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Assessing the measurement model (MM) of self-report scales is crucial to obtain valid measurements of individuals' latent psychological constructs. This entails evaluating the number of measured constructs and determining which construct is measured by which item. Exploratory factor analysis (EFA) is the most-used method to evaluate these psychometric properties, where the number of measured constructs (i.e., factors) is assessed, and, afterward, rotational freedom is resolved to interpret these factors. This study assessed the effects of an acquiescence response style (ARS) on EFA for unidimensional and multidimensional (un)balanced scales. Specifically, we evaluated (a) whether ARS is captured as an additional factor, (b) the effect of different rotation approaches on the content and ARS factors recovery, and (c) the effect of extracting the additional ARS factor on the recovery of factor loadings. ARS was often captured as an additional factor in balanced scales when it was strong. For these scales, ignoring extracting this additional ARS factor, or rotating to simple structure when extracting it, harmed the recovery of the original MM by introducing bias in loadings and cross-loadings. These issues were avoided by using informed rotation approaches (i.e., target rotation), where (part of) the rotation target is specified according to a priori expectations on the MM. Not extracting the additional ARS factor did not affect the loading recovery in unbalanced scales. Researchers should consider the potential presence of ARS when assessing the psychometric properties of balanced scales and use informed rotation approaches when suspecting that an additional factor is an ARS factor. ispartof: EDUCATIONAL AND PSYCHOLOGICAL MEASUREMENT vol:83 issue:3 pages:433-472 ispartof: location:United States status: published

It has been shown in literature that East Asians are more inclined to process context information than individuals in Western cultures. Using a context memory task that requires studying object images in social contexts (i.e., rating objects in an imagined social or experiential scenario), our recent study revealed an age-invariant advantage for Chinese young and older participants compared to their Canadian counterparts in memory for encoding contexts. To examine whether this cultural difference also occurred during encoding, this follow-up report analyzed encoding performance and its relationship to subsequent memory based on the same data from the same task of the same sample. The results revealed that at encoding, Chinese participants provided higher ratings of objects, took longer to rate, and reported more vivid imagery of encoding contexts relative to their Canadian counterparts. Furthermore, only Chinese participants rated objects with recognized context at retrieval higher and slower relative to those with misrecognized context. For Chinese participants, primarily older adults, slower ratings were only related to better context memory but not item memory. Importantly, Chinese participants’ context memory advantage disappeared after controlling for encoding differences. Taken together, these results suggest that Chinese participants’ memory advantage for social contexts may have its origin in the construction of elaborative and meaningful object-context associations at encoding.

Classical value-based decision theories state that economic choices are solely based on the value of available options. Experimental evidence suggests, however, that individuals’ choices are biased towards default options, prompted by the framing of decisions. Although the effects of default options created by exogenous framing – such as how choice options are displayed – are well-documented, little is known about the potential effects and properties of endogenous framing, that is, originating from an individual’s internal state. In this study, we investigated the existence and properties of endogenous default options in a task involving choices between risky lotteries. By manipulating and examining the effects of three experimental features – time pressure, time spent on task and relative choice proportion towards a specific option –, we reveal and dissociate two features of endogenous default options which bias individuals’ choices: a natural tendency to prefer certain types of options (natural default), and the tendency to implicitly learn a default option from past choices (learned default). Additional analyses suggest that while the natural default may bias the standard choice process towards an option category, the learned default effects may be attributable to a second independent choice process. Overall, these investigations provide a first experimental evidence of how individuals build and apply diverse endogenous default options in economic decision-making and how this biases their choices.

Psychologists have investigated creativity for 70 years, and it is now seen as being an important construct, both scientifically and because of its practical value to society. However, several fundamental unresolved problems persist, including a suitable definition of creativity and the ability of psychometric tests to measure divergent thinking—an important component of creativity—in a way that aligns with theory. It is this latter point that this registered report is designed to address. We administered two divergent thinking tests (the verbal and figural versions of the Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking; TTCT) with an intelligence test (the International Cognitive Ability Resource test; ICAR). We then subjected the subscores from these tests to confirmatory factor analysis to examine which of nine theoretically plausible models best fits the data. Results show that none of the pre-registered models fit the data well, an ambiguous result that leaves unanswered the question of whether intelligence and divergent thinking tests measure the same construct. Exploratory (i.e., not pre-registered) measurement models of each test separately shows that the TTCT-F may not measure a coherent, unitary construct—leading to model misspecification when TTCT-F subtests were included in larger models. This study was conducted in accordance with all open science practices, including pre-registration, open data and syntax, and open materials (with the exception of copyrighted and confidential test stimuli). Materials are available at https://osf.io/8rpfz/.

Meta-analyses typically quantify heterogeneity of results, thus providing information about the consistency of the investigated effect across studies. Numerous heterogeneity estimators have been devised. Past evaluations of their performance typically presumed lack of bias in the set of studies being meta-analysed, which is often unrealistic. The present study used computer simulations to evaluate five heterogeneity estimators under a range of research conditions broadly representative of meta-analyses in psychology, with the aim to assess the impact of biases in sets of primary studies on estimates of both mean effect size and heterogeneity in meta-analyses of continuous outcome measures. To this end, six orthogonal design factors were manipulated: Strength of publication bias; 1-tailed vs. 2-tailed publication bias; prevalence of p-hacking; true heterogeneity of the effect studied; true average size of the studied effect; and number of studies per meta-analysis. Our results showed that biases in sets of primary studies caused much greater problems for the estimation of effect size than for the estimation of heterogeneity. For the latter, estimation bias remained small or moderate under most circumstances. Effect size estimations remained virtually unaffected by the choice of heterogeneity estimator. For heterogeneity estimates, however, relevant differences emerged. For unbiased primary studies, the REML estimator and (to a lesser extent) the Paule-Mandel performed well in terms of bias and variance. In biased sets of primary studies however, the Paule-Mandel estimator performed poorly, whereas the DerSimonian-Laird estimator and (to a slightly lesser extent) the REML estimator performed well. The complexity of results notwithstanding, we suggest that the REML estimator remains a good choice for meta-analyses of continuous outcome measures across varied circumstances.

Sounds like “running water” and “buzzing bees” are classes of sounds which are a collective result of many similar acoustic events and are known as “sound textures”. Recent psychoacoustic study using sound textures by [1] reported that natural sounding textures can be synthesized from white noise by imposing statistical features such as marginals and correlations computed from the outputs of cochlear models responding to the textures. The outputs being the envelopes of bandpass filter responses, the ‘cochlear envelope’. This suggests that the perceptual qualities of many natural sounds derive directly from such statistical features, and raises the question of how these statistical features are distributed in the acoustic environment. To address this question, we collected a corpus of 200 sound textures from public online sources and analyzed the distributions of the textures’ marginal statistics (mean, variance, skew, and kurtosis), cross-frequency correlations and modulation power statistics. A principal component analysis of these parameters revealed a great deal of redundancy in the texture parameters. For example, just two marginal principal components, which can be thought of as measuring the sparseness or burstiness of a texture, capture as much as 66% of the variance of the 128 dimensional marginal parameter space, while the first two principal components of cochlear correlations capture as much as 90% of the variance in over 1000 correlation parameters. Knowledge of the statistical distributions documented here may help guide the choice of acoustic stimuli with high ecological validity in future research.

