Coal plants are closing faster than expected, governments can keep the exit orderly

by James Ha, Alison Reeve, The Conversation

Credit: Shutterstock

The international climate summit in Glasgow aimed to "consign coal power to history". But while some major coal-consuming countries have agreed to phase out the fossil fuel in the 2030s, Australia is not one of them.

Under its recently released plan to reach net-zero emissions by 2050, the federal government modeled a scenario where the electricity sector still burns coal in 2050—but only a very small amount.

Despite the federal government's insistence on keeping coal alive, the states are making progress phasing it out. But a messy, state-by-state approach is almost certainly a higher-cost outcome for consumers than if Australia had a credible, enduring climate and energy policy at the national level.

As recent Grattan Institute analysis finds, if the phase out of coal is managed well, we can keep the lights on and slash emissions at low cost.

Coal economics don't suit today's grid

Australia exports far more coal than we consume. But we still have 25 gigawatts of coal-fired power stations, 23 of which produce power for the National Electricity Market (the NEM). These coal-fired power stations are aging—two-thirds of this capacity is scheduled to close by 2040.

Market conditions are making it hard for these plants to stay profitable, as renewable energy has flooded into the NEM in recent years. Rooftop solar has dramatically cut demand for grid-electricity in the middle of the day, effectively eating coal's lunch.

On days with abundant wind and sunshine, wholesale electricity prices routinely drop so low they become negative, financially penalizing any generators making power at those times.

What's more, coal-fired power stations are less flexible than batteries, hydroelectric dams, and responsive gas-fired generators. This makes it hard for coal plants to ramp up output when electricity prices are high, or ramp down when prices are low or negative.

The economics of coal-fired generators are simply not well-suited to a system with lots of solar and wind-powered electricity.

Coal stations shutting earlier than expected

Poor economics—combined with higher maintenance costs and increased risk of technical failure—make it difficult to justify keeping aging coal plants open.

So far this year, three coal-fired power stations have had their closure dates brought forwards: Yallourn in Victoria, and Eraring and Mt Piper in NSW.

Faster closure means less coal generation capacity in future years. For example, the early closures of Yallourn and Eraring will reduce the expected coal generation capacity in 2030 by 1.5 gigawatts.

But the current closure schedule would still leave at least six coal-fired power stations operating in Australia after 2040.

As noted by the CSIRO in July, this is incompatible with Australia pursuing the Paris Agreement goal to limit global warming to 1.5℃ this century.

So what are the states doing?

South Australia closed its last coal-fired power station in 2016, and NSW is set to be next with the Mt Piper station due to close in 2040. That leaves Victoria and Queensland.

Victoria's Loy Yang A and B power stations use brown coal, making them some of the cheapest but most polluting plants to operate. Victoria has also legislated its commitment to net-zero emissions by 2050 and, by 2030, Victoria plans to use 50% renewable energy.

Pushing even more renewable energy into the state boosts the odds of the remaining coal-fired power stations leaving. In fact, the owners of each of the Loy Yang plants have hinted that their closure dates will come forward.

Queensland is more complicated, as it has Australia's youngest fleet of coal-fired power stations. Five of them are due to close after 2040.

But of those five, four are partly or fully owned by the Queensland government. That means the timing of their closures is as much a political as an economic question.

Queensland also boasts some of the best renewable resources in the country, including vast tracts of land suitable for renewable energy projects. Combined with its 50% renewable energy target by 2030, the state government has the levers it needs to pull coal-fired generation out of the system by 2040 or earlier.

We need strong, national policy

Grattan Institute analysis finds that a mostly renewable system with no coal—and only a limited role for gas—can maintain a reliable electricity supply while slashing emissions cheaply.

This is because the cost of wind and solar have plummeted, and energy storage such as batteries can help to smooth out daily fluctuations in demand and supply. For rare, sustained periods of high demand, low solar and low wind (which occur every few winters), gas is the lowest-cost backstop solution, at least until the economics of hydrogen become much better.

Achieving this outcome by 2040 or earlier will require significant, timely investment in the transmission network within and between states, allowing states to share their supplies and reducing the overall cost to consumers. Keeping a lid on the costs of transmission projects is also crucial—the risk of cost overruns is higher the more complex the project.

There will, of course, be challenges to ensure an orderly coal exit. For example, unexpected closures or breakdowns of coal plants can lead to shortages in electricity supply because investors in the electricity market don't have enough time to build new capacity.

