The Coronavirus Is Emboldening Autocrats the World Over

These include an overview of consumption in each market, including details of the most popular news brands – traditional and online. The pages also contain statistics about the use of new devices such as smartphones and tablets and the role of different social networks for news. Information is drawn from the 2020 Digital News Report survey using the methodology outlined on p. 6, with the exception of population and internet levels which are drawn from Internet World Statistics (2019).

Studies have suggested that the interplay of intrapersonal factors plays a major and more significant role than interpersonal factors in the elevation of emotions and distortion of cognition to the levels where it exceeds the individual’s bearing capacity and suicide becomes a possible option. The ongoing distress of an individual’s intrapersonal factors is reflected in the individual’s interaction with the world, especially with social media. The changes in social media activity provides a greater insight towards understanding the psychological pain the individual might be suffering. The aim of the paper is to study the Social Media Activity of individuals who have once or more attempted suicide over a period of stipulated time to identify the onset of indicators for psychological pain

Life history derived models of female sexual development all propose menarche timing as a key regulatory mechanism driving subsequent sexual behavior. The current researchutilized a twin subsample of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (Add Health; n=520)to comprehensively evaluate effects of life history antecedents onmenarche timing and sexual debut, and extend understanding of these life history models witha genetically informative design.The results show mixed support for each life history model and did not provide evidence any effecton age at menarche. Results of this research call to question the underlying assumptions of life history derived models of sexual development and highlight the need for more behavior genetic research in this area.

We take a data-driven approach rooted in epidemiology to forecast infections and deaths from the COVID-19 / coronavirus epidemic in the US and around the world

Mind & BodyWhat is 'self-nudging'? A simple trick to make healthier choices Practicing healthy lifestyle habits can be challenging — here are 7 ways to trick yourself into making better decisions.

Although the world has long needed a more systematic approach to cybersecurity, the issue has come to the fore as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. The fact that cyberattacks are increasingly targeting health facilities underscores the need for a rapid, concerted policy response.

There are many antibody tests available that can reveal if you have had and recovered from the coronavirus. Is it worth paying for one of these tests?

PM Lee Hsien Loong's remarks in English, Malay and Chinese on Singapore's future post-COVID-19, "Overcoming the Crisis of a Generation", delivered on 7 June 2020. A Tamil translation is available.

Germany has implemented drastic restrictions on public and social life, as the country tackles the coronavirus pandemic. But it appears some states think they have better plans in place.

BackgroundSocial media platforms have long been recognised as major disseminators of health misinformation. Many previous studies have found a negative association between health-protective behaviours and belief in the specific form of misinformation popularly known as ‘conspiracy theory’. Concerns have arisen regarding the spread of COVID-19 conspiracy theories on social media.MethodsThree questionnaire surveys of social media use, conspiracy beliefs and health-protective behaviours with regard to COVID-19 among UK residents were carried out online, one using a self-selecting sample (N = 949) and two using stratified random samples from a recruited panel (N = 2250, N = 2254).ResultsAll three studies found a negative relationship between COVID-19 conspiracy beliefs and COVID-19 health-protective behaviours, and a positive relationship between COVID-19 conspiracy beliefs and use of social media as a source of information about COVID-19. Studies 2 and 3 also found a negative relationship between COVID-19 health-protective behaviours and use of social media as a source of information, and Study 3 found a positive relationship between health-protective behaviours and use of broadcast media as a source of information.ConclusionsWhen used as an information source, unregulated social media may present a health risk that is partly but not wholly reducible to their role as disseminators of health-related conspiracy beliefs.

Thousands of the president's supporters are about to pack into an arena in Tulsa, where Covid-19 cases are skyrocketing.

This webinar series by The Royal Society of Medicine (RSM) aims to support you as we navigate the challenges presented by the COVID-19 pandemic. We are aiming to unite healthcare workers on the frontlines with senior decision makers leading the response in this critical fight against COVID-19.Chaired by leading experts, these webinars aim to support you as we discuss different topics and challenges that healthcare workers, leaders and the public are facing, and how we are responding.In this episode of the COVID-19 Series Professor Sir Simon Wessely talks to Dr Howard Bauchner, Editor-in-Chief of JAMA, and Dr Fiona Godlee, Editor-in-chief of The BMJ, about the role medical journals play in a pandemic such as COVID-19They will be discussing how these popular journals report in a time of rapid and developing scientific evidence, balancing both clinical and public concerns alongside emerging policies and guidance.The webinar will include plenty of opportunities for questions. All views expressed in this webinar are of the speakers themselves and not of The RSM. Please note this webinar will be recorded and stored by The RSM and may be used in the future on various internet channels.

Prof Steven Riley is an epidemiologist who uses computer modelling to predict the spread of infectious disease. He worked with the group of scientists whose models predicted that 250K people could die of COVID-19 in the UK if the lockdown was delayed, providing the Government with scientific evidence to endorse a lockdown. He will be joined by members of his team, Dr Kylie Ainslie, Dr Lucy Okell and Daniel Lydon to talk about their research on COVID-19.

It is difficult to imagine an organisation or individual that has not been affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. As we as a journal begin our fourth month of operating from makeshift home workspaces, perhaps it is time to reflect on our own experiences so far and how they might shape the future of this and other journals.

10.1016/S2214-109X(20)30260-6

We demonstrate subassembly, an in vitro library construction method that extends the utility of short-read sequencing platforms to applications requiring long, accurate reads. A long DNA fragment library is converted to a population of nested sublibraries, and a tag sequence directs grouping of short reads derived from the same long fragment, enabling localized assembly of long fragment sequences. Subassembly may facilitate accurate de novo genome assembly and metagenome sequencing.

Instructions Hover over cells with mouse to reveal additional information. Select site subsets using the drop down menu below the plots. Change which sites are displayed by brushing the zoom bar and dragging the brush. Clear the zoom bar by double clicking it. Structural visualizations of the data are available via dms-view here See the paper describing these data here Raw data available on GitHub

The receptor binding domain (RBD) of the SARS-CoV-2 spike glycoprotein mediates viral attachment to ACE2 receptor, and is a major determinant of host range and a dominant target of neutralizing antibodies. Here we experimentally measure how all amino-acid mutations to the RBD affect expression of folded protein and its affinity for ACE2. Most mutations are deleterious for RBD expression and ACE2 binding, and we identify constrained regions on the RBD's surface that may be desirable targets for vaccines and antibody-based therapeutics. But a substantial number of mutations are well tolerated or even enhance ACE2 binding, including at ACE2 interface residues that vary across SARS-related coronaviruses. However, we find no evidence that these ACE2-affinity enhancing mutations have been selected in current SARS-CoV-2 pandemic isolates. We present an interactive visualization and open analysis pipeline to facilitate use of our dataset for vaccine design and functional annotation of mutations observed during viral surveillance.

Given the significant uptake in the incentives and use of preprints and registered reports, a few early analyses have used those to document the phenomenon: women economists were shown to have a drop in production of preprints and registered reports in March and April and were less likely to work on COVID-related topics. Similarly, over the last three months male authors on arXiv and bioRxiv increased at a greater rate than women authors. Our own analysis builds on data from 11 pre-print repositories and three platforms, for a total of 327,902 documents. This work demonstrates the disproportionate effect on early career researchers (using authorship position as a proxy for seniority in science). We have created this dynamic and interactive website to allow policy makers, scientists, and administrators to monitor this evolving situation. As of May 18th 2020, the data covers 284,842 pre-prints and registered reports, which will be updated on a regular basis.

Months into the pandemic, Vermont’s governor says the state is “the envy of the nation,” with little more than 1,100 confirmed covid-19 infections and 56 deaths. Perhaps most remarkable is that Vermont has been relatively spared the effects of the disease even though a huge swath of the nation’s cases are mere hours from its borders; neighboring New York and Massachusetts have approximately half a million confirmed cases between them, and more than 37,000 deaths.

Illness related to the novel coronavirus has driven a global crisis, and many clinicians are facing unexpected and challenging conversations. This guide is a graphic medicine adaptation of text that was created to provide a practical introduction on how to talk about difficult topics related to covid-19. During early spread of the pandemic, the written text and subsequent illustrations were created to promote rapid sharing of communication skills with clinicians across diverse disciplines. The primary text was produced by non-profit organisation VitalTalk, which gives training to support conversations around serious illness.This guide is not meant to be comprehensive, but it is a starting place for improving conversations with those facing this illness.

