It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Monday, February 27, 2023
KIST offers a novel paradigm for social robots
KIST (CollaBot) received the ICSR 2022 best award in the "hardware, design, and interface" category, A robotic library system that understands context and situations is proposed to provide comprehensive services
After competing in the finals with the University College London, which presented Bubble Worlds, the research team led by Dr. Sona Kwak from the Korea Institute of Science and Technology (KIST; President Seok Jin Yoon) presented "CollaBot" and received the best award in the "hardware, design, and interface" category at the Robot Design Competition hosted by the International Conference on Social Robotics (ICSR) 2022, which was held at the Chamber of Commerce in Florence, Italy (December 13-16, 2022).
Previous studies on social robots were primarily based on humanoid robots that understand the context of situations and provide a range of situation-specific services. However, the commercialization of humanoid robots that were expected to perform tasks similar to, if not above, the capabilities of an actual human, was inhibited because the humanoid robot did not function as well as expected. In addition, because robotic products focus solely on a specific function, they are limited in terms of providing a wide range of assistance adapted to a consumer's environment and situation.
To address these limitations, the research team led by Dr. Kwak (KIST) developed a robotic library system (CollaBot) that understands situational context by integrating data collected by various robotic products, and offers context-customized assistance. This system comprising tables, chairs, bookshelves, and lights, provides a human-robot interaction based on the collaborations between different robotic products.
The system environment is detailed as follows: the user's smartphone, door, robotic bookshelf, and robotic chair are all connected; hence, the user can search for and select a book of interest on their smartphone, and the selected book will automatically be brought out from the bookshelf. The chair functions as a ladder by moving near to the user and letting the user step on it or a cart by transporting several books. In other words, in addition to executing its original function, each system component also adapts its function depending on the environment to offer user-friendly assistance.
Dr. Dahyun Kang of KIST, who designed the interaction of CollaBot said that "the proposed robotic system based on the collaboration between various robotic products provides physical assistance by applying robotics technology to the existing Internet of things to create a hyper-connected society. We expect that this type of system that offers practical assistance in our daily lives can pioneer a novel robotics market."
This year's Robot Design Competition at the 13th ICSR was led by the award chair, Amit Kumar Pandey, who participated in the development of key social robots such as Sophia, Nao, and Pepper.
This research was conducted via the KIST Institutional Program and KIST Technology Support Center Program. KIST was established in 1966 as the first government-funded research institute in Korea. KIST now strives to solve national and social challenges and secure growth engines through leading and innovative research. For more information, please visit KIST’s website at https://eng.kist.re.kr/
A chair that alters its functions depending on the situation and context.
Model demonstrations of robotic library
CREDIT
Korea Institute of Science and Technology
Are dual-class shares good, bad, or a necessary evil?
IMAGE: AS DUAL-CLASS SHARE LISTINGS MAKE THEIR WAY INTO ASIA IN HONG KONG AND SINGAPORE, SMU ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR LIANG HAO’S LATEST RESEARCH POINTS TO THE IMPORTANCE OF SUNSET CLAUSES.view more
CREDIT: SINGAPORE MANAGEMENT UNIVERSITY
By Alvin Lee
SMU Office of Research & Tech Transfer – When Chinese consumer electronics giant Xiaomi (小米) listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange (SEHK) in June 2018, it followed the well-beaten path travelled by earlier mainland companies, ranging from high-tech predecessors Tencent (腾讯, 0700.HK) to non-tech companies such as Tsingtao Brewery (0168.HK) and China Eastern Airlines (0670.HK).
While the IPO raised US$4.72 billion in the tech world’s biggest float in four years, it garnered extra attention for being the first SEHK listing with dual-class shares (DCS). Co-founders Lei Jun (89.27 percent) and Lin Bin (10.73 percent) controlled the Class A shares, with each of such shares carrying 10 votes instead of a single vote for Class B shares. The move to allow DCS structures, also known as weighted voting rights (WVR), prompted SEHK’s regional rivals Singapore Stock Exchange (SGX) to follow suit, breaking its heretofore adherence to the one-share-one-vote (OSOV) principle.
The justification for changing a long-held cornerstone of corporate governance was a business one. Charles Li, then Chief Executive of SEHK’s operator, Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing (HKEX), had said six months before the Xiaomi listing, “The market has made it clear they want the Exchange to take action to broaden Hong Kong’s capital markets access and enhance its competitiveness.”