A national policy to coordinate coal exit would reduce uncertainty for the electricity system.

Grattan has previously recommended coal plant operators nominate a window of time within which their plant will close, combined with a payment of at least $100 million into an escrow fund. The operators' money would be released only if the plant closes within its nominated window—if it exits unexpectedly, the money would be kept by the market operator to deal with any reliability problems.

Governments could also require that nominated closure windows occur before 2040, not after, if they want to achieve a coal-free NEM by that date. Alternatively—and more efficiently—they could establish an emissions standard for the NEM with tradeable certificates, allowing market participants to meet the emissions standard in the lowest cost way.

Unfortunately, current political reality indicates neither side of politics wants to be seen to support any policy resembling a carbon price, even though carbon pricing has the overwhelming support of Australian economists and the business community.

So, the renewable energy targets of the states are most likely to determine how quickly the NEM becomes coal-free. But if governments can muster the courage, our work shows that it's possible to achieve a vastly lower-emissions electricity system in less than two decades.Electricity has become a jigsaw and coal is unable to provide the missing pieces

Provided by The Conversation 

Shopping trolleys save shoppers money as pushing reduces spending, finds new study

by City University London

A standard shopping trolley with a horizontal handlebar—such as you would likely find in a

 supermarket—may result in less consumer spending than that of a shopping trolley with

 parallel bars—like that of a wheelbarrow. Credit: Bayes Business School

Shoppers are likely to save money in the run up to the holiday season if they use standard shopping trolleys, new research has found.

The study, led by Bayes Business School, explores how using the standard shopping trolley with a horizontal handlebar—such as you would likely find in a supermarket—activates the triceps muscle of the arm, whereas using a newly-designed trolley with parallel handles—like that of a wheelbarrow—activates the biceps muscle.

Psychology research has proven that triceps activation is associated with rejecting things we don't like—for example when we push or hold something away from us—while biceps activation is associated with things we do like—for example when we pull or hold something close to our body.

When testing the newly designed trolley on consumers at a supermarket, report authors Professor Zachary Estes and Mathias Streicher found that those who used shopping trolleys with parallel handles bought more products and spent 25 per cent more money than those using the standard trolley.

The findings indicate that retailers are likely to accumulate greater sales and profits by providing customers with shopping carts with parallel handles, while consumers are likely to exercise more control over their spending if they use the standard shopping trolley.

Whereas shoppers using the standard trolley spent an average of £22 in store, those with a parallel trolley spent £29 over the course of their visit—a difference of more than £7.

Interviews found that leading shopping trolley manufacturers had not previously considered using parallel handles on their carts and were surprised to know that the position of the handles was able to impact sales.

This weekend marks one of the busiest on the annual calendar, with Black Friday sales beginning in many stores on 26th November. Statistics show that UK consumers account for more than ten per cent of all global Black Friday searches online this year, with sales forecast to break records and surpass £9 billion over the course of the weekend.

Additionally, following a drop in in-person sales in 2020, because of the pandemic, offline Black Friday sales are expected to grow by 7.3 per cent in 2021, with an estimated £3.4 billion to be spent in stores.

It follows news last week that retail sales rose by 0.8 per cent in October in preparation for the festive season, 0.5 per cent above forecasted projections.

Professor Estes, a Professor in Marketing at Bayes Business School, said: "It is shocking to find that making a small change to the position of handles can have such a large impact on shoppers' spending. Indeed, the handles literally cause us to flex our shopping muscles.

"While Covid-19 heavily impacted Black Friday sales in 2020, we can expect stores to be overrun with consumers stocking up ahead of the festive season this coming weekend, yet it appears retailers are missing a trick if they are to boost their sales even further.

"Conversely, the results of this study may be very useful for consumers, with Christmas just around the corner. If shoppers want to minimize their shopping trips and buy their gifts in one go, they can flex their biceps to pull things into their cart. If they wish to minimize spending, standard shopping carts may act as a welcome and unexpected restraint to keep unnecessary purchases out of the cart."

The research was published in the Journal of Marketing.Amazon says 2020 shopping season has been their biggest ever with big Black Friday, Cyber Monday sales

More information: Zachary Estes et al, EXPRESS: Getting a Handle on Sales: Shopping Carts Affect Purchasing by Activating Arm Muscles, Journal of Marketing (2021). DOI: 10.1177/00222429211061367

Journal information: Journal of Marketing 

Provided by City University London 

Consumer activism poses a threat to brands using damaging ad campaigns

by University of Portsmouth

Credit: Unsplash/CC0 Public Domain

Major brands risk losing wealth and power if they rely on old fashioned ideas in their advertising, thanks to the 'woke' generation calling them out.