Infectious diseases have been largely pushed to the wayside by big pharma because they are unable to bring the same profits as other conditions, such as cancer and chronic diseases. Octopus Ventures’ Uzma Choudry explains the reasons behind the failure and why she is hopeful the current Covid-19 pandemic will change attitudes towards the serious public health threats infectious diseases cause.

Charities call on government to rebuild care system to support carers and their families

As shops re-opened in the UK this week, social media users were quick to pour scorn on the hundreds of eager shoppers who queued up to get in. Yes, it’s unclear whether it was a good decision to re-open businesses — but there was a certain snobbishness to many of these posts. Most of the ire was directed at those lining up outside Primark, which sells clothes at prices more affordable to those on low incomes than most other high street stores. Meanwhile, queues also formed outside high-end shops like Selfridges and Harrods — but these shoppers somehow escaped the wrath of most social media commentators.

Over the last few years, memes have played an increasingly important part in online political discussion: in 2016, the Washington Post dubbed the 2016 presidential election “the most-memed election in U.S. history”, and CNN has already christened the 2020 race “the meme election”. But politicians may want to pause for thought before they hit send on that jokey tweet. New research in Communication Research Reports, from Ohio State University’s Olivia Bullock and Austin Huber, suggests that humour doesn’t always go down well online — and that this can impact what voters think of particular candidates and potentially how they vote.

A Letter to Grown-UpsChildhood is an amazing time of discovery. Nearly every moment of a child’s life offers opportunities to teach important emotional intelligence skills, such as caring, listening, empathy, problem-solving, self-regulation, and resilience. That holds particularly true in challenging times such as these.During the current pandemic, families have been thrust into extraordinary circumstances that may be life-changing, with short- and long-term effects on children’s well-being. Past experience during global crises has taught us that caring grown-ups in children’s lives can make an enormous difference by providing safety, comforting reassurance, age-appropriate information, and helpful guidance. Helping children learn to be smart about feelings can help alleviate their emotional stress, improve concentration, boost their immune system, and enhance brain development. This First Aid for Feelingsworkbook for children was designed to help you do just that. By using the simple coping strategies found in this workbook, you can encourage children to express thoughts, questions, and feelings. These life skills may help reduce and manage children’s stress or anxiety, and provide some sense of control within their changing lives.

In response to the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, several national governments have applied lockdown restrictions to reduce the infection rate. Here we perform a massive analysis on near–real-time Italian mobility data provided by Facebook to investigate how lockdown strategies affect economic conditions of individuals and local governments. We model the change in mobility as an exogenous shock similar to a natural disaster. We identify two ways through which mobility restrictions affect Italian citizens. First, we find that the impact of lockdown is stronger in municipalities with higher fiscal capacity. Second, we find evidence of a segregation effect, since mobility contraction is stronger in municipalities in which inequality is higher and for those where individuals have lower income per capita. Our results highlight both the social costs of lockdown and a challenge of unprecedented intensity: On the one hand, the crisis is inducing a sharp reduction of fiscal revenues for both national and local governments; on the other hand, a significant fiscal effort is needed to sustain the most fragile individuals and to mitigate the increase in poverty and inequality induced by the lockdown.

Members of indigenous communities in the Peruvian Amazon have contracted covid-19, fuelling concerns that the disease could devastate indigenous groups throughout South America – including uncontacted tribes in the region. Many fear whole communities could be killed if they contract the virus.

Summary: New research suggests that people who use the term “fake news” to discredit information from largely legitimate news sources may do so partly to satisfy their need to see the world as an orderly and structured place rather than solely to express their political or personal ideology.

People seek out and interpret political information in self-serving ways. In four experiments, we show that people are similarly self-serving in the political information they share with others. Participants learned about positive and negative effects of increasing the minimum wage (in Studies 1-3) or of banning assault weapons (Study 4). They then indicated how likely they would be to mention each effect to close others. Participants were more inclined to share information that was consistent with their political orientation than information that was not. This effect persisted even when participants believed the information, suggesting that selective communication is not just a reflection of motivated skepticism. We also observed ideological differences. Liberals were most biased with their political opponents, whereas conservatives were most biased with their political allies. This biased information sharing could distort the flow of political information through social networks in ways that exacerbate political polarization.

Social distancing is vital to mitigate the spread of the novel coronavirus. We use geolocation data to document that political beliefs present a significant limitation to the effectiveness of state-level social distancing orders. Residents in Republican counties are less likely to completely stay at home after a state order has been implemented relative to those in Democratic counties. Debit card transaction data shows that Democrats are more likely to switch to e-commerce spending after state orders are implemented. We also find that Democrats are less likely to respond to a state-level order when it is issued by a Republican governor relative to one issued by a Democratic governor. These results are robust to controlling for other factors including time, geography, local COVID-19 cases and deaths, county characteristics, and other social distancing orders. We conclude that bipartisan support is essential to maximize the effectiveness of social distancing orders.

Voluntary physical distancing is essential for preventing the spread of COVID-19. Political partisanship may influence individuals’ responsiveness to recommendations from political leaders. Daily mobility during March 2020 was measured using location information from a sample of mobile phones in 3,100 US counties across 49 states. Governors’ Twitter communications were used to determine the timing of messaging about COVID-19 prevention. Regression analyses examined how political preferences influenced the association between governors’ COVID-19 communications and residents’ mobility patterns. Governors’ recommendations for residents to stay at home preceded stay-at-home orders, and led to a significant reduction in mobility that was comparable to the effect of the orders themselves. Effects were larger in Democratic than Republican-leaning counties, a pattern more pronounced under Republican governors. Democratic-leaning counties also responded more to recommendations from Republican than Democratic governors. Political partisanship influences citizens’ decisions to voluntarily engage in physical distancing in response to communications by their governor.

The spread of the novel coronavirus has led to unprecedented changes in daily living. College students (N = 205) completed a battery of questionnaires in April of 2020, after having completed similar measures 8, 5, and 2 months prior as part of a larger study. A repeated measures ANOVA suggested significantly greater depression and anxiety symptom severity during the pandemic than at any other time during the 2019-2020 academic year. Static and modifiable factors associated with psychological distress and controlling for pre-existing psychological distress were examined. Cognitive and behavioral avoidance was the most consistent predictor of psychological distress during the pandemic. Online social engagement and problematic Internet use also conferred greater risk. Women and Latinx participants were more likely to experience elevated distress during the pandemic, even when controlling for distress prior to the pandemic.

Background: On 20th March 2020, in response to COVID-19, UK schools were closed to most pupils. Teachers were required to put remote teaching and learning in place with only two days’ notice from the government. Aims: The current study explores teachers’ experiences of this abrupt change to their working practices, and during the 5-6 weeks that followed. Sample: Twenty-four teachers from English state schools were interviewed, representing mainstream primary and secondary schools and a range of years of experience and seniority. Methods: Participants were asked to tell stories of three key scenes during the first 5-6 weeks of lockdown: a low point, a high point and a turning point. A reflexive thematic analysis of their narratives was conducted. Results and Conclusions: Six themes were identified: uncertainty, finding a way, worry for the vulnerable, importance of relationships, teacher identity and reflections. Teachers’ narratives suggest that, after an initial period of uncertainty they settled into the situation and found a way forward, supported by strong relationships. However, they remain extremely worried about the most vulnerable pupils and want more joined up thinking from the government on how to support them effectively, along with clarity from policymakers to enable planning ahead. Teachers reflected on how to use their learning during this period to improve pupils’ experiences of education post COVID-19, and on how aspects of shared teacher identity have worked as stressors and coping mechanisms. These initial interviews form the baseline for a longitudinal interview study of teachers’ experiences of COVID-19 in England.

In a large trial, a cheap and widely available steroid cut deaths by one-third among patients critically ill with COVID-19.