“Hong Kong wanted this reform [because] so-called high-tech unicorns like Alibaba and its spinoff Ant Group wanted to list [on the SEHK], and their founders have this strong preference of holding dual-class shares,” explains Liang Hao, Associate Professor of Finance at the SMU Lee Kong Chian School of Business. “They couldn't be listed in Hong Kong nor Singapore because it was simply not allowed. And all of them went to the New York Stock Exchange, which allowed it.
“Hong Kong said, ‘Okay, we are losing all these deals. Let's make the change to attract more big unicorns from the mainland.’ Given the fierce competition between Singapore and Hong Kong, Singapore immediately followed suit.”
He adds: “It's not clear whether this reactive reform was actually good or bad. If you think about dual-class shares giving more power to the company’s founder, should the founder turn out to be a dishonest person or want to exploit other shareholders, then dual-class shares are bad corporate governance. This is the common belief within the corporate governance literature.”
To D(CS) or not to D(CS), that is the question
To fully understand the costs and benefits of DCS listings, Professor Liang embarked on the MOE Academic Research Fund (AcRF) Tier 2 project titled “Dual-Class Shares in a Time of Unicorns Going Public” in July 2019, and which concluded in September 2022. He explains the title’s reference to “A Time of Unicorns” as a counterpoint to the pre-Google IPO days when DCS listings were associated with family businesses looking to raise money without relinquishing control, an arrangement that raises red flags.
Within the context of tech unicorns, there were two arguments for a DCS structure: ‘founder’s vision’ and ‘long-term orientation’. Google’s 2004 IPO, which bestowed upon co-founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page a combined majority of voting rights despite owning little more than 10 percent of total shares, is often cited as Exhibit A for handing control to visionary leaders to move fast and capitalise on growth opportunities. Since then, Facebook, Lyft, and Pinterest have gone the DCS route. Professor Liang points to long-term orientation as a stronger justification for a DCS structure.
“Whenever you see stock prices fluctuate, you might panic, and institutional investors begin to question the company, ‘What are you doing?’” Professor Liang explains to the Office of Research & Tech Transfer. “In order to please the investor, the company does something to boost short-term returns, but that probably means giving up on some long-term projects [that might benefit the company later on].”
But the central question remains: Do listed firms with DCS outperform or underperform their single-class peers? Given the relative lack of data in Asia-Pacific where SGX has only one DCS listing (financial and investment firm AMTD, stock counter HKB) and SEHK just approaching its fifth year with such companies, Professor Liang examined U.S. data and existing literature in a collaboration with Zhang Wei, Associate Professor of Law at the SMU Yong Pung How School of Law, and former SMU postdoctoral fellow Junho Park, now Assistant Professor of Finance at Myongji University. The answer was ‘Yes’ on condition that DCS listings come with a ‘sunset clause: “Firms with perpetual dual-class stock trade at a significant discount to those with sunset provisions,” the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) wrote in 2018.
Sunset clauses turn preferential shares into ordinary ones after a period of time – usually seven years – or when the owner of such shares dies or becomes incapacitated. Should such shares be sold, the preferential voting rights cannot be transferred. As such, founders who are considering listing their companies with DCS should expect to outperform non-DCS companies post-IPO, but they should be mindful that perpetual DCS are unlikely to be beneficial long-term.
Together with Associate Professor Zhang Wei and SMU postdoctoral fellow Phuong Nguyen, Professor Liang also examined the following question: How will a change in listing rules worldwide, especially in Hong Kong and Singapore, affect investor expectation and the competitive landscape in the technological industries in Asia? He answers that question by looking at two dimensions: the competition channel and the capital channel.
“If investors, on average, favour DCS, we expect the prospect of allowing DCS listings in a market to lower the shareholder value of existing listed firms, as they cannot convert to DCS,” he wrote, articulating the competition channel. “In contrast, if investors see DCS as harmful to firm value, due to governance concerns, we expect investors in listed peer firms to react positively to the potential regulatory changes, as they are better protected.”
As it turned out, share prices of existing high-tech listed firms on SEHK lost ground between 2015 and 2017 when the stock exchange discussed permitting DCS listings, suggesting favourable investor expectations of companies with dual-class shares. But by the time Xiaomi listed in 2018, it became clear that “the regulatory change would enable all tech firms to attract more institutional capital”, and returns of incumbent high-tech firms listed in Hong Kong rose significantly, wrote Professor Liang of the capital channel. A rising tide of institutional capital lifts all boats, but technology firms, both with and without DCS, will benefit disproportionately.
