Bulletin of NTU "KhPI". Series: Problems of Electrical Machines and Apparatus Perfection. The Theory and Practice / Вісник Національного технічного університету "ХПІ". Серія: Проблеми удосконалювання електричних машин і апаратів. Теорія і практика
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Learning Loss Due to School Closures During the COVID-19 Pandemic
No full textSuspension of face-to-face instruction in schools during the COVID-19 pandemic has led to concerns about consequences for student learning. So far, data to study this question have been limited. Here we evaluate the effect of school closures on primary school performance using exceptionally rich data from the Netherlands (n≈350,000). We use the fact that national exams took place before and after lockdown, and compare progress during this period to the same period in the three previous years. The Netherlands underwent only a relatively short lockdown (8 weeks), and features an equitable system of school funding and the world's highest rate of broadband access. Still, our results reveal a learning loss of about 3 percentile points or 0.08 standard deviations. The effect is equivalent to a fifth of a school year, the same period that schools remained closed. Losses are up to 60% larger among students from less-educated homes, confirming worries about the uneven toll of the pandemic on children and families. Investigating mechanisms, we find that most of the effect reflects the cumulative impact of knowledge learned rather than transitory influences on the day of testing. Results remain robust when balancing on the estimated propensity of treatment and using maximum entropy weights, or with fixed-effects specifications that compare students within the same school and family. The findings imply that students made little or no progress whilst learning from home, and suggest losses even larger in countries with weaker infrastructure or longer school closures
Preprints: a Primer from UKRN
No full textUpload, describe and disseminate your scholarly article prior to peer review. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY)
Combining Brain Perturbation and Neuroimaging in Non-human Primates
No full textBrain perturbation studies allow detailed causal inferences of behavioral and neural processes. Because the combination of brain perturbation methods and neural measurement techniques is inherently challenging, research in humans has predominantly focused on non-invasive, indirect brain perturbations, or neurological lesion studies. Non-human primates have been indispensable as a neurobiological system that is highly similar to humans while simultaneously being more experimentally tractable, allowing visualization of the functional and structural impact of systematic brain perturbation. This review considers the state of the art in non-human primate brain perturbation with a focus on approaches that can be combined with neuroimaging. We consider both non-reversible (lesions) and reversible or temporary perturbations such as electrical, pharmacological, optical, optogenetic, chemogenetic, pathway-selective, and ultrasound based interference methods. Method-specific considerations from the research and development community are offered to facilitate research in this field and support further innovations. We conclude by identifying novel avenues for further research and innovation and by highlighting the clinical translational potential of the methods
No Utilitarians in a Pandemic? Shifts in Moral Reasoning during the COVID-19 Global Health Crisis
No full textThe COVID-19 pandemic poses many real-world moral dilemmas, which can pit the needs and rights of the many against the needs and rights of the few. We investigated the influence of this contemporary global crisis on moral judgments in older adults, who are at greatest personal risk from the pandemic. We hypothesized that during this pandemic, individuals would give fewer utilitarian responses to hypothetical dilemmas, accompanied by higher levels of confidence and emotion elicitation. Our pre-registered analysis (https://osf.io/g2wtp) involved two waves of data collection, before (2014) and during (2020) the COVID-19 pandemic, regarding three categories of moral dilemmas (personal rights, agent-centered permissions, and special obligations). While utilitarian responses considered across all categories of dilemma did not differ, participants during the 2020 wave gave fewer utilitarian responses to dilemmas involving personal rights; that is, they were less willing to violate the personal rights of others to produce the best overall outcomes
Internalizing and externalizing problems across childhood and psychotic-like experiences in adulthood: The role of developmental period
No full textAuthor Notes
***8 April 2021: This paper is now open access and published in the journal of Schizophrenia Research: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0920996421001365#f0005.*** This manuscript has been submitted for publication and is likely to be edited as part of the peer-review process. Correspondence regarding this paper should be addressed to Keri Ka-Yee Wong, [email protected].
