World Wide Web inventor opposes Australia's 

news payment plan

To check the tech giants' power, Canberra is pursuing world-first laws that would require Google and Facebook to compensate Australian news organisations, or pay millions of dollars in fines.

This file photo taken on October 1, 2019, shows the logos of mobile apps Facebook and Google displayed on a tablet in Lille, France. (AFP Archive)

World Wide Web inventor Tim Berners-Lee has said Australia's plan to force digital giants to pay media outlets for news content is "unworkable" and undermines a "fundamental principle" of the internet.

Canberra is pursuing world-first laws that would require Google and Facebook to compensate Australian news organisations, or pay millions of dollars in fines.

The aggressive move to check the tech giants' power has prompted blowback from the US firms, with Facebook warning Australians could be blocked from sharing articles on its "News Feed", while Google has been experimenting with hiding local news in searches.

Berners-Lee, a computer scientist who created the web in 1989, said in a submission to an Australian Senate inquiry he is "concerned that the code risks breaching a fundamental principle of the web by requiring payment for linking between certain content online".

"The ability to link freely -- meaning without limitations regarding the content of the linked site and without monetary fees -- is fundamental to how the web operates, how it has flourished till present, and how it will continue to grow in decades to come," he wrote.

In the submission dated January 18, Berners-Lee said he supports the need for publishers to be "properly rewarded" for their work but "constraints on the use of hypertext links are not the correct way to achieve this goal".

"If this precedent were followed elsewhere it could make the web unworkable around the world," he wrote.

"I therefore respectfully urge the committee to remove this mechanism from the code."

READ MORE: Facebook threatens ban on Australians sharing news posts

The Office of the US Trade Representative has also urged Australia to abandon its "burdensome" plan, saying there could be "long-lasting negative consequences" for consumers and companies.

Canberra's initiative has been closely watched around the globe, as news media worldwide suffer in an increasingly digital economy where big tech firms overwhelmingly capture advertising revenue.

The planned legislation has received widespread support from Australian media organisations, many of which have been hit hard by a drop in revenue during the coronavirus pandemic.

READ MORE: Australia to force Google and Facebook pay for news in unprecedented move

The digital giants have also made submissions to the inquiry, with Facebook urging a return to the voluntary code of conduct first mooted by Canberra.

"Facebook remains willing to pay Australian news publishers for news content made available on Facebook, as long as it is subject to genuine commercial considerations," it said.

Google has said some revisions to the draft proposal have improved the law but called for several further amendments to the rules.

Australia plans to introduce the new rules this year, with the Senate committee set to hold public hearings from Friday.

BREAKING NEWS

We might finally know how dinosaurs had sex

© Provided by BGR dinosaur mating

Dinosaur bones have told scientists a lot about how the ancient animals lived, hunted, and died, but reproduction has remained largely a mystery.

A new fossil from China provides such an incredibly well-preserved look at the dinosaur’s hindquarters that it shows the orifice that was likely used for expelling waste as well as for mating.
This discovery only shows how this particular dinosaur species likely mated.

Despite the fact that they lived tens of millions (and in some cases, hundreds of millions) of years ago, we know a surprising amount about dinosaurs. That’s thanks in large part to the fact that they left plenty of bones behind for us to find, study, and make educated guesses about.

But while hard bones are the most durable and long-lasting remnants of dinosaurs left today, soft tissue is much harder to come by. Because of that, understanding more complex behavior like mating has been a huge challenge. Now, a new fossil from China is helping to open the eyes of scientists and offer clues as to how one species (and perhaps other) dinosaurs pooped, peed, and reproduced.

Butterflies create jet propulsion with a clap of their wings

Scientists at Lund University in Sweden set out to verify a decades-old theory that insects "clap" their wings together, squeezing out the air between with such force that it thrusts them forward.

"Oogomadara" or tree nymph butterflies, the largest butterfly in Japan, fly at Ryugujo Butterfly Garden in Okinawa island, Japan, February 16, 2007. (Reuters Archive)

The whimsical, wafting flight of butterflies may not give the impression of top aerodynamic performance, but research has suggested their large flexible wings could be perfectly designed to give them a burst of jet propulsion.

