Monthly Archives: November 2017

The nexus of attention shift in the wake of a disaster

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Dr. Yu-Ru Lin

Nowadays, platforms like Twitter play a big role in the aftermath of disasters, such as natural disasters, mass shootings, or terror attacks, as people try to receive the latest information on what happened through social media channels. A new study published in EPJ Data Science shows how an analysis of social media responses to disasters might help us better understand the dynamic of the public’s attention during these events, what such an analysis shows about people’s attention spans and focus points in the aftermath of disasters, and how analyses like these could be performed in a cost-effective way.

A better approach to talent identification?

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Craig Pickering

Identifying future Olympic champions at a young age is a difficult task, demanding an increasing amount of resources. New research published in Sports Medicine – Open discusses how physical adaptation to exercise is partially genetically mediated, meaning we may be able to identify individuals with the greatest capacity to improve through genetic profiling. Here, lead author Craig Pickering discusses what this means for talent identification programs.

Sentiment analysis methods for understanding large-scale texts: A case for using continuum-scored words and word shift graphs

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Andrew Reagan

Due to the emergence and continuously increasing usage of social media services all over the world, it is now possible to estimate in real-time how entire groups of people are feeling at a given point. However, in order to be able interpret the available data correctly, the right tools and methods need to be used. A new article published in EPJ Data Science examines a range of such methods and shows their ability but also their limitations.

Providing equitable opportunities to disadvantaged youth through STEM education

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Dr. Eugenia Duodu & Dr. Corliss Bean

Students from lower-income and marginalized households are often being left behind in terms of educational achievements and career aspirations, due to physical and financial barriers. A Canadian charity, Visions of Science Network for Learning, is trying to change that by offering STEM-based programs to children from marginalized communities. As their case study has shown, these programs are indeed successful in getting children more engaged with science.

Looking at Toto or Kansas: the tyranny of film versus top-down cognition

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Davy Falkner

When you watch a film, who decides what part of a scene you look at, is it you or the director? The latter is known as the “Tyranny of film”, with some directors believing that they have total power over the audience’s gaze. But is this really the case? A recent article in the journal Cognitive Research: Principles and Implications explored this question using eye tracking technology and the opening scene of Orson Welles’ Touch of Evil.

Adult Skills in a Rapidly Changing Society

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Dr. Débora B. Maehler

When we think of learning skills that are necessary to navigate society, the first thing that comes to mind may be our school days. But today’s society is changing so rapidly that many of the skills we need for everyday life we never learned in school, and we need to continue learning in order to keep up with the demands of everyday life. A new article collection published in Large-Scale Assessment in Education examines the process, challenges, and assessment of adult learning, and takes a look at the implications this has for larger groups of adult learners, such as migrants.

Philosophy of life sciences is ‘constructive subversiveness’

Roberto Garbero

World Philosophy Day was introduced in 2002 by UNESCO, among other things, to raise public awareness of the importance of philosophy in the choices arising from the effects of globalization or entry into modernity. We asked Prof. Hub Zwart and Prof. Ruth Chadwick, Editors-in-Chief of Life Sciences, Society and Policy, why philosophy matters for life sciences and the challenges raised by new sciences and technologies.

Sifting through hierarchies to improve search experience in finding neuroanatomical data

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Ning Zhong

The success of a search technique is all about providing an intuitive user experience, which turns the abundance of the data into knowledge discovery. Data sharing is increasingly recognized as essential in the path towards understanding of the nervous system, but sharing experimental data is still not a standard practice in neuroscience. A new study from Brain Informatics investigates.