Who is the 'public' when it comes to public opinion on energy? A mixed-methods study of revealed and elicited public attitudes to shale gas extraction

Shale gas is a contentious energy source. Yet, ‘imagined’ notions of the public (for example, NIMBYs) rarely reflect the reality of public opinion. We use an inductive, empirical approach to define UK publics in relation to shale gas extraction, drawing on multiple data sources (social media, a national survey, and two local surveys) and composite measures. Cluster analyses and thematic coding reveal a diversity of responses ranging from active opposition, through ambivalence, to active support. The number of communities varies by data source and analytical method, but across all datasets we see more opposition than support. Across all datasets, political views were an important lens through which shale gas was understood. Our findings have implications for how developers and policy-makers engage with the public, and expose limitations of pre-defined notions of the public that may not reflect empirical realities

Practical Routes to Preregistration: A Guide to Enhanced Transparency and Rigour in Neuropsychological Research

Preregistration is the act of formally documenting a research plan before collecting (or at least before analysing) the data. It allows those reading a final research report to know which aspects of a study were decided before sight of the data, and which were added later. This enables informed evaluation of the severity with which scientific claims have been tested. We, as the British Neuropsychological Society Open Research Group, conducted a survey to explore awareness and adoption of open research practices within our field. Neuropsychology involves the study of relatively rare or hard-to-access participants, creating practical challenges that, according to our survey, are perceived as barriers to preregistration. We survey the available routes to preregistration, and suggest that the barriers are all surmountable in one way or another. However, there is a tension, in that higher levels of bias control require greater restriction over the flexibility of preregistered studies, but such flexibility is often essential for neuropsychological research. Researchers must therefore consider which route provides the right balance of rigour and pragmatic flexibility to render a preregistered project viable for them. By mapping out the issues and potential solutions, and by signposting relevant resources and publication routes, we hope to facilitate well-reasoned decision-making and empower neuropsychologists to enhance the transparency and rigour of their research. Although we focus neuropsychology, our guidance is applicable to any field that studies hard-to-access human samples, or involves arduous or expensive means of data collection

Translators’ Allocation of Cognitive Resources in Two Translation Directions: A Study Using Eye Tracking and Keystroke Logging

This study investigates how novice translators distribute their cognitive resources during translation between English and Chinese in both directions, with particular attention paid to the role of translation direction and the divergence between empirical findings and participants’ introspective reports. A combination of eye-tracking and key-stroke logging was used to quantify cognitive effort, incorporating participant variation, attention unit type (ST, TT, parallel), gaze event duration, and average pupil dilation. A Generalized Linear Model (GLM) was applied, with average pupil dilation as the response variable and gaze event duration, AU type, and participant as covariates. An interaction term between gaze event duration and AU type was included in the E-C GLM but omitted from the C-E GLM due to non-significance. The results reveal distinct cognitive demands across translation directions. In English–Chinese (E-C) translation, ST pro-cessing significantly reduces pupil dilation (by 3.56%, p < 0.001), whereas TT processing leads to increased cognitive load, particularly during prolonged fixations, with pupil dilation increasing by 1.4% (p = 0.033). In Chinese–English (C-E) translation, ST processing does not significantly differ from parallel processing (p = 0.285), and TT processing re-duces pupil dilation by 4.75% (p < 0.001), suggesting that it involves a lower cognitive effort than E-C translation. Gaze event duration significantly affects pupil dilation in C-E translation (p < 0.001); however, its influence in E-C translation varies according to the types of cognitive processing involved. Moreover, a significant gap is observed between the participants’ self-reported reflections and the quantitative data, a disparity that is strongly shaped by the direction of translation. These findings contribute to a deeper understanding of cognitive effort in translation and raise implications for translator training, assessment, and cognitive translation studies, particularly in contexts where translation direction and processing mode interact to shape cognitive demand.Good Health and Well-BeingQuality EducationSustainable Cities and Communitie

