A helping hand for robotic manipulator design

With modular components and an easy-to-use 3D interface, this interactive design pipeline enables anyone to create their own customized robotic hand.

Reports and Proceedings

MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY

 

IMAGE: MIT RESEARCHERS HAVE CREATED AN INTEGRATED DESIGN PIPELINE THAT ENABLES A USER WITH NO SPECIALIZED KNOWLEDGE TO QUICKLY CRAFT A CUSTOMIZED 3D-PRINTABLE ROBOTIC HAND. view more 

CREDIT: LARA ZLOKAPA

MIT researchers have created an interactive design pipeline that streamlines and simplifies the process of crafting a customized robotic hand with tactile sensors.

 

Typically, a robotics expert may spend months manually designing a custom manipulator, largely through trial-and-error. Each iteration could require new parts that must be designed and tested from scratch. By contrast, this new pipeline doesn’t require any manual assembly or specialized knowledge.

 

Akin to building with digital LEGOs, a designer uses the interface to construct a robotic manipulator from a set of modular components that are guaranteed to be manufacturable. The user can adjust the palm and fingers of the robotic hand, tailoring it to a specific task, and then easily integrate tactile sensors into the final design.

                                          

Once the design is finished, the software automatically generates 3D printing and machine knitting files for manufacturing the manipulator. Tactile sensors are incorporated through a knitted glove that fits snugly over the robotic hand. These sensors enable the manipulator to perform complex tasks, such as picking up delicate items or using tools.

 

“One of the most exciting things about this pipeline is that it makes design accessible to a general audience. Rather than spending months or years working on a design, and putting a lot of money into prototypes, you can have a working prototype in minutes,” says lead author Lara Zlokapa, who will graduate this spring with her master’s degree in mechanical engineering.

 

Joining Zlokapa on the paper are her advisors Pulkit Agrawal, professor in the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL), and Wojciech Matusik, professor of electrical engineering and computer science. Other co-authors include CSAIL graduate students Yiyue Luo and Jie Xu, mechanical engineer Michael Foshey, and Kui Wu, a senior research scientist at Tencent America. The research is being presented at the International Conference on Robotics and Automation.

 

Mulling over modularity

 

Before she began work on the pipeline, Zlokapa paused to consider the concept of modularity. She wanted to create enough components that users could mix and match with flexibility, but not so many that they were overwhelmed by choices.

 

She thought creatively about component functions, rather than shapes, and came up with about 15 parts that can combine to make trillions of unique manipulators.

 

The researchers then focused on building an intuitive interface in which the user mixes and matches components in a 3D design space. A set of production rules, known as graph grammar, controls how users can combine pieces based on the way each component, such as a joint or finger shaft, fits together.

 

“If we think of this as a LEGO kit where you have different building blocks you can put together, then the grammar might be something like ‘red blocks can only go on top of blue blocks’ and ‘blue blocks can’t go on top of green blocks.’ Graph grammar is what enables us to ensure that each and every design is valid, meaning it makes physical sense and you can manufacture it,” she explains.

 

Once the user has created the manipulator structure, they can deform components to customize it for a specific task. For instance, perhaps the manipulator needs fingers with slimmer tips to handle office scissors or curved fingers that can grasp bottles.

 

During this deformation stage, the software surrounds each component with a digital cage. Users stretch or bend components by dragging the corners of each cage. The system automatically constrains those movements to ensure the pieces still connect properly and the finished design remains manufacturable.

 

Fits like a glove

 

After customization, the user identifies locations for tactile sensors. These sensors are integrated into a knitted glove that fits securely around the 3D-printed robotic manipulator. The glove is comprised of two fabric layers, one that contains horizontal piezoelectric fibers and another with vertical fibers. Piezoelectric material produces an electric signal when squeezed. Tactile sensors are formed where the horizontal and vertical piezoelectric fibers intersect; they convert pressure stimuli into electric signals that can be measured.

 

“We used gloves because they are easy to install, easy to replace, and easy to take off if we need to repair anything inside them,” Zlokapa explains.

 

Plus, with gloves, the user can cover the entire hand with tactile sensors, rather than embedding them in the palm or fingers, as is the case with other robotic manipulators (if they have tactile sensors at all).

