Simple Requests Research Articles

Approaches for integrating evidence of the effectiveness of actions in conservation funding to inspire more effective practice

Abstract In the midst of a biodiversity crisis, it is critical that commonly used interventions to protect wildlife and recover losses are effective and learnings are widely shared. It is acknowledged that considerable gains could be made for society and biodiversity if conservation practices build on existing evidence of effectiveness. While funders can have a positive effect on conservation by funding effective conservation actions, their potential role in changing common practice is less well acknowledged. We believe that those providing funds could have a significant impact on the use of evidence, and thus practice, by encouraging and demonstrating best practice. We represent 18 funder organisations that ask applicants to reflect on and present available evidence, when requesting financial support, to justify why they believe their suggested management actions are likely to be effective. We use a variety of approaches to encourage and ensure the integration of evidence and provide the details of those here to encourage adoption (and adaption) by other funders. They range from simple requests for evidence in application forms to substantial support in designing a project (potentially including testing an action where evidence is lacking), depending on the scale, length and topic of proposed work. Reflecting on our experiences, we provide recommendations to help other funders adopt a more evidence‐based approach. These include considering how funders could improve funding impact, communicating with other funders to learn and adapt and the need to provide support to grantees to access evidence of effectiveness, explain different evidence types, how to use evidence in different contexts and what to do when no evidence exists. Practical implication. Funders have a unique role in setting expectations, providing guidance and helping advance how we do conservation work, through a unified approach. The gains we envisage from widespread adoption of funders asking for evidence of actions are that conservationists become used to reflecting on available evidence when planning projects and it becomes easier for funders to select and support effective approaches and evidence‐led practitioners. As conservation practice becomes increasingly professional and impactful, more funders will be attracted, ensuring even greater effectiveness.

Aided Communication With Individuals Who Have Multiple Disabilities That Include Visual Impairments: A Meta-Analysis.

Despite several decades of research focused on improving early symbolic communication for individuals with multiple disabilities, relatively limited focus has been placed on individuals who also have visual impairments. To establish what is currently known about aided language adaptations for this population, a meta-analysis was conducted to examine augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) intervention approaches for individuals with multiple disabilities that include visual impairments. Six relevant databases were systematically searched. Seven hundred eighty-nine articles were narrowed to eight intervention studies that met the design standards set for this review. Of the eight intervention studies that met design standards, five used modified versions of the Picture Exchange Communication System and three used a combination of approaches such as communication partner instruction plus environmental arrangement. Most studies used low-tech AAC such as tangible symbols, photo cues, and communication books, and most focused on improving independent requesting. Overall, the studies indicated positive findings for increasing pragmatic language skills such as requesting, turn-taking, and student-to-peer interactions. However, the total number of participants across studies was extremely limited (i.e., 19 participants total). Clearly, much additional research is required to devise adequate accommodations for individuals with multiple disabilities, including visual impairments, and to expand communicative functions beyond simple requests. The use of visual impairment accommodations appeared largely effective for the included aided AAC interventions, although consultation with visual impairment specialists was not consistently reported across the included studies. More rigorous research must occur within this population to better inform clinical practice and future studies.

ИСПОЛЬЗОВАНИЕ ИСКУССТВЕННОГО ИНТЕЛЛЕКТА ПРИ ПЕРЕВОДЕ ХУДОЖЕСТВЕННОГО ТЕКСТА (НА ПРИМЕРЕ РОМАНА ДЖ. Р. Р. МАРТИНА «ПЛАМЯ И КРОВЬ»)

The article discusses the use of artificial intelligence (AI) tools in the translation of a literary text. The modern era is marked by the transition of mankind to a new stage in the digital technologies development and the emergence of such a terminological designation as “the digital literary translation”. The work of AI has long gone beyond performing simple search requests on various subject areas in the dialog box mode. With the development of neural networks it is possible to mention that “a smart machine” is “an essence that can think, develop and form the rudiments of consciousness, perception of itself and the surrounding reality” [8, pp. 70]. Systems based on neural networks can generate unique texts in different languages, compose poetry and translate an entire book in a matter of seconds. The fragments of the novel “Fire and blood” by George R. R. Martin, translated from the English language into Russian by the expert, ChatGPT, Google and Yandex Translators are the illustrative material of our research. The methods of comparative, oppositional and contextual analysis and deduction were used in the course of the research. The problems connected with the emergence of a new complex system of contradictory relations in the “human – AI” tandem, which the translator encounters in the course of his professional activity, seem to be relevant. The results of the research show that the main obstacle to the full automation of the literary text translation process is the inability to classify and encode the translator’s cognitive abilities and creative activity in the program.

