Mystery monolith installed outside Florida bar



Dec. 18 (UPI) -- A metallic structure that appeared via unknown circumstances outside a Florida bar is drawing comparisons to the mysterious monoliths that popped up around the globe.

The Pierced Cider bar in Fort Pierce posted photos to Facebook of the 10-foot-tall metal monolith that was first spotted outside the business Wednesday morning.

The business said security camera footage failed to record the structure's installation.

The object bears a resemblance to the monoliths that have been spotted in various locations around the globe after the first was discovered in November in the Utah desert.

The bar put tape up around the Fort Piece monolith to keep the public at a safe distance.

The Fort Pierce Police Department said investigators have no information about the object.

World War I-era cannon found buried under Canadian baseball field

Dec. 18 (UPI) -- Construction crews digging up a baseball field in Ontario made a surprising discovery -- a World War I-era German cannon buried under the pitcher's mound.

Officials in Amherstburg said crews were digging up the ballpark, which is to become the site of a new public school, on Monday when they discovered the forgotten cannon that was formerly on display at Centennial Park.

VIDEO

 https://www.upi.com/Odd_News/2020/12/18/World-War-I-era-cannon-found-buried-under-Canadian-baseball-field/4611608323984/

City officials said the cannon was brought to the town in 1922 and was displayed alongside a cenotaph at General Amherst High School. The cenotaph was moved to Centennial Park in 1971 to make way for an expansion to the school and the cannon, which was determined to be in poor condition, was buried underneath the monument.

The cannon was forgotten when the cenotaph was moved again in the 1980s and the area was turned into a baseball field with the gun still buried underneath.

The Greater Essex County District School Board said the cannon is being donated to the Town of Amherstburg.

"[We've] already received communication from a number of military historical associations that are interested in what we're doing with it and have even offered to help restore it," Amherstburg Mayor Aldo DiCarlo told CBC News. "The historical significance I think just can't be overstated, it is really something."

Kevin Fox, Amherstburg's manager of policy and committees and the former operator of a Kingsville military museum, said the cannon is one of very few of its type to remain intact.

"During the Second World War, when there was a need for scrap metal, many of the war trophies were actually destroyed to contribute to the war effort. So while there were numerous examples that existed and were spread throughout the country, many of them do not survive," Fox said.

US needs clear vaccine distribution strategy to defeat coronavirus

COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY'S MAILMAN SCHOOL OF PUBLIC HEALTH

Research News

December 17, 2020 -- An opinion piece published today online in BMJ by Nina Schwalbe in the Heilbrunn Department of Population and Family Health at Columbia Mailman School of Public Health, calls for a national vaccine strategy now that COVID-19 vaccines are available. Schwalbe writes that a lack of clarity on a distribution plan sets unrealistic expectations among the public and could undermine public trust. But even with a clearly defined strategy in place, vaccinating hundreds of millions of Americans will not be easy. Read the full article here.

Vaccines don't deliver themselves," notes Schwalbe, who is also a Principal Visiting Fellow at the United Nations University International Institute of Global Health. "Vaccines require a safe, trusted and accessible immunization system."

To address the high covid-19 death rates in the medium to long term, Schwalbe recommends the following:

Set realistic expectations on the role of vaccines in the COVID-19 response and communicate those clearly. For example, given limited supply, the immediate focus seem to be to reduce mortality of individuals in high-risk groups and transmission in health care settings. It is not to reach herd immunity.

Call upon the Biden administration to enact a parallel commitment to universal health coverage to help protect those people vulnerable to underlying conditions, like diabetes and heart disease, that put them at risk of severe covid-19 disease in the first place.

Work directly with communities to devise a plan that addresses their fears, and engages them to figure out the logistical challenges.

