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Everyday Life Politics and Public Policy

Healthcare applications of predictive algorithms: A possible solution to physicians’ biases?  

Artificial Intelligence has long held the promise of improving predictions in healthcare solutions, a promise which is now becoming a reality in many settings, first and foremost the US, where in the past years many commercial algorithms have received FDA regulatory approval for broad clinical use. Indeed, the application of Machine Learning, a type of AI which allows software […]

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Meet the Experts

Interview to Paulius Yamin: the power of social norms

For the second interview of the initiative “Meet the Experts” we talked with Paulius Yamin, a behavioural scientist with a background in cultural and anthropological studies who researches the possibility of achieving behavioural change by intervening on social norms. He is currently the Managing Director of the Center for Social Norms and Behavioural Dynamics at the […]

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Our Work

We need to drink more! …Water

By Martina Barjaková Summer has officially started in the northern hemisphere and with it, the eternal problem of people not drinking enough water has become urgent to solve once again. We all know drinking water is important for our bodies. And yet, we often fail to drink enough of it. Not because we do not […]

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Our Work

Nudging can be a child’s play…but it’s not!

  A (funny) reflection on the nature of nudging By Francesco Amighetti and Beatrice Del Frate   Nudge interventions take several forms. Sometimes they can be very sophisticated and relying on long and complex empirical studies, sometimes they can be very nice, funny, and easy to implement. Among the nudges of this second kind, it […]

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Our Work

App(lication)s of Behavioral Economics

By Francesco Amighetti and Beatrice Del Frate The core principle that is at the heart of the nudge theory is that “change comes not from the inside, but the outside”, as clearly expressed by Dan Ariely – professor of psychology and behavioral economics and director of the Center for Advanced Hindsight at Duke University. For […]

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Our Work

Good Resolutions and How to Keep Them

By Beatrice Del Frate and Francesco Amighetti Christmas holidays represent a good moment to spend time with family and friends and to escape from routine. After majestic meals and never-ending celebrations, the onset of the new year is always accompanied by a list of desires, very likely the ones we had the previous year. Probably […]

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Our Work

Espresso…What else?

Just start with few questions for coffee-addicted people: how many coffees do you take per day and how much sugar do you usually consume per coffee? We all know that the world divides into two types of people: those who like their coffee natural, and those who like it sweet (sometimes very sweet). If you […]

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Our Work

The Increasing Challenge of Mental Health Problems

The key assumption in neoclassical economic theory is that individuals are perfectly capable of taking rational decisions, translated into the homo economicus ideal-type. But what happens if individuals are not in perfect health and have their decision-making process threatened? Lately, much has been discussed about the rise in mental health issues, especially among youngsters. In […]

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Our Work

Nudges for a healthy lifestyle – Part II

In the article “Nudges for a healthy lifestyle – Part I”, we talked about the nudges created by governments around the world related to improving people´s lifestyles. If you wonder why governments care about lifestyles of their citizens, the reason is mainly money. Unhealthy diet, frequent consumption of addictive substances (mainly alcohol or tobacco), and lack […]

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Our Work

Attractive names of meals for healthier diets of children

Carrots or French fries? Fruit salad or a chocolate bar? These are the dilemmas that children face when choosing their meals in school lunchrooms. From convincing them that veggies will give them superpowers to ominous threats of what will happen to their bodies if they don’t eat healthy, there are few options left unexplored on how […]