The Regional Climate Center Program—Past, Present, and Future: Reflections from 40 Years of Regional Climate Services

Abstract Since its inception in 1983, NOAA’s Regional Climate Center (RCC) Program has been providing timely, customized climate services for decision making across all climate-sensitive sectors. Through this 40-yr period, the RCC Program has not only seen but also has played an active role in, the evolution of climate services from the days of climate data libraries—where books of data were consulted to fulfill simple data requests—to coproduced tools that can calculate sectoral-specific, on-the-fly climate analyses in a matter of seconds. With new technologies emerging, the RCC Program is poised to build on its reputation as a trusted climate service provider by incorporating advanced methods for climate service delivery to continue to meet the needs of the nation. This publication will provide a look back at the evolution of regional climate services over the past 40 years, along with a vision for the future.

How do soundboard-trained dogs respond to human button presses? An investigation into word comprehension.

Past research on interspecies communication has shown that animals can be trained to use Augmentative Interspecies Communication (AIC) devices, such as soundboards, to make simple requests of their caretakers. The recent uptake in AIC devices by hundreds of pet owners around the world offers a novel opportunity to investigate whether AIC is possible with owner-trained family dogs. To answer this question, we carried out two studies to test pet dogs' ability to recognise and respond appropriately to food-related, play-related, and outside-related words on their soundboards. One study was conducted by researchers, and the other by citizen scientists who followed the same procedure. Further, we investigated whether these behaviours depended on the identity of the person presenting the word (unfamiliar person or dog's owner) and the mode of its presentation (spoken or produced by a pressed button). We find that dogs produced contextually appropriate behaviours for both play-related and outside-related words regardless of the identity of the person producing them and the mode in which they were produced. Therefore, pet dogs can be successfully taught by their owners to associate words recorded onto soundboard buttons to their outcomes in the real world, and they respond appropriately to these words even when they are presented in the absence of any other cues, such as the owner's body language.

Phone triage in primary care practices

In primary care medicine for adult or pediatric populations, phone calls from patients or parents are common. The variety of questions is broad, going from simple administrative requests to life-threatening emergencies. The safety of the patient is the main priority when answering these calls. In opposition to emergency departments in hospitals where numerous well-defined triage systems (for example, Swiss Emergency Triage Scale), including clinical exam with vital signs, have been used, it is difficult to find practical guidelines for a safe and efficient phone triage in medical practices. Swiss pediatricians already use a triage book to help them assess the need for emergency care for their young patients. A similar type of resource would be helpful for a safe management of calls in adult medicine.

Phone triage in primary care practices

In primary care medicine for adult or pediatric populations, phone calls from patients or parents are common. The variety of questions is broad, going from simple administrative requests to life-threatening emergencies. The safety of the patient is the main priority when answering these calls. In opposition to emergency departments in hospitals where numerous well-defined triage systems (for example, Swiss Emergency Triage Scale), including clinical exam with vital signs, have been used, it is difficult to find practical guidelines for a safe and efficient phone triage in medical practices. Swiss pediatricians already use a triage book to help them assess the need for emergency care for their young patients. A similar type of resource would be helpful for a safe management of calls in adult medicine.

Increasing linguistic and prelinguistic communication for social closeness during naturalistic AAC instruction with young children on the autism spectrum

This study examined the effects of an intervention package using high-tech augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) with Naturalistic Instruction (NI), time delay, and prompting during social routines for preschoolers on the autism spectrum. The AAC was a communication application on a tablet programmed with color photo representations of participants and communication partners engaged in social routines. The primary dependent measure was a linguistic communication turn on the AAC device completing the instructor’s cloze phrase related to the routine. A secondary dependent measure was prelinguistic communication –nonspecific vocalizations and smiling – within each turn of the routine. Results indicated that all communication types increased and maintained for all three participants with two participants meeting mastery criteria within the minimal number of sessions. These results are significant in providing additional evidence for the effectiveness of AAC intervention beyond teaching simple object requests and in teaching more socially meaningful communication to children on the autism spectrum. Additionally, this study supports the use of color photo representations to promote social interaction. Future research should continue to evaluate such interventions on a larger scale and include naturally occurring communication partners, such as siblings and peers.

