Can a video game with a fictional minority group decrease intergroup biases towards non-fictional minorities? A social neuroscience study.

A critical scientific and societal challenge consists in developing and evaluating interventions that reduce prejudice towards outgroups. Video games appear to be a promising method but a number of falls in the current scientific literature prevents to fully understand the potential sizeable impact of video games on reducing prejudice. The present study investigated to what extent a video game designed to reduce prejudice towards minorities in a fictional society has the potential to reduce prejudice towards non-fictional minorities. Participants played either a recently developed game (Horns of Justice, HoJ) designed to reduce prejudice towards non-fictional minorities or a control game. After playing at home, participants performed two tasks in a lab context. We observed an overall positive effect of playing HoJ compared to the control game on attenuating prejudice towards an outgroup individual. We indeed observed that players of the control game had more midfrontal theta activity, reflecting more cognitive conflict, when they acted prosociality towards the outgroup participant and a lower neural response to the pain of the outgroup participant compared to the ingroup participant. These effects were attenuated for players of HoJ. We also observed that players of HoJ had a higher sense of agency when they decided to help the outgroup participant compared to when they did not help the outgroup participant, an effect not observable in players of the control game. These results are promising as they support evidence that using fictional characters in video game may induce positive changes on non-fictional individuals.

Botulinum Toxins for Aesthetic Facial Injections – A scientific review to support evidence-based best practice.

Botulinum Toxins (BoNT) are complex biological products. Each licensed BoNTA has its own individual characteristics resulting into different attributes, some of them being of clinical relevance. Besides profound anatomical knowledge and understanding of aesthetic principles, the responsible injecting physician should be aware of those pharmaceutical and clinical properties. Especially against the background of new BoNTA formulations receiving approval by the authorities a critical and dedicated discussion on the individual characteristics should take place and the potential relevance on the treatment outcome should be taken into consideration.

Phylogenomic and mitogenomic data can accelerate inventorying of tropical beetles during the current biodiversity crisis

Conservation efforts must be evidence-based, so rapid and economically feasible methods should be used to quantify diversity and distribution patterns. We have attempted to overcome current impediments to the gathering of biodiversity data by using integrative phylogenomic and three mtDNA fragment analyses. As a model, we sequenced the Metriorrhynchini beetle fauna, sampled from ~700 localities in three continents. The species-rich dataset included ~6,500 terminals, ~1,850 putative species delimited at 5% uncorrected pairwise threshold, possibly ~1,000 of them unknown to science. Neither type of data could alone answer our questions on biodiversity and phylogeny. The phylogenomic backbone enabled the integrative delimitation of robustly defined natural genus-group units that will inform future research. Using constrained mtDNA analysis, we identified the spatial structure of species diversity, very high species-level endemism, and a biodiversity hotspot in New Guinea. We suggest that focused field research and subsequent laboratory and bioinformatic workflow steps would substantially accelerate the inventorying of any hyperdiverse tropical group with several thousand species. The outcome would be a scaffold for the incorporation of further data from environmental sequencing and ecological studies. The database of sequences could set a benchmark for the spatiotemporal evaluation of biodiversity, would support evidence-based conservation planning, and would provide a robust framework for systematic, biogeographic, and evolutionary studies.

How relationship and dialogue facilitate evidence use: Lessons from African countries

Background: This article shares lessons from four case studies, documenting experiences of evidence use in different public policies in South Africa, Kenya, Ghana and the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS).Objectives: Most literature on evidence use in Africa focuses either on one form of evidence, that is, evaluations, systematic reviews or on the systems governments develop to support evidence use. However, the use of evidence in policy is complex and requires systems, processes, tools and information to flow between different stakeholders. In this article, we demonstrate how relationships between knowledge generators and users were built and maintained in the case studies, and how these relationships were critical for evidence use.Method: The case studies were amongst eight case studies carried out for the book entitled ‘Using Evidence in Policy and Practice: Lessons from Africa’. Ethnographic case studies drawn from both secondary and primary research, including interviews with key informants and extensive document reviews, were carried out. The research and writing process involved policymakers enabling the research to access participants’ rich observations.Results: The case studies demonstrate that initiatives to build relationships between different state agencies, between state and non-state actors and between non-state actors are critical to enable organisations to use evidence. This can be enabled by the creation of spaces for dialogue that are sensitively facilitated and ongoing for actors to be aware of evidence, understand the evidence and be motivated to use the evidence.Conclusion: Mutually beneficial and trustful relationships between individuals and institutions in different sectors are conduits through which information flows between sectors, new insights are generated and evidence used.

Evidence and gap maps: Using maps to support evidence-based development

Evidence mapping began in the early 2000s and has taken off in the last ten years, notably with the innovation of an online interactive visual Evidence and Gap Map by the International Initiative for Impact Evaluation (3ie) and the different types of maps produced by the Campbell Collaboration. In the CEDIL Methods brief, ‘Evidence and gap maps: Using maps to support evidence-based development’, Howard White, Research Director, CEDIL, describes what evidence and gap maps are, what sort of evidence is being mapped, and the various ways in which these maps are being used and how you can commission one.