/s within the range of 30 % and 50 % of porosity. Finally, the combustion products are detected by diffraction of X-rays (XRD), scanning electron microscope (SEM) and energy dispersive spectrometer (EDS). It shows that the Ti-B-Sm compact with 30 % Sm content and porosity not exceeding 52 % can effectively vaporize Sm, and the vaporization efficiency of Sm is about 75 %. The results of this study provide guidance for payloads of future experimental campaigns in the ionosphere.

Evaluation of the High Altitude Lidar Observatory (HALO) methane retrievals during the summer 2019 ACT-America campaign

Abstract. The NASA Langley Research Center High Altitude Lidar Observatory (HALO) is a multi-functional and modular lidar developed to address the observational needs of NASA's weather, climate, carbon cycle, and atmospheric composition focus areas. HALO measures atmospheric H2O mixing ratios, CH4 mole fractions, and aerosol/cloud optical properties using the differential absorption lidar (DIAL) and high-spectral-resolution lidar (HSRL) techniques. In 2019 HALO participated in the NASA Atmospheric Carbon and Transport – America campaign on board the NASA C-130 to complement a suite of greenhouse gas in situ sensors and provide, for the first time, simultaneous measurements of column CH4 and aerosol/cloud profiles. HALO operated in 18 of 19 science flights where the DIAL and integrated path differential absorption (IPDA) lidar techniques at 1645 nm were used for column and multi-layer measurements of CH4 mole fractions, and the HSRL and backscatter techniques were used at 532 and 1064 nm, respectively, for retrievals of aerosol backscatter, extinction, depolarization, and mixing layer heights. In this paper we present HALO's measurement theory for the retrievals of column and multi-layer XCH4, retrieval accuracy, and precision including methods for bias correction and a comprehensive total column XCH4 validation comparison to in situ observations. Comparisons of HALO XCH4 to in situ-derived XCH4, collected during spiral ascents and descents, indicate a mean difference of 2.54 ppb and standard deviation (SD) of the differences of 16.66 ppb when employing 15 s along-track averaging (&lt;3 km). A high correlation coefficient of R=0.9058 was observed for the 11 in situ spiral comparisons. Column XCH4 measured by HALO over regional scales covered by the ACT-America campaign is compared against in situ CH4 measurements carried out within the planetary boundary layer (PBL) from both the C-130 and B200 aircraft. Favorable correlation between the in situ point measurements within the PBL and the remote column measurements from HALO elucidates the sensitivity of a column-integrating lidar to CH4 variability within the PBL, where surface fluxes dominate the signal. Novel capabilities for CH4 profiling in regions of clear air using the DIAL technique are presented and validated for the first time. Additionally, profiling of CH4 is used to apportion the PBL absorption from the total column and is compared to previously reported IPDA cloud slicing techniques that estimate PBL columns using strong echoes from fair weather cumulus. The analysis presented here points towards HALO's ability to retrieve accurate and precise CH4 columns with the prospects for future multi-layer profiling in support of future suborbital campaigns.

Effectiveness of Voter Education in Curbing Vote-Selling in the 2019 General Elections at Eti-Osa Local Government Area, Lagos

Vote-selling poses grave danger to any society and voter education is widely believed to be the panacea. This research evaluates the effectiveness of voter education in curbing vote-selling at Eti-Osa Local Government Area in the 2019 general elections. While some separate studies have been done on voter education and vote-selling, none was found that specifically evaluates the effectiveness of the former in curbing the latter. This is a gap this work seeks to fill. The three objectives of the study are to assess the level of voter education voters in Eti-Osa received before the 2019 general elections; to evaluate the appropriateness of the major channels used in communicating the voter education messages; and to ascertain whether voter education curbed vote-selling in Eti-Osa Local Government Area during the 2019 general elections. The Effect and Medium theories provide the theoretical framework for the work while questionnaires administered through multistage sampling technique and interview were the sources of gathering the relevant data. The findings reveal that the level of voter education in Eti-Osa was high and the major channel of voter education was fairly appropriate, though the mass media were not used. There is also a strong evidence that the voter education that was conducted curbed vote-selling to a large extent. Accordingly, it is recommended that the voter education efforts in the Local Government Area should be sustained in future elections; more channels of communication should be explored, while future voter education campaigns should also target politicians.

Analysis of the Association of Residents in Radiation Oncology Equity and Inclusion Subcommittee (ARRO EISC) Black History Month (BHM) Campaign: Moving Beyond Awareness