On June 11, 2020, Twitter announced the takedown of a collection of 23,750accounts attributed to the People’s Republic of China (PRC), with technicalindicators linking the operation to the same actor responsible for the networkof 200,000 accounts suspended inAugust 2019. Most of the 23,750 accounts inthis disclosure were caught relatively quickly and thus failed to gain traction onthe platform. Twitter’s assessment of the operation notes that these accountswere themselves part of a larger network, the remainder of which primarilyserved to retweet the core; the amplifiers were not included in the publictakedown data set.This June 2020 PRC-attributed operation had considerable topical overlapwith the August 2019 operation, particularly concerning the pro-democracymovement in Hong Kong andattacks on Chinese billionaire Guo Wengui(nowin exile in the United States). A small portion of the tweets occurred during thesame timeframe as the 2019 operation, involving accounts found after that firsttakedown. However, more significantly, it appears that the PRC simply creatednew accounts to talk about the same topics after losing the first network. Thepersonas are not well-developed and have no biographies or backstories thatclearly articulate who they are supposed to be; the tone of the content createsthe perception that the tweets are the opinions of an average Chinese person.One notable narrative addition in this takedown is content related to the coro-navirus pandemic. Other recent research, such asan analysis by Bellingcat,suggested the emergence of COVID-19 as a topical focus for likely-CCP ac-counts; this takedown offers concrete confirmation. The COVID-19 relatedcontent includes tweets cheerleading for the Chinese government, emphasiz-ing Chinese unity, calling for global unity, and praising doctors and medicalworkers. It also pointedly criticizes the US epidemic response, quibbles overthe international perception that Taiwan’s response was superior to China’s,and attacks Guo Wengui for allegedly spreading false news on the coronavirusand “discrediting China”.

The day-to-day variations of sleep and physical activity are associated with various health outcomes in adults, and previous studies suggested a bidirectional association between these behaviors. The daily associations between sleep and physical activity have been examined in observational or interventional contexts. The primary goal of the current systematic review and meta-analysis was to summarize existing evidence about daily associations between sleep and physical activity outcomes at inter- and intra-individual level in adults. A systematic search of records in eight databases from inception to July 2019 identified 33 peer-reviewed empirical publications that examined daily sleep – physical activity association in adults. The qualitative and quantitative analyses of included studies did not support a bidirectional daily association between sleep outcomes and physical activity. Multilevel meta-analyses showed that three sleep parameters were associated with physical activity the following day: sleep quality, sleep efficiency, and wake after sleep onset. However, the associations were small, and varied in terms of direction and level of variability (e.g. inter- or intra-individual). Daytime physical activity was associated with lower total sleep time the following night at an inter-person level with a small effect size. Future studies should examine sleep and physical activity during a longer period and perform additional sophisticated statistical analyses.

As direct telehealth therapy sessions are being increasingly provided for safety reasons during the COVID-19 pandemic, it is critical to ensure that sessions are implemented with integrity by direct service providers. While existing research addresses the efficacy of the telehealth model, there is no literature on integrity measures tied to this service model. Without a framework or point of reference, clinicians new to the field or telehealth therapy may not be able or willing to attempt to implement telehealth therapy. The telehealth therapy treatment integrity measure (TTTIM) is designed to delineate components of effective telehealth therapy, including both aspects of instruction that should be generalized from in-person sessions to telehealth therapy sessions as well as new elements that are unique to telehealth therapy. A description of how the measure can be utilized to support training, both initial and ongoing, of direct service providers is included. This measure can support clinicians in ensuring that direct service providers are working within their scope of competence when providing telehealth therapy.

The COVID-19 pandemic caused significant disruption during the spring of 2020. Many college students were told to leave campus at spring break and to complete the semester remotely. This study evaluates effects of this disruption on student well-being. A sample of 148 students (86.5% female, 49.3% White) completed measures of psychological symptoms, perceived stress, and alcohol use during the spring 2020 semester at a university in the southeastern U.S. Their results were compared to those of 240 students (87.9% female, 64.2% White) who completed the same measures in the fall 2019 semester. Participants in spring 2020 reported more mood disorder symptoms, perceived stress, and alcohol use than did pre-pandemic participants. Worry about COVID-19 was negatively associated with well-being in multiple domains. Additionally, White students reported a greater effect of the pandemic on well-being than did African American students. Young adults appear to be less vulnerable to the most serious medical complications associated with COVID-19 but nonetheless experience psychological effects from the pandemic. Universities and practitioners who work with college students can help young adults manage their symptoms and avoid behaviors like risky alcohol use when confronted with stressors such as the COVID-19 pandemic.

Anne has been hooked on the "replication crisis" in psychology for some time, switching from infant research to focus on meta-science. A switch we’re all glad she made. A PhD Student under Daniël Lakens’, she is part of the project "Increasing the reliability and efficiency of psychological science" at Eindhoven University of Technology. On any open science topic Anne is an expert, but today she will talk on Registered Reports, which is what I hope to become the default approach to conducting research.

Background: Extant research relating to the psychological impact of infectious respiratory disease epidemics/pandemics suggests that frontline workers are particularly vulnerable. Methods: The current study used data from the first two waves of the United Kingdom (UK) survey of the COVID-19 Psychological Research Consortium (C19PRC) Study to compare frontline workers with the rest of the UK population on prevalence estimates of depression, anxiety, and PTSD during the first week of ‘lockdown’ (Wave 1) and one month later (Wave 2). Results: Compared to the rest of the population, frontline workers generally, and individual frontline worker groups, had significantly higher prevalence estimates of depression, anxiety, and PTSD during both wave 1 and wave 2. While prevalence estimates of depression significantly increased among Local & National Government Workers from Wave 1 (15.4%) to Wave 2 (38.5%), no significant improvement or deterioration in mental health status was recorded for any other frontline worker group. Multivariate binary logistic regression analysis showed that, beyond other risk factors, food workers were nearly twice as likely as others to screen positive for anxiety, while all frontline worker groups, other than transport workers, were significantly more likely to screen positive for PTSD (Odds Ratios ranged from 1.74 – 3.43). Finally, while frontline workers, generally, were significantly more likely than the general public to have received mental health advice during the pandemic (26.9% versus 20.3% respectively), this was largely reflective of health and social care workers (37.9%). Conclusions: These findings offer timely and valuable information on the psychological health status of UK’s frontline workforce during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic and may aid in preparations for their future psychological and mental health support.

The cortisol awakening response (CAR) is associated with various aspects of cognition, including executive function, in older adult and clinical samples. However, the association between these variables in the healthy functioning population is not well understood due to the limited number of appropriately controlled studies. This study explored the association between the CAR and a set shifting index of executive function in 55 (44 females) healthy participants aged 20.2±3.0 years. Notoriously, assessment of the CAR from self-collected saliva samples within the domestic setting is subject to sample timing error, so electronic monitoring of both awakening and sampling times were employed. Participants attended the laboratory in the afternoon of CAR assessment for testing on the Attention Switching Task of the CANTAB neuropsychological testing battery. A positive association was found between CAR magnitude and attention-switching performance in the afternoon of the same day. This was independent of known relevant CAR covariates, but only evident in CAR data collected without delay exceeding 8 min post-awakening. These findings offer insight into a potential role for the CAR in modulating cognitive functions associated with the pre-frontal cortex.

This study investigated the within- and across-day associations between Corona-related media exposure and Corona-related worries during the COVID-19 crisis in late March to April 2020 in Germany. In a 21-day online diary study based on a convenience sample of parents of school-aged children (N = 561; Mage = 42.79, SDage = 6.12), same-day analyses revealed more Corona-related worries on days with higher exposure to Corona-related media (e.g., TV, print, online). Examining the across-day relations among Corona-related media exposure and worries, we found evidence for a reciprocal cycle, indicating that higher media exposure at one day predicted higher worries the next day and that higher worries at one day predicted higher media exposure the next day. Furthermore, individuals with high trait anxiety reported higher media exposure and more worries during the 21 days of assessment, and individuals high in neuroticism on average reported more worries.

Third case flew from Pakistan via Doha and Melbourne, says director general of health as further reports surface of ill-advised birthday parties and funeral gatherings

A new breed of researcher is turning to computation to understand society — and then change it.

The sudden spike in cases has also struck a number of current and former senior politicians

From Italy to Madagascar, funding is in place to try to preserve the arts sector by supporting actors, musicians and other cultural workers

We show that the dynamics of the number of deaths due to Covid in different countries is to a large extent universal once the origin of time is chosen to be the start of the lockdown, and the number of death is rescaled by the total number of deaths after the lockdown, itself a proxy of the number of infections at the start of the lockdown. Such a curve collapse is much less convincing when normalizing by the total population. Sweden, with its no-lockdown, light-touch approach, is the only outlier that deviates considerably from the average behavior. We argue that these model-free findings provide strong support for the effectiveness of the lockdowns in mitigating the lethality of the virus.