Scientists at Lund University in Sweden set out to verify a decades-old theory that insects "clap" their wings together, squeezing out the air between with such force that it thrusts them forward.

In their aerodynamic analysis of free-flying butterflies published in the journal Interface, they showed that the clap function does generate a jet of air propulsion.

But they also found that the butterflies perform this move "in a far more advanced way than we ever realised," said co-author Per Henningsson, a professor in the department of biology at Lund University.

At the moment the wings beat together they "were not just two flat surfaces slamming together," he told AFP.

Instead, they form a "pocket" shape believed to trap more air.

When the researchers recreated this using mechanical wings, they found that those with butterfly-like flexibility that form this pocket at the moment of impact were 22 percent more effective in the amount of force created and 28 percent more efficient in the amount of energy used compared with rigid wings.

The team suggested that their findings could have uses for drones that use clapping wing propulsion.

A banded orange butterfly rests on a palm at the Camden Children's Garden in Camden, New Jersey, on September 27, 2005. (AP)

Predator evasion

Henningsson said the "dramatic improvement" in performance came as a surprise.

"This is the type of finding that is the most exciting for a scientist – the ones you didn't really expect," he said.

Butterfly wings "although conventionally considered aerodynamically inefficient" might be particularly good at forming this pocket shape, he added, suggesting they may have evolved enhance clap propulsion as a way to evade predators that might spot them as they take off.

"To minimise the risk of capture, butterflies typically take off very fast and suddenly and many of them fly in an erratic and unpredictable manner," he said.

"If indeed the clap is improved dramatically by the cupped shape of the wings this would allow a butterfly to take off faster and avoid being captured better, and hence you can imagine a strong selective pressure on this feature."

The study suggested other creatures – like fish or frogs – may also have developed clapping propulsion using cupped wings, fins or feet.

Henningsson said while the theory of the wing clap has been around since the 1970s, studies on butterfly flight had often relied on tethered butterflies or used simulations.

But improvements in technology to measure flow meant the authors were able to observe the creatures in natural flight.

READ MORE: Did blue butterflies help unearth mass graves in Bosnia?

READ MORE: Climate change in North America leaves monarch butterfly vulnerable

All-natural Covid-19 vaccine made from honeycombs shows promising results

Ireland’s Cellnutrition Health’s natural vaccine is showing promising results during test trials on animals by combatting the ever-mutating coronavirus, bacteria fungi and certain parasites

.

This picture taken on November 13, 2019 shows bees on a piece of honeycomb with honey at Chinese farmer Ma Gongzuo's apiary in Songyang county in China's Zhejiang province. (AFP)

An Ireland-based nutritional supplements company has announced its natural vaccine, made from honeybee comb, has shown promising results combatting viruses, including Covid-19.

Cellnutrition Health says it "is in the process of testing and producing a new vaccine for all viruses including the ever-mutating coronavirus, bacteria fungi and certain parasites" in a press release published earlier this month.

The company claims it's BEEMAR Formula vaccine is showing successful results in its four-year clinical trials treating infectious bronchitis virus, a member of the coronavirus family.

BEEMAR boosts no side effects as it only uses two active ingredients marine plasma and non-allergenic bee material sourced from protein-based enzymes, lysozymes.

"The first test batches of both the vaccine and immunotherapy will be used specifically to prevent and treat Covid-19," the release said.

USA

State responses, not federal, influenced rise in unemployment claims early in the pandemic

The researchers found found no evidence the Payroll Protection Program affected the number of initial claims during the first six weeks of the pandemic.

GEORGIA STATE UNIVERSITY

Research News

 

ATLANTA--Early in the U.S. COVID-19 pandemic, unemployment claims were largely driven by state shutdown orders and the nature of a state's economy and not by the virus, according a new article by Georgia State University economists.

David Sjoquist and Laura Wheeler found no evidence the Payroll Protection Program (PPP) affected the number of initial claims during the first six weeks of the pandemic.

Their research explores state differences in the magnitude of weekly unemployment insurance claims for the weeks ending March 14 through April 25 by focusing on three factors: the impact of COVID-19, the effects of state economic structures and state orders closing non-essential businesses and the impact of the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act (CARES) legislation.