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Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health

Founded in 1922, the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health pursues an agenda of research, education, and service to address the critical and complex public health issues affecting New Yorkers, the nation and the world. The Columbia Mailman School is the seventh largest recipient of NIH grants among schools of public health. Its nearly 300 multi-disciplinary faculty members work in more than 100 countries around the world, addressing such issues as preventing infectious and chronic diseases, environmental health, maternal and child health, health policy, climate change and health, and public health preparedness. It is a leader in public health education with more than 1,300 graduate students from 55 nations pursuing a variety of master's and doctoral degree programs. The Columbia Mailman School is also home to numerous world-renowned research centers, including ICAP and the Center for Infection and Immunity. For more information, please visit http://www.mailman.columbia.edu.

Operation Warp Speed chief: Pfizer vaccine rollout 

had 'miscommunication'

Army Gen. Gustave F. Perna takes responsibility for "miscommunication" about allocation of COVID-19 vaccine doses to states Saturday. File Photo by Chris Kleponis/Pool | License Photo

Dec. 19 (UPI) -- The head of Operation Warp Speed on Saturday said a "miscommunication" about COVID-19 vaccine doses means some states will receive fewer doses than they expected.

Army Gen. Gustave Perna said he took full responsibility for the issue during a news briefing.

"I want to assure everybody, and I want to take personal responsibility for the miscommunication," Perna said during the briefing. "Here is the bottom line, I want to make sure that we are 100% committed to fair and equitable distribution to everybody in the United States of America."

Perna is the chief operating officer of Operation Warp Speed, the U.S. government's public-private partnership to accelerate work on COVID-19 vaccines.

The acknowledgement came after more than 10 states said that the number of Pfizer COVID-19 doses they had been expecting to receive had been cut without explanation.

Perna said he had to revise down the number of vaccine doses allocated to certain states after he got more information from Pfizer about the amount of vaccine available.

Perna added that the "miscommunication" happened because he did not understand all the steps "with exactness" that needed to happen before releasing all the vaccine available.

"There is no problem with the process," Perna said. "There is no problem with the Pfizer vaccine. There is no problem with the Moderna vaccine. It was a planning error, and I am responsible."

Perna referred to the Food and Drug Administration as "the gold standard not just in America but around the world," and said he has to wait until the vaccine doses are releasable in accordance with the agency.

He apologized to the state governors who may have started planning based on the initial doses forecast.

"Please accept my personal apology if this was disruptive to your decision-making," Perna said, adding that he would personally brief governors Monday.

Perna added that Operation Warp Speed would not "cut corners" in vaccine distribution.

Pfizer released a statement Thursday saying they were not having any production or distribution issues and more doses were available.

RELATED WHO's COVID-19 vaccine drive doubles global supply to 2 billion doses

"This week, we successfully shipped all 2.9 million doses that we were asked to ship by the U.S. government to the locations specified by them," the statement said. "We have millions more doses sitting in our warehouse but, as of now, we have not received any shipment instructions for additional doses.

"We remain confident in our ability to deliver up to 50 million doses globally this year and up to 1.3 billion next year, and we look forward to continuing to work with the U.S. government to deliver our vaccine to the American people," Pfizer added.

While the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine has not been fully approved by the FDA, it has been authorized for emergency use to prevent COVID-19 in individuals 16 years of age and older.

The FDA issued an emergency use authorization for a second COVID-19 vaccine -- one made by Moderna.

Improving hospital nurse staffing is associated with fewer deaths from sepsis

UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA SCHOOL OF NURSING

Research News

 

Researchers at the Center for Health Outcomes and Policy Research (CHOPR) at the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing, conducting independent research on whether pending nurse staffing legislation in New York state is in the public's interest, found that the wide variation in patient-to-nurse ratios across hospitals in New York is contributing to avoidable deaths for patients with sepsis, a common, high mortality condition.

New York state is a national leader in sepsis care through legislation known as Rory's Regulations named after a child that unexpectedly died in a New York hospital from sepsis. The new study finds avoided sepsis deaths associated with better hospital nurse staffing are much greater than adherence to mandated sepsis care bundles.

