Baseline Expectation Research Articles

Long-run perspectives on [formula omitted] in OECD countries: An empirical analysis

The difference between the implicit nominal interest rate and the growth rate of nominal GDP is a key determinant of the dynamics and the sustainability of public debt. This paper studies the determinants of r-g in a panel of 17 OECD countries since the early 1980s. Whereas the focus of existing empirical studies is mainly on fiscal, monetary and financial factors behind the interest–growth difference, our approach and contribution are to highlight in particular the role of real long-run determinants, such as technical progress, employment growth, demographic change, and income inequality. This allows us to derive empirically based projections for r-g beyond the next five or ten years. Our baseline expectation is that r-g will stay below zero for the next two decades in most European countries that we study. An important policy implication is that the debt-carrying capacity of governments is substantially higher now than in the 1980s or 1990s. For the United States, however, our baseline projection of r-g is positive.

The effect of local habitat and spatial connectivity on urban seed predation.

During the last centuries, the area covered by urban landscapes is increasing all over the world. Urbanization can change local habitats and decrease connectivity among these habitats, with important consequences for species interactions. While several studies have found a major imprint of urbanization on plant-insect interactions, the effects of urbanization on seed predation remain largely unexplored. We investigated the relative impact of sunlight exposure, leaf litter, and spatial connectivity on predation by moth and weevil larvae on acorns of the pedunculate oak across an urban landscape during 2018 and 2020. We also examined whether infestations by moths and weevils were independent of each other. While seed predation varied strongly among trees, seed predation was not related to differences in sunlight exposure, leaf litter, or spatial connectivity. Seed predation by moths and weevils was negatively correlated at the level of individual acorns in 2018, but positively correlated at the acorn and the tree level in 2020. Our study sets the baseline expectation that urban seed predators are unaffected by differences in sunlight exposure, leaf litter, and spatial connectivity. Overall, our findings suggest that the impact of local and spatial factors on insects within an urban context may depend on the species guild. Understanding the impact of local and spatial factors on biodiversity, food web structure, and ecosystem functioning can provide valuable insights for urban planning and management strategies aimed at promoting urban insect diversity.

Implicature priming, salience, and context adaptation

Recent experimental research has observed two kinds of priming effects on quantity implicatures. One is the Strong–Weak contrast, where more quantity implicatures are observed after prime trials forcing interpretations with quantity implicatures (‘Strong primes’) than after prime trials forcing interpretations without quantity implicatures (‘Weak primes’). The other effect is the Alternative-Weak contrast, where prime trials mentioning alternative expressions (‘Alternative primes’) similarly lead to more quantity implicatures. It has been claimed that both of these effects should be understood in terms of increased salience of alternative expressions used to compute quantity implicatures. We present experimental evidence that speaks against this hypothesis. With the help of novel baseline conditions, which were absent in previous studies on implicature priming, we observe that the results in the priming paradigm commonly used in the literature are inverse preference effects in the sense that robust priming effects are observed towards interpretations that are normally unexpected, and depending on the baseline expectation, each of the three prime types mentioned above may have priming effects. We furthermore investigated different types of alternative priming for so-called ad hoc implicatures and found that for these implicatures, presenting an alternative expression in a simple sentence does not have a priming effect on the implicature of a similarly simple sentence, but presenting it in a more complex conjunctive construction does. Our results also show that conjunctions of similar but irrelevant expressions have a similarly robust priming effect and that conjunctive sentences with two conjuncts do not give rise to priming effects on the interpretation of sentences of the same syntactic complexity, but those with three conjuncts do. To make sense of these observations, we propose that what crucially matters for priming implicatures is incremental change in one’s probabilistic expectations about the current conversational context brought about by a process we call context adaptation.