During the first week studied, unemployment claims appeared to be driven by consumer reactions to the coronavirus as they adjusted their behavior prior to government shutdown orders. States with greater employment in the industries most affected by the virus and those with a larger share of workers making less than weekly unemployment benefits saw higher shares of new unemployment insurance claims.

By March 21, 31 states had issued orders prohibiting in-restaurant dining. Those that closed nonessential businesses experienced larger numbers of unemployment insurance claims per covered worker. Those that had larger numbers of employees able to work from home did not have a lower increase in new claims. This finding is contrary to what other research has suggested, the co-authors said.

"Earlier studies exploring the effects of COVID cases and school closures on state job markets suggest the reduction in employment was mainly a nationwide response to COVID, and that specific state policies to the disease had a comparatively moderate effect," Sjoquist said. "By considering various state responses, including stay-at-home orders and those closing schools and non-essential businesses, our research provides insight into the effect of a state's industry and employment mix on its unemployment claims during a pandemic."

Individual and organizational capacity to change can reduce health care workforce burnout

New George Mason University Study is one of first to explore the effects of individual and organizational capacity for change on burnout among health care professionals

GEORGE MASON UNIVERSITY

Research News

IMAGE: DR. DEBORA GOLDBERG IS AN EXPERT IN PRIMARY CARE PRACTICE TRANSFORMATION, PATIENT EXPERIENCE, AND CARE FOR THE UNDERSERVED, WITH HER CURRENT AND UPCOMING RESEARCH FOCUSED ON WORKPLACE HEALTH AND WELLBEING. view more 

CREDIT: GEORGE MASON UNIVERSITY

Even prior to the pandemic, burnout among health care professionals was a pervasive public health concern, with some studies reporting burnout in more than 50% of clinicians. During the COVID-19 pandemic, health care professionals are required to work even longer hours in high stress situations. Understanding causes of burnout and factors that can protect against it can help improve quality of life for the health care workforce and quality of care for patients.

New research by faculty in George Mason University's College of Health and Human Services found that health care professionals with a greater personal ability to respond to change experienced lower rates of burnout when their work environments offered strong communication, teamwork, and leadership support. This is one of the first studies to look at both individual response to change and organizational capacity for change and how these factors affect burnout among health care professionals.

Dr. Debora Goldberg led the study published in the Journal of General Internal Medicine. Goldberg is an expert in primary care practice transformation, patient experience, and care for the underserved, with her current and upcoming research focused on workplace health and wellbeing.

"We know that health care work environments and job demands have a profound effect on the health and well-being of those delivering care, and they may even influence the quality of health care received by patients," explains Goldberg. "Especially as our health care professionals and systems are being pushed to the limit in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, it is imperative that we are more aware of the influences of the work environment and job demands on health care professionals' health and well-being."

Goldberg and colleagues surveyed 1,279 individuals in 154 primary care practices in Virginia. They measured the practices' capacity for change, individuals' change readiness, hours worked per week, and burnout. Participants were part of the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality Heart of Virginia Healthcare (HVH) collaborative, which supported these practices with transformation and implementation of evidence-based cardiovascular care as they made major changes in operations and employee roles.

Burnout was measured with a single question on whether the health care professionals were experiencing burnout, a measure previously validated and used in workplace studies. Individual change readiness was measured with the Change Diagnostic Index©(CDI), which was developed by Dr. Victoria Grady in Mason's School of Business. Typically, the CDI is used in organizations that are planning for large change initiatives, and this is the first time it has been applied in primary care. The CDI measures individual attitudes toward organizational change in the areas of anxiety, frustration, delayed development, rejection of the environment, refusal to participate, withdrawal, and overall attitude. These individual attitudes can be indicators of larger organizational issues with morale, productivity, motivation, conflict, absenteeism, turnover, and overall organizational issues. The capacity of practices to change was measured by the practice adaptive reserve (PAR) instrument, which asks about an organization's communication, teamwork, relationship trust, leadership, work environment, adoption of innovations, and learning systems.

Consistent with their earlier work, the researchers found that providers were more likely to report burnout (25.5%) than other professionals (19.9% of clinical support staff, 17.5% of administrative staff).

