arXiv subjects

André Calero Valdez

Publications and source records attributed to André Calero Valdez.

8 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

Mechanics of Pandemics

COVID-19 and previous pandemics have shown how diseases can disrupt, threaten, and transform daily life. Since pathogens and societies are continuously evolving, every pandemic is different. However, certain fundamental principles of disease transmission appear to hold true across different outbreaks. These ``mechanisms'' are grounded in natural laws or the very structure of our biology and societies. This paper compiles ten fundamental mechanisms, curated by a multidisciplinary team with backgrounds spanning public health, medicine, epidemiology, political science, mathematics, physics, and psychology. These mechanisms, although perhaps underappreciated, substantially shape how pandemics unfold and are controlled. The better we succeed in understanding these mechanisms and establishing this knowledge in our societies, the better we will be able to prepare for future pandemics and respond appropriately when they occur.

q-bio.PE↗

arXiv2024

The European Commitment to Human-Centered Technology: The Integral Role of HCI in the EU AI Act's Success

The evolution of AI is set to profoundly reshape the future. The European Union, recognizing this impending prominence, has enacted the AI Act, regulating market access for AI-based systems. A salient feature of the Act is to guard democratic and humanistic values by focusing regulation on transparency, explainability, and the human ability to understand and control AI systems. Hereby, the EU AI Act does not merely specify technological requirements for AI systems. The EU issues a democratic call for human-centered AI systems and, in turn, an interdisciplinary research agenda for human-centered innovation in AI development. Without robust methods to assess AI systems and their effect on individuals and society, the EU AI Act may lead to repeating the mistakes of the General Data Protection Regulation of the EU and to rushed, chaotic, ad-hoc, and ambiguous implementation, causing more confusion than lending guidance. Moreover, determined research activities in Human-AI interaction will be pivotal for both regulatory compliance and the advancement of AI in a manner that is both ethical and effective. Such an approach will ensure that AI development aligns with human values and needs, fostering a technology landscape that is innovative, responsible, and an integral part of our society.

cs.HC↗

arXiv2023

Telling stories with data -- A systematic review

The exponential growth of data has outpaced human ability to process information, necessitating innovative approaches for effective human-data interaction. To transform raw data into meaningful insights, storytelling, and visualization have emerged as powerful techniques for communicating complex information to decision-makers. This article offers a comprehensive, systematic review of the utilization of storytelling in visualizations. It organizes the existing literature into distinct categories, encompassing frameworks, data and visualization types, application domains, narrative structures, outcome measurements, and design principles. By providing a well-structured overview of this rapidly evolving field, the article serves as a valuable guide for educators, researchers, and practitioners seeking to harness the power of storytelling in data visualization.

cs.HC↗

arXiv2022

Interplay between risk perception, behaviour, and COVID-19 spread

Pharmaceutical and non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) have been crucial for controlling COVID-19. They are complemented by voluntary health-protective behaviour, building a complex interplay between risk perception, behaviour, and disease spread. We studied how voluntary health-protective behaviour and vaccination willingness impact the long-term dynamics. We analysed how different levels of mandatory NPIs determine how individuals use their leeway for voluntary actions. If mandatory NPIs are too weak, COVID-19 incidence will surge, implying high morbidity and mortality before individuals react; if they are too strong, one expects a rebound wave once restrictions are lifted, challenging the transition to endemicity. Conversely, moderate mandatory NPIs give individuals time and room to adapt their level of caution, mitigating disease spread effectively. When complemented with high vaccination rates, this also offers a robust way to limit the impacts of the Omicron variant of concern. Altogether, our work highlights the importance of appropriate mandatory NPIs to maximise the impact of individual voluntary actions in pandemic control.

q-bio.PE↗

arXiv2021

The winter dilemma

With winter coming in the northern hemisphere, disadvantageous seasonality of SARS-CoV-2 requires high immunity levels in the population or increasing non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs), compared to summer. Otherwise intensive care units (ICUs) might fill up. However, compliance with mandatory NPIs, vaccine uptake, and individual protective measures depend on individuals' opinions and behavior. Opinions, in turn, depend on information, e.g., about vaccine safety or current infection levels. Therefore, understanding how information about the pandemic affects its spread through the modulation of voluntary protection-seeking behaviors is crucial for better preparedness this winter and for future crises.

q-bio.PE↗

arXiv2021

A look into the future of the COVID-19 pandemic in Europe: an expert consultation

How will the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic develop in the coming months and years? Based on an expert survey, we examine key aspects that are likely to influence COVID-19 in Europe. The future challenges and developments will strongly depend on the progress of national and global vaccination programs, the emergence and spread of variants of concern, and public responses to nonpharmaceutical interventions (NPIs). In the short term, many people are still unvaccinated, VOCs continue to emerge and spread, and mobility and population mixing is expected to increase over the summer. Therefore, policies that lift restrictions too much and too early risk another damaging wave. This challenge remains despite the reduced opportunities for transmission due to vaccination progress and reduced indoor mixing in the summer. In autumn 2021, increased indoor activity might accelerate the spread again, but a necessary reintroduction of NPIs might be too slow. The incidence may strongly rise again, possibly filling intensive care units, if vaccination levels are not high enough. A moderate, adaptive level of NPIs will thus remain necessary. These epidemiological aspects are put into perspective with the economic, social, and health-related consequences and thereby provide a holistic perspective on the future of COVID-19.

q-bio.OT↗

arXiv2020

Computational Methods in Professional Communication

The digitization of the world has also led to a digitization of communication processes. Traditional research methods fall short in understanding communication in digital worlds as the scope has become too large in volume, variety, and velocity to be studied using traditional approaches. In this paper, we present computational methods and their use in public and mass communication research and how those could be adapted to professional communication research. The paper is a proposal for a panel in which the panelists, each an expert in their field, will present their current work using computational methods and will discuss transferability of these methods to professional communication.

cs.CY↗

arXiv2018

The Users' Perspective on the Privacy-Utility Trade-offs in Health Recommender Systems

Privacy is a major good for users of personalized services such as recommender systems. When applied to the field of health informatics, privacy concerns of users may be amplified, but the possible utility of such services is also high. Despite availability of technologies such as k-anonymity, differential privacy, privacy-aware recommendation, and personalized privacy trade-offs, little research has been conducted on the users' willingness to share health data for usage in such systems. In two conjoint-decision studies (sample size n=521), we investigate importance and utility of privacy-preserving techniques related to sharing of personal health data for k-anonymity and differential privacy. Users were asked to pick a preferred sharing scenario depending on the recipient of the data, the benefit of sharing data, the type of data, and the parameterized privacy. Users disagreed with sharing data for commercial purposes regarding mental illnesses and with high de-anonymization risks but showed little concern when data is used for scientific purposes and is related to physical illnesses. Suggestions for health recommender system development are derived from the findings.

cs.CY↗