The pandemic has devastated global tourism, and many will say ‘good riddance’ to overcrowded cities and rubbish-strewn natural wonders. Is there any way to reinvent an industry that does so much damage?

As our country battles two simultaneous major public health crises—COVID-19 and systemic racism—our now endemic public health crisis of gun violence looms over the United States and leaves many of us in health care sleepless at night. American gun violence predates and will far outlive COVID-19—and its threat has burgeoned in the pandemic’s shadow as nearly two million Americans purchased new guns in March alone. With increasing evidence that new handgun ownership is strongly associated with suicide—especially immediately after purchasing the weapon—it’s only a matter of time before gun violence explodes once again. And we’re already starting to see a spike in gun violence this year, with shootings doubling in some areas compared to last year. In light of this, temporary Extreme Risk Protection Orders (ERPOs), also known as “red flag” laws, may be your best bet to urgently disarm and save the life of a loved one. And making sure you’re familiar with ERPOs can make all the difference during these turbulent times.

Economic researchers neglect the role of financialization in global existential crises.

About the talk: Psychological science has been at the forefront of improving research practices. Yet, psychology is also a strongly norm driven field, and we risk replacing old norms with new norms, without increasing true understanding or the ability to justify our actions. I will unsuccessfully try to prevent you from just adopting the New Heuristics of scientific reform. About the speaker: Professor Daniel Lakens is based at Human-Technology Interaction group at Eindhoven University of Technology. His research focuses on how to design and interpret studies, applied (meta)-statistics, and reward structures in science, as well as having research interests in conceptual thought and meaning. Daniel is noted for his teaching and creation of useful resources. He received the 2017 Leamer-Rosenthal prize for Open Social Science as a Leader in Education, and his course on research methods for young scholars (here) is widely praised and highly subscribed, along with his blog on methods and statistics and practical primers on effect sizes, sequential analysis, and equivalence tests. Recently, Daniel has developed an interest in the importance of (preferably pre-registered) replications and ways to improve how we interpret and design studies. Daniel believes that we can try a little harder to make science as open and robust as possible, and give the tax payer as much value for money as we can, and that science should be a much more collaborative enterprise.

Major crises have major consequences, usually unforeseen. The Great Depression spurred isolationism, nationalism, fascism, and World War II—but also led to the New Deal, the rise of the United States as a global superpower, and eventually decolonization. The 9/11 attacks produced two failed American interventions, the rise of Iran, and new forms of Islamic radicalism. The 2008 financial crisis generated a surge in antiestablishment populism that replaced leaders across the globe. Future historians will trace comparably large effects to the current coronavirus pandemic; the challenge is figuring them out ahead of time.

JUST how many people have been infected with the coronavirus? Statistics are trickling in from cities and countries around the world, but the figures vary hugely. Some regions are reporting that less than 1 per cent of people have been infected, and others that over half the population has had the virus. How are these figures calculated, and which can we trust? Determining the true prevalence of coronavirus infection will be important for understanding how the virus spreads and limiting its damage. The reporting of coronavirus cases varies drastically around the world. Tim Russell and his colleagues at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine have estimated that, as of 15 June, more than 95 per cent of symptomatic cases have been reported in some countries, including Ghana, Kazakhstan, Morocco and Oman. Advertisement googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display('mpu-mid-article'); }); googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display('video-mid-article'); }); However, the team estimates that only 35 per cent of symptomatic cases have been reported in the US, and the figure is even lower for some other countries. The UK is estimated to have reported only 14 per cent, Sweden about 19 per cent and Yemen just 3 per cent. What these statistics don’t reflect is the number of symptomless cases, which some evidence suggests can account for between a quarter and half of all coronavirus infections.

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has, it is frequently said, changed everything. But to appreciate its effects fully, one must not only look at the ways in which clinical services have been reorganised to cope with the flood of patients with COVID-19, or even at the public health measures aimed at flattening the epidemic curve. Globally significant health issues that existed before COVID-19 have not gone away: in many instances, the pandemic may have exacerbated the problem.Alcohol-related harm is one such case. In the UK, which went into lockdown on March 22, data from the Office for National Statistics show that sales in alcohol stores in March had increased in month-on-month volume by 31·4%. Alcohol consumption patterns have also altered, according to a survey by the charity Alcohol Change UK. Reassuringly, more than a third of the 1555 people surveyed who reported drinking alcohol before lockdown stated that they had stopped drinking or reduced how often they drank in the 2 weeks after lockdown commenced. However, around a fifth responded that they had been drinking more frequently in the same period. And while about half of drinkers said they were consuming about the same amount on a typical drinking day, 15% said they had been drinking more per session since lockdown began. Of particular concern was that almost one in five of those who drank alcohol on a daily basis had further increased the amount they drink since lockdown. While these preliminary data must be treated with caution, they hint at the emergence of a subgroup of drinkers at risk of establishing potentially dangerous patterns of alcohol consumption during lockdown.

Nature asked authors and editors for advice on how to improve peer-review communication.

The two articles agree in their mistrust of media-certified experts. Here’s Taleb: Both forecasters and their critics are wrong: At the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, many researcher groups and agencies produced single point “forecasts” for the pandemic — most relied on the compartmental SIR model, sometimes supplemented with cellular automata. The prevailing idea is that producing a numerical estimate is how science is done, and how science-informed decision-making ought to be done: bean counters producing precise numbers. Well, no. That’s not how “science is done”, at least in this domain, and that’s not how informed decision-making ought to be done. Furthermore, subsequently, many criticized the predictions because these did not play out (no surprise there). This is also wrong. Both forecasters (who missed) and their critics were wrong — and the forecasters would have been wrong even if they got the prediction right. . . . Here are Ioannidis et al.: COVID-19 is a major acute crisis with unpredictable consequences. Many scientists have struggled to make forecasts about its impact. However, despite involving many excellent modelers, best intentions, and highly sophisticated tools, forecasting efforts have largely failed. . . . Despite these obvious failures, epidemic forecasting continued to thrive, perhaps because vastly erroneous predictions typically lacked serious consequences. . . .

Scholarly publishers are working together to maximize the efficiency of peer review, ensuring that key work related to COVID-19 is reviewed and published as quickly and openly as possible. The group of publishers and scholarly communications organizations — initially comprising eLife, Hindawi, PeerJ, PLOS, Royal Society, F1000 Research, FAIRsharing, Outbreak Science, and PREreview — is working on initiatives and standards to speed up the review process while ensuring rigor and reproducibility remain paramount. The group has issued an Open Letter of Intent and is launching an initiative to ensure a rapid, efficient, yet responsible review of COVID-19 content.

What kinds of research are not eligible for Leverhulme Trust funding? Both because of the substantial funding available from other sources for applied medical research, and the Trust’s priority to support investigations of a fundamental nature, we do not fund studies of disease, illness and disabilities in humans and animals, or research that is intended to inform clinical practice or the development of medical applications Policy-driven research where the principal objective is to assemble an evidence base for immediate policy initiatives Proposals for the following are also ineligible for Leverhulme Trust support: Research where advocacy is an explicit component Research aimed principally at an immediate commercial application Proposals in which the balance between assembling a data bank or database and the related subsequent research is heavily inclined to the former Guidance on eligibility If you are uncertain about the eligibility of your proposal, please contact us before beginning an application.

This pre-print endeavours to further the current understanding of how to communicate health information to the global public effectively. The study also aims to test competing theories about risk communication. The experimenters aim to test competing hypotheses in the context of framing messages in terms of losses versus gains. A gain-frame describes the process of framing a message focused on the positive outcome. A loss-frame describes the process of framing a message on the costs or the loss, such as opportunity cost. The present study aims to examine the effects on four primary outcomes. These outcomes are intentions to adhere to policies designed to prevent the spread of COVID-19, opinions about such policies, the likelihood that participants seek additional policy information, and experience anxiety. The researchers on the project suggest that results could be of particular interest to health organisations, policymakers, and news outlets. Results pending.

Universities are facing a severe financial crisis and some contract staff are hanging by a thread. Senior colleagues need to speak up now.