Very few scientific publications and newspaper articles focus on catastrophic events and their effects on urban wildlife

The COVID-19 pandemic upended daily life and disrupted human activity in urban centers all over the world. Stay-at-home orders emptied urban spaces, removing or decreasing stressors on urban wildlife associated with human presence. Anecdotal observations of unusual urban wildlife behavior spread virally across social media, but some of these reports were proven false or fabricated. Here we examined both scientific publications and local newspapers to understand how extensively urban catastrophes are covered with respect to their effects on wildlife. We read all article titles from January 1980–June 2023 in 100 high impact journals in biology to determine if prior research exists that could inform our understanding of this phenomenon. Additionally, we used a keyword search to find scientific journal articles about wildlife responses during events in which large-scale evacuations of urban environments occurred. We found 37 scientific articles on this topic, with 13 of those published in the highest impact biology journals. The majority of publications identified (70%) were about wildlife responses to the COVID-19 public health response. Finally, we searched local newspapers in areas where hurricanes struck urban centers. We found 25 newspaper articles reporting on wildlife in relation to urban natural disasters. These were typically anecdotes, but nearly always consulted a credible, expert source. Ultimately, more research focused on urban areas before and after catastrophic or sudden changes will allow biologists to develop a baseline expectation for urban wildlife behavior in the absence of humans.

Faculty Perspectives on Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, and Access (IDEA) in Online Teaching

This study contributes to a better understanding of instructors’ perceptions of equity issues within online teaching and learning. The researchers conducted interviews with 21 instructors at one university across disciplines regarding their experience with, and recommendations for, attending to issues of inclusion, diversity, equity, and access (IDEA) in online teaching. Findings revealed that instructors characterized online teaching and IDEA issues as distinct skillsets and that they were not necessarily prepared to apply IDEA issues in online teaching. Participants also focused their attention much more on access and inclusion—with access as a baseline expectation and inclusion operationalized as relationship building—rather than on equity and diversity, areas in which faculty efforts often translated (or not) from their face-to-face teaching experience. We conclude the paper with implications for faculty, educational developers, administrators, and institutions.

All-cause excess mortality across 90 municipalities in Gujarat, India, during the COVID-19 pandemic (March 2020-April 2021).

Official COVID-19 mortality statistics are strongly influenced by local diagnostic capacity, strength of the healthcare and vital registration systems, and death certification criteria and capacity, often resulting in significant undercounting of COVID-19 attributable deaths. Excess mortality, which is defined as the increase in observed death counts compared to a baseline expectation, provides an alternate measure of the mortality shock-both direct and indirect-of the COVID-19 pandemic. Here, we use data from civil death registers from a convenience sample of 90 (of 162) municipalities across the state of Gujarat, India, to estimate the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on all-cause mortality. Using a model fit to weekly data from January 2019 to February 2020, we estimated excess mortality over the course of the pandemic from March 2020 to April 2021. During this period, the official government data reported 10,098 deaths attributable to COVID-19 for the entire state of Gujarat. We estimated 21,300 [95% CI: 20, 700, 22, 000] excess deaths across these 90 municipalities in this period, representing a 44% [95% CI: 43%, 45%] increase over the expected baseline. The sharpest increase in deaths in our sample was observed in late April 2021, with an estimated 678% [95% CI: 649%, 707%] increase in mortality from expected counts. The 40 to 65 age group experienced the highest increase in mortality relative to the other age groups. We found substantial increases in mortality for males and females. Our excess mortality estimate for these 90 municipalities, representing approximately at least 8% of the population, based on the 2011 census, exceeds the official COVID-19 death count for the entire state of Gujarat, even before the delta wave of the pandemic in India peaked in May 2021. Prior studies have concluded that true pandemic-related mortality in India greatly exceeds official counts. This study, using data directly from the first point of official death registration data recording, provides incontrovertible evidence of the high excess mortality in Gujarat from March 2020 to April 2021.

Deep structure, long-distance migration and admixture in the colour polymorphic land snail Cepaea nemoralis.

