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The Semantic Link Network is a general semantic model for modeling the structure and the evolution of complex systems. Various semantic links play different roles in rendering the semantics of complex system. One of the basic semantic links represents cause-effect relation, which plays an important role in representation and understanding. This paper verifies the role of the Semantic Link Network in representing the core of text by investigating the contribution of cause-effect link to representing the core of scientific papers. Research carries out with the following steps: (1) Two propositions on the contribution of cause-effect link in rendering the core of paper are proposed and verified through a statistical survey, which shows that the sentences on cause-effect links cover about 65% of key words within each paper on average. (2) An algorithm based on syntactic patterns is designed for automatically extracting cause-effect link from scientific papers, which recalls about 70% of manually annotated cause-effect links on average, indicating that the result adapts to the scale of data sets. (3) The effects of cause-effect link on four schemes of incorporating cause-effect link into the existing instances of the Semantic Link Network for enhancing the summarization of scientific papers are investigated. The experiments show that the quality of the summaries is significantly improved, which verifies the role of semantic links. The significance of this research lies in two aspects: (1) it verifies that the Semantic Link Network connects the important concepts to render the core of text; and, (2) it provides an evidence for realizing content services such as summarization, recommendation and question answering based on the Semantic Link Network, and it can inspire relevant research on content computing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An editorial is presented which discusses the collaborative writing with multiple authors which has additional challenges including varied levels of engagement of coauthors, provision of fair credit through authorship or acknowledgements and acceptance of diversity of work styles. Also discussed are the 10 simple rules for collaboratively writing a multi-authored paper which include to build a writing team wisely; to create a data management plan and to jointly decide on authorship guidelines.

Personal motivation is a key factor in the service of foster care, impending both on the welfare of the child and on the satisfaction of the carer. This paper explores the benefits, challenges and dilemmas involved in the job of professional (i.e. state-supported) foster carer in Romania–a country where the issue of child protection has drawn a great deal of international attention over the last thirty years. The principal hypothesis concerns whether the benefits, challenges and dilemmas identified by foster carers are influenced by the factors that led to their taking up this kind of work. Quantitative research was conducted using a questionnaire as the main tool. The paper takes a descriptive, cross-sectional and multifactorial approach. Sampling was carried out by self-selecting method, and the study involved 51 participants. The research project identified a statistically significant variation in the challenges and dilemmas reported by foster carers. Thus, the results of the study show that the majority of the carers indicate a primarily intrinsic motivation for their work. By way of conclusion, it is argued that social workers, operating in collaboration with multidisciplinary teams, can offer carers support in managing more difficult periods in the child–carer relationship, thus enhancing the sustainability of the foster care service. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

By utilizing cognitive mapping and leveraging georeferenced text data, this paper aims to suggest a new visualization method that combines the advantages of both conventional and state-of-the-art research techniques to depict the collective identity of place in a single image. The study addressed two research questions: (1) Can crowd-sourced text data be utilized in representing place identity? (2) Can collective place identity be expressed in the form of a cognitive map? By confirming that text data gathered from social media effectively demonstrate people’s behaviors and perceptions related to places, we propose a novel method to create a visual representation of urban identity–a “crowd-sourced cognitive map”. In particular, to improve the conventional cognitive mapping method to depict the collective identity of a city, we draw cognitive maps of Bundang and Ilsan developed in the 1990s, as well as Songdo and Dongtan developed in the 2000s, just outside of the administrative boundaries of Seoul in Korea, through a computational method based on crowd-sourced opinions collected from social media. We open the possibility for the use of social media text data to capture the identity of cities and suggest a graphical image through which people without prior information could also easily apprehend the overall image of a city. The work in this paper is expected to provide a methodological technique for appropriate decision-making and the evaluation of urban identity to shape a more unique and imageable city. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Up to 1.45 billion people currently suffer from soil transmitted helminth infection, with the largest burden occurring in Africa and Asia. Safe and cost effective deworming treatment exists, but there is a debate about mass distribution of this treatment in high prevalence settings. While the World Health Organization recommends mass administration of anthelmintic drugs for preschool and school-aged children in high (>20%) prevalence settings, and several long run follow up studies of an influential trial have suggested large benefits that persist over time, recent systematic reviews have called this recommendation into question. Methods and findings: This paper analyzes the long-term impact of a cluster-randomized trial in eastern Uganda that provided mass deworming treatment to preschool aged children from 2000 to 2003 on the numeracy and literacy skills of children and young adults living in those villages in 2010-2015. This study uses numeracy and literacy data collected seven to twelve years after the end of the deworming trial in a randomly selected subset of communities from the original trial, by an education-focused survey that had no relationship to the deworming study. Building on an earlier working paper which used data from 2010 and 2011 survey rounds, this paper uses an additional four years of numeracy and literacy data (2012, 2013, 2014, and 2015). Aggregating data from all survey rounds, the difference between numeracy scores in treatment versus control communities is 0.07 standard deviations (SD) (95% CI -0.10, 0.24, p = 0.40), the difference in literacy scores is 0.05 SD (95% CI -0.16, 0.27, p = 0.62), and the difference in total scores is 0.07 SD (95% CI -0.11, 0.25, p = 0.44). There are significant differences in program impact by gender, with numeracy and literacy differentially positively affected for girls, and by age, with treatment effects larger for the primary school aged subsample. There are also significant treatment interactions for those living in households with more treatment-eligible children. There is no evidence of differential treatment effects on age at program eligibility or number of years of program eligibility. Conclusions: Mass deworming of preschool aged children in high prevalence communities in Uganda resulted in no statistically significant gains in numeracy or literacy 7-12 years after program completion. Point estimates were positive but imprecise; the study lacked sufficient power to rule out substantial positive effects or more modest negative effects. However, there is suggestive evidence that deworming was relatively more beneficial for girls, primary school aged children, and children living in households with other treated children. Research approval: As this analysis was conducted on secondary data which is publicly available, no research approval was sought or received. All individual records were anonymized by the data provider prior to public release. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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]