 

With the design interface complete, the researchers produced custom manipulators for four complex tasks: picking up an egg, cutting paper with scissors, pouring water from a bottle, and screwing in a wing nut. The wing nut manipulator, for instance, had one lengthened and offset finger, which prevented the finger from colliding with the nut as it turned. That successful design required only two iterations.

 

The egg-grabbing manipulator never broke or dropped the egg during testing, and the paper-cutting manipulator could use a wider range of scissors than any existing robotic hand they could find in the literature.

 

But as they tested the manipulators, the researchers found that the sensors create a lot of noise due to the uneven weave of the knitted fibers, which hampers their accuracy. They are now working on more reliable sensors that could improve manipulator performance.

 

The researchers also want to explore the use of additional automation. Since the graph grammar rules are written in a way that a computer can understand, algorithms could search the design space to determine optimal configurations for a task-specific robotic hand. With autonomous manufacturing, the entire prototyping process could be done without human intervention, Zlokapa says.

 

“Now that we have a way for a computer to explore this design space, we can work on answering the question of, ‘Is the human hand the optimal shape for doing everyday tasks?’ Maybe there is a better shape? Or maybe we want more or fewer fingers, or fingers pointing in different directions? This research doesn’t fully answer that question, but it is a step in that direction,” she says.

 

This work was supported, in part, by the Toyota Research Institute, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, and an Amazon Robotics Research Award.

 

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Written by Adam Zewe, MIT News Office

 

 

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ARTICLE TITLE

An integrated design pipeline for tactile sensing robotic manipulators

From baristas to inspectors: Singapore's robot workforce plugs labour gaps


By Travis Teo

SINGAPORE (Reuters) - After struggling to find staff during the pandemic, businesses in Singapore have increasingly turned to deploying robots to help carry out a range of tasks, from surveying construction sites to scanning library bookshelves.

The city-state relies on foreign workers, but their number fell by 235,700 between December 2019 and September 2021, according to the manpower ministry, which notes how COVID-19 curbs have sped up "the pace of technology adoption and automation" by companies.


© Reuters/TRAVIS TEORobot barista "Ella", designed by Crown Digital, makes a coffee autonomously after receiving orders, in Singapore

At a Singapore construction site, a four-legged robot called "Spot", built by U.S. company Boston Dynamics, scans sections of mud and gravel to check on work progress, with data fed back to construction company Gammon's control room.


© Reuters/TRAVIS TEOA view of a book-scanning robot used by Singapore's National Library Board, to scan and report misplaced books, in Singapore

Gammon's general manager, Michael O'Connell, said using Spot required only one human employee instead of the two previously needed to do the job manually.

"Replacing the need for manpower on-site with autonomous solutions is gaining real traction," said O'Connell, who believes industry labour shortages made worse by the pandemic are here to stay.


© Reuters/TRAVIS TEOA view of a mosquito-trapping robot used by LHN group, which runs the Coliwoo hotel chain, inside a hotel in Singapore

Meanwhile, Singapore's National Library has introduced two shelf-reading robots that can scan labels on 100,000 books, or about 30 percent of its collection, per day.


© Reuters/TRAVIS TEOA view of a mosquito-trapping robot used by LHN group, which runs the Coliwoo hotel chain, inside a hotel in Singapore

"Staff need not read the call numbers one by one on the shelf, and this reduces the routine and labour-intensive aspects," said Lee Yee Fuang, assistant director at the National Library Board.

Singapore has 605 robots installed per 10,000 employees in the manufacturing industry, the second-highest number globally, after South Korea's 932, according to a 2021 report by the International Federation of Robotics.

Robots are also being used for customer-facing tasks, with more than 30 metro stations set to have robots making coffee for commuters.

Keith Tan, chief executive of Crown Digital, which created the barista robot, said it was helping solve the "biggest pain-point" in food and beverage - finding staff - while also creating well-paid positions to help automate the sector.


© Reuters/TRAVIS TEOA view of a cleaning robot used by LHN group, which runs the Coliwoo hotel chain, inside a hotel in Singapore

However, some people trying the service still yearned for human interaction.

"We always want to have some kind of human touch," said commuter Ashish Kumar, while sipping on a robot-brewed drink.