Although snails of the genus Cepaea have historically been important in studying colour polymorphism, an ongoing issue is that there is a lack of knowledge of the underlying genetics of the polymorphism, as well as an absence of genomic data to put findings in context. We, therefore, used phylogenomic methods to begin to investigate the post‐glacial history of Cepaea nemoralis, with a long‐term aim to understand the roles that selection and drift have in determining both European‐wide and local patterns of colour polymorphism. By combining prior and new mitochondrial DNA data from over 1500 individuals with ddRAD genomic data from representative individuals across Europe, we show that patterns of differentiation are primarily due to multiple deeply diverged populations of snails. Minimally, there is a widespread Central European population and additional diverged groups in Northern Spain, the Pyrenees, as well as likely Italy and South Eastern Europe. The genomic analysis showed that the present‐day snails in Ireland and possibly some other locations are likely descendants of admixture between snails from the Pyrenees and the Central European group, an observation that is consistent with prior inferences from mitochondrial DNA alone. The interpretation is that C. nemoralis may have arrived in Ireland via long‐distance migration from the Pyrenean region, subsequently admixing with arrivals from elsewhere. This work, therefore, provides a baseline expectation for future studies on the genetics of the colour polymorphism, as well as providing a comparator for similar species.

Moving beyond the "Diversity Paradox": The Limitations of Competition-Based Frameworks in Understanding Species Diversity.

AbstractOver the past century, ecologists have attempted to understand patterns of species diversity by showing stable coexistence arising from a baseline expectation of competitive exclusion. This expectation stems from an explicit assumption of resource scarcity and implicit assumptions of Malthusian struggle and winner-takes-all dynamics. Fidelity to the competitive exclusion principle (CEP) presents species diversity as a paradox: if species compete for limited resources, how can they coexist? In this article, we investigate the contradiction between the theoretical expectation of competitive exclusion and the empirical prevalence of multispecies communities. We trace the persistence of the CEP in ecological research despite numerous challenges and explore publishing trends suggesting that this framework has resulted in a disproportionate focus on competition and exclusion in contemporary research. From a critical science studies perspective, we analyze the sociopolitical factors that have contributed to these patterns. We argue that we must excavate the ideological foundation on which competition-based coexistence research has been built to move beyond the current perceived "diversity paradox." To that end, we propose shifting the baseline expectation of coexistence research, introducing the notion of a coexistence principle, which positions the persistence of multispecies communities as the rule rather than the exception in nature.

Population Genetics of Reproductive Genes in Haplodiploid Species.

Many animal species are haplodiploid: their fertilized eggs develop into diploid females and their unfertilized eggs develop into haploid males. The unique genetic features of haplodiploidy raise the prospect that these systems can be used to disentangle the population genetic consequences of haploid and diploid selection. To this end, sex-specific reproductive genes are of particular interest because, while they are shared within the same genome, they consistently experience selection in different ploidal environments. However, other features of these genes, including sex-specific expression and putative involvement in postcopulatory sexual selection, are potentially confounding factors because they may also impact the efficacy of selection asymmetrically between the sexes. Thus, to properly interpret evolutionary genomic patterns, it is necessary to generate a null expectation for the relative amount of polymorphism and divergence we expect to observe among sex-specific genes in haplodiploid species, given differences in ploidal environment, sex-limited expression, and their potential role in sexual selection. Here, we derive the theoretical expectation for the rate of evolution of sex-specific genes in haplodiploid species, under the assumption that they experience the same selective environment as genes expressed in both sexes. We find that the null expectation is that reproductive genes evolve more rapidly than constitutively expressed genes in haplodiploid genomes. However, despite the aforementioned differences, the null expectation does not differ between male- and female-specific reproductive genes, when assuming additivity. Our theoretical results provide an important baseline expectation that should be used in molecular evolution studies comparing rates of evolution among classes of genes in haplodiploid species.