Among all types of health care professionals (providers, clinical support staff, and administrative staff), both practice and individual factors were related to levels of burnout. Lower levels of burnout were reported among those who had higher scores for individual response to change as well as practices that had higher organizational capacity for change. As the change capacity of the practice increased, burnout in healthcare professionals decreased. As health care professionals had more positive responses to change, burnout decreased.

Higher levels of burnout were reported among those who worked more hours per week, were part of a larger practice (more than 10 clinicians) or were part of a single specialty practice.

"We found that the capacity of the practice to change influenced the relationship between individual response to change and burnout," added Goldberg. "Therefore, we recommend that physician practices and health care systems implement initiatives to reduce burnout by creating positive work environments through interprofessional teamwork, employee engagement, and enhanced communication."

###

This study was funded by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) under grant number R18HS023913.

About George Mason University

George Mason University is Virginia's largest and most diverse public research university. Located near Washington, D.C., Mason enrolls 39,000 students from 130 countries and all 50 states. Mason has grown rapidly over the past half-century and is recognized for its innovation and entrepreneurship, remarkable diversity and commitment to accessibility. For more information, visit https://www2.gmu.edu/.

About the College of Health and Human Services

George Mason University's College of Health and Human Services prepares students to become leaders and shape the public's health through academic excellence, research of consequence, community outreach, and interprofessional clinical practice. George Mason is the fastest-growing Research I institution in the country. The College enrolls more than 1,900 undergraduate and 1,370 graduate students in its nationally-recognized offerings, including: 5 undergraduate degrees, 13 graduate degrees, and 7 certificate programs. The college is transitioning to a college public health in the near future. For more information, visit https://chhs.gmu.edu/.

Revisiting the Global Workspace orchestrating the hierarchical organisation of the human brain

A paper published on 4 January in the open access journal Nature Human Behavior by Gustavo Deco, director of the Brain and Cognition Center,

UNIVERSITAT POMPEU FABRA - BARCELONA

Research News

 

The celebrations in the 250th anniversary of the birth of Ludwig van Beethoven would not be the same without Herbert von Karajan's brilliant performances conducting Beethoven's memorable symphonies. The execution of any musical symphony is a hugely difficult task, demanding very significant skills on the part of each individual musician - but perhaps the most difficult task lies with the conductor who has to orchestrate the musicians into making the music cohesively come alive and speak to our deepest emotions.

In many ways the human brain is like an orchestra, where different regions perform very different types of processing, such as in the individual musician in the orchestra who needs to be able to read the music, play their instrument and listen to the music produced. Still, the role of the conductor is different, namely to coordinate and orchestrate the output of each musician into a cohesive whole. Without a conductor, the music invariably fails - as shown beautifully in Fellini's magisterial film "Prova d'orchestra" (eng. "Musical rehearsal").

It has been proposed that the human brain is similar to an orchestra in that it is hierarchically organised but that there is unlikely to be just a single conductor. Instead, in 1988 psychologist Bernard Baars proposed the concept of a 'global workspace', where information is integrated in a small group of 'conductors' before being broadcast to the whole brain. This much celebrated theory proposes an elegant solution to how hierarchical organisation allows the brain to orchestrate function and behaviour by organising the flow of information and the underlying computations necessary for survival. As such, this is a theory of consciousness as pointed out by neuroscientists Stanislas Dehaene and Jean-Pierre Changeux, who proposed the 'global neuronal workspace' hypothesis where associative perceptual, motor, attention, memory, and value areas interconnect to form a higher-level unified space where information is broadly shared and broadcast back to lower-level processors. Colloquially, the brain's global workspace is thus akin to a small core assembly of people in charge of an organisation; in other words like a group of many Von Karajans leading a musical orchestra.

Yet, until now it has not been known where and how this orchestration takes place in the human brain. It is only with the new paper "Revisiting the Global Workspace orchestrating the hierarchical organisation of the human brain" published the leading open-access journal Nature Human Behavior on Monday 4th of January 2021 that researchers have discovered the existence of a functional 'rich club' of brain regions incarnating this 'global workpace'. This radical new discovery resulted from Profs Gustavo Deco and Morten L Kringelbach's international collaboration between Center for Brain and Cognition at University Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona (Spain) and Department of Psychiatry, University of Oxford (UK) and Center for Music in the Brain, University of Aarhus. Based on a large dataset of over 1000 human participants with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) recordings, the findings have shed new light on the nature of consciousness.

