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Currently, China has entered the development stage of a "low birth rate" demographically. There is a huge contradiction between the unbalanced and inadequate distribution of preschool education facilities (PEFs) and the people's expectations for "full and good education for children". This study took the Lingui New District, a typical new urban area in West China as the research area, and through the introduction of POI big data and GIS analysis methods, supplemented by GeoDA Bivariate Moran index analyses, established a kindergarten spatial database. The study found that preschool education facilities have problems such as insufficient quantity, uneven quality, low service coverage, poor accessibility, etc. Therefore, it is suggested to increase the proportion of public affordable preschool education facilities including kindergartens and nurseries, optimize the spatial distribution of preschool education, and improve the accessibility of preschool services to promote affordable, safe, and high-quality development of preschool education and to provide reference suggestions for the revision of relevant standards and the adjustment of the layout of preschool education in undeveloped regions of China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Creating behavior change to mobilize transitions toward sustainability is a significant challenge of our time. Inspired by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization's Farmer Field School, we developed a novel community-based education program to engage people in local sustainability topics. In the Sustainable Communities Field School (Field School) program, advertised as team building tours, participants from local organizations are guided by instructors through University of British Columbia Botanical Garden, while receiving verbal and experiential education on topics of food systems and choices, biodiversity conservation, water conservation, and waste reduction. We found that after the Field School program, participants were significantly more knowledgeable about environmental issues, more connected to nature, showed greater intentions and willingness to engage in sustainability actions compared to garden visitors from the general public who did not go through the program. The results suggest that interactive sustainability education in a botanical garden setting can be a useful education model to mobilize public engagement on sustainability.

The exotic pet trade poses a major threat to biodiversity conservation. To combat biodiversity loss, it is essential to reduce demand for exotic pets and engage people in civic actions for wildlife conservation. Although messaging has been extensively used in conservation practice, little is known about how it can influence attitudes and various types of actions pertaining to the exotic pet trade. This study examined the impact of conservation messaging in the context of exotic pet ownership and wildlife entertainment visitation as common practices of the exotic pet trade. We randomly assigned participants in the United States to one of five messaging conditions: biodiversity loss and animal abuse (M1), zoonotic disease risks (M2), illegality (M3), social disapproval (M4), and neutral biological information as a control condition (M5). We found that all conservation messages (M1–M4) significantly decreased people's favorable attitudes toward the exotic pet trade and their desire to visit wildlife entertainment. However, conservation messaging did not influence the desire for exotic pet ownership or intentions to take civic actions. Our findings highlight the potential of conservation messaging for attitude change and demand reduction for wildlife entertainment, but different approaches are necessary for promoting more effortful actions such as exotic pet ownership and civic actions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Inference of gene regulatory network (GRN) from gene expression profiles has been a central problem in systems biology and bioinformatics in the past decades. The tremendous emergency of single-cell RNA sequencing (scRNA-seq) data brings new opportunities and challenges for GRN inference: the extensive dropouts and complicated noise structure may also degrade the performance of contemporary gene regulatory models. Thus, there is an urgent need to develop more accurate methods for gene regulatory network inference in single-cell data while considering the noise structure at the same time. In this paper, we extend the traditional structural equation modeling (SEM) framework by considering a flexible noise modeling strategy, namely we use the Gaussian mixtures to approximate the complex stochastic nature of a biological system, since the Gaussian mixture framework can be arguably served as a universal approximation for any continuous distributions. The proposed non-Gaussian SEM framework is called NG-SEM, which can be optimized by iteratively performing Expectation-Maximization algorithm and weighted least-squares method. Moreover, the Akaike Information Criteria is adopted to select the number of components of the Gaussian mixture. To probe the accuracy and stability of our proposed method, we design a comprehensive variate of control experiments to systematically investigate the performance of NG-SEM under various conditions, including simulations and real biological data sets. Results on synthetic data demonstrate that this strategy can improve the performance of