Are We Skillful or Just Lucky? Interpreting the Possible Histories of Vulnerability Disclosures

Coordinated Vulnerability Disclosure (CVD) stands as a consensus response to the persistent fact of vulnerable software, yet few performance indicators have been proposed to measure its efficacy at the broadest scales. In this article, we seek to fill that gap. We begin by deriving a model of all possible CVD histories from first principles, organizing those histories into a partial ordering based on a set of desired criteria. We then compute a baseline expectation for the frequency of each desired criteria and propose a new set of performance indicators to measure the efficacy of CVD practices based on the differentiation of skill and luck in observation data. As a proof of concept, we apply these indicators to a variety of longitudinal observations of CVD practice and find evidence of significant skill to be prevalent. We conclude with reflections on how this model and its accompanying performance indicators could be used by various stakeholders (vendors, system owners, coordinators, and governments) to interpret the quality of their CVD practices.

Gaussian mixture model decomposition of multivariate signals

We propose a greedy variational method for decomposing a non-negative multivariate signal as a weighted sum of Gaussians, which, borrowing the terminology from statistics, we refer to as a Gaussian mixture model. Notably, our method has the following features: (1) It accepts multivariate signals, i.e., sampled multivariate functions, histograms, time series, images, etc., as input. (2) The method can handle general (i.e., ellipsoidal) Gaussians. (3) No prior assumption on the number of mixture components is needed. To the best of our knowledge, no previous method for Gaussian mixture model decomposition simultaneously enjoys all these features. We also prove an upper bound, which cannot be improved by a global constant, for the distance from any mode of a Gaussian mixture model to the set of corresponding means. For mixtures of spherical Gaussians with common variance sigma ^2, the bound takes the simple form sqrt{n}sigma . We evaluate our method on one- and two-dimensional signals. Finally, we discuss the relation between clustering and signal decomposition, and compare our method to the baseline expectation maximization algorithm.

Observed Versus Expected COVID-19 Infections Among National Football League Players During the 2020 Season.

The National Football League (NFL) and National Football League Players Association implemented a set of strict protocols for the 2020 season with the intent to mitigate COVID-19 risk among players and staff. In that timeframe, the league's 32 teams completed 256 regular season games and several thousand meetings and practices. In parallel, community cases of COVID-19 were highly prevalent. We assess the risk of holding a 2020 NFL season by comparing community and player COVID-19 infections. We used county-level COVID-19 test data from each team to establish baseline distributions of infection rates expected to occur in a population similar in age and sex to NFL players. We used a binomial distribution to simulate expected infections in each community cohort and compared these findings with observed COVID-19 infections in players. Over a 5-month period (1 August 2020 to 2 January 2021), positive NFL player infections (n = 256) were 55.7% lower than expected when compared with simulations from NFL community cohorts. For 30 of 32 teams (94%), observed counts fell at or below expectation, including 28 teams (88%) for which rates were lower. Two teams fell above baseline expectation. The NFL/NFLPA protocols that governed team facilities, travel, gameday, and activities outside of the workplace were associated with lower infection rates among NFL players compared with the surrounding community. The NFL's 2020-2021 season are consistent with the hypothesis that robust testing and behavioral protocols support a safe return to sport and work.

The Relationship Between Patient Expectations And Outcomes Of Injections For Knee Osteoarthritis

PURPOSE: Patient expectations have been shown to be related to outcomes after surgery. The relationship between expectations and outcomes after less invasive treatments, such as injections for knee osteoarthritis (OA), has not been studied. The objective of this prospective study was to assess the relationship between expectations and outcome of injections for knee OA. METHODS: We measured knee injection (intra-articular steroid or hyaluronic acid) expectations using a modified version of the Knee Replacement Expectations Scale (KRES) and Roland-Morris Disability Questionnaire. Patients were re-evaluated at 4 weeks post-injection for pain and disability outcomes. A multiple regression linear analysis was applied to model expectation entry scores; association between change in outcomes and expectation scores were studied through linear regression models, controlling for baseline scores as covariates. RESULTS: Forty-nine (n = 49) knee OA patients completed the study with improvement in knee weakness being the highest symptomatic improvement expected (mean score 4.8/5). Patients had the lowest expectations of pain relief and ability to walk (mean 1.3 and 1.1/5). Multivariate linear regression modeling did not show an association between demographic/clinical variables and global expectation scores. Injection treatment did significantly reduce pain (mean pain reduction 2.3, p < 0.001, and disability (p < 0.001)). Baseline expectation score had a low but significant association with change in pain and disability (NPRS R2 = 0.1, p = 0.056 and R2 = 0.14, p = 0.02). CONCLUSION: Knee injections improved pain and disability in this cohort of patients, and expectations before treatment had a small but significant association with patient reported outcomes. Studying a larger number of subjects and incorporating physical and psychological outcomes may further advance knowledge in this area.

