Financial literacy and investment choice decisions: Evidence from Australian superannuation fund members

For most Australians, superannuation should be a source of financial security in retirement. However, with the increasing level of choice available in superannuation, financial literacy of the participants needs to be considered. This study assesses the financial literacy of superannuation participants through a survey of 594 fund members. We find superannuation fund members with higher levels of financial literacy, measured both objectively and subjectively, are more likely to exercise investment choice. We also find higher financial risk tolerance is positively associated with financial literacy. The research contributes to the literature on investment choice decisions in the context of the mandatory superannuation system in Australia which has implications for policy-makers and the superannuation industry

Teaching financial literacy in introductory accounting course: A reflection and proposal

Numerous financial literacy studies have consistently identified young adults to have low levels of financial capability. Of particular concern is that many of these young people do not have adequate money skills to ride their freedom during university time which may contribute to suboptimal financial behaviours. Prior research into university students’ financial literacy and financial education in school suggests that many students are not confident about money matters with many preferring to learn about financial literacy in university . Accordingly, an initiative including workshops on basic budgeting and saving topics , and a seminar delivered by a financial guru during university orientation week was trialled. However, attendance to these workshops and the seminar were disappointingly low. The experience prompted the researchers to consider other approaches to help students improve their financial literacy. This paper provides a reflection of the orientation week initiative , as well as proposes ways to incorporate financial literacy in introductory accounting course

Specific Disease Knowledge as Predictor of Susceptibility to Availability Bias in Diagnostic Reasoning:a Randomized Controlled Experiment

BACKGROUND: Bias in reasoning rather than knowledge gaps has been identified as the origin of most diagnostic errors. However, the role of knowledge in counteracting bias is unclear. OBJECTIVE: To examine whether knowledge of discriminating features (findings that discriminate between look-alike diseases) predicts susceptibility to bias. DESIGN: Three-phase randomized experiment. Phase 1 (bias-inducing): Participants were exposed to a set of clinical cases (either hepatitis-IBD or AMI-encephalopathy). Phase 2 (diagnosis): All participants diagnosed the same cases; 4 resembled hepatitis-IBD, 4 AMI-encephalopathy (but all with different diagnoses). Availability bias was expected in the 4 cases similar to those encountered in phase 1. Phase 3 (knowledge evaluation): For each disease, participants decided (max. 2 s) which of 24 findings was associated with the disease. Accuracy of decisions on discriminating features, taken as a measure of knowledge, was expected to predict susceptibility to bias. PARTICIPANTS: Internal medicine residents at Erasmus MC, Netherlands. MAIN MEASURES: The frequency with which higher-knowledge and lower-knowledge physicians gave biased diagnoses based on phase 1 exposure (range 0-4). Time to diagnose was also measured. KEY RESULTS: Sixty-two physicians participated. Higher-knowledge physicians yielded to availability bias less often than lower-knowledge physicians (0.35 vs 0.97; p = 0.001; difference, 0.62 [95% CI, 0.28-0.95]). Whereas lower-knowledge physicians tended to make more of these errors on subjected-to-bias than on not-subjected-to-bias cases (p = 0.06; difference, 0.35 [CI, - 0.02-0.73]), higher-knowledge physicians resisted the bias (p = 0.28). Both groups spent more time to diagnose subjected-to-bias than not-subjected-to-bias cases (p = 0.04), without differences between groups. CONCLUSIONS: Knowledge of features that discriminate between look-alike diseases reduced susceptibility to bias in a simulated setting. Reflecting further may be required to overcome bias, but succeeding depends on having the appropriate knowledge. Future research should examine whether the findings apply to real practice and to more experienced physicians

ALMA photometry of extragalactic radio sources

We present a new catalogue of ALMA (Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array) observations of 3364 bright, compact radio sources, mostly blazars, used as calibrators. These sources were observed between 2011 May and 2018 July, for a total of 47?115 pointings in different bands and epochs. We have exploited the ALMA data to validate the photometry given in the new Planck multifrequency Catalogue of Non-Thermal sources (PCNT), for which an external validation was not possible so far. We have also assessed the positional accuracy of Planck catalogues and the PCNT completeness limits, finding them to be consistent with those of the Second Planck Catalogue of Compact Sources. The ALMA continuum spectra have allowed us to extrapolate the observed radio source counts at 100 GHz to the effective frequencies of ALMA bands 4, 6, 7, 8, and 9 (145, 233, 285, 467, and 673?GHz, respectively), where direct measurements are scanty, especially at the three highest frequencies. The results agree with the predictions of the Tucci et al. model C2Ex, while the model C2Co is disfavoured

Does difference between label and actual potency of factor VIII concentrate affect pharmacokinetic-guided dosing of replacement therapy in haemophilia A?

BACKGROUND: To account for interindividual variability in the pharmacokinetics (PK) of factor concentrates, PK‐guided dosing is increasingly implemented in haemophilia patients. Calculations are based on provided label potency, but legislation allows a potency difference of ±20% between label and actual potency. It is unknown if these differences affect PK guidance. AIM: Explore the effects of potency differences on individual factor VIII (FVIII) PK parameters and the prediction of FVIII trough levels of dosing regimens. METHODS: We analyzed individual preoperative PK profiling data from severe and moderate haemophilia A patients included in the OPTI‐CLOT randomized controlled trial. Label and actual potency were compared, with data on potency provided by pharmaceutical companies. For both potencies, individual PK parameters were estimated and concentration‐time curves were constructed by nonlinear mixed‐effects modelling. Finally, we explored the effect of both the identified and the maximum legislated potency difference on predicted FVIII trough levels infused in a low and high dose regimen. RESULTS: In 45/50 included patients, actual potency was higher than its label potency. The median potency difference was 6.0% (range ‐9.2% to 18.4%) and resulted in varying individual PK parameter estimates but practically identical FVIII concentration‐time curves. As expected, predicted FVIII trough levels were linearly correlated to the actual dose. CONCLUSION: It is not necessary to take potency differences into account when applying PK guidance of FVIII concentrates in haemophilia A patients. However, when the patient is switched to another FVIII batch after PK‐guided dosing, trough levels may deviate ±20% from calculations based on label dose

