Community initiative increases teenage use of effective contraception

Study finds that teenagers utilize Long-Acting Reversible Contraception (LARC) at a rate five times higher than the United States as a whole.

Date:July 9, 2020

Source:University of Rochester Medical Center

A new study published in the American Journal of Obstetrics & Gynecology shows that a University of Rochester Medical Center (URMC) community outreach initiative has helped adolescents in Rochester adopt long-acting reversible contraception (LARC) at a rate far higher than the U.S. overall.

The study, "Impact of the Rochester LARC Initiative on Adolescents' Utilization of Long-Acting Reversible Contraception," used Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System data from the years 2013, 2015, and 2017 for Rochester, New York City, New York State, and the U.S. overall. These years cover the time before and after the Initiative began in 2014.

The study found that usage of LARC among sexually active high school females in Rochester increased from 4 to 24 percent from 2013-2017, compared to an increase from 2.7 to 5.3 percent in New York City, 1.5 to 4.8 percent in New York State, and 1.8 to 5.3 percent in the U.S. overall.

The Greater Rochester LARC Initiative was started six years ago by the Hoekelman Center for Health Beyond Medicine, a unit of the URMC Department of Pediatrics that connects doctors with non-profits to benefit kids and adults by making communities healthier places to live. Primarily funded by the Greater Rochester Health Foundation, the Initiative aims to increase access to highly effective methods of birth control, including intrauterine devices and contraceptive implants (LARCs) for adolescents in Rochester.

Andrew Aligne, M.D., M.P.H., director of the Hoekelman Center, and his team have led the community effort to promote LARC by conducting outreach to local organizations that work with youth. They employ a simple "lunch-and-learn" approach to disseminate accurate information that forms the backbone of the Hoekelman Center's advocacy work.

"An interesting aspect of the LARC project is that we talk to adults, not to teens. We work with our community partners to teach adults about birth control. This way, they can help teens to make well-informed choices about preventing unintended pregnancy," says Jessica VanScott, M.P.H., the LARC Initiative's health project coordinator.

Through their research with area teens, the LARC project team found that many were interested in learning about birth control, and that they often asked their most trusted peers and adults for advice.

"If teens are learning outside the medical setting from trusted youths and adults, then how do we increase the likelihood that anyone they talk to will share accurate information? We thought it could help if we gave resources with useful information to adults who work with teens in the community," said Aligne, associate professor of Pediatrics at URMC.

So far, the team has presented to more than 2,700 adults in health care settings, as well as those in community settings such as staff of after-school programs. The talks provide information about the safety, efficacy, and availability of LARC, with the goal of improving knowledge and access at the community level.

This approach is different from previous attempts to disseminate information about LARC. Typically, past outreach efforts have focused on targeting primary care providers or utilizing advertising resources to raise awareness. The Hoekelman Center's community-based approach achieved strong results because few of these community organizations had ground-level information available about LARC, according to Aligne.

"Almost nobody knew that the LARC program was free and covered by Medicaid," said Aligne. 26 states offer reimbursement for LARC under the Medicaid Family-Planning Benefit -- included as part of the Medicaid expansion in the Affordable Care Act (ACA) -- and Aligne believes these states could scale-up the Hoekelman Center's model to raise awareness as well.

Studies have shown that unintended teen pregnancy can lead to a number of critical health and social problems for young parents and their children: low birth weight, unemployment, school failure, and many other serious issues. Because of these risks, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has declared teen pregnancy a national public health priority, and the CDC -- along with the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists -- recommends LARC as a safe and highly effective method of pregnancy prevention for adolescents seeking contraception.

"LARCs are more effective than pills, patches, and other contraceptives because they remain in place all the time," said Katherine Greenberg, M.D., an adolescent medicine specialist at UR Medicine's Golisano Children's Hospital. "Today's LARCs are safe, effective, invisible, and can be easily removed with no lingering effects when you decide to become pregnant." LARC methods protect against pregnancy for up to three to 12 years, can be removed at any time, and are 40 times more effective for teens than the traditional birth control pill.

The Hoekelman Center's efforts are bolstered by an extensive network of local agencies, including the Initiative's core partners: the Metro Council for Teen Potential, Healthy Baby Network, Highland Family Planning, and Planned Parenthood of Central and Western New York.

"As we strive to fulfill our mission to pursue and invest in solutions that build a healthier region where all people can thrive, we are proud to support the LARC Initiative at URMC, and celebrate its successes," said Matthew Kuhlenbeck, president and CEO of the Greater Rochester Health Foundation.

"The LARC project team takes a proactive, practical approach in its efforts to help reduce teen pregnancy by sharing information and increasing awareness of options, and we are especially grateful for the collaboration among URMC and community partners who are working together to address this challenge."

LARC services have continued during COVID-19, and access expanded at an increasing number of primary care practices serving teens and young adults throughout the Finger Lakes region during the last year, thanks to Accountable Health Partners (AHP), URMC's clinically integrated network of hospitals and physicians. In partnership with the Hoekelman Center team, and funded by a grant from the Finger Lakes Performing Provider System (FLPPS), AHP has promoted training in both reproductive counseling and LARC placement for primary care providers in order to further reduce access barriers for patients.

"The LARC Initiative demonstrates true collaboration between health care and community and is a significant population health success for our region," said Laura Jean Shipley, M.D., professor of clinical pediatrics, vice chair for Population and Behavioral Health at URMC and associate medical director at AHP.