You might try to defend a uni-disciplinary approach by arguing a decision-maker will mainly be fed other, biased uni-disciplinary approaches, and you have to get your discipline into the mix to avoid obliteration of its viewpoint.  But let’s be clear what is going on here: you are deliberately manipulating with a deliberately non-truthy approach (I intend those words as a description, not a condemnation).  If that’s what it is, I wish to describe it that way!  I’ll also note I’ve never done that deliberately myself, and that is along many years of advising at a variety of levels.  I’d rather give the best truthful account as I see it.

Human spatial behavior has been the focus of hundreds of previous research studies. However, the conclusions and generalizability of previous studies on interpersonal distance preferences were limited by some important methodological and sampling issues. The objective of the present study was to compare preferred interpersonal distances across the world and to overcome the problems observed in previous studies. We present an extensive analysis of interpersonal distances over a large data set (N = 8,943 participants from 42 countries). We attempted to relate the preferred social, personal, and intimate distances observed in each country to a set of individual characteristics of the participants, and some attributes of their cultures. Our study indicates that individual characteristics (age and gender) influence interpersonal space preferences and that some variation in results can be explained by temperature in a given region. We also present objective values of preferred interpersonal distances in different regions, which might be used as a reference data point in future studies.

Human spatial behavior has been the focus of hundreds of previous research studies. However, the conclusions and generalizability of previous studies on interpersonal distance preferences were limited by some important methodological and sampling issues. The objective of the present study was to compare preferred interpersonal distances across the world and to overcome the problems observed in previous studies. We present an extensive analysis of interpersonal distances over a large data set (N = 8,943 participants from 42 countries). We attempted to relate the preferred social, personal, and intimate distances observed in each country to a set of individual characteristics of the participants, and some attributes of their cultures. Our study indicates that individual characteristics (age and gender) influence interpersonal space preferences and that some variation in results can be explained by temperature in a given region. We also present objective values of preferred interpersonal distances in different regions, which might be used as a reference data point in future studies.

Tracking states as they make progress towards a new normal

BackgroundThe isolation of symptomatic cases and tracing of contacts has been used as an early COVID-19 containment measure in many countries, with additional physical distancing measures also introduced as outbreaks have grown. To maintain control of infection while also reducing disruption to populations, there is a need to understand what combination of measures—including novel digital tracing approaches and less intensive physical distancing—might be required to reduce transmission. We aimed to estimate the reduction in transmission under different control measures across settings and how many contacts would be quarantined per day in different strategies for a given level of symptomatic case incidence.MethodsFor this mathematical modelling study, we used a model of individual-level transmission stratified by setting (household, work, school, or other) based on BBC Pandemic data from 40 162 UK participants. We simulated the effect of a range of different testing, isolation, tracing, and physical distancing scenarios. Under optimistic but plausible assumptions, we estimated reduction in the effective reproduction number and the number of contacts that would be newly quarantined each day under different strategies.ResultsWe estimated that combined isolation and tracing strategies would reduce transmission more than mass testing or self-isolation alone: mean transmission reduction of 2% for mass random testing of 5% of the population each week, 29% for self-isolation alone of symptomatic cases within the household, 35% for self-isolation alone outside the household, 37% for self-isolation plus household quarantine, 64% for self-isolation and household quarantine with the addition of manual contact tracing of all contacts, 57% with the addition of manual tracing of acquaintances only, and 47% with the addition of app-based tracing only. If limits were placed on gatherings outside of home, school, or work, then manual contact tracing of acquaintances alone could have an effect on transmission reduction similar to that of detailed contact tracing. In a scenario where 1000 new symptomatic cases that met the definition to trigger contact tracing occurred per day, we estimated that, in most contact tracing strategies, 15 000–41 000 contacts would be newly quarantined each day.InterpretationConsistent with previous modelling studies and country-specific COVID-19 responses to date, our analysis estimated that a high proportion of cases would need to self-isolate and a high proportion of their contacts to be successfully traced to ensure an effective reproduction number lower than 1 in the absence of other measures. If combined with moderate physical distancing measures, self-isolation and contact tracing would be more likely to achieve control of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 transmission.FundingWellcome Trust, UK Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, European Commission, Royal Society, Medical Research Council.

The COVID-19 global health emergency and its economic and social impacts have disrupted nearly all aspects of life for all groups in society. People of different ages, however, are experiencing its effects in different ways.For young people, and especially for vulnerable youth, the COVID-19 crisis poses considerable risks in the fields of education, employment, mental health and disposable income. Moreover, while youth and future generations will shoulder much of the long-term economic and social consequences of the crisis, their well-being may be superseded by short-term economic and equity considerations. To avoid exacerbating intergenerational inequalities and to involve young people in building societal resilience, governmentsneed to anticipate the impact of mitigation and recovery measures across different age groups, by applying effective governance mechanisms.Based on survey findings from 90 youth organisations from 48 countries, this policy brief outlines practical measures governments can take to design inclusive and fair recovery measures that leave no one behind

Notions of psychological frailty have been at the forefront of debates around the public response to the COVID‐19 pandemic. In particular, there is the argument that collective selfishness, thoughtless behaviour, and over‐reaction would make the effects of COVID‐19 much worse. The same kinds of claims have been made in relation to other kinds of emergencies, such as fires, earthquakes, and sinking ships. We argue that in these cases as well as in the case of the COVID‐19 pandemic, other factors are better explanations for fatalities – namely under‐reaction to threat, systemic or structural factors, and mismanagement. Psychologizing disasters serves to distract from the real causes and thus from who might be held responsible. Far from being the problem, collective behaviour in emergencies – including the solidarity and cooperation so commonly witnessed among survivors – is the solution, one that should be harnessed more effectively in policy and practice.

Millions of people in Beijing are living under renewed restrictions, as a spike in virus cases continues.

I have been wondering about this tool (that seems to be targeted at biological sciences): https://twitter.com/SciscoreReportsIt makes me wonder, what would be an ideal 'reproducibility score' for work in the behavioural science?Certainly there are now badges for reproducibility (e.g., preregistration, open materials etc.)—a step in the right direction, but we should always be trying to improve.So what elements best define scientific quality in our research, and what is the best way to put this into practice?And maybe a controversial question: should it be up to the journals to mete it out?

A paper published last week claiming mask usage prevented 66,000 infections in NYC has received widespread media coverage. It has also been heavily criticized for, among other things, a tenuous analysis of a regression discontinuity. Fitting lines to the number of new cases each day in New York City before and after face masks were mandatory, the authors attribute the steeper decline in cases to face masks: new cases were falling by 39 per day before the order and 106 after, so face masks probably sped up the rate of decrease by about 67 cases a day.

The coronavirus pandemic has had a severe impact on Europe. While not all EU member states have suffered equally, none has been spared social and economic hardship either. Early on, national impulses led to border closures and export restrictions on medical supplies, which lifted only recently as the crisis continued to unfold. Nevertheless, even in the earliest days of Europe’s exposure to the novel coronavirus, pan-European solidarity was on display. Individual acts of solidarity paved the way for donations of hundreds of thousands of protective masks and other medical supplies to those countries most affected. The institutions of the European Union eventually assumed a critical role in coordinating Europe’s response to the crisis. And as discussions shift toward economic recovery after months of lockdown measures and restrictions on cross-border trade and travel, different proposals are emerging for how to kickstart Europe’s economies and return to something approaching normal life. The European Solidarity Tracker collects and displays instances of pan-European solidarity throughout the coronavirus crisis. It will be updated and expanded continuously throughout the summer of 2020.

Die Planungen der Europäischen Union und aller ihrer Mitgliedstaaten für eine sichere Wiederaufnahme des Reiseverkehrs in Europa laufen. Der Schutz der öffentlichen Gesundheit hat zwar nach wie vor Priorität, aber jeder soll seinen Urlaub genießen, Familie und Freunde besuchen und zu jedem anderen Zweck reisen können. Mit dieser interaktiven Plattform erhalten Sie die Informationen, die Sie benötigen, um Ihre Reisen und Ihren Urlaub in Europa mit Rücksicht auf Ihre Gesundheit sicher zu planen. Die Informationen werden häufig aktualisiert und stehen Ihnen in 24 Sprachen zur Verfügung.

Flute Theatre’s game-based production of Pericles, performed for one family at a time, is designed to create a sense of calm

In this page you will find reports and analysis on ICT skills provided by the European Commission as well as external studies conducted at the request of the Commission.