In two experiments, we used the simple zero-sum game Rock, Paper and Scissors to study the common reinforcement-based rules of repeating choices after winning (win-stay) and shifting from previous choice options after losing (lose-shift). Participants played the game against both computer opponents who could not be exploited and computer opponents who could be exploited by making choices that would at times conflict with reinforcement. Against unexploitable opponents, participants achieved an approximation of random behavior, contrary to previous research commonly finding reinforcement biases. Against exploitable opponents, the participants learned to exploit the opponent regardless of whether optimal choices conflicted with reinforcement or not. The data suggest that learning a rule that allows one to exploit was largely determined by the outcome of the previous trial.

Preprints allow researchers to make their findings available to the scientific community before they have undergone peer review. Studies on preprints within bioRxiv have been largely focused on article metadata and how often these preprints are downloaded, cited, published, and discussed online. A missing element that has yet to be examined is the language contained within the bioRxiv preprint repository. We sought to compare and contrast linguistic features within bioRxiv preprints to published biomedical text as a whole as this is an excellent opportunity to examine how peer review changes these documents. The most prevalent features that changed appear to be associated with typesetting and mentions of supporting information sections or additional files. In addition to text comparison, we created document embeddings derived from a preprint-trained word2vec model. We found that these embeddings are able to parse out different scientific approaches and concepts, link unannotated preprint–peer-reviewed article pairs, and identify journals that publish linguistically similar papers to a given preprint. We also used these embeddings to examine factors associated with the time elapsed between the posting of a first preprint and the appearance of a peer-reviewed publication. We found that preprints with more versions posted and more textual changes took longer to publish. Lastly, we constructed a web application (https://greenelab.github.io/preprint-similarity-search/) that allows users to identify which journals and articles that are most linguistically similar to a bioRxiv or medRxiv preprint as well as observe where the preprint would be positioned within a published article landscape., Preprints allow researchers to make their findings available to the scientific community before they have undergone peer review This study analyzes the full text content of the bioRxiv preprint repository, identifying field-specific patterns and changes that occur during publication, and providing a search tool that can identify the published papers that are most similar to a given bioRxiv or medRxiv preprint.

Ocean acidification—decreasing oceanic pH resulting from the uptake of excess atmospheric CO2—has the potential to affect marine life in the future. Among the possible consequences, a series of studies on coral reef fish suggested that the direct effects of acidification on fish behavior may be extreme and have broad ecological ramifications. Recent studies documenting a lack of effect of experimental ocean acidification on fish behavior, however, call this prediction into question. Indeed, the phenomenon of decreasing effect sizes over time is not uncommon and is typically referred to as the “decline effect.” Here, we explore the consistency and robustness of scientific evidence over the past decade regarding direct effects of ocean acidification on fish behavior. Using a systematic review and meta-analysis of 91 studies empirically testing effects of ocean acidification on fish behavior, we provide quantitative evidence that the research to date on this topic is characterized by a decline effect, where large effects in initial studies have all but disappeared in subsequent studies over a decade. The decline effect in this field cannot be explained by 3 likely biological explanations, including increasing proportions of studies examining (1) cold-water species; (2) nonolfactory-associated behaviors; and (3) nonlarval life stages. Furthermore, the vast majority of studies with large effect sizes in this field tend to be characterized by low sample sizes, yet are published in high-impact journals and have a disproportionate influence on the field in terms of citations. We contend that ocean acidification has a negligible direct impact on fish behavior, and we advocate for improved approaches to minimize the potential for a decline effect in future avenues of research.

Age-related physiological changes are most notable and best-studied late in life, while the nature of aging in early- or middle-aged individuals has not been explored as thoroughly. In C. elegans, many studies of movement vs. age generally focus on three distinct phases: sustained, youthful movement; onset of rapidly progressing impairment; and gross immobility. We investigated whether this first period of early-life adult movement is a sustained “healthy” level of high function followed by a discrete “movement catastrophe”—or whether there are early-life changes in movement that precede future physiological declines. To determine how movement varies during early adult life, we followed isolated individuals throughout life with a previously unachieved combination of duration and temporal resolution. By tracking individuals across the first six days of adulthood, we observed declines in movement starting as early as the first two days of adult life, as well as high interindividual variability in total daily movement. These findings suggest that movement is a highly dynamic behavior early in life, and that factors driving movement decline may begin acting as early as the first day of adulthood. Using simulation studies based on acquired data, we suggest that too-infrequent sampling in common movement assays limits observation of early-adult changes in motility, and we propose feasible strategies and a framework for designing assays with increased sensitivity for early movement declines.

We examined the potential roles of the athlete’s performance passport (APP) for doping detection by analyzing the relationship between weightlifting performance and sanction status. For the present study, performance data of ‘not-sanctioned’ (26740 datasets) and ‘sanctioned’ (289 datasets) male athletes were acquired from the website of the International Weightlifting Federation (www.iwf.net). One-way ANOVA, correlation analysis, and t-tests were used to analyze the relationship between athletes’ use of doping and their performances across age and body weight. Athletic performance was significantly greater for athletes in the sanctioned group than those of the same age group who were not sanctioned, and this performance difference between the two groups was the greatest in their late thirties at 20.6% (not-sanctioned 292.0kg vs. sanctioned 352.3kg) (p < 0.05). From the age group analysis, out of 289 sanctioned cases, 84 cases, which was the largest proportion, were found within the top 10–25% of their performances. When stratified by body weight, athletic performance was significantly greater for the sanctioned group than the not-sanctioned group, and this performance gap was the greatest in the bodyweight category of 96 at 18.6% (not-sanctioned 310.1kg vs. sanctioned 367.8kg) (p < 0.05). From the body weight category analysis, out of 289 sanctioned cases, 75 cases, which was the largest proportion, were found within the top 10–25% of their performances. Additionally, the mean difference in performance between not-sanctioned and sanctioned groups was the largest in the body weight category of 67kg in the ages of 15–19 at 20% (not-sanctioned 234.6kg vs. sanctioned 281.5kg). These results are interpreted to mean that in male weightlifters 1) sanctioned athletes were detected in all ranges of performances regardless of age and body weight, 2) there were even higher rates of sanctioned athletes who performed within the top 10–25% of each age group and body weight category, 3) there were significant differences in performance between not-sanctioned and sanctioned group for all body weight categories, excluding +109, in the ages of 15–19 and 20–24, 4) therefore, performance data can be effectively used to better target suspected athletes for doping testing.

