scholarly journals Evaluating Complexity of Digital Learning in a Multilingual Context: A Cross-Linguistic Study on WHO’s Emergency Learning Platform

Author(s):  
Yu Zhao ◽  
Giuseppe Samo ◽  
Heini Utunen ◽  
Oliver Stucke ◽  
Gaya Gamhewage

Reproduction of knowledge, especially tacit knowledge can be expensive during a pandemic. One of the most common causes is the reduced information accessibility during the translation process. Having the ability to assess the linguistic complexity of any given contents could potentially improve knowledge reproduction. Authors conduct two cross-linguistic studies on the World Health Organization (WHO)’s emergency learning platform to assess the linguistic complexity of two online courses in 10 languages. Morpho-syntactically annotated treebanks, unannotated materials from Wikipedia and language-specific corpora are set as control groups. Preliminary findings reveal a clear reduced complexity of learning contents in the most candidate languages while retaining the maximum amount of information. Creating a baseline study on low-resourced languages on the learning genre could be potentially useful for measuring impact of normative products at country and local level.

2020 ◽  
Vol 30 (Supplement_5) ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  

Abstract As vaccine hesitancy and decreasing immunization coverage have been identified by the World Health Organization as global alarming health threats, it is of crucial importance to exploit the potential offered by digital solutions to enhance immunization programmes and ultimately increase vaccine uptake. We have previously developed and published a conceptual framework outlining how digitalization can support immunization at different levels: i) when adopted for health education and communication purposes, ii) in the context of immunization programmes delivery, and iii) in the context of immunization information systems management. The proposed workshop is co-organized by the EUPHA Digital health section (EUPHA-DH) and EUPHA Infectious diseases control section (EUPHA-IDC) and aims at discussing the current AVAILABILITY, USE and IMPACT of digital solutions to support immunization programmes at the international, national and local level, as well as, debating on how technical infrastructures on one side and normative and policy frameworks on the other side enable their implementation. We plan to have a rich set of contributions covering the following: the presentation of a conceptual framework identifying and mapping the digital solutions' features having the potential to bolster immunization programmes, namely: i) Personalization and precision; ii) Automation; iii) Prediction; iv) Data analytics (including big data and interoperability); and v) Interaction; the dissemination of key results and final outputs of a Europe-wide funded project on the use of Information & Communication Technology to enhance immunization, with particular reference to the use and comparative impact of email remainders and personal electronic health records, as well as the results of an international survey conducted to map and collect best practices on the use of different digital solutions within immunization programmes at the national and regional level; the firsthand experience of the United Kingdom NHS Digital Child Health Programme which developed, implemented and is currently evaluating a number of solutions to increase childhood vaccination uptake in England, including an information standard and information sharing services developed to ensure that the details of children's vaccinations can be shared between different health care settings the perspective and experience of the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) for Europe and of the World Health Organization (WHO) for the global level of what has worked so far in the digitalization of immunization programmes around the world, what recommendations were developed and which barriers identified at the technical normative and policy level Key messages Digitalization has great potential to support immunization programmes but its practice and impact need to be measured. Country-level and international experiences have created qualitative and quantitative evidence on the effectiveness of digital intervention aimed at increasing vaccine uptake.


Author(s):  
Michael Triplett

AbstractSeasonal temperature variation may impact the trajectories of COVID-19 in different global regions. Cumulative data reported by the World Health Organization, for dates up to March 27, 20201, show association between COVID-19 incidence and regions at or above 30° latitude. Historic climate data also show significant reduction of case rates with mean maximum temperature above approximately 22.5 degrees Celsius. Variance at the local level, however, could not be well explained by geography and temperature. These preliminary findings support continued countermeasures and study of SARS-CoV-2/COVID-19 transmission rates by temperature and humidity.


2016 ◽  
Vol 29 (1) ◽  
pp. 31 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bárbara Camarinha ◽  
Pedro Graça ◽  
Paulo Jorge Nogueira

<p><strong>Introduction:</strong> Over 30% of Portuguese children present overweight. Being a serious public health problem with multiple causes, only a cross-sectorial and concerted action could contribute to their resolution. Municipalities have a set of skills that make them ideal for effective intervention in the fight against this problem. For this action to be effective there must be a local assessment of the extent of the problem and their spatial distribution. The aim of this study was to characterize, from the point of view of the prevalence of overweight, the population of pre-school and first cycle basic education under the responsibility of the municipality of Vila Nova de Gaia, the third most populous municipality in the country.<br /><strong>Material and Methods:</strong> Were evaluated 8 974 pre and basic-school children, in school year 2013/14. The assessment of the nutritional status of the sample was made using anthropometric measures height and weight. In the classification of nutritional status was considered z-scores or percentiles of body mass index for age according to the World Health Organization, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and International Obesity Task Force.<br /><strong>Results:</strong> The prevalence of overweight by the World Health Organization requirements was 37.4%. There were some disparities in the distribution of overweight in schools of the municipality.<br /><strong>Discussion:</strong> The results were slightly higher than those of other national and international studies, being the sampling size the possible justification for the differences founded.<br /><strong>Conclusion:</strong> The prevalence found is high and with irregular geographical distribution, which could help identifying the main causes of the problem at the local level.</p>


2021 ◽  
Vol 263 ◽  
pp. 05056
Author(s):  
Ihsan Ali Husien ◽  
Zelentsov Borisovich ◽  
Ahmed Adel Naji