A new study, led by Karen Middleton at the University of Portsmouth, found consumer activism against perceived dangerous portrayals of women—or any other group—posed a growing and serious threat to brands.

The study, published in Psychology & Marketing, examined the social media backlash against a KFC television advertisement showing boys ogling a woman's breasts.

Some consumers called it sexist and damaging, others defended it as "just a bit of fun."

The researchers say that in the wake of the #MeToo movement, brands risked losing market share if they brushed off 'socially aware' objections.

Middleton said: "Our findings show how necessary it is for brands to consider the wider impact of their advertising. They are increasingly up against a force of social activism which relies on well-argued rhetoric to call out anything seen as damaging to another group in society.

"Our study examined people's reactions to an advertisement by a global brand portraying a woman in a sexist way, but the same social activism could and often is rallied when advertisements use outdated tropes which are damaging to any vulnerable group, not just women."

She describes 'woke' as social activism on a grand scale.

She said: "There hasn't been a great deal of focus on the power of social activism on advertising, but it appears to be becoming a force to be reckoned with. It's not true that any publicity is good publicity—a complaint against any brand that then goes viral poses a serious risk to that brand's wealth and power.

"Consumers as activists are no longer a wild card; it's evident that the so-called woke generation is exercising its power to hold large and previously unassailable brands or organizations to account. This is a group of socially active and aware people who are increasingly intolerant of transgressions, particularly in relation to social justice.

"There's no longer any alternative for brands—if they hope to avoid being called out loudly on social media for contributing to social injustice, they need to consider the overall impact of what they say and do. If they are relying on old fashioned tropes, it's now much more likely they'll be called out."

Social media has given a global platform to anyone who wants to share their dissatisfaction or even do serious harm to a brand, as H&M, Peleton and Pepsi can all testify.

In each of those cases, the advertisements were swiftly withdrawn, but the costs have been high: Peleton's advertisement, seen by some as sexist, led to an overnight drop in brand value of more than £1 billion; H&M, accused of racism, has since hired a diversity director; Pepsi has been subject to a stream of memes and spoofs on social media for what was seen as a cultural misstep when it used a "privileged, white" model as a peacemaker between civil rights activists and police.

Middleton said: "The effect of social activism on advertising is under-examined. Despite sexism, racism or other offenses increasingly being called out, advertisers cannot turn to a body of research to learn from, and activism is swift and often highly damaging.

"In the case of sexism, as in the advertisement at the heart of our study, it has long been shown female sexual objectification can have a range of pernicious consequences, including the normalization of male aggression towards and belittling of women.

"Research has shown sexist content leads to both men and women having a diminished view of women's competence, morality and humanity. The same sexism applies to men in advertising, too, when they are portrayed as, for example, emotionally unintelligent or unable to control their impulses simply because they are male. These old-fashioned stereotypes do no one any favors."

The researchers examined thousands of tweets, Facebook posts, and news articles in the three weeks following the first airing of the advertisement. They found a well organized consumer protest at the advertisement alongside counter-arguments from consumers who were not offended by it.

Those who were not offended by the advertisement argued that gender stereotyping was 'just a bit of fun,' or 'normal behavior,' or that it was unfair to say to a boy who looks at breasts was committing violence against women.

Those who argued that it was sexist said the evidence had shown that images do influence people's behavior and attitudes. They said brands had a responsibility to be careful not to use harmful stereotypes or perpetuate archaic myths.

Woke washing: what happens when marketing communications don't match corporate practice

More information: Karen Middleton et al, How consumers subvert advertising through rhetorical institutional work, Psychology & Marketing (2021). DOI: 10.1002/mar.21612

Provided by University of Portsmouth 

Pentagon creates new office to probe UFO reports

An image from of US military pilot's sighting of an "unidentified aerial phenomena" that 

 some think is evidence of UFOs.

The Pentagon is creating a new office to investigate unidentified flying objects amid concerns that after broad probes it cannot explain mysterious sightings near highly sensitive military areas.

Deputy Secretary of Defense Kathleen Hicks, working with the US director of national intelligence, ordered the new investigatory body to be established in the US Defense Department's intelligence and security office, the Pentagon said late Tuesday.