Investors and regulators must decide
Despite these findings, concerns over corporate governance remain front and centre. With Southeast Asia generating its fair share of unicorns in recent years (Carsome, Grab, Bukalapak etc.), the topic of dual-class shares is unlikely to go away. Professor Liang cites former Google CEO Eric Schmidt telling critics of Google’s DCS structure – he owns over eight percent of preferred shares – to not buy its stocks if they do not approve of it; they will simply miss out on the exponential growth that has driven it to become one of the biggest companies in the world less than 30 years from its founding.
“If investors are concerned about governance, they will stop buying a stock, the company will become less and less popular, and over time the company will die out. We call this equilibrium,” observes Professor Liang. “That was what happened before Google’s [explosive post-IPO growth]. But if investors don't care about that, they care more about the benefits, or they think the benefits outweigh the cost, then they’ll just keep on buying Google and other dual-class share companies.”
IMAGE: WITHIN THE COOLING SINGAPORE PROJECT, AWARD-WINNING SMU RESEARCH FELLOW YULIYA DZYUBAN EXPLORES HOW DIFFERENCES IN THE URBAN ENVIRONMENT INFLUENCE PEOPLE’S PERCEPTIONS OF THERMAL COMFORT.view more
CREDIT: SINGAPORE MANAGEMENT UNIVERSITY
By Alistair Jones
SMU Office of Research & Tech Transfer – The life of a researcher is not for everyone, but for Yuliya Dzyuban, a Research Fellow in the new College of Integrative Studies at Singapore Management University (SMU), it's a perfect fit.
“With time, I realised that studying is what I do best and enjoy the most. Research offers opportunities for endless learning,” she says.
“There are always new projects, new challenges, new ideas and evolving methods. I love the fact that I can learn something new at work every day, be it reading a scientific paper, developing a method, or mastering a new tool.”
Dzyuban began her studies with a degree in architecture in her native Ukraine before her academic career was boosted by a Fulbright Scholarship.
“The scholarship opened a world of possibilities for me,” she says. “First, it gave me an opportunity to obtain a master’s degree in sustainability in a US university, which would have been impossible for me otherwise for several reasons. Coming from an economically disadvantaged country, I could not afford studying abroad. [And] a degree in sustainability was not offered in my home country at the time.
“The Fulbright Scholarship exposed me to a community of brilliant scholars and inspiring individuals from all over the world. It widened my network, which helped me in my further professional development.”
That professional development was again boosted recently when Dzyuban was awarded one of the inaugural 2022 SMU Research Staff Excellence Awards for her work within the Cooling Singapore (CS) team — a multi-disciplinary research project dedicated to developing solutions to address the urban heat challenge in Singapore.
Smart urban design
Supported by National Research Foundation Singapore, the CS project began in 2017 and has moved through two stages to reach the present CS 2.0.
“I joined SMU to work for CS 1.5 and carried on for 2.0. All my work is done under the umbrella of the project,” Dzyuban says.
“I explore how differences in the urban environment – such as, the configuration of urban form and presence of vegetation – influence people’s perceptions of heat, behaviour and health. To do that, I design and execute research projects, analyse data, and synthesise and disseminate results through various scientific and non-scientific mediums.”
One of Dzyuban's projects, which caught the attention of the Excellence Awards evaluation committee, is a heat walk method.
“Heat walk, or thermal walk, is a relatively new method that is used in thermal comfort studies to get a better understanding of how pedestrians feel while walking outdoors. I use it to expand the knowledge of how variations in urban form and presence of vegetation influence health and perceptions of heat of pedestrians,” she says.
“To do that, urban residents are asked to walk along a defined route in the city and answer questions in relation to their thermal state. In addition, they wear wrist sensors that measure pulse rate and skin temperature, which allows us to understand the connections between their thermal experiences and body responses.
“Simultaneously, we measure microclimate variables, [and the use of] a mixed-methods approach, combining human perceptions, health and microclimate data, allows us to get a deeper understanding of how to design more comfortable cities,” Dzyuban says.
Thermal perceptions
Another of Dzyuban's noted projects looked at the use of social media to report perceptions of thermal comfort and discomfort when the weather changes.
“For this project we used seven years of weather data for Singapore and Phoenix (in the US), together with Twitter data to explore whether social media can be used for assessment of thermal comfort of residents,” she says.
“We filtered the tweets that included the word ‘weather’, and then classified them into thermal comfort sensations as hot and cold. We found that even though there is only a 3°C average difference in air temperature for Singapore annually, residents were highly sensitive to hotter months.
“In other words, there were many more tweets cursing and complaining about how hot it was. This showed that social media can be an effective tool to gauge public thermal perceptions. Future work could include the usage of geotagged social media data, then we could potentially identify the most uncomfortable areas in the city for more targeted interventions.”