Voice‐based AI in call center customer service: A natural field experiment

Voice‐based artificial intelligence (AI) systems have been recently deployed to replace traditional interactive voice response (IVR) systems in call center customer service. However, there is little evidence that sheds light on how the implementation of AI systems impacts customer behavior, as well as AI systems’ effects on call center customer service performance. By leveraging the proprietary data obtained from a natural field experiment in a large telecommunication company, we examine how the introduction of a voice‐based AI system affects call length, customers’ demand for human service, and customer complaints in call center customer service. We find that the implementation of the AI system temporarily increases the duration of machine service and customers’ demand for human service; however, it persistently reduces customer complaints. Furthermore, our results reveal interesting heterogeneity in the effectiveness of the voice‐based AI system. For relatively simple service requests, the AI system reduces customer complaints for both experienced and inexperienced customers. However, for complex requests, customers appear to learn from the prior experience of interacting with the AI system, which leads to fewer complaints. Moreover, the AI‐based system has a significantly larger effect on reducing customer complaints for older and female customers as well as for customers who have had extensive experience using the IVR system. Finally, we find that speech‐recognition failures in customer‐AI interactions lead to increases in customers’ demand for human service and customer complaints. The results from this study provide implications for the implementation of an AI system in call center operations.

An Analytical Study of Generative AI in Optimizing Automated Customer Support Chatbots: Reducing Resolution Time and Enhancing Customer Satisfaction in Retail Banking

The recent development of AI has had a significant impact on the customer service systems in all industries as the chatbots become integral parts in the automated elements for achieving customer ease of accessing services through such channels. Artificial intelligence chatbots are now being implemented in retail banking to solve simple customer requests, process transactions, and resolve commonly encountered problems in the banks. This paper aims at evaluating the deployment of generative AI for the improvement of these chatbots with respect to reducing resolution times towards customers and to enhance overall satisfaction compared to traditional rule-based chatbot systems (Adamopoulou & Moussiades, 2020).

Depression and suicidality as evolved credible signals of need in social conflicts

Mental health professionals generally view major depression and suicidality as pathological responses to stress that elicit aversive responses from others. An alternative hypothesis grounded in evolutionary theory contends that depression and suicidality are honest signals of need in response to adversity that can increase support from reluctant others when there are conflicts of interest. To test this hypothesis, we examined responses to emotional signals in a preregistered experimental vignette study involving claims of substantial need in the presence of conflicts of interest and private information about the signaler's true level of need. In a sample of 1240 participants recruited from Amazon Mechanical Turk, costlier signals like depression and suicidality increased perceptions of need, reduced perceptions of manipulativeness, and increased likelihood of support compared to simple verbal requests and crying without further symptoms. The effect of signaling on likelihood of support was largely mediated by the effect of signaling on participants' belief that the signaler was genuinely in need. Our results support the hypothesis that depression and suicidality, apparent human universals, are credible signals of need that elicit more support than verbal requests, sad expressions, and crying when there are conflicts of interest.

Development of a semi-structured database for back-analysis of the foundation stiffness of offshore wind monopiles

Offshore wind turbines founded on monopiles are highly dynamic structures in which the stiffness of the soil adjacent to the monopile controls the natural frequency of the structure. As the loading regime and ground conditions surrounding the foundation are subject to considerable uncertainty, adaptable digital twins of the offshore structures are valuable as they allow the use of in-field monitoring data for model updating. As soil conditions and water depths are rarely uniform across a wind farm site, each structure is expected to behave differently. To back-analyse structural performance, geotechnical and structural data needs to be retrieved at every foundation location. A serverless cloud-based application was developed to allow quick and reliable storage and retrieval of geotechnical and structural data. The database was combined with an API layer to allow parametric data retrieval for back-analyses and digital twin updating across an entire wind farm. As the web application is hosted in the cloud, the data can be accessed through simple HTTP requests by authenticated users working offshore, in the office or remote. The performance of this solution is illustrated with a case study in which foundation stiffness across an entire wind farm site is parametrically calculated and updated.