(Editing by Ed Davies and Bradley Perrett)


© Reuters/TRAVIS TEORobot dog, made by Hyundai-owned Boston Dynamics, is used by the Gammon Construction Ltd to make a scan of a construction site for supervisors to check work progress, on Sentosa Island


© Reuters/TRAVIS TEORobot dog, made by Hyundai-owned Boston Dynamics, is used by the Gammon Construction Ltd to run autonomous survey of their worksite, on Sentosa Island

Forecast of food cyber attacks

Agriculture tech use opens possibility of digital havoc

Peer-Reviewed Publication

FLINDERS UNIVERSITY

Wide-ranging use of smart technologies is raising global agricultural production but international researchers warn this digital-age phenomenon could reap a crop of another kind – cybersecurity attacks.

Complex IT and math modelling at King Abdulaziz University in Saudi Arabia, Aix-Marseille University, France and Flinders University in South Australia, has highlighted the risks in a new article in the open access journal Sensors.

“Smart sensors and systems are used to monitor crops, plants, the environment, water, soil moisture, and diseases,” says lead author Professor Abel Alahmadi from King Abdulaziz University.

“The transformation to digital agriculture would improve the quality and quantity of food for the ever-increasing human population, which is forecast to reach 10.9 billion by 2100.”

This progress in production, genetic modification for drought-resistant crops, and other technologies is prone to cyber-attack – particularly if the ag-tech sector doesn’t take adequate precautions like other corporate or defence sectors, researchers warn.

Flinders University researcher Dr Saeed Rehman says the rise of internet connectivity and smart low-power devices has facilitated the shift of many labour-intensive food production jobs into the digital domain – including modern techniques for accurate irrigation, soil and crop monitoring using drone surveillance.

“However, we should not overlook security threats and vulnerabilities to digital agriculture, in particular possible side-channel attacks specific to ag-tech applications,” says Dr Rehman, an expert in cybersecurity and networking.

“Digital agriculture is not immune to cyber-attack, as seen by interference to a US watering system, a meatpacking firm, wool broker software and an Australian beverage company.”

“Extraction of cryptographic or sensitive information from the operation of physical hardware is termed side-channel attack,” adds Flinders co-author Professor David Glynn.

“These attacks could be easily carried out with physical access to devices, which the cybersecurity community has not explicitly investigated.”

The researchers recommend investment into precautions and awareness about the vulnerabilities of digital agriculture to cyber-attack, with an eye on the potential serious effects on the general population in terms of food supply, labour and flow-on costs.

The article, Cyber-Security Threats and Side-Channel Attacks for Digital Agriculture (2022) by Adel N Alahmadi , Saeed Ur Rehman, Husain S Alhazmi, David G Glynn, Hatoon Shoaib and Patrick Solé (Aix-Marseille University, France) has been published in Sensors DOI: 10.3390/s22093520

Acknowledgement: The research received funding from the Saudi Ministry of Education, furthering Saudi Vision 2030.  

 

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JOURNAL

Sensors

DOI

10.3390/s22093520 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Computational simulation/modeling

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Not applicable

ARTICLE TITLE

Cyber-Security Threats and Side-Channel Attacks for Digital Agriculture

Easy, flexible access to produce, resources boosts healthy eating for central Texas kids

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT AUSTIN

Austin, TX— What children eat affects their lifelong health. But influencing their habits can be difficult, especially for underserved families with fewer resources. However, providing caregivers easy access to produce and flexible resources can lead to improvements in kids’ diets in a short time, according to a new study from researchers at Dell Medical School at The University of Texas at Austin.

The randomized clinical trial, published today in JAMA Network Open, was led by Dell Med’s Factor Health initiative and funded by a grant from the Michael & Susan Dell Foundation. The team set out to assess what impact providing caregivers with four weeks of free tastings of produce and grocery gift cards would have on their ability to adjust their children’s diets.

“We know that people in general, including kids, do not consume the daily recommended amount of fruits and veggies,” said Maninder “Mini” Kahlon, Ph.D., director and founder of Factor Health. “We wanted to see if we could support caregivers in improving their child’s diet through easy access to fresh produce as well as flexible resources they could use as they wanted, based on their priorities.”   

The two-group randomized clinical trial was conducted from May to July 2021. Researchers began by offering food and grocery store gift cards to caregivers enrolled in an existing curbside program managed by the Boys & Girls Clubs of the Austin Area (BGCAA). Every week for four weeks, caregivers were given 10-pound boxes of fruits and vegetables at BGCAA sites and $10 gift cards for the grocery store H-E-B.