The attentional blink (AB) phenomenon reveals a bottleneck of human information processing: the second of two targets is often missed when they are presented in rapid succession among distractors. In our previous work, we showed that the size of the AB can be changed by applying transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) over the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (lDLPFC) (London & Slagter, Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 33, 756–68, 2021). Although AB size at the group level remained unchanged, the effects of anodal and cathodal tDCS were negatively correlated: if a given individual’s AB size decreased from baseline during anodal tDCS, their AB size would increase during cathodal tDCS, and vice versa. Here, we attempted to replicate this finding. We found no group effects of tDCS, as in the original study, but we no longer found a significant negative correlation. We present a series of statistical measures of replication success, all of which confirm that both studies are not in agreement. First, the correlation here is significantly smaller than a conservative estimate of the original correlation. Second, the difference between the correlations is greater than expected due to sampling error, and our data are more consistent with a zero-effect than with the original estimate. Finally, the overall effect when combining both studies is small and not significant. Our findings thus indicate that the effects of lDPLFC-tDCS on the AB are less substantial than observed in our initial study. Although this should be quite a common scenario, null findings can be difficult to interpret and are still under-represented in the brain stimulation and cognitive neuroscience literatures. An important auxiliary goal of this paper is therefore to provide a tutorial for other researchers, to maximize the evidential value from null findings.

Adults under time pressure share with others generously, but with more time they act more selfishly. In the current study, we investigated whether young children already operate in this same way, and, if so, whether this changes over the preschool and early school age years. We tested 144 children in three age groups (3-, 5-, and 7-year olds) in a one-shot dictator game: Children were given nine stickers and had the possibility to share stickers with another child who was absent. Children in the Time Pressure condition were instructed to share quickly, whereas children in the Delay condition were instructed to take time and consider their decision carefully. Across ages, children in the Time Pressure condition shared significantly more stickers than children in the Delay condition. Moreover, the longer children waited, the less they shared. Thus, children, like adults, are more prosocial when acting spontaneously than after considering their decision more carefully. Publisher PDF

In recent years, online lending has created many risks while providing lending convenience to Chinese individuals and small and medium-sized enterprises. The timely assessment and prediction of the status of industry indicators is an important prerequisite for effectively preventing the spread of risks in China’s new financial formats. The role of investor sentiment should not be underestimated. We first use the BERT model to divide investor sentiment in the review information of China’s online lending third-party information website into three categories and analyze the relationship between investor sentiment and quantitative indicators of online lending product transactions. The results show that the percentage of positive comments has a positive relationship to the borrowing interest rate of P2P platforms that investors are willing to participate in for bidding projects. The percentage of negative comments has an inverse relationship to the borrowing period. Second, after introducing investor sentiment into the long short-term memory (LSTM) model, the average RMSE of the three forecast periods for borrowing interest rates is 0.373, and that of the borrowing period is 0.262, which are better than the values of other control models. Corresponding suggestions for the risk prevention of China’s new financial formats are made.

With the development of measurement technology, data on the movements of actual games in various sports can be obtained and used for planning and evaluating the tactics and strategy. Defense in team sports is generally difficult to be evaluated because of the lack of statistical data. Conventional evaluation methods based on predictions of scores are considered unreliable because they predict rare events throughout the game. Besides, it is difficult to evaluate various plays leading up to a score. In this study, we propose a method to evaluate team defense from a comprehensive perspective related to team performance by predicting ball recovery and being attacked, which occur more frequently than goals, using player actions and positional data of all players and the ball. Using data from 45 soccer matches, we examined the relationship between the proposed index and team performance in actual matches and throughout a season. Results show that the proposed classifiers predicted the true events (mean F1 score $>$ 0.483) better than the existing classifiers which were based on rare events or goals (mean F1 score $, Comment: 15 pages, 5 figures

This paper contributes to the lack of longitudinal studies concerning online information access to corporate governance (CG) practices in the banking sector of Latin American countries. In particular, this study aims to analyze the factors that influence information transparency, both mandatory and voluntary, related to CG practices of banks that operate in Paraguay via their websites from 2016 to 2019. Findings indicate the need to improve the level of information available on websites, with disclosure of voluntary information on CG practices being more prevalent than the disclosure of mandatory information. Likewise, banks that operate in Paraguay have made scant “progress” regarding online access to their governance information over the years analyzed. Moreover, the factors “Bank size” and “listed status” positively influence the information transparency regarding CG practices of Paraguayan banks. In contrast, “leverage,” “liquidity,” “size of the audit firm,” and “credit risk rating” are factors that have a negative relation with the extent of CG disclosure.

While self-medication and positive and negative reinforcement models of alcohol use suggest that there is an association between daily affect and alcohol consumption, findings within the academic literature have been inconsistent. This pre-registered systematic review meta-analytically interrogated the results from studies amongst non-clinical populations that examine the relationship between daily affective states and alcohol consumption volume. PRISMA guided searches of PsychINFO, PsycARTICLES, Science Direct, PubMed, SCOPUS, and JSTOR databases were conducted. When both laboratory and field studies were included, meta-analyses with robust variance estimation yielded 53 eligible studies on negative affect (8355 participants, 127 effect sizes) and 35 studies for positive affect (6384 participants, 50 effect sizes). The significant pooled associations between intra-day affect and alcohol consumption were r = .09, [.03, .14] for negative affect, and r = .17, [.04, .30] for positive affect. A small-to-medium sized effect (d = .275, [.11, .44]) of negative affect on daily alcohol consumption volume was found in laboratory studies (14 studies, 1100 participants). While publication bias was suspected, P-curve analyses suggested that the results were unlikely to be the product of publication bias and p-hacking alone, and selection model analysis revealed no significant differences in results when publication bias was accounted for. For negative affect, using number of drinks as the measure of alcohol consumption was associated with lower effect sizes. For positive affect, the results demonstrated a decline of this observed effect over time. Overall, findings point towards the possibility of developing an affect intensity regulation theory of alcohol use. Conceptualizing the mood-alcohol nexus in terms of affect intensity regulation may afford a more parsimonious explanation of alcohol consumption rather than viewing the behavior as being shaped by either positive or negative affective states.

To understand the ways in which past stone knappers controlled the morphology of the flakes they produced, archaeologists have focused on examining the effects of striking platform attributes on flake size and shape. Among the variables commonly considered, platform width has routinely been noted to correlate with flake size and hence used to explain past knapping behaviors. Yet, the influence of platform width on flake variation remains equivocal due to the fact that the attribute is not under the direct control of the knapper. Instead, platform width tends to be treated as a by-product of other independent knapping parameters, such as platform depth. In this study, we hypothesize that platform width acts as an intermediary that intervenes the effect of other independent variables on flake attributes. By analyzing experimental flakes produced under both controlled and replicative settings, the results support the hypothesis that platform width mediates the effect of platform depth on flake width, such that flakes with relatively larger platform widths are generally wider but no longer. This finding provides a way to incorporate platform width into discussions of the interrelationships among knapping variables, and highlights the importance of platform width for investigating how past knappers controlled flake production through platform manipulation.

Agriculture is a very important sector of the economy that has a great influence on rural areas. Almost sixty years of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) in the European Union (EU) may impose a question on the impact of this policy on job creation and economic growth in rural areas. By analyzing key indicators, one should note that although there are still many problems to tackle, the CAP has been successful to some extend in increasing employment rate and Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita as well as decreasing poverty rate in the EU rural areas. There are also more and more households connected to the next-generation broadband network and there is still a significant number of bed places in the EU rural areas. Although, the situation in specific EU Member States and their rural regions may be different, the overall performance of the EU is satisfactory and shows positive prognostics for the current EU financial perspective of 2021–2027. This paper also provides an empirical approach which checks whether there is a connection between the employment rate and the rural development measured in GDP per capita based on the data from the Baltic States: Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania in the period of 2000–2020. This research confirms that when increasing the level of rural employment, the economic growth rises in rural areas.