The order came five months after a classified US intelligence report on possible alien UFOs came up inconclusive: it could explain some reported incidents but was unable to account for other phenomena, some filmed by pilots near military testing areas.

The new office will focus on incidents in, or near, designated "special use airspace" (SUA) areas strictly controlled and blocked from general aviation due to security sensitivities.

The US military is worried some of the unidentified aerial phenomena spotted by military pilots in the past may represent technologies of strategic rivals unknown to US scientists.

"Incursions by any airborne object into our SUA pose safety of flight and operations security concerns, and may pose national security challenges," the Pentagon said in a statement.

The Defense Department "takes reports of incursions—by any airborne object, identified or unidentified—very seriously, and investigates each one," it added.

The new office was dubbed the Airborne Object Identification and Management Synchronization Group (AOIMSG), the successor to the US Navy's Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Task Force.

It will be overseen by a panel of experts from the military and intelligence community.

A mostly classified official review of UFO reports released in June determined that most of around 120 incidents over the past 20 years could be explained and had nothing to do with unknown or secret US or foreign technology.

But it could not explain some beguiling reports and videos made by military personnel.

Last year, the Pentagon released a still inexplicable video taken by navy pilots of objects moving at incredible speeds, spinning and mysteriously disappearing.

China's July test of a globe-circling hypersonic vehicle that was able to launch a separate missile while traveling at more than five times the speed of sound alerted Washington that Beijing might have technologies the United States has yet to develop.

Evidence on UFOs 'largely inconclusive': US intelligence report

© 2021 AFP

Robots in Europe vote for the radical right

by Bocconi University

Robots in Europe vote for the radical right. Credit: Bocconi University

Exposure to automation led to an increase in support for radical-right parties in Western European countries between the late 1990s and 2016, according to a newly published study byBocconi professors Massimo Anelli, Italo Colantone and Piero Stanig. They find that individuals that, due to their characteristics and to those of the labor market in which they are inserted, are more exposed to the automation shock are significantly more likely to vote for a radical right party. The observed difference in vote for the radical right between individuals at the 25th percentile in terms of exposure to automation, and individuals at the 75th percentile is 3.5 percentage points—a very strong effect if we consider that the average support for the radical right in the sample is around 5%.

In regions with an average difference between high- and low- exposure individuals, such as Lombardy (Italy) in 2006, persons with the highest and the lowest automation exposure are expected to differ by more than 3 percentage points in their probability of supporting a radical right party. Where the industrial composition and the pace of robot adoption induce larger differences in exposure across individuals (for instance, the North region of France in 2002, one of the most unequal/polarized in terms of exposure) the gap rises to up to 6.5 points. In addition, the authors document that individual exposure to the automation shock leads to poorer perceived economic conditions, lower likelihood of having a permanent contract, and lower satisfaction with the government and democracy. Importantly, the relationship between vulnerability to automation on the labor market and support for the radical right is estimated net of the effects of other known correlates of support for this type of party, such as opposition to immigration, traditionalism, or perception of a threat to one's social status.

The study "Individual Vulnerability to Industrial Robot Adoption Increases Support for the Radical Right" is newly published in PNAS.

The authors use data from the European Social Survey and the EU Labor Force Survey. They propose a measure of exposure to robot adoption that combines several pieces of information: the occupational composition of labor markets in European regions prior to the recent surge of robotization; measures of the automatability of each occupation; the skill level of individuals; their demographic characteristics; and the pace of robot adoption in a given country at a given point in time. Professors Colantone and Stanig previously studied the rise of economic nationalism in Europe and had so far highlighted the role played by globalization and import competition. With this paper, they shed light on an additional explanatory factor in the recent success of nationalist and radical-right parties in Europe: robot adoption. As highlighted by Prof. Colantone, although globalization and automation "increase economic growth and contribute to the progress of our economy and society, these are facets of structural change that determine distributional consequences: put simply, winners and losers. This generates a political backlash. In particular, our studies show that the losers of globalization and automation tend to display similar reactions in terms of voting." Yet, when it comes to automation Prof. Colantone sees a silver lining. Indeed, while import competition from emerging markets led to the decline of entire industrial districts, automation has helped firms to develop: "Firms that are adopting robots are the dynamic firms, they are successful, so at least in principle they are producing resources that can be used to finance redistribution policies and the restructuring of regional economies. So, we can be optimistic in that sense."