Richard Horton is editor-in-chief of The Lancet, one of the world’s most influential medical journals. In his new book, The Covid-19 Catastrophe: What’s gone wrong and how to stop it happening again, Horton condemns most countries’ responses to coronavirus. He spoke to New Scientist about how the crisis has been mishandled around the world.

We've stopped deadly outbreaks in the past. And we can do it again, says epidemiologist Adam Kucharski

Some nations weren't prepared, others ignored best-laid plans. Why getting ready for next time has to start now

The report presents the results of the second wave of research conducted among the students of the Pedagogical University of Kraków. The research method was an on-line survey (CAWI) on the sample of 1927 respondents. The comparison of responses from both surveys indicates that the change in attitudes and mental condition of the respondents occurred. After almost three months of quarantine the youth is less interested in the pandemic, has lower fear of the coronavirus, evaluates the actions taken by government to combat the pandemic worse. A decrease in satisfaction with their lives and an increase in the symptoms of stress is also observed. Negative emotions of anxiety, sadness, exhaustion and loneliness are also dominant among youth. The psychological resources were exploited to a relatively small extent. The adaptive reactions remain on a similar level. Among the respondents active combating of the threats and redirecting their attention as well as comforting oneself that it could have been worse are dominant. The respondents reveal the symptoms of burnout with remote education. Mental tiredness, decreased efficiency of actions and a decrease in motivation for learning are observed as well.

Revenues forecast to drop by £74bn in 2020 amid bleak outlook for the arts, study finds

We discuss several issues of statistical design, data collection, analysis, communication, and decision making that have arisen in recent and ongoing coronavirus studies, focusing on tools for assessment and propagation of uncertainty. This paper does not purport to be a comprehensive survey of the research literature; rather, we use examples to illustrate statistical points that we think are important.

Podcasts are emerging as a popular medium for science communication. Here, we describe the benefits of academic podcasting for the scientific community and provide advice on how scientists can launch their own podcasts.

In the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic, many scientists have taken to social media platforms, particularly Twitter. Social media can facilitate research collaboration, generate ideas, clarify misinformation, and further understanding. Here are some of the ways that science is happening on Twitter, including strategies to extend the reach of ideas or ask others for help. While most of these examples address the urgent pandemic, they will work in ordinary times as well.

Oben rechts auf dieser Seite können Sie die gewünschte Sprache (Englisch, Französisch, Deutsch oder Italienisch) auswählen. Vielen Dank für Ihre Teilnahme an dieser Studie. Sie befasst sich mit SARS-CoV-2. Wie Sie wahrscheinlich wissen, ist das neuartige Coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 das Virus, das mit der aktuellen Pandemie und der COVID-19-Krankheit assoziiert ist. Unsere Umfrage dauert ungefähr 5 Minuten: Wir bitten Sie, zwei Fragen zu SARS-CoV-2 zu beantworten, gefolgt von einigen demografischen Fragen.   Die Teilnahme an dieser Studie ist anonym. Die Ergebnisse werden nur in aggregierter Form veröffentlicht und erlauben keine Identifizierung der Teilnehmer. Bitte beachten Sie, dass Ihre Teilnahme an dieser Studie vollkommen freiwillig ist und dass Sie für Ihre Teilnahme nicht vergütet werden.   Indem Sie fortfahren, bestätigen Sie, dass Sie diese Informationen gelesen haben und stimmen zu, unter den oben genannten Bedingungen an dieser Studie teilzunehmen. Für weitere Informationen können Sie den Organisator der Studie, Jérémy Orsat, unter jeremy.orsat@unil.ch kontaktieren.

Finding mechanisms to promote the use of face masks is fundamental during the second phase of the COVID-19 pandemic response, when shelter-in-place rules are relaxed and some segments of the population are allowed to circulate more freely. Here we report three pre-registered studies (total N = 1,920), using an heterogenous sample of people living in the USA, showing that priming people to “rely on their reasoning” rather than to “rely on their emotions” significantly increases their intentions to wear a face covering. Compared to the baseline, priming reasoning promotes intentions to wear a face covering, whereas priming emotion has no significant effect. These findings have theoretical and practical implications. Practically, they offer a simple and scalable intervention to promote intentions to wear a face mask. Theoretically, they shed light on the cognitive basis of intentions to wear a face covering.

Background The measures taken to contain the COVID-19 pandemic, such as the lockdown in Italy, do impact psychological health; yet, less is known about their effect on cognitive functioning. The transactional theory of stress predicts reciprocal influences between perceived stress and cognitive performance. However, the effects of a period of stress due to social isolation on spatial cognition and exploration have been little examined. The aim of the present study was to investigate the possible effects and impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on spatial cognition tasks, particularly those concerning spatial exploration, and the physiological leftward bias known as pseudoneglect. A right-hemisphere asymmetry for spatial attention processes crucially contributes to pseudoneglect. Other evidence indicates a predominantly right-hemisphere activity in stressful situations. We also analyzed the effects of lockdown on coping strategies, which typically show an opposite pattern of hemispheric asymmetry, favoring the left hemisphere. If so, then pseudoneglect should increase during the lockdown and be negatively correlated with the efficacy of coping strategies. Methods One week before the start of the lockdown due to Covid-19 in Italy (T1), we had collected data from a battery of behavioral tests including tasks of peri-personal spatial cognition. During the quarantine period, from late April to early May 2020 (T2), we repeated the testing sessions with a subgroup of the same participants (47 right-handed students, mean age = 20, SD = 1.33). At both testing sessions, participants performed digitized neuropsychological tests, including a cancellation task, radial arm maze task and Raven’s advanced progressive matrices. Participants also completed a newly developed COVID-19 Student Stress Scale, based on transactional models of stress, and the COPE-NIV to assess coping orientation. Results The tendency to start cancellation from a left-sided item, to explore first a left-sided arm of the maze, and to choose erroneous response items on the left side of the page on Raven’s matrices, increased from T1 to T2. The degree of pseudoneglect increment positively correlated with perceived stress, and negatively correlated with Positive Attitude and Problem-Solving COPE-NIV subscales. Conclusions Lockdown-related stress may have contributed to increase leftward bias during quarantine through a greater activation of the right hemisphere. On the other hand, pseudoneglect was decreased for better coping participants, perhaps as a consequence of a more balanced hemispheric activity in these individuals.

The risk posed in England by coronavirus is measured by a five-level, colour-coded alert system.

Weather has a significant impact on wildfires – in how they start, how aggressively they spread, and how long they burn. Find out the current fire danger rating in your area and other information about fire weather. The BC Wildfire Service operates about 260 weather stations, which send reports on an hourly basis. These hourly weather observations, supplemented by data from other agency stations, support fire weather forecasting and the Canadian Forest Fire Danger Rating System (CFFDRS).

Fire Danger

The United Kingdom Terror Threat Levels, often referred to as UK Threat Levels, are the alert states that have been in use since 1 August 2006 by the British government to warn of forms of terrorist activity. Before then a colour-based alert scheme known as BIKINI state was used.[1] The response indicates how government departments and agencies and their staffs should react to each threat level.

The Met Office issues weather warnings when severe weather has the potential to impact the UK.The Met Office issues warnings for rain, thunderstorms, wind, snow, lightning, ice and fog. These warnings are given a colour depending on a combination of both the impact the weather may have and the likelihood of those impacts occurring.

I'm a cognitive psychologist. Most of my research explores human memory. I am especially interested in determinants of the subjective experience of remembering, source monitoring (the inferential processes by which people identify the origins of mental events such as memories), and the application of theories concerning these processes to everyday memory phenomena (e.g., eyewitness evidence). I collaborate with several terrific psychologists, and I have had the great pleasure of working with many wonderful students at both the undergraduate and graduate levels. Check out my Google Scholar profile.

Philip N. Cohen gives an overview of the scientific information ecosystem in the context of COVID-19, with an emphasis on the role of preprints. The slides are available here: https://osf.io/5mue7/.

The ISC’s Committee for Freedom and Responsibility in Science (CFRS) has released a statement on ethical responsibilities of scientists at a time of global threat.

