Financial risk information avoidance

Availability of information is one of the most important factors for financial decision-makers. Having complete information about the probability of losing money should always leave decision-makers better off. However, in some situations financial decision-makers prefer to know less than more. In this study we investigated the impact of selected characteristics of financial threats on individuals’ decisions to avoid risk information in an incentivised online experiment. We found that threat severity, relative risk, and effectiveness of threat prevention alone do not influence decisions to avoid risk information. However, we did find an interaction effect between the first two treatments. Furthermore, our data suggest that coping style, locus of control, and anticipated emotional response are statistically significant predictors of financial risk information avoidance

The potential for research-based information in public health: Identifying unrecognised information needs

OBJECTIVE: To explore whether there is a potential for greater use of research-based information in public health practice in a local setting. Secondly, if research-based information is relevant, to explore the extent to which this generates questioning behaviour. DESIGN: Qualitative study using focus group discussions, observation and interviews. SETTING: Public health practices in Norway. PARTICIPANTS: 52 public health practitioners. RESULTS: In general, the public health practitioners had a positive attitude towards research-based information, but believed that they had few cases requiring this type of information. They did say, however, that there might be a potential for greater use. During five focus groups and six observation days we identified 28 questions/cases where it would have been appropriate to seek out research evidence according to our definition. Three of the public health practitioners identified three of these 28 cases as questions for which research-based information could have been relevant. This gap is interpreted as representing unrecognised information needs. CONCLUSIONS: There is an unrealised potential in public health practice for more frequent and extensive use of research-based information. The practitioners did not appear to reflect on the need for scientific information when faced with new cases and few questions of this type were generated

Mapping recent information behavior research: an analysis of co-authorship and cocitation networks

There has been an increase in research published on information behavior in recent years, and this has been accompanied by an increase in its diversity and interaction with other fields, particularly information retrieval (HR). The aims of this study are to determine which researchers have contributed to producing the current body of knowledge on this subject, and to describe its intellectual basis. A bibliometric and network analysis was applied to authorship and co-authorship as well as citation and co-citation. According to these analyses, there is a small number of authors who can be considered to be the most productive and who publish regularly, and a large number of transient ones. Other findings reveal a marked predominance of theoretical works, some examples of qualitative methodology that originate in other areas of social science, and a high incidence of research focused on the user interaction with information retrieval systems and the information behavior of doctors

A study of uncertainties in modeling the handset antenna and human head interaction using the FDTD method

A set of FDTD numerical experiments is presented for a homogeneous spherical head and a simple dipole, in order to quantitatively assess the effect of antenna numerical representation and Absorbing Boundary Conditions on simulated parameters of interest, referring to both dosimetric and antenna performance studies. A semi-analytical technique based on the theory of dyadic Green's function in conjuction with the Method of Auxiliary Sources is used for further validation and comparison of the FDTD results