Robots in Europe vote for the radical right. Credit: Bocconi University

Companies' adoption of robots is partly due to shortages in middle-aged labor

More information: Massimo Anelli et al, Individual vulnerability to industrial robot adoption increases support for the radical right, 

Journal information: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 

Provided by Bocconi University

Earliest evidence of humans decorating jewelery in Eurasia

by Max Planck Society

The Stajnia pendant is decorated with a pattern of at least 50 punctures, creating an 

 irregular looping curve. Credit: © Antonino Vazzana - BONES Lab

A new multidisciplinary study by an international team reports the discovery of an ivory pendant decorated with a pattern of at least 50 punctures, creating an irregular looping curve. The direct radiocarbon date of the ornament yields an age of 41,500 years. This result indicates that the Stajnia Cave jewelry is the oldest punctate ornament known to date in Eurasia, predating other instances of this type of decoration activity by 2,000 years. This finding broadens our current knowledge on the timing of the appearance of decorative objects by Homo sapiens in Eurasia. The study is published in Scientific Reports.

Upon their dispersals in Central and Western Europe by around 42,000 years ago, groups of Homo sapiens started to manipulate mammoth tusks for the production of pendants and mobiliary objects, like carved statuettes, at times decorated with geometric motifs. In addition to lines, crosses and hashtags, a new type of decoration—the alignment of punctuations—appeared in some ornaments in south-western France and figurines in Swabian Jura in Germany. Until now, most of these adornments were discovered from older excavations, and their chronological attributions remain uncertain. Hence, questions regarding the emergence of human body augmentation and the diffusion of mobiliary art in Europe remained strongly debated.

A new study, led by researchers of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Germany, the University of Bologna in Italy, Wrocław University in Poland, the Polish Geological Institute-National Research Institute, Warsaw, Poland, and the Institute of Systematics and Evolution of Animals Polish Academy of Sciences, reports the oldest known punctate ivory pendant found in Eurasia. Its age of 41,500 years places this personal ornament from Stajnia Cave within the record of the earliest dispersals of Homo sapiens in Europe.

Methodological advances in radiocarbon dating

"Determining the exact age of this jewelry was fundamental for its cultural attribution, and we are thrilled of the result. This work demonstrates that using the most recent methodological advances in the radiocarbon method enables us to minimize the amount of sampling and achieve highly precise dates with a very small error range. If we want to seriously solve the debate on when mobiliary art emerged in Paleolithic groups, we need to radiocarbon date these ornaments, especially those found during past fieldwork or in complex stratigraphic sequences," says Sahra Talamo, lead author of the study and director of the BRAVHO radiocarbon lab at the Department of Chemistry G. Ciamician of Bologna University.

The study of the pendant and the awl was also carried out through digital methodologies starting from the micro-tomographic scans of the finds. "Through 3D modeling techniques, the finds were virtually reconstructed and the pendant appropriately restored, allowing detailed measurements and supporting the description of the decorations," notes co-author Stefano Benazzi, director of the Osteoarchaeology and Paleoanthropology Laboratory (BONES Lab) at the Department of Cultural Heritage, University of Bologna.

Aerial view of Stajnia Cave in Poland. Credit: © Marcin Żarski

The personal ornament was discovered in 2010 during fieldwork directed by co-author Mikołaj Urbanowski among animal bones and a few Upper Paleolithic stone tools. Separate short term occupations by Neanderthals and Homo sapiens groups have been identified from the cave's archaeological record. The disposal of the pendant is probably occurred duringa hunting expedition into the Kraków-Częstochowa Upland where the pendant broke and was left behind in the cave.

Similar decorations appeared independently across Europe

"This piece of jewelry shows the great creativity and extraordinary manual skills of members of the group of Homo sapiens that occupied the site. The thickness of the plate is about 3.7 millimeters showing an astonishing precision on carving the punctures and the two holes for wearing it," says co-author Wioletta Nowaczewska of Wrocław University.

"If the Stajnia pendant's looping curve indicates a lunar analemma or kill scores will remain an open question. However, it is fascinating that similar decorations appeared independently across Europe," says co-author Adam Nadachowski from the Institute of Systematics and Evolution of Animals Polish Academy of Sciences.