The new study shows each additional patient added to a nurse's workload is associated with 12% higher in-hospital mortality from sepsis compared with only a 5% improvement in mortality associated with improved adherence to mandated care bundles.

The study concluded that while Rory's Regulations and sepsis care bundles helped reduce deaths from sepsis, implementing proposed patient-to-nurse ratios in NY state holds promise for much greater reductions in sepsis deaths.

Lead author Karen Lasater, PhD, RN, an assistant professor and CHOPR researcher said, "Results show that improving nurse staffing in New York hospitals could substantially reduce deaths from sepsis over and above the benefits of mandated care bundles."

Additionally, the study showed that while hospital adherence to mandated sepsis care bundles is associated with shorter length of hospital stays, improved nurse staffing at the levels in the pending legislation had more than twice as large an effect on reducing length of stay than the care bundles.

Co-author, CHOPR Director Linda H Aiken, PhD, RN, a senior researcher and professor at the University of Pennsylvania said, "This independent scientific study shows that improvement of hospital nurse staffing holds the best promise for significantly reducing deaths from sepsis which often strikes when it is least expected. Moreover, improving nurse staffing results in cost savings in sepsis care due to shorter hospital stays that can be reinvested in improved nurse staffing."

Background

The study is of 116 hospitals in New York state and more than 52,000 hospitalized patients with a diagnosis of sepsis. On average in these hospitals, nurses cared for 6.3 patients each and staffing varied substantially by hospital from 4.3 patients-per-nurse in the best staffed hospitals to 10.5 patients per nurse in the worst staffed hospitals. There is currently no requirement in New York that hospitals meet a minimum safe nurse staffing standard.

The Safe Staffing for Quality Care Act (A2954/S51032) currently pending action in the NY Legislature sets a minimum nurse staffing requirement for all New York state hospitals that would serve to bring hospitals with poor staffing to an evidence-based minimum standard.

A 2020 Harris Poll sponsored by NursesEverywhere.com found that 90% of the public surveyed believed that hospitals should be required to meet safe nurse staffing standards.

Sepsis is a life-threatening acute condition that results from an infection that might seem harmless initially but can escalate rapidly to death for children and adults. Each year, at least 1.7 million adults develop sepsis and nearly 270,000 die.

Rory's Regulations were enacted by New York state in 2013 after the highly publicized death of a 12-year-old boy with sepsis. The Regulations require hospitals to implement protocols for screening, early diagnosis, and timely treatment of patients with sepsis. More recently, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) began mandating the public reporting of hospital adherence to evidence-based sepsis care protocols via HospitalCompare. Nurses are responsible for implementing these protocols although no previous research has been done on the impact of nurse staffing on adherence to the protocols. This new study shows the effect of improving hospital nurse staffing on avoided deaths from sepsis is much greater than the care bundles mandated under Rory's Regulations.

Another recent publication on the adverse on patient outcomes on variation in nurse staffing across New York hospitals is:

Lasater KB, Aiken LH, Sloane DM, French R, Martin B, Reneau K, Alexander M, McHugh MD. 2020. Chronic hospital nurse understaffing meets COVID-19. BMJ Quality & Safety. Epub ahead of print 18 August 2020. doi:10:1136/bmjqs-2020-011512. Open Access.

The study was carried out by the Center for Health Outcomes and Policy Research, University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing in partnership with the National Council of State Boards of Nursing. Funding for the study was from the National Council of State Boards of Nursing, the National Institute of Nursing Research/NIH, and the Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics at the University of Pennsylvania.

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Study Citation

Lasater KB, Sloane DM, McHugh MD, Cimiotti JP, Riman KA, Martin B, Alexander M, Aiken LH. Evaluation of hospital nurse-to-patient ratios and sepsis bundles on patient outcomes. American Journal of Infection Control. 2020. https://doi.org/10.1016/ajic.2020.12.002 Open Access.