Abstract
Background Psychopathology in childhood and adolescence, commonly indexed by co-occurring internalizing and externalizing problem behaviors, has been found to predict psychotic-like experiences (PLEs) in adults. However, studies to date have rarely examined internalizing and externalizing problem behaviors simultaneously or identified in which developmental period do these problem behaviors predict PLEs in adults. This study tests to what extent internalizing and externalizing problem behaviors in childhood (4–9 years) or adolescence (11–16 years) predict PLEs in adulthood (18 years).
Methods Parent-rated child internalizing and externalizing problems on the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire at ages 4, 6, 8, 9, 11, 13, and 16 years from the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (N=4717) were modelled using two-piece latent growth curve modelling to predict clinician-rated PLEs at age 18 years, controlling for confounders (gender, ethnicity, socio-economic status, parental education and stressful life events) assessed prior to baseline at age 4 years.
Results Controlling for confounders, an increase in childhood internalizing problems from 4 to 9 years and externalizing problems at baseline (at 4 years) predicted PLEs at 18 years, explaining 9.5% of the variance in adult PLEs. These associations were independent to controls for any changes in adolescent internalizing and externalizing problems from 11 to 16 years.
Conclusions High baseline levels of externalizing problems and increasing internalizing problems throughout childhood can predict PLEs at 18 years. Externalizing problems around the transition to primary school and internalizing problems throughout childhood may be particularly helpful in informing risk of PLEs in adulthood.
Keywords: ALSPAC; psychotic-like experiences; internalizing; externalizing; developmental; childhood
We're a Good Match: Selective Political Friending on Social Networking Sites
No full textPolitical social media use has become the topic of a growing amount of scholarship. In this regard, the role of user behavior in the formation of politically homogeneous environments (so-called echo chambers) is not fully understood. Building on the concept of selective exposure, we introduce the notion of selective political friending, i.e., the preference for political like-mindedness in social affiliations on social networking sites. In a pre-registered laboratory experiment (N = 199), we find that users preferably build connections to those who share opinions toward controversial political issues. Political like-mindedness outperforms advantages based on the popularity of another user or the career-related fit with another user. Political friending is particularly pronounced when individuals’ pre-existing opinions are strong, while tendencies toward cognitive closure and the desire for shared reality do not impact like-minded friending. The present study unravels psychological patterns in the process of tie-building on SNS and points to the necessity to take motivational complexity into account when studying phenomena linked to political homogeneity. Being the first study to systematically address politically motivated contact choices on social networking sites jointly with their psychological antecedents, this study sheds new light on the debate about like-mindedness in online communication
On the Varieties of Conscious Experiences: Altered Beliefs Under Psychedelics (ALBUS)
No full textHow is it that psychedelics so profoundly impact brain and mind? According to the model of "Relaxed Beliefs Under Psychedelics" (REBUS), 5-HT2a agonism is thought to help relax prior expectations, thus making room for new perspectives and patterns. Here we introduce an alternative (but largely compatible) perspective proposing REBUS effects may primarily correspond to a particular (but potentially pivotal) regime of very high levels of 5-HT2a receptor agonism. Depending on both a variety of contextual factors and the specific neural systems being considered, we suggest opposite effects may also occur in which synchronous neural activity becomes more powerful, with accompanying "Strengthened Beliefs Under Psychedelics" (SEBUS) effects. Such SEBUS effects are consistent with the enhanced meaning-making observed in psychedelic therapy (e.g. psychological insight and the noetic quality of mystical experiences), with the imposition of prior expectations on perception (e.g., hallucinations and pareidolia), and in the delusional thinking that sometimes occurs (e.g. apophenia, paranoia, engendering of inaccurate interpretations of events, and potentially false memories). With "Altered Beliefs Under Psychedelics” (ALBUS), we propose the manifestation of SEBUS vs. REBUS effects may vary across the dose-response curve of 5-HT2a signaling. While we explore a diverse range of sometimes complex ideas, our basic idea is fundamentally simple: psychedelic experiences can be understood as kinds of waking dream states of varying degrees of lucidity, with similar underlying mechanisms. We further demonstrate the utility of ALBUS by providing neurophenomenological models of psychedelics focusing on mechanisms of conscious perceptual synthesis, dreaming, as well as episodic memory and mental simulation
Socio-cultural values predict COVID-19-related mortality
