Unreliable Information Sources Research Articles

DO CHATBOTS PROVIDE RELIABLE INFORMATION ABOUT MOBILE APPS IN AUDIOLOGY?

IntroductionIn light of the growing interest in utilizing AI for information retrieval, assessing the accuracy and reliability of tools such as chatbots is essential. This study aims to evaluate the efficacy of chatbots in providing accurate information about mobile applications (apps) in the field of audiology.Material and methodsThe responses of the Gemini and ChatGPT chatbots to eight open-ended questions posed in Polish and English were compared. Each answer was assessed for correctness.ResultsGemini_ENG achieved the highest correctness with a score of 5 points (62.5%), while ChatGPT_PL scored 2 points (25%), and both Gemini_PL and ChatGPT_ENG scored 1 point (12.5%). Chatbots were most effective in recommending apps for older adults, with three of the four chatbots providing accurate recommendations. However, they struggled when asked to recommend apps for non-English speakers, to describe apps, or to provide direct links, with none of them scoring points in these areas.ConclusionsChatbots are currently unreliable sources of information about audiology apps. Depending on the language, there is significant variability in response accuracy. A good example is that Gemini_ENG performed far better than Gemini_PL. A major issue for all of them was the frequent fabrication of data, including the creation of nonexistent app names and incorrect links.

Feverphobia: Frecuency and related factors associated

Fever is common in childhood and there is a high level of concern on behalf of caregivers to manage it, this is called "feverphobia". The objective was to evaluate the presence of feverphobia and associated factors in the study population. Methods: observational, cross-sectional, prospective, and analytical study during 2021 to 2022 through an ad hoc survey self-administered to parents and/or caregivers of patients under 6 years of age who consulted the emergency room of the Dr. Roberto del Río Children's Hospital in Santiago, Chile. The association between sociodemographic variables, knowledge, attitudes, and fears regarding febrile children was analyzed by Chi square and Fisher’s test in addition to univariate logistic regression analysis. A total of 381 surveys were carried out. 98% presented some degree of feverphobia. A fever below 38°C was defined by 40.6%. Physical measures were used by 56% of caregivers. The main sequelae feared were convulsions in 82% and 42.7% reported that it could be lethal. A total of 92.1% used unreliable sources of information and 66% had never received education from health personnel on this subject. Logistic regression showed that being a parent, basic or high school level and a thermal threshold below 38°C were the most associated variables. Feverphobia is a current phenomenon in our population and health education to the parents and caregivers could prevent it.

Navigating the infodemic maze: Does information literacy reduce the infodemic?

The objective of this study was to examine how information literacy can aid in infodemic management in the context of university students in a developing country. A printed survey questionnaire was employed to collect data on information literacy and infodemic management from a sample population consisting of university students. A total of 300 responses were collected and analysed, and both descriptive and inferential statistics were used. The results brought about a wide set of findings. The study found that students in the Department of Information Science and Library Management at the University of Dhaka exhibited a high level of awareness of information literacy and the COVID-19 infodemic. Despite the prevalence of misinformation and disinformation related to COVID-19, the students did not tend towards unreliable sources of information. The study examined the positive effect of information literacy on infodemic management through a multiple regression analysis. The empirical findings can aid in navigating the spread of misinformation and disinformation in the context of other developing countries.

Using website referrals to identify unreliable content rabbit holes

ABSTRACT Does the URL referral structure of websites lead users into ‘rabbit holes’ of unreliable content? Past work suggests algorithmic recommender systems on sites like YouTube lead users to view more unreliable content. However, websites without algorithmic recommender systems have financial and political motivations to influence the movement of users, potentially creating browsing rabbit holes. We address this gap using browser telemetry that captures referrals to a large sample of domains rated as reliable or unreliable information sources. Our results suggest the incentives for unreliable sites to retain and monetise users create rabbit holes. After landing on an unreliable site, users are very likely to be referred to another page on the site. Further, unreliable sites are better at retaining users than reliable sites. We find less support for political motivations. While reliable and unreliable sites are largely disconnected from one another, the probability of traveling from one unreliable site to another is relatively low. Our findings indicate the need for additional focus on site-level incentives to shape traffic moving through their sites.