Background Cognitive models indicated that social anxiety disorder (SAD) would be caused and maintained by a biased attentional processing of threatening information. This study investigates whether socially anxious children may present impaired attentional engagement and disengagement from negative emotional faces, as well as their underlying event-related potential responses. Methods and findings Fifteen children with high levels of social anxiety (HSA; 9 boys; mean age = 9.99y; SD = 1.14) and twenty low socially anxious children (LSA; 16 boys; mean age = 10.47y; SD = 1.17) participated in a spatial cueing task in which they had to detect targets following neutral/disgusted faces in a valid or invalid location. No group effect was reported on reaction times [p>.05]. However, electrophysiological data showed lower P3a amplitude in HSA children compared with the LSA group when processing facial stimuli. They also reported larger N2 amplitudes for valid-disgusted targets and a larger P3a amplitude for the invalid-disgusted ones. Conclusion In terms of electrophysiological data, our results validated, the hypothesis of attentional disengagement difficulties in SAD children. We also confirm the idea that high levels of social anxiety are associated with cognitive control impairments and have a greater impact on the processing efficiency than on the performance effectiveness.

Improving travel time prediction for public transit effectively enhances service reliability, optimizes travel structure, and alleviates traffic problems. Its greater time-variance and uncertainty make predictions for short travel times (≤35min) more subject to be influenced by random factors. It requires higher precision and is more complicated than long-term predictions. Effectively extracting and mining real-time, accurate, reliable, and low-cost multi-source data such as GPS, AFC, and IC can provide data support for travel time prediction. Kalman filter model has high accuracy in one-step prediction and can be used to calculate a large amount of data. This paper adopts the Kalman filter as a travel time prediction model for a single bus based on single-line detection: including the travel time prediction model of route (RTM) and the stop dwell time prediction model (DTM); the evaluation criteria and indexes of the models are given. The error analysis of the prediction results is carried out based on AVL data by case study. Results show that under the precondition of multi-source data, the public transportation prediction model can meet the accuracy requirement for travel time prediction and the prediction effect of the whole route is superior to that of the route segment between stops.

Background Distrust, and more broadly, public perception of government’s handling of a crisis, has been a widely studied topic within health crisis research and suggests that these perceptions are significantly associated with the behavior of its citizens. Purpose To understand which aspects of the public’s perception of government handling of the COVID-19 pandemic predicted engagement of protective behaviors among older adults, who are the most vulnerable to COVID-19. Methods Participants were recruited from an ongoing biopsychosocial study on aging amongst community-dwelling older adults. There were two rounds of data collection, during the national lockdown and post-lockdown. The average length of follow-up was 5.88 months. N = 421 completed the first round of data collection and N = 318 subsequently completed the second round of questionnaires. Results During the lockdown, perceptions that pandemic-related measures in place were sufficient, effective, timely, provided a sense of safety, important information was easily accessible, and government handling of the pandemic could be trusted, were found to significantly predict engagement in protective behaviors. During post-lockdown, only perceptions that measures in place were sufficient, provided a sense of safety, and important information was easily accessible, remained significant predictors. The perception that COVID-19 measures were clear and easy to understand now became a significant predictor. Conclusions Public perceptions of government handling of the pandemic predicted engagement in protective behaviors but were less important during post-lockdown. To effectively engage older adults in protective behavior, our findings suggest for pandemic-related information to be accessible, introducing timely safety measures, and having easy-to-understand instructions for nuanced measures.

Online virtual museum tours combine museum authority and an academic approach with the diversity and interactivity of online resources; such tours have become an essential resource for online scientific research and education. Many important museums around the world are developing this type of online service. Comprehensive evaluation of such tours is, however, urgently needed to ensure effectiveness. This paper establishes a heuristic evaluation scale based on the literature. Taking the online virtual tour of the Exhibition of Architecture of the Forbidden City as a case study, confirmatory factor analysis was then carried out to improve the scale. Interviews were conducted to discuss and analyze the research results. The developed evaluation scale has four dimensions: authenticity, interaction, navigation, and learning. The results from the case study showed, first, that the exhibition had visual authenticity, but the behavioral authenticity was insufficient; second, the exhibition was generally interactive, but this aspect could be improved by enriching the links; third, the lack of effective navigation design for the exhibit was the main factor affecting experience quality. Fourth, the exhibition was informative and supported learning, but needs further improvement to the quantity and quality of information provided. Finally, the interviews revealed that the online exhibition did not entirely support people of different ages and abilities, so it needs further improvement to be wholly inclusive.

The current study deals with imputation of item non-response in probability proportional to size (PPS) sampling. A new imputation procedure is proposed by using the known co-variance between the study variable and the auxiliary variable in the case of quantitative sensitive study variable by considering the non-response in a randomization mechanism on the second call. An empirical study is conducted at the optimum values ofkogandnogfor the relative comparisons of ratio, difference, and proposed estimators, respectively, with the Hansen-Hurwitz estimator.

Objectives To establish the factorial structure and internal consistency of the Internet Addiction Test (IAT) in parents, the level and correlates of problematic internet use, and patterns and types of screen use. Study design Data were collected through an online questionnaire about preconception health among Canadian women and men with ≥1 child. The questionnaire included the IAT and questions about time spent on screens by device type, use of screens during meals and in the bedroom, and perceptions of overuse. Factor analysis was completed to determine the factorial structure of the IAT, with multivariable linear regression used to determine correlates of the IAT. Results The sample included 1,156 respondents (mean age: 34.3 years; 83.1% female). The IAT had two factors: “impairment in time management” and “impairment in socio-emotional functioning” of which respondents had more impairment in time management than socio-emotional functioning. Based on the original IAT, 19.4% of respondents would be classified as having a mild internet use problem with 3.0% having a moderate or severe issue. In the multivariable model, perceived stress (b = .28, SE = .05, p < .001) and depressive symptoms (b = .24, SE = .10, p = .017) were associated with higher IAT scores. Handheld mobile devices were the most common type of screen used (mean = 3 hours/day) followed by watching television (mean = 2 hours/day). Conclusion Parents spent a significant portion of their time each day using screens, particularly handheld mobile devices. The disruption caused by mobile devices may hinder opportunities for positive parent-child interactions, demonstrating the need for resources to support parents ever-growing use of technologies.

Major efforts worldwide have been made to provide balanced Mental Health (MH) care. Any integrated MH ecosystem includes hospital and community-based care, highlighting the role of outpatient care in reducing relapses and readmissions. This study aimed (i) to identify potential expert-based causal relationships between inpatient and outpatient care variables, (ii) to assess them by using statistical procedures, and finally (iii) to assess the potential impact of a specific policy enhancing the MH care balance on real ecosystem performance. Causal relationships (Bayesian network) between inpatient and outpatient care variables were defined by expert knowledge and confirmed by using multivariate linear regression (generalized least squares). Based on the Bayesian network and regression results, a decision support system that combines data envelopment analysis, Monte Carlo simulation and fuzzy inference was used to assess the potential impact of the designed policy. As expected, there were strong statistical relationships between outpatient and inpatient care variables, which preliminarily confirmed their potential and a priori causal nature. The global impact of the proposed policy on the ecosystem was positive in terms of efficiency assessment, stability and entropy. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study that formalized expert-based causal relationships between inpatient and outpatient care variables. These relationships, structured by a Bayesian network, can be used for designing evidence-informed policies trying to balance MH care provision. By integrating causal models and statistical analysis, decision support systems are useful tools to support evidence-informed planning and decision making, as they allow us to predict the potential impact of specific policies on the ecosystem prior to its real application, reducing the risk and considering the population’s needs and scientific findings.