Journal Reference:
C. Andrew Aligne, Rachael Phelps, Jessica L. VanScott, Sarah A. Korones, Katherine B. Greenberg. Impact of the Rochester LARC Initiative on adolescents’ utilization of long-acting reversible contraception. American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology, 2020; 222 (4): S890.e1 DOI: 10.1016/j.ajog.2020.01.029

University of Rochester Medical Center. "Community initiative increases teenage use of effective contraception." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 9 July 2020. .

Ways to keep buildings cool with improved super white paints

Materials scientists have demonstrated ways to make super white paint that reflects as much as 98% of incoming heat from the sun. The advance shows practical pathways for designing paints that, if used on rooftops and other parts of a building, could significantly reduce cooling costs, beyond what standard white 'cool-roof' paints can achieve.

Date:July 9, 2020

Source:University of California - Los Angeles

A research team led by UCLA materials scientists has demonstrated ways to make super white paint that reflects as much as 98% of incoming heat from the sun. The advance shows practical pathways for designing paints that, if used on rooftops and other parts of a building, could significantly reduce cooling costs, beyond what standard white 'cool-roof' paints can achieve.

The findings, published online in Joule, are a major and practical step towards keeping buildings cooler by passive daytime radiative cooling -- a spontaneous process in which a surface reflects sunlight and radiates heat into space, cooling down to potentially sub-ambient temperatures. This can lower indoor temperatures and help cut down on air conditioner use and associated carbon dioxide emissions.

"When you wear a white T-shirt on a hot sunny day, you feel cooler than if you wore one that's darker in color -- that's because the white shirt reflects more sunlight and it's the same concept for buildings," said Aaswath Raman, an assistant professor of materials science and engineering at UCLA Samueli School of Engineering, and the principal investigator on the study. "A roof painted white will be cooler inside than one in a darker shade. But those paints also do something else: they reject heat at infrared wavelengths, which we humans cannot see with our eyes. This could allow buildings to cool down even more by radiative cooling."

The best performing white paints currently available typically reflect around 85% of incoming solar radiation. The remainder is absorbed by the chemical makeup of the paint. The researchers showed that simple modifications in a paint's ingredients could offer a significant jump, reflecting as much as 98% of incoming radiation.

Current white paints with high solar reflectance use titanium oxide. While the compound is very reflective of most visible and near-infrared light, it also absorbs ultraviolet and violet light. The compound's UV absorption qualities make it useful in sunscreen lotions, but they also lead to heating under sunlight -- which gets in the way of keeping a building as cool as possible.

The researchers examined replacing titanium oxide with inexpensive and readily available ingredients such as barite, which is an artist's pigment, and powered polytetrafluoroethylene, better known as Teflon. These ingredients help paints reflect UV light. The team also made further refinements to the paint's formula, including reducing the concentration of polymer binders, which also absorb heat.

"The potential cooling benefits this can yield may be realized in the near future because the modifications we propose are within the capabilities of the paint and coatings industry," said UCLA postdoctoral scholar Jyotirmoy Mandal, a Schmidt Science Fellow working in Raman's research group and the co-corresponding author on the research.

Beyond the advance, the authors suggested several long-term implications for further study, including mapping where such paints could make a difference, studying the effect of pollution on radiative cooling technologies, and on a global scale, if they could make a dent on the earth's own ability to reflect heat from the sun.

The researchers also noted that many municipalities and governments, including the state of California and New York City, have started to encourage cool-roof technologies for new buildings.

"We hope that the work will spur future initiatives in super-white coatings for not only energy savings in buildings, but also mitigating the heat island effects of cities, and perhaps even showing a practical way that, if applied on a massive, global scale could affect climate change," said Mandal, who has studied cooling paint technologies for several years. "This would require a collaboration among experts in diverse fields like optics, materials science and meteorology, and experts from the industry and policy sectors."

Journal Reference:
Jyotirmoy Mandal, Yuan Yang, Nanfang Yu, Aaswath P. Raman. Paints as a Scalable and Effective Radiative Cooling Technology for Buildings. Joule, 2020; DOI: 10.1016/j.joule.2020.04.010

University of California - Los Angeles. "Ways to keep buildings cool with improved super white paints." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 9 July 2020.

Turning faces into thermostats: Autonomous HVAC system could provide more comfort with less energy

As lockdown requirements ease, COVID-19 is changing the way we use indoor spaces. That presents challenges for those who manage those spaces, from homes to offices and factories.

Date:June 16, 2020

Source:University of Michigan

As lockdown requirements ease, COVID-19 is changing the way we use indoor spaces. That presents challenges for those who manage those spaces, from homes to offices and factories.

Not least among these challenges is heating and cooling, which is the largest consumer of energy in American homes and commercial buildings. There's a need for smarter, more flexible climate control that keeps us comfortable without heating and cooling entire empty buildings.

Now, a group of researchers at the University of Michigan has developed a solution that could provide more efficient, more personalized comfort, completely doing away with the wall-mounted thermostats we're accustomed to. Human Embodied Autonomous Thermostat, or "HEAT," is detailed in a study published in the July 2020 issue of Building and Environment.

The system pairs thermal cameras with three-dimensional video cameras to measure whether occupants are hot or cold by tracking their facial temperature. It then feeds the temperature data to a predictive model, which compares it with information about occupants' thermal preferences.

Finally, the system determines the temperature that will keep the largest number of occupants comfortable with minimum energy expenditure. The new study shows how the system can effectively and efficiently maintain the comfort of 10 occupants in a lab setting.