Female adolescent sexual reproductive health service utilization concerns: A qualitative enquiry in the Tema metropolis of Ghana.

Evidence globally indicates that female adolescents face numerous sexual and reproductive health (SRH) risks. Utilization of sexual reproductive health services among adolescents is of global health importance and plays a crucial role in adolescent sexual reproductive health outcomes and their quality of life. The current study explored sexual reproductive health service utilization concerns among female adolescents in the Tema Metropolis in Southern Ghana using the Anderson and Newman Behavioural model of Health Service Utilization as a guiding framework. The study utilized a qualitative exploratory descriptive design. Purposive sampling was used to recruit female adolescents. In-depth face-to-face interviews were conducted using a semi-structured interview guide. In all, 12 interviews were conducted. Each interview lasted between 45 and 60 minutes. Interviews were audio-recorded, transcribed verbatim, and analyzed using thematic content analysis. Thematic analysis was guided by the constructs of the Anderson and Newman Behavioural model of health service utilization. Utilization of sexual reproductive health services among female adolescents is low in the Tema metropolis. Factors such as unprotected non-consensual sexual activity or an unwanted pregnancy sometimes triggered the use of these services. Barriers to utilization identified include lack of awareness on sexual reproductive health services, unreliable sources of SRH information, underestimation of the severity of sexual reproductive health problems faced, unmet expectations and poor experiences with service providers. The current study identified poor utilization of sexual reproductive health services among female adolescents within the Tema metropolis of Ghana. There is the need to increase the number of adolescent health corners, increase awareness about SRH services among adolescents, improve parent-child SRH communication and provide adequate training for healthcare providers to improve provider attitude towards adolescent SRH service delivery in order to increase utilization of sexual reproductive health services among female adolescents in the Metropolis.

Map evidence for the Philippines’ territorial claim in the South China Sea: a historical, cartographical and legal analysis

Based on international law and practices, a map by itself does not constitute an independent territorial title and has no independent probative value in territorial disputes. Regarding maps with inaccurate or unreliable sources of information, unofficial maps and official maps produced by one party aiming to enhance its position, international judicial and arbitration institutions tend to hold a very little credibility. The Institute of Maritime and Ocean Affairs (IMOA), an agency of the Philippine Department of Foreign Affairs, and some Philippine political elites selected many of the maps for the 2014 exhibition. Although some maps or charts of Scarborough Shoal drawn by the Spanish colonists on display are official or semiofficial in nature, they do not mark the political boundaries of the relevant areas and are obviously inaccurate. The purpose of Spain’s charting in each expedition to Scarborough Shoal was to provide guidance on navigational safety, not to assert sovereignty. It is difficult to arrive at definite conclusions about sovereignty over Scarborough Shoal from these maps and charts. The maps or charts displayed and drawn by cartographers from other countries, have many problems, such as insufficient accuracy, covering vast area more than the Philippine Islands and the lack of marking political boundaries and thus cannot prove that the Philippines has territorial sovereignty over Scarborough Shoal. Similarly, none of the maps and charts on display are sufficient to prove that the “Kalayaan Islands” belong to the Philippines.

Investigating the Claims and Spread of Misinformation on Covid-19 across different Media Platforms in Nigeria

The misinformation spread about Covid-19 in Nigerian media is the main topic of the paper. All Nigerian nationals made up the study’s population, which was conducted using an ethnography observation and interview. In Lagos State, Nigeria, 50 respondents made up the study’s sample. It was decided to use a multistage sampling process that combines a simple random sampling technique with a purposive sampling strategy. To gather data, it uses in-depth interviews, observations, documents, and field notes to collect data. For the sake of answering the study questions, the gathered data were examined using narrative analysis. The research findings identified a variety of false information and unreliable information sources in Nigerian media. It was recommended that the World Health Organization’s (WHO) guidelines for preventive measures should be followed and also advised. This endeavor can assist combat false information on Covid-19 in Nigeria. The initial beneficiaries of this information are typically relatives and friends; people who propagate these misconceptions and false information must stop doing so to prevent placing the lives of those they love in grave danger, before accepting or spreading any information on COVID-19, people should verify the source.