And why is the perception of heat, rather than just temperature and humidity data, so pertinent to CS 2.0?
“Temperature and humidity do not allow a full understanding of how an individual would feel outdoors,” Dzyuban says.
“For example, the amount of solar radiation a person is exposed to, being in the sun or shade, is the most influential thermal comfort parameter in a climate such as Singapore's.
“To account for that we use more complex thermal comfort indices, which allow us to estimate the compound effect of air temperature, wind speed, solar radiation and atmospheric moisture on the thermal comfort of a person. Such an index is integrated as one of the outputs in DUCT.”
Decision support system
The creation of DUCT – or Digital Urban Climate Twin – is the ultimate goal of the CS project.
“DUCT is essentially a federation of models with an online user-friendly interface which allows experimenting with various development scenarios to assess their impact on microclimate and thermal comfort,” Dzyuban says.
“For instance, interested parties will be able to see the differences in microclimate between different shapes and types of neighbourhood parks, differences in building form and height, as well as scenarios related to the implementation of centralised cooling systems and vehicle electrification. It is developed in partnership with Singapore agencies for their future use to assist in science-informed, long-term planning.”
Dzyuban says CS 2.0 is in the final development stage.
“We are finalising data collection, modelling, analysis and scenario development. The CS 2.0 team is working on integrating all the models into a comprehensive decision support system (DUCT) which eventually will be available for use by government agencies and other selected stakeholders.”
And what will come next after CS 2.0 for this dedicated researcher?
“I want to continue my work on developing heat mitigation strategies for cities. I have experience working on projects for some of the hottest cities in the world, such as Phoenix in the US, Hermosillo in Mexico, and now Singapore. They are also very different in their approach to governance and implementation of solutions. I am looking forward to expanding my international collaborations to other locations where my experience can be useful,” Dzyuban says.
IMAGE: NEW RESEARCH TO CREATE TRUSTED AUTOMATION BOTS THAT ACT AS INTERACTIVE ADVISORS FOR SOFTWARE DEVELOPERS WILL HERALD THE NEXT GENERATION IN SOFTWARE ANALYTICS, SAYS SMU PROFESSOR DAVID LO.view more
CREDIT: SINGAPORE MANAGEMENT UNIVERSITY
By Alistair Jones
SMU Office of Research & Tech Transfer – Despite hero moments in movies where fingers clatter at dizzying speed across computer keyboards, not everyone in the real world finds code fascinating, nor algorithms intriguing.
In fact, there is a worldwide shortage of skilled data scientists and software engineers.
David Lo, a Professor of Computer Science at Singapore Management University (SMU), suggests two reasons for the shortfall.
“First, software today is everywhere; organisations, companies, governments and society rely on software,” he says.
“There is increasing demand for new software and upgrades to existing software [which] translates to the demand for skilled software engineers.
“Second, technologies continue to advance at a rapid pace. We see new technologies such as blockchain, self-driving cars, IoT, drones, etc. This advancement increases the complexity of software systems built on top of these technologies.
“This complexity, in turn, increases the demand for software engineers with the necessary skills to handle the different technologies and their interactions. With the rapidly increasing demand for skilled software engineers and the not-as-rapid increase in the number of newly trained software engineers, there is a shortage,” Professor Lo says.
New technical support is on the way in the form of TrustedSEERS, a research project led by Professor Lo, which has recently been awarded a National Research Foundation (NRF) Investigatorship grant. The NRF Investigatorship is designed to support a small number of excellent Principal Investigators with a track record of research achievements that identify them as leaders in their respective fields of research. Since the launch of the Investigatorship in 2015, Professor Lo is the second SMU faculty to have secured the grant.
An acronym for Trusted Software Engineering Expert AdvisoRs, TrustedSEERs will address the shortage of software engineers needed to create and maintain the software that society needs. It will do so by improving the workflow of software engineers and quality of software systems already in the field by creating trusted automation bots to act as concierges and interactive advisors – digital assistants informed by Artificial Intelligence (AI).
Evolving knowledge
The key to TrustedSEERS is software analytics (SA), a research area that has developed during the past two decades.
“SA seeks to automate software engineering tasks [and] has introduced novel and specialised AI-based solutions that analyse and learn from software engineers’ activity data (software artefacts). Much of such data is available on open-source software repositories such as GitHub,” Professor Lo says.
“SA's beginning was fuelled by the high availability of data in closed and open-source software repositories, the development of AI algorithms that make sense of data, and challenges that have plagued software development.