About the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing

The University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing is one of the world's leading schools of nursing. For the fifth year in a row, it is ranked the #1 nursing school in the world by QS University and is consistently ranked highly in the U.S. News & World Report annual list of best graduate schools. Penn Nursing is currently ranked # 1 in funding from the National Institutes of Health, among other schools of nursing, for the third consecutive year. Penn Nursing prepares nurse scientists and nurse leaders to meet the health needs of a global society through innovation in research, education, and practice. Follow Penn Nursing on: Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, & Instagram.

About the National Council of State Boards of Nursing

The National Council of State Boards of Nursing (NCSBN) is a non-profit organization based in Chicago whose US members include the nurse regulatory bodies in the 50 states, the District of Columbia, and four US territories. NCSBN administers the national registered nurse licensure and other exams and led the development and implementation of the Nurse Licensure Compact that allows a nurse to have one multi-state licensure and practice in the other 34 states that to date have passed the Nurse Licensure Compact.

About the Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics

Since 1967, the Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics at the University of Pennsylvania (Penn LDI) has been the leading university institute dedicated to data-driven, policy-focused research that improves our nation's health and health care. Penn LDI connects all twelve of Penn's schools, the University of Pennsylvania Health System, and the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia through its more than 300 Senior Fellows. See more at ldi.upenn.edu and on Twitter @PennLDI.

Wildfire smoke carry microbes that can cause infectious diseases

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA - DAVIS HEALTH

Research News

Wildfire smoke contains microbes, a fact that's often ignored, but one that may have important health repercussions.

In an article published Dec. 18 in Science, Leda Kobziar and George Thompson called the attention of the scientific community to the health impacts of wildfire smoke's microbial content.

Smoky skies caused by wildland fires are becoming seasonal norms, especially in some parts of the United States and Australia. In 2020, raging wildfires in the Western U.S. have set new records and led to extremely unhealthy or hazardous air quality levels for many weeks in a row.

It's well-documented that exposure to wildfire smoke can damage the heart and lungs. Respiratory allergic and inflammatory diseases, including asthma and bronchitis, are also worsened by smoke exposure.

"The health impact of inhaling wildfire smoke increases dramatically during high-emissions wildfires and with long exposure," said Kobziar, associate professor of Wildland Fire Science at the University of Idaho. "Yet, the risk of infection to the respiratory tract after this exposure is frequently overlooked."

What role do microbes in wildfire smoke play in the spread of disease?

Wildland fire is a source for bioaerosol, airborne particles made of fungal and bacterial cells and their metabolic byproducts. Once suspended in the air, particles smaller than 5 μm can travel hundreds or even thousands of miles. Their movement depends on the fire behavior and the atmospheric conditions. Eventually, they are deposited or inhaled.

Bacteria and fungi can be transported in these wildland fire smoke emissions. While microbial concentration in smoke is higher near the fire source, these microbes may be active agents spreading infection. For example, coccidioidomycoses - a fungus that becomes airborne when soils are disturbed- is the cause of Valley fever, a potentially serious infection.

"We don't know how far and which microbes are carried in smoke," said Thompson, associate professor of Clinical Medicine at UC Davis. "Some microbes in the soil appear to be tolerant of, and even thrive under, high temperatures following wildfires."

As Kobziar explained, "At the scale of a microbe, fire behavior research has shown that heat flux is highly variable, so it may be that many microbes aren't even subjected to the high temperatures for very long. They may also be protected in small clusters of particulate matter."

Kobziar and Thompson proposed a multidisciplinary approach to understanding the nature of the relationship between microbes, wildfire smoke and health. The complexity of the phenomenon calls for the expertise of scientists from different fields such as fire ecology, environmental microbiology, epidemiology, atmospheric sciences and public health and infectious disease.

"With longer wildfire seasons and higher severity trends, there is an urgency to work together in studying the behavior of the microbes carried by the smoke and their impact on human health," Thompson said.