The use of a psychological testing instrument as an indicator of dissatisfaction with aesthetic dental treatment \u2013 a preliminary study

BackgroundThe use of psychological testing to indicate the potential for dissatisfaction with dental treatment has many potential patient and clinician benefits but has been rarely investigated. The study aimed to explore the use of the Symptom Checklist-90-Revised (SCL-90-R) psychological testing instrument in describing the relationship between pre-treatment psychological traits and aesthetic restorative treatment satisfaction.MethodsThirty patients requiring aesthetic restorative dental treatment completed three questionnaires, namely 1) a pre-treatment expectation assessment, 2) an SCL-90-R analysis pre-treatment and 3) an outcome assessment post-treatment to assess patient’s expectations and satisfaction of the proposed dental treatment relating to function, aesthetics, comfort and tissue preservation. Logistic regression models were used to assess the impact of psychological variables on patient satisfaction after adjusting for baseline expectations (P < 0.05).ResultsThe satisfaction for the aesthetic component of treatment was significantly associated with psychoticism and positive symptom distress index. The satisfaction for the comfort component of treatment was significantly associated with obsessive compulsive symptoms, depression and anxiety. Following adjustment for baseline expectation, tissue preservation satisfaction was associated with somatization, obsessive compulsive, interpersonal sensitivity, depression and global severity index. No baseline psychological measures were significantly associated with chewing satisfaction.ConclusionsThe SCL-90-R shows initial promise in assisting clinicians to identify and understanding patients who have a high risk of dissatisfaction with aesthetic dental treatment. The ability to indicate aesthetic restorative treatment dissatisfaction is of great benefit to clinicians in maximising success and mitigating risk.

Natural history clues to the evolution of bivalved gastropods (Mollusca: Gastropoda: Sacoglossa: Juliidae)

Bivalved gastropods (family Juliidae) are a pan-tropical group of small, green, extraordinary gastropods with a symmetrical clam-like shell. Only a single species of Juliidae has been reported in Malaysia, Berthelinia singaporensis Jensen, 2015, feeding on multiple species of siphonous green algae in the genus Caulerpa. In spite of a baseline expectation for megadiversity in this region, including 13 recorded species in the genus Caulerpa from two small field sites studied here, B. singaporensis appears to be a relative generalist without preferences among available Caulerpa spp. that occur in suitable (micro)habitats. The life cycle of Juliidae includes univalve, coiled larvae that transform to bivalved adults. In the presence of Caulerpa, swimming veligers rapidly settle and begin feeding; in a later, terminal metamorphosis, the larval operculum is shed, and the teleoconch shell field splits to form a second, right valve of the adult bivalved form. By three days after hatching, settled larvae achieve a fully functional bivalved shell with a working hinge. Both veligers and adults produce an unusual elastic mucous tether to maintain attachment to the substratum or food plant. These animals are dependent on Caulerpa for their entire life cycle; so, adults occupy environments where dislodgement may be a substantial risk. In the adult, bivalved, form, the gastropod can withdraw completely into its shell and close the valves while maintaining the byssus-like tether. This arrangement, enabling the gastropod to be simultaneously anchored to the food plant and protected within the shell, suggests that being able to use a byssus is the most plausible adaptive explanation for the evolution of the bivalved form within gastropods.