'Immunising' physicians against availability bias in diagnostic reasoning: A randomised controlled experiment

Background: Diagnostic errors have often been attributed to biases in physicians' reasoning. Interventions to 'immunise' physicians against bias have focused on improving reasoning processes and have largely failed. Objective: To investigate the effect of increasing physicians' relevant knowledge on their susceptibility to availability bias. Design, settings and participants: Three-phase multicentre randomised experiment with second-year internal medicine residents from eight teaching hospitals in Brazil. Interventions: Immunisation: Physicians diagnosed one of two sets of vignettes (either diseases associated with chronic diarrhoea or with jaundice) and compared/contrasted alternative diagnoses with feedback. Biasing phase (1 week later): Physicians were biased towards either inflammatory bowel disease or viral hepatitis. Diagnostic performance test: All physicians diagnosed three vignettes resembling inflammatory bowel disease, three resembling hepatitis (however, all with different diagnoses). Physicians who increased their knowledge of either chronic diarrhoea or jaundice 1 week earlier were expected to resist the bias attempt. Main outcome measurements: Diagnostic accuracy, measured by test score (range 0-1), computed for subjected-to-bias and not-subjected-to-bias vignettes diagnosed by immunised and not-immunised physicians. Results: Ninety-one residents participated in the experiment. Diagnostic accuracy differed on subjected-to-bias vignettes, with immunised physicians performing better than non-immunised physicians (0.40 vs 0.24; difference in accuracy 0.16 (95% CI 0.05 to 0.27); p=0.004), but not on not-subjected-to-bias vignettes (0.36 vs 0.41; difference -0.05 (95% CI -0.17 to 0.08); p=0.45). Bias only hampered non-immunised physicians, who performed worse on subjected-to-bias than not-subjected-to-bias vignettes (difference -0.17 (95% CI -0.28 to -0.05); p=0.005); immunised physicians' accuracy did not differ (p=0.56). Conclusions: An intervention directed at increasing knowledge of clinical findings that discriminate between similar-looking diseases decreased physicians' susceptibility to availability bias, reducing diagnostic errors, in a simulated setting. Future research needs to examine the degree to which the intervention benefits other disease clusters and performance in clinical practice. Trial registration number: 68745917.1.1001.0068

A High-resolution Mosaic of the Neutral Hydrogen in the M81 Triplet

We present a 3° × 3°, 105-pointing, high-resolution neutral hydrogen (H I) mosaic of the M81 galaxy triplet, (including the main galaxies M81, M82, and NGC 3077, as well as dwarf galaxy NGC 2976) obtained with the Very Large Array C and D arrays. This H I synthesis mosaic uniformly covers the entire area and velocity range of the triplet. The observations have a resolution of ̃20″ or ̃420 pc. The data reveal many small-scale anomalous velocity features highlighting the complexity of the interacting M81 triplet. We compare our data with Green Bank Telescope observations of the same area. This comparison provides evidence for the presence of a substantial reservoir of low-column density gas in the northern part of the triplet, probably associated with M82. Such a reservoir is not found in the southern part. We report a number of newly discovered kpc-sized low-mass H I clouds with H I masses of a few times 106 M ☉. A detailed analysis of their velocity widths show that their dynamical masses are much larger than their baryonic masses, which could indicate the presence of dark matter if the clouds are rotationally supported. However, due to their spatial and kinematical association with H I tidal features, it is more likely that the velocity widths indicate tidal effects or streaming motions. We do not find any clouds that are not associated with tidal features down to an H I mass limit of a few times 104 M ☉. We compare the H I column densities with resolved stellar density maps and find a star formation threshold around 3-6 × 1020 cm-2. We investigate the widths of the H I velocity profiles in the triplet and find that extreme velocity dispersions can be explained by a superposition of multiple components along the line of sight near M81 as well as winds or outflows around M82. The velocity dispersions found are high enough that these processes could explain the linewidths of damped-Lyα absorbers observed at high redshift.</p

Registered Replication Report on Fischer, Castel, Dodd, and Pratt (2003)

The attentional spatial-numerical association of response codes (Att-SNARC) effect (Fischer, Castel, Dodd, & Pratt, 2003)—the finding that participants are quicker to detect left-side targets when the targets are preceded by small numbers and quicker to detect right-side targets when they are preceded by large numbers—has been used as evidence for embodied number representations and to support strong claims about the link between number and space (e.g., a mental number line). We attempted to replicate Experiment 2 of Fischer et al. by collecting data from 1,105 participants at 17 labs. Across all 1,105 participants and four interstimulus-interval conditions, the proportion of times the effect we observed was positive (i.e., directionally consistent with the original effect) was .50. Further, the effects we observed both within and across labs were minuscule and incompatible with those observed by Fischer et al. Given this, we conclude that we failed to replicate the effect reported by Fischer et al. In addition, our analysis of several participant-level moderators (finger-counting habits, reading and writing direction, handedness, and mathematics fluency and mathematics anxiety) revealed no substantial moderating effects. Our results indicate that the Att-SNARC effect cannot be used as evidence to support strong claims about the link between number and space