Soil spatial heterogeneity involves nutrients being patchily distributed at a range of scales and is prevalent in natural habitats. However, little is known about the effect of soil spatial configurations at the small scale on plant foraging behavior and plant growth under different resource amounts. Here, we experimentally investigated how a stoloniferous species, Trifolium repens, responded to varied resource amounts and spatial configuration combinations. Plant foraging behavior (i.e., the orientation of the primary stolon, mean length of the primary stolon, foraging precision, and foraging scale) and plant growth (i.e., total biomass, root biomass, shoot biomass, and root/shoot) were compared among differently designed configurations of soil resources in different amounts. The relationships of foraging behavior and plant biomass were analyzed. The results showed that the effect of the spatial configuration of soil resources on Trifolium repens depended on the resource amount. Specifically, when the total resource amount was low, fragmented soil patches promoted root foraging and increased Trifolium repens plant biomass; however, when the total resource amount was high, the soil spatial configuration did not affect foraging behavior or plant growth. Our results also showed that plant growth was facilitated by root foraging scale to adapt to low resource amounts. We conclude that the spatial configuration of soil resources at small scales affects whole plant growth, which is mediated by a distinct foraging strategy. These findings contribute to a better understanding of how the growth strategy of clonal plants responds to heterogeneous environments caused by different resource amounts and its spatial configurations.

Completing the genotype-to-phenotype map requires rigorous measurement of the entire multivariate organismal phenotype. However, phenotyping on a large scale is not feasible for many kinds of traits, resulting in missing data that can also cause problems for comparative analyses and the assessment of evolutionary trends across species. Measuring the multivariate performance phenotype is especially logistically challenging, and our ability to predict several performance traits from a given morphology is consequently poor. We developed a machine learning model to accurately estimate multivariate performance data from morphology alone by training it on a dataset containing performance and morphology data from 68 lizard species. Our final, stacked model predicts missing performance data accurately at the level of the individual from simple morphological measures. This model performed exceptionally well, even for performance traits that were missing values for >90% of the sampled individuals. Furthermore, incorporating phylogeny did not improve model fit, indicating that the phenotypic data alone preserved sufficient information to predict the performance based on morphological information. This approach can both significantly increase our understanding of performance evolution and act as a bridge to incorporate performance into future work on phenomics.

The idea of Happiness at Work is drawn from psychology and economic studies. It is often considered as a synonym with ‘wellbeing’ and defined as a state characterized by a high level of life satisfaction, a high level of positive emotions, and less negative emotions. This research aims to validate the Happiness at Work scale in the Indonesian context. In this study, the researchers conducted cross-cultural adaptation for the Happiness at Work scale following systematic procedures to produce the Scale of Happiness at Work in the Indonesian language. Afterward, the researchers evaluated the content validity with the help of professional judgment and measured the Content Validity Index at the item level and the scale level. Further, to examine the psychometric properties of the Happiness at Work scale, the researchers administer the questionnaire to a sample of 105 (35 male and 70 female) lecturers to conduct exploratory factor analysis to formulate the new dimensionality of the Happiness at Work scale. The results of Exploratory Factor Analysis indicated that Happiness at Work in the Indonesian context could be measured using four dimensions. To confirm that the extracted dimensions measure a single construct, the researchers administered the produced version to a sample of 370 (147 male and 223 female). Afterward, researchers conducted confirmatory factor analysis to evaluate the validity and reliability of the measurement model. This research found out that the Indonesian version of Happiness at Work measurement is reliable and valid. Thus, this study may contribute to the happiness at work literature of non-western context. In conclusion, the Indonesian-Happiness at Work scale shows robust psychometric properties that can be used for further research.

Background Road traffic accidents are a major global concern that affects all people regardless of their age, sex, wealth, and ethnicity. Injuries and deaths due to motorcycles are increasing, especially in developing countries. Wearing helmet is effective in reducing deaths and injuries caused by motorcycle accidents. Objectives To assess the magnitude of helmet wearing behavior and its determinants among motorcycle riders in Sawula and Bulky towns, Gofa zone, Southern Ethiopia. Methods A community-based cross-sectional study was conducted from April, 15 to May 25, 2020, among 422 motorcycle drivers in Sawula and Bulky towns, where people often drive motorcycles. A stratified sampling technique was used to recruit sampled drivers in a face-to-face interview. Data were entered into EPI-data version 3.1 software and exported to SPSS version 23 software to manage analysis. Descriptive analyses such as frequency, percentage, mean and standard deviation were performed as necessary. Logistic regression models were fitted to identify the predictors of helmet wearing behavior. Adjusted odds ratios (AOR) with 95% confidence interval (CI) were used to determine the magnitude and strength of the association. Results A total of 403 motorcycle drivers participated in the study which gave a 95.5% response rate. Among 403 motorcycle riders, only 12.4% (95% CI, 9.2 to 15.6%) wore helmets while driving motorcycles. Having license [AOR 3.51(95% C.I 1.56–7.89)], driving distance >10Km [AOR 2.53(95% C.I 1.08–5.91)], History of exposure to accident [AOR 2.71(95% C.I 1.32–5.55)], driving experience of ≥10 years [AOR 2.98 (95% C.I 1.25–7.09)] and high perceived susceptibility to accident [AOR 3.10(95% C.I 1.29–7.46)] had statistically significant association with helmet wearing compared to their counterparts. Conclusions This study found that helmet-wearing behavior was very low. Having a license, driving distance, exposure to accidents, driving experience, and accident risk perception were determinants of helmet wearing behavior. These determinants imply the need for interventions that focus on behavioral change communications such as awareness creation campaigns and mandatory helmet wearing laws.

This replication underlines the importance of outlier diagnostics since many researchers have long neglected influential observations in OLS regression analysis. In his article, entitled “Primary Resources, Secondary Labor,” Shin finds that advanced democracies with increased natural resource wealth, particularly from oil and natural gas production, are more likely to restrict low-skill immigration policy. By performing outlier diagnostics, this replication shows that Shin’s findings are a statistical artifact. When one outlying country, Norway, is removed from the sample data, I observe almost no significant and negative relationship between oil wealth and immigration policy. When two outlying countries are excluded, the effect of oil wealth completely disappears. Robust regression analysis, a widely used remedial method for outlier problems, confirms the results of my outlier diagnostics.