Prof Deco says: "To identify the global workspace, we determined the information flow between brain regions by means of a normalised directed transfer entropy framework applied to multimodal neuroimaging data a large group of healthy participants. This revealed for the first time a set of unique brain regions orchestrating information from perceptual, long-term memory, evaluative and attentional systems across many different tasks. Furthermore, we confirmed the causal significance and robustness of our results by systematically lesioning a generative whole-brain model".

Prof Kringelbach adds: "Our findings shed light on a major unsolved challenging problem in neuroscience. While the results presented here pertain to the global workspace of conscious task processing, future work could use our framework to investigate other states such as sleep and anaesthesia, allowing for a direct comparison with other theories of consciousness. Equally, our framework could be used to investigate unbalanced brain states in neuropsychiatric disorders and be used to perturb and rebalance the model to identify novel optimal, causal paths to health".

###

Even a small amount of gender bias in hiring can be costly to employers

OREGON STATE UNIVERSITY

Research News

 

CORVALLIS, Ore. - Tiny amounts of gender bias in employee hiring decisions contribute to concerning rates of discrimination and productivity losses that together represent significant costs, financial and otherwise, for employers, a new study from Oregon State University has found.

Gender bias is a subtle, unintentional preference for one gender over the other. Despite significant efforts to reduce bias in hiring over the last several decades, it continues to persist and pose potential problems for companies, said Jay Hardy, an assistant professor of management in OSU's College of Business and lead author of the study.

"The research has long shown bias exists. This study shows that it matters," Hardy said. "When carried through the hiring decision-making process, tiny amounts of bias will balloon into a high probability of discriminatory hiring outcomes in the eyes of the law, which also has important financial consequences for companies that end up hiring less-qualified candidates.

"The message of this study is that you can't ignore gender bias, even if you think its influence is so small as to not be concerning. Society generally recognizes bias as a moral issue, but we are now learning the extent to which it is a financial and strategic issue, as well."

The findings were published today in the Journal of Management. Co-authors on the paper are Richard Martell and Andy Olstad of Oregon State and Kian Siong Tey, Wilson Cyrus-Lai and Eric Luis Uhlmann of INSEAD, one of the world's largest graduate business schools, with locations in Europe, Asia, the Middle East and North America.

Hardy's research focuses on areas of human resources, including employee recruitment and selection and systematic bias in hiring. His goal for the study was to better understand the effects gender bias in hiring might have for employers.

"Bias is a problem ingrained in us. It is systematic," Hardy said. "It's not typically about bad intent. It is a natural response of human beings to make sense of our complex world by taking mental shortcuts. However, these cognitive shortcuts can have big consequences for us when high stakes rewards like a sought-after job are on the line. Our goal is to better understand it so we can find solutions."

Hardy and his colleagues first reviewed about 30 years of studies on gender bias and hiring in the workplace. The good news is that there appears to be less gender bias effect than there used to be. A couple of decades ago, gender bias influenced about 4% of hires. Today bias influences 1% or possibly fewer hires, Hardy said.

"The science shows that the effects of gender bias on hiring are very small," Hardy said. "In broad strokes, it seems like hiring decisions are actually pretty fair - certainly more fair than they used to be."

To better understand the impact this bias has and what it means for companies, Hardy and his colleagues ran a series of computer simulations. The researchers found that even a small amount of bias in hiring decisions can lead to discriminatory action against job candidates, putting companies at risk of costly legal action. They also found that biased hiring decisions can be costly for companies because a less-qualified candidate may not be successful in the position.

For example, a typical Fortune 500 company that hires 8,000 new employees a year with a 1% gender bias effect can expect 32 additional failed hires and many more sub-optimal hiring decisions, resulting in productivity losses of about $2.8 million per year. A 4% bias effect would lead to an additional 192 failed hires and an additional $17 million in lost productivity.

