A psychological perspective towards understanding the objective and subjective gray zones in predatory publishing

A continued lack of clarity persists because academics, policymakers, and other interested parties are unable to clearly define what is a “predatory” journal or publisher, and a potentially wide gray zone exists there. In this perspective, we argue that journals should be evaluated on a continuum, and not just in two shades, black and white. Since evaluations about what might constitute “predatory” are made by humans, the psychological decision-making system that determines them may induce biases. Considering such human psychological characteristics might shed light on the deterministic criteria that have been used, and continue to be used, to classify a journal or publisher as “predatory”, and perhaps, bring additional clarity to this discussion. Better methods of journal evaluation can be obtained when the factors that polarize journal evaluations are identified. As one example, we need to move away from simply using whitelists and blacklists and educate individual researchers about how to evaluate journals. This paper serves as an educational tool by providing more clarity about the “gray” publishing zone, and argues that currently available qualitative and quantitative systems should be fused to deterministically appreciate the zonation of white, gray and black journals, so as to possibly reduce or eliminate the influence of cognitive or “perception” bias from the “predatory” publishing debate.

Carrying the Burden Into the Pandemic – Effects of Social Disparities on Elementary Students’ Parents’ Perception of Supporting Abilities and Emotional Stress During the COVID-19 Lockdown

The COVID-19 pandemic has posed many challenges, especially for families. Both the public and the scientific community are currently discussing the extent to which school closings have worsened existing social differences, especially with regard to children’s academic and socio-emotional development. At the same time, parents have had to manage childcare and home schooling alongside their jobs and personal burdens posed by the pandemic. Parents’ possibilities for meeting these cognitive and emotional challenges might also depend on the different conditions in families. For this reason, the present paper investigates the structural and process characteristics of the family as well as children’s and parents’ psychological characteristics that predict how parents assess their ability to support their child’s learning during homeschooling as well as parents’ perceived emotional stress caused by school closure. The study analyses data of the Newborn Cohort Study of the German National Educational Panel Study. The two dependent variables (self-assessment of abilities, perceived stress) were measured during the COVID-19 pandemic after the first school closure in Germany, at a time when the children of this cohort were attending second grade. Besides a number of control variables (including the child’s struggle with home schooling), families’ structural characteristics [socioeconomic status (SES), education], process characteristics (home learning environment, HLE), parents’ psychological characteristics (preceding psychological stress), and the child’s psychological characteristics (self-regulation, school-related independence) from earlier waves were included as predictors. The results of structural equation models show that perceived stress was associated with structural factors and the preceding psychological stress of parents. Parents with higher preceding stress reported higher perceived stress. Interestingly, higher-educated parents also reported more stress than lower educated parents during the pandemic. The effect was the other way around for SES – parents with lower SES reported more stress than parents with higher SES. The self-reported abilities to support the learning of the child seemed to be mainly predicted by the parent’s education as well as preceding psychological stress. To sum up, the results identify important aspects that determine how parents handle the challenges of the school closures. Especially, socially disadvantaged families carry their burden into the pandemic.

Improved Random Forest Method for Mental Health Education

There are serious hidden dangers in the mental health of contemporary higher vocational colleges. In order to solve this situation, an improved random forest method for mental health education is proposed. According to the psychological characteristics of higher vocational colleges, this paper briefly introduces the mental health status of Higher Vocational Colleges in school. Message entropy is a concept in message theory. As the leading organization of vocational education, colleges and universities have absolute responsibility for cultural psychology teaching. Put forward corresponding effective methods for mental health education in higher vocational colleges.