Making decisions over extended periods of time is cognitively taxing and can lead to decision fatigue, which is linked to a preference for the ‘default’ option, namely whatever decision involves the least cognitive effort. Such effects have been demonstrated across a number of applied settings, including forensic and clinical contexts. An open question, however, is whether this necessarily leads to worse decision outcomes. Using 26,501 credit restructuring applications evaluated by credit officers of a major bank, here we show that in this real-life financial risk taking context credit loan approvals across the course of a day decreased during midday compared to early or later in the workday, reflecting a preference for the default option. We then modeled the bank’s additional credit collection if all decisions had been made during early morning levels of approval. This would have resulted in $509,023 extra revenue for the bank, for one month. Thus, we provide further evidence for decision-fatigue, and that it can have a substantial negative impact in the finance sector that warrants considerations to counteract it.

The global work-from-home movement intended to maintain output and efficiency during the COVID-19 pandemic could actually generate a worldwide productivity slump and threaten economic growth for many years, says Stanford economist Nicholas Bloom. Nicholas Bloom. (Image credit: L.A. Cicero) “We are home working alongside our kids, in unsuitable spaces, with no choice and no in-office days,” says Bloom, a senior fellow at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research (SIEPR). “This will create a productivity disaster for firms.”

In this tutorial, we describe a workflow to ensure long-term reproducibility of R-based data analyses. The workflow leverages established tools and practices from software engineering. It combines the benefits of various open-source software tools including R Markdown, Git, Make, and Docker, whose interplay ensures seamless integration of version management, dynamic report generation conforming to various journal styles and full cross-platform and long-term computational reproducibility. The workflow ensures meeting the primary goals that 1) the reporting of statistical results is consistent with the actual statistical results (dynamic report generation), 2) the analysis exactly reproduces at a later point in time even if the computing platform or software is changed (computational reproducibility), and 3) changes at any time (during development and post-publication) are tracked, tagged, and documented while earlier versions of both data and code remain accessible. While the research community increasingly recognizes dynamic document generation and version management as tools to ensure reproducibility, we demonstrate with practical examples that these alone are not sufficient to ensure long-term computational reproducibility. Combining containerization, dependence management, version management, and dynamic document generation, the proposed workflow increases scientific productivity by facilitating later reproducibility and reuse of code and data.

this piece has excellent advice!the role that researchers need to play after they release a preprint ....(1) Give realistic statements of the limitations within the paper. You should be well aware of what can go wrong with research. This should be trivial to include.(2) When you make public comments, attempt to give perspective. Prepare for this because you know the interest will be immediate and extreme. Make a decision about what is and isn’t responsible to represent simply to the media and general public.(3) Deliberately engage experts in the appropriate areas to assess your information publicly. If the work needs to be read by experts, find them yourself. In particular, put your work in front of people who might disagree with it.(4) Admit that criticism of your work exists and then engage with it. You release a paper in advance of formal publication for DISCUSSION. Well, if that’s the case, get into the weeds and discuss it.(5) Update your pre-print! It isn’t published yet. You can do whatever you like to it.Especially in the middle of a large crisis.

Academic peer review of scientific manuscripts often falls short. It invariably slows and sometimes prevents the publication of good research. And it sometimes leads to the distribution and amplification of flawed research. Prestigious journals sometimes publish research grounded on shaking theory that used weak measures and inappropriate analyses to reach dubious conclusions. Failings of peer review play a principal role in those problems. Journal editors typically perform journal tasks off the side of their desks, on top of everything else. They may handle manuscripts outside of their expertise. Sometimes it’s difficult for them to know who to ask to review. When they do identify prospective reviewers, many decline the request or don’t reply. When I was Editor of Psych Science, I often sent 6 or more invitations to get 2 acceptances. Thus, it sometimes takes weeks to get a few people to commit to reviewing. Some of those fail to deliver on time or at all, despite multiple prompts (doubtless sometimes for good reasons – one never knows what’s going on in another person’s life). So even under the best conditions, peer review takes a long time. And rarely is the decision to accept as is. Good news for authors is a reject/revise/resubmit decision. Thus, it typically takes many months between initial submission and eventual acceptance. The other day I saw an email about a manuscript submitted to Psych Science in January that had just been accepted. I thought, “Wow! Quick!” Is that time well spent? I believe that generally it is. Many reviewers provide assessments that are detailed, clear, insightful, well-informed, and constructive. Many editors strive to understand the work well enough to fairly assess the manuscript and, if it has potential for their journal, making the manuscript as good as it can be. As an author/co-author I have many times been furious with editors and/or reviewers (indeed, even now it takes me days to steel myself to read an action letter), but very often editors’ and reviewers’ input has (I believe) led to major improvements.

Online college courses are a rapidly expanding feature of higher education, yet little research identifies their effects relative to tradi-tional in-person classes. Using an instrumental variables approach,we find that taking a course online, instead of in-person, reduces stu-dent success and progress in college. Grades are lower both for the course taken online and in future courses. Students are less likely to remain enrolled at the university. These estimates are local average treatment effects for students with access to both online and in-per-son options; for other students, online classes may be the only option for accessing college-level courses.

Fleeing a big city because of the pandemic is a bigger gamble than it might seem.

We used an ecological approach based on a neutral model to study the competition for attention in an online social network. This novel approach allow us to analyze some ecological patterns that has also an insightful meaning in the context of information ecosystem. Specifically, we focus on the study of patterns related with the persistence of a meme within the network and the capacity of the system to sustain coexisting memes. Not only are we able of doing such analysis in an approximated continuum limit, but also we get exact results of the finite-size discrete system.

Professor Helen Margetts, Professor of Society and the Internet at the Oxford Internet Institute and Director of the Public Policy Programme at The Alan Turing Institute, in conversation with Professor Ben MacArthur, Professor in Mathematics at the Life Science Interface, Schools of Mathematics and Medicine at the University of Southampton.Covid-19 poses an extraordinary challenge for policy-makers. In the face of a new disease that has brought the world to a standstill, policy-makers have to identify at breakneck speed the optimal measures needed to save lives and restart the economy. Good data and solid modelling are crucial, yet we are seeing government after government fail at harnessing the power of these two critical tools. Policy-makers are struggling to understand what data they need to collect, what models they need to build, and what safeguards they must put in place in order to find a resilient and fair way out of this crisis. In this talk, we provide clarity and make concrete recommendations as to how policy-makers can ensure that data and data science are our ticket back to normality.

There has been confusion about whether people infected with SARS-CoV-2 who do not have symptoms can transmit to others. In fact, we do have evidence that individuals without symptoms can spread the virus. This is the likely reason why SARS-CoV-2 has been harder to contain than its relative, SARS-CoV. Nonetheless, it is hard to detect this type of transmission, and it is even harder to measure how frequently it occurs.

In epidemiology, the terms ratio, rate, and risk have clear definitions.1Kelly H Cowling BJ Case fatality: rate, ratio, or risk?.Epidemiology. 2013; 24: 622-623Crossref PubMed Scopus (12) Google Scholar In the emerging publications related to coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), the phrase case fatality rate is being used instead of case fatality ratio.2Guan WJ Ni ZY Hu Y et al.Clinical characteristics of coronavirus disease 2019 in China.N Engl J Med. 2020; (published online Feb 28.)DOI:10.1056/NEJMoa2002032Crossref Google Scholar,  3Rajgor DD Lee MH Archuleta S Bagdasarian N Quek SC The many estimates of the COVID-19 case fatality rate.Lancet Infect Dis. 2020; (published online March 27.)https://doi.org/10.1016/S1473-3099(20)30244-9Summary Full Text Full Text PDF PubMed Scopus (9) Google Scholar A ratio is a comparison of two similar quantities. Ratios have no dimensions and can take any value; a ratio of 1 means the two quantities being compared are equal to each other. The case fatality ratio is the ratio of deaths (numerator) to identified cases (denominator), and is usually expressed as percentage.2Guan WJ Ni ZY Hu Y et al.Clinical characteristics of coronavirus disease 2019 in China.N Engl J Med. 2020; (published online Feb 28.)DOI:10.1056/NEJMoa2002032Crossref Google Scholar,  3Rajgor DD Lee MH Archuleta S Bagdasarian N Quek SC The many estimates of the COVID-19 case fatality rate.Lancet Infect Dis. 2020; (published online March 27.)https://doi.org/10.1016/S1473-3099(20)30244-9Summary Full Text Full Text PDF PubMed Scopus (9) Google Scholar As clearly described by Kelly and Cowling,1Kelly H Cowling BJ Case fatality: rate, ratio, or risk?.Epidemiology. 2013; 24: 622-623Crossref PubMed Scopus (12) Google Scholar a rate has a time dimension (ie, time−1); it expresses changes in one quantity over a time period. Risk, however, is the probability associated with an adverse outcome that is likely to occur in the future during follow-up. Like ratios, risk has no dimensions but, unlike ratios, risk is confined to values between 0 and 1.

restaurants re-opened for business, now that Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer has lifted restrictions placed on businesses in an effort to fend off COVID-19.