"COVID presents a variety of new climate control challenges, as buildings are occupied less consistently and people struggle to stay comfortable while wearing masks and other protective gear," said project principal investigator and study co-author Carol Menassa, associate professor of civil and environmental engineering.

"HEAT could provide an unobtrusive way to maximize comfort while using less energy. The key innovation here is that we're able to measure comfort without requiring users to wear any detection devices and without the need for a separate camera for each occupant."

HEAT works a bit like today's internet-enabled learning thermostats. When it's newly installed, occupants teach the system about their preferences by periodically giving it feedback from their smartphones on a three-point scale: "too hot," "too cold" or "comfortable." After a few days, HEAT learns their preferences and operates independently.

The research team is working with power company Southern Power to begin testing HEAT in its Alabama offices, where test cameras will be mounted on tripods in the corners of rooms. Menassa explains that cameras would be placed less obtrusively in a permanent installation. The cameras collect temperature data without identifying individuals, and all footage is deleted immediately after processing, usually within a few seconds.

A second test, also with Southern Power, will place the system in an Alabama community of newly constructed smart homes. The team estimates that they could have a residential system on the market within the next five years.

Facial temperature is a good predictor of comfort, Menassa said. When we're too hot, the blood vessels expand to radiate additional heat, raising facial temperature; when we're too cold, they constrict, cooling the face. While earlier iterations of the system also used body temperature to predict comfort, they required users to wear wristbands that measured body temperature directly, and to provide frequent feedback about their comfort level.

"The cameras we're using are common and inexpensive, and the model works very well in a residential context," said study co-author Vineet Kamat, U-M professor of civil and environmental engineering, and electrical engineering and computer science. "Internet-enabled thermostats that detect you and learn from you have sort of built a platform for the next phase, where there's no visible thermostat at all."

HEAT's predictive model was built by U-M industrial operations and engineering associate professor Eunshin Byon, who is also an author on the study. She believes that tweaks to the model could make the system useful in applications beyond homes and offices -- in hospitals, for example, where care providers struggle to stay comfortable under masks and other protective equipment.

"The COVID-19 pandemic requires nurses and other hospital workers to wear a lot of protective gear, and they've struggled to stay comfortable in the fast-faced hospital environment," Byon said. "The HEAT system could be adapted to help them stay comfortable by adjusting room temperature or even by signaling to them when they need to take a break."

In partnership with the U-M school of nursing, Menassa's research group has already conducted a pilot study that explored how the system can be used to provide personalized thermal comfort for nurses working in healthcare environments such as chemotherapy administration units.

Journal Reference:
Da Li, Carol C. Menassa, Vineet R. Kamat, Eunshin Byon. HEAT - Human Embodied Autonomous Thermostat. Building and Environment, 2020; 178: 106879 DOI: 10.1016/j.buildenv.2020.106879

University of Michigan. "Turning faces into thermostats: Autonomous HVAC system could provide more comfort with less energy." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 16 June 2020. .

CT of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) versus CT of influenza virus pneumonia

A new article investigating the differences in CT findings between coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pneumonia and influenza virus pneumonia found that most lesions from COVID-19 were located in the peripheral zone and close to the pleura, whereas influenza virus was more prone to show mucoid impaction and pleural effusion. The more important role of CT during the present pandemic is in finding lesions and evaluating the effects of treatment.

Date:July 9, 2020   Source:American Roentgen Ray Society

An open-access American Journal of Roentgenology (AJR) article investigating the differences in CT findings between coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pneumonia and influenza virus pneumonia found that most lesions from COVID-19 were located in the peripheral zone and close to the pleura, whereas influenza virus was more prone to show mucoid impaction and pleural effusion.

"However," lead author Liaoyi Lin of China's First Affiliated Hospital of Wenzhou Medical University cautioned, "differentiating between COVID-19 pneumonia and influenza virus pneumonia in clinical practice remains difficult."

A total of 97 patients (49 women, 48 men) were enrolled in this study. Of them, 52 patients (29 men, 23 women; age range, 21-73 years) had COVID-19 pneumonia; 45 patients (26 women, 19 men; age range, 15-76 years) had influenza virus pneumonia (28, influenza A; 17, influenza B). All patients had positive nucleic acid testing results for the respective viruses, as well as complete clinical data and CT images.

According to Lin and colleagues: "Between the group of patients with COVID-19 pneumonia and the group of patients with influenza virus pneumonia, the largest lesion close to the pleura (i.e., no pulmonary parenchyma between the lesion and the pleura), mucoid impaction, presence of pleural effusion, and axial distribution showed statistical difference (p < 0.05)."

Meanwhile, Lin et al. noted that the properties of the largest lesion, presence of ground-glass opacities, consolidation, mosaic attenuation, bronchial wall thickening, centrilobular nodules, interlobular septal thickening, crazy paving pattern, air bronchogram, unilateral or bilateral distribution, and longitudinal distribution did not show significant differences (p > 0.05).

Additionally, the authors observed no significant difference (p > 0.05) in CT score, length of the largest lesion, mean density, volume, or mass of the lesions between the two groups.

Because the CT manifestations of COVID-19 and influenza virus so often overlap, "even with the characteristics evaluated using AI software," Lin et al. wrote, "no significant differences were detected."

Thus, the authors of this AJR article concluded that the more important role of CT during the present pandemic is in finding lesions and evaluating the effects of treatment.