Application of deterministic, stochastic, and hybrid methods for cloud provider selection

Cloud Computing popularization inspired the emergence of many new cloud service providers. The significant number of cloud providers available drives users to complex or even impractical choice of the most suitable one to satisfy his needs without automation. The Cloud Provider Selection (CPS) problem addresses that choice. Hence, this work presents a general approach for solving the CPS problem using as selection criteria performance indicators compliant with the Cloud Service Measurement Initiative Consortium - Service Measurement Index framework (CSMIC-SMI). To accomplish that, deterministic (CPS-Matching and CPS-DEA), stochastic (Evolutionary Algorithms: CPS-GA, CPS-BDE, and CPS-DDE), and hybrid (Matching-GA, Matching-BDE, and Matching-DDE) selection optimization methods are developed and employed. The evaluation uses a synthetic database created from several real cloud provider indicator values in experiments comprising scenarios with different user needs and several cloud providers indicating that the proposed approach is appropriate for solving the cloud provider selection problem, showing promising results for a large-scale application. Particularly, comparing which approach chooses the most appropriate cloud provider the better, the hybrid one presents better results, achieving the best average hit percentage, dealing with simple and multi-cloud user requests.

Digital Change Takes a Network

A lot is expected of Meindert Dillen and Philipp von Wussow by Wintershall Dea. Their mission is to ensure that the company’s technical team is increasingly able to use advanced data analysis to find and produce oil and gas more productively. The focus is on increasing the capabilities of those with traditional engineering and geology training. “Someone who can understand seismic processing can program a neural network,” said Patrick von Pattay, a vice president for Wintershall Dea and chairman off the Digital Transformation Committee of SPE’s Digital Energy Technical Section. That is an apt description of Dillen, whose work as a geophysicist using advanced analytics led to his current job. In both roles, finding new ways to extract useful bits of information from massive data sets is valuable. This team was created after the merger of Wintershall and Dea - with one member from each company. They have been working to scale up their influence by “building a community and pulling people together.” A key part of their effort was creating a digital skills network a few years ago. This grassroots effort has helped bring together technical staffers with the wide range of traditional and digital knowledge needed to deliver digital change. “We are in a lucky position,” Dillen said. “A lot of people are interested in this technology and want to apply it in ways” that can have a significant impact. The number involved must be expressed as a range - between 100 and 200, because engagement varies - with people including geophysics experts who were learning about neural networks in the 1980s when the available computing power limited its uses and digital natives who wonder why their workplace is not using the tools found in everyday life. A network’s worth of skills is required because the potential applications are as varied as the many disciplines within engineering, geology, and geophysics, among others. “No one on Earth can define all the use cases,” said von Wussow, whose career began in subsurface roles and later included stops in business development and management along the way to analytics. The company does offer digital skills training and discussions - which are done online because of COVID-19. A lot of the new thinking is spread by word of mouth in online communities. “Now, people in Norway who know people in Argentina and Russia spread the ideas,” von Wussow said. Von Wussow and Dillen sometimes play the role of matchmaker. Relatively simple requests can be met by connecting people with complementary skills inside the company or steering them to outside sources. Other times, the problem is bigger and project evaluation and management skills are required, beginning with figuring out the root of the problem, how digital might help solve it, and whether the benefit of doing so justifies the effort. If a project is a go, those involved need to think through the plan of attack and consider the people and resources required and whether they will come from inside or outside the company.

