Satellite-based emergency mapping using optical imagery: experience and reflections from the 2015 Nepal earthquakes

Landslides triggered by large earthquakes in mountainous regions contribute significantly to overall earthquake losses and pose a major secondary hazard that can persist for months or years. While scientific investigations of coseismic landsliding are increasingly common, there is no protocol for rapid (hours-to-days) humanitarian-facing landslide assessment and no published recognition of what is possible and what is useful to compile immediately after the event. Drawing on the 2015 Mw 7.8 Gorkha earthquake in Nepal, we consider how quickly a landslide assessment based upon manual satellite-based emergency mapping (SEM) can be realistically achieved and review the decisions taken by analysts to ascertain the timeliness and type of useful information that can be generated. We find that, at present, many forms of landslide assessment are too slow to generate relative to the speed of a humanitarian response, despite increasingly rapid access to high-quality imagery. Importantly, the value of information on landslides evolves rapidly as a disaster response develops, so identifying the purpose, timescales, and end users of a post-earthquake landslide assessment is essential to inform the approach taken. It is clear that discussions are needed on the form and timing of landslide assessments, and how best to present and share this information, before rather than after an earthquake strikes. In this paper, we share the lessons learned from the Gorkha earthquake, with the aim of informing the approach taken by scientists to understand the evolving landslide hazard in future events and the expectations of the humanitarian community involved in disaster response. Please read the corrigendum first before accessing the articl

The role of uncertainty intolerance in adjusting to long-term physical health conditions: A systematic review

Long-term physical health conditions (LTPHCs) are associated with poorer psychological well-being, quality of life, and longevity. Additionally, individuals with LTPHCs report uncertainty in terms of condition aetiology, course, treatment, and ability to engage in life. An individual’s dispositional ability to tolerate uncertainty—or difficulty to endure the unknown—is termed intolerance of uncertainty (IU), and may play a pivotal role in their adjustment to a LTPHC. Consequently, the current review sought to investigate the relationship between IU and health-related outcomes, including physical symptoms, psychological ramifications, self-management, and treatment adherence in individuals with LTPHCs. A systematic search was conducted for papers published from inception until 27 May 2022 using the databases PsycINFO, PubMed (MEDLINE), CINAHL Plus, PsycARTICLES, and Web of Science. Thirty-one studies (N = 6,201) met the inclusion criteria. Results indicated that higher levels of IU were associated with worse psychological well-being outcomes and poorer quality of life, though impacts on self-management were less clear. With the exception of one study (which looked at IU in children), no differences in IU were observed between patients and healthy controls. Although findings highlight the importance of investigating IU related to LTPHCs, the heterogeneity and limitations of the existing literature preclude definite conclusions. Future longitudinal and experimental research is required to investigate how IU interacts with additional psychological constructs and disease variables to predict individuals’ adjustment to living with a LTPHC

Attentional and interpretative biases in appearance concern: An investigation of biases in appearance-related information processing

The present study examined associations between high levels of appearance concern and information processing biases in interpretation and attention. An opportunity sample (N = 79) categorised ambiguous stimuli as related or unrelated to appearance. Participants then responded to the same stimuli in a modified visual dot-probe task assessing attentional bias. Participant responses were assessed in relation to level of appearance concern. The results indicated a valence specific bias towards interpretation of ambiguous stimuli as negative and appearance-related in individuals with higher levels of concern. There was also evidence of attentional bias towards information perceived as appearance-related in participants with higher levels of appearance concern. The study findings suggest that association between appearance-orientated information processing biases and level of appearance concern; this association may lead to mutually reinforcing bias and concern. © 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved

The Impact of Thought Speed and Variability on Psychological State and Threat Perception

