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This paper uses text data mining to identify long-term developments in tourism academic research from the perspectives of thematic focus, geography, and gender of tourism authorship. Abstracts of papers published in the period of 1970–2017 in high-ranking tourist journals were extracted from the Scopus database and served as data source for the analysis. Fourteen subject areas were identified using the Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) text mining approach. LDA integrated with GIS information allowed to obtain geography distribution and trends of scholarly output, while probabilistic methods of gender identification based on social network data mining were used to track gender dynamics with sufficient confidence. The findings indicate that, while all 14 topics have been prominent from the inception of tourism studies to the present day, the geography of scholarship has notably expanded and the share of female authorship has increased through time and currently almost equals that of male authorship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Information about a person’s income can be useful in several business-related contexts, such as personalized advertising or salary negotiations. However, many people consider this information private and are reluctant to share it. In this paper, we show that income is predictable from the digital footprints people leave on Facebook. Applying an established machine learning method to an income-representative sample of 2,623 U.S. Americans, we found that (i) Facebook Likes and Status Updates alone predicted a person’s income with an accuracy of up to r = 0.43, and (ii) Facebook Likes and Status Updates added incremental predictive power above and beyond a range of socio-demographic variables (ΔR2 = 6–16%, with a correlation of up to r = 0.49). Our findings highlight both opportunities for businesses and legitimate privacy concerns that such prediction models pose to individuals and society when applied without individual consent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Distinguishing certain and uncertain information is of crucial importance both in the scientific field in the strict sense and in the popular scientific domain. In this paper, by adopting an epistemic stance perspective on certainty and uncertainty, and a mixed procedure of analysis, which combines a bottom-up and a top-down approach, we perform a comparative study (both qualitative and quantitative) of the uncertainty linguistic markers (verbs, non-verbs, modal verbs, conditional clauses, uncertain questions, epistemic future) and their scope in three different corpora: a historical corpus of 80 biomedical articles from the British Medical Journal (BMJ) 1840–2007; a corpus of 12 biomedical articles from BMJ 2013, and a contemporary corpus of 12 scientific popular articles from Discover 2013. The variables under observation are time, structure (IMRaD vs no-IMRaD) and genre (scientific vs popular articles). We apply the Generalized Linear Models analysis in order to test whether there are statistically significant differences (1) in the amount of uncertainty among the different corpora, and (2) in the categories of uncertainty markers used by writers. The results of our analysis reveal that (1) in all corpora, the percentages of uncertainty are always much lower than that of certainty; (2) uncertainty progressively diminishes over time in biomedical articles (in conjunction with their structural changes–IMRaD–and to the increase of the BMJ Impact Factor); and (3) uncertainty is slightly higher in scientific popular articles (Discover 2013) as compared to the contemporary corpus of scientific articles (BMJ 2013). Nevertheless, in all corpora, modal verbs are the most used uncertainty markers. These results suggest that not only do scientific writers prefer to communicate their uncertainty with markers of possibility rather than those of subjectivity but also that science journalists prefer using a third-person subject followed by modal verbs rather than a first-person subject followed by mental verbs such as think or believe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we propose a new approach for learning node embeddings for weighted undirected networks. We perform a random walk on the network to extract the latent structural information and perform node embedding learning under a similarity-based framework. Unlike previous works, we apply a different criterion to capture the proximity information between nodes in a network, and use it for improved modeling of similarities between nodes. We show that the mean commute time (MCT) between two nodes, defined as the average time a random walker takes to reach a target node and return to the source, plays a crucial role in quantifying the actual degree of proximity between two nodes of the network. We then introduce a novel definition of a similarity matrix that is based on the pair-wise mean commute time captured, which enables us to adequately represent the connection of similar nodes. We utilize pseudoinverse of the Laplacian matrix of the graph for calculating such a proximity measure, capturing rich structural information out of the graph for learning more adequate node representations of a network. The results of different experiments on three real-world networks demonstrate that our proposed method outperforms existing related efforts in classification, clustering, visualization as well as link prediction tasks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes seasonal effects and their potential drivers in charitable giving. We conduct two studies to analyze whether donations to the German Red Cross differ between the Christmas season and summer. In study 1 we find that in the pre-Christmas shopping season prosocial subjects almost donate 50% less compared to prosocials in summer. In study 2 we replicate the low donations in the Christmas season. In an extensive questionnaire we control for several causes of this effect. The data suggest that the higher prosocials’ self-reported stress level, the lower the donations. The higher their relative savings, the lower the giving. Our questionnaire rules out that “donation fatigue” matters. That is, donations do not depend on the number of charitable campaigns subjects are confronted with and their engagement in these activities during Christmas season outside the lab. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores extreme response style to the Life Impact Burn Recovery Evaluation (LIBRE) Profile, a measure of social participation in burn survivors. We fit a Multidimensional Generalized Partial Credit Model (MGPCM) with a positive extreme response style (PERS) factor and compared this model with the original MGPCM, estimated the impact that PERS has on scores, and examined the personal characteristics that may result in an individual more likely to respond in a fashion that would inflate their true low scores. The average impact of the PERS, based upon the root mean squared bias, ranged from 0.27 to 0.50 of a standard deviation of the scale. Individuals who were older, had participated in a burn survivor support group, and had selected to self-administer the measure were less likely to have a high PERS bias that masks low scores. Future work can consider PERS when measuring the psychosocial impacts of burn injuries and other health conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents the first empirical investigation that compares Euler and linear diagrams when they are used to represent set cardinality. A common approach is to use area-proportional Euler diagrams but linear diagrams can exploit length-proportional straight-lines for the same purpose. Another common approach is to use numerical annotations. We first conducted two empirical studies, one on Euler diagrams and the other on linear diagrams. These suggest that area-proportional Euler diagrams with numerical annotations and length-proportional linear diagrams without numerical annotations support significantly better task performance. We then conducted a third study to investigate which of these two notations should be used in practice. This suggests that area-proportional Euler diagrams with numerical annotations most effectively supports task performance and so should be used to visualize set cardinalities. However, these studies focused on data that can be visualized reasonably accurately using circles and the results should be taken as valid within that context. Future work needs to determine whether the results generalize both to when circles cannot be used and for other ways of encoding cardinality information. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Given a real-world graph, how can we measure relevance scores for ranking and link prediction? Random walk with restart (RWR) provides an excellent measure for this and has been applied to various applications such as friend recommendation, community detection, anomaly detection, etc. However, RWR suffers from two problems: 1) using the same restart probability for all the nodes limits the expressiveness of random walk, and 2) the restart probability needs to be manually chosen for each application without theoretical justification. We have two main contributions in this paper. First, we propose R W E R (RWER), a random walk based measure which improves the expressiveness of random walks by using a distinct restart probability for each node. The improved expressiveness leads to superior accuracy for ranking and link prediction. Second, we propose SR (pervised start for RWER), an algorithm for learning the restart probabilities of RWER from a given graph. SR eliminates the need to heuristically and manually select the restart parameter for RWER. Extensive experiments show that our proposed method provides the best performance for ranking and link prediction tasks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We introduce a new agent-based model of opinion dynamics in which binary opinions of each agent can be measured and described regarding both pre- and post-influence at both of two levels, public and private, vis-à-vis the influence source. The model combines ideas introduced within the q-voter model with noise, proposed by physicists, with the descriptive, four-dimensional model of social response, formulated by social psychologists. We investigate two versions of the same model that differ only by the updating order: an opinion on the public level is updated before an opinion on the private level or vice versa. We show how the results on the macroscopic scale depend on this order. The main finding of this paper is that both models produce the same outcome if one looks only at such a macroscopic variable as the total number of the individuals with positive opinions. However, if also the level of internal harmony (viz., dissonance) is measured, then significant, qualitative differences are seen between these two versions of the model. All results were obtained simultaneously within Monte Carlo simulations and analytical calculations. We discuss the importance of our studies and findings from three points of view: the theory of phase transitions, agent-based modeling of social systems, and social psychology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Participative branding is a process by which DMOs, locals and visitors contribute, through their activity in social media, to the definition of the emotional values associated to a destination. From the communicative point of view it is particularly important that DMOs and local citizens work together in the transmission of a set of coherent values that compose a personalised identity. This paper presents a novel methodology, based on semantic similarity measures, that permits to make an automated analysis of the emotional values transmitted by official tourist offices and by local citizens through social media. A study of 54,000 tweets from 9 main European tourist destinations highlights the lack of a strategy towards the communication of a distinctive brand and a strong gap between the official view transmitted by the DMOs of the destinations and the one communicated by their residents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Violence against women by an intimate partner (DV) is a serious public health and human rights issue. Attitudes justifying DV strongly predict its perpetration and victimisation. This paper presents gendered ecological analyses of the societal acceptance of DV in 49 low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) across geographical regions. Methods and findings: We utilised data from 49 Demographic and Health Surveys conducted between 2005 and 2017, United Nations Statistics and topic-specific meta-databases. DV acceptance was measured as the justification of ‘wife-beating’ in at least one of five circumstances, and by the summative scale. Stepwise multiple linear regression examined country-level social, economic and political empowerment predictors of societal acceptance of DV amongst women, men, and the aggregate gender difference. Women were more likely than men to justify DV in Sub-Saharan Africa and South (east) Asia with societal acceptance of DV being more widespread in these regions compared with Latin America, the Caribbean, Central/West Asia and Europe. Political conflict and limited economic rights for women were associated with higher levels of DV acceptance amongst women and men. Men in more democratic countries were less likely to justify DV. Amongst women, higher national female literacy rates predicted lower levels of justification. There were higher levels of DV acceptance amongst women and a wider aggregate gender difference in countries with a larger representation of women in national parliament. Conclusion: Justification of DV is widespread amongst women and men in LMICs with acceptance rates varying across countries and regions. Gender differences in the impact of contextual factors on DV acceptance supports a gendered approach to national-level interventions. Our findings highlight the need for tailored interventions targeting DV acceptance in conflict-impacted societies. The emphasis of inter(national) policies on the ‘empowerment’ domains of widely-used gender (in)equality indices need to be coupled with strategies tackling discriminatory gender norms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study evaluated the effects of childhood experiences of parental corporal punishment (CP) and neglectful parenting (NP) on Japanese university students’ endorsement of parental CP (EPP) to discipline children, in relation to subjective happiness (SH). A total of 536 undergraduate students who showed no physical symptoms completed anonymous paper-based questionnaires addressing demographic characteristics, undergraduate classes, and recent health conditions on SF-8 (PCS, MCS). It was found that the proportions of participants who experienced pervasive CP and NP were larger in men than in women (36.5% vs. 19.4% for CP; 22.1% vs. 9.7% for NP). Multiple regression analyses (n = 346) revealed that the CP score was associated with positive EPP (β = 0.310, p < 0.001). Further, students whose major was nursery education reported significantly lower level of EPP; however, neither SH nor good recent health conditions significantly reduced EPP. The NP score was inversely associated with the SH score (β = -0.253, p < 0.001) (n = 346). In conclusion, childhood experiences of parental CP may affect adolescents’ views related to their own parenting. Further investigation using internationally comparable methodologies, especially in prospective cohort studies, is warranted, not only in Japan but also in other Asian countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines social class-based differences in influence in online review contexts. We explore four mechanisms for how a review writer’s social class may affect readers’ evaluations of the organization. First, we argue that, via a “contagion” process, organizations reviewed by higher-class individuals will be evaluated more positively than organizations reviewed by lower-class individuals. Second, we expect that higher-class reviewers will be seen as more knowledgeable; thus, their opinions will be more influential in shaping others’ opinions. Third, we expect that reviewers will be seen more influential when they review organizations that match their social class. Fourth, we expect people to be more influenced by those who share their own class background. A large-scale observational study of reviews (N = 1,234,665) from finds support for the contagion, the organization-reviewer social class matching, and the reviewer-participant social matching hypotheses, but disconfirms the hypothesis that higher-class reviewers are always treated as having more expertise. Two experimental studies (N = 354 and N = 638) demonstrate that reviewer class plays a causal role in both a contagion process and in an assumption of higher-class knowledge process, but do not provide evidence for the reviewer-participant social matching hypothesis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Statistical books can provide deep insights into statistics and software. There are, however, many resources available to the practitioner. Book reviews have the capacity to function as a critical mechanism for the learner to assess the merits of engaging in part, in full, or at all with a book. The “ten simple rules” format, pioneered in computational biology, was applied here to writing effective book reviews for statistics because of the wide breadth of offerings in this domain, including topical introductions, computational solutions, and theory. Learning by doing is a popular paradigm in statistics and computation, but there is still a niche for books in the pedagogy of self-taught and instruction-based learning. Primarily, these rules ensure that book reviews function as a form of short syntheses to inform and guide readers in deciding to use a specific book relative to other options for resolving statistical challenges. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is still unknown whether there is some deep structure to modern wars and terrorist campaigns that could, for example, enable reliable prediction of future patterns of violent events. Recent war research focuses on size distributions of violent events, with size defined by the number of people killed in each event. Event size distributions within previously available datasets, for both armed conflicts and for global terrorism as a whole, exhibit extraordinary regularities that transcend specifics of time and place. These distributions have been well modelled by a narrow range of power laws that are, in turn, supported by some theories of violent group dynamics. We show that the predicted event-size patterns emerge broadly in a mass of new event data covering all conflicts in the world from 1989 to 2016. Moreover, there are similar regularities in the events generated by individual terrorist organizations, 1998—2016. The existence of such robust empirical patterns hints at the predictability of size distributions of violent events in future wars. We pursue this prospect using split-sample techniques that help us to make useful out-of-sample predictions. Power-law-based prediction systems outperform lognormal-based systems. We conclude that there is indeed evidence from the existing data that fundamental patterns do exist, and that these can allow prediction of size distribution of events in modern wars and terrorist