Living in a pandemic: changes in mobility routines, social activity and adherence to COVID-19 protective measures

Non-Pharmaceutical Interventions (NPIs), aimed at reducing the diffusion of the COVID-19 pandemic, have dramatically influenced our everyday behaviour. In this work, we study how individuals adapted their daily movements and person-to-person contact patterns over time in response to the NPIs. We leverage longitudinal GPS mobility data of hundreds of thousands of anonymous individuals to empirically show and quantify the dramatic disruption in people’s mobility habits and social behaviour. We find that local interventions did not just impact the number of visits to different venues but also how people experience them. Individuals spend less time in venues, preferring simpler and more predictable routines, also reducing person-to-person contacts. Moreover, we find that the individual patterns of visits are influenced by the strength of the NPIs policies, the local severity of the pandemic and a risk adaptation factor, which increases the people’s mobility regardless of the stringency of interventions. Finally, despite the gradual recovery in visit patterns, we find that individuals continue to keep person-to-person contacts low. This apparent conflict hints that the evolution of policy adherence should be carefully addressed by policymakers, epidemiologists and mobility experts.

Leave or Stay: Simulating Motility and Fitness of Microorganisms in Dynamic Aquatic Ecosystems

Motility is a key adaptation factor in scarce marine environments inhabited by bacteria. The question of how a capacity for adaptive migrations influences the success of a microbial population in various conditions is a challenge addressed in this study. We employed the agent-based model of competition of motile and sedentary microbial populations in a confined aquatic environment supplied with a periodic batch nutrient source to assess the fitness of both. Such factors as nutrient concentration in a batch, batch period, mortality type and energetic costs of migration were considered to determine the conditions favouring different strategies: Nomad of a motile population and Settler of a sedentary one. The modelling results demonstrate that dynamic and nutrient-scarce environments favour motile populations, whereas nutrient-rich and stagnant environments promote sedentary microorganisms. Energetic costs of migration determine whether or not the Nomad strategy of the motile population is successful, though it also depends on such conditions as nutrient availability. Even without penalties for migration, under certain conditions, the sedentary Settler population dominates in the ecosystem. It is achieved by decreasing the local nutrient availability near the nutrient source, as motile populations relying on a local optimizing strategy tend to follow benign conditions and fail, enduring stress associated with crossing the valleys of suboptimal nutrient availability.

Is there a G-factor in Hypnotic Suggestibility? Confirmatory Factor Analysis of the Harvard Group Scale of Hypnotic Suggestibility

Individuals differ in their responsiveness to (post-)hypnotic suggestions. However, defining and measuring hypnotizability is contentious because standardized scales, such as the Harvard group scale (HGSHS:A), measure a mixture of general-suggestibility and its increase due to hypnotic induction (hypnotic-suggestibility). Exploratory factor analysis (FA) of standardized scales found them to be heterogeneous; however, the number and nature of latent factors are debated. We applied Confirmatory FA to HGSHS:A scores of 477 volunteers and tested several theory-driven models. Scores were best explained by a bifactor model consisting of a G-factor, tapping into hypnotizability, and three grouping factors, measuring specific suggestibilities, each requiring a unique combination of three top-down cognitive functions: cognitive-simulation, sensory-adaptation, and problem-solving. Structural equation modeling revealed that the simulation-adaptation factor (requiring cognitive-simulation and sensory-adaptation), predicts the other suggestibility factors. These results demonstrate the multifaceted structure of hypnotic-suggestibility and underscore the desideratum for developing a more differentiated scale, focusing on simulation-adaption suggestions.

Psychological Support of Blind and Visually Impaired Teenagers for the Formation of Self-Construction as a Factor of Social Adaptation in a Boarding School

The article deals with the research on the problem of blind and visually impaired teenagers’ psycho-logical correction, development and formation of self-construction. Optical defect influences personality development. Problems of personality formation are inseparable from the questions of social adaptation of children with profound visual impairment. The important aspect of adaptation is personality adaptation to his inner self. In the native and foreign scientists’ works, there are few re-searches on social adaptation and personality formation where the questions of blind and visually impaired personalities’ socialization and formation would be studied. The aim of the work is formation of positive self-construction within blind and visually impaired teenagers as a social adaptation factor through creating and testing of remedial programmes. The article gives the results of the research, conducted in two stages. With the aim of correcting, formation and development of teen-agers’ personality sphere, some remedial programmes were worked out. Positive dynamics demonstrates the effectiveness of remedial programmes on the formation of complex and positive self-construction as a factor of successful social adaptation, successfully implemented in Verkhnepyshminskaya School for five years.

Multiple Intelligences Analysis and Emotional Implications in STEM Education for Students up to K-12

This chapter investigates whether there is a relationship between emotional management and the prevailing intelligence profile of a sample of pupils in the last year of primary education and two years of lower secondary education with respect to their learning in STEM subjects. A questionnaire was designed to collect information on multiple intelligences and the emotional factor. The sample comprised 143 pupils from the 6th of primary education and 2nd and 4th of secondary education classes in a state school. It was found that the pupils with a predominantly logical-mathematical and/or visual-spatial intelligence also scored better on the items related to the emotional and adaptation factor in science classes.