Progress toward hepatitis C virus (HCV) elimination in the United States is not on track to meet targets set by the World Health Organization, as the opioid crisis continues to drive both injection drug use and increasing HCV incidence. A pragmatic approach to achieving this is using a microelimination approach of focusing on high-risk populations such as people who inject drugs (PWID). Computational models are useful in understanding the complex interplay of individual, social, and structural level factors that might alter HCV incidence, prevalence, transmission, and treatment uptake to achieve HCV microelimination. However, these models need to be informed with realistic sociodemographic, risk behavior and network estimates on PWID. We conducted a meta-analysis of research studies spanning 20 years of research and interventions with PWID in metropolitan Chicago to produce parameters for a synthetic population for realistic computational models (e.g., agent-based models). We then fit an exponential random graph model (ERGM) using the network estimates from the meta-analysis in order to develop the network component of the synthetic population.

With the steady progress of China’s opening-up policy, how to avoid the financial risks brought by opening-up is a valuable research topic at present while promoting economic development. As an innovative business model connecting the real economy and the virtual economy, the Internet of Things (IoT) finance provides standardized technical support for the expansion of trade and finance. In financial data analysis, deep learning (DL) has become an important means to predict financial market movements, process text information and improve trading strategies. Analysis is conducted on the influence of trade and financial opening on the volatility of real exchange rate. Through the empirical test of panel data of 45 major countries in the world, the pooled ordinary least square (OLS) method and instrumental variable method are used to evaluate the influence of trade and financial opening of sample countries on the volatility of real exchange rate. The main conclusions are that trade openness is negatively correlated with the volatility of real exchange rate, and financial openness is positively correlated with the volatility of real exchange rate. A certain reference is provided for reducing the fluctuation of real exchange rate in the process of opening to the world.

Funder: NIHR Academic Clinical Fellowship, Risk perception refers to how individuals interpret their susceptibility to threats, and has been hypothesised as an important predictor of intentions and behaviour in many theories of health behaviour change. However, its components, optimal measurement, and effects are not yet fully understood. The TRIRISK model, developed in the US, conceptualises risk perception as deliberative, affective and experiential components. In this study, we aimed to assess the replicability of the TRIRISK model in a UK sample by confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), explore the inherent factor structure of risk perception in the UK sample by exploratory factor analysis (EFA), and assess the associations of EFA-based factors with intentions to change behaviour and subsequent behaviour change. Data were derived from an online randomised controlled trial assessing cancer risk perception using the TRIRISK instrument and intention and lifestyle measures before and after communication of cancer risk. In the CFA analysis, the TRIRISK model of risk perception did not provide a good fit for the UK data. A revised model developed using EFA consisted of two separate "numerical" and "self-reflective" factors of deliberative risk perception, and a third factor combining affective with a subset of experiential items. This model provided a better fit to the data when cross-validated. Using multivariable regression analysis, we found that the self-reflective and affective-experiential factors of the model identified in this study were reliable predictors of intentions to prevent cancer. There were no associations of any of the risk perception factors with behaviour change. This study confirms that risk perception is clearly a multidimensional construct, having identified self-reflective risk perception as a new distinct component with predictive validity for intention. Furthermore, we highlight the practical implications of our findings for the design of interventions incorporating risk perception aimed at behaviour change in the context of cancer prevention., This study was funded by the Cancer Research UK Prevention Fellowship (C55650/A21464). CR was supported by an NIHR Academic Clinical Fellowship. JC, WMPK and RAF received no specific funding for this project. JAUS was funded by the Cancer Research UK Prevention Fellowship (C55650/A21464).

Exploiting a novel measure of takeover vulnerability mainly based on state legislations, we explore the effect of hostile takeover threats on credit ratings. Our results reveal that companies with more takeover exposure are assigned significantly better credit ratings. In particular, a rise in takeover vulnerability by one standard deviation results in an improvement in credit ratings by 7.89%. Our findings are consistent with the view that the disciplinary mechanism associated with the takeover market mitigates agency problems and ultimately raises firm value. Further analysis corroborates our conclusion, including propensity score matching, entropy balancing, and an instrumental-variable analysis. As our proxy for takeover susceptibility is plausibly exogenous, our results are more likely to show a causal effect.

Background Adolescent girls face several challenges relating to menstruation and its proper management. Lack of adequate sanitary products, inadequate water supply, and privacy for changing sanitary pads continue to leave adolescent girls with limited options for safe and proper menstrual hygiene in many low-income settings, including Ethiopia. These situations are also compounded by societal myths, stigmas surrounding menstruation, and discriminatory social norms. This systematic review and meta-analysis aimed to estimate the pooled proportion of safe menstrual hygiene management among adolescent girls in Ethiopia using the available studies. Methods We searched PubMed, Google Scholar, African Journal Online (AJOL), Hinari, Science Direct, ProQuest, Direct of Open Access Journals, POPLINE, and Cochrane Library database inception to May 31, 2021. Studies reporting the proportion of menstrual hygiene management among adolescent girls in Ethiopia were considered. The Cochrane Q test statistics and I2 tests were used to assess the heterogeneity of the included studies. Since the included studies revealed considerable heterogeneity, a random effect meta-analysis model was used to estimate the pooled proportion of menstrual hygiene management (MHM). Results Of 1,045 identified articles, 22 studies were eligible for analysis (n = 12,330 participants). The pooled proportion (PP) of safe MHM in Ethiopia was 52.69% (95%CI: 44.16, 61.22). The use of commercial menstrual absorbents was common 64.63% (95%CI: 55.32, 73.93, I2 99.2%) followed by homemade cloth 53.03% (95%CI: 22.29, 83.77, I2 99.2%). Disposal of absorbent material into the latrine was the most common practice in Ethiopia 62.18% (95%CI: 52.87, 71.49, I2 98.7%). One in four girls reported missing one or more school days during menstruation (PP: 32.03%, 95%CI: 22.65%, 41.40%, I2 98.2%). Conclusion This study revealed that only half of the adolescent girls in Ethiopia had safe MHM practices. To ensure that girls in Ethiopia can manage menstruation hygienically and with dignity, strong gender-specific water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) facilities along with strong awareness creation activities at every level are needed.

Purpose Increased prevalence of myopia is a major public health challenge worldwide, including in Africa. While previous studies have shown an increasing prevalence in Africa, there is no collective review of evidence on the magnitude of myopia in African school children. Hence, this study reviews the evidence and provides a meta-analysis of the prevalence of myopia in African school children. Methods This review was conducted using the 2020 Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines. Five computerized bibliographic databases, PUBMED, Scopus, Web of Science, ProQuest, and Africa Index Medicus were searched for published studies on the prevalence of myopia in Africa from 1 January 2000 to 18 August 2021. Studies were assessed for methodological quality. Data were gathered by gender, age and refraction technique and standardized to the definition of myopia as refractive error ≥ 0.50 diopter. A meta-analysis was conducted to estimate the prevalence. Significant heterogeneity was detected among the various studies (I2 >50%), hence a random effect model was used, and sensitivity analysis was performed to examine the effects of outliers. Results We included data from 24 quality assessed studies, covering 36,395 African children. The overall crude prevalence of myopia over the last two decades is 4.7% (95% CI, 3.9–5.7) in African children. Although the prevalence of myopia was slightly higher in females (5.3%, 95%CI: 4.1, 6.5) than in males (3.7%, 95% CI, 2.6–4.7; p = 0.297) and higher in older [12–18 years 5.1% (95% CI, 3.8–6.3) than younger children (aged 5–11 years, 3.4%, 95% CI, 2.5–4.4; p = 0.091), the differences were not significant. There was a significantly lower prevalence of myopia with cycloplegic compared with non-cycloplegic refraction [4.2%, 95%CI: 3.3, 5.1 versus 6.4%, 95%CI: 4.4, 8.4; p = 0.046]. Conclusions Our results showed that myopia affects about one in twenty African schoolchildren, and it is overestimated in non-cycloplegic refraction. Clinical interventions to reduce the prevalence of myopia in the region should target females, and school children who are aged 12–18 years.