Voice-Based AI in Call Center Customer Service: Evidence from a Field Experiment

Voice-based artificial intelligence (AI) systems have been deployed gradually to replace traditional interactive voice response (IVR) systems in call center customer service, but little evidence exists on how the implementation of AI systems impacts customer behavior, as well as AI systems’ effects on call center customer service performance. Leveraging the proprietary data from a natural field experiment, we examine how the introduction of voice-based AI affects call length, customers’ demand for human service, and customer complaints in the call center customer service of a large telecommunication service firm. We find that the implementation of the AI system significantly increases call length and decreases customer complaints. Although the AI-based service system presumably reduces users’ efforts to transfer to human agents, we do not find any significant increase in customers’ demand for human service. Furthermore, our results show interesting heterogeneity in the effectiveness of the AI-based service system. For simple service requests, the AI-based service system reduces customer complaints for both experienced and inexperienced customers. For relatively complex quests, customers learn from prior experience of interacting with the AI system, and this learning effect leads to fewer complaints. Moreover, the AI-based system exerts a significantly larger effect on reducing customer complaints for older and female customers, as well as for customers who are experienced in using the IVR system. Finally, in examining details in customer-AI conversations, we find that speech-recognition failures in customer-AI interactions result in an increase in customers’ demand for human service and customer complaints.

Malar rash in a young child with neurodevelopmental delay: a quiz

­A 14-month-old boy born to consanguineous parents presented to our Dermatology Department with a 6-month history of a malar eczematous rash that worsens with sun exposure. He had butterfly-shaped, hyperpigmented...

Pender Chosen APA’s Next President-Elect

Back to table of contents Next article From The PresidentFull AccessGot Stories About Patient Struggles? Let Me KnowAltha StewartM.D.Altha StewartSearch for more papers by this authorM.D.Published Online:28 Feb 2019https://doi.org/10.1176/appi.pn.2019.3a33As psychiatrists, we know that different pathways in the brain are activated in someone listening to a set of facts versus a compelling story. But it’s one thing to understand that difference intellectually and quite another to prepare to use a story as a prominent tool in your advocacy.During the first week in February, I had the privilege of advocating on Capitol Hill with physician leaders representing our coalition partners in the Group of Six. The coalition, which began at the end of 2016 as an effort to protect access to health care, provides a powerful voice for the 560,000 physicians nationwide whom our six organizations represent. In addition to APA, they are the American Academy of Family Physicians, American Academy of Pediatrics, American College of Physicians, American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, and American Osteopathic Association.During our meetings, we focused on access to affordable, effective prescription drugs for our patients, the costly administrative burden that takes precious time away from physician- patient interactions, and the need to ensure our patients have ready access to the care they need, including mental health parity, through private and public sector health plans. You and I can cite myriad facts and figures to support public policy fixes in all these areas. In fact, just about everyone visiting with legislators, on any issue, can bombard them with facts and figures. But if you really want to get their attention, don’t just recite the facts. Tell a story that makes your point. One of my physician colleagues explained how a patient decided to skimp on her insulin because she couldn’t afford all the prescribed treatments for her type 2 diabetes. The result? She ended up with multiple, avoidable amputations costing tens of thousands of dollars and trauma that will add to her medical needs for the rest of her life. Another colleague spoke of patients who had been stable on their medications for years but were then subjected to changing formularies and requirements to undergo step therapy by private plans and Medicaid. Virtually anyone can provide facts and figures to lobby their representatives on an issue like insurance market stabilization or access to prescription drugs. But not everyone can tell the stories that drive home the reality those facts represent. You can. We, as psychiatrists, can. And we must.It’s easy to underestimate the power that our individual experiences bring to advocacy. Things that may seem obvious to us and struggles we may assume to be common knowledge are often a revelation to others. They can also provide emotional ammunition for legislative allies promoting mental health or a reason for otherwise skeptical legislators to open their ears.So, I have two simple requests. First, as you prepare to advocate before your state or federal representatives on issues like parity, safe prescribing, prior authorization, step therapy, and access to care, find your story. Don’t name any names. Frame your story in a way that protects the privacy of your patients. But think about a one-minute story or two that demonstrate the challenges your patients face or that you experience in trying to help them navigate the complex world of health care as they struggle with mental illness or addiction. Show the human and emotional face of these issues. After all, that’s what this is all about.Second, let APA’s able staff know about your stories and experiences. APA has a strong advocacy team that is always looking for real-world anecdotes to help us reach and teach legislators. Help us collect meaningful stories that go beyond the stoic use of numbers and logic and move legislators from knowing there’s reason to act to feeling compelled to act! All you have to do is email me or email [email protected] with your stories or questions. APA’s advocacy staff can help you frame your story and connect it to important advocacy goals. And then, put your personal experience to use as part of APA’s Congressional Advocacy Network (sign up on the website if you haven’t already) and at the state house with your district branch. Let’s put a human face on our advocacy. ■Learn more about APA’s Congressional Advocacy Network and other ways you can become involved in APA’s advocacy efforts at https://www.psychiatry.org/psychiatrists/advocacy. ISSUES NewArchived