traditional Gaussian SEM model and results on real biological data sets verify that NG-SEM outperforms other five state-of-the-art methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the proliferation of nudge research in the last few decades, very little published work aims to nudge the behavior of policymakers. Here we explore the impact of a well-established nudge on policymakers in the Northwest Territories of Canada. In a pre-registered randomized controlled trial, we emailed an invitation to policymakers (N = 263) to attend an online briefing on gendered impacts of policy. In the treatment condition (N = 133), the invitation contained personal stories of two women whose lives were disproportionally impacted by public policies more than men. In the control condition (N = 130), the invitation did not contain such stories. After the briefing, we sent all participants in both conditions a link to a public pledge that they could sign. The pledge was to lead and advocate for equity-oriented policymaking. Contrary to our prediction, there was a small backfiring effect where policymakers in the treatment condition (3.0%) were less likely to attend the briefing than the control condition (7.7%). However, two policymakers (1.5%) in the treatment condition signed the public pledge compared to one (0.8%) in the control condition. The current findings reveal the limits of using personal stories as a nudge to influence policymakers. We discuss insights gained from this experiment and follow-up debriefings with policymakers on how to improve future behavioral interventions designed to nudge policymakers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the pathway toward environmental sustainability, it is important that we understand how individuals can make a difference through diverse types of engagement. Theories suggest that transformative change toward a sustainable future requires individuals to engage in not only private actions (e.g. household energy saving, recycling) but also social‐signalling and system‐changing civic actions (e.g. opinion sharing, voting, petition signing and protesting). Yet, past research on pro‐environmental behaviour has primarily focused on private actions, while overlooking individual contributions to facilitating widespread change through civic actions.We use the exotic pet trade as a focal case to understand how individuals may act to promote environmental sustainability through different patterns of engagement and what factors might explain these distinct patters of action.Results from an online survey about behavioural intentions in the United States (n = 527) revealed three types of individual action that could transform the exotic pet trade.Private actions clustered separately from civic actions. Within the category of civic actions, a distinction emerged between lower social‐commitment actions and higher social‐commitment actions, based on the perceived level of social engagement and personal efforts involved.We also found that each type of action was associated with unique factors, highlighting the importance of attitudes, perceived social norms, and relational values for variously promoting individual engagement among the U.S. public.Our findings suggest that these distinct types of action should be treated differently when designing future wildlife conservation campaigns and behaviour change interventions. Read the free Plain Language Summary for this article on the Journal blog. Read the free Plain Language Summary for this article on the Journal blog. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Excessive accumulation of hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) in the physiological pool can cause oxidative stress of cells and eventually lead to the occurrence of diseases. Therefore, accurate and real-time detection of H2O2 is of great significance for disease detection and prevention. In this study, an Fe single-atom nanozyme (Fe-SNC) with an Fe-N4 active center was synthesized, which showed excellent peroxidase-like activity in an acidic environment and amazing electrocatalytic activity in H2O2 reduction reaction. Based on this, we proposed a colorimetric and electrochemical dual-signal detection strategy to real-time monitor H2O2 secreted by living cells. Compared with single-signal response mode, double-signal response mode has higher precision and sensitivity. The results show that the detection range of the colorimetric analysis method is 3–1000 μM and the detection limit is 1.3 μM. The detection range of the electrochemical analysis method is 1–8127 μM, and the detection limit is 0.61 μM. We believe that the dual-signal detection strategy based on Fe-SNC not only provides a way for the ultra-sensitive detection of hydrogen peroxide but also has a broad application prospect in clinical diagnosis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Solutions to environmental and social problems are often framed in dichotomous ways, which can be counterproductive. Instead, multiple solutions are often needed to fully address these problems. Here we examine how framing influences people's preference for multiple solutions. In a pre-registered experiment, participants (N = 1,432) were randomly assigned to one of four framing conditions. In the first three conditions, participants were presented with a series of eight problems, each framed with multiple causes, multiple impacts, or multiple solutions to the problem. The control condition did not present any framing information. Participants