“Simply put, SA processes data to help address challenges faced by software developers and companies.”
One challenge is that software engineering knowledge is ever evolving, and engineers can struggle to keep up to date on the many different technologies.
“There is too much material and information to read. Outdated knowledge, wrong knowledge, or lack of knowledge can affect the quality of upgrades software engineers make to software systems,” Professor Lo says.
“SA can help software engineers by 'digesting' much of the data available in many repositories and making recommendations that can help software engineers in making constant, urgent and trusted upgrades to software systems and applications.”
Engineering data
Even though SA is a comparatively new field, it too needs to update. The TrustedSEERs project aims to bring about the next generation of SA to address mismatches and limitations that Professor Lo has identified in present solutions.
“Software engineers have high expectations of the effectiveness of SA tools’ recommendations before they are willing to adopt them,” he says.
“To boost effectiveness, many studies have predominantly focused on model-centric innovations by designing ever more sophisticated AI models that can crunch ever larger amounts of data – typically from a specific large data source.
“However, there is a limit on how much we can push forward by designing ever more sophisticated models and using ever larger (and noisier) data. Much more improvement can potentially be gained by focusing on data-centric innovations.”
Data-centric innovations involve engineering better data, but what does this entail?
“Better data corresponds to data that is more comprehensive (contains all helpful information and covers all essential cases), is relevant to a task at hand, is accessible (transformed to a representation that is more amenable to AI learning), and is labelled more consistently and accurately,” Professor Lo says.
“For engineering better data, there is a need for novel and effective solutions that can systematically select, label, synthesise, link and transform data from diverse software artefacts and harness them to learn effective SA solutions.”
Finding such solutions is a key focus of the TrustedSEERs project.
Intelligent and trustworthy
Also integral to the project is engendering trust in the automated bots it creates.
“Although trust has been highlighted as a critical component for effective human-machine collaborations, studies on investigating and improving the trustworthiness of SA solutions are limited,” Professor Lo says.
“Two sets of factors may affect a software engineer’s trust in an SA solution: intrinsic (the solution engenders trust by being able to provide explanations for its outputs); and extrinsic (the solution abides by regulations set by external authorities and is robust to external attacks). Both have not been addressed much in SA research.
“Current generation SA tools typically produce recommendations (such as, patches to fix a bug, source code to be written, or a third-party library to use) without explanations. The lack of explanations limits the trust that software engineers have in these recommendations and can hamper the adoption of SA solutions,” Professor Lo says.
The use of open-source software and crowdsourced data is widespread. But do we need to be cautious in trusting open-source software data?
“Yes. Many software artefacts are low-quality (they contain bugs and even security vulnerabilities) or outdated (they are using older technologies that are not optimal),” Professor Lo says.
“The SA solution that we want to build needs to be able to identify such low-quality and outdated data so that the output it produces does not introduce trustworthiness issues.”
The project, which will also consider privacy and copyright issues, aims to champion six new directions in data-centric and trustworthy SA.
“It will be a step towards my long-term dream of realising a symbiotic workforce of autonomous bots and engineers working together productively to build high-quality software for the betterment of industry and society,” Professor Lo says.
Unusual atom helps in search for Universe’s building blocks
An unusual form of caesium atom is helping a University of Queensland-led research team unmask unknown particles that make up the Universe.
Dr Jacinda Ginges, from UQ’s School of Mathematics and Physics, said the unusual atom – made up of an ordinary caesium atom and an elementary particle called a muon – may prove essential in better understanding the Universe’s fundamental building blocks.
“Our Universe is still such a mystery to us,” Dr Ginges said.
“Astrophysical and cosmological observations have shown that the matter we know about –commonly referred to as ‘Standard Model’ particles in physics – makes up only five percent of the matter and energy content of the Universe.
“Most matter is ‘dark’, and we currently know of no particle or interaction within the Standard Model that explains it.
“The search for dark matter particles lies at the forefront of particle physics research, and our work with caesium might prove essential in solving this mystery.”
The work may also one day improve technology.
“Atomic physics plays a major role in technologies we use every day, such as navigation with the Global Positioning System (GPS), and atomic theory will continue to be important in the advancement of new quantum technologies based on atoms,” Dr Ginges said.
Through theoretical research, Dr Ginges and her team have improved the understanding of the magnetic structure of caesium’s nucleus, its effects in atomic caesium and the effects of the weird and wonderful muon.
“A muon is basically a heavy electron – 200 times more massive – and it orbits the nucleus 200 times closer than the electrons,” Dr Ginges said.
“Because of this, it can pick up on details of the structure of the nucleus.