Application of Multilayer Neural Network in Sports Psychology

The research on multilayer neural network theory has developed rapidly in recent years. It has parallel processing capabilities and fault tolerance and has aroused the interest of many researchers. The neural network has made great progress in the field of control, especially in model identification and control. It has been quickly applied in the fields of device design, optimized operation, and fault analysis and diagnosis. Neural network control, as an automated control technology in the 21st century, has been fully proved by theories and practices at home and abroad, and it is very useful in complex process control. Sports psychology is a discipline that studies the psychological characteristics and laws of people engaged in sports, and it is also a new development in sports science. The main task of sports psychology is to study people’s psychological processes when participating in sports, such as feeling, perception, appearance, thinking, memory, emotion, and characteristics of will and its role and significance in sports. An important feature of multilayer neural networks is to achieve results that match the expected output through network learning. It has strong self-learning, self-adaptability, and fault tolerance. The multilayer neural network system evaluation method is unique with its extraordinary ability to deal with complex nonlinear problems and does not involve human intervention. This article presents a multilayer neural network algorithm, which classifies the samples of athletes, and studies the physical education training process, the psychological characteristics of related personnel in sports competitions, such as the psychological characteristics of the formation of sports skills, and the psychological training of athletes before the game.

THE WAYS TO IMPROVE THE PSYCHOLOGICAL EXAMINATION OF EMPLOYEES OF THE INTERNAL AFFAIRS OF THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION, EXPECTED TO BE INCLUDED IN THE PERSONNEL RESERVE OF AN EDUCATIONAL ORGANIZATIN

The article discusses topical problems of ensuring the psychological selection of employees for inclusion in the personnel reserve of the internal affairs bodies of the Russian Federation. The sample of the study consists of 47 people: the first group of police officers appointed to leading positions in the educational organization of the Ministry of Internal Affairs from the personnel reserve (n = 25), and the second group of employees included in the personnel reserve of the educational organization, but who were not appointed to senior positions for various reasons (n = 22). In order to increase the effectiveness of the examination of the individual psychological characteristics of employees recommended for inclusion in the personnel reserve of an educational organization, we propose to study them in blocks (potentials), which, in our opinion, will increase the reliability of the data obtained and reduce subjectivity. The authors of the article identified the following blocks: intellectual, leadership, adaptive and executive potential. The article presents the results of a study of the potentials and competencies of employees of the personnel reserve of the internal affairs bodies. Recommendations for improving the work on the selection of employees included in the personnel reserve of an educational organization are presented. An analysis of the psychological characteristics of employees of internal affairs bodies included in the personnel reserve and subsequently appointed to leading positions gives us reason to believe that psychological diagnostics and, in general, forecasting the professional success of police officers requires a revision of existing approaches to diagnostic and prognostic indicators, and possibly and psychodiagnostic methods and procedures

ICBrainDB: An Integrated Database for Finding Associations between Genetic Factors and EEG Markers of Depressive Disorders

In this study, we collected and systemized diverse information related to depressive and anxiety disorders as the first step on the way to investigate the associations between molecular genetics, electrophysiological, behavioral, and psychological characteristics of people. Keeping that in mind, we developed an internet resource including a database and tools for primary presentation of the collected data of genetic factors, the results of electroencephalography (EEG) tests, and psychological questionnaires. The sample of our study was 1010 people from different regions of Russia. We created the integrated ICBrainDB database that enables users to easily access, download, and further process information about individual behavioral characteristics and psychophysiological responses along with inherited trait data. The data obtained can be useful in training neural networks and in machine learning construction processes in Big Data analysis. We believe that the existence of such a resource will play an important role in the further search for associations of genetic factors and EEG markers of depression.

Antibiotic Use in Relation with Psychological Profiles of Farmers of a French Pig Cooperative

(1) Background: We focus on the psychological factors that influence pig farmers’ antibiotic use, which is not exclusively determined by the technical, health and structural factors of livestock farming. (2) Methods: We visited farming sites and asked 91 pig farmers about various psychosocial dimensions that could be considered relevant in explaining antibiotic use. (3) Results: The results indicate the existence of three livestock-farmer sub-profiles, each of which is associated with distinct psychological characteristics and antibiotic use levels. (4) Conclusions: We discuss the implications of antibiotic use for livestock in terms of communication and support.