Problem-based learning (PBL) allows students to learn medical statistics through problem solving experience. The aim of this study was to assess the efficiency of PBL modules implemented in the blended learning courses in medical statistics through knowledge outcomes and student satisfaction. The pilot study was designed as a randomized controlled trial that included 53 medical students who had completed all course activities. The students were randomized in two groups: the group with access to PBL modules within the blended learning course (hPBL group) and the group without access to PBL modules–only blended learning course (BL group). There were no significant differences between the groups concerning socio-demographic characteristics, previous academic success and modality of access to course materials. Students from hPBL group had a significantly higher problem solving score (p = 0.012; effect size 0.69) and the total medical statistics score (p = 0,046; effect size 0.57). Multivariate regression analysis with problem solving as an outcome variable showed that problem solving was associated with being in hPBL group (p = 0.010) and having higher grade point average (p = 0.037). Multivariate regression analysis with the medical statistics score as an outcome variable showed the association between a higher score on medical statistics with access to PBL modules (p = 0.045) and a higher grade point average (p = 0.021). All students in hPBL group (100.0%) considered PBL modules useful for learning medical statistics. PBL modules can be easily implemented in the existing courses within medical statistics using the Moodle platform, they have high applicability and can complement, but not replace other forms of teaching. These modules were shown to be efficient in learning, to be well accepted among students and to be a potential missing link between teaching and learning medical statistics. The authors of this study are planning to create PBL modules for advanced courses in medical statistics and to conduct this study on other universities with a more representative study sample, with the aim to overcome the limitations of the existing study and confirm its results.

Background According to the literature, pigmentary disorders have a significantly negative impact on a person’s health-related quality of life. Moreover, among pigmentary disorders, incidence of melasma ranks high. The Melasma Area and Severity Index (MASI) is the scale that is generally used to evaluate a melasma-affected area and its severity. However, the relationship between the MASI and Melasma Quality of Life (MELASQoL) scores, as well as the impact of melasma on patients’ quality of life, remain unclear. Objectives To explore the influence of melasma on patients’ lives, analyze the relationship between the MASI and MELASQoL scores, and identify the factors that may be influencing the quality of life of patients with melasma. Methods Two reviewers independently searched four databases (PubMed, Embase, the Cochrane Library, and Web of Science) for literature on quality of life of patients with melasma. In addition to an epidemiological study, a cross-sectional study, and validation studies, gray literature was also included. StataSE version 16 software was used for the meta-analysis. The score of each item on the MELASQoL scale was determined using a random-effects model. Results Fourteen studies with a total of 1398 melasma patients were included in the systematic review, four of which were eligible for meta-analysis. The relationship between the MELASQoL and MASI scores was found to be mixed. Five studies concluded that the MASI and MELASQoL scores were statistically correlated, while seven studies found no statistical correlation between the two. It is obvious that melasma causes emotional distress and has a negative impact on patients’ social lives. Patients were most bothered by the appearance of their skin condition. However, the MELASQoL score had no definite correlation with patient characteristics such as age, education levels, and history. Conclusion Melasma has a significant negative impact on patients’ quality of life. Thus, evaluating the quality of life of patients with melasma should not be ignored. Additionally, utilization of the MELASQoL scale should be considered in the care plan. Further studies with larger sample sizes are needed to confirm the relationship between melasma and quality of life.

Although food and politics seem to be distant domains, socio-political ideology and food neophobia (i.e., reluctance to eat unfamiliar food) may be related. Conservatives’ high threat sensitivity and the inherently threatening nature of novel foods (the existential explanation), along with conservatives’ negative attitudes toward minority outgroups (e.g., foreigners) and the role of the latter in introducing novel foods to a culture (the social explanation), led us to expect that socio-political ideology would predict food neophobia over and above their common roots. Across two correlational and two experimental studies (N = 627), socio-political ideology emerged as a strong predictor of food neophobia. In addition, the findings did not support the existential explanation, while confirming the social explanation of the ideology–food neophobia link: Conservatives seem more neophobic than liberals not because of their higher threat sensitivity but rather because they hold more negative attitudes toward foreigners who are associated with those foods.

Attributing affectively neutral mental states such as thoughts (i.e., cool theory of mind, cool ToM) to others appears to be rooted in different processes than the ones involved in attributing affectively charged mental states such as emotions (i.e., hot ToM) to others. However, no study has investigated the developmental pattern of hot and cool ToM abilities using a similar task and the relative contribution of cool and hot inhibitory control (IC) to cool and hot ToM development. To do so, we tested 112 children aged 3.5 to 6.5 years on a cool and a hot version of a ToM task and on a cool and hot version of an IC task. We found that hot ToM abilities developed more rapidly than cool ToM. Importantly, we found that hot IC abilities mediated the relation between age and hot ToM abilities. Taken together, our results suggest that the ability to attribute emotions to others develops more rapidly than the ability to attribute thoughts and that the growing efficiency of hot ToM with age is specifically rooted in the growing efficiency of hot IC abilities.

We estimate and forecast childhood obesity by age, sex, region, and urban-rural residence in Thailand, using a Bayesian approach to combining multiple source of information. Our main sources of information are survey data and administrative data, but we also make use of informative prior distributions based on international estimates of obesity trends and on expectations about smoothness. Although the final model is complex, the difficulty of building and understanding the model is reduced by the fact that it is composed of many smaller submodels. For instance, the submodel describing trends in prevalences is specified separately from the submodels describing errors in the data sources. None of our Thai data sources has more than 7 time points. However, by combining multiple data sources, we are able to fit relatively complicated time series models. Our results suggest that obesity prevalence has recently starting rising quickly among Thai teenagers throughout the country, but has been stable among children under 5 years old.

Comparison-shopping applications are widespread and have been the subject of considerable research and development. There has also been widespread recognition that people are predictably irrational when making shopping decisions. In this work, we combine these two facts to propose a new type of predicable irrational behavior that has important implications for comparison-shopping applications that now utilize crowdsourcing to increase the information provided about sellers in these electronic marketplaces. In a series of three studies we demonstrate that, even after controlling for relative and absolute savings, the number of items in a shopping trip is an important consideration in the decision to make a trip to more than one store. This is true of both actual trips in physical shopping in the real world, and virtual trips to other vendors in online shopping. We term this effect quantity bias.