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Article: Kobziar & Thompson, (2020). Wildfire smoke: A potential infectious agent, Science,

 DOI: 0.1126/science.abe8116

LOMBROSIO'S MINORITY REPORT

New study measures neighborhood inequality and violence based on everyday mobility

Finds mobility patterns of its residents and visitors can predict homicides

HARVARD UNIVERSITY

Research News

 

A new study looking at the patterns of movement from 400,000 people offers fresh insights into how a neighborhood's economic conditions mixed with the mobility patterns of its residents and visitors relates to the well-being of the neighborhood and can serve as a predictor of violence.

The analysis, published in the American Sociological Review, develops the concept of neighborhoods that have a "triple disadvantage." These are neighborhoods that score high on common traits measuring "disadvantage" -- such as concentrated poverty, unemployment, and how many residents receive public assistance -- but also have deep connections with similarly disadvantaged neighborhoods through its resident's own mobility and through mobility into the neighborhood from around the city. The authors suggest these networks are formed through everyday movements, such as going to work, leisure activities, or visiting friends or family. Overall, the theory argues that a neighborhood's well-being depends not only on its own socioeconomic conditions but on the conditions of the neighborhoods its residents visit and are visited by.

The findings underscore that neighborhoods, even ones distant from each other, are not islands in isolation but are inherently connected. In fact, the implications of triple disadvantaged neighborhoods are broad and potentially affect a wide range of issues, including community capacity, gentrification, transmission in a pandemic, and racial inequality.

"We're trying to get researchers but also policymakers to think beyond just the characteristics of one neighborhood in isolation, which has driven a lot of research, including my own," said Robert J. Sampson, the Henry Ford II Professor of the Social Sciences and author on the paper. "What we're arguing is that triple disadvantage essentially exacerbates racial segregation [and other related factors]. ... [It's] the compounding of inequality by not just living in poor neighborhoods, but having disproportionate contact with other poor neighborhoods."

The authors draw on a long tradition of research showing that violence is highly concentrated in certain neighborhoods and that a neighborhood's poverty rate is strongly related to homicide. The researchers go beyond this traditional focus on residential areas and combine it with mobility data to study cross neighborhood ties and networks in entire cities.

Analyzing nearly 32,000 neighborhoods and 9,700 homicides in 37 of the largest U.S. cities, the authors show that triple disadvantage metrics can independently predict homicides after adjusting for known links of violence, such as density, race, age, and residential stability.

The authors look at neighborhoods in cities like New York City, Houston, Chicago, and many others, including smaller cities like Kansas City, Miami, Oakland, and Tulsa. Maps are available for all cities.

The researchers found that mobility-based disadvantage - meaning people flowing in and out of disadvantaged neighborhoods -- accounts for roughly one-fifth of the relationship between residential disadvantage and homicide. Digging further, they saw that using measures of triple disadvantage rather than residential disadvantage increased the authors' ability to predict neighborhood homicide counts by almost a third.

"The key there is that taking into account triple disadvantage, or taking into account these everyday mobility patterns, gives us added value in the prediction of homicide patterns," Sampson said. "In other words, that it goes beyond just residential poverty--we show that there's this additional explanatory value with respect to triple disadvantage."

In the study, the authors also show what makes a neighborhood triply disadvantaged can swing the opposite way, too. When those from already advantaged neighborhoods visit and are visited by those from other advantaged neighborhoods, they become triply advantaged. This isolates and segregates affluent neighborhoods.

Working on the paper with Sampson was Brian L. Levy, an assistant professor at George Mason University, and Nolan E. Phillips, a data scientist at Accenture. Both were former postdoctoral fellows at Harvard.

The researchers say their work represents only the tip of the spear and builds on earlier work on segregation. They hope to expand their theory and have others use their methodologies, data, and new geographic data sources to run their own assessments.

"There's a sense in which we hope that these ideas can be used by other researchers to create measures for studies around the world," Sampson said. "Furthermore, we can imagine that researchers and even policymakers could create metrics for other kinds of indicators beyond what we started. ... [The theory] has very expansive possibilities in our view."