The speed and variability of thought are purportedly common features of specific psychological states, such as anxiety and mania. The present study explored the proposed independent and combinational influence of these variables upon condition-specific symptoms and affective state. A general population sample was recruited online (N = 263). Participants completed a thought speed and variability manipulation task, inducing a combination of fast/slow and varied/repetitive thought. Change in anxiety and mania symptoms was assessed through direct self-reported symptom levels and indirect, processing bias assessment (threat interpretation). Results indicated that both fast and varied thought independently increased self-reported manic symptoms. Affect was significantly less positive and more negative during slow thought. No change in anxiety symptoms or threat interpretation was found between manipulation conditions. Critically, no evidence for the proposed combinational influence of speed and variability was found. Implications for developing understanding of condition-specific mechanisms and avenues for therapeutic intervention are discussed

The Moderated Relationship of Appearance Valence on Appearance Self Consciousness: Development and Testing of New Measures of Appearance Schema Components

This paper describes the creation and psychometric properties of two independent measures of aspects of appearance schematicity - appearance salience and valence, assessed by the CARSAL and CARVAL, and their relation to appearance self-consciousness. Five hundred and ninety two participants provided data in a web based task. The results demonstrate the sound psychometric properties of both scales. This was demonstrated by good item total characteristics, good internal reliability of each scale, and the independence of the two scales shown through principal components analysis. Furthermore, the scales show independent and moderated relationships with valid measures of appearance related psychosocial distress. Negatively valenced appearance information was associated with increased appearance self-consciousness. More crucially, the impact of negative valence on appearance self-consciousness was exacerbated by the moderating effect increased salience of appearance. © 2012 Moss, Rosser

Psychological therapies delivered remotely for the management of chronic pain (excluding headache) in adults

Objectives: This is a protocol for a Cochrane Review (intervention). The objectives are as follows:. To determine the efficacy and harms of remotely delivered psychological therapies compared to active control, waiting list, or treatment-as-usual for the management of chronic pain in adults.</p

Continuing The Search For Nothing: Invisible Higgs Boson Decays And High Luminosity Upgrades At The Atlas Detector

This thesis presents two main projects involving the ATLAS experiment at the Large Hadron Collider: a search for invisible decays of the Higgs boson produced via vector boson fusion, and the design and simulation of an application specific integrated circuit produced for the Inner Tracker Strip detector upgrade project, the Hybrid Controller Chip (HCCStar). The HCCStar will be installed in the ATLAS detector around 2026 for High Luminosity LHC operations, which will see the rate of collisions increased to 200 every 25 ns. Verification of the HCCStar design was performed using cocotb, a Python framework for testing digital logic. The search for invisible Higgs decays was conducted using 139 fb−1 of recorded proton-proton collision data with a center-of-mass energy of \sqrt{s} = 13 TeV collected between 2015 and 2018. Observed (expected) upper limits were set on the branching ratio of the Higgs boson to an all-invisible final state at B(H \to inv.) = 0.15 (0.11) at a 95% confidence level. No significant disagreement from the Standard Model, which predicts B(H \to inv.) ∼ 1.0 × 10^{-3}, was observed. This result is then reinterpreted in the context of Higgs portal dark matter and compared to various direct detection experiments searching for evidence of weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs)

Measurement of the cross-section and charge asymmetry of WW bosons produced in proton-proton collisions at s=8\sqrt{s}=8 TeV with the ATLAS detector

This paper presents measurements of the $W^+ \rightarrow \mu^+\nu$ and $W^- \rightarrow \mu^-\nu$ cross-sections and the associated charge asymmetry as a function of the absolute pseudorapidity of the decay muon. The data were collected in proton--proton collisions at a centre-of-mass energy of 8 TeV with the ATLAS experiment at the LHC and correspond to a total integrated luminosity of 20.2~\mbox{fb^{-1}}. The precision of the cross-section measurements varies between 0.8% to 1.5% as a function of the pseudorapidity, excluding the 1.9% uncertainty on the integrated luminosity. The charge asymmetry is measured with an uncertainty between 0.002 and 0.003. The results are compared with predictions based on next-to-next-to-leading-order calculations with various parton distribution functions and have the sensitivity to discriminate between them.Comment: 38 pages in total, author list starting page 22, 5 figures, 4 tables, submitted to EPJC. All figures including auxiliary figures are available at https://atlas.web.cern.ch/Atlas/GROUPS/PHYSICS/PAPERS/STDM-2017-13