Publications by authors named "Reda K"

Indiana state government partnered with researchers to develop a real-time dashboard that brings together multiple data sources to provide state and county-level measures around overdose touchpoints, which are settings that people engaged with prior to fatal overdose. Exploration of the dashboard reveals multiple opportunities for overdose prevention and highlights its use as a tool to monitor strategies in reducing overdose deaths.

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Article Synopsis
  • Overdose fatality review teams (OFRTs) are increasingly utilized in U.S. communities to combat the overdose epidemic, yet there is a lack of research on their effectiveness.
  • In a study analyzing recommendations from 19 county-level OFRTs in Indiana during 2022, a total of 1512 recommendations were made, with a significant portion targeting broader community issues rather than specific cases.
  • The findings emphasize the need for improved overdose prevention strategies, greater support for OFRTs, and further research to enhance their impact.
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People commonly utilize visualizations not only to examine a given dataset, but also to draw generalizable conclusions about the underlying models or phenomena. Prior research has compared human visual inference to that of an optimal Bayesian agent, with deviations from rational analysis viewed as problematic. However, human reliance on non-normative heuristics may prove advantageous in certain circumstances.

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Background: Overdose Fatality Review (OFR) is an important public health tool for shaping overdose prevention strategies in communities. However, OFR teams review only a few cases at a time, which typically represent a small fraction of the total fatalities in their jurisdiction. Such limited review could result in a partial understanding of local overdose patterns, leading to policy recommendations that do not fully address the broader community needs.

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Introduction: Rates of substance use are high among youth involved in the legal system (YILS); however, YILS are less likely to initiate and complete substance use treatment compared to their non legally-involved peers. There are multiple steps involved in connecting youth to needed services, from screening and referral within the juvenile legal system to treatment initiation and completion within the behavioral health system. Understanding potential gaps in the care continuum requires data and decision-making from these two systems.

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Rainfed farming is a dominant agricultural system in Tigray, Ethiopia. However, rainfall is characterized by short duration, intense and erratic subjected to late-onset and early cessation, suggesting a pressing need for Supplemental Irrigation (SI) to fill the crop water demand. Understanding the effects of SI during rainfall late-onset, early cessation, or both, along with their underlying causes, is a critical knowledge gap globally.

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Oxford Nanopore-based long-read direct RNA sequencing protocols are being increasingly used to study the dynamics of RNA metabolic processes due to improvements in read lengths, increased throughput, decreasing cost, ease of library preparation, and convenience. Long-read sequencing enables single-molecule-based detection of posttranscriptional changes, promising novel insights into the functional roles of RNA. However, fulfilling this potential will necessitate the development of new tools for analyzing and exploring this type of data.

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Rainbow Colormaps: What are they good and bad for?

IEEE Trans Vis Comput Graph

October 2022

Guidelines for color use in quantitative visualizations have strongly discouraged the use of rainbow colormaps, arguing instead for smooth designs that do not induce visual discontinuities or implicit color categories. However, the empirical evidence behind this argument has been mixed and, at times, even contradictory. In practice, rainbow colormaps are widely used, raising questions about the true utility or dangers of such designs.

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Background: More than one million people each year become infected by parasites that cause the disease cutaneous leishmaniasis (CL). This disease manifests as one or more skin lesions or ulcers that are slow to heal with variable response rates to drug treatments. Thus far, little attention has been paid to how the cultural effects of gender shape perceptions and experiences of CL.

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Background: Direct-sequencing technologies, such as Oxford Nanopore's, are delivering long RNA reads with great efficacy and convenience. These technologies afford an ability to detect post-transcriptional modifications at a single-molecule resolution, promising new insights into the functional roles of RNA. However, realizing this potential requires new tools to analyze and explore this type of data.

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Mitochondrial diseases (MDs) are a heterogeneous group of disorders resulting from mutations in nuclear or mitochondrial DNA genes encoding mitochondrial proteins. MDs cause pathologies with severe tissue damage and ultimately death. There are no cures for MDs and current treatments are only palliative.

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Color mapping is a foundational technique for visualizing scalar data. Prior literature offers guidelines for effective colormap design, such as emphasizing luminance variation while limiting changes in hue. However, empirical studies of color are largely focused on perceptual tasks.

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