Is Portfolio Diversification Still Effective: Evidence Spanning Three Crises from the Perspective of U.S. Investors

This paper uses over twenty years of data to examine diversification benefits for U.S. investors through assessing different portfolio opportunities, including a stock (60%)-bond (40%) portfolio, an internationally diversified stock portfolio, and a cross-asset diversified portfolio compared with investing only in the U.S. stock market. Our data set consists of three stock indices (S&P 500, MSCI EAFE, and MSCI EM) and three assets (Gold, Oil, and Bonds). Portfolios are built using both equal- and mean-variance efficient-weights and are compared primarily using the Sharpe ratio. The results indicate that before 2009, U.S. investors could benefit from an internationally diversified stock portfolio. However, since 2009, this international stock portfolio is less likely to benefit U.S. investors. In contrast, the cross-asset diversified portfolio does provide greater benefit and outperforms the U.S only, the stock-bond portfolio, and the international stock portfolio over different time periods. Of note, the mean-variance efficient portfolio weighting outperforms the equal-weighted portfolio. Overall, a portfolio consisting of the S&P500 Index, gold, oil, and U.S. 10-year Treasury Note is the preferred option for U.S. investors

Editorial: Sports, economics, and natural experiments: advances and retrospection

Sports provide a unique field laboratory for advancing behavioral microeconomics, offering precise and objective measurements of behavior due to standardized rules, clear observability, and highly motivated expert participants. Extensive data on sports are readily available, continuously refined and expanded, and cover the same or similar contestants over long periods. Additionally, sports offer numerous natural experiments where exogenous factors plausibly divide individuals, teams, or organizations into treatment and control groups, allowing for causal analysis. Despite these advantages, economic studies using sports often face challenges regarding external validity. Such studies can appear niche and may be difficult to understand for those unfamiliar with sports, potentially limiting the broader applicability of their findings and hindering the full use of sports as a platform for testing economic theories. The aim of this Research Topic was to showcase examples of research that harness sports as a field laboratory, leverage natural experiments, and replicate or validate existing findings. This collection features two studies exploiting natural experiments, three capitalizing on the advantages of sports data for measuring productivity, and one replication study. Below is a brief overview of these studies.RECEIVED December ACCEPTED December PUBLISHED January CITATION; TYPE Editorial PUBLISHED January Flepp R, Gauriot R and Singleton C () Editorial: Sports, economics, and natural experiments: advances and retrospection. Front. Behav. Econ. ::

Personalisation in racially minoritised groups within UK adult social care: a systematic review

Although evidence shows that personalisation improves access to health and social care for UK’s racially minoritised groups, research suggests that uptake is low due to racism, discrimination and negative experiences with mainstream services. A systematic literature review of 45 articles found that racially minoritised individuals choose personalisation for greater control and choice over their care but face systemic barriers, including a complicated adult social care system that fails to respond to cultural and linguistic values. Recommendations to improve uptake include involving racially minoritised communities in service planning, attracting a diverse workforce, tackling racism and discrimination, bridging the information gap, and funding racially minoritised community organisations.Good Health and Well-Bein

Commentary on Kersbergen et al.: Same Price, same choices? Proportional pricing and the heaviest drinkers

Proportional pricing changes purchasing incentives but does not directly target the affordability of the cheapest or strongest alcohol. Its real-world impact on heavy drinkers remains uncertain, particularly if retailers adjust pricing strategies. This highlights the need to critically reflect onwhether the policy targets those most at risk of har

Exploring health literacy in developing economies: perspectives and practices of health communication professionals in rural Nigeria.