“These families were already part of our ‘Club on the Go’ program, which was launched in response to the COVID-19 pandemic,” said Jenn Barnes, director of club operations at BGCAA. “Integrating the food box and gift card delivery into their regular site visit eliminated the burden and inconvenience of making an additional trip to pick them up.”

At four- and eight-week intervals, researchers assessed child and caregiver diets using the Texas School Physical Activity and Nutrition (Texas SPAN) tool, which was developed by the Michael & Susan Dell Center for Healthy Living. They observed that, on average, children ate healthier foods two additional times per day, compared with the control group, and healthy eating behaviors continued after the program ended.

“Our research team saw an increase in kids’ consumption of produce—and importantly, that healthy eating continued during the four-week follow-up period after the program,” said Kahlon, who is also an associate professor of population health at Dell Med. “This is especially notable given that caregivers were not required to use their gift cards to buy healthy food.”

Caregivers were given an additional $10 gift card during the last three weeks of the program if they completed short reinforcement surveys that reminded them of the healthy eating goal of the program. They were also given a one-time choice of a $25 food preparation tool, including a kids’ kitchen set, a food blender, knives and spice kits.

“In total, caregivers received an average of $42 in H-E-B gift cards and 27 pounds of produce over four weeks,” said Deanna Hoelscher, Ph.D., co-investigator on the Factor Health team, dean of the UTHealth School of Public Health Austin Campus, and director of the Michael & Susan Dell Center for Healthy Living. “We also provided support with each produce box, including bilingual, culturally relevant recipes customized to the box’s contents and helpful advice, like how to store produce.”

Improving Health Outside of Clinics and Hospitals

“In the context of social determinants of health, there are seemingly endless opportunities for our health system to get creative and address what our team at Dell Med calls the healthscape, or health in the landscape of people’s lives,” Kahlon said. That’s where programs such as Factor Health come in — by bringing together community-based organizations, health care payers and investors in new ways to rethink the path to better health, particularly for vulnerable populations, she said. 

The Christensen Institute profiled Factor Health as an innovative business model in its white paper on the social drivers of health, released earlier this week.

Factor Health, which is funded by the Houston-based Episcopal Health Foundation, is preparing for a launch of a larger study with BGCAA involving elementary-aged children in Central Texas that incorporates learnings from this clinical trial. Factor Health works with health care payers such as Medicaid managed care organizations to make the health and business case to sustain effective social programs by paying for results that matter.

“We found that we did not have to constrain caregivers to healthy purchases for them to make healthy choices for their children, with quite rapid results,” said Kahlon. “As we move ahead, we’re excited to see how much more we can improve children’s diets with longer-term programs that provide resources for caregivers to experiment and craft their own strategies that work in the context of their lives.”

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JOURNAL

JAMA Network Open

Scientists identify beetle that triggers production of red propolis in Brazil

The new species of beetle in the family Buprestidae was found in the state of Bahia and described by researchers at the University of São Paulo and collaborators. The group discovered how the insect contributes to production of red propolis by honey bees

Peer-Reviewed Publication

FUNDAÇÃO DE AMPARO À PESQUISA DO ESTADO DE SÃO PAULO

Jairo Kenupp Bastos first heard about the insect while visiting Canavieiras on the south coast of Bahia, a state in the Northeast of Brazil. “Local beekeepers told me about a tiny beetle that made holes in a plant called Dalbergia ecastaphyllum [Coinvine], a member of the pea family, and that the holes leaked a resin used by bees to make red propolis,” said Bastos, a professor of pharmacognosy (the study of drugs isolated from natural sources, such as plants, animals and minerals) at the University of São Paulo’s Ribeirão Preto School of Pharmaceutical Sciences (FCFRP-USP) in Brazil.

Honey bees (Apis mellifera) harvest the resin and blend it with wax, pollen and enzymes to make red propolis, the second most widely produced and marketed type of propolis in Brazil. Its red color derives from the resin. It has anti-oxidant, anti-inflammatory and anti-tumor properties.