Journal Reference:
Liaoyi Lin, Gangze Fu, Shuangli Chen, Jiejie Tao, Andan Qian, Yunjun Yang, Meihao Wang. CT Manifestations of Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19) Pneumonia and Influenza Virus Pneumonia: A Comparative Study. American Journal of Roentgenology, 2020; 1 DOI: 10.2214/AJR.20.23304

American Roentgen Ray Society. "CT of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) versus CT of influenza virus pneumonia." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 9 July 2020. .

Time to get real on the power of positive thinking

Positive thinking has long been extolled as the route to happiness, but it might be time to ditch the self-help books after a new study shows that realists enjoy a greater sense of long-term wellbeing than optimists.

Date:July 7, 2020 Source:University of Bath

Positive thinking has long been extolled as the route to happiness, but it might be time to ditch the self-help books after a new study shows that realists enjoy a greater sense of long-term wellbeing than optimists.

Researchers from the University of Bath and London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) studied people's financial expectations in life and compared them to actual outcomes over an 18-year period. They found that when it comes to the happiness stakes, overestimating outcomes was associated with lower wellbeing than setting realistic expectations.

The findings point to the benefits of making decisions based on accurate, unbiased assessments. They bring in to question the 'power of positive thinking' which frames optimism as a self-fulfilling prophecy, whereby believing in success delivers it, along with immediate happiness generated by picturing a positive future.

Negative thinking should not replace positive thinking though. Pessimists also fared badly compared to realists, undermining the view that low expectations limit disappointment and present a route to contentment.

Their numbers are dwarfed though by the number of people -- estimated to be 80 percent of the population -- who can be classed as unrealistic optimists. These people tend to overestimate the likelihood that good things will happen and underestimate the possibility of bad things. High expectations set them up for large doses of destructive disappointment.

"Plans based on inaccurate beliefs make for poor decisions and are bound to deliver worse outcomes than would rational, realistic beliefs, leading to lower well-being for both optimists and pessimists. Particularly prone to this are decisions on employment, savings and any choice involving risk and uncertainty," explains Dr Chris Dawson, Associate Professor in Business Economics in Bath's School of Management.

"I think for many people, research that shows you don't have to spend your days striving to think positively might come as a relief. We see that being realistic about your future and making sound decisions based on evidence can bring a sense of well-being, without having to immerse yourself in relentless positivity."

The results could also be due to counteracting emotions, say the researchers. For optimists, disappointment may eventually overwhelm the anticipatory feelings of expecting the best, so happiness starts to fall. For pessimists, the constant dread of expecting the worst may overtake the positive emotions from doing better than expected.

In the context of the Covid-19 crisis the researchers highlight that optimists and pessimists alike make decisions based on biased expectations: not only can this lead to bad decision making but also a failure to undertake suitable precautions to potential threats.

"Optimists will see themselves as less susceptible to the risk of Covid-19 than others and are therefore less likely to take appropriate precautionary measures. Pessimists, on the other hand, may be tempted to never leave their houses or send their children to school again. Neither strategy seems like a suitable recipe for well-being. Realists take measured risks based on our scientific understanding of the disease," said co-author Professor David de Meza from LSE's Department of Management.

Published in the American journal Personality & Social Psychology Bulletin the, findings are based on analysis from the British Household Panel Survey -- a major UK longitudinal survey -- tracking 1,600 individuals annually over 18 years.

To investigate whether optimists, pessimists or realists have the highest long-term well-being the researchers measured self-reported life satisfaction and psychological distress. Alongside this, they measured participants' finances and their tendency to have over- or under-estimated them.

Journal Reference:
David de Meza, Chris Dawson. Neither an Optimist Nor a Pessimist Be: Mistaken Expectations Lower Well-Being. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 2020; 014616722093457 DOI: 10.1177/0146167220934577

University of Bath. "Time to get real on the power of positive thinking." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 7 July 2020. .

Socio-economic, environmental impacts of COVID-19 quantified

Holistic study charts effects of the coronavirus on sectors and regions globally

How is COVID-19 impacting people and the planet and what are the implications for a post-pandemic world? A new study quantifies the socio-economic losses and environmental gains.

Date:July 10, 2020

Source:University of Sydney

The first comprehensive study of the pandemic shows consumption losses amount to more than US$3.8 trillion, triggering full-time equivalent job losses of 147 million and the biggest-ever drop in greenhouse gas emissions.

The international group of researchers, using a global and highly detailed model, found that most directly hit was the travel sector and regions of Asia, Europe, the United States, with cascading multiplier effects across the entire world economy because of globalisation.

The loss of connectivity imposed to prevent the virus spreading triggers an economic 'contagion', causing major disruptions to trade, tourism, energy and finance sectors, while easing environmental pressures most in some of the hardest-hit areas.

This study focuses on 'live' data to 22 May (with the exception of air travel, for which only a 12-month forecast exists), differing from most assessments of the economic impacts of the pandemic based on scenario analyses and/or projections -- and it is the first to provide an overview of the combined economic, social and environmental impacts, including indirect effects, of the coronavirus.

The findings publish today in the international scientific journal PLOS ONE.