Background: Health literacy is widely recognised as a social determinant of health and key factor in health communication and education, with low health literacy correlated with poor health outcomes and socioeconomic inequalities. Health literacy is recognised as a core knowledge domain and competency required of health professionals, but there are limited empirical studies providing insights into professional understanding and practices, particularly in non-clinical public health communication and education roles. Whilst a global issue, health literacy is reported to be lower in developing economies and questions have been raised regarding professional health literacy perspectives and practices. Aims: This paper provides insights into the health literacy perspectives and practices of health communication professionals involved in public health communication and education in a rural region of Nigeria, providing new empirical insights into professional practices and challenges in a developing economy. Methods: Exploratory research design. Our data collection method was semi-structured interviews with 38 state and third sector professionals in public health communication management, dissemination, and education roles. Data analysis conducted via iterative cycles of pattern coding and thematic analysis. Results: Our professional participants all recognised health literacy as an important consideration in public health communication and demonstrated general awareness of key issues when communicating to rural populations in Nigeria. However, depth of perspectives and practices appear limited. All discussed health literacy in general layman’s terms with no referral to any health literacy policy, frameworks, models or specific competencies. Professional practices appear largely focused on issues of population illiteracy, linguistic diversity, and message complexity and reach, with no evidence of attention to acknowledged issues of mistrust and misinformation. Many participants also appeared to overestimate population health information seeking capabilities and none indicated any need for health literacy education for either themselves or their rural populations. Discussion: Findings suggest our professional participants’ understanding of health literacy and associated practices are focused on and/or limited to basic communicative and functional aspects. Recommendations are made for action-oriented research to review health literacy educational provision for practising professionals in the region, and to develop contextually appropriate and scalable methods of health literacy education for impoverished illiterate populations.Good Health and Well-BeingReduced Inequalitie

"Addressing the Non-Communicable Diseases (NCDs) burden and protecting the young through comprehensive Alcohol Policies: Lessons from recent studies in Africa".

The age-standardized alcohol-attributable burden of disease and injury is highest in the WHO African Region, at 70.6 deaths and 3 044 DALYs per 100 000 people, placing an enormous strain on already challenged health systems. Drinkers in Africa consume 21% more alcohol per day than the global average. Small disposable plastic sachets- pouches which contain single use quantities of alcohol which often contain 40% spirits- have led to significant abuse amongst the most vulnerable and poorest communities in Malawi and Uganda. Concerns about harmful consumption and the public health and societal impact led to national bans on sachets of alcohol in Malawi (2016) and Uganda (2019), but those may not have had the impact anticipated. We will conduct interviews with key policy stakeholders and with district and local stakeholders in enforcement and trade in Malawi and Uganda to understand the adoption and formulation of the bans, what mechanisms for implementation were proposed and put in place, how the bans were enforced in practice, and any unintended consequences that have resulted. We will conduct focus group discussions with community members, health staff from local health centres and with traditional/ church leaders and school headteachers to explore the perceived impact of the ban and any unintended consequences from a local community perspective. Our multidisciplinary international team will conduct a robust analysis based the Health Policy Analysis framework to highlight contextual factors important for the transferability of findings to other Sub-Saharan countries in order to inform alcohol policy development and implementation across the region. We will publish results in peer reviewed journals and share them at stakeholder events in each country to discuss how the results may be used to further regulation of the supply of alcohol and reduction of related harms. Our researchers in LMICs will benefit from a strong capacity-building and research skills programme

Epistemic Deprivation

It is often claimed that gender data gaps (GDGs) are unjust, but the nature of the injustice has not been interrogated. We argue that injustices arising from such data gaps are not merely socio-political but also epistemic: they arbitrarily skew the epistemic landscape in favour of one group over another. GDGs place a greater epistemic burden on women and gender minorities; they have to do more to avoid error and the pay-off is worse: they have a smaller pool of true beliefs on which to act. We suggest that there are both pragmatic and conceptual reasons to differentiate the injustice arising from GDGs from other more familiar varieties (such as testimonial and hermeneutical injustice), and so we introduce the new concept of epistemic deprivation to capture this injustice.Output Status: Forthcoming/Available Onlin