Background Social Media (SoMe) is an important tool to translate knowledge for Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (JEDI). It promotes collaborative discussions beyond traditional borders. We report on our experience with our second annual Association of Residents in Radiation Oncology (ARRO) Equity and Inclusion Subcommittee (EISC) Black History Month (BHM) campaign. We hypothesize that this social media awareness campaign will result in participation and engagement among radiation oncologists (ROs). Methods A one-month Twitter campaign was conducted by the ARRO EISC from February 4th to March 8th, 2022. We highlighted work of one historical Black RO weekly through a series of Tweets, video presentations, and engagement (replies, quote tweets, retweets, and likes). Main hashtags utilized included #BlackHistoryMonth and #EISC. Tweets were collected each week using NodeXL. Cross-sectional analysis provided engagement and demographic data. Results There were 59 unique tweets (22, 10, 8, 19, during weeks 1-4 respectively) including 33 original (14, 6, 5, 8) and 26 with quoted comments (8, 4, 3, 11). There were 18 replies (8, 2, 4, 4), 80 retweets (32, 18, 9, 21), and 311 likes (32, 18, 9, 21). There were 6,012 video views (3034, 844, 1099, 1035). For the weekly tweets, there were a total of 48,181 impressions (27224, 6227, 7280, 7450) and 1,201 engagements (448, 176, 184, 393). Among 64 total participants, 20 provided unique content (48, 18, 13, 25), with 45 trainees (including 37 RO Residents/Fellows and 6 medical students), 39 MD staff including 35 ROs and 3 oncology-related disciplines. Additional participants included 10 oncology allied healthcare professionals including 7 physicists, 18 organizations including institutions and specialty societies. The most online engagement was from RO residents (169, 40.4%), RO faculty (143, 34.2%), organizations (52, 12.4%), and others (32, 7.7%). Activity was highest on week 1 and the day of the original posts. There were more RO-related black history month tweets not related to our campaign, including cross-tweeting from our participants and partners. Discussion We showed sustained interest through an intentional social media campaign highlighting Black RO during BHM with an increase in number of participants, and high engagement using video presentations. Limitations included missing data from lack of hashtag use, inability to quantify reach outside Twitter, English language, and North America. Future campaigns can focus on greater coordination with Black ROs engaging in similar activities and focused planning leading to Black History Month. Social Media (SoMe) is an important tool to translate knowledge for Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (JEDI). It promotes collaborative discussions beyond traditional borders. We report on our experience with our second annual Association of Residents in Radiation Oncology (ARRO) Equity and Inclusion Subcommittee (EISC) Black History Month (BHM) campaign. We hypothesize that this social media awareness campaign will result in participation and engagement among radiation oncologists (ROs). A one-month Twitter campaign was conducted by the ARRO EISC from February 4th to March 8th, 2022. We highlighted work of one historical Black RO weekly through a series of Tweets, video presentations, and engagement (replies, quote tweets, retweets, and likes). Main hashtags utilized included #BlackHistoryMonth and #EISC. Tweets were collected each week using NodeXL. Cross-sectional analysis provided engagement and demographic data. There were 59 unique tweets (22, 10, 8, 19, during weeks 1-4 respectively) including 33 original (14, 6, 5, 8) and 26 with quoted comments (8, 4, 3, 11). There were 18 replies (8, 2, 4, 4), 80 retweets (32, 18, 9, 21), and 311 likes (32, 18, 9, 21). There were 6,012 video views (3034, 844, 1099, 1035). For the weekly tweets, there were a total of 48,181 impressions (27224, 6227, 7280, 7450) and 1,201 engagements (448, 176, 184, 393). Among 64 total participants, 20 provided unique content (48, 18, 13, 25), with 45 trainees (including 37 RO Residents/Fellows and 6 medical students), 39 MD staff including 35 ROs and 3 oncology-related disciplines. Additional participants included 10 oncology allied healthcare professionals including 7 physicists, 18 organizations including institutions and specialty societies. The most online engagement was from RO residents (169, 40.4%), RO faculty (143, 34.2%), organizations (52, 12.4%), and others (32, 7.7%). Activity was highest on week 1 and the day of the original posts. There were more RO-related black history month tweets not related to our campaign, including cross-tweeting from our participants and partners. We showed sustained interest through an intentional social media campaign highlighting Black RO during BHM with an increase in number of participants, and high engagement using video presentations. Limitations included missing data from lack of hashtag use, inability to quantify reach outside Twitter, English language, and North America. Future campaigns can focus on greater coordination with Black ROs engaging in similar activities and focused planning leading to Black History Month.

Two can play at that game: constraining the role of supernova and AGN feedback in dwarf galaxies with cosmological zoom-in simulations

ABSTRACT There is growing observational evidence for dwarf galaxies hosting active galactic nuclei (AGN), including hints of AGN-driven outflows in dwarfs. However, in the common theoretical model of galaxy formation, efficient supernova (SN) feedback is the tool of choice for regulating star formation in the low-mass regime. In this paper, we present a suite of high-resolution cosmological dwarf zoom-in simulations relaxing the assumption of strong SN feedback, with the goal to determine whether more moderate SN feedback in combination with an efficient AGN could be a suitable alternative. Importantly, we find that there are sufficient amounts of gas to power brief Eddington-limited accretion episodes in dwarfs. This leads to a variety of outcomes depending on the AGN accretion model: from no additional suppression to moderate regulation of star formation to catastrophic quenching. Efficient AGN can drive powerful outflows, depleting the gas reservoir of their hosts via ejective feedback and then maintaining a quiescent state through heating the circumgalactic medium. Moderate AGN outflows can be as efficient as the strong SN feedback commonly employed, leading to star formation regulation and H i gas masses in agreement with observations of field dwarfs. All efficient AGN set-ups are associated with overmassive black holes (BHs) compared to the (heavily extrapolated) observed BH mass–stellar mass scaling relations, with future direct observational constraints in this mass regime being crucially needed. Efficient AGN activity is mostly restricted to high redshifts, with hot, accelerated outflows and high X-ray luminosities being the clearest tell-tale signs for future observational campaigns.