Key Reductions
Consumption: US$3.8 trillion (4.2 percent ~ GDP of Germany)
Jobs: 147m (4.2 percent of the global workforce)
Income from wages and salaries: $2.1 trillion (6 percent)
Most directly hit: US, China (mainland), air transport and related tourism
Greenhouse gas emissions: 2.5Gt (4.6 percent) -- larger than any drop in human history*
Other atmospheric emissions -- PM2.5: Dangerously fine particulate matter emissions fall 0.6 Mt (3.8 percent); SO2 & NOx: Sulfur dioxide emissions from burning fossil fuels -- which has been linked to asthma and chest tightness -- and emissions from nitrogen oxide -- from fuel combustion, for example, driving cars -- fall 5.1 Mt (2.9 percent).

Corresponding author Dr Arunima Malik, from Integrated Sustainability Analysis (ISA) and University of Sydney Business School, said the experience of previous financial shocks showed that, without structural change, environmental gains were unlikely to be sustained during economic recovery.

"We are experiencing the worst economic shock since the Great Depression, while at the same time we have experienced the greatest drop in greenhouse gas emissions since the burning of fossil fuels began," Dr Malik said.

"In addition to the sudden drop in climate-change inducing greenhouse gasses, prevented deaths from air pollution are of major significance.

"The contrast between the socio-economic and the environmental variables reveals the dilemma of the global socio-economic system -- our study highlights the interconnected nature of international supply chains, with observable global spillover effects across a range of industry sectors, such as manufacturing, tourism and transport."

The University of Sydney Vice-Chancellor Dr Michael Spence said it was wonderful to see significant applications come to life through a collaborative platform seeded a decade ago with University of Sydney funding.

"Thanks to pioneering work here at Sydney in collaboration with other world leaders in footprinting, it's now possible to simulate the world economy quickly and accurately to see how society and the environment are impacted by changes in our consumption," Dr Spence said.

"This research was conducted in the cloud-based Global MRIO Lab and it is these sorts of global, multidisciplinary collaborations that will help us tackle the complex issues of our time."

Research Using the Global MRIO Lab

To chart the world economy and post-disaster impacts using global multi-regional input-output (MRIO) analysis or GMRIO, researchers worked in the open-source Global MRIO Lab. This customisable database is an extension of the Australian Industrial Ecology Lab (IE Lab) led by the University of Sydney.

The advancement of GMRIO has underpinned the increasing popularity and uptake of so-called consumption-based accounting, or footprinting, which avoids loopholes such as 'carbon leakage' where pollution is externalised to the producers, rather than consumers of goods and services. The Global MRIO Lab includes data from statistical agencies, including National Accounts and Eurostat and international trade data such as UN Comtrade. The lab is powered by supercomputers calculating the impacts of international trade along billions of supply chains extending to 221 countries.

Input-output (I-O) models were developed in the 1930s by Nobel Prize Laureate Wassily Leontief to analyse the relationships between consumption and production in the economy; I-O or multi-regional input-output (MRIO) models take account of actual data, from I-O records worldwide. Global MRIO or GMRIO models now not only extend to global value chains (GVCs) incorporating all orders of production but are also able to answer flexible and complex questions to a high degree of accuracy within a relatively short time lag. Once assembled, tables can be quickly updated, limited only by the timeliness of the data to hand.

Lead author Professor Manfred Lenzen, also from ISA and a recent co-author of the "Scientists' warning on affluence," said that the Australian-funded and University of Sydney-led innovation of the IO Labs had really catalysed new research efficiency in Australia. "Whilst the Labs were initially developed by a dedicated team from eight Universities and the CSIRO, supported by the Australian Bureau of Statistics, there are now hundreds of users, answering questions ranging from building sustainable cities, avoiding food waste, and carbon-footprinting tourism, to hedging against major disasters such as tropical cyclones," said Professor Lenzen.

For this study into COVID-19, 38 regions in the world were analysed and 26 sectors. In order to incorporate as much information as possible, co-authors were allocated countries with which they had language skills and familiarity, with data translated from sources in 12 languages ranging from Arabic to Hindi and Spanish.

The international team of researchers are from: University of Sydney; Edinburgh Napier University; University of Queensland; UNSW Sydney; Ministry of Finance of the Republic of Indonesia; National Institute for Environmental Studies & Research Institute for Humanity and Nature, Japan; Yachay Tech University, Ecuador; Duke University; Beijing Normal University.

* Previous significant drops in greenhouse gas emissions were during the global financial crisis in 2009 (0.46Gt) and as a result of land-use changes (under the Kyoto Protocol) in 1998 (2.02Gt).



Story Source:

Materials provided by University of Sydney. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.


Journal References:
Manfred Lenzen, Mengyu Li, Arunima Malik, Francesco Pomponi, Ya-Yen Sun, Thomas Wiedmann, Futu Faturay, Jacob Fry, Blanca Gallego, Arne Geschke, Jorge Gómez-Paredes, Keiichiro Kanemoto, Steven Kenway, Keisuke Nansai, Mikhail Prokopenko, Takako Wakiyama, Yafei Wang, Moslem Yousefzadeh. Global socio-economic losses and environmental gains from the Coronavirus pandemic. PLOS ONE, 2020; 15 (7): e0235654 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0235654

Thomas Wiedmann, Manfred Lenzen, Lorenz T. Keyßer, Julia K. Steinberger. Scientists’ warning on affluence. Nature Communications, 2020; 11 (1) DOI: 10.1038/s41467-020-16941-y

University of Sydney. "Socio-economic, environmental impacts of COVID-19 quantified: Holistic study charts effects of the coronavirus on sectors and regions globally." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 10 July 2020. .