To understand more about the process, Bastos took several larvae of the beetle to the Zoology Museum in São Paulo city, where he was told that adult specimens were needed to identify the insect properly. He invited PhD candidate Letizia Migliore to carry out the mission by going into the countryside outside Canavieiras in search of the plant with its beetles. She was accompanied by Gianfranco Curletti, an entomologist affiliated with the Civic Museum of Natural History in Carmagnola, Italy; Gari Ccana-Ccapatinta, a postdoctoral fellow at FCFRP-USP; and Jean Carvalho, a biologist and beekeeper who lives in Canavieiras.

“The beetle is very small, so it was no easy task, but we managed to collect a few males and females, which were fixed in ethanol at 70% and taken to the museum, where they were analyzed under a microscope. This is how we discovered this new species in the family Buprestidae, which was named Agrilus propolis,” Migliore recalled. 

Curletti, Gabriel Biffi and Sônia Casari, head of the museum’s Coleoptera Lab and Migliore’s supervisor, also took part.

“In parallel with this, phytochemical analysis was performed in the Pharmacognosy Lab [at FCFRP-USP] to confirm that the resin and propolis had the same chemical composition, proving their botanical origin and showing that this new species of beetle contributes to the production of the medicinal substance,” said Ccana-Ccapatinta, who is a member of Bastos’s team.

Transformation

The two groups’ combined research offers an overview of the process. Beetle larvae develop inside stems of D. ecastaphyllum, and on reaching adulthood emerge through holes, together with the resinous exudate.

The researchers’ findings are reported in an article published in The Science of Nature. They were funded by FAPESP via a Thematic Project led by Bastos, and a doctoral scholarship awarded to Jennyfer Mejía, a co-author of the article.

“The article is extremely important because it shows that the agent that induces the host plant to produce the key ingredient in red propolis has finally been identified. Until now we had no information on the species of insect that could be behind this phenomenon,” Casari said, adding that the data serves as a basis for further research on the production of red propolis, which sells for a high price and therefore has economic significance. A kilo was worth USD 150 on the market in 2019, when the research was done.

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About São Paulo Research Foundation (FAPESP)

The São Paulo Research Foundation (FAPESP) is a public institution with the mission of supporting scientific research in all fields of knowledge by awarding scholarships, fellowships and grants to investigators linked with higher education and research institutions in the State of São Paulo, Brazil. FAPESP is aware that the very best research can only be done by working with the best researchers internationally. Therefore, it has established partnerships with funding agencies, higher education, private companies, and research organizations in other countries known for the quality of their research and has been encouraging scientists funded by its grants to further develop their international collaboration. You can learn more about FAPESP at www.fapesp.br/en and visit FAPESP news agency at www.agencia.fapesp.br/en to keep updated with the latest scientific breakthroughs FAPESP helps achieve through its many programs, awards and research centers. You may also subscribe to FAPESP news agency at http://agencia.fapesp.br/subscribe.

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JOURNAL

The Science of Nature

ARTICLE TITLE

A new species of jewel beetle (Coleoptera, Buprestidae, Agrilus) triggers the production of the Brazilian red propolis

Sensor network in the forest to improve forecasts of climate change impacts

Grant and Award Announcement

UNIVERSITY OF FREIBURG

The German Research Foundation (DFG) will fund the Collaborative Research Center CRC 1537 "ECOSENSE" from July 1, 2022. The SFB will receive about 10.5 million euros over four years for its interdisciplinary, detailed research on ecosystem processes in forests.

The team led by CRC spokespersons Prof. Dr. Ulrike Wallrabe, Professor of Microactuators at the Institute of Microsystems Engineering, and Prof. Dr. Christiane Werner, Professor of Ecosystem Physiology at the Institute of Institute of Earth and Environmental Sciences at the University of Freiburg, would like to be able to more precisely and quickly detect and predict critical changes in the forest ecosystem - which are occurring as a result of climate change.

Sensor network sends measurement data to database in real time

To do so, the CRC is developing an autonomous, intelligent sensor network based on novel microsensors. Tailored to harsh forest environments, these will measure the spatio-temporal dynamics of ecosystem states and fluxes in a natural, complex-structured forest in a minimally invasive manner. "The measurement data will be transferred in real time to a sophisticated database and will be immediately available for process analysis, deep learning and improved simulation models for short- and medium-term predictions," Wallrabe explains. "Currently, there is a lack of suitable measurement, data and modeling tools for comprehensive quantification of change processes in real time at the highest spatio-temporal resolution. That's where we come in and develop mobile, easily deployable systems."

