Development of Cooperation Between Children in the Minimal Social Situation

The purpose of this study was to determine whether children can learn to cooperate in what has been described as the minimal social situation. The research also compared the effectiveness of verbal instructions and a training task for teaching subjects the win-stay, lose-change rule. This rule has been used to explain the development of cooperation in the minimal social situation. Subjects were 19 teams of first-, second-, and third-graders. Five teams were composed of two girls; six were girl-boy teams; and eight were boy-boy teams. Ten of the 19 teams learned to cooperate in the minimal social situation without treatment. Two of four teams given the rule training procedure learned to cooperate after having failed to learn under typical minimal social conditions. Of five teams given verbal instructions, four learned to cooperate immediately. The probability of following the win-stay, lose-change rule was approximately 50% initially and did not increase significantly in later sessions. It is not clear then that following this rule is a prerequisite for the development of a cooperative exchange. Explanations in the literature which suggest subjects learn a single rule, i.e., win-stay, lose-change, may be misleading since children evidenced a variety of rules, any of which might have been reinforced or punished over the course of the experiment

The Effect of Modeling on Cooperation in the Laboratory and in the Natural Environment

In this study a multiple-baseline design was used to determine the effectiveness of three different modeling sequences in increasing cooperative behavior in children in a laboratory situation. The research also assessed the short- and long-term effects of the laboratory procedures on children\u27s behavior in a free-play setting. Subjects were 9 pairs of preschool-aged children. In the laboratory situation pairs of subjects performed a block-stacking task which allowed them to respond either cooperatively or independently. Following baseline periods of varying lengths , the pairs of children were exposed to one of three videotapes of cooperative models . In Tape l adult models demonstrated cooperative behavior, but exhibited no verbal behavior. In Tape 2 the models made positive statements about cooperation contiguous with the demonstration of cooperative behavior. In Tape 3 the models demonstrated cooperation, made contiguous positive statements about cooperation, and in addition, they received differential positive reinforcement for cooperation. Although three of nine teams showed a significant increase in mutually cooperative responding, consistent multiple baseline control was not demonstrated . Therefore, it could not be conclusively stated that the videotaped cooperative models were effective in increasing children\u27s mutually cooperative responding in the laboratory. A significant increase in parallel play was noted between laboratory partners in free-play periods immediately following the laboratory sessions; however, this increased interaction was not obvious when 5-day and 6-week follow-up observations were made

The James Webb Space Telescope Mission

Twenty-six years ago a small committee report, building on earlier studies, expounded a compelling and poetic vision for the future of astronomy, calling for an infrared-optimized space telescope with an aperture of at least $4m$. With the support of their governments in the US, Europe, and Canada, 20,000 people realized that vision as the $6.5m$ James Webb Space Telescope. A generation of astronomers will celebrate their accomplishments for the life of the mission, potentially as long as 20 years, and beyond. This report and the scientific discoveries that follow are extended thank-you notes to the 20,000 team members. The telescope is working perfectly, with much better image quality than expected. In this and accompanying papers, we give a brief history, describe the observatory, outline its objectives and current observing program, and discuss the inventions and people who made it possible. We cite detailed reports on the design and the measured performance on orbit.Comment: Accepted by PASP for the special issue on The James Webb Space Telescope Overview, 29 pages, 4 figure

Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on patients with paediatric cancer in low-income, middle-income and high-income countries: a multicentre, international, observational cohort study

OBJECTIVES: Paediatric cancer is a leading cause of death for children. Children in low-income and middle-income countries (LMICs) were four times more likely to die than children in high-income countries (HICs). This study aimed to test the hypothesis that the COVID-19 pandemic had affected the delivery of healthcare services worldwide, and exacerbated the disparity in paediatric cancer outcomes between LMICs and HICs. DESIGN: A multicentre, international, collaborative cohort study. SETTING: 91 hospitals and cancer centres in 39 countries providing cancer treatment to paediatric patients between March and December 2020. PARTICIPANTS: Patients were included if they were under the age of 18 years, and newly diagnosed with or undergoing active cancer treatment for Acute lymphoblastic leukaemia, non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, Hodgkin lymphoma, Wilms' tumour, sarcoma, retinoblastoma, gliomas, medulloblastomas or neuroblastomas, in keeping with the WHO Global Initiative for Childhood Cancer. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURE: All-cause mortality at 30 days and 90 days. RESULTS: 1660 patients were recruited. 219 children had changes to their treatment due to the pandemic. Patients in LMICs were primarily affected (n=182/219, 83.1%). Relative to patients with paediatric cancer in HICs, patients with paediatric cancer in LMICs had 12.1 (95% CI 2.93 to 50.3) and 7.9 (95% CI 3.2 to 19.7) times the odds of death at 30 days and 90 days, respectively, after presentation during the COVID-19 pandemic (p<0.001). After adjusting for confounders, patients with paediatric cancer in LMICs had 15.6 (95% CI 3.7 to 65.8) times the odds of death at 30 days (p<0.001). CONCLUSIONS: The COVID-19 pandemic has affected paediatric oncology service provision. It has disproportionately affected patients in LMICs, highlighting and compounding existing disparities in healthcare systems globally that need addressing urgently. However, many patients with paediatric cancer continued to receive their normal standard of care. This speaks to the adaptability and resilience of healthcare systems and healthcare workers globally