“It sounds complicated, but in a nutshell, this work will help to improve atomic theory calculations that are used in the search for new particles.”
The researchers said the new approach can offer greater sensitivity and an alternative technique to finding new particles, through the use of precision atomic measurements.
“You may have heard of the Large Hadron Collider at CERN, the world's largest and most powerful particle accelerator, which smashes together subatomic matter at high energies to find previously unseen particles,” Dr Ginges said.
“But our research can offer greater sensitivity, with an alternative technique to find new particles – through precision atomic measurements.
“It doesn’t need a giant collider, and instead uses precision instruments to look for atomic changes at low energy.
“Rather than explosive, high-energy collisions, it’s the equivalent of creating an ultra-sensitive ‘microscope’ to witness the true nature of atoms.
“This can be a more sensitive technique, unveiling particles that particle colliders simply can’t see.”
Caesium is having a moment, after being featured in the news recently, as the element in the radioactive capsule that went missing, and was subsequently found, in Western Australia’s outback.
This research, led by Dr Ginges, was performed together with graduate student George Sanamyan and Dr Benjamin Roberts, and has been published in Physical Review Letters.
Maltreatment during childhood is an especially serious risk factor for health problems in the exposed individual, as it brings a host of lifelong consequences. Among the impacts are physical, mental, behavioral, and social ramifications that can continue through pregnancy and parenthood. As a result, adverse experiences during the parents’ childhood can affect their own children’s development and health.
Higher risk of asthma, ADHD, autism, and depression
In the newly published study, a team of researchers headed by Dr. Claudia Buss, a professor at the Institute of Medical Psychology at Charité, shows that health problems are more common in children of mothers who experienced maltreatment themselves as children. The researchers define maltreatment as physical, emotional, or sexual abuse or neglect by a parent or guardian leading to physical or emotional harm or the threat of harm to a child. They analyzed data on more than 4,300 American mothers and their children from 21 long-term cohorts. Mothers reported on their childhood experiences and provided information on health diagnoses in their biological children up to the age of 18, or this information was collected during visits conducted as part of the study. This valuable trove of data extending across two generations of the same family allowed researchers to identify meaningful connections.
They found that children of mothers who reported adverse experiences were at higher risk of asthma, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), and autism. These children also have a higher incidence of symptoms and behaviors associated with depression and anxiety disorders, which are known as “internalizing” disorders. Daughters of mothers in this group are also at higher risk of obesity than their sons. “All of these connections are independent of whether the mother has the same diagnosis,” explains Buss, the study’s lead author. “That suggests that the risk of that particular health problem is not being transmitted genetically.”
First study to cover multiple health outcomes
Researchers have not yet fully decoded the exact mechanisms by which the risk is passed on to the next generation. There are indications that adverse childhood experiences could affect maternal biology during pregnancy, as for example stress hormones. This can affect fetal development in a way that the offspring become more vulnerable for impaired health. There is evidence that biological changes like these are more pronounced in mothers who have developed mental health problems, such as depression, as a consequence of their traumatic experiences. If the mother’s mental health is affected by her childhood experiences, this may also impact on how she interacts with her child once it is born, which is likely to be just as important a factor in these multigenerational effects.
“To our knowledge, this is the first study to examine multiple health problems at once in relation to early trauma in mothers in a large, sociodemographically and ethnically diverse sample. That has been done primarily for individual diseases in the past,” explains Dr. Nora Moog, also from the Institute of Medical Psychology at Charité and first author of the publication. In keeping with this approach, the researchers showed that children of mothers exposed to early trauma are at greater likelihood of developing multiple physical and mental health problems. The risk is also greater the more serious the mother’s childhood experiences were. “At the same time, I should stress that our findings do not mean that all children of mothers with adverse childhood experiences automatically end up with health problems,” Buss says, providing context for the group’s findings. “The risk is elevated, but it doesn’t necessarily lead to a specific health problem.”
Early identification and support for those affected
“I assume that appropriate support for mothers who suffer from the consequences of childhood maltreatment can have a positive effect on their health and well-being and that of their children. That means it's very important to identify these mothers and children early on,” Buss points out. One way to do this would be to have doctors address parents’ own childhood experiences during prenatal or pediatric checkups and provide information on how to contact various support programs or counseling services. This kind of early intervention could help two generations: the parent, who experienced maltreatment and may be suffering from health consequences; and the child, who could be prevented from developing health problems.