Impacts of climate change on complex forest ecosystems are largely unexplored

"Climate change is threatening forest ecosystems worldwide, which serve an important regulatory function in the climate system as carbon reservoirs. The impacts on complex forest ecosystems with their multiple processes and interactions between soil, plant and atmosphere are largely unexplored. Future changes are therefore hardly predictable," Werner explains. "Improved process understanding of carbon and water cycles is imperative for accurate predictions of climate change impacts on our forests."

The two CRC spokespersons Werner and Wallrabe are convinced: "The ECOSENSE toolkit, validated under controlled climate stress experiments and in our ECOSENSE forest, will enable a rapid assessment of any ecosystem in the future; even in remote areas."

Interdisciplinary collaboration between the University of Freiburg and the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology

The research group is composed of scientists from various research areas: Freiburg researchers from six professorships of the Faculty of Environment and Natural Resources and six professorships of the Institute for Microsystems Engineering (IMTEK) and the Institute for Sustainable Technical Systems (INATECH) are involved. "This means that two large departments are equally involved in this project," says Wallrabe. As part of the CRC, the Freiburg researchers are collaborating with the Institute for Microstructure Technology and the Institute for Meteorology and Climate Research at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT).

 

Fact Box:

• Werner has been a professor of ecosystem physiology at the Institute of Forest Sciences since 2015, researching plant and ecosystem responses to climate change and investigating processes from the molecular to the ecosystem level with experimental laboratory and field work. In 2015, she was awarded the ERC consolidator grant.
• Wallrabe has been a professor of microactuators at the Institute of Microsystems Engineering (IMTEK) since 2003. Her work focuses on magnetic microstructures and adaptive microoptics. In September 2010, Wallrabe received a research fellowship at the Freiburg Institute of Advanced Studies (FRIAS) as an Internal Fellow.

Wine as scapegoat in trade disputes means consumers pay the price

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS COLLEGE OF AGRICULTURAL, CONSUMER AND ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES


IMAGE: WILLIAM RIDLEY, ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF AGRICULTURAL AND CONSUMER ECONOMICS AT THE UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS, EXPLORED THE ECONOMIC COSTS OF WINE TARIFFS FOR PRODUCERS AND CONSUMERS IN THE GLOBAL MARKETPLACE. view more

CREDIT: MARIANNE STEIN, UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS.

URBANA, Ill. ­­– When you sit down for a nice dinner and sip a glass of wine, is your bottle of choice from France, Australia, or South America? Chances are the fine beverage you’re enjoying is imported from a major global wine producer.

Wine is one of the most heavily traded products worldwide. It is also a prime target for import tariffs, even though wine rarely has anything to do with the conflicts that trigger these measures.

A new study from the University of Illinois explores the economic costs of wine tariffs for producers and consumers in the global marketplace.

“Wine often becomes a punching bag in trade disputes. It gets targeted for cross-retaliatory measures and punitive tariffs imposed by parties in dispute,” says William Ridley, assistant professor of agricultural and consumer economics at U of I, and lead author on the paper, published in Food Policy.

Why is wine a popular target for these trade disputes?

One reason is wine producers are heavily reliant on export markets. And wine is a culturally significant product for many countries, Ridley says.

The European Union produces 60% of the world’s wine and accounts for 67% of global exports. Other large producers include the U.S., with 8.2% of the world’s output and 5% of wine exports, as well as Australia, Argentina, Chile, and China.

Wine has been caught in the crossfire of several recent trade disputes. In their study, the researchers focus on the impacts of two ongoing conflicts.

The U.S. and the EU have recently been engaged in a years-long dispute over subsidies to Boeing and Airbus aircrafts. Both parties have imposed tariffs on unrelated products in cross-sectoral retaliation. U.S. tariffs have targeted $4.5 billion worth of food and agricultural exports from Europe; wine accounted for one third of this. In 2019, the U.S. imposed 25% duties on beverages containing up to 14% alcohol. Both the U.S. and the EU had planned additional tariffs on wine import from each other, though these measures were placed on hold when the parties reached a temporary truce in 2021.