campaigns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background and objective: To take full advantage of decision support, machine learning, and patient-level prediction models, it is important that models are not only created, but also deployed in a clinical setting. The KETOS platform demonstrated in this work implements a tool for researchers allowing them to perform statistical analyses and deploy resulting models in a secure environment. Methods: The proposed system uses Docker virtualization to provide researchers with reproducible data analysis and development environments, accessible via Jupyter Notebook, to perform statistical analysis and develop, train and deploy models based on standardized input data. The platform is built in a modular fashion and interfaces with web services using the Health Level 7 (HL7) Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources (FHIR) standard to access patient data. In our prototypical implementation we use an OMOP common data model (OMOP-CDM) database. The architecture supports the entire research lifecycle from creating a data analysis environment, retrieving data, and training to final deployment in a hospital setting. Results: We evaluated the platform by establishing and deploying an analysis and end user application for hemoglobin reference intervals within the University Hospital Erlangen. To demonstrate the potential of the system to deploy arbitrary models, we loaded a colorectal cancer dataset into an OMOP database and built machine learning models to predict patient outcomes and made them available via a web service. We demonstrated both the integration with FHIR as well as an example end user application. Finally, we integrated the platform with the open source DataSHIELD architecture to allow for distributed privacy preserving data analysis and training across networks of hospitals. Conclusion: The KETOS platform takes a novel approach to data analysis, training and deploying decision support models in a hospital or healthcare setting. It does so in a secure and privacy-preserving manner, combining the flexibility of Docker virtualization with the advantages of standardized vocabularies, a widely applied database schema (OMOP-CDM), and a standardized way to exchange medical data (FHIR). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In order to support decision making on how to most effectively improve broiler welfare an innovative expert survey was conducted based on principles derived from semantic modelling. Twenty-seven experts, mainly broiler welfare scientists (n = 20; and 7 veterinarians), responded (response rate 38%) by giving welfare scores (GWS, scale 0–10) to 14 benchmarking housing systems (HSs), and explaining these overall scores by selecting, weighing and scoring main welfare parameters, including both input and output measures. Data exploration followed by REML (Linear Mixed Model) and ALM (Automatic Linear Modelling) analyses revealed 6 clusters of HSs, sorted from high to low welfare, i.e. mean GWS (with superscripts indicating significant differences): 1. (semi-natural backyard) Flock (8.8a); 2. Nature (7.7ab), Label Rouge II (7.4ab), Free range EU (7.2ab), Better Life (7.2ab); 3. Organic EU (7.0bc), Freedom Food (6.2bc); 4. Organic US (5.8bcd), Concepts NL (5.6abcdef), GAP 2 (4.9bcd); 5. Conventional EU (3.7de), Conventional US (2.9ef), Modern cage (2.9abcdef); 6. Battery cage (1.3f). Mean weighting factors (WF, scale 0–10) of frequently (n> = 15) scored parameters were: Lameness (8.8), Health status (8.6), Litter (8.3), Density (8.2), Air quality (8.1), Breed (8.0), Enrichment (7.0) and Outdoor (6.6). These did not differ significantly, and did not have much added value in explaining GWS. Effects of Role (Scientist/Vet), Gender (M/F) and Region (EU/non-EU) did not significantly affect GWS or WF, except that women provided higher WF than men (7.2 vs 6.4, p<0.001). The contribution of welfare components to overall welfare has been quantified in two ways: a) using the beta-coefficients of statistical regression (ALM) analyses, and b) using a semantic-modelling type (weighted average) calculation of overall scores (CalcWS) from parameter level scores (PLS) and WF. GWS and CalcWS were highly correlated (R = ~0.85). CalcWS identified Lameness, Health status, Density, Breed, Air quality and Litter as main parameters contributing to welfare. ALM showed that the main parameters which significantly explained the variance in GWS based on all PLS, were the output parameter Health status (with a beta-coefficient of 0.38), and the input parameters (stocking) Density (0.42), Litter (0.14) and Enrichment (0.27). The beta-coefficients indicated how much GWS would improve from 1 unit improvement in PLS for each parameter, thus the potential impact on GWS ranged from 1.4 welfare points for Litter to 4.2 points for Density. When all parameters were included, 81% of the variance in GWS was explained (77% for inputs alone; 39% for outputs alone). From this, it appears that experts use both input and output parameters to explain overall welfare, and that both are important. The major conventional systems and modern cages for broilers received low welfare scores (2.9–3.7), well below scores that may be considered acceptable (5.5). Also, several alternatives like GAP 2 (4.9), Concepts NL (5.6), Organic US (5.8) and Freedom Food (6.2) are unacceptable, or at risk of being unacceptable due to individual variation between experts and farms. Thus, this expert survey provides a preliminary semi-quantified decision-support tool to help determine how to most effectively improve broiler welfare in a wide range of HSs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Few studies have examined the sustainability of family planning program outcomes in the post-program period. This article presents the results of a natural experiment where the Nigerian Urban Reproductive Health Initiative Phase I programming ended in early 2015 and Phase II activities continued in a subset of cities. Using data collected in 2015 and 2017, we compare contraceptive ideation and modern family planning use in two cities: Ilorin where program activities concluded in 2015 and Kaduna where program activities continued. The results demonstrate that exposure to program activities decreased in Ilorin but for those individuals reporting continuing exposure, the effect size of exposure on modern family planning use remained the same and was not significantly different from Kaduna. Modern family planning use continued to increase in both cites but at a lower rate than during Phase I. The results are useful for designing family planning programs that sustain beyond the life of the program. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the relationship between female representation in different organisational positions and performance using a sample of Spanish secondary schools. These organizations have been usually depicted as ‘feminised environments’ although women in managerial positions are still underrepresented. Based on different theoretical approaches, we separately investigate the relationship between a greater female presence and school performance in three positions: a) as principal; b) on the management team; and c) as teachers. We also investigate if having a female leader exerts a significant mediator role on the relationship between greater female representation on the management team and teachers, respectively, and school performance. Our results reveal a positive and significant relationship between having a woman principal or a greater proportion of women teachers and school performance. However, the relationship between a high proportion of women on the management team and school performance is negative. We also find that a female principal does not play a significant role as mediator in the relationship between having a greater proportion of women on the management team and as teachers and school performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An empirical question of long-standing interest is how price promotions affect a brand’s sale shares in the fast-moving consumer-goods market. We investigated this question with concurrent promotions and sales records of specialty beer brands pooled over Tesco stores in the UK. Most brands were continuously promoted, rendering infeasible a conventional approach of establishing impact against an off-promotion sales baseline, and arguing in favor of a dynamics approach. Moreover, promotion/sales records were volatile without easily-discernable regularity. Past work conventionally attributed volatility to the impact of exogenous random shocks on stable markets, and reasoned that promotions have only an ephemeral impact on sales shares in stationary mean-reverting stochastic markets, or a persistent freely-wandering impact in nonstationary markets. We applied new empirical methods from the applied sciences to uncover an overlooked alternative: ‘systematic persistence’ in which promotional impacts evolve systematically in an endogenously-unstable market governed by deterministic-nonlinear dynamics. We reconstructed real-world market dynamics from the Tesco dataset, and detected deterministic-nonlinear market dynamics. We used reconstructed market dynamics to identify a complex network of systematic interactions between promotions and sales shares among competing brands, and quantified/characterized the dynamics of these interactions. For the majority of weeks in the study, we found that: (1) A brand’s promotions drove down own sales shares (a possibility recognized in the literature), but ‘cannibalized’ sales shares of competing brands (perhaps explaining why brands were promoted despite a negative marginal impact on own sales shares); and (2) Competitive interactions between brands owned by the same multinational brewery differed from those with outside brands. In particular, brands owned by the same brewery enjoyed a ‘mutually-beneficial’ relationship in which an incremental increase in the sales share of one marginally increased the sales share of the other. Alternatively, the sales shares of brands owned by different breweries preyed on each other’s market shares. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How might nonverbal synchrony naturally evolve in a social virtual reality environment? And how can avatar embodiment affect how participants coordinate nonverbally with each other? In the following pre-registered between-subjects experiment, we tracked the movements of pairs of users during a collaborative or competitive task in immersive virtual reality. Each conversational partner controlled either a customized avatar body or an abstract cube that responded to their movements. We compared the movements of the actual user pairs between the two conditions, and to an artificial “pseudosynchrony” dataset composed of the movements of randomly combined participant pairs who did not actually interact. We found stronger positive and negative correlations between real pairs compared to pseudosynchronous pairs, providing evidence for naturally occurring nonverbal synchrony between pairs in virtual reality. We discuss this in the context of the relationships between avatar appearance, task success, social closeness and social presence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives: Patients with mental health disorders often have to endure the burdens of the condition itself and the stigma that follows. Since no study has been conducted in Lebanon on this topic, our objective was to assess the knowledge, attitude and behaviors towards public stigma of mental health diseases, among a sample of the Lebanese population. Methods: A cross-sectional study, conducted between November 2017 and May 2018, enrolled 2289 participants. The Mental Health Knowledge Schedule (MAKS), the Community Attitudes toward Mental Illness (CAMI) and the Reported and Intended Behavior Scale (RIBS) were used to assess knowledge, attitude and behaviors toward mental illness respectively. The 25th, 50th and 75th percentile of the MAKS, CAMI and RIBS scales scores were considered as cutoff points for low, medium and high scores respectively. Results: A high knowledge score was found in 33.0% of the participants, whereas a high attitude score and a higher behavior score were found in 32.2% and 26.9% of the participants respectively. Living in North Lebanon (Beta = 1.331) and being familiar with a non-close person with mental illness (Beta = 0.811) were associated with higher knowledge of mental illness (higher MAKS score), whereas living in Bekaa (Beta = -8.693) and being 70 years old and above (Beta = -5.060) were associated with lower knowledge toward mental illness (lower MAKS score). Higher knowledge of mental illness (higher MAKS score) (Beta = 0.670), having a high level of education (university (Beta = 8.785), secondary (Beta = 6.084) and technical (Beta = 5.677)) were associated with less stigmatizing attitudes (higher CAMI scale). Being familiar with close people with mental illness (Beta = 0.577), less stigmatizing attitudes (higher CAMI scale) (Beta = 0.077) and higher knowledge of mental illness (higher MAKS score) (Beta = 0.115) were associated with higher favorable behaviors (higher RIBS score), whereas knowing a non-close person who have a mental illness (Beta = -0.720) was associated with lower favorable behaviors (lower RIBS score). Conclusion: A mass media awareness campaigns that could transmit health messages to a wide public audience in the country to fight stigma toward mental illness, seems warranted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Does music penetrate cultural differences with its ability to evoke emotion? The ragas of Hindustani music are specific sequences of notes that elicit various emotions: happy, romantic, devotion, calm, angry, longing, tension and sad. They can be presented in two modes, alaap and gat, which differ in rhythm, but match in tonality. Participants from Indian and Non-Indian cultures (N = 144 and 112, respectively) rated twenty-four pieces of Hindustani ragas on eight dimensions of emotion, in a free response task. Of the 192 between-group comparisons, ratings differed in only 9% of the instances, showing universality across multiple musical emotions. Robust regression analyses and machine learning methods revealed tonality best explained emotion ratings for Indian participants whereas rhythm was the primary predictor in Non-Indian listeners. Our results provide compelling evidence for universality in emotions in the auditory domain in the realm of musical emotion, driven by distinct acoustic features that depend on listeners’ cultural backgrounds. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: While drink driving continues to be significantly more common among male drivers, there is evidence from many countries that shows a growing trend of women engaging in this risky behaviour. The aims of the current study were threefold: (i) determine to what extent a sample of women drivers reported engaging in drink driving behaviour by expanding the construct into a range of definitions, (ii) determine if there were significant differences in self-reported engagement in drink driving behaviours in accordance with hazardous drinking behaviour, and (iii) identify which situational or personal factors would increase women drivers’ likelihood to engage in drink driving through presenting a range of scenarios. Method: Data were collected using an on-line, purpose-designed survey and promoted to reach women aged 17 years and older, living in Queensland, Australia. In addition to questions relating to demographic characteristics, participants completed items relating to engagement in seven drink driving related behaviours in the previous 12-month period, hazardous drinking as measured by the Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test, and likelihood of driving when unsure if over the legal limit for licence type across a range of scenarios manipulating different situational factors. A total of 644 valid responses were received in the two-week period the study was advertised. Results: The results demonstrate women’s self-reported engagement in drink driving behaviour ranged from 12.6% (driving when they believed they were over the legal limit) to over 50.0% (driving when unsure if over the legal limit the morning after drinking alcohol) and was significantly more likely among those who reported hazardous levels of alcohol use. Circumstances in which women reported they would drive when unsure if over the legal BAC limit were when they were a few blocks from home, if they subjectively felt they were not too intoxicated, or if they needed their car to get somewhere the next morning. Conclusion: Examining drink driving behaviour by way of responses to nuanced definitions provided valuable insight into self-reported engagement in the behaviour and highlights the usefulness of multi-measure dependent variables in order to illuminate a more accurate acknowledgement into both the type (and extent) of drink driving behaviours. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This scoping review presents an overview of cognitive and social congruence in peer assisted learning (PAL), as the positive effects of PAL have been shown to rely on these critical factors. The scoping review followed the guidelines of the preferred reporting items for systematic reviews and meta-analyses (PRISMA) statement. Databases were systematically searched for articles that focus on PAL and cognitive and social congruence. Participants of the studies included were medical, health science, polytechnic, law and paramedic students. Studies that assessed cognitive and social congruence by questionnaires with a 5-point Likert scale were regarded for meta-analytic pooling. Sixteen of 786 identified articles were included in the review, whereof 9 studies were considered for meta-analytic pooling. The meta-analytic pooling showed that tutees tend to see their student tutors as cognitively (Mweighted = 3.84; range of Mweighted = 2.69–4.56) and socially congruent (Mweighted = 3.95; range of Mweighted = 2.33–4.57). Further, characteristics of student tutors are summarized. This scoping review presents an overview and operationalization of cognitive and social congruence in PAL. Based on the presented meta-analytic pooling, cognitive and social congruence were found to represent relevant key factors in the PAL context. Thus, this theoretical background should be acknowledged as a core concept for tutorials within the medical curriculum. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

