15,806 research outputs found
Motivating social distancing during the Covid-19 pandemic: An online experiment. ESRI Working Paper No. 658 April 2020
Social distancing during the COVID-19 pandemic will save lives. We tested communication strategies to promote social
distancing via an online experiment (N = 500) commissioned by Irelandâs Department of Health. A control group saw a current
informational poster. Two treatment groups saw similar posters with messages that highlighted: (i) the risk of transmission to
identifiable persons vulnerable to COVID-19; (ii) the exponential nature of transmission. We then measured judgements of
behaviours previously identified by focus groups as âmarginalâ (meaning that people were not sure whether they were
advisable, such meeting others outdoors, or visiting parents). We recorded intention to undertake behaviours and stated
acceptability of behaviours. Our hypotheses, that both treatments would increase participantsâ caution about marginal
behaviours, were preregistered (i.e. lodged with an international organisation for open science before data collection). Results
confirmed the hypotheses. The findings suggest that the thought of infecting vulnerable people or large numbers of people can
motivate social distancing. This has implications for communications strategies. The stud
Supporting Studentâs Thinking In Addition Of Fraction From Informal To More Formal Using Measuring Context
One of reasons why fractions are a topic which many students find difficult to learn is that there exist many rules calculating with fractions. In addition, students have been trained for the skills and should have mastered such procedures even they do not âunderstandâ. Some previous researcher confirmed that the problem which students encounter in learning fraction operations is not firmly connected to concrete experiences. For this reason, a set of measuring context was designed to provide concrete experiences in supporting studentsâ reasoning in addition of fractions, because the concept of fractional number was derived from measuring. In the present study we used design research as a reference research to investigate studentsâ mathematical progress in addition of fractions. In particular, using retrospective analysis to analyze data of fourth gradersâ performance on addition of fractions, we implemented some instructional activities by using measuring activities and contexts to provide opportunities students use studentsâ own strategies and models. The emergent modeling (i.e. a bar model) played an important role in the shift of students reasoning from concrete experiences (informal) in the situational level towards more formal mathematical concept of addition of fractions. We discuss these findings taking into consideration the context in which the study was conducted and we provide implications for the teaching of fractions and suggestions for further research.
Key word: measuring context, addition of fractions, design research, emergent modelin
Cryptocurrency Mining Games with Economic Discount and Decreasing Rewards
In the consensus protocols used in most cryptocurrencies, participants called miners must find valid blocks of transactions and append them to a shared tree-like data structure. Ideally, the rules of the protocol should ensure that miners maximize their gains if they follow a default strategy, which consists on appending blocks only to the longest branch of the tree, called the blockchain. Our goal is to understand under which circumstances are miners encouraged to follow the default strategy. Unfortunately, most of the existing models work with simplified payoff functions, without considering the possibility that rewards decrease over time because of the game rules (like in Bitcoin), nor integrating the fact that a miner naturally prefers to be paid earlier than later (the economic concept of discount). In order to integrate these factors, we consider a more general model where issues such as economic discount and decreasing rewards can be set as parameters of an infinite stochastic game. In this model, we study the limit situation in which a miner does not receive a full reward for a block if it stops being in the blockchain. We show that if rewards are not decreasing, then miners do not have incentives to create new branches, no matter how high their computational power is. On the other hand, when working with decreasing rewards similar to those in Bitcoin, we show that miners have an incentive to create such branches. Nevertheless, this incentive only occurs when a miner controls a proportion of the computational power which is close to half of the computational power of the entire network
Human behaviors: a threat for mosquito control?
Community involvement and the preventive behavior of households are
considered to be at the heart of vector-control strategies. In this work, we
consider a simple theoretical model that enables us to take into account human
behaviors that may interfere with vector control. The model reflects the
trade-off between perceived costs and observed efficacy. Our theoretical
results emphasize that households may reduce their protective behavior in
response to mechanical elimination techniques piloted by a public agent,
leading to an increase of the total number of mosquitoes in the surrounding
environment and generating a barrier for vector-borne diseases control. Our
study is sufficiently generic to be applied to different arboviral diseases. It
also shows that vector-control models and strategies have to take into account
human behaviors.Comment: 27 pages, 7 figure
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