App-based feedback on safety to novice drivers: learning and monetary incentives

An over-proportionally large number of car crashes is caused by novice drivers. In a field experiment, we investigated whether and how car drivers who had recently obtained their driving license reacted to app-based feedback on their safety-relevant driving behavior (speeding, phone usage, cornering, acceleration and braking). Participants went through a pre-measurement phase during which they did not receive app-based feedback but driving behavior was recorded, a treatment phase during which they received app-based feedback, and a post-measurement phase during which they did not receive app-based feedback but driving behavior was recorded. Before the start of the treatment phase, we randomly assigned participants to two possible treatment groups. In addition to receiving app-based feedback, the participants of one group received monetary incentives to improve their safety-relevant driving behavior, while the participants of the other group did not. At the beginning and at the end of experiment, each participant had to fill out a questionnaire to elicit socio-economic and attitudinal information. We conducted regression analyses to identify socio-economic, attitudinal, and driving-behavior-related variables that explain safety-relevant driving behavior during the pre-measurement phase and the self-chosen intensity of app usage during the treatment phase. For the main objective of our study, we applied regression analyses to identify those variables that explain the potential effect of providing app-based feedback during the treatment phase on safety-relevant driving behavior. Last, we applied statistical tests of differences to identify self-selection and attrition biases in our field experiment. For a sample of 130 novice Austrian drivers, we found moderate improvements in safety-relevant driving skills due to app-based feedback. The improvements were more pronounced under the treatment with monetary incentives, and for participants choosing higher feedback intensities. Moreover, drivers who drove relatively safer before receiving app-based feedback used the app more intensely and, ceteris paribus, higher app use intensity led to improvements in safety-related driving skills. Last, we provide empirical evidence for both self-selection and attrition biases

The potential role of employers in promoting sustainable mobility in rural areas: evidence from Eastern Austria

In industrialized countries, mobility represents one of the most important sources of CO2 emissions. Most research on promoting sustainable, climate-friendly modes of transportation has focused on urban areas. Rural areas-although characterized by high dependency on individual car ownership and usage-have received less attention. This article explores the potential role of rural employers in supporting sustainable alternatives to commuting by (single-occupied) motorized vehicles among their employees. We conduct a collective case study that considers five employers located in Eastern Austria (Burgenland), drawing from multiple data sources including structured surveys, expert interviews, focus groups, and site visits. Our analysis shows that employers have little incentive to implement measures that foster sustainable mobility among their employees. On the one hand, the costs accruing to employers for implementing such measures tend to exceed the corresponding benefits by a significant margin (unlike in urban areas where significant cost reductions can arise for employers). On the other hand, also employees generally exhibit little demand for such measures. We conclude that both from a societal and a business perspective, it is not efficient to promote sustainable mobility in rural areas via employers

Negotiating Dissidence

Traces the very beginnings of Arab women making documentaries in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), from the 1970s and 1980s in Egypt and Lebanon, to the 1990s and 2000s in Morocco and Syria

Autonomous, connected, electric shared vehicles (ACES) and public finance: An explorative analysis

This paper discusses the implications of autonomous-connected-electric-shared vehicles (ACES) for public finance, which have so far been widely ignored in the literature. In OECD countries, 5-12% of federal and up to 30% of local tax revenues are currently collected from fuel and vehicle taxation. The diffusion of ACES will significantly reduce these important sources of government revenues and affect transport-related government expenditures, unless additional policies are introduced to align the new technological context with the tax revenue requirements. We argue that the realization of socioeconomic benefits of ACES depends on the implementation of tailored public finance policies, which can take advantage of the increase in data availability from the further digitalization of transportation systems. In particular, the introduction of road tolls in line with "user Pays" and "polluter Pays" principles will become more feasible for policy. Moreover, innovation in taxation schemes to fit the changing technological circumstances may alter the relative importance of levels of governance in transport policy making, likely shifting power towards local, in particular urban, governmental levels. We finally argue that, given the risk of path-dependencies and lock-in to sub-optimal public finance regimes if policies are implemented late, further research and near-term policy actions taken during the diffusion process of ACES are required

The potential of text mining in data integration and network biology for plant research : a case study on Arabidopsis

Despite the availability of various data repositories for plant research, a wealth of information currently remains hidden within the biomolecular literature. Text mining provides the necessary means to retrieve these data through automated processing of texts. However, only recently has advanced text mining methodology been implemented with sufficient computational power to process texts at a large scale. In this study, we assess the potential of large-scale text mining for plant biology research in general and for network biology in particular using a state-of-the-art text mining system applied to all PubMed abstracts and PubMed Central full texts. We present extensive evaluation of the textual data for Arabidopsis thaliana, assessing the overall accuracy of this new resource for usage in plant network analyses. Furthermore, we combine text mining information with both protein-protein and regulatory interactions from experimental databases. Clusters of tightly connected genes are delineated from the resulting network, illustrating how such an integrative approach is essential to grasp the current knowledge available for Arabidopsis and to uncover gene information through guilt by association. All large-scale data sets, as well as the manually curated textual data, are made publicly available, hereby stimulating the application of text mining data in future plant biology studies

Real consequences matter: Why hypothetical biases in the valuation of time persist even in controlled lab experiments