The Influence of Baseline Sensitivity and Expectation on Exercise-induced Hypoalgesia in Young Healthy Adults

The Influence of Baseline Sensitivity and Expectation on Exercise-induced Hypoalgesia in Young Healthy Adults

Detecting patterns of local raw material utilization among informal lithic assemblages at the late Paleolithic site of Shuidonggou Locality 2 (China)

The apparent simplicity and the lack of changes in stone tool production during the Paleolithic in China is often explained by environmental, subsistence and demographic processes that either promoted a casual approach to lithic technological organization or impeded cultural innovation among East Asian hominin groups. This perspective stems from an assumption that complexity in lithic management is solely reflected in formalized core reduction methods, tool typology and/or the transport of non-local raw material types. In this study, by using survey to establish the baseline expectation of local raw material proportions, we demonstrate the differential treatments of locally abundant stone types at the Late Paleolithic site of Shuidonggou Locality 2. In spite of the apparent technological stasis, we observe shifting patterns of local raw material selection and transport during late Marine Isotope Stage 3. Hence our results suggest that, in basic core-and-flake assemblages, technological complexity is expressed in the selection, use and transport of lithic resources, including informal artifacts made on locally available raw material.

The impact of institutions on the competitive advantage of publicly listed family firms in emerging markets

Research Summary: We develop an institutional explanation for the finding that the competitive advantage publicly listed family firms (PFFs) enjoy over other publicly listed firms varies across emerging markets. We propose that PFF performance is contingent on the state of four types of institutions—formal constraining, informal constraining, formal enabling, and informal enabling institutions. We test these ideas with a meta‐analysis of 177 primary studies, situated in 49 countries. Our results show that the competitive advantage PFFs enjoy is stronger when formal constraining institutions are less developed and when suitable informal enabling institutions are present. However, their competitive advantage is weaker when formal enabling and informal constraining institutions are less developed. We conclude that the competitive advantage of PFFs in emerging markets is contingent on local institutional conditions. Managerial Summary: We develop a framework to improve our understanding of how institutions impact the competitive advantage of publicly listed family firms (PFFs) in 49 emerging markets. The framework informs the decisions of PFF owners and managers concerning where to compete and when to invest in distinctive characteristics of family involvement, like a long‐term orientation, familial control, stewardship, and reputational capital. While our baseline expectation is that PFFs enjoy a competitive advantage in emerging markets, the model also specifies in which contexts the competitiveness of PFFs will be compromised. Our framework offers guidance to policymakers interested in increasing the economic contribution PFFs make to their jurisdictions, which they can ensure by developing PFF‐favoring institutions that strengthen the competitive advantage of these firms.

In Asia, Does Airline Service Quality Matter to Investors?

The purpose of this study is to evaluate whether premium services airlines in Asia offer better returns to investors as compared to normal services airlines. To accomplish this, portfolios are created for each airline group and compared against benchmarks in monthly assessments over a sixty two month period ending in October 2017. The benchmarks include the global market and the oil market. The global market offers a comparison to a baseline expectation while the oil market represents a major cost component for the airline industry. The findings point to the premium services airlines as being the superior performing group in relation to the normal services airlines as judged in six cases using various configurations of the benchmarks. These results are further confirmation that in some industry segments, service quality matters. Included is literature pertaining to service quality, loyalty, and profitability. Each of these topics is expanded to show the link between various facets of customer satisfaction and implications on overall company profitability.

Outsourcing, bureaucratic personnel quality and citizen satisfaction with public services

This article investigates the relationships between outsourcing, bureaucratic personnel quality (BPQ) and citizen satisfaction with public services. Our baseline expectation is of a negative association between outsourcing and service quality; however, we argue that this tendency can be counteracted when the government buyer has a more competent and motivated personnel, not only in managerial positions, but across the board. Better‐educated and paid public employees are likely to have an important moderating effect on service quality through their input into quality specifications, their ability to recognize the provider's consummate or perfunctory behaviour, and their willingness to act on the observed performance. Using data from a cross‐section of Sweden's municipalities, our analysis reveals a robust association between higher levels of outsourcing and lower levels of citizen satisfaction, but the data do not provide unambiguous support for the hypothesis that the strength of this association diminishes when BPQ is higher.