The study focused specifically on gender, but Hardy said it is likely that other types of bias would have similar or even bigger impacts. Past research has demonstrated that racial bias effects in hiring are much larger than they are for gender, so it is reasonable to think there would be more discrimination and more costs for employers as a result, he said.

"My estimates for gender bias were conservative and my simulations modeled near-optimal hiring conditions, so the impact of gender bias is likely to be higher in many real-world hiring contexts than my study indicates," Hardy said.

Hardy and his colleagues also simulated the impacts of some common methods for reducing gender bias in hiring, such as targeted recruiting efforts to build a bigger pool of female candidates, and found those methods still pose challenges.

"The targeted recruitment of highly qualified candidates can increase representation, but if you're not fixing the underlying bias problem, these methods do not address discrimination and can lead to other issues, including employee dissatisfaction," Hardy said.

Companies looking to reduce gender bias in their hiring processes should look for ways to remove human judgments from the process as much as possible, Hardy said. Interviews are one of the most common but least objective hiring tools, he noted. Future work by Hardy will further explore how to address bias in hiring and other employment decisions.

"Hiring is always going to be an imperfect process because human beings are complicated," Hardy said. "But the gold standard for any hiring manager should be to be as objective as possible in the hiring process."

###

Worker safety goes beyond human error

Perceptions of safety procedure quality and utility are the best predictors of workers' likelihood to comply, Texas A&M researchers found

TEXAS A&M UNIVERSITY

Research News

 

Disasters in high-risk industries can have catastrophic environmental, financial and human safety consequences. One way these industries help prevent and mitigate disasters is formal procedures designed to standardize how work is done. These procedures typically come in the form of a written document workers use while performing a task.

Camille Peres, associate professor at the Texas A&M University School of Public Health, said that there are two models of safety companies usually follow to varying degrees, whether they realize it or not. Safety model one "is very much a control paradigm," Peres said. "The idea the company has is that if they control absolutely everything that's going on, then they will be safe." This narrow, rule-following approach does not account for unexpected circumstances and broader system issues, such as safety climate.

Safety model two focuses on procedures as a tool for the worker, and the worker being sufficiently trained to know how and when to adjust to unforeseen circumstances.

"Safety model two involves empowering the workers to understand the risks and be able to adapt when necessary to unexpected situations," Peres said. "There is an acknowledgment that things don't always go according to plan, and there is constant feedback between workers and superiors about how best to accomplish work -- this often means improving procedures in an efficient and effective way."

Although safety model two seems like an effective way to prevent incidents from occurring, there has been little empirical evidence for it in the workplace. To fill this research gap, Peres and colleagues, including Joseph W. Hendricks, research associate at the School of Public Health, recently conducted a study to investigate how both safety models one and two influence safety in the workplace through individual and system-level characteristics.

Individual characteristics include amount of work experience, attitude toward procedure utility (or usefulness), and attitude toward procedure compliance. System-level characteristics include worker subjective judgments of procedure quality, safety climate, the efficiency of the procedure change process and the impact of procedure improvement.

The researchers' main findings were that the better the worker's attitude toward compliance and the utility of procedures, and fewer years' experience, the less likely they are to deviate from and actually use procedures.

Further, the researchers found that of the individual-level characteristics, attitudes toward procedure utility were found to be the best predictor of incidents and near-misses, suggesting that the better workers' attitudes regarding procedure utility, the fewer incidents and near-misses they were involved in per year.

"To have utility associated with incidents and near misses is a big deal," Peres said. "This tells industry that it's not enough to have high quality procedures -- you have to have procedures that help workers do their jobs." Specifically, they found that utility was the best predictor of procedure use, even after accounting for procedure quality.

As found in other studies, procedure quality was found to be important. The better the quality of the procedure, the fewer deviations there are, resulting in fewer incidents and near-misses per year.

This study is unique in that it demonstrates procedure quality to be a better predictor than all other predictors -- including individual characteristics. This supports the safety two model, as it suggests that the characteristics of the workers are not what is most predictive of procedure use, procedure deviation, incidents and near misses.

Peres said the study is not advocating for the abandonment of safety model one, but rather for the two models to be used together so that individual and system-level factors can be taken into account to design more effective procedural systems.