In a controlled lab experiment, we investigate hypothetical biases in the value of time by comparing stated preference (SP) and revealed preference (RP) values attached to unexpected waiting times. The SP and RP choice sets are identical in terms of design with the only difference being that the RP choices have real consequences in terms of unexpected waiting times and monetary incentives. We find a substantial hypothetical bias with the average SP value of time being only 71% of the corresponding RP value. The bias is mainly driven by participants who have scheduling constraints during the time of the unexpected wait. Scheduling constraints are taken into account to a much lesser extent in the SP setting than in the RP setting, presumably because only in the latter, the consequences of ignoring them are costly. We find evidence that this effect is stronger for persons with relatively low cognitive ability

Seascapes of solidarity: Refugee cinema and the representation of the Mediterranean

Van de Peer, Stefanie - ORCID 0000-0003-3152-2912 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3152-2912Films about refugees have been embraced by accented cinema. Indeed, exilic filmmakers continue to test the boundaries of cinema, and specifically its strong bonds with nation and land. But not all exiles are refugees. This article offers that for Arab refugees the journeys across the Mediterranean Sea define their filmmaking and thus also the refugee film. If we acknowledge the sea as a central theme, motif and stylistic element in (some) refugee cinema, spectators may be able to experience refugee cinema more ethically. Using the concept of Mediterranean Thinking as a central analytical tool, this paper focuses on the visual representations of refugees in films made on and in the Mediterranean Sea, problematising the injustices in the representation of refugees since the so-called “refugee crisis”. With a film-philosophical approach to four films from North Africa and Syria, this paper engages the senses of spectators in a cinema that highlights the instability of knowledge and power through movement and fluidity. An in-depth analysis of the visual qualities of water places fluid space and time at the centre of these refugee films. In Mediterranean refugee filmmaking, water enables an embodied experience that leads to allegiance and sympathy, in order to achieve solidarity. This approach is based on a desire to contribute to a new historiography in the service of a more just world. Transnational journeys shape the representations of refugees travelling, transforming and transcending the Mediterranean. Ultimately, this paper examines how the migrant and the sea itself develop with the “refugee crisis”, visualised in a cinema adrift on the Mediterranean Sea.https://doi.org/10.33178/alpha.18.0418pubpu

Veränderungen im Informationsverhalten in der Corona-Krise und ihre Auswirkungen auf die Sichtweisen junger Menschen

Die COVID-19-Pandemie hat das Leben von Menschen auf der ganzen Welt von Grund auf verändert. Gleichzeitig trägt das Verhalten der Menschen zur Überwindung der Pandemie bei, sei es in Form der Einhaltung der Pandemieregelungen, sei es durch die Bereitschaft, sich gegen COVID-19 impfen zu lassen. Derzeit zeigt sich jedoch in Ländern wie Deutschland, die über ausreichend Impfstoff verfügen, eine gewisse Impfmüdigkeit. Da Studien bereits gezeigt haben, dass zwischen Informationsverhalten und Impfbereitschaft ein Zusammenhang besteht, untersucht diese Arbeit anhand einer Längsschnittsstudie Veränderungen des Informationsverhaltens junger Menschen unter 35 Jahren im Verlauf der Pandemie im Jahr 2020. Besonderes Augenmerk wird dabei auf die Konsequenzen des Informationsverhaltens für die Zuversicht und die Impfbereitschaft in dieser Zielgruppe gelegt. Dabei zeigt sich durchaus eine Pandemiemüdigkeit unter den Befragten, die sich darin äußert, dass die Befragten am Ende des Jahres 2020 weniger Zeit damit verbringen, sich über das Virus oder die Pandemie zu informieren als noch 7 Monate zuvor. Die Daten offenbaren auch Zusammenhänge zwischen dem Informationsverhalten, dem Grad der Informiertheit und der Zuversicht, dass die Pandemie überwunden wird. Schließlich sind Personen, die sich besser informiert fühlen, eher bereit, eine Impfung zu akzeptieren, womit eine faktenbasierte, glaubhafte Information der Bevölkerung offenbar ein entscheidender Faktor der Pandemiebekämpfung ist

Acknowledged Legislators: ‘Lived experience’ in Scottish Poetry Films

Stefanie Van de Peer - ORCID: 0000-0003-3152-2912 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3152-2912In his 2014 book Arts of Independence, co-authored with artist Alexander Moffat, Alan Riach asserts that, while Scotland has had more than its fair share of important and experimental filmmakers, from John Grierson and Bill Douglas to Margaret Tait, the country still lacks a coherent film industry (p. 42). David Archibald’s Forsyth Hardy Lecture at the Edinburgh International Film Festival in 2014 also engaged with the lack of a national film industry in Scotland in the context of the independence referendum, and highlighted the transnational nature of cinema in general and Scottish cinema specifically. He argued for a more concerted effort towards an independent film industry in the country, and we argue here that one of the strategies for starting to foster an independent, national film identity could arguably be through a focus on the lives of poets and writers in film who are themselves devoted to issues of nationhood and national identity. In the case of this article, the poets in question are Hugh MacDiarmid, Norman MacCaig, Sorley MacLean, Liz Lochhead and Robert Alan Jamieson. While these are not the only poets who have been subjects for Scottish films, we wish to focus on these as they are well-known, and have a consistent interest in the medium of film.https://ijosts.ubiquitypress.com/articles/abstract/188/7pubpub