State-space and action representations form the building blocks of decision-making processes in the brain; states map external cues to the current situation of the agent whereas actions provide the set of motor commands from which the agent can choose to achieve specific goals. Although these factors differ across environments, it is currently unknown whether or how accurately state and action representations are acquired by the agent because previous experiments have typically provided this information a priori through instruction or pre-training. Here we studied how state and action representations adapt to reflect the structure of the world when such a priori knowledge is not available. We used a sequential decision-making task in rats in which they were required to pass through multiple states before reaching the goal, and for which the number of states and how they map onto external cues were unknown a priori. We found that, early in training, animals selected actions as if the task was not sequential and outcomes were the immediate consequence of the most proximal action. During the course of training, however, rats recovered the true structure of the environment and made decisions based on the expanded state-space, reflecting the multiple stages of the task. Similarly, we found that the set of actions expanded with training, although the emergence of new action sequences was sensitive to the experimental parameters and specifics of the training procedure. We conclude that the profile of choices shows a gradual shift from simple representations to more complex structures compatible with the structure of the world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: There has been a growing interest in understanding the effects of social networks on health-related behaviour, with a particular backdrop being the emerging prominence of complexity or systems science in public health. Social network interventions specifically use or alter the characteristics of social networks to generate, accelerate, or maintain health behaviours. We conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis to investigate health behaviour outcomes of social network interventions.Methods and Findings: We searched eight databases and two trial registries from 1990 to May 28, 2019, for English-language reports of randomised controlled trials (RCTs) and before-and-after studies investigating social network interventions for health behaviours and outcomes. Trials that did not specifically use social networks or that did not include a comparator group were excluded. We screened studies and extracted data from published reports independently. The primary outcome of health behaviours or outcomes at ≤6 months was assessed by random-effects meta-analysis. Secondary outcomes included those measures at >6-12 months and >12 months. This study is registered with the International Prospective Register of Systematic Reviews, PROSPERO: CRD42015023541. We identified 26,503 reports; after exclusion, 37 studies, conducted between 1996 and 2018 from 11 countries, were eligible for analysis, with a total of 53,891 participants (mean age 32.4 years [SD 12.7]; 45.5% females). A range of study designs were included: 27 used RCT/cluster RCT designs, and 10 used other study designs. Eligible studies addressed a variety of health outcomes, in particular sexual health and substance use. Social network interventions showed a significant intervention effect compared with comparator groups for sexual health outcomes. The pooled odds ratio (OR) was 1.46 (95% confidence interval [CI] 1.01-2.11; I2 = 76%) for sexual health outcomes at ≤6 months and OR 1.51 (95% CI 1.27-1.81; I2 = 40%) for sexual health outcomes at >6-12 months. Intervention effects for drug risk outcomes at each time point were not significant. There were also significant intervention effects for some other health outcomes including alcohol misuse, well-being, change in haemoglobin A1c (HbA1c), and smoking cessation. Because of clinical and measurement heterogeneity, it was not appropriate to pool data on these other behaviours in a meta-analysis. For sexual health outcomes, prespecified subgroup analyses were significant for intervention approach (p < 0.001), mean age of participants (p = 0.002), and intervention length (p = 0.05). Overall, 22 of the 37 studies demonstrated a high risk of bias, as measured by the Cochrane Risk of Bias tool. The main study limitations identified were the inclusion of studies of variable quality; difficulty in isolating the effects of specific social network intervention components on health outcomes, as interventions included other active components; and reliance on self-reported outcomes, which have inherent recall and desirability biases.Conclusions: Our findings suggest that social network interventions can be effective in the short term (<6 months) and longer term (>6 months) for sexual health outcomes. Intervention effects for drug risk outcomes at each time point were not significant. There were also significant intervention effects for some other health outcomes including alcohol misuse, well-being, change in HbA1c, and smoking cessation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background and aim: Workplace Social Capital has been suggested as a useful concept when addressing organizational and social factors of the work environment. The overall aim of the present study is to establish and evaluate the construct validity of a measure of Workplace Social Capital based on the operationalization suggested in the third version of the Copenhagen Psychosocial questionnaire. Methods: The present study is based on data collected as part of a validation and development project for the use of the Swedish version of COPSOQ at workplaces and includes responses from 1316 human service workers answering a workplace survey. Six items from scales for organizational justice, vertical trust and horizontal trust in COPSOQ III were included in the analyses. Rasch Analysis was used for scale validation. Results: The analyses showed that the psychometric properties of the suggested COPSOQ scale for Workplace Social Capital were satisfactory after accommodation for local dependency. Each individual item worked as intended, the scale was unidimensional and functioned invariantly for women and men, and for younger and older employees. The scale was furthermore found to be valid for use for distinguishing groups, not individuals. Conclusion: We have established that the scale for Workplace Social Capital measured by COPSOQ III is valid for distinguishing groups, e.g. work teams. The scale exhibits good construct validity as it satisfies the measurement criteria defined by the Rasch model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A growing body of evidence has shown that active learning has a considerable advantage over traditional lecture for student learning in undergraduate STEM classes, but there have been few large-scale studies to identify the specific types of activities that have the greatest impact on learning. We therefore undertook a large-scale, curriculum-wide study to investigate the effects of time spent on a variety of classroom activities on learning gains. We quantified classroom practices and related these to student learning, assessed using diagnostic tests written by over 3700 students, across 31 undergraduate biology classes at a research-intensive university in the Pacific Northwest. The most significant positive predictor of learning gains was the use of group work, supporting the findings of previous studies. Strikingly, we found that the addition of worksheets as an active learning tool for in-class group activities had the strongest impact on diagnostic test scores. This particular low-tech activity promotes student collaboration, develops problem solving skills, and can be used to inform the instructor about what students are struggling with, thus providing opportunities for valuable and timely feedback. Overall, our results indicate that group activities with low barriers to entry, such as worksheets, can result in significant learning gains in undergraduate science. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: This study aims at assessing the validity and reliability of the Spanish version of the Lysholm score, a widely used instrument for assessing knee function and activity level after ligament injuries. Methods: Ninety-five participants (67.4% male, 22±5 years) completed the questionnaire twice within 7 days and a subsample of 42 participants completed a test-retest reliability. Reliability, validity and feasibility psychometric properties were studied. The validity of the questionnaire was analysed using ceiling and floor effects. Factor structure and construct validity were analysed with the SF-36, the Hip and Knee Questionnaire (HKQ) and one leg jump test (OLJT). Results: Criterion validity with the SF-36 Physical State was moderate (r = 0.50 and p<0.01), poor and inverse relationship (r = -0.31, p<0.01) with HKQ and positive moderate (r = 0.59, p<0.01) with OLJT. Measurement error from MDC90 was 3.9%. Exploratory factor analysis demonstrated a one-factor solution explaining 51.5% of total variance. The x2 test for the one-factor model was significant (x2 = 29.58, df = 20, p < 0.08). Test-retest reliability level was high (ICC2.1 = 0.92, p<0.01) and also the internal consistency (α = 0.77). Conclusion: The Spanish Lysholm score demonstrated that it is a reliable and valid instrument that can be used to assess knee function after ligament injuries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Active living approaches seek to promote physical activity and reduce sedentary time across different domains, including through active travel. However, there is little information on how movement behaviours in different domains relate to each other. We used compositional data analysis to explore associations between active commuting and patterns of movement behaviour during discretionary time. Methods and findings: We analysed cross-sectional and longitudinal data from the UK Biobank study. At baseline (2006–2010) and follow up (2009–2013) participants reported their mode of travel to work, dichotomised as active (walking, cycling or public transport) or inactive (car). Participants also reported activities performed during discretionary time, categorised as (i) screen time; (ii) walking for pleasure; and (iii) sport and do-it-yourself (DIY) activities, summed to produce a total. We applied compositional data analysis to test for associations between active commuting and the composition and total amount of discretionary time, using linear regression models adjusted for covariates. Adverse events were not investigated in this observational analysis. The survey response rate was 5.5%. In the