Developing new, targeted therapeutic measures will depend on better understanding the exact mechanisms by which the elevated risk of health problems is passed on to the next generation. The research team is currently working on that. The researchers also plan to conduct follow-up studies to investigate which children remain resilient, meaning they do not suffer consequences beyond one generation: What makes them, their mothers, and their social environment different? Beyond that, the father’s childhood experiences have received relatively little attention so far, but there are indications that these experiences can also be passed on to the next generation, albeit in some cases by different mechanisms than those involved in mother-child transmission. The researchers plan to explore these research questions in further detail in future projects as well.
About the study
The international team of researchers analyzed the data of 4,337 American mothers from 21 long-term cohorts with an eye to the mothers’ childhood experiences. They also examined information on health diagnoses in the mothers’ biological children up to the age of 18. The cohort data were provided by a research program named Environmental influences on Child Health Outcomes (ECHO). ECHO encompasses 69 cohorts in the United States. It is supported by the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Dr. Claudia Buss, a professor at the Institute of Medical Psychology at Charité and adjunct professor at the Department of Pediatrics at the University of California Irvine, led the study. She is a principal investigator of a research group within the ECHO consortium and has furthermore received a Starting Grant from the European Research Council (ERC) and funding from the German Research Foundation (DFG) and the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF).
* Moog N et al. Intergenerational transmission of the consequences of maternal exposure to childhood maltreatment – a United States nationwide observational study of multiple cohorts in the ECHO program. The Lancet Public Health 2023 Feb 23. doi: 10.1016/S2468-2667(23)00025-7
INTERNATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR APPLIED SYSTEMS ANALYSIS
IMAGE: CANCER TYPE WITH THE LARGEST ECONOMIC COST IN 2020–2050 FOR EACH COUNTRY (TBL: TRACHEAL, BRONCHUS, AND LUNG CANCER)view more
CREDIT: CHEN ET AL. (2023)
A new study calculated the economic cost of cancers around the world, helping policymakers allocate resources appropriately and enact policies to curb the increase in cancer-related death and disability.
Cancer is the leading cause of death worldwide, claiming the lives of nearly 10 million people every year. The incidence of the disease is on the rise due to population aging, smoking, alcohol consumption, unhealthy diets, sedentary lifestyles, and air pollution. Cancer not only harms human lives but also the economy – it inflicts a huge financial burden on countries through reduced productivity, labor losses, and investment reductions.
The health and economic burdens of cancers are recognized as an urgent matter, as demonstrated by President Biden’s reignition of the Cancer Moonshot initiative, the World Health Organization’s Global Action Plan for the Prevalence and Control of Noncommunicable Diseases, and the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals target 3.4 – reduce pre-mature mortality from non-communicable diseases by one-third through prevention and treatment by 2030. Despite this urgency, the global economic cost of cancers has not yet been comprehensively investigated.
To address this gap and help policymakers curb the increase in cancer-related death and disability, an international team of researchers set out to estimate the economic cost of 29 cancers in 204 countries and territories, covering most countries in the world. The study, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) – Oncology, used a comprehensive modeling framework estimating the macroeconomic cost of cancer in terms of lost GDP.
“Many of the current economic studies on cancer are static, missing out on the future consequences of current loss in labor and treatment costs,” says IIASA Economic Frontiers Program Director Michael Kuhn, who was a coauthor of the study. “Our work is pioneering in the sense that it estimates the macroeconomic cost of cancer using a model that embraces many of the economic adjustment mechanisms, incorporating changes in labor supply due to cancer mortality and morbidity, as well as the loss in capital investments related to treatment costs.”
The study estimated the global economic cost of cancers from 2020–2050 to fall around $25.2 trillion in international dollars (INT$, at constant 2017 prices), which is equivalent to an annual tax of 0.55% on global gross domestic product. The researchers also identified the type of cancers that incurred the highest economic burden with lung cancer leading the way followed by colon and rectum cancer, breast cancer, liver cancer, and leukemia.
The findings further indicate that the health and economic costs of cancers are distributed unevenly across countries, and regions. China and the United States face the largest economic costs of cancers in absolute terms, accounting for 24.1% and 20.8% of the total global burden, respectively. While the majority of cancer deaths occur in low- and middle-income countries, their share of the economic cost of cancers is only about half.
“The four economically most damaging cancers are all amenable to primary and secondary preventions, such as smoking, diet, and alcohol interventions and increased screening,” notes Kuhn. “This reveals the large potential for policy interventions world-wide, which will help to curb the trade-off between the high disease burden and the high economic burden.”
The authors stress that investing in effective public health interventions to reduce the burden of cancers is essential for protecting global health and economic wellbeing.