Understanding ethics of reporting health related events in media: A qualitative phenomenological study in Karachi and Peshawar.

The specific objectives of this study were to identify the ethical issues in reporting of health-related events in media and suggest ways to improve it. This was a qualitative phenomenological study conducted by APPNA Institute of Public Health, Jinnah Sindh Medical University in collaboration with Institute of Public Health, Khyber Medical University from January to April 2022. A total of 38 focus group discussions and in-depth interviews were conducted either face to face at place of convenience of interviewees or online. The participants were health reporters, healthcare workers (HCWs), and representatives of law enforcement agencies in two cities i.e., Karachi and Peshawar. Data were analyzed by using the deductive and inductive approaches, by four independent experts including the Principal Investigator (PI) and three research fellows. Ethical issues related to health reporting in the field included interference of the reporters in rescue efforts during an emergency and interference in emergency medical care of the victims. In reporting, careless disregard for patient confidentiality and privacy; using unreliable sources of information; using wrong terminology; sensationalizing the news and jumping to conclusions in cases of malpractice were reported as main problems. Negative influences on health reporting included poor training of the reporters on health reporting ethics, organizational pressures, and lack of cooperation by relevant health authorities. The quality of health reporting can be improved by building the capacity of health reporters in understanding the ethical issues and their social responsibilities toward health.

Medical Trainees' Knowledge and Attitudes Towards Electronic Cigarettes and Hookah: A Multinational Survey Study.

The rising prevalence of electronic cigarette (e-cigarette) and hookah use among youth raises questions about medical trainees' views of these products. We aimed to investigate medical trainees' knowledge and attitudes toward e-cigarette and hookah use. We used data from a large cross-sectional survey of medical trainees in Brazil, the United States, and India. We investigated demographic and mental health aspects, history of e-cigarettes and tobacco use, knowledge and attitudes toward e-cigarettes and hookah, and sources of information on e-cigarettes and hookah. Although all medical trainees were eligible for the original study, only senior students and physicians-in-training were included in the present analysis. Of 2,036 senior students and physicians-in-training, 27.4% believed e-cigarette use to be less harmful than tobacco smoking. As for hookah use, 14.9% believed it posed a lower risk than cigarettes. More than a third of trainees did not acknowledge the risks of passive e-cigarette use (42.9%) or hookah smoking (35.1%). Also, 32.4% endorsed e-cigarettes to quit smoking, whereas 22.5% felt ill equipped to discuss these tobacco products with patients. Fewer than half recalled attending lectures on these topics, and their most common sources of information were social media (54.5%), Google (40.8%), and friends and relatives (40.3%). Medical trainees often reported incorrect or biased perceptions of e-cigarettes and hookah, resorted to unreliable sources of information, and lacked the confidence to discuss the topic with patients. An expanded curriculum emphasis on e-cigarette and hookah use might be necessary because failing to address these educational gaps could risk years of efforts against smoking normalization.

Addressing Patient Requests to Add Dietary Supplements to Their Cancer Care-A Suggested Approach.