Another major dispute occurred between China and Australia, where China enacted tariffs of up to 212% on Australian wine imports. China claimed this was in response to dumping (Australian wine producers selling wine at an artificially low price), but it also aligns with ongoing political tension between the two countries. China is the largest foreign market for Australian wine, and the tariffs effectively halted this trade.

These instances of collateral retaliation in wine imports have led to substantial economic losses, the researchers find. The dispute between the U.S. and the EU cost $190 million in lost trade, while the China-Australia dispute cost $149 million – that’s a total of $339 million annually in trade disruptions; that is trade that no longer takes place and isn’t redirected elsewhere.

Consumers in the importing countries also suffer the consequences. U.S. wine consumers experienced a 4.1% reduction in consumer welfare, measured by changes in consumer prices. EU consumers, on the other hand, are better off. Because the tariffs hurt producers and result in lower exports, more wine is available in the domestic market. The EU exports far more wine to the U.S. than the other way around, so this benefits EU consumers more. The results are similar for the China-Australia conflict, with Chinese consumers bearing the brunt of the economic impact.

Ridley and his colleagues also conducted counterfactual simulations to show what would happen if there were no import tariffs at all. They found that complete trade liberalization would lead to approximately $76 million in new trade globally, and a 4% increase in the welfare of wine consumers.

Ridley says the findings can lead to policy recommendations.

“The World Trade Organization sets the rules for how trade conflicts can proceed, and cross retaliation is one of the tools they allow countries to adopt,” he says.

“However, tariffs are inherently distortionary and have a negative net effect. You can say the tariffs protect certain domestic industries, because you're shielding them from foreign competition. But you’re making your own consumers worse off, because you’re putting a tax on things they buy. It's not difficult to show the negative effects almost universally outweigh any positive effects.”

Tariffs, including those on wine imports, have also contributed to the economy-wide inflation that has persisted in recent months, Ridley explains.

“When imports face tariffs, consumers are left paying higher prices, regardless of whether they’re buying foreign or domestically produced goods. While this isn’t the sole cause of the recent inflation, it’s unambiguously a contributor to it,” he concludes.

The Department of Agricultural and Consumer Economics is in the College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences at the University of Illinois.

The paper, “Wine: The punching bag in trade retaliation,” is published in Food Policy [https://doi.org/10.1016/j.foodpol.2022.102250]. Authors are William Ridley, Jeff Luckstead, and Stephen Devadoss.

The research was supported by the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture, Agricultural and Food Research Initiative Competitive Program, Agriculture Economics and Rural Communities , grant # 2022-67023-36382.

JOURNAL

Food Policy

DOI

10.1016/j.foodpol.2022.102250

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Data/statistical analysis

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Not applicable

ARTICLE TITLE

Wine: The punching bag in trade retaliation

SFU researchers exploit the body’s innate drive for safety to improve motor memory

Peer-Reviewed Publication

SIMON FRASER UNIVERSITY

A new study by Simon Fraser University researchers suggests the brain may learn faster when threatened with danger. Their research is published in the journal eNeuro.

Human bodies are constantly learning how to adapt to new situations. Through a process of motor learning, the brain corrects actions that lead to movement errors in order to develop movement patterns that allow the body to move more safely.

“Because of our innate drive for safety, and the fact that maintaining balance is fundamental to movement, we hypothesized that experiencing a balance-threatening physical consequence when making a movement error would enhance motor memory,” says Amanda Bakkum, a former PhD student in SFU’s Sensorimotor Neuroscience Lab, who carried out the research with professor Dan Marigold, associate director of the SFU Institute for Neuroscience and Neurotechnology.

To test the idea the researchers asked a group of participants to carry out a precision walking task while wearing prism lenses to alter their vision. The lenses increased the difficulty of the task by artificially shifting participants’ perceptions of the location of the target they needed to step on, which caused them to make errors.

For some participants this task was made even more challenging with a hazard placed near the target that caused them to slip and lose their balance. When this group returned the following week, they were able to remember and perform the task better. 

When threatened with possible injury, participants’ motor learning was enhanced. They were better able to correct for movement errors so they could carry out the tasks more safely in the future. 

The researchers suggest that their findings could be used to design more effective therapies to rehabilitate individuals with neurological impairment. 