Distorted passage of time during the COVID-19 lockdown

Survey results suggest people in United Kingdom perceived time passing differently compared to pre-lockdown

A survey conducted in the U.K. suggests that social and physical distancing measures put in place during the Covid-19 pandemic significantly impacted people's perception of how quickly time passed compared to their pre-lockdown perceptions.

Date:July 9, 2020 Source:PLOS

A survey conducted in the U.K. suggests that social and physical distancing measures put in place during the Covid-19 pandemic significantly impacted people's perception of how quickly time passed compared to their pre-lockdown perceptions. Ruth S. Ogden of Liverpool John Moores University, U.K., presented these findings in the open-access journal PLOS ONE on July 6, 2020.

Previous research suggests that one's perception of how quickly time passes can vary according to one's emotions, the number of daily tasks one must perform, and other factors. However, most of that research has been limited to normal day-to-day life. Social and physical distancing measures put in place during the Covid-19 pandemic provide a unique opportunity to examine how significant changes to life's daily routine impact time perception.

Ogden prepared an online questionnaire asking participants to rate on a sliding scale how quickly they felt time was passing compared to normal, both over the course of a single day and over a full week. The questionnaire also evaluated people's emotional state, task load, and satisfaction with levels of social interaction. The final analysis included 604 participants in the U.K. who answered the questionnaire between April 7 and April 30, 2020.

Ogden found that more than 80 percent of participants experienced changes to how quickly they perceived time passing during lockdown compared to pre-lockdown. Those who were older or less satisfied with their current levels of social interaction were more likely to experience slower passage of time over the course of a day or week. Slower passage of time over the course of a day was also associated with higher stress and a lower task load.

These findings suggest that significant changes to life's daily routine distort perception of time. Future research could look deeper into the effects of specific factors, such as whether social satisfaction influences perception of time during normal daily life, or if its significance in this study is due to the unique social impacts of the Covid-19 lockdown.

Author Ruth Ogden notes: "80% of people experienced distortion to the passage of time during the lockdown. Lockdown passing more slowly than normal was associated with older age and reduced satisfaction with social interactions."
make a difference: sponsored opportunity

Journal Reference:
Ruth S. Ogden. The passage of time during the UK Covid-19 lockdown. PLOS ONE, 2020; 15 (7): e0235871 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0235871

PLOS. "Distorted passage of time during the COVID-19 lockdown: Survey results suggest people in United Kingdom perceived time passing differently compared to pre-lockdown." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 9 July 2020. .

Fair justice systems need open data access

Making court records publicly available will enable statistical analysis

Researchers are developing an A.I. platform that provides users with access to the information and insights hidden inside federal court records, regardless of their data and analytic skills.

Date:July 9, 2020

Source:Northwestern University

Although U.S. court documents are publicly available online, they sit behind expensive paywalls inside a difficult-to-navigate database.

A Northwestern University-led team says these barriers prevent the transparency needed to establish a fair and equal justice system. Making all court records open and available will allow researchers to systematically study and evaluate the U.S. justice system, yielding information with potential to direct policy.

"In principle, litigation is supposed to be open to the public," said Northwestern data scientist Luís A. Nunes Amaral. "In reality, the lack of access to court records seemingly undercuts any claim that the courts are truly 'open.'"

The new insights will be published on Friday, July 10 in the journal Science. Amaral is the corresponding author of the paper. His co-authors include computer and data scientists, legal scholars, journalists and policy experts.

Northwestern artificial intelligence (A.I) researcher Kristian Hammond and the C3 Lab are developing an A.I. platform that provides users with access to the information and insights hidden inside federal court records, regardless of their data and analytic skills.

"The problem with court data is the same problem with a lot of datasets," Hammond said. "The data cost money, and the technical skills to use them cost money. That means very few people have access -- not just to the data -- but the information that we all need that's hidden inside of it."

With this tool, the researchers can link courtroom data to other public data to explore questions such as: How do different judges affect the outcomes of similar cases? Does it make a difference to be defended by a big law firm compared to a smaller one? And how many cases settle?

"We really can ask the broadest questions," Amaral said. "The ultimate goal is to ask if the court system is acting fairly."

Amaral is the Erastus Otis Haven Professor of Chemical and Biological Engineering in Northwestern's McCormick School of Engineering and the director of the Northwestern Institute on Complex Systems. Hammond is the Bill and Cathy Osborn Professor of Computer Science at McCormick and the director of Northwestern's Master of Science in Artificial Intelligence program.

Northwestern co-authors include data scientist Adam Pah from the Kellogg School of Management; legal scholars David Schwartz, Sarath Sanga, Zachary Clopton and Peter DiCola from the Northwestern Pritzker School of Law and journalism researcher Rachel Davis Mersey from the Medill School of Journalism.

Evaluating access to justice

To help quantify and evaluate citizens' access to justice, the researchers examined judicial waiver decisions. Anyone who files a lawsuit in a federal court must pay a $400 filing fee, which is unaffordable for many Americans. To waive these fees, litigants can file an application. Because there is no uniform standard to reviewing these requests, the Northwestern team found judges' decisions varied widely. In one federal district alone, judges approved waivers anywhere from less than 20% to more than 80% of the time.

"If all judges reviewed fee waiver applications under the same standard, then grant rates should not systematically differ within districts," the authors wrote. "We find, however, that they do."