This cross-sectional study examined self-reported weekly training volume and perceived training distress in Norwegian student athletes according to gender, type of sport, school program, and school year. The Norwegian version of the Multicomponent Training Distress Scale (MTDS-N) was completed by 608 student athletes (M age = 17.29 ± .94). Univariate and multivariate techniques were used in data analyses. Results revealed significant differences in weekly training volume between sport types. No significant differences in weekly training volume were found for gender, school year, or school program. However, a multivariate effect was found for gender, with females perceiving higher levels of training distress than males. A multivariate interaction effect between school year and training volume was also observed. We recommend that practitioners use a conceptual framework to periodize training and monitor training distress in student athletes, particularly in females, to preserve physiological and psychological well-being and ensure a progressive training overload leading to positive performance development.

Background In the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, many individuals have been found to endorse conspiracy beliefs. Socio-demographic variables, personality functioning, anxiety, and loneliness could be risk factors for this endorsement. Methods In a representative sample of the German population (N = 2,503) measures of conspiracy mentality, conspiracy-related beliefs toward COVID-19, personality functioning (OPD-SQS), anxiety (HADS), and loneliness (UCLA) were assessed. Pearson product-moment correlations and multiple linear regression analyses were conducted. Results Conspiracy mentality and conspiracy-related beliefs toward COVID-19 were strongly correlated. Regression analyses found younger age, male gender, lower education, and lower income to be associated with conspiracy mentality. The subscales relationship model and self-perception of the OPD-SQS were positively related to conspiracy mentality whereas interpersonal contact was negatively associated. Higher levels of anxiety were statistically predictive for conspiracy mentality. Conclusion Our findings indicate a contribution of personality functioning to the understanding of conspiracy mentality and thus to the advancement of interventions during the pandemic.

Avocado (Persea americanaMill.) is an important horticultural crop and proved to be a very profitable commercial crop for both local consumption and export. The physical characteristics of fruits are an important factor to determine the quality of fruit produced. On the other hand, estimation of fruit volume is time-consuming and impractical under field conditions. Thus, this study was conducted to devise cultivar-specific and generalized allometric models to analytically and non-destructively determine avocado fruit volume of five wildly distributed avocado cultivars. A significant relationship (P≤ 0.01) was found between fruit diameter, length, and volume of each cultivar. Our best models (VM2 –for cultivar specific, and VM7-generalized model) has passed all the rigorous cross-validation and performance statistics tests and explained 94%, 92%, 87%, 93%, 94% and 93% of the variations in fruit volume of Ettinger, Fuerte, Hass, Nabal, Reed, and Multiple cultivars, respectively. Our finding revealed that in situations where measurements of volume would be inconvenient, or time-consuming, a reliable volume and yield estimation can be obtained using site- and cultivar-specific allometric equations. Allometric models could also play a significant role in improving data availability on avocado fruit physical appearance which is critical to assess the quality and taste of fresh products influencing the purchase decision of customers. Moreover, such information can also be used as a ripeness index to predict optimum harvest time important for planned marketing. More importantly, the models might assist horticulturists, agronomists, and physiologists to conduct further study on avocado production and productivity through agroforestry landuse system across Ethiopia.

Whether having a tattoo increases the risk of transfusion-transmitted diseases (TTDs) is controversial. Although a few studies have suggested a strong association between having tattoos and TTDs, other studies have not shown the significance of the association. In addition, previous studies mainly focused only on hepatitis C viral infections. The objective of our study was to identify the prevalence and risk of TTDs in people with tattoos as compared with the non-tattooed population. A systematic review of the studies published before January 22, 2021, was performed using the Pubmed, Embase, and Web of Science databases. Observational studies on hepatitis C virus (HCV), hepatitis B virus (HBV), human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), and syphilis infections in people with and without tattoos were included. Studies that reported disease status without serological confirmation were excluded. A total of 121 studies were quantitatively analyzed. HCV (odds ratio [OR], 2.37; 95% confidence interval [CI], 2.04–2.76), HBV (OR, 1.55; 95% CI, 1.31–1.83), and HIV infections (OR, 3.55; 95% CI, 2.34–5.39) were more prevalent in the tattooed population. In subgroup analyses, the prevalence of HCV infection was significantly elevated in the general population, hospital patient, blood donor, intravenous (IV) drug user, and prisoner groups. IV drug users and prisoners showed high prevalence rates of HBV infection. The prevalence of HIV infection was significantly increased in the general population and prisoner groups. Having a tattoo is associated with an increased prevalence of TTDs. Our approach clarifies in-depth and supports a guideline for TTD screening in the tattooed population.

Previous research indicates that mate retention strategies are associated with mate value and affect relationship satisfaction. The current research aimed to replicate previous findings in a non-WEIRD society (Iran) and to extend this research by investigating the moderating roles of individual and coalitional mate retention. Participants (n = 754; 416 women) in a committed, heterosexual relationship from two independent samples reported (1) their relationship satisfaction, (2) their partner’s mate value, (3) the frequency of performing individual mate retention, and (4) the frequency of requesting coalitional mate retention. Results indicated that there were positive associations between mate value, individual and coalitional Benefit-Provisioning mate retention behaviors, and relationship satisfaction. We found negative associations between individual and coalitional Cost-Inflicting mate retention behaviors and relationship satisfaction. We found that mate retention moderated the relationship between mate value and relationship satisfaction. Limitations of the current study are noted, and future directions are discussed.

The Fazio Laterality Inventory (FLI) is a recent measure of handedness. Although initially validated, there is still a lack of studies assessing its psychometric properties in samples outside the USA. The present study explores the validity of the Polish adaptation of the FLI. We used data gathered from a convenience sample of 727 participants. They completed the FLI and the Edinburgh Handedness Inventory to establish concurrent validity. Confirmatory factor analysis was used to investigate the factor structure of the FLI. In addition, an Item Response Theory (IRT) model for continuous item scores was also used to identify the discrimination and difficulty parameters of the FLI items. The Polish version of the FLI was characterized by good reliability indices and has high concurrent validity with the Edinburgh Handedness Inventory. We identified a bi-factorial structure for the questionnaire. The IRT analyses showed that the FLI items have good discrimination and difficulty parameters. Our study provides new insights into the properties of the Fazio Laterality Inventory.

Visuospatial working memory (VSWM) is essential to human cognitive abilities and is associated with important life outcomes such as academic performance. Recently, a number of reliable measures of VSWM have been developed to help understand psychological processes and for practical use in education. We sought to extend this work using Item Response Theory (IRT) and Computerised Adaptive Testing (CAT) frameworks to construct, calibrate and validate a new adaptive, computerised, and open-source VSWM test. We aimed to overcome the limitations of previous instruments and provide researchers with a valid and freely available VSWM measurement tool. The Jack and Jill (JaJ) VSWM task was constructed using explanatory item response modelling of data from a sample of the general adult population (Study 1,N= 244) in the UK and US. Subsequently, a static version of the task was tested for validity and reliability using a sample of adults from the UK and Australia (Study 2,N= 148) and a sample of Russian adolescents (Study 3,N= 263). Finally, the adaptive version of the JaJ task was implemented on the basis of the underlying IRT model and evaluated with another sample of Russian adolescents (Study 4,N= 239). JaJ showed sufficient internal consistency and concurrent validity as indicated by significant and substantial correlations with established measures of working memory, spatial ability, non-verbal intelligence, and academic achievement. The findings suggest that JaJ is an efficient and reliable measure of VSWM from adolescent to adult age.