Dietary supplements are widely utilized by cancer patients as part of a complementary and integrative approach to their healthcare. However, a significant portion of patients refrain from discussing their supplement use with their physicians, often due to the perceived indifference or negativity of their healthcare providers. This communication gap exposes patients to unreliable information sources and potential risks associated with uninformed supplementation. As the healthcare landscape evolves, there is an increasing recognition of the pivotal role that physicians play in guiding patients' healthcare decisions. A patient-centered perspective prioritizes the provision of evidence-based information tailored to the individual's needs. It advocates for open discussions about potential risks and fosters shared decision making, respecting patient autonomy. Additionally, this approach involves offering alternative options, documenting patient preferences, and ensuring ongoing support while coordinating with the healthcare team. To address these evolving needs, healthcare providers must adopt a transformative perspective, becoming expert guides who engage with their patients as informed and empowered participants. This revised approach emphasizes an open dialogue that balances presenting facts and acknowledging uncertainties surrounding dietary supplement use. Our narrative review of the literature underscores the importance of a practical approach, centered on transparent discussions and respect for patient autonomy. By following this approach, healthcare providers can empower patients to navigate the complexities of dietary supplement use within the context of cancer care, thereby safeguarding patient safety and overall well-being. Notably, our proposed tool highlights the utilization of reliable sources, the risk stratification of supplements, specific recommendations, and subsequent monitoring, providing a structured framework for informed decision making.

Open access encyclopedia

Since the era of Enlightenment, the role of encyclopaedias has been to organise and structure knowledge, and communicate it to society. In the digital age, professionally edited encyclopaedias have not lost its enlightenment mission; on the contrary, its role in enabling systemic and reliable orientation within the ever-increasing amount of data and information is even more emphasised. By entering the digital age the functionality and usability of encyclopaedias are enhanced enormously. Digital technologies transformed the ways in which encyclopaedic knowledge is prepared, organised and presented, and more importantly facilitated its distribution, accessibility and usage (Jermen & Jecić, 2018; Jermen & Jecić, 2020).Professionally edited open access national encyclopaedias contribute to raising the level of public knowledge by dissemination of reliable and verified information in users’ mother tongue. They provide a connection between experts and average citizens, acting as an important science communication tool, and as such should be at the core of the research and didactic infrastructure of any modern society (Jecić & Jermen, 2020). Furthermore, in fierce competition with various, often unreliable online information sources, they could also play an important role in the struggle against the speedy growth of disinformation and misinformation (Bentzen, 2018).As one of the prominent examples of the importance of encyclopedistics in the modern age is the very existence of the Miroslav Krleža Institute of Lexicography in Croatia, a publishing house and a scientific institution, which is defined in the governmental act as a “public institution of relevance for the Republic of Croatia''. With the mission to systematise and disseminate scientifically verified knowledge in the broadest span of scientific disciplines, its publications (encyclopaedias, encyclopaedic monographs, lexicons, dictionaries, etc.), targeted for a broader audience, as well as specialists, have been produced in collaboration with numerous high-profile researchers from academia since its foundation in 1950. Since 2008, the Institute has been developing freely accessible collections of digital encyclopaedic editions, which currently comprise approximately 270,000 articles. A great number of Institute’s editions (along with the additional digital content) that are available in open access surely contributes to their increased visibility (more than 15 million page views in 2022) and hence the potential for creating societal impact.This presentation aims to provide an overview of the development of lexicography and encyclopedistics in the digital environment, primarily from the perspective of the Miroslav Krleža Institute of Lexicography. It places special emphasis on the Institute's open access publishing efforts over the past 15 years. Considering the fact that there are still no dedicated open access publishing schemes for books in Croatia, and that open access still represents a relatively small part of the book publishing landscape in Europe (Gimenez-Toledo et al. 2022), the Institute's endeavours in this area have been rather innovative. Along with the dissemination of scientifically verified information, open access encyclopaedias give the possibilities of linking to the digital data and collections of other research and cultural institutions, thus serving as the important component of digital knowledge infrastructure (Jermen & Jecić, 2018). Thanks to this increased connectivity, the Institute has taken part in several projects, initiatives, and communities, both in Croatia and abroad, which will be described in this presentation.