The research team believes these types of variations can be fixed if the public can access and analyze court records, in order to give the justice system quantitative feedback. To do this, the researchers recommend a three-pronged approach:

1. Make court records free to dismantle the barrier to access;

2. Link courtroom data to external data -- such as information on judges, litigants and lawyers -- to build a collaborative knowledge network;

3. Empower the public by providing access to the information that flows from the analysis of the federal court data.

Transforming study and journalistic coverage

To help with this approach, the researchers are developing SCALES-OKN (Systematic Content Analysis of Litigation Events Open Knowledge Network), an A.I.-powered platform that makes the federal courtroom data and insights available to the public. The team believes the tool has potential to transform the ways academics, scientists and researchers approach legal study, as well as how journalists cover the justice system.

"Our ability to understand and improve the law -- everything from employment discrimination to intellectual property to securities regulation -- depends critically on our ability to access legal data," said Sanga, an associate professor at Northwestern Law. "By opening up court records, SCALES will finally enable researchers to systematically examine the court system and the practice of law. Social scientists will use this resource in much the same way that they use the U.S. Census. It will provide both a detailed and big picture view of the process by which litigants navigate the justice system, as well as the process by which judges administer justice."

"SCALES will transform the way journalists are able to cover the American justice system," said Mersey, associate dean of research at Medill. "The interface will allow reporters, both with and without data analytics skills, to quickly and easily access judicial information and court records to cover uses of social justice, equity and due process. At a time when media organizations have trimmed newsroom staffs and decreased the amount of money that can be spent gathering information, SCALES will prove to be a powerful partner in ensuring the justice systems operates in an open and accessible way."

Journal Reference:
Adam R. Pah, David L. Schwartz, Sarath Sanga, Zachary D. Clopton, Peter Dicola, Rachel Davis Mersey, Charlotte S. Alexander, Kristian J. Hammond, Luís A. Nunes Amaral. How to build a more open justice system. Science, 2020 DOI: 10.1126/science.aba6914

Scientists urge caution, further assessment of ecological impacts above deep sea mining

A new study argues that deep-sea mining poses significant risks, not only to the area immediately surrounding mining operations but also to the water hundreds to thousands of feet above the seafloor, threatening vast midwater ecosystems. Further, the scientists suggest how these risks could be evaluated more comprehensively to enable society and managers to decide if and how deep-sea mining should proceed.

Date:July 9, 2020

Source:University of Hawaii at Manoa 

Interest in deep-sea mining for copper, cobalt, zinc, manganese and other valuable metals has grown substantially in the last decade and mining activities are anticipated to begin soon. A new study, led by University of Hawai'i (UH) at Manoa researchers, argues that deep-sea mining poses significant risks, not only to the area immediately surrounding mining operations but also to the water hundreds to thousands of feet above the seafloor, threatening vast midwater ecosystems. Further, the scientists suggest how these risks could be evaluated more comprehensively to enable society and managers to decide if and how deep-sea mining should proceed.

Currently 30 exploration licenses cover about 580,000 square miles of the seafloor on the high seas and some countries are exploring exploitation in their own water as well. Most research assessing the impacts of mining and environmental baseline survey work has focused on the seafloor.

However, large amounts of mud and dissolved chemicals are released during mining and large equipment produces extraordinary noise -- all of which travel high and wide. Unfortunately, there has been almost no study of the potential effects of mining beyond the habitat immediately adjacent to extraction activities.

"This is a call to all stakeholders and managers," said Jeffrey Drazen, lead author of the article and professor of oceanography at UH Manoa. "Mining is poised to move forward yet we lack scientific evidence to understand and manage the impacts on deep pelagic ecosystems, which constitute most of the biosphere. More research is needed very quickly."

The deep midwaters of the world's ocean represent more than 90% of the biosphere, contain 100 times more fish than the annual global catch, connect surface and seafloor ecosystems, and play key roles in climate regulation and nutrient cycles. These ecosystem services, as well as untold biodiversity, could be negatively affected by mining.

This recent paper, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, provides a first look at potential threats to this system.

"The current study shows that mining and its environmental impacts may not be confined to the seafloor thousands of feet below the surface but could threaten the waters above the seafloor, too," said Drazen. "Harm to midwater ecosystems could affect fisheries, release metals into food webs that could then enter our seafood supply, alter carbon sequestration to the deep ocean, and reduce biodiversity which is key to the healthy function of our surrounding oceans."

In accordance with UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), the International Seabed Authority (ISA) is required to ensure the effective protection of the marine environment, including deep midwater ecosystems, from harmful effects arising from mining-related activities. In order to minimize environmental harm, mining impacts on the midwater column must be considered in research plans and development of regulations before mining begins.

"We are urging researchers and governing bodies to expand midwater research efforts, and adopt precautionary management measures now in order to avoid harm to deep midwater ecosystems from seabed mining," said Drazen.

Journal Reference:
Jeffrey C. Drazen, Craig R. Smith, Kristina M. Gjerde, Steven H. D. Haddock, Glenn S. Carter, C. Anela Choy, Malcolm R. Clark, Pierre Dutrieux, Erica Goetze, Chris Hauton, Mariko Hatta, J. Anthony Koslow, Astrid B. Leitner, Aude Pacini, Jessica N. Perelman, Thomas Peacock, Tracey T. Sutton, Les Watling, Hiroyuki Yamamoto. Opinion: Midwater ecosystems must be considered when evaluating environmental risks of deep-sea mining. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2020; 202011914 DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2011914117

University of Hawaii at Manoa. "Scientists urge caution, further assessment of ecological impacts above deep sea mining." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 9 July 2020. .