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Aboriginal women share their stories on keeping the heart strong

UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH AUSTRALIA

Research News

 

IMAGE: SPIRIT, CULTURE AND COMMUNITY ARE CORE ATTRIBUTES TO THE HEALTH OF AN ABORIGINAL WOMEN'S HEART. view more 

CREDIT: PHOTO BY STEVE EVANS

More than a decade after committing $130+ billion to Closing the Gap, there has been little improvement in health outcomes experienced by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander populations.

A significant life expectancy gap remains, with cardiovascular disease the leading cause of death for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women, responsible for almost 20 per cent of this gap.

So where have things gone wrong?

A new study led by University of South Australia PhD candidate Katharine McBride in partnership with Aboriginal women suggests the answer may lie partially in the Government's failure to approach health from an Aboriginal perspective.

"Current strategies to address heart disease in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities are framed within a western context and focus on bad behaviour and a deficit approach," McBride says.

"These policies fail to take into account the unique world view of our first nations women, centred on spirit, culture and community."

The study explored the perspectives of 28 Aboriginal women from five different communities across central and southern Australia, with the work overseen by an Aboriginal Women's Advisory Group. Via yarning circles, women identified 10 attributes which either kept their heart strong or put it at risk, and the drivers of these.

"Identity as an Aboriginal woman, having a healthy body and life, connectedness within family and community and health knowledge all strengthen the heart, according to the Aboriginal women in our study. Stress, grief, racism, government policies and financial hardship were recognised as weakening the heart."

The government's strategy, focusing solely on clinical and behavioural cardiovascular risk factors, fails to recognise the Aboriginal conceptualisation of health which is centred on strength, resilience and connectedness, according to McBride.

The research team, which included Aboriginal women with lived and professional experience of heart disease, recommends a new model of health delivery and care in partnership with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women and communities.

"Aboriginal women are leaders and nurturers of community. They have described what is needed to have a healthy heart; hopefully the government will heed the message," McBride says.

Her paper, titled "Good Heart: Telling Stories of Cardiovascular Protective and Risk Factors for Aboriginal Women," is published in Heart, Lung and Circulation.

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Notes to Editors

Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is the largest contributor to preventable morbidity and mortality in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. Although age?standardised CVD mortality has fallen by 40% over the past few decades, CVD still accounts for a quarter of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander deaths overall and 21% of all premature years of life lost. CVD events and CVD?related mortality in the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander population occur, on average, about 10-20 years earlier than in non?Indigenous Australians.

Whilst Aboriginal men have a higher burden of heart disease in comparison to women (68.3% to 41.7% respectively), women do have a higher proportion of some heart, stroke and vascular diseases, and the gap between men and women is much less for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people

This information is supplied by the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Cardiac Health Information website.

Genetic exchange discovered in anciently asexual rotifers

SKOLKOVO INSTITUTE OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY (SKOLTECH)

Research News

 

IMAGE: BDELLOID ROTIFERS (A. VAGA) UNDER THE MICROSCOPE. view more 

CREDIT: E.A. MNATSAKANOVA AND O.A. VAKHRUSHEVA/SKOLTECH

Skoltech's evolutionary biologists discovered recombination in bdelloid rotifers, microscopic freshwater invertebrates, which have long been regarded as 'an evolutionary scandal' due to their presumed ancient asexuality. The existence of such anciently asexual groups calls into question the hypothesis that sexual reproduction is indispensable for long-term evolutionary success of species. However, the recent study published in Nature Communications provides evidence of recombination and genetic exchange in bdelloids.

Sexual reproduction which involves recombination and exchange of genetic material between individuals of the same species is thought to be essential for the long-term survival of species. Although transitions to asexual reproduction are quite frequent in eukaryotes, they typically result in rapid extinction. On these grounds, transition to asexual reproduction is usually regarded as an evolutionary dead end. However, there are a few notable exceptions to this rule, such as bdelloid rotifers which were long assumed to have switched to asexual reproduction several tens of millions of years ago.