Crisis Communication: Conceptualizing the Efficacy of Information Source Credibility on Crisis Message Acceptability and Reputation Sustainability

Recent studies have shown that social media users' perception of message acceptance and compliance during a crisis depends on its source credibility, and this has been relatively underexplored in the crisis communication context. The credibility of social media/information sources influences the users' attitudes and information quality, public engagement, and information believability during a crisis. In response to crisis communication, scholars revealed that despite the wide use of SCCT by crisis communication researchers, the theory still has limitations in evaluating factors that could potentially affect an organizational reputation. Response source credibility is a factor that influences crisis response strategies and sustains reputation. During emergencies, unreliable and untrustworthy sources of information and media coverage of content perceived as threatening can elicit aversive emotions, such as distress, depression, and mental damage, and further generate more crises. This study proposes a conceptual model for the efficacy of source credibility on message (crisis response) acceptability and reputation sustainability. To monitor the streams of research conducted on source credibility, the authors used the Scopus database to examine the numbers of research on source credibility in the domain of crisis communication and subject areas. The results revealed that the perceived information source credibility during a crisis influences message acceptance and mediates the relationships between crisis response strategies and reputation. The paper will help the crisis management team appreciate the value of source credibility and save reputation during a crisis.

Selecting accepted assertions in partially ordered inconsistent DL-Lite knowledge bases

The problem of inconsistency handling in knowledge bases has received considerable research attention in several settings and has met many applications. Inconsistency usually stems from the fact that the information available for reasoning, query answering and decision-making tasks is obtained from different, scattered and potentially unreliable information sources. Performing these tasks is often computationally expensive, especially for knowledge bases in which the data is endowed with preferences and/or uncertainty. In the context of formal ontologies, enriching the assertions (i.e. the data pieces) with conceptual knowledge makes the query answering task harder computationally. Tractable results have been successfully established for the lightweight languages of the DL-Lite family. In this paper, we present two tractable methods for handling inconsistency in partially ordered lightweight ontologies. In essence, both methods are inspired from the well-known Intersection of ABox Repair (IAR) semantics, which proceeds by replacing the initial inconsistent knowledge base with the intersection of all of its maximally consistent sub-bases. The first method assumes a partial preorder over the knowledge base and identifies the accepted assertions, called ‘elected’, in polynomial time in data complexity. The second method captures uncertainty quantitatively in the framework of possibility theory and identifies the so-called ‘π-accepted’ assertions, also in polynomial time in data complexity. However, both characterisations require the conflict set to be readily available. This constitutes a serious limitation in frameworks and applications where the conflict set cannot be exhibited efficiently. In this paper, we propose a new and equivalent characterisation for each method. We show that the elected assertions and also the π-accepted assertions can be identified in polynomial time in the size of the dataset for lightweight ontologies.

(Invited) The Reservoir Effect: When Capacity Measurements Cannot Track Cell Aging