Robotic process automation and its implications for programme management office

Robotic process automation (RPA) is being adopted across various industries to ease employee workloads while cutting costs. It automates a host of tasks such as monotonous data entry, answering simple customer service requests and developing management reports, to name a few. Financial services are no exception, and RPA has made its way into this industry as well. Using this technology, financial workers can avoid having to spend time on repetitive, labour-intensive tasks and focus on value-added tasks. Programme management office (PMO) has historically been a critical area within the financial services domain where resources have invested a lot of effort to ensure timely project delivery in order to deliver value to stakeholders. As the RPA programme scales beyond Proof of Concept, it promises to significantly improve the PMO function by accelerating time to market on project execution and migrating from manual operations to a technology-driven capability.

Systematic overview of Freedom of Information Act requests to the Department of Health and Human Services from 2008 to 2017

BackgroundThe Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) provides access to unreleased government records that can be used to enhance the transparency and integrity of biomedical research. We characterized FOIA requests to Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) agencies, including request outcomes, processing times, backlogs, and costs.MethodsUsing HHS FOIA annual reports, we extracted data on the number of FOIA requests received and processed by HHS agencies between 2008 and 2017, as well as request outcomes. Processing times were reported in three time increments, < 1–20, 21–60, or 61+ days, and trends in backlog status were also described. Information about costs and fees collected were aggregated.ResultsBetween 2008 and 2017, 69.6% of 530,094 HHS FOIA requests were received by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), 18.9% by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and 11.6% by all other HHS agencies. During this period, CMS processed 374,728 requests, FDA 114,938, and other HHS agencies 61,890. CMS and FDA reduced backlogged requests by 9396 (89.7%) and 4289 (65.3%), respectively, leaving backlogs of 1081 and 2279 requests at the end of 2017. CMS fully or partially granted 60.3% of requests whereas FDA fully or partially granted 72.4%. Of all requests to CMS, 82.0% were considered simple and 18.0% complex; 82.2% of simple requests and 54.9% of complex requests were processed in 20 days, and 5.6% and 29.9% were processed in 61+ days. In contrast, 60.2% of requests to FDA were considered simple and 39.8% complex; 28.8% of simple requests and 9.0% of complex requests were processed in 20 days, and 58.3% and 81.5% were processed in 61+ days. The costs to HHS associated with FOIA requests totaled $446.4 million ($809 per processed request), increasing from $28.1 million ($423 per request) in 2008 to $53.3 million ($1544 per request) in 2017. In total, HHS collected $8.5 million in fees (1.9% of total costs).ConclusionsFOIA is frequently used to obtain information about HHS and its agencies. With growing costs, minimal fees collected, and lengthy processing times, HHS agencies’ FOIA programs might be made more efficient through greater proactive record disclosure.

Promise and Practice of the Principle of Equal Access to Information in the Danish Local Administration

This article presents an empirical based study of the implementation and effectiveness of freedom of information acts (FOIAs) in Danish municipalities. Even though the Nordic Countries are known for transparent public institutions, empirically based studies of access to information are rare. With the help of 33 students of public administration, 146 simple requests were sent covering 74.5% of all Danish municipalities. The primary purpose of the field experiment was to test the legal principle of identity-neutrality and equal treatment, as the profile of the applicants was varied: the first set of requesters represented “simple” identities, while the second set of requesters represented “qualified” identities. Besides, the requesters asked for two different types of information, one more controversial to reveal than the other. Hence, the study looked into variations in casework time, likelihood of rejection, communication form, etc. The results of the study showed that, in general, the municipalities handled the requests for access to information without difficulties and within the set deadlines, and no differential treatment of applicants based on their status and qualifications could be observed. In addition, the data indicates a significantly higher processing time in the requests for potentially controversial information. The study opened up grounds for future field experiments on FOIA(s). In the final part of the article, the general benefits of student involvement in research processes are discussed.