An international team of scientists led by Georgii Bazykin, a professor at the Skoltech Center for Life Sciences (CLS), and Alexey Kondrashov, a professor at Moscow State University (MSU), obtained whole-genome sequencing data for several individuals of Adineta vaga and found evidence suggesting recombination in this bdelloid species.

The scientists analyzed whole genomes of 11 A. vaga individuals revealing signatures of recombination and interindividual genetic exchange.

"We have shown that variation within the population of A. vaga is inconsistent with strict clonality and lack of recombination. Bdelloid rotifers are frequently referred to as 'an evolutionary scandal'. However, our results suggest that the status of bdelloid rotifers as an ancient asexual group should probably be reconsidered. Our findings underscore the importance of recombination for the long-term evolutionary success of species. Although some data hint at the existence of meiosis in bdelloid rotifers, mechanisms of genetic exchange in this group of species remain obscure and are subject to further research," comments Olga Vakhrusheva, the lead author and a junior research scientist at Skoltech.

'Poverty line' concept debunked by new machine learning model

New mathematical model uses machine learning to challenge conventional notions of a fixed international poverty line

ASTON UNIVERSITY

Research News

 

Mathematicians have used machine learning to develop a new model for measuring poverty in different countries that junks old notions of a fixed 'poverty line'.

The study by academics at Aston University, published in the journal Nature Communications, suggests mainstream thinking around poverty is outdated because it places too much emphasis on subjective notions of basic needs and fails to capture the full complexity of how people use their incomes.

They say their new model - which uses computer algorithms to synthesise vast amounts of spending and economic data - could help policymakers worldwide predict future poverty levels and plan interventions to alleviate the problem.

"No-one has ever used machine learning to decode multidimensional poverty before," said lead researcher Dr Amit Chattopadhyay of Aston University's College of Engineering and Physical Sciences. "This completely changes the way people should look at poverty."

Established measures of poverty attempt to identify a threshold monetary level below which a person or household is defined as 'poor'. These definitions trace their origins back to methods developed in the 19th and early 20th century by reformers such as Ernst Engel and Seebohm Rowntree.

Currently, the World Bank sets the International Poverty Line at US$1.90 per day, with around 10% of the world's population - about 700m people - living on less than this. This is based on a subjective assessment of income needed to cover basic needs in the poorest countries, adjusted for purchasing power parity (PPP).

In the new study, the researchers analysed 30 years' worth of data from India, dividing expenditure into three broad categories of 'basic food' such as cereals, 'other food' including meat and 'non-food' covering other spending such as housing and transport costs. The model can be applied to any country.

By recognising the 'push-and-pull' interplay between the three categories - more spending in one area usually means a reduction in spending in another -it allows for a more holistic poverty measure that can adjust to the circumstances of individual countries. The researchers combined datasets on incomes, asset and commodity markets from the World Bank and other sources to produce a mathematical model that was able not only to accurately predict past poverty levels in both India and the United States, but also to predict future levels based on certain economic assumptions.

By taking account of the elasticity of supply and demand in the market, the model revises the number of people traditionally deemed 'poor' into a more practical 'middle class'. It can be scaled to reflect conditions in sub-regions of a country, or even scaled down to a single city or neighbourhood depending on the available data.

"Current thinking on poverty is highly subjective, because 'poverty' will mean different things in different countries and regions," added Dr Chattopadhyay. "With this model, we finally have a multi-dimensional poverty index that reflects the real-world experience of people wherever they live and largely independent of the social class they are deemed to belong to.

"Importantly, it's a model that takes account of the economic circumstances people find themselves in - and the factors that can make the biggest difference to their material wellbeing. As such, it can be an important tool for governments and policymakers globally in identifying poverty and putting in place interventions that really tackle it."