cross-sectional analysis (n = 182,406; mean age = 52 years; 51% female), active commuters engaged in relatively less screen time than those who used inactive modes (coefficient -0.12, 95% confidence interval [CI] -0.13 to -0.11), equating to approximately 60 minutes less screen time per week. Similarly, in the longitudinal analysis (n = 4,323; mean age = 51 years; 49% female) there were relative reductions in screen time in those who used active modes at both time points compared with those who used inactive modes at both time points (coefficient -0.15, 95% confidence interval [CI] -0.24 to -0.06), equating to a difference between these commute groups of approximately 30 minutes per week at follow up. However, as exposures and outcomes were measured concurrently, reverse causation is possible. Conclusions: Active commuting was associated with a more favourable pattern of movement behaviour during discretionary time. Active commuters accumulated 30–60 minutes less screen time per week than those using inactive modes. Though modest, this could have a cumulative effect on health over time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: Approximately 14 million unintended pregnancies are recorded annually in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). We sought to investigate the prevalence and determinants of unintended pregnancies among women in sub-Saharan Africa. Materials and methods: The study pooled data from current Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) conducted from January 1, 2010 to December 31, 2016 from 29 countries in SSA. Logistic regression analysis was used to examine the factors that influence unintended pregnancies in SSA. Results were presented using odds ratios (OR). Results: We found overall unintended pregnancy prevalence rate of 29%, ranging from 10.8% in Nigeria to 54.5% in Namibia. As compared to women aged 15–19 years, women of all other age categories had higher odds of unintended pregnancies. Married women were 6 times more probable to report unintended pregnancy as compared to women who had never married (OR = 6.29, CI = 5.65–7.01). The phenomenon had higher odds among rural residents as compared to urban residents (OR = 1.08, CI = 1.01–1.16). Women with primary (OR = 0.74, CI = 0.69–0.80) and secondary (OR = 0.71, CI = 0.65–0.77) levels of education had less chances of unintended pregnancies, compared to those with no education. Again, women in all other wealth categories had less probability of unintended pregnancy, as compared to women with poorest wealth status. Conclusion: Our study contributes substantially towards the discourse of maternal wellbeing by unveiling the prevalence and determinants of unintended pregnancy across the SSA region. There is the need for SSA countries with high prevalence of unintended pregnancies to consider past and present successful interventions of other countries within the region such as health education, counselling, skills-building, comprehensive sex education and access to contraception. Much of these efforts rest with the governments of SSA countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Physical education professionals aim to develop quality programmes for physical education. This study aimed to develop and validate a scale using professionals’ perceptions of Quality Physical Education QPE in Asia using twenty-four items regarding QPE quality issues. The items covered status and roles, development of educational elements and supportive features in physical education. A sample of N = 799 sport and physical education professionals from eleven Asian cities participated in this questionnaire survey. Twenty-four items relating to QPE were examined via exploratory factor analysis (EFA) using maximum likelihood extraction and direct oblimin rotation methods. Nevertheless, only 20 items were extracted following the EFA examination. Items 1, 9, 14 and 18 were excluded because of low factor loadings. The remaining items were clustered into four subscales: Development and Supportive Elements for Quality Physical Education in Schools (DSFQPE; α = .918), Core Values of Quality Physical Education (CVPE; α = .908), Curriculum Arrangement of Physical Activities (CAPA; α = .884) and Provision and Norms in Physical Education (PNPE; α = .865). The Cronbach’s alpha coefficient (α = .875) indicated excellent internal consistency for the overall measure. Furthermore, the 4 retained factors from the EFA were assessed via robust confirmatory factor analysis (CFA). The 4-factor model demonstrated a good fit with the data (CMIN/DF = 3.450, CFI = .928, TLI = .916, PCFI = .801, RMSEA = .078). The study identified a 4-factor structure with internal consistency and acceptable interfactor correlations. The structure seemed to be applicable, including the twenty items identified as useful and necessary tools for the framework of analysis in the investigation of diverse settings for the study of quality physical education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

“Why are neurotypicals so pig-ignorant about autism?” an autistic person wrote on the Curtin Autism Research Group’s on-line portal as a response to a call for research questions. Co-produced with an autistic researcher, knowledge about and attitudes towards autism were analysed from 1,054 completed surveys, representing the Australian neurotypical adult population. The majority, 81.5% of participants had a high level of knowledge and 81.3% of participants had a strong positive attitude towards autism. Neither age, nor education level had an impact on attitudes. However, attitudes were influenced by knowledge about ‘Societal Views and Ideas’; ‘What it Could be Like to Have Autism’; and the demographic variables ‘Knowing and having spent time around someone with autism’; and gender (women having more positive attitudes than men). Thus, targeted interventions, geared more towards men than women, to increase knowledge about autism could further improve attitudes and increase acceptance of the autistic community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Earlier work by one of us examined a historical corpus of portraits and found that artists often paint the subject such that one eye is centred horizontally. If due to psychological mechanisms constraining artistic composition, this eye-centring bias should be detectable also in portraits by non-professionals. However, this finding has been questioned both on theoretical and empirical grounds. Here we tested eye-centring in a larger (N ~ = 4000) and more representative set of selfies spontaneously posted on Instagram from six world cities. In contrast with previous selfie results, the distribution of the most-centred eye position peaked almost exactly at the horizontal centre of the image and was statistically different from predictions based on realistic Monte-Carlo predictions. In addition, we observed a small but statistically reliable pseudoneglect effect as well as a preference for centring the left-eye. An eye-centring tendency appears to exist in self-portraits by non-artists. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Humans have a demonstrated tendency to copy or imitate the behavior and attitude of others and actively influence each other’s opinions. In plenty of empirical contexts, publicly revealed opinions are not necessarily in line with internal opinions, causing complex social influence dynamics. We study to what extent hypocrisy is sustained during opinion formation and how hidden opinions change the convergence to consensus in a group. We build and analyze a modified version of the voter model with hypocrisy in a complete graph with a neutral competition between two alternatives. We compare the process from various initial conditions, varying the proportions between the two opinions in the external (revealed) and internal (hidden) layer. According to our results, hypocrisy always prolongs the time needed for reaching a consensus. In a complete graph, this time span increases linearly with group size. We find that the group-level opinion emerges in two steps: (1) a fast and directional process, during which the number of the two kinds of hypocrites equalizes; and (2) a slower, random drift of opinions. During stage (2), the ratio of opinions in the external layer is approximately equal to the ratio in the internal layer; that is, the hidden opinions do not differ significantly from the revealed ones at the group level. We furthermore find that the initial abundances of opinions, but not the initial prevalence of hypocrisy, predicts the mean consensus time and determines the opinions’ probabilities of winning. These insights highlight the unimportance of hypocrisy in consensus formation under neutral conditions. Our results have important societal implications in relation to hidden voter preferences in polls and improve our understanding of opinion formation in a more realistic setting than that of conventional voter models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Despite offering little overall benefit and emerging concerns about their safety, dietary supplements have become increasingly popular. Trust in advertising them may contribute to high confidence in dietary supplements in public opinion. Aim: To develop and validate a screening questionnaire intended for the general public regarding knowledge about dietary supplements and a questionnaire on trust in advertising dietary supplements, and to identify the association between these constructs. Materials and methods: The development and validation of the measures was overseen by the panels of experts. The conceptual frameworks of the constructs were scientifically well grounded. A set of semi-structured interviews and anonymous web-based surveys was performed. The final questionnaire was applied to 220 