In broad-scale scenarios on the earliest expansion of Homo sapiens in Europe, the territory of Poland is often excluded suggesting that it remained deserted for several millennia after the demise of Neanderthals. "The ages of the ivory pendant and the bone awl found at Stajnia Cave finally demonstrate that the dispersal of Homo sapiens in Poland took place as early as in Central and Western Europe. This remarkable result will change the perspective on how adaptable these early groups were and call into question the monocentric model of diffusion of the artistic innovation in the Aurignacian," says co-author Andrea Picin from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig.

Further detailed analyses on the ivory assemblages of Stajnia Cave and other sites in Poland are currently underway and promise to yield more insights into the strategies of production of personal ornaments in Central-Eastern Europe.

The oldest Neanderthal DNA of Central-Eastern Europe

More information: Sahra Talamo, A 41,500 year-old decorated ivory pendant from Stajnia Cave (Poland), Scientific Reports (2021). DOI: 10.1038/s41598-021-01221-6. www.nature.com/articles/s41598-021-01221-6

Journal information: Scientific Reports 

Provided by Max Planck Society 

We identified who's most at risk of homelessness and where they are. Now we must act, before it's too late

by Deb Batterham, The Conversation

Risk of homelessness (rate per 10,000 people), unit-level SA3 estimates.

Credit: Batterham et al, 2021

Homelessness is traumatic. It affects not just housing arrangements but whether or not someone can get enough food, feel safe and maintain relationships with friends and family. The physical and mental health effects often persist long after people are rehoused, and the community and government costs are high.

Much of the current response to homelessness is focused on supporting people after they become homeless or just before they do so.

However, to really reduce homelessness we need to prevent those at risk from ever becoming homeless in the first place. It's akin to turning off a tap at the source to prevent a flood downstream.

Our recent research, published by the Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute, gives critical insights into how we can do that.

Who is at risk of homelessness?

In our study, people were considered at risk of homelessness if they lived in rental housing and were experiencing at least two of the following:

• low income
• vulnerability to discrimination in the housing or job markets
• low social resources and supports
• needing support to access or maintain a living situation due to significant ill health, disability, mental health issues or problematic alcohol and/or drug use
• rental stress (when lower-income households put more than 30% of income towards housing costs).

From here, it often doesn't take much to tip those at risk into actual homelessness.

To estimate the number, profile and geography of the Australian population at risk of homelessness we combined data from two sources: the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) Survey and the 2016 Census. We estimated the size of the population at risk at the national and also small area (SA2/suburb) level.

We found between 8.5% and 11.7% of the total population aged 15 years and over were at risk of homelessness. This equates to between 1.5 and 2 million people.

These numbers are large but shouldn't be surprising. In the nine years between July 2011 and July 2020, some 1.3 million people received assistance from specialist homelessness ervices (agencies that provide support to people experiencing homelessness).

Who's at risk of homelessness?

Compared to the national population, those at risk of homelessness are more likely to be:

• female
• Indigenous
• living in a lone-person or lone-parent household
• low income
• unemployed or outside the labour force
• in receipt of income support payments.

They are more likely to identify as lesbian, gay or bisexual, and report fair or poor health.

Those at risk have lower levels of education and are more likely to report difficulty paying bills and rent on time.

They are also more likely to experience rental stress and forms of material deprivation such as skipping meals and being unable to heat their home.

A third have children in their care.

Where are they?

The highest rates (per head of population) of homelessness risk are typically found in remote areas and small pockets of capital cities.

However, the greatest numbers of people at risk of homelessness are located in capital cities on the eastern coast of Australia. These high numbers extend well beyond inner city areas and into the suburbs.

In several states (Queensland, New South Wales, Western Australia and South Australia), high rates of homelessness risk are spread across greater capital cities and regional areas.

In Victoria, however, risk is concentrated in Greater Melbourne.

And in the Northern Territory, risk is highly concentrated in remote areas.

Preventing homelessness in Australia

Our findings suggest Australia urgently needs more rental housing specifically targeted to those on low incomes and at risk of homelessness.

Our fine-grain data on homelessness risk can help state and territory governments, as well as local governments, decide where this housing will be most effective to reduce homelessness risk.

Australia also needs more private rental access programs, which provide ongoing subsidies and financial help with rent arrears to people at risk of homelessness. They also provide advocacy help in negotiations with landlords.

Given Indigenous Australians are over represented in the at-risk and homeless populations, especially in remote areas, we need targeted support developed in consultation with Indigenous communities.

Those living with a disability or reporting fair or poor health are particularly vulnerable. There is a clear role for state and territory governments in ensuring access to health and disability supports, especially for those on low incomes.