The construction industry is an essential tributary of the global economy and an important resource in the overall product of the local economies. In December 2019, the construction industry was exposed to a shock beyond the local level as a result of COVID-19, which was classified by the World Health Organization as a global pandemic after its rapid and sudden spread in multiple countries. The nature of the effects of COVID-19 on the construction industry varied according to the diversity of its projects. The pandemic raised many challenges at the level of the workforce, low or halting productivity, production time and costs, as well as disputes in contractual formulas for construction projects. But some of the effects were more severe and caused consequences for all stakeholders in the construction sector. Researchers and those interested in the construction industry have dealt with the repercussions of COVID-19, but most of the publications focused on studying the impact of the pandemic on the local construction industry, so this paper attempts to shed light on the most prominent effects of COVID-19 on the construction industry around the world, and which were repeated with high frequency in previous studies and reports by following the methodology of review, analysis and selection, and then suggesting optimal coping strategies to reduce the damages of these effects.


2016 ◽  
Vol 29 (1) ◽  
pp. 31
Author(s):  
Bárbara Camarinha ◽  
Pedro Graça ◽  
Paulo Jorge Nogueira

<p><strong>Introduction:</strong> Over 30% of Portuguese children present overweight. Being a serious public health problem with multiple causes, only a cross-sectorial and concerted action could contribute to their resolution. Municipalities have a set of skills that make them ideal for effective intervention in the fight against this problem. For this action to be effective there must be a local assessment of the extent of the problem and their spatial distribution. The aim of this study was to characterize, from the point of view of the prevalence of overweight, the population of pre-school and first cycle basic education under the responsibility of the municipality of Vila Nova de Gaia, the third most populous municipality in the country.<br /><strong>Material and Methods:</strong> Were evaluated 8 974 pre and basic-school children, in school year 2013/14. The assessment of the nutritional status of the sample was made using anthropometric measures height and weight. In the classification of nutritional status was considered z-scores or percentiles of body mass index for age according to the World Health Organization, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and International Obesity Task Force.<br /><strong>Results:</strong> The prevalence of overweight by the World Health Organization requirements was 37.4%. There were some disparities in the distribution of overweight in schools of the municipality.<br /><strong>Discussion:</strong> The results were slightly higher than those of other national and international studies, being the sampling size the possible justification for the differences founded.<br /><strong>Conclusion:</strong> The prevalence found is high and with irregular geographical distribution, which could help identifying the main causes of the problem at the local level.</p>


Author(s):  
Ekaterina Valerievna Marchenko

The incidence rate of tuberculosis in a particular country is an indicator of social well-being in society. Tuberculosis continues to be the leading cause of death among infectious diseases and is among the top ten common causes of death. Every year, about 1.3 million patients die from this pathology in the world, while every fourth has an HIV-associated form of the disease. New cases of the disease are recorded every year in about 10 million people, 58% of them are men, 32% are women, and about 10% are children and adolescents. The World Health Organization has compiled a list of 30 countries "living with the burden of tuberculosis", accounting for 87% of all infections. In the European Region and the WHO Region of the Americas, the total proportion of those infected with tuberculosis does not exceed 6%. At the same time, it should be noted that eight countries - India, China, Indonesia, the Philippines, Pakistan, Nigeria, Bangladesh and South Africa - account for two-thirds of all TB cases in the world. In May 2014, at the session of the World Health Assembly, the WHO Strategy to Eliminate Tuberculosis in the World was approved, and all countries, members of the WHO, took obligations to implement it. In September 2015, the Sustainable Development Goals were adopted, according to which WHO Member States should strive to achieve a 90% reduction in tuberculosis incidence and 95% mortality by 2035 (with intermediate targets in 2020, 2025 and 2030). In addition, no family should have to bear the catastrophic costs of treating tuberculosis when one or more of its members become ill.


2011 ◽  
Vol 50 (04) ◽  
pp. 380-385 ◽  
Author(s):  
W. Paoin

SummaryObjectives: The objectives of this research were to test the ability of classification algorithms to predict the cause of death in the mortality data with unknown causes, to find association between common causes of death, to identify groups of countries based on their common causes of death, and to extract knowledge gained from data mining of the World Health Organization mortality database.Methods: The WEKA software version 3.5.3 was used for classification, clustering and association analysis of the World Health Organization mortality database which contained 1,109,537 records. Three major steps were performed: Step 1 – preprocessing of data to convert all records into suitable formats for each type of analysis algorithm; Step 2 – analyzing data using the C4.5 decision tree and Naïve Bayes classification algorithm, K-means clustering algorithm and Apriori association analysis algorithm; Step 3 – interpretation of results and hypothesis testing after clustering analysis.Results: Using a C4.5 decision tree classifier to predict cause of death, we obtained 440 leaf nodes that correctly classify death instances with an accuracy of 40.06%. Naïve Bayes classification algorithm calculated probability of death from each disease that correctly classify death instances with an accuracy of 28.13%. K means clustering divided the data into four clusters with 189, 59, 65, 144 country-years in each cluster. A Chi-square was used to test discriminate disease differences found in each cluster which had different diseases as predominant causes of death. Apriori association analysis produced association rules of linkage among cancer of the lung, hypertension and cerebrovascular diseases. These were found in the top five leading causes of death with 99–100% confidence level.Conclusion: Classification tools produced the poorest results in predicting cause of death. Given the inadequacy of variables in the WHO database, creation of a classification model to predict specific cause of death was impossible. Clustering and association tools yielded interesting results that could be used to identify new areas of interest in mortality data analysis. This can be used in data mining analysis to help solve some quality problems in mortality data.


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