Further studies are needed to compare workers' performance in different experimental conditions. It will also be necessary to conduct longitudinal studies to determine how these variables change over time. Peres and Hendricks are working with industry partners as part of the Next Generation Advanced Procedures Consortium to conduct these studies.

###

Safety Science link: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0925753520304136?via%3Dihub

Disclaimer: AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert system.

New study connects religiosity in US South Asians to cardiovascular disease

Scientific Reports publishes the first study to analyze the relationships among proteomic signatures, religion and spirituality and risk of developing a clinical condition

MASSACHUSETTS GENERAL HOSPITAL

Research News

 

BOSTON - The Study on Stress, Spirituality and Health (SSSH), a cutting-edge proteomics analysis, suggests that religious beliefs modulate protein expression associated with cardiovascular disease in South Asians in the United States. The research, published by investigators from Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) and the University of California San Francisco (UCSF) in Scientific Reports, demonstrates that spiritual struggles, in particular, significantly modify the impact of unique proteins on risk of developing cardiovascular disease (CVD) in U.S. South Asians, a community that has especially high rates of CVD.

This study represents the first proteomics analysis ever conducted on protein levels in relationship to CVD within a U.S. South Asian population and the first published study to analyze proteomics signatures in relationship to religion and spirituality in any population.

"Before we can develop the best interventions to reduce CVD disparities, we need to understand the biological pathways through which health disparities are produced," says the study's principal investigator and co-senior author Alexandra Shields, PhD, director of the Harvard/MGH Center on Genomics, Vulnerable Populations and Health Disparities at the MGH Mongan Institute and associate professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School (HMS). "As this study shows, psychosocial factors - and religious or spiritual struggles in particular - can affect biological processes that lead to CVD in this high-risk population. Spirituality can also serve as a resource for resilience and have a protective effect. Given that many of the minority communities that experience higher levels of CVD also report higher levels of religiosity and spirituality, studies such as the SSSH may help identify new leverage points, such as spiritually focused psychotherapy for those in spiritual distress, that could reduce risk of CVD for such individuals."

Results of the study, which included 50 participants who developed CVD and 50 sex- and age-matched controls without CVD from the Mediators of Atherosclerosis in South Asians Living in America (MASALA) Study (100 participants), indicate that there may be unique protein expression profiles associated with CVD in U.S. South Asian populations, and that these associations may also be impacted by religious struggles, in which, for example, individuals experiencing adverse life events feel they are being punished or abandoned by their God, or have a crisis of faith. The MASALA study includes 1,164 South Asians who were recruited from the San Francisco Bay Area and the greater Chicago area and followed for approximately eight years with the goal of investigating factors that lead to heart disease among this high-risk ethnic group. MASALA is one of the original cohorts participating in SSSH, through which this research was conducted.

"Understanding the pathways of this mechanism at the molecular level using proteomics technology is crucial to developing potential interventions that can help reduce CVD incidence in this population," says Long H. Ngo, PhD, lead author and co-director of Biostatistics in the Division of General Medicine at BIDMC and associate professor of Medicine at HMS.

Co-senior author Towia Libermann, PhD, director of Genomics, Proteomics, Bioinformatics and Systems Biology Center at BIDMC, adds: "The kinds of blood-based protein biomarkers used in this study are particularly effective in assessing CVD risk because they carry clinical information about risk of disease and are the most commonly used molecules for diagnostic applications."

###

Other investigators included Alka Kanaya, MD, professor of Medicine at UCSF and principal investigator of the MASALA Study; Austin Argentieri, MPhil, research associate at the Harvard/MGH Center on Genomics, Vulnerable Populations, and Health Disparities; and Blake Victor Kent, assistant professor of Sociology at Westmont College, Santa Barbara, California.

The research was funded by a grant from the John Templeton Foundation.

About the Massachusetts General Hospital

Massachusetts General Hospital, founded in 1811, is the original and largest teaching hospital of Harvard Medical School. The Mass General Research Institute conducts the largest hospital-based research program in the nation, with annual research operations of more than $1 billion and comprises more than 9,500 researchers working across more than 30 institutes, centers and departments. In August 2020, Mass General was named #6 in the U.S. News & World Report list of "America's Best Hospitals."