Ratings are present in many areas of assessment including peer review of research proposals and journal articles, teacher observations, university admissions and selection of new hires. One feature present in any rating process with multiple raters is that different raters often assign different scores to the same assessee, with the potential for bias and inconsistencies related to rater or assessee covariates. This paper analyzes disparities in ratings of internal and external applicants to teaching positions using applicant data from Spokane Public Schools. We first test for biases in rating while accounting for measures of teacher applicant qualifications and quality. Then, we develop model-based inter-rater reliability (IRR) estimates that allow us to account for various sources of measurement error, the hierarchical structure of the data, and to test whether covariates, such as applicant status, moderate IRR. We find that applicants external to the district receive lower ratings for job applications compared to internal applicants. This gap in ratings remains significant even after including measures of qualifications and quality such as experience, state licensure scores, or estimated teacher value added. With model-based IRR, we further show that consistency between raters is significantly lower when rating external applicants. We conclude the paper by discussing policy implications and possible applications of our model-based IRR estimate for hiring and selection practices in and out of the teacher labor market. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines how to maximize contribution in public good dilemmas by arranging people into homogeneous or heterogeneous subgroups. Past studies on the effect of homogeneity of efficacy have exclusively manipulated group composition in their experimental designs, which might have imposed a limit on ecological validity because group membership may not be easily changed in reality. In this study, we maintained the same group composition but varied the subgroup composition. We developed a public good dilemmas paradigm in which participants were assigned to one of the four conditions (high- vs. low-efficacy; homogeneous vs. heterogeneous subgroup) to produce their endowments and then to decide how much to contribute. We found that individuals in homogeneous and heterogeneous subgroups produced a similar amount and proportion of contribution, which was due to the two mediating effects that counteracted each other, namely (a) perceived efficacy relative to subgroup and (b) expectation of contribution of other subgroup members. This paper demonstrates both the pros and cons of arranging people into homogeneous and heterogeneous subgroups of efficacy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Due to the disease’s progressive nature, advance care planning (ACP) is recommended for people with early stage dementia. General practitioners (GPs) should initiate ACP because of their longstanding relationships with their patients and their early involvement with the disease, however ACP is seldom applied. Aim: To determine the barriers and facilitators faced by GPs related to ACP with people with dementia. Data sources: We systematically searched the relevant databases for papers published between January 1995 and December 2016, using the terms: primary healthcare, GP, dementia, and ACP. We conducted a systematic integrative review following Whittemore and Knafl’s method. Papers containing empirical data about GP barriers and/or facilitators regarding ACP for people with dementia were included. We evaluated quality using the Mixed-Method-Appraisal-Tool and analyzed data using qualitative content analysis. Results: Ten qualitative, five quantitative, and one mixed-method paper revealed four themes: timely initiation of ACP, stakeholder engagement, important aspects of ACP the conversation, and prerequisites for ACP. Important barriers were: uncertainty about the timing of ACP, how to plan for an uncertain future, lack of knowledge about dementia, difficulties assessing people with dementia’s decisional capacities, and changing preferences. Facilitators for ACP were: an early start when cognitive decline is still mild, inclusion of all stakeholders, and discussing social and medical issues aimed at maintaining normal life. Conclusion: Discussing future care is difficult due to uncertainties about the future and the decisional capacities of people with dementia. Based on the facilitators, we recommend that GPs use a timely and goal-oriented approach and involve all stakeholders. ACP discussions should focus on the ability of people with dementia to maintain normal daily function as well as on their quality of life, instead of end-of-life-discussions only. GPs need training to acquire knowledge and skills to timely initiate collaborative ACP discussions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Public transport (PT) is a key element in most major cities around the world. With the development of smartphones, available journey planning information is becoming an integral part of the PT system. Each traveler has specific preferences when undertaking a trip, and these preferences can also be reflected on the smartphone. This paper considers transit assignment in urban public-transport networks in which the passengers receive smartphone-based information containing elements that might influence the travel decisions in relation to line loads, as well as passenger benefits, and the paper discusses the transition from the current widespread choosing approach to a personalized decision-making approach based on smartphone information. The approach associated with smartphone guidance that considers passengers’ preference on travel time, waiting time and transfer is proposed in the process of obtaining his/her preferred route from the potential travel routes generated by the Deep First Search (DFS) method. Two other approaches, based on the scenarios reflecting reality, include passengers with access to no real time information, and passengers that only have access to the arrival time at the platform are used as comparisons. For illustration, the same network proposed by Spiess and Florian is utilized on the experiments in an agent-based model. Two experiments are conducted respectively according to whether each passenger’s choosing method is consistent. As expected, the results in the first experiment showed that the travel for consistent passengers with smartphone guidance was clearly shorter and that it can reduce travel time exceeding 15% and weighted cost exceeding 20%, and the average saved time approximated 3.88 minutes per passenger. The second experiment presented that travel cost, as well as cost savings, gradually decreased by employing smartphone guidance, and the maximum cost savings accounted for 14.2% of the total weighted cost. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to optimize a desirable fare structure for the public transit service along a bus-subway corridor with the consideration of those factors related to equity in trip, including travel distance and comfort level. The travel distance factor is represented by the distance-based fare strategy, which is an existing differential strategy. The comfort level one is considered in the area-based fare strategy which is a new differential strategy defined in this paper. Both factors are referred to by the combined fare strategy which is composed of distance-based and area-based fare strategies. The flat fare strategy is applied to determine a reference level of social welfare and obtain the general passenger flow along transit lines, which is used to divide areas or zones along the corridor. This problem is formulated as a bi-level program, of which the upper level maximizes the social welfare and the lower level capturing traveler choice behavior is a variable-demand stochastic user equilibrium assignment model. A genetic algorithm is applied to solve the bi-level program while the method of successive averages is adopted to solve the lower-level model. A series of numerical experiments are carried out to illustrate the performance of the models and solution methods. Numerical results indicate that all three differential fare strategies play a better role in enhancing the social welfare than the flat fare strategy and that the fare structure under the combined fare strategy generates the highest social welfare and the largest resulting passenger demand, which implies that the more equity factors a differential fare strategy involves the more desirable fare structure the strategy has. [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 examined, with a behavioral paradigm, to what extent people choose to view stimuli that portray death, violence or harm. Based on briefly presented visual cues, participants made choices between highly arousing, negative images and positive or negative alternatives. The negative images displayed social scenes that involved death, violence or harm (e.g., war scene), or decontextualized, close-ups of physical harm (e.g., mutilated face) or natural threat (e.g., attacking shark). The results demonstrated that social negative images were chosen significantly more often than other negative categories. Furthermore, participants preferred social negative images over neutral images. Physical harm images and natural threat images were not preferred over neutral images, but were chosen in about thirty-five percent of the trials. These results were replicated across three different studies, including a study that presented verbal descriptions of images as pre-choice cues. Together, these results show that people deliberately subject themselves to negative images. With this, the present paper demonstrates a dynamic relationship between negative information and behavior and advances new insights into the phenomenon of morbid curiosity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many US biomedical PhD programs receive more applications for admissions than they can accept each year, necessitating a selective admissions process. Typical selection criteria include standardized test scores, undergraduate grade point average, letters of recommendation, a resume and/or personal statement highlighting relevant research or professional experience, and feedback from interviews with training faculty. Admissions decisions are often founded on assumptions that these application components correlate with research success in graduate school, but these assumptions have not been rigorously tested. We sought to determine if any application components were predictive of student productivity measured by first-author student publications and time to degree completion. We collected productivity metrics for graduate students who entered the umbrella first-year biomedical PhD program at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill from 2008–2010 and analyzed components of their admissions applications. We found no correlations of test scores, grades, amount of previous research experience, or faculty interview ratings with high or low productivity among those applicants who were admitted and chose to matriculate at UNC. In contrast, ratings from recommendation letter writers were significantly stronger for students who published multiple first-author papers in graduate school than for those who published no first-author papers during the same timeframe. We conclude that the most commonly used standardized test (the general GRE) is a particularly ineffective predictive tool, but that qualitative assessments by previous mentors are more likely to identify students who will succeed in biomedical graduate research. Based on these results, we conclude that admissions committees should avoid over-reliance on any single component of the application and de-emphasize metrics that are minimally predictive of student productivity. We recommend continual tracking of desired training outcomes combined with retrospective analysis of admissions practices to guide both application requirements and holistic application review. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The popularity of online information generally experiences a rising and falling evolution. This paper considers the “burst”, “peak”, and “fade” key events together as a representative summary of popularity evolution. We propose a novel prediction task—predicting when popularity undergoes these key events. It is of great importance to know when these three key events occur, because doing so helps recommendation systems, online marketing, and containment of rumors. However, it is very challenging to solve this new prediction task due to two issues. First, popularity evolution has high variation and can follow various patterns, so how can we identify “burst”, “peak”, and “fade” in different patterns of popularity evolution? Second, these events usually occur in a very short time, so how can we accurately yet promptly predict them? In this paper we address these two issues. To handle the first one, we use a simple moving average to smooth variation, and then a universal method is presented for different patterns to identify the key events in popularity evolution. To deal with the second one, we extract different types of features that may have an impact on the key events, and then a correlation analysis is conducted in the feature selection step to remove irrelevant and redundant features. The remaining features are used to train a machine learning model. The feature selection step improves prediction accuracy, and in order to emphasize prediction promptness, we design a new evaluation metric which considers both accuracy and promptness to evaluate our prediction task. Experimental and comparative results show the superiority of our prediction solution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Creativity is a complex, multi-faceted concept encompassing a variety of related aspects, abilities, properties and behaviours. If we wish to study creativity scientifically, then a tractable and well-articulated model of creativity is required. Such a model would be of great value to researchers investigating the nature of creativity and in particular, those concerned with the evaluation of creative practice. This paper describes a unique approach to developing a suitable model of how creative behaviour emerges that is based on the words people use to describe the concept. Using techniques from the field of statistical natural language processing, we identify a collection of fourteen key components of creativity through an analysis of a corpus of academic papers on the topic. Words are identified which appear significantly often in connection with discussions of the concept. Using a measure of lexical similarity to help cluster these words, a number of distinct themes emerge, which collectively contribute to a comprehensive and multi-perspective model of creativity. The components provide an ontology of creativity: a set of building blocks which can be used to model creative practice in a variety of domains. The components have been employed in two case studies to evaluate the creativity of computational systems and have proven useful in articulating achievements of this work and directions for further research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The 5Rights Youth Juries are an educational intervention to promote digital literacy by engaging participants (i.e. jurors) in a deliberative discussion around their digital rights. The main objective of these jury-styled focus groups is to encourage children and young people to identify online concerns and solutions with a view to developing recommendations for government policy-makers and industry chiefs. The methodology included a series of dramatized scenarios that encourage jurors to deliberate about their digital rights. This paper compares two formats for these scenarios: live actors and professionally recorded and edited videos of the same actors. Results failed to show any major differences between formats indicating the cost-effectiveness of the video-recorded format and the possibility for others to run the 5Rights Youth Juries with the support of an online open educational resource. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses the representations and discourse of 41 trainee teachers on the inclusion of gaming elements in education and their potential contribution to covering social problems in the curriculum, and to education on and for gender equality between men and women. The study follows the principles of mixed methods research, based on the transcription, coding, categorisation, and analysis of data obtained from 34 semi-structured interviews and two focus groups, in addition to their descriptive quantitative analysis. The results showed optimum reception of gamification as a useful formative strategy in the various stages of education and that it can be validly used to include gender as a category of analysis in the teaching of social sciences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Impairments in social cognition have been described in several psychiatric and neurological disorders. Given the importance of the relationship between social cognition and functioning and quality of life in these disorders, there is a growing interest in social cognition remediation interventions. The aim of this study was to carry out a systematic mapping review to describe the state of the art in social cognition training and remediation interventions. Methods: Publications from 2006 to 2016 on social cognition interventions were reviewed in four databases: Scopus, PsycINFO, PubMed and Embase. From the initial result set of 3229 publications, a final total of 241 publications were selected. Results: The study revealed an increasing interest in social cognition remediation interventions, especially in the fields of psychiatry and psychology, with a gradual growth in the number of publications. These were frequently published in high impact factor journals and underpinned by robust scientific evidence. Most studies were conducted on schizophrenia, followed by autism spectrum disorders. Theory of mind and emotional processing were the focus of most interventions, whilst a limited number of studies addressed attributional bias and social perception. Targeted interventions in social cognition were the most frequent practice in the selected papers, followed by non-specific treatment interventions and broad-based interventions. Conclusions: Research in social cognition remediation interventions is growing. Further studies are needed on attributional bias and social perception remediation programs, while the comparative efficacy of different interventions also remains unclear. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

University dropout is a growing problem with considerable academic, social and economic consequences. Conclusions and limitations of previous studies highlight the difficulty of analyzing the phenomenon from a broad perspective and with bigger data sets. This paper proposes a new, machine-learning based method, able to examine the problem using a holistic approach. Advantages of this method include the lack of strong distribution hypothesis, the capacity for handling bigger data sets and the interpretability of the results. Results are consistent with previous research, showing the influence of personal and contextual variables and the importance of academic performance in the first year, but other factors are also highlighted with this model, such as the importance of dedication (part or full time), and the vulnerability of the students with respect to their age. Additionally, a comprehensive graphic output is included to make it easier to interpret the discovered rules. [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]

Background: A community’s cultural beliefs, attitudes and discourse can affect their responses in surveys. Knowledge of these cultural factors and how to comply with them or adjust for them during data collection can improve data quality. Objective: This study describes implications of features of Gambian culture related to women’s reproductive health, and mortality, when collecting data in surveys. Methods: 13 in-depth interviews of female interviewers and a focus group discussion among male interviewers were conducted in two rural health and demographic surveillance systems as well as three key informant interviews in three regions in The Gambia. Results: From the fieldworker’s viewpoint, questions relating to reproduction were best asked by women as culturally pregnancies should be concealed, and menstruation is considered a sensitive topic. Gambians were reluctant to speak about decedents and the Fula did not like to be counted, potentially affecting estimation of mortality. Asking about siblings proved problematic among the Fula and Serahule communities. Proposals made to overcome these challenges were that culturally-appropriate metaphors and symbols should be used to discuss sensitive matters and to enumerating births/deaths singly instead of collecting summary totals, which had threatening connotations. This was as opposed to training interviewers to ask standardised and precise verbatim questions. Contribution: This paper presents indigenous Gambian solutions by fieldworkers to culturally sensitive topics when collecting pregnancy outcomes and mortality data in demographic and health surveys. For researchers collecting maternal mortality data, it highlights the potential shortcomings of the sibling history methodology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The use of virtual laboratories is growing as companies and educational institutions try to expand their reach, cut costs, increase student understanding, and provide more accessible hands on training for future scientists. Many new higher education initiatives outsource lab activities so students now perform them online in a virtual environment rather than in a classroom setting, thereby saving time and money while increasing accessibility. In this paper we explored whether the learning and motivational outcomes of interacting with a desktop virtual reality (VR) science lab simulation on the internet at home are equivalent to interacting with the same simulation in class with teacher supervision. A sample of 112 (76 female) university biology students participated in a between-subjects experimental design, in which participants learned at home or in class from the same virtual laboratory simulation on the topic of microbiology. The home and classroom groups did not differ significantly on post-test learning outcome scores, or on self-report measures of intrinsic motivation or self-efficacy. Furthermore, these conclusions remained after accounting for prior knowledge or goal orientation. In conclusion, the results indicate that virtual simulations are learning activities that students can engage in just as effectively outside of the classroom environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Orienteering problem (OP) is a routing problem, where the aim is to generate a path through set of nodes, which would maximize total score and would not exceed the budget. In this paper, we present an extension of classic OP—Orienteering Problem with Functional Profits (OPFP), where the score of a specific point depends on its characteristics, position in the route, and other points in the route. For solving OPFP, we developed an open-source framework for solving orienteering problems, which utilizes four core components of OP in its modular architecture. Fully-written in Go programming language our framework can be extended for solving different types of tasks with different algorithms; this was demonstrated by implementation of two popular algorithms for OP solving—Ant Colony Optimization and Recursive Greedy Algorithm. Computational efficiency of the framework was shown through solving four well-known OP types: classic Orienteering Problem (OP), Orienteering Problem with Compulsory Vertices (OPCV), Orienteering Problem with Time Windows (OPTW), and Time Dependent Orienteering Problem (TDOP) along with OPFP. Experiments were conducted on a large multi-source dataset for Saint Petersburg, Russia, containing data from Instagram, TripAdvisor, Foursquare and official touristic website. Our framework is able to construct touristic paths for different OP types within few seconds using dataset with thousands of points of interest. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Google Books Ngram Viewer (Google Ngram) is a search engine that charts word frequencies from a large corpus of books and thereby allows for the examination of cultural change as it is reflected in books. While the tool's massive corpus of data (about 8 million books or 6% of all books ever published) has been used in various scientific studies, concerns about the accuracy of results have simultaneously emerged. This paper reviews the literature and serves as a guideline for improving Google Ngram studies by suggesting five methodological procedures suited to increase the reliability of results. In particular, we recommend the use of (I) different language corpora, (II) cross-checks on different corpora from the same language, (III) word inflections, (IV) synonyms, and (V) a standardization procedure that accounts for both the influx of data and unequal weights of word frequencies. Further, we outline how to combine these procedures and address the risk of potential biases arising from censorship and propaganda. As an example of the proposed procedures, we examine the cross-cultural expression of religion via religious terms for the years 1900 to 2000. Special emphasis is placed on the situation during World War II. In line with the strand of literature that emphasizes the decline of collectivistic values, our results suggest an overall decrease of religion's importance. However, religion re-gains importance during times of crisis such as World War II. By comparing the results obtained through the different methods, we illustrate that applying and particularly combining our suggested procedures increase the reliability of results and prevents authors from deriving wrong assumptions. [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]

Studio is critically important for design education, but few attempts have been made to demonstrate the parallels between studio factors and design performance. This paper adopts a coherent set of analyses to investigate the major studio factors and attempts to quantify the networking interactions among them. First, it describes how architectural studio is usually organised based on some major factors. Next, a theoretical model is established according to the described hypotheses and their mutual interactions. Third, the research method and statistical analysis with structural equation modelling (SEM) are presented. Finally, the results of this empirical examination are presented for discussion and suggestions. Our findings reveal that studio tutorials have no significant effect on undergraduate's design performance. In contrast, students’ subjective intention plays a more important role in shaping their behaviour, indicating the importance of transferring those exterior forces into internal benefits when the studio instructor attempts to optimise the pedagogy. These findings are also inspiring for all creative disciplines. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: Cultural changes faced by immigrants and ethnic minorities after moving to a host country may have a detrimental or beneficial influence on their oral health and oral health-related behaviors. Therefore, this paper reviews the literature to see the impact of acculturation on immigrants and ethnic minorities’ oral health outcomes. Methods: We searched seven electronic databases up to January 2018. All cross-sectional and longitudinal quantitative studies that examined associations between acculturation and oral health status and/or oral health behaviors among ethnic minority and immigrant population[s] were included. Study selection, data extraction, and risk of bias assessment were completed in duplicate. The Newcastle-Ottawa checklist was used to appraise the methodological quality of the quantitative studies. A meta-analytic approach was not feasible. Results: A total of 42 quantitative studies were identified. The studies showed a positive association between acculturation and oral health status/behaviors. The most frequently used acculturation indicators were language spoken by immigrant and ethnic minorities and length of stay at the host country. High-acculturated immigrant and ethnic minority groups demonstrated better oral health outcomes, oral health behaviors, dental care utilization, and dental knowledge. Conclusions: According to existing evidence, a positive effect of acculturation on oral health status and behaviors was found. Practical implications: Dental practitioners should be culturally competent to provide the appropriate services and treatments to immigrant and ethnic minorities. Policymakers should also be sensitive to cultural diversities and properly address the unique needs of each group in order to maintain oral health equity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposes a weighted generalization of the recently developed Euclidean Index. The weighting mechanism is designed to reflect the reputation of the journal within which an article appears. The weights are constructed using the Eigenfactor Article Influence percentiles scores. The rationale for assigning weights is that citations in more prestigious journals should be adjusted to logically reflect higher costs of production and higher vetting standards, and to partially counter several pragmatic issues surrounding truncated citation counts. Simulated and empirical demonstrations of the proposed approaches are included, which emphasize the flexibility and efficacy of the proposed generalization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As a sustainable mode of transportation, public bicycles significantly improve daily mobility. The location of stations is a key element for the success of a public bicycle system, as a long walking distance will reduce people’s willingness to use this mode of transportation. Building forms in China are different from the open type seen abroad. Many residential, office and school areas are enclosed by walls, and pedestrian flow is concentrated at the entrances/exits of these areas. Therefore, the station must be located close to the building entrance/exit. Previous studies on station location located the stations only per zone, without providing the exact locations of the stations in the zones. This paper considers the optimal distance between the building entrance/exit and the station to determine the exact station locations. The results can serve as a reference for the planning and optimization of public bicycle stations. A questionnaire survey was conducted in Beijing to determine users’ walking distances to the stations. The results indicated that the walking distance decay laws of stations were different for different land uses. Moreover, a binary logistic model was developed to verify that users with different travel purposes have different walking distances. Based on the above results, we explored the optimal distances and tolerable distances between the building entrance/exit and the station for different land uses. These distances can be used to determine exact station locations to meet users’ physiological and psychological needs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A recurrent criticism concerning the use of online social media data in political science research is the lack of demographic information about social media users. By employing a face-recognition algorithm to the profile pictures of Facebook users, the paper derives two fundamental demographic characteristics (age and gender) of a sample of Facebook users who interacted with the most relevant British parties in the two weeks before the Brexit referendum of 23 June 2016. The article achieves the goals of (i) testing the precision of the algorithm, (ii) testing its validity, (iii) inferring new evidence on digital mobilisation, and (iv) tracing the path for future developments and application of the algorithm. The findings show that the algorithm is reliable and that it can be fruitfully used in political and social sciences both to confirm the validity of survey data and to obtain information from populations that are generally unavailable within traditional surveys. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aim: We aimed to identify and evaluate the quality and evidence of the motor learning literature about intervention studies regarding the contextual interference (CI) effect (blocked vs. random practice order) in children with brain lesions and typically developing (TD) children. Method: Eight databases (Cinahl, Cochrane, Embase, PubMed, Pedro, PsycINFO, Scopus and Web of Knowledge) were searched systematically with predefined search terms. Controlled studies examining the CI effect in children (with brain lesions or TD) were included. Evidence level, conduct quality, and risk of bias were evaluated by two authors independently. A best evidence synthesis was performed. Results: Twenty-five papers evaluating TD children were included. One of these studies also assessed children with cerebral palsy. Evidence levels were I, II, or III. Conduct quality was low and the risk of bias high, due to methodological issues in the study designs or poor description thereof. Best evidence synthesis showed mainly no or conflicting evidence. Single tasks showed limited to moderate evidence supporting the CI effect in TD children. Conclusion: There is a severe limitation of good-quality evidence about the CI effect in children who practice different tasks in one session, especially in children with brain lesions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Our aim was to develop a widely available educational program in which students conducted authentic research that met the expectations of both the scientific and educational communities. This paper describes the development and implementation of a citizen science project based on DNA barcoding of reptile specimens obtained from the Museums Victoria frozen tissue collection. The student program was run by the Gene Technology Access Centre (GTAC) and was delivered as a “one day plus one lesson” format incorporating a one-day wet laboratory workshop followed by a single lesson at school utilising online bioinformatics tools. The project leveraged the complementary resources and expertise of the research and educational partners to generate robust scientific data that could be analysed with confidence, meet the requirements of the Victorian state education curriculum, and provide participating students with an enhanced learning experience. During two 1-week stints in 2013 and 2014, 406 students mentored by 44 postgraduate university students participated in the project. Students worked mainly in pairs to process ~200 tissue samples cut from 53 curated reptile specimens representing 17 species. A total of 27 novel Cytochrome Oxidase subunit 1 (CO1) sequences were ultimately generated for 8 south-east Australian reptile species of the families Scincidae and Agamidae. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Audio description (AD) is one of the main methods that people who are blind or low vision (B/LV) use to access film, television, and theatre content. AD is a second audio track inserted into the space(s) where speech is absent, which tends to be only a few seconds. Contained in that second track is an audio description of the important visual information contained within a specific scene. However, as there is insufficient time to describe all visual information, decisions about what is important to describe and how to present that information (style) to optimize a B/LV viewer’s entertainment experience are required. Most research to date has considered only short-term, single-episode experiences to gauge viewers’ reactions to the AD content. In addition, this research typically has used a monotone, single style of audio description, which is defined as “the conventional style” in this paper. We use an integrative style instead, that is defined as ‘AD designed to fit a specific show”, and differed between shows. We carried out a within-subjects longitudinal study with eight episodes of a dark comedy, using different description styles and describers in order to assess viewer engagement and preferences for AD describer style, language use, timing, and fit to the show. Twenty-four blind participants viewed and rated all eight episodes. Major findings included that most participants found the integrative style entertaining, a fit with the specific episodes, and enjoyable. Some participants, however, preferred the conventional style and struggled with the language and topic of a dark comedy and its associated descriptions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we describe why and how to build a local community of practice in scientific programming for life scientists who use computers and programming in their research. A community of practice is a small group of scientists who meet regularly to help each other and promote good practices in scientific programming. While most life scientists are well trained in the laboratory to conduct experiments, good practices with (big) data sets and their analysis are often missing. We propose a model on how to build such a community of practice at a local academic institution, present two real-life examples, and introduce challenges and implemented solutions. We believe that the current data deluge that life scientists face can benefit from the implementation of these small communities. Good practices spread among experimental scientists will foster open, transparent, and sound scientific results beneficial to society. [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]

Wireless Mesh Networks (WMNs) integrate the advantages of WLANs and mobile Ad Hoc networks, which have become the key techniques of next-generation wireless networks in the context of emergency recovery. Wireless Mesh Networks (WMNs) are multi-hop wireless networks with instant deployment, self-healing, self-organization and self-configuration features. These capabilities make WMNs a promising technology for incident and emergency communication. An incident area network (IAN) needs a reliable and lively routing path during disaster recovery and emergency response operations when infrastructure-based communications and power resources have been destroyed and no routes are available. Power aware routing plays a significant role in WMNs, in order to provide continuous efficient emergency services. The existing power aware routing algorithms used in wireless networks cannot fully fit the characteristics of WMNs, to be used for emergency recovery. This paper proposes a power aware routing algorithm (PARA) for WMNs, which selects optimal paths to send packets, mainly based on the power level of next node along the path. This algorithm was implemented and tested in a proven simulator. The analytic results show that the proposed power node-type aware routing algorithm metric can clearly improve the network performance by reducing the network overheads and maintaining a high delivery ratio with low latency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Problem Solving (PS) skills allow students to handle problems within an educational context. PS is a core competence of Computer Science education and affects programming success. In this vein, this paper aims to investigate PS ability performance in primary school pupils of a computer course, implemented according to the Neo-Piagetian theory of cognitive development. The study included 945 Slovenian pupils, ranging from fourth to sixth grade. The effects of gender, age and consecutive years of attending the course were examined on pupils’ PS ability at the pre-operational and concrete operational stages. Pupils completed a survey questionnaire with four types of tasks (a series of statements, if-statements, loops and variables) at both stages. The analysis revealed three findings: the performance of PS ability in all tasks was, at the pre-operational stage, associated positively with performance at the concrete operational stage; there were no gender differences in PS performance at both stages, and both the grade and consecutive year of taking the computer course had an effect on PS ability performance at both stages. Those in the lowest grade and those taking the course for the first year reported lower performances than their older counterparts. These findings may help curriculum designers across the world develop efficient approaches to teaching computer