The initial capacity that is provided by a Li-ion battery is limited by the amount of Li+ that is supplied by the cathode. During the life of a cell, growth of the solid electrolyte interphase (SEI) will slowly consume Li+, which generally leads to capacity fade. Capacity and coulombic efficiency measurements are commonly used in battery research to quantify the evolution of SEI growth. In this talk, we show that, in reality, such measurements can often be unreliable sources of information about the extent of aging endured by the cell.[1,2] A core problem with relying on capacity measurements to track aging is that they may not probe all the Li+ that is present in the cell. See for example Figure 1a, which shows the voltage profiles of three types of anodes (graphite, silicon-graphite and SiOx) during the discharge of a full-cell. At the end of discharge, we assume that all anodes will experience a same potential of 0.6 V vs Li/Li+, which is the point in which the profiles intersect in the figure. Portions of the voltage profiles to the right of this point of intersection indicate Li+ that will remain in the anode even after the cell is “fully” discharged. That is, Li+ that was inserted into the anode during the initial charge, but that cannot be recovered at the voltage cutoff selected for cell discharge. The magnitude of this “reservoir” of Li+ depends on the shape of the voltage profile of the anode at high potentials. Failure to account for the existence of this reservoir will, for example, distort estimates about the initial Li+ consumption to form the SEI. To make matters worse, capacity stored in this Li+ reservoir can slowly be accessed as the cell ages, blurring the correlation between capacity measurements and SEI growth. During cell charging, most cathode materials of commercial interest will experience an increase in potential as they delithiate (Figure 1b). If some of that Li+ is consumed at the SEI, then the cathode cannot be restored to its original state of lithiation once the cell is fully discharged. In other words, aging will cause the cathode to experience increasing potentials once the cell meets the discharge cutoff voltage. Assuming that voltage cutoffs are constant for all cycles, an increase in cathode potential by ΔU would prompt an equal increase in the potential of the anode. A key consequence is that this bump in potential will lead to partial delithiation of the Li+ reservoir stored in the anode, releasing “extra” Li+ that can go back into the cathode. Accessing this extra capacity will offset some of the measurable Li+ losses to the SEI. Since the size of this reservoir is larger in Si than in graphite, capacity measurements in silicon cells can largely underestimate the true extent of SEI growth, and may conceal relatively high levels of cell aging under the appearance of satisfactory cycling performance. The example above shows that the reliability of using capacity measurements for conveying information about aging depends on the anode used in the cell. This same general behavior can also arise when comparing different cathode materials, or even different operating conditions (such as cycling rate and depth of discharge) for a same type of battery. This talk will discuss some of these cases, and how they can affect the diagnostic of aging in Li-ion cells.Figure 1. a) Assumed voltage profiles for anodes during the discharge of hypothetical full-cells. At the discharge cutoff voltage, all anodes will initially experience a typical value of ~0.6 V vs. Li/Li+ (indicated by the intersection point). Regions to the right of that point indicate capacity that remains stored at the anode even when the full-cell is nominally fully discharged. b) Example of successive charge and discharge half-cycles in a NMC811 cathode. The solid black line indicates portions of the voltage profile that are actively utilized in the cathode. When Li+ is lost to the SEI, the cathode cannot be restored to the Li+ content it exhibited at the beginning of charge, leading to an increase in cathode potential when the full-cell reaches the cutoff voltage.

Mismedication as COVID-19 pandemic response of rural folks: Implications for national COVID-19 response policy of Lesotho.

COVID-19's super-spread nature, its adverse impacts, and the associated public fear and panic have resulted in the use of "dangerous" substances and medicinal herbs (mismedication), particularly in rural parts of Africa. Exploring the phenomenon of mismedication is crucial for promoting effective public health policies. This study adopted a qualitative study design and purposively selected and interviewed 50 rural folks cutting across the 10 districts of Lesotho in Southern Africa. The study's findings show that rural folks perceive a high vulnerability to the COVID-19 virus. They also consider COVID-19 a dangerous virus and have high fear arousal of contracting the virus. It was realized that rural folks resort to unreliable sources of information on COVID-19 pandemic, such as friends and family members, social media, village members, and grandchildren. These untrustworthy sources spread a lot of misinformation about COVID-19, causing fear and panic among rural residents. To remedy the spread of the pandemic, its impact, and the underlying public fear and panic, rural dwellers have resorted to the use of unapproved medicinal plants. Trust in unapproved medicinal plants influences rural dwellers' compliance to the standard protocols implemented to mitigate the COVID-19 pandemic. The study recommends the urgent need to intensify scientific investigation into the various medicinal plants for their efficacy, side effects, preparation, and approved dosage. Again, effective public education on the efficacy and dangers associated with the use of unapproved medications must be strengthened, particularly in rural communities through the active participation of opinion, traditional, and religious leaders.