The virus isn’t simply a health crisis; it is also a design problem.

A tool that quantifies global happiness on social media recorded an unprecedented dip in mood starting in May.

The controversial lockdown imposed on Roma settlements in Slovakia to prevent community transmission of COVID-19 sparks accusations of discrimination. Ed Holt reports.

Even before COVID-19 hit, there was a mental health crisis in academia. A 2018 study, for instance, found that rates of anxiety and depression in graduate students were nearly six times greater than what’s seen in the general population. Now, the pressures that may lead to mental health challenges in academia are even more extreme. Many scientists are worried about their own health as well as that of their families. Some are anxious about their future job prospects. And nearly everyone has been adjusting to a new work situation—one that revolves around digital communication rather than face-to-face contact.

BackgroundThe risk of severe COVID-19 if an individual becomes infected is known to be higher in older individuals and those with underlying health conditions. Understanding the number of individuals at increased risk of severe COVID-19 and how this varies between countries should inform the design of possible strategies to shield or vaccinate those at highest risk.MethodsWe estimated the number of individuals at increased risk of severe disease (defined as those with at least one condition listed as “at increased risk of severe COVID-19” in current guidelines) by age (5-year age groups), sex, and country for 188 countries using prevalence data from the Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries, and Risk Factors Study (GBD) 2017 and UN population estimates for 2020. The list of underlying conditions relevant to COVID-19 was determined by mapping the conditions listed in GBD 2017 to those listed in guidelines published by WHO and public health agencies in the UK and the USA. We analysed data from two large multimorbidity studies to determine appropriate adjustment factors for clustering and multimorbidity. To help interpretation of the degree of risk among those at increased risk, we also estimated the number of individuals at high risk (defined as those that would require hospital admission if infected) using age-specific infection–hospitalisation ratios for COVID-19 estimated for mainland China and making adjustments to reflect country-specific differences in the prevalence of underlying conditions and frailty. We assumed males were twice at likely as females to be at high risk. We also calculated the number of individuals without an underlying condition that could be considered at increased risk because of their age, using minimum ages from 50 to 70 years. We generated uncertainty intervals (UIs) for our estimates by running low and high scenarios using the lower and upper 95% confidence limits for country population size, disease prevalences, multimorbidity fractions, and infection–hospitalisation ratios, and plausible low and high estimates for the degree of clustering, informed by multimorbidity studies.FindingsWe estimated that 1·7 billion (UI 1·0–2·4) people, comprising 22% (UI 15–28) of the global population, have at least one underlying condition that puts them at increased risk of severe COVID-19 if infected (ranging from <5% of those younger than 20 years to >66% of those aged 70 years or older). We estimated that 349 million (186–787) people (4% [3–9] of the global population) are at high risk of severe COVID-19 and would require hospital admission if infected (ranging from <1% of those younger than 20 years to approximately 20% of those aged 70 years or older). We estimated 6% (3–12) of males to be at high risk compared with 3% (2–7) of females. The share of the population at increased risk was highest in countries with older populations, African countries with high HIV/AIDS prevalence, and small island nations with high diabetes prevalence. Estimates of the number of individuals at increased risk were most sensitive to the prevalence of chronic kidney disease, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and chronic respiratory disease.InterpretationAbout one in five individuals worldwide could be at increased risk of severe COVID-19, should they become infected, due to underlying health conditions, but this risk varies considerably by age. Our estimates are uncertain, and focus on underlying conditions rather than other risk factors such as ethnicity, socioeconomic deprivation, and obesity, but provide a starting point for considering the number of individuals that might need to be shielded or vaccinated as the global pandemic unfolds.

To prevent the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic, countries around the world have taken a variety of restrictive measures. March 2020 figures already show their significant impact on international trade in goods. In March 2020, total seasonally adjusted extra-EU trade (imports + exports) fell from €252 billion to €228 billion compared with January 2020. However, the impact varied for different product groups.

Conspiracy theorists are using a new chat app to ‘gamify’ the spread of dangerous misinformation including coronavirus conspiracies, Holocaust denial and far right racism. Thousands of users frequent ‘servers’ on Discord, a voice and text chat platform for gamers, where participants can rack up points for posting conspiracy theories and cash them in for rewards.

A fixation on specific distances encourages a false, binary distinction between safety and danger

Le groupe d’experts de la Swiss National COVID-19 Science Task Force traite les questions urgentes en lien avec la crise du Covid-19 dans des policy briefs. Ces dossiers thématiques sont examinés et approuvés par le Comité consultatif et publiés sur notre site internet. Les policy briefs reflètent les points de vue de la Task Force sur la situation actuelle. Si cela s’avère nécessaire, ils sont mis à jour selon les nouvelles données ou les nouvelles études en la matière.

Die Expertengruppen der Swiss National COVID-19 Science Task Force befassen sich in Policy Briefs mit dringenden Fragen zur COVID-19-Krise. Diese Policy Briefs werden anschliessend vom Beratungsgremium geprüft und genehmigt und auf unserer Webseite veröffentlicht. Sie geben die Ansichten der Task Force zu diesem Thema zum betreffenden Zeitpunkt wieder und werden gegebenenfalls im Lichte neuer Studien oder anderer Daten aktualisiert.

Nearly half of the Twitter accounts spreading messages on the social media platform about the coronavirus pandemic are likely bots, researchers at Carnegie Mellon University said Wednesday. Researchers culled through more than 200 million tweets discussing the virus since January and found that about 45% were sent by accounts that behave more like computerized robots than humans. It is too early to say conclusively which individuals or groups are behind the bot accounts, but researchers said the tweets appeared aimed at sowing division in America.

An experienced systematic reviewer: to be in charge of the majority of SR tasks (e.g. screening, extracting) A second systematic reviewer: to work with the first reviewer on  the majority of SR tasks (e.g. screening, extracting) Information specialist: to ensure a high precision search is designed and run in a fast time Systematic review methodologist: to provide advice on what is needed to perform the SR to a high quality Content expert: to ensure the SR is done in a way of interest to its potential user base, also to provide content specific information to the protocol and manuscript Epidemiologist/Statistician: to make sure your stats are done properly

To compensate for declines in productivity induced by the pandemic, many universities have automatically extended tenure clocks by 1 year (1). This move is necessary but not sufficient. Tenure clock extensions disadvantage some groups

Bund und Länder wollen heute beraten, wie es weiter geht mit den Ausgangsbeschränkungen wegen Corona: verlängern oder gar verschärfen? Laut einer Online-Studie ist nur knapp die Hälfte der Bevölkerung bereit, den Lockdown lange mitzutragen.

One of the common claims of anti-significance-testing reformers is that power analysis is flawed, and that we should be planning for study “precision” instead. I think this is wrong for several reasons that I will outline here. In summary:“Precision” is not itself a primitive theoretical concept. It is an intuition that is manifest through other more basic concepts, and it is those more basic concepts that we must understand.Precision can be thought of as the ability to avoid confusion between closeby regions of the parameter space. When we define power properly, we see that power is directly connected to precision. We don’t replace power with precision; we explain precision using power.Expected CI width (which some associate with “precision”) can depend on the parameter value, except in special cases. Power analysis directs your attention to a specific area of interest, linked to the purpose of the study, and hence overcomes this problem with CI-only concepts of precision.(One-tailed) Power is a flexible way of thinking about precision; confidence intervals (CIs), computed with equal probability in each tail, have difficulties with error trade-offs (asymmetricly-tailed CIs, though possible, would surely confuse people). We should thus keep the concept of power, and explain CIs and precision using confusion/error as the primitives.

We should aspire to a kind of “cultural ambidexterity,” retaining the positive aspects of loose cultures—such as tolerance for diversity and greater creativity—while being flexible enough to adopt cultural tightness when necessary.