Key priorities for the federal government and agencies include:

• increasing the levels of income support payments and Commonwealth Rent Assistance
• increasing the wages for the lowest paid workers;
• increasing funding for the construction of social and affordable housing, and;
• playing a coordinating role in primary prevention policy through a national housing and homelessness strategy.

The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted homelessness can be closer than many think—especially after sudden loss of employment or a health crisis.

Now we know who is at risk of homelessness and where they are, it's time for governments to act.New research reveals impact of homelessness on EU citizens living in BritainProvided by The Conversation 

Understanding the hive mind: What drives crowdsourcing

by Inderscience

Credit: CC0 Public Domain

Crowdsourcing is a method of problem solving that taps the intellectual potential and skills of a large number of people simultaneously, commonly by using the tools of social media and the internet. New research published in the International Journal of Ad Hoc and Ubiquitous Computing has investigated this phenomenon from the perspective of the various influencing factors and incentive strategies used to make crowdsourcing work the most effectively.

Xu Zhang, Zhanglin Peng, Qiang Zhang, Xiaonong Lu, and Hao Song of the School of Management at Hefei University of Technology in China, explain how crowdsourcing has been used in many different settings by companies, organizations, and innovators around the world. For instance, it has been used to guide the development of new products; it has been used in citizen science and data collection; to provide fodder for machine learning applications; for the testing of new software (often referred to alpha and beta testing); and it has even been used in political rallying and in the creative world to nudge performers and producers in a particular artistic direction or to specific places.

The team writes about how crowdsourcing was defined in 2006 by Jeff Howe as "the act of taking a task that is traditionally performed by an employee and outsourcing it to a large and undefined crowd of individuals through an open call."

The team has reviewed the research literature in this field and found that there are numerous factors influencing the behavior of individuals in the "crowd," including enjoyment and fun, monetary reward, peer recognition, skill improvement, self-marketing, a sense of belonging, work autonomy, altruism, and task complexity.

Their work offers related behavioral theories to explain the relationship between those influencing factors and how the crowd behaves when presented with a particular problem to be solved. They highlight the incentive strategies that might be used, from the perspective of both the requester and also the available crowdsourcing platforms. Finally, they discuss the current directions being taken by research and highlight new avenues that might be taken to allow the field to mature.

Study develops framework to help firms use crowdsourcing more effectively

More information: Xu Zhang et al, User participation behaviour in crowdsourcing initiatives: influencing factors, related theories and incentive strategies, International Journal of Ad Hoc and Ubiquitous Computing (2021). DOI: 10.1504/IJAHUC.2021.119084

Provided by Inderscience 

Study shows people who believe in astrology tend to be less intelligent and more narcissistic

Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain

A trio of psychologists at Lund University has found via online questionnaire, that people who believe in astrology tend to be less intelligent than the norm and more narcissistic. In their paper published in the journal Personality and Individual Differences, Ida Andersson, Julia Persson and Petri Kajonius describe their study and what they learned from it.

Over the past several decades, scientists have occasionally put astrology to the test despite logic suggesting there is no possible way for the movements of stars and their relative positions to influence human behavior. To date, all have concluded that the idea is nonsense. Still, millions of people around the world believe that it is a true science. In this new effort, the researchers started by noting that belief in astrology has grown in recent years, possibly as a reaction to stresses such as the COVID-19 pandemic. They then set out to find if there were some traits that were common among people who were willing to believe in a pseudo-science that has no evidence of its usefulness.

They created an online questionnaire designed to identify personality traits and then added those questions to an abbreviated version of the Belief in Astrology Inventory assessment, which was created by a pair of researchers at Rovira i Virgili University in 2006. They also added a short IQ test. They then recruited 264 English speaking adults using Facebook to take their questionnaire.

The researchers found that those people who professed a belief in the powers of astrology tended to score higher than average on narcissistic measurements and also did poorly on the IQ test. They suggest this indicates that people who have faith in astrology tend to be more self-focused than average and see themselves as special people with natural leadership skills, and who also happen to be less intelligent than the average person. They noted that the higher a volunteer scored on the IQ portion of the questionnaire, the lower their chances were of being a believer in astrology.

How many people actually believe in astrology?

More information: Ida Andersson et al, Even the stars think that I am superior: Personality, intelligence and belief in astrology, Personality and Individual Differences (2021). DOI: 10.1016/j.paid.2021.111389

Journal information: Personality and Individual Differences 

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