courses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The vehicular ad hoc network (VANET) has been identified as one of the most promising technologies for managing future intelligent transportation systems. This paper proposes a distributed transmission power adjustment algorithm for communication congestion control and awareness enhancement to address communication congestion problems that can arise in VANETs. The objective of the proposed algorithm is to provide maximum awareness of surrounding vehicles’ status while maintaining a communications channel load below the allowed threshold. The proposed algorithm accomplishes this by adjusting the transmission range of each vehicle in the network progressively and gradually, while monitoring the communications channel load of each vehicle. By changing the transmission range of a vehicle little by little according to the communications channel load of its neighboring vehicles, the algorithm finds the optimal transmission range that provides maximum awareness without resulting in communications congestion. In addition, the proposed algorithm appropriately controls the channel load in a fair manner without sacrificing awareness of specific vehicles in the congested situation. This allows nearby vehicles to obtain more peripheral information to help them stay away from potential hazards and maintain safety. The proposed algorithm was implemented in a simulation environment, and its performance was validated in various traffic scenarios. The simulation results show that the proposed algorithm can deal with communication congestion by controlling the transmission power fairly to a target threshold in various traffic situations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Workshops are used to explore a specific topic, to transfer knowledge, to solve identified problems, or to create something new. In funded research projects and other research endeavours, workshops are the mechanism used to gather the wider project, community, or interested people together around a particular topic. However, natural questions arise: how do we measure the impact of these workshops? Do we know whether they are meeting the goals and objectives we set for them? What indicators should we use? In response to these questions, this paper will outline rules that will improve the measurement of the impact of workshops. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The research about unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) swarm has developed rapidly in recent years, especially the UAV swarm with sensors which is becoming common means of achieving situational awareness. Due to inadequate researches of the UAV swarm with complex control structure currently, we propose a patrolling task planning algorithm for the UAV swarm with double-layer centralized control structure under the uncertain and dynamic environment. The main objective of the UAV swarm is to collect environment information as much as possible. To summarized, the primary contributions of this paper are as follows. We first define the patrolling problem. After that, the patrolling problem is modeled as the Partially Observable Markov Decision Process (POMDP) problem. Building upon this, we put forward a myopic and scalable online task planning algorithm. The algorithm contains online heuristic function, sequential allocation method, and the mechanism of bottom-up information flow and top-down command flow, reducing the computation complexity effectively. Moreover, as the number of control layers increases, this algorithm guarantees the performance without increasing the computation complexity for the swarm leader. Finally, we empirically evaluate our algorithm in the specific scenarios. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Predicting and analyzing behaviors of investors is of great value to financial institutions. This paper uses survey data from about 9,000 individual investors across China to explore the predictability of decision behaviors by studying demographic characteristics that are relatively easy to obtain. After applying Pearson’s chi-squared test, Spearman rank correlation test, and several data mining methods, we verified that demographic characteristics are closely linked to decision behaviors, and it would be an economical and feasible solution for financial organizations to build initial behavioral prediction models especially when investors’ behavioral data are insufficient. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The strength model of self-control is one of the most influential and well-established models of self-regulation in social psychology. However, recent attempts to replicate the ego depletion effect have sometimes failed. The goal of this study is to investigate self-reported replication rates and the frequency of a set of questionable research practices (QRP) in ego depletion research. A literature search resulted in 1721 researchers who had previously published on ego depletion. They were invited to participate in an anonymous online survey. The respondents (n = 277), on average, had published over three papers on ego depletion, and had completed more than two additional, unpublished studies. Respondents indicated that in more than 40% of their studies, results were similar in magnitude to those reported in the existing literature, and more than 60% reported conducting a priori power analyses. 39.2% of respondents were aware of other researchers who engaged in the surveyed QRP’s, while 37.7% affirmed to have employed said QRP’s. These results underline the importance of reducing QRP’s to reliably test the validity of the ego depletion effect. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the booming development of evacuation simulation software, developing an extensive database in indoor scenarios for evacuation models is imperative. In this paper, we conduct a qualitative and quantitative analysis of the collected videotapes and aim to provide a complete and unitary database of pedestrians’ earthquake emergency response behaviors in indoor scenarios, including human-environment interactions. Using the qualitative analysis method, we extract keyword groups and keywords that code the response modes of pedestrians and construct a general decision flowchart using chronological organization. Using the quantitative analysis method, we analyze data on the delay time, evacuation speed, evacuation route and emergency exit choices. Furthermore, we study the effect of classroom layout on emergency evacuation. The database for indoor scenarios provides reliable input parameters and allows the construction of real and effective constraints for use in software and mathematical models. The database can also be used to validate the accuracy of evacuation models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Low numeracy may skew patient perceptions of information about cancer. This paper examines the relationship between self-reported measures of perceived numeracy and cancer knowledge, beliefs, and affect, using results from 3,052 respondents to the 2007 Health Information National Trends Survey (HINTS-3). Chi-squared tests were used to identify differences in responses between high- and low-numeracy groups using three measures of perceived numeracy. Multivariable logistic regression models were used to evaluate the association between the three perceived numeracy measures and cancer information overload, cancer fatalism, cancer prevention knowledge, and cancer worry. Respondents with low perceived numeracy as expressed by discomfort with medical statistics were more likely to report information overload, to display fatalistic attitudes towards cancer, to lack knowledge about cancer prevention, and to indicate that they worried about cancer more frequently. After controlling for sociodemographic characteristics, this measure of perceived numeracy remained significantly associated with information overload, fatalism, lower prevention knowledge, and worry. The other measures of perceived numeracy, which measured understanding and use of health statistics, were not associated with cancer perceptions. Our findings suggest that individuals with low perceived numeracy broadly differ from individuals with high perceived numeracy in their perceptions of cancer and cancer prevention. By improving our understanding of how perceived numeracy affects patient perceptions of cancer, health providers can improve educational strategies and targeted health messaging. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Active learning is a pedagogical approach that involves students engaging in collaborative learning, which enables them to take more responsibility for their learning and improve their critical thinking skills. While prior research examined student performance at majority universities, this study focuses on specifically Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) for the first time. Here we present work that focuses on the impact of active learning interventions at Florida A&M University, where we measured the impact of active learning strategies coupled with a SCALE-UP (Student Centered Active Learning Environment with Upside-down Pedagogies) learning environment on student success in General Biology. In biology sections where active learning techniques were employed, students watched online videos and completed specific activities before class covering information previously presented in a traditional lecture format. In-class activities were then carefully planned to reinforce critical concepts and enhance critical thinking skills through active learning techniques such as the one-minute paper, think-pair-share, and the utilization of clickers. Students in the active learning and control groups covered the same topics, took the same summative examinations and completed identical homework sets. In addition, the same instructor taught all of the sections included in this study. Testing demonstrated that these interventions increased learning gains by as much as 16%, and students reported an increase in their positive perceptions of active learning and biology. Overall, our results suggest that active learning approaches coupled with the SCALE-UP environment may provide an added opportunity for student success when compared with the standard modes of instruction in General Biology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Education is undergoing profound changes due to permanent technological innovations. This paper reports the results of a pilot study aimed at developing, implementing and evaluating the course, "Applicative Use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) in Medicine," upon medical school entry. The Faculty of Medicine, University of Belgrade, introduced a curriculum reform in 2014 that included the implementation of the course, “Applicative Use of ICT in Medicine” for first year medical students. The course was designed using a blended learning format to introduce the concepts of Web-based learning environments. Data regarding student knowledge, use and attitudes towards ICT were prospectively collected for the classes of 2015/16 and 2016/17. The teaching approach was supported by multimedia didactic materials using Moodle LMS. The overall quality of the course was also assessed. The five level Likert scale was used to measure attitudes related to ICT. In total, 1110 students were assessed upon medical school entry. A small number of students (19%) had previous experience with e-learning. Students were largely in agreement that informatics is needed in medical education, and that it is also useful for doctors (4.1±1.0 and 4.1±0.9, respectively). Ability in informatics and use of the Internet in education in the adjusted multivariate regression model were significantly associated with positive student attitudes toward ICT. More than 80% of students stated that they had learned to evaluate medical information and would use the Internet to search medical literature as an additional source for education. The majority of students (77%) agreed that a blended learning approach facilitates access to learning materials and enables time independent learning (72%). Implementing the blended learning course, "Applicative Use of ICT in Medicine," may bridge the gap between medicine and informatics upon medical school entry. Students displayed positive attitudes towards using ICT and gained adequate skills necessary to function effectively in an information-rich environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports on a social discounting experiment conducted with university students in South Africa. In line with other social discounting task experiments, participants identify target individuals at different degrees of intimacy in their social network and then make 10 choices involving sums of money for themselves or their targets. For an altruism premium to exist, senders’ donations to recipients should be positive, statistically and economically significant, and independent of relationship closeness. We hypothesize that in addition to the altruism premium for kin documented in the literature, there may be other premia for family in general and for partners and friends. We find that, apart from the “kinship” premium, there is a sizeable “intimacy” premium, which together translates into a substantial “family” premium. The study also finds a “friendship premium”, as is documented in various experiments. The closeness of relationships among family and kin, especially close kin, has a significant and large effect on altruism. The results also attest to the importance of the extended family in regards to the “kinship” premium on altruism. These various premiums on altruism emphasise the importance of the supportive role of various social systems. Nevertheless, altruism within families and among close kin might also be enhanced by building more cohesive and stronger families using developmental social welfare programmes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent research suggests that psychological needs can influence the political attitudes of ordinary citizens, often outside of their conscious awareness. In this paper, we investigate whether psychological needs also shape the spending priorities of political elites in the US. Most models of policymaking assume that political elites respond to information in relatively homogeneous ways. We suggest otherwise, and explore one source of difference in information processing, namely, threat sensitivity, which previous research links to increased support for conservative policy attitudes. Drawing on a sample of state-level policymakers, we measure their spending priorities using a survey and their level of threat sensitivity using a standard psychophysiological measure (skin conductance). We find that, like ordinary citizens, threat sensitivity leads even state-level policymakers to prioritize spending on government polices that are designed to minimize threats. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Psychological and other persuasive mechanisms across diverse contexts are well researched, with many studies of the effectiveness of specific persuasive techniques on distinct types of human behaviour. In the present paper, our specific interest lies in the development of a generalized modular psychometric tool to measure individuals’ susceptibility to persuasion. The scale is constructed using items from previously developed and validated particulate scales established in the domains of social psychology and behavioural economics. In the first study we establish the Susceptibility to Persuasion–II (StP-II) scale, containing 54 items, 10 subscales and further 6 sub-sub scales. In Study 2 we establish the scale’s construct validity and reconfirm its reliability. We present a valid and reliable modular psychometric tool that measures general susceptibility to persuasive techniques. Since its inception, we have successfully implemented the StP-II scale to measure susceptibility to persuasion of IT security officers, the role of psychology of persuasion in cybercrime victims and general persuadability levels of Facebook users; these manuscripts are in preparation. We argue that the StP-II scale shows promise in measuring individual differences in susceptibility to persuasion, and is applicable across diverse contexts such as Internet security and cybercrime. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]