Determinants of COVID-19 vaccine uptake among adults in Mwala Sub-county, Machakos County, Kenya

Background: Despite the available evidence on benefits of COVID-19 vaccine, its low uptake and hesitancy remain a challenge. This study assessed individual, administrative, social, and demographic factors associated with COVID-19 vaccine uptake. Methods: Analytical cross-sectional study design was used. The data was collected using structured questionnaires administered to 384 respondents and key informant interview guides that engaged six informants. Results: Uptake of the first dose was 46.60% while fully vaccinated respondents were 11.70% of the total. There were significant associations between COVID-19 vaccine uptake and demographic predictors of age (χ2=15.524, df=3, p=0.001), sex (χ2=5.250, df=1, p=0.022), education level (χ2=107.556, df=3, p<0.001), and marital status (χ2=35.328, df=3, p<0.001). Some social factors such as dependence on unreliable sources of information (χ2=32.904, df=3, p<0.001) and collective responsibility of getting vaccinated to protect others (χ2=292.931, df=3, p<0.001) also exhibited significant associations. However, religious teachings did not influence vaccine uptake (df=1, R2=0.099, p=0.997). Individual factors of susceptibility perception (p<0.001, R2=0.525, df=1), severity perception (χ2=234.515, df=3, p<0.001), safety concerns (χ2=277.624, df=3, p<0.001), and perception that the vaccine benefits did not outdo side effects (χ2=277.624, df=3, p<0.001) determined vaccine uptake. Administrative factors of vaccine stock-outs (R2=0.091, df=1, p=0.997) and long queues (R2=0.061, df=1, p=0.997) had no influence on vaccine uptake. Conclusions: With the findings indicating poor vaccine uptake, the government should incorporate COVID-19 vaccination into the existing routine vaccination schedule and address conspiracy theories revolving around the vaccine in various social media sites during health education and awareness vaccination campaigns.

A novel gluten knowledge base of potential biomedical and health-related interactions extracted from the literature: Using machine learning and graph analysis methodologies to reconstruct the bibliome

BackgroundIn return for their nutritional properties and broad availability, cereal crops have been associated with different alimentary disorders and symptoms, with the majority of the responsibility being attributed to gluten. Therefore, the research of gluten-related literature data continues to be produced at ever-growing rates, driven in part by the recent exploratory studies that link gluten to non-traditional diseases and the popularity of gluten-free diets, making it increasingly difficult to access and analyse practical and structured information. In this sense, the accelerated discovery of novel advances in diagnosis and treatment, as well as exploratory studies, produce a favourable scenario for disinformation and misinformation. ObjectivesAligned with, the European Union strategy “Delivering on EU Food Safety and Nutrition in 2050″ which emphasizes the inextricable links between imbalanced diets, the increased exposure to unreliable sources of information and misleading information, and the increased dependency on reliable sources of information; this paper presents GlutKNOIS, a public and interactive literature-based database that reconstructs and represents the experimental biomedical knowledge extracted from the gluten-related literature. The developed platform includes different external database knowledge, bibliometrics statistics and social media discussion to propose a novel and enhanced way to search, visualise and analyse potential biomedical and health-related interactions in relation to the gluten domain. MethodsFor this purpose, the presented study applies a semi-supervised curation workflow that combines natural language processing techniques, machine learning algorithms, ontology-based normalization and integration approaches, named entity recognition methods, and graph knowledge reconstruction methodologies to process, classify, represent and analyse the experimental findings contained in the literature, which is also complemented by data from the social discussion. Results and conclusionsIn this sense, 5814 documents were manually annotated and 7424 were fully automatically processed to reconstruct the first online gluten-related knowledge database of evidenced health-related interactions that produce health or metabolic changes based on the literature. In addition, the automatic processing of the literature combined with the knowledge representation methodologies proposed has the potential to assist in the revision and analysis of years of gluten research. The reconstructed knowledge base is public and accessible at https://sing-group.org/glutknois/

Religion of parents and communication on adolescents’ sexuality in Southwest Nigeria

