Beyond Contact? Policy approaches to work with families of looked after children in four European countries

In England, placement within the looked after system is not viewed as a desirable long‐term solution for most children, and policy has prioritised continued contact with parents, and swift return home, wherever possible. This review examines policy approaches to work with families of looked after children in England and in three other European countries: Denmark, France and the Netherlands, aiming to identify areas for shared learning in relation to this challenging area of policy and practice. The research highlights relationships between care populations and policy understandings of the purpose of work with families, including understandings of children's and/or parents’ rights.     

Physiological Responses to Near-Miss Outcomes and Personal Control During Simulated Gambling

Near-miss outcomes during gambling are non-win outcomes that fall close to a pay-out. While objectively equivalent to an outright miss, near-misses motivate ongoing play and may therefore be implicated in the development of disordered gambling. Given naturalistic data showing increases in heart rate (HR) and electrodermal activity (EDA) during periods of real gambling play, we sought to explore the phasic impact of win, near-miss and full-miss outcomes on physiological arousal in a controlled laboratory environment. EDA and HR were monitored as healthy, student participants (n = 33) played a simulated slot-machine task involving unpredictable monetary wins. A second gambling distortion, perceived personal control, was manipulated within the same task by allowing the participant to select the play icon on some trials, and having the computer automatically select the play icon on other trials. Near-misses were rated as less pleasant than full-misses. However, on trials that involved personal choice, near-misses produced higher ratings of ‘continue to play’ than full-misses. Winning outcomes were associated with phasic EDA responses that did not vary with personal choice. Compared to full-misses, near-miss outcomes also elicited an EDA increase, which was greater on personal choice trials. Near-misses were also associated with greater HR acceleration than other outcomes. Near-miss outcomes are capable of eliciting phasic changes in physiological arousal consistent with a state of subjective excitement, despite their objective non-win status.     

Treatment Choice With Trial Data: Statistical Decision Theory Should Supplant Hypothesis Testing

Abstract

A central objective of empirical research on treatment response is to inform treatment choice. Unfortunately, researchers commonly use concepts of statistical inference whose foundations are distant from the problem of treatment choice. It has been particularly common to use hypothesis tests to compare treatments. Wald’s development of statistical decision theory provides a coherent frequentist framework for use of sample data on treatment response to make treatment decisions. A body of recent research applies statistical decision theory to characterize uniformly satisfactory treatment choices, in the sense of maximum loss relative to optimal decisions (also known as maximum regret). This article describes the basic ideas and findings, which provide an appealing practical alternative to use of hypothesis tests. For simplicity, the article focuses on medical treatment with evidence from classical randomized clinical trials. The ideas apply generally, encompassing use of observational data and treatment choice in nonmedical contexts.     

宏观经济调控机构之间相对权力的实证分析——基于履历的部长相对地位之估计

我国政府对宏观经济运行有着较强的影响力。通过宏观经济政策调控经济是政府主要的影响途径之一。显然,由于调控的跨部门色彩,了解各部委在国务院的相对权力对理解我国宏观经济调控有着重要的帮助。在官本位的中国,部长的地位与其所在机构的相对权力有着密切的关系。本文从这点出发,通过履历法分析了四大宏观经济调控机构的相对权力。最近五届政府官员的履历表明:发改委的相对权力高于其他部门,人民银行次之,两者的差距相对较小;商务部第三,财政部第四。     

Toddlers Help Anonymously

Young children are extremely motivated to help others, but it is not clear whether they do so in anonymous situations without social recognition. In two studies, we found that 18‐month‐old toddlers provided help equally in situations where an adult recipient was present and in situations where an adult recipient was not present. We included several control conditions to rule out that toddlers were simply unaware of their anonymity or were merely motivated to restore the physical order of things. Together, these findings suggest that early in ontogeny children are motivated to help others in need regardless of whether they can immediately be recognized for their prosocial intentions.     

Realistic Free-Spins Features Increase Preference for Slot Machines

Despite increasing research into how the structural characteristics of slot machines influence gambling behaviour there have been no experimental investigations into the effect of free-spins bonus features—a structural characteristic that is commonly central to the design of slot machines. This series of three experiments investigated the free-spins feature using slot machine simulations to determine whether participants allocate more wagers to a machine with free spins, and, which components of free-spins features drive this preference. In each experiment, participants were exposed to two computer-simulated slot machines—one with a free-spins feature or similar bonus feature and one without. Participants then completed a testing phase where they could freely switch between the two machines. In Experiment 1, participants did not prefer the machine with a simple free-spins feature. In Experiment 2 the free-spins feature incorporated additional elements such as sounds, animations, and an increased win frequency; participants preferred to gamble on this machine. The Experiment 3 “bonus feature” machine resembled the free spins machine in Experiment 2 except spins were not free; participants showed a clear preference for this machine also. These findings indicate that (1) free-spins features have a major influence over machine choice and (2) the “freeness” of the free-spins bonus features is not an important driver of preference, contrary to self-report and interview research with gamblers.     

Trend smoothness achieved by penalized least squares with the smoothing parameter chosen by optimality criteria

This work presents a study about the smoothness attained by the methods more frequently used to choose the smoothing parameter in the context of splines: Cross Validation, Generalized Cross Validation, and corrected Akaike and Bayesian Information Criteria, implemented with Penalized Least Squares. It is concluded that the amount of smoothness strongly depends on the length of the series and on the type of underlying trend, while the presence of seasonality even though statistically significant is less relevant. The intrinsic variability of the series is not statistically significant and its effect is taken into account only through the smoothing parameter.