Reference
Chen, S., Cao, Z., Prettner, K., Kuhn, M., Yang, J., Jiao, L., Wang, Z., Li, W., Geldsetzer, P., Bärnighausen, T., Bloom, D.E, Wang, C. (2022). The global economic cost of 29 cancers from 2020 to 2050: Estimates and projections for 204 countries and territories. Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) – Oncology DOI: 10.1001/jamaoncol.2022.7826
About IIASA:
The International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) is an international scientific institute that conducts research into the critical issues of global environmental, economic, technological, and social change that we face in the twenty-first century. Our findings provide valuable options to policymakers to shape the future of our changing world. IIASA is independent and funded by prestigious research funding agencies in Africa, the Americas, Asia, and Europe. www.iiasa.ac.at
IMAGE: A SKETCH TO DEMONSTRATE OUR MODEL. FIRST, SCIENTIFIC INFORMATION RELATES TO THE DISEASE SPREADS WITH A HIGHER PROBABILITY DURING AN EPIDEMIC, AND PEOPLE WHO RECEIVE IT WILL BE MORE AWARE OF THE DISEASE, BECOMING LESS SUSCEPTIBLE TO INFECTION. HOWEVER, WHILE A MAJOR SOCIAL EVENT OCCURS DURING THE EPIDEMIC, PEOPLE’S ATTENTION WILL BE DIVERTED FROM SCIENTIFIC INFORMATION TO THE SOCIAL EVENT, WITH LOWER PROBABILITY FOR THE SCIENTIFIC INFORMATION SPREADING. PEOPLE ARE THEREFORE LESS LIKELY TO BECOME AWARE, MAKING THEM MORE SUSCEPTIBLE TO INFECTION.view more
CREDIT: JUNHAN YANG, KE-KE SHANG AND BIN YANG.
How major social events affect the spread of epidemic is an important topic that researchers in various related fields pay close attention to. However, previous mathematical models have not accurately explained or simulated the impact of social events on epidemic prevention, the growth of epidemic cases and the spread of epidemic prevention knowledge at the same time.
The research team from the Computational Communication Collaboratory of Nanjing University and the Complex Systems Group of The University of Western Australia, hypothesise that raising people's awareness of disease is one of the most effective ways to prevent epidemic spreading, as it will change people's behavior, better inform them of appropriate protective measures, and thus reduce the probability of infection. Improving people's awareness of diseases requires the continuous and effective dissemination of scientific information related to infectious diseases. However, the dissemination of information related to infectious disease competes with the dissemination of discussion around major social events, as well as the dissemination of information such as false news and rumours.
To understand the impact of major social interference events, the research team proposed a two-layer network communication model that reflects how major social events affect the spread of epidemic prevention knowledge and the growth of cases, based on the SIR model that is renowned in the field of applied mathematics.
Taking the United States as an example, the authors use three real data sets to compare with the model, including the confirmed data of the United States, the topic data of Twitter, and the forwarding of scientific literature on Twitter. The research team found that their model was consistent with the behavaior of all the three data sets at the same time. Specifically, two specific major events explain the trend of the coronvarius epidemic in the United States: the international online agenda setting of Donald Trump in early stage of the epidemic, and, the 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. These events coincided with a worsening of infection in the United States. Research shows that major social events during the epidemic period will lead to the disturbance of scientific information dissemination, and will increase the prevalence of infection. Their theoretical model provides a mechanism for the distraction of attention and dilution of information propagation in response to an epidemic.
Finally, CSIRO-UWA Chair of Complex Systems, Professor Michael Small, pointed out that the model matches both qualitatively and quantitatively the events surrounding the 2020 COVID-19 outbreak in the United States and the concurrent political environment. The model provides a plausible explanation - consistent with data - for the timing and relatively severity of the 2020 COVID-19 waves in the United States. The practical consequences of this are two-fold. First, in a general sense our work provides a cautionary lesson around the effect of distracting from important public health messages, Second, it provides a more concrete way to understand the link between the timing of protective information dissemination and infection. Lessons from this modelling have been used by at least one of our governments to better managed the control of COVID-19 in their own jurisdiction.
See the article：
Information overload: How hot topics distract from news — COVID-19 spread in the USA
(a) Evolution of the popularity of hashtags corresponding to two possible events and COVID-19-related information on Twitter. (b) Competition effect I calculated by popularity of the hashtags of #COVID, #Election2020, #Chinesevirus and #Chinavirus. (c-d) SIR-UAU two-layer network simulated from empirical data, where the information dissemination rate is completely obtained from the hashtags of the possible two events.