non-medically educated people and 121 medically educated people. Results: A 17-item questionnaire on knowledge about dietary supplements and eight-item questionnaire on trust in advertising dietary supplements were developed. The measures presented satisfactory proof of validity, however, the psychometric properties of the questionnaire on knowledge were modest. Both the knowledge about dietary supplements in the study group and trust in advertising them were low. A significant negative relationship was found between knowledge about dietary supplements and trust in advertising them among the general public (Pearson’s r = -0.42, 95%CI: -0.52 to -0.30, p<0.0001). This association was especially pronounced in people who reported not taking dietary supplements (Pearson’s r = -0.61, 95%CI: -0.76 to -0.39, p<0.0001). Conclusions: The extensive advertising of dietary supplements appears to be in conflict with promoting evidence-based knowledge about them, which raises substantial concerns for the public health. The results of the study are only preliminary and require further confirmation and exploration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Beauty is the single most frequently and most broadly used aesthetic virtue term. The present study aimed at providing higher conceptual resolution to the broader notion of beauty by comparing it with three closely related aesthetically evaluative concepts which are likewise lexicalized across many languages: elegance, grace(fulness), and sexiness. We administered a variety of questionnaires that targeted perceptual qualia, cognitive and affective evaluations, as well as specific object properties that are associated with beauty, elegance, grace, and sexiness in personal looks, movements, objects of design, and other domains. This allowed us to reveal distinct and highly nuanced profiles of how a beautiful, elegant, graceful, and sexy appearance is subjectively perceived. As aesthetics is all about nuances, the fine-grained conceptual analysis of the four target concepts of our study provides crucial distinctions for future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Brain-Computer Interfaces (BCIs) based on visual evoked potentials (VEPs) allow high communication speeds and accuracies. The fastest speeds can be achieved if targets are identified in a synchronous way (i.e., after a pre-set time period the system will produce a command output). The duration a target needs to be fixated on until the system classifies an output command affects the overall system performance. Hence, extracting a data window dedicated for the classification is of critical importance for VEP-based BCIs. Secondly, unintentional fixation on a target could easily lead to its selection. For the practical usability of BCI applications it is desirable to distinguish between intentional and unintentional fixations. This can be achieved by using threshold-based target identification methods. The study explores personalized dynamic classification time windows for threshold-based time synchronous VEP BCIs. The proposed techniques were tested employing the SSVEP and the c-VEP paradigm. Spelling performance was evaluated using an 8-target dictionary-supported BCI utilizing an n-gram word prediction model. The performance of twelve healthy participants was assessed with the information transfer rate (ITR) and accuracy. All participants completed sentence spelling tasks, reaching average accuracies of 94% and 96.3% for the c-VEP and the SSVEP paradigm, respectively. Average ITRs around 57 bpm were achieved for both paradigms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives: Reviews of violence against children in disaster settings focus on armed conflict. Little is understood about natural disasters which has implications in planning humanitarian response. We examined the magnitude and direction of the association between exposure to natural disasters and physical, emotional, and sexual violence against children, and assessed the quality of the evidence. Methods: We searched 15 health and social science databases from first record until May 16, 2018. Publications describing all types of quantitative study design were eligible for inclusion. We presented study characteristics and quality in a narrative form and generated pooled estimates using a three-level random effects model. We evaluated Cochrane’s Q with p-values below 0.10 and radial plots to assess heterogeneity. Planned subgroup analyses explored differential results by violence form, study design, and analysis method. Results: 11 publications met inclusion criteria. The majority were cross-sectional studies examining physical or sexual violence in the United States. We found no evidence of a consistent association or directional influence between natural disasters and violence against children. Combined categorical violence outcomes had substantial heterogeneity [Q (df = 66) = 252.83, p < 0.001]. Subgroups without evidence of heterogeneity had confidence intervals that included a possible null effect. Our findings were mainly limited by inconsistencies in operational definitions of violence, a lack of representative sampling, and unclear establishment of temporal order between natural disaster exposure and violence outcomes. Conclusions: Based on the available evidence, we cannot confidently conclude that natural disasters increase the level or severity of violence against children above non-disaster settings, however heterogeneity and study quality hamper our ability to draw firm conclusions. More nuanced and rigorous research is needed to inform practice and policy as natural disasters increasingly affect human populations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As part of the cultural landscape, administrative toponyms do not only reflect natural and sociocultural phenomena, but also help with related management and naming work. Historically, county-level administrative districts have been stable and basic administrative regions in China, playing a role in the country’s management. We explore the spatio-temporal evolutionary characteristics of the county-level administrative toponyms cultural landscape in China’s eastern plains areas. A Geographical Information System (GIS) analysis, Geo-Informatic Tupu, Kernel Density Estimation, and correlation coefficients were conducted. We constructed a GIS database of county-level administrative toponyms from the Sui dynasty onward using the Northeast China, North China, and Yangtze Plains as examples. We then summarized the spatio-temporal evolutionary characteristics of the county-level administrative toponyms cultural landscape in China’s eastern plains areas. The results indicate that (1) the number of toponyms has roughly increased over time; (2) toponym densities on the three plains are higher than the national average in the corresponding timeframe since the Sui; and (3) county-level administrative toponyms related to mountains and hydrological features accounted for more than 30% of the total in 2010. However, the percentage of county-level administrative toponyms related to natural factors on the three plains has decreased since the Sui. To explore the factors influencing this spatio-temporal evolution, we analyzed the correlations between the toponyms and natural factors and human/social factors. The correlation degree between toponym density and population density is the highest, and that between toponym density and Digital Elevation Model (DEM) the lowest. Temperature changes were important in toponym changes, and population changes have influenced toponym changes over the last 400 years in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We study the relative importance of the three dimensions of need-supportive teaching (NST) and students’ self-efficacy to gain new knowledge about students’ achievement in higher education. NST assumes that teachers are key to the motivation of students, providing autonomy support, structure (support of competence), and involvement (support of relatedness). In turn, self-efficacy raises students’ confidence in their ability to succeed in academic tasks. Drawing on 86,000 records of teaching evaluations by students at the University of Girona (Spain), we present evidence that teachers’ involvement and students’ self-efficacy are the two elements most strongly and positively related to achievement. Students obtain higher marks when they believe that their teachers are dependable and available to offer resources, and when they feel capable of organizing and implementing the courses of action necessary to acquire knowledge. We also find that students’ experience of autonomy support and structure are negatively (or not) correlated with achievement. Subgroup analyses also indicate that students have different needs in different knowledge areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: To assess the effectiveness of Home Fire Safety (HFS) interventions versus other interventions/no interventions/controls on HFS knowledge and behaviour at short-, intermediate- and long-term follow ups. Design: Systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials. Data sources: MEDLINE, EMBASE and PubMed databases were searched from January 1998 to July 2018, and studies retrieved. Participants: Toddlers, children (primary or secondary school), teenagers or adults. Interventions/Comparison: HFS interventions compared to other interventions / no interventions / controls. Outcomes: HFS knowledge and behaviour. Results: 10 studies were identified (8 RCTs and 2 prospective cohort). Two studies assessed the effects of HFS interventions vs no interventions on HFS knowledge at up to 4 months follow up in school children and demonstrated significant difference between groups (very low quality, 2 RCTs, 535 participants, SMD 0.38, 95% CI: 0.21 to 0.55, p < 0.001). One study examined the effects of different modes of HFS interventions (computer-based vs instructor-led) on HFS knowledge and behaviour immediately post-intervention in adults and displayed no significant difference between groups (HFS knowledge; very low quality, 1 RCT, 68 participants, SMD -0.02, 95% CI: -0.50 to 0.45, p = 0.92) and (HFS behaviour; very low quality, 1 RCT, 68 participants, SMD 0.06, 95% CI: -0.41 to 0.54, p = 0.79) respectively. Conclusion: The limited evidence supports the use of HFS interventions to improve HFS knowledge and behaviour in children, families with children and adults. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Lane change violations are a major cause of traffic conflicts and accidents at urban intersections and one of many road-safety issues in China. This study aims to explore the socio-psychological factors underlying drivers’ motivation for lane change violation behavior at urban intersections and examines how these factors predict this violation behavior. A self-reported questionnaire is designed by applying the construct of the theory of planned behavior (TPB) to collect data. Five hundred-six valid responses are received from the questionnaire survey conducted on the Internet in China. The data are then analyzed using structural equation modeling (SEM). The results of the analysis show that behavioral intention is the strongest predictor of self-reported lane change violation behavior at urban intersections. Perceived behavioral control has both direct and indirect effects on self-reported lane change violation behavior. Furthermore, attitude, subjective norms and perceived behavioral control are found to have significant correlations with drivers’ intention of lane change violations at urban intersections. The results of this study could provide a reference for designing more effective interventions to modify drivers’ lane change violation behavior at urban intersections. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: Only a few, large population-based studies, have reported on whiplash-associated disorder (WAD). However, none of them have investigated the influence of crash severity on WAD outcome. In the present study, we aimed to determine whether crash severity predicts outcomes among patients with no-fault government insurance for acute WAD. Methods: We utilized data from a compulsory, no-fault government automobile liability insurance agency in Japan. Individuals involved in a car accident between April 2001 and June 2015 with residual disabilities reported at the end of the treatment between October 2014 and September 2015 were included. Crash severity was assessed based on property damage costs, size of the other vehicle (large car, medium car, small car, or two-wheeled vehicles), and collision types (rear-end collision, contact with vehicle moving in the same direction, or in the opposite direction). Outcomes included the time to claim closure and the number of treatment visits. Results: We analyzed data for a total of 52,251 individuals (28,571 male and 23,680 female) with a median age of 44 years (range: 2–95 years). The median time to claim closure was 220 days (range: 1–4,938 days), and the median number of treatment visits was 102 (range: 1–2,492). There was no significant association between outcomes and property damage costs or size of the other vehicle. Collision types exhibited no consistent association with outcomes. However, older age and affected body parts, in addition to the neck, were independent risk factors for delayed claim closure and a large number of visits, although, all odds ratios were low (often less than 2.0). Conclusions: There was no obvious association of outcomes with property damage costs, size of the other vehicle, or collision types in acute WAD patients. Further studies should investigate the influence of psychological factors, compensation systems, and cultural conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In an online Qualtrics panel survey experiment (N = 1620), we found that scientists posting self-portraits (“selfies”) to Instagram from the science lab/field were perceived as significantly warmer and more trustworthy, and no less competent, than scientists posting photos of only their work. Participants who viewed scientist selfies, especially posts containing the face of a female scientist, perceived scientists as significantly warmer than did participants who saw science-only images or control images. Participants who viewed selfies also perceived less symbolic threat from scientists. Most encouragingly, participants viewing selfies, either of male or female scientists, did not perceive scientists as any less competent than did participants viewing science-only or control images. Subjects who viewed female scientist selfies also perceived science as less exclusively male. Our findings suggest that self-portraiture by STEM professionals on social media can mitigate negative attitudes toward scientists. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most studies of social cognition have focused on dyadic relationships, and rather few have looked at how we engage with individuals in the wider social world into which we are embedded. Here we use principle component analysis (PCA) and path analysis to explore how different aspects of human sociality interact. We demonstrate two distinct clusters in both sexes relating to (i) romantic relationships and (ii) wider social engagement, such as that with the local community. These two domains of relationship were associated with different dispositional traits: individual variation in impulsivity in the former, and in empathy and avoidant attachment in the latter. Although these clusters were broadly similar across both sexes, clearer differentiation is evident in males. In females only, support network size was positively related to the anxious dimension of attachment and, unlike in males, was not related to feelings of inclusion in the local community. This suggests that support networks may play different roles in the two sexes, indicating a productive line of future research. These findings have important practical applications: loneliness interventions that target the specific type of relationship that is felt to be lacking and the associated dispositional traits are likely to be more effective than more generic approaches. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: To examine the association between adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) and early sexual initiation. Methods: We analyzed retrospective data of (n = 241) Black women recruited from public STD clinics in Baltimore, MD. Multinomial logistic and linear regression models estimated associations between ACEs and early sexual initiation; contextual variables at initiation were examined as mediators. Results: Twelve percent of our sample reported very early sexual initiation (11–12 years) and 29% reported early sexual initiation (13–14 years). Each additional ACE reported was associated with greater risk of very early sexual initiation (RRR = 1.49; 95%CI:1.23,1.80). Specifically, emotional abuse (RRR = 3.71; 95%CI:1.55,8.89), physical abuse (RRR = 9.45; 95%CI:3.56,25.12), sexual abuse (RRR = 8.60; 95%CI:3.29,22.51), witnessing maternal abuse (RRR = 5.56; 95%CI:2.13,14.52), and household substance misuse (RRR = 3.21; 95%CI:1.38,7.47) at or before the age of 18 were associated with very early sexual initiation. As for context of initiation, age at sexual initiation was younger if the man at initiation was a non-partner (ß = -0.88; 95%CI:-1.36,-0.40), was ≥3 years older (ß = -1.30; 95%CI:-1.82,-0.77), had pressured or forced sexual intitiation (ß = -1.09; 95%CI:-1.58,-0.59), and was under the influence of drugs/alcohol (ß = -0.97; 95%CI:-1.62,-0.32). Contextual variables at first sex, including being pressured or forced, and the man being ≥3 years older fully mediated the association between ACEs and early sexual initiation. Conclusions: This study highlights the critical need to develop interventions that reduce the impact of ACEs on women’s health and delay age at sexual initiation. Health education efforts are needed for clinicians and parents to identify and prevent childhood abuse and to identify and report sexual coercion and abuse for girls and adolescents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hierarchical structures are ubiquitous in human and animal societies, but a fundamental understanding of their raison d’être has been lacking. Here, we present a general theory in which hierarchies are obtained as the optimal design that strikes a balance between the benefits of group productivity and the costs of communication for coordination. By maximising a generic representation of the output of a hierarchical organization with respect to its design, the optimal configuration of group sizes at different levels can be determined. With very few ingredients, a wide variety of hierarchically ordered complex organisational structures can be derived. Furthermore, our results rationalise the ubiquitous occurrence of triadic hierarchies, i.e., of the universal preferred scaling ratio between 3 and 4 found in many human and animal hierarchies, which should occur according to our theory when production is rather evenly contributed by all levels. We also provide a systematic approach for optimising team organisation, helping to address the question of the optimal ‘span of control’. The significantly larger number ∼ 3 − 20 of subordinates a supervisor typically manages is rationalised to occur in organisations where the production is essentially done at the bottom level and in which the higher levels are only present to optimise coordination and control. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]