A 'regime shift' is happening in the Arctic Ocean

Scientists find the growth of phytoplankton in the Arctic Ocean has increased 57 percent over just two decades, enhancing its ability to soak up carbon dioxide. While once linked to melting sea ice, the increase is now propelled by rising concentrations of tiny algae.

Date:July 9, 2020

Source:Stanford's School of Earth, Energy & Environmental Sciences

Scientists at Stanford University have discovered a surprising shift in the Arctic Ocean. Exploding blooms of phytoplankton, the tiny algae at the base of a food web topped by whales and polar bears, have drastically altered the Arctic's ability to transform atmospheric carbon into living matter. Over the past decade, the surge has replaced sea ice loss as the biggest driver of changes in uptake of carbon dioxide by phytoplankton.


The research appears July 10 in Science. Senior author Kevin Arrigo, a professor in Stanford's School of Earth, Energy & Environmental Sciences (Stanford Earth), said the growing influence of phytoplankton biomass may represent a "significant regime shift" for the Arctic, a region that is warming faster than anywhere else on Earth.

The study centers on net primary production (NPP), a measure of how quickly plants and algae convert sunlight and carbon dioxide into sugars that other creatures can eat. "The rates are really important in terms of how much food there is for the rest of the ecosystem," Arrigo said. "It's also important because this is one of the main ways that CO2 is pulled out of the atmosphere and into the ocean."

A thickening soup

Arrigo and colleagues found that NPP in the Arctic increased 57 percent between 1998 and 2018. That's an unprecedented jump in productivity for an entire ocean basin. More surprising is the discovery that while NPP increases were initially linked to retreating sea ice, productivity continued to climb even after melting slowed down around 2009. "The increase in NPP over the past decade is due almost exclusively to a recent increase in phytoplankton biomass," Arrigo said.

Put another way, these microscopic algae were once metabolizing more carbon across the Arctic simply because they were gaining more open water over longer growing seasons, thanks to climate-driven changes in ice cover. Now, they are growing more concentrated, like a thickening algae soup.

"In a given volume of water, more phytoplankton were able to grow each year," said lead study author Kate Lewis, who worked on the research as a PhD student in Stanford's Department of Earth System Science. "This is the first time this has been reported in the Arctic Ocean."

New food supplies

Phytoplankton require light and nutrients to grow. But the availability and intermingling of these ingredients throughout the water column depend on complex factors. As a result, although Arctic researchers have observed phytoplankton blooms going into overdrive in recent decades, they have debated how long the boom might last and how high it may climb.

By assembling a massive new collection of ocean color measurements for the Arctic Ocean and building new algorithms to estimate phytoplankton concentrations from them, the Stanford team uncovered evidence that continued increases in production may no longer be as limited by scarce nutrients as once suspected. "It's still early days, but it looks like now there is a shift to greater nutrient supply," said Arrigo, the Donald and Donald M. Steel Professor in Earth Sciences.

The researchers hypothesize that a new influx of nutrients is flowing in from other oceans and sweeping up from the Arctic's depths. "We knew the Arctic had increased production in the last few years, but it seemed possible the system was just recycling the same store of nutrients," Lewis said. "Our study shows that's not the case. Phytoplankton are absorbing more carbon year after year as new nutrients come into this ocean. That was unexpected, and it has big ecological impacts."

Decoding the Arctic

The researchers were able to extract these insights from measures of the green plant pigment chlorophyll taken by satellite sensors and research cruises. But because of the unusual interplay of light, color and life in the Arctic, the work required new algorithms. "The Arctic Ocean is the most difficult place in the world to do satellite remote sensing," Arrigo explained. "Algorithms that work everywhere else in the world -- that look at the color of the ocean to judge how much phytoplankton are there -- do not work in the Arctic at all."

The difficulty stems in part from a huge volume of incoming tea-colored river water, which carries dissolved organic matter that remote sensors mistake for chlorophyll. Additional complexity comes from the unusual ways in which phytoplankton have adapted to the Arctic's extremely low light. "When you use global satellite remote sensing algorithms in the Arctic Ocean, you end up with serious errors in your estimates," said Lewis.

Yet these remote-sensing data are essential for understanding long-term trends across an ocean basin in one of the world's most extreme environments, where a single direct measurement of NPP may require 24 hours of round-the-clock work by a team of scientists aboard an icebreaker, Lewis said. She painstakingly curated sets of ocean color and NPP measurements, then used the compiled database to build algorithms tuned to the Arctic's unique conditions. Both the database and the algorithms are now available for public use.

The work helps to illuminate how climate change will shape the Arctic Ocean's future productivity, food supply and capacity to absorb carbon. "There's going to be winners and losers," Arrigo said. "A more productive Arctic means more food for lots of animals. But many animals that have adapted to live in a polar environment are finding life more difficult as the ice retreats."

Phytoplankton growth may also peak out of sync with the rest of the food web because ice is melting earlier in the year. Add to that the likelihood of more shipping traffic as Arctic waters open up, and the fact that the Arctic is simply too small to take much of a bite out of the world's greenhouse gas emissions. "It's taking in a lot more carbon than it used to take in," Arrigo said, "but it's not something we're going to be able to rely on to help us out of our climate problem."

This research was supported by NASA's Earth and Space Science Fellowship program and the National Science Foundation.

Journal Reference:
K. M. Lewis, G. L. Van Dijken, K. R. Arrigo. Changes in phytoplankton concentration now drive increased Arctic Ocean primary production. Science, 2020 DOI: 10.1126/science.aay8380