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Humpback whale songs provide insight to population changes

UNIVERSITY OF HAWAII AT MANOA

Research News

 

IMAGE: HUMPBACK WHALE OFF MAUI. view more 

CREDIT: HIHWNMS/NMFS ESA PERMIT #782-1719

Approximately 8,000-12,000 of the North Pacific humpback whale stock visits the shallow waters of the Hawaiian Islands seasonally to breed. During this time, mature males produce an elaborate acoustic display known as "song," which becomes the dominant source of ambient underwater sound between December and April. Following reports of unusually low whale numbers that began in 2015-16, researchers at the University of Hawai?i at Mānoa in collaboration with the Hawaiian Islands Humpback Whale National Marine Sanctuary, Oceanwide Science Institute and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, examined song chorusing recorded through long-term passive acoustic monitoring at six sites off Maui, as a proxy for whale populations between September 2014 and May 2019. The findings were published in Endangered Species Research.

Using autonomous acoustic recorders called an "Ecological Acoustic Recorder," researchers calculated root-mean-square sound pressure levels (RMS SPL), a metric of the average amount of acoustic energy (how loud the soundscape is) per day.

Over the course of the season, RMS SPL levels mirror the whales' migratory patterns. Levels increase starting in November through January when whales start arriving in the waters around the archipelago, peaking in February and March, before decreasing in April through May when whales start migrating back to their high-latitude feeding grounds. Researchers compared overall differences of this pattern and monthly averages of RMS SPL levels among years.

"Between the 2014-15 and 2017-18 seasons, we saw a continuous decrease in overall chorusing levels during the peak months of February and March of between -3 and -9 dB depending on location over the course of this four-year period," said Anke Kügler, a PhD candidate in marine biology, research assistant at the Hawai?i Institute of Marine Biology and lead author of the paper. "Only in the 2018-19 season did levels increase again, reaching 2015-16 at most and even 2014-15 levels at some recording sites. Further, we saw a shift in the seasonal pattern, with peaks shifting to early- and mid-February from late February to early March. Overall, chorusing levels were not only significantly lower during the peak of the season, whales also appeared to depart the islands earlier than in the past."

CAPTION

Humpback whales off Maui.

CREDIT

Lyman/ Hawaiian Islands Humpback Whale National Marine Sanctuary (NOAA permit 782-1719)

Acoustic energy decreased by more than 50%

When anecdotal reports from the on-water community initially showed lower numbers of whales in 2015-16, this coincided with an El Niño event in the North Pacific. Researchers did not expect to see a decreasing trend for the subsequent two seasons, before chorusing levels seemed to bounce back in 2018-19.

Further, a decrease of acoustic energy -6 dB means a decrease by 50%. While this does not automatically translate into half the number of whales, other researchers visually assessed numbers of mother-calf pairs off Maui and overall whales off Hawai?i Island, and reported seeing declines of similar magnitude during the same time, indicating that researchers captured changes in population levels, not just changes in singing behavior.

"The Hawai?i 'distinct population segments' has been delisted from the Endangered Species Act in 2016, assuming sustainable levels after decades of population increase," said Kügler. "However, in light of global change, continued monitoring is necessary to detect potential negative changes early and implement mitigation and adjust protection measures within Hawaiian waters, if necessary."

An ambassador species

Humpback whales are considered charismatic megafauna that hold a unique place in society, particularly modern Hawaiian culture. Further, whale watching is an important economic resource in Hawai?i. As such, humpback whales are what is called a "flagship species." They have the potential to be the ambassador species for the entire region's ecosystem by helping to raise awareness of threats and global change impacts, on them and other species they share their habitat with, as well as their migration areas.

"The University of Hawai?i has been a global leader in marine mammal research since the 1970s, therefore doing this kind of work and continuing on this tradition of high-impact marine mammal research enables the university to maintain that status as one of world's prime research universities," said Kügler.

"In addition, this collaborative project highlights and strengthens UH's existing long-term connection to NOAA," added Kügler. "I was able to do this research due to this close partnership and collaboration with NOAA and the Hawaiian Islands Humpback Whale National Marine Sanctuary."

CAPTION

Humpback whale off Maui.

CREDIT

HIHWNMS/NMFS ESA Permit #782-1719