No full textPreexisting conditions affect disease susceptibility. Here, I show that socio-cultural values are population-level risk factors for disease. Using data from the World Values Survey, I show that, between 2 weeks and 6 months after the first COVID-19-related death in a country, COVID-19-related mortality is increased in countries endorsing values related to political participation, but decreased in countries with more trust in institutions and materialistic orientations. After controlling for income, age, urbanicity, smoking, overweight, private health expenditure and lockdown delay, these socio-cultural values were consistent across country-sets, reduced prediction errors by up to 52% and explained up to 68% of inter-country variability. They were relatively specific to COVID-19-related mortality. I could not identify values predicting general health outcomes, and values predicting increased COVID-19-related mortality predicted decreased mortality due to other causes like environmental-related mortality, explaining up to 90% of inter-country variability. Socio-cultural values might be specific predictors of health outcomes
Review of the Petroleum Resource Rent Tax (PRRT)
No full text1. Successful reforms of oil and gas resource taxation that reclaim the public’s rightful share of resource rents will be vigorously contested with extensive lobbying and campaigning. The oil and gas industry is also likely to challenge effective tax changes in the courts. If such industry actions do not occur, it is likely the reforms have been incomplete. After all, successful reforms will take billions of dollars a year of economic rent away from a handful of oil and gas companies and give it to the public. They will not be happy.
2. PRRT has some economic advantages in theory, including stabilisation effects in highly cyclical industries. However, these may be small in practice, as resource rent taxes are complex and difficult to enforce. A lesson from Norway is that taking an ownership stake in projects help enforce such taxes and provides insurance against their avoidance.
3. Previous changes to the PRRT have given ground unnecessarily to oil and gas companies. Changes to important details, like uplift rates on losses, transfer of PRRT credits between projects, and qualifying expenditure for the cost base, individually and cumulatively have had the effect of severely undermining the resource rent base of the PRRT. Closing these loopholes is necessary in order to effectively share resource rents with the public. In doing so, arguments about ‘retrospective taxation’ should be ignored, as protecting projects with their historical tax regimes simply hands over the economic rents any tax reforms are designed to collect for the public.
4. In the absence of a reformed PRRT that has an appropriate resource rent tax base, there are two alternative ways for the public to collect resource rents:
a. A 10% royalty on the market value of all oil and gas projects could replace all Commonwealth resource revenues from the suite of PRRT, crude excise and royalties. It would be simple to enforce and likely raise more revenues in the next decade as the industry unwinds from a large exploration phase. A 12% rate would be sufficient to replace Western Australia’s share of North West shelf royalties as well.
b. A tax could be charged on pure economic rent using a system of self-declared unimproved resource values, with government holding a right to purchase at that value. An annual charge on this value at a rate slightly above the long-term bond rate would capture the majority of economic rents
We zoned for density and got higher house prices: Supply and price effects of upzoning over 20 years
No full textDoes planning for higher density increase housing development and decrease housing prices? We study the outcomes of planning for density in established suburbs over a twenty-year period using a large site-level dataset on dwelling stock, planning regulations, and prices, in 19 planned densification areas (activity centres) comprising 25,775 sites in Brisbane, Australia. Planning rules in these areas were repeatedly relaxed to allow for higher density; a policy change that should have observable price effects. To study the effect of zoning, we create a variable for each site called zoned capacity, which is the estimated number of additional dwellings able to be built under the planning code. Only 2% of the zoned capacity was taken up in any five-year study interval. Zoned capacity doubled over the whole twenty-year study period (going from 0.9x total dwellings to 1.4x), however despite these changes, 78% of sites with zoned capacity in the first period remained undeveloped. Higher rates of new housing supply are robustly related to higher prices despite demand arguably seeing a similar increase across locations. Our zoned capacity variable has no relationship to price across numerous regression models and is robust to various data selection choices. It could be that planning is not a binding constraint on new housing in Brisbane—yet price growth over our study period is comparable to other Australian cities. This evidence suggests that private housing markets will not rapidly supply new housing and cause significant price reductions, even if the planning system allows it