indicated their preferred solution, perceived severity and urgency of the problem, and their dichotomous thinking tendency. Pre-registered analyses showed that none of the three frames had a significant impact on preference for multiple solutions, perceived severity, perceived urgency, or dichotomous thinking. However, exploratory analyses showed that perceived severity and urgency of the problem were positively correlated with people's preference for multiple solutions, while dichotomous thinking was negatively correlated. These findings showed no demonstrable impact of framing on multi-solution preference. Future interventions should focus on addressing perceived severity and urgency, or decreasing dichotomous thinking to encourage people to adopt multiple solutions to address complex environmental and social problems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: Diverting lower urgency ED presentations to more suitable healthcare is a key goal of several healthcare systems. During the early stages of the COVID‐19 pandemic in 2020, there was a substantial drop in ED presentations in New South Wales (NSW), potentially because of lower risk of illness and injury through social restrictions, or ED avoidance for lower urgent care. The present study aimed to better understand the impact of social restrictions during the pandemic on ED presentations, to inform potential shifts to alternative modes of care in emergency medicine. Methods: We conducted a quasi‐experimental study of public ED presentations in NSW. We compared changes in weekly ED presentation counts by urgency, during and after the period of tightest social restrictions in contrast to the baseline period. Expected weekly counts were estimated using segmented quasi‐Poisson regression, accounting for age and seasonality. Results: Lower urgency presentations fell more than mid‐high urgency presentations, both during and after the period of tightest social restrictions. Lower urgency presentations reduced 30.9% compared to the baseline period during tightest restrictions, in contrast to 20.9% reduction for mid‐high urgency presentations. Lower urgency presentations remained 14.4% lower after the tightest restrictions compared to the baseline period, whereas mid‐high urgency presentations returned to usual levels. Conclusions: This finding suggests that reducing lower urgency ED presentation beyond the COVID‐19 pandemic maybe feasible, by supporting alternative, more appropriate sources of care. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When two jointly presented cues predict different outcomes, people respond faster to the conjunction/overlap of outcomes. Two explanations exist. In the joint account, people prioritize conjunction. In the serial account, people process cues serially and incidentally respond faster to conjunction. We tested these accounts in three experiments using novel web based attention-tracking tools. Participants learned colour-location associations where colorus predicted target locations (Experiment 1). Afterward, two cues appeared jointly and targets followed randomly. Exploratory data showed participants initially prioritized locations consistent with the conjunction, shifting later. Experiment 2 presented complex color-category associations during exposure. Upon seeing joint cues, participants' responses indicated both serial and joint processing. Experiment 3, with imperfect cue-outcome associations during exposure, surprisingly showed robust conjunctive predictions, likely because people expected exceptions to their predictions. Overall, strong learning led to spontaneous conjunctive predictions, but there were quick shifts to alternatives like serial processing when people were not expecting exceptions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Bayesian orthodoxy posits a tight relationship between conditional probability and updating. Namely, the probability of an event "A" after learning "B" should equal the conditional probability of "A" given "B" prior to learning "B". We examine whether ordinary judgment conforms to the orthodox view. In three experiments we found substantial differences between the conditional probability of an event "A" supposing an event "B" compared to the probability of "A" after having learned "B". Specifically, supposing "B" appears to have less impact on the credibility of "A" than learning that "B" is true. (Contains 1 figure and 5 tables.)

In standard treatments of probability, Pr(A[vertical bar]B) is defined as the ratio of Pr(A[intersection]B) to Pr(B), provided that Pr(B) greater than 0. This account of conditional probability suggests a psychological question, namely, whether estimates of Pr(A[vertical bar]B) arise in the mind via implicit calculation of Pr(A[intersection]B)/Pr(B). We tested this hypothesis (Experiment 1) by presenting brief visual scenes composed of forms, and collecting estimates of relevant probabilities. Direct estimates of conditional probability were not well predicted by Pr(A[intersection]B)/Pr(B). Direct estimates were also closer to the objective probabilities defined by the stimuli, compared to estimates computed from the foregoing ratio. The hypothesis that Pr(A[vertical bar]B) arises from the ratio Pr(A[intersection]B)/[Pr(A[intersection]B)+Pr(A[vinculum][intersection]B)] fared better (Experiment 2). In a third experiment, the same hypotheses were evaluated in the context of subjective estimates of the chance of future events. (Contains 4 tables and 3 figures.)