Risky sexual behaviour among adolescents has increased considerably. The situation has resulted in the early sexual debut of the young ones, engagement with multiple partners and adolescent pregnancy among adolescents in Nigeria and the Sub-Saharan in general. This is not unconnected with inadequate and uni-directional, weak and autocratic communication channels about sexuality within the family. Adolescents may seek information about sexuality from distorted, incomplete and unreliable information sources, such as the social media, peers, novels, music and magazines. This behaviour has resulted in gaps in communication, and which have had long-term consequences on their health and wellbeing. This study examined the influence of parent’s religion on sexual conversation by parents with their adolescents. A descriptive research design was adopted. Sample size was seven hundred and twenty-one (721) parents of adolescents selected through a multistage sampling technique from three (3) Southwest States in Nigeria. Data were collected using questionnaire. Analyses of data were done using descriptive and inferential statistics. Findings revealed that (16.7%) of parents had poor level of communication on sexuality with their adolescents, (23.1%) parents had an average level of communication on sexuality, while, a good number (60.2%) of parents had good level of communication on sexuality with their adolescents. In addition, the religion of parents significantly influenced discussions on adolescents’ sexuality. There is need for parents to give sexual health information to adolescents and communicate with their adolescents on sex-related issues. They need to overcome inhibitions in discussing sex-related matters with their children from childhood.

The Mitigating Effects of Protective Parenting on Level of Adolescent Substance Use Risk

Background: Protective parenting clearly reduces the risk of substance use among young people, but its relationship with cumulative risk for substance use, or the number of risk factors a young person experiences, has not been examined. Objectives: The analysis explores how protective parenting is associated with cumulative risk for adolescent substance use. Methods: A nationally representative online survey of adolescents ages 12-17 (N = 965; 50.8% male; 49.2% female) explored the role of a number of protective parenting variables in predicting substance use risk among adolescents. Parenting behaviors, such as providing warmth, trust, and emotional support; spending time together; communicating about substance use; and monitoring were considered protective. Risk factors included having close friends who use substances, witnessing use, low perceptions of harm, unreliable sources of information about substances, perceived access, and lying to parents. Results: 21.7% of respondents reported 0-1 risk factors, 27.6% reported 2-3 risk factors, and 50.7% reported 4 or more risk factors. Controlling for demographics, a protective parenting composite measure of trust, warmth, and emotional support was associated with decreased risk of reporting 4 or more risk factors (0.45 RRR, p<.05) and spending time together was associated with decreased risk of reporting 2-3 and 4 or more risk factors compared to 0-1 risk factors (0.42 RRR, p<.05; 0.43 RRR, p<.05). Conclusion: These findings highlight the importance of protective parenting in mitigating the cumulative risk for youth substance use. Involving parents in prevention efforts should be a routine component of prevention practice, especially for youth at higher risk.

The use of herbal and dietary supplements for COVID-19 prevention: A survey among the public in a Malaysian suburban town

IntroductionThe spread of the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) may lead people to seek preventative measures. The use of herbal and dietary supplements (HDS) may have become prevalent during the COVID-19 pandemic. This study aims to identify the prevalence, predictors, and patterns of HDS use for COVID-19 prevention in a sample of the general public in a suburban town in Malaysia. MethodsAn online cross-sectional survey was conducted between May and June 2021 involving adults ≥ 18 years old. Data on the self-reported use of HDS for COVID-19 prevention were collected. Logistic regression analysis was conducted to determine the predictors of HDS use. ResultsOverall, 41.9 % (168/401) reported using HDS to prevent COVID-19. Multivariate analysis showed that HDS users were more likely to be individuals ≥ 40 years old (adjusted odds ratio [aOR] = 1.774, 95 % confidence interval [CI] = 1.016 – 3.098), and to have had a history of HDS use prior to the pandemic (aOR = 19.378, 95 % CI = 5.901 – 63.639). Most HDS users referred to social media or websites (66.7 %, 112/168) for HDS information. Approximately half of them had consulted either pharmacists or doctors about their HDS use. ConclusionHDS use to prevent COVID-19 was common among the respondents. Several issues - such as the concurrent use of HDS with conventional medications, the use of unreliable sources of information, and the lack of consultation with healthcare providers (HCPs) - indicate that HCPs should be more proactive in their consultative and information-providing roles regarding HDS use.