“Physical therapists could consider incorporating tasks or situations that elicit a threatening physical consequence, such as a loss of balance, if the individual moves in a way that is inconsistent with the goal of the training,” says Marigold, noting how this could be accomplished with the individual in a safety harness, or possibly using virtual reality to simulate a loss of balance.

The findings also suggest that there may be other kinds of situations which could be used to enhance motor learning. “It is unclear at this point whether some other form of physical consequence or emotionally arousing event would work instead of a balance-threatening physical consequence,” Marigold says, “This is something we plan to test soon.”

The research is funded by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC).

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JOURNAL

eNeuro

DOI

10.1523/ENEURO.0459-21.2022 

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

People

ARTICLE TITLE

Learning from the physical consequences of our actions improves motor memory

When hurricanes strike, social media can save lives

A new study finds social media can be a powerful tool for cities to communicate and to collect information to deploy emergency resources where needed most

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF CENTRAL FLORIDA

 

IMAGE: UCF ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION CLAIRE CONNOLLY KNOX. view more 

CREDIT: UNIVERSITY OF CENTRAL FLORIDA

Everyone knows that while disinformation is a problem, social media is a powerful tool for communicating fast in an emergency.

In 2011 only about 10% of the U.S. population turned to social media for information during a crisis, according to several studies. Today that number is closer to 70%. A new study from the University of Central Florida found that social media isn’t just good for communicating. It can be a critical tool for collecting intelligence in real time to better deploy resources before and after hurricanes hit. 

Associate Professor of Public Administration Claire Connolly Knox looked at 23 Florida counties and their use of social media during Hurricane Irma. Results of the U.S. National Science Foundation study were recently published in the Disasters journal.

For many Florida counties, Hurricane Irma in 2017 was the first time using social media during a disaster. Some counties were creative in using the latest social media tools, some didn’t use any social media during a disaster, and most were somewhere in the middle, Knox says.

Knox analyzed After Action Reports (AARs) from every county that completed them in Florida Division of Emergency Management (FDEM) Regions 4 through 7, which represents Central and southern Florida. These reports are not required by law but are considered a best practice to capture lessons learning during the response phase of an incident. The research team also held focus groups sessions to gather more detailed information. The in-person sessions included emergency managers from three counties (two coastal, one inland), one major city (population greater than 250,000), FDEM, the Florida Department of Transportation, a regional planning council, and two private sector organizations. 

“While 95% of the counties who used social media discussed it in positive terms in the AARs and focus group discussions, less than half of the counties engaged in two-way communication, or pulled information for situational awareness or rumor management,” Knox says. “There is progress in using social media, but we certainly have a way to go.”

The findings can be grouped in two categories.

Challenges

• Funding for enough staff to keep up with information during crisis. Some counties were creative and used mutual aid or emergency management assistance compacts for needed staffing, while others relied on digital volunteers.
• No broad use of monitoring software to track social media information, which the public assumes local government is engaging in throughout the disaster.
• Misinformation 
• Not all agencies are taking into consideration social media information to make real time decisions
• No consistent policies or guidelines for managing multiple government social media channels
• Technical issues (access, power)

Opportunities

• More government agencies recognize social media as communication vehicle
• General public is more familiar with many social media platforms
• Some agencies are tailoring information beyond Facebook that allows information to be targeted to specific neighborhoods. These include Twitter, Nextdoor, Instagram, YouTube, Periscope and Flickr.
• Sometimes, social media can be a critical tool. In one community, the 9-1-1 system went offline because of the storm. The local government was able to use social media to get critical information to its community.

One lesson learned — the public seeks out information about hurricanes on social media much more often before and during the storm than afterwards, so timing of messages is important as many lose power and are unable to access social media. Therefore, emergency managers are posting recovery information before the storm landfall. Additionally, knowing which social media account the public uses is vital. Nearly one-third of counties struggled with managing multiple social media accounts. For example, the City of Orlando has more than 50 social media accounts. Some counties were able to shut down and redirect the public to one Twitter or Facebook account for consistent disaster information.

There are certainly challenges such as correcting bad information and combating rumors, but social media can also provide rich information that properly shared can help emergency managers and their teams better respond to emergencies such as hurricanes, the researcher said. 

Knox joined UCF in 2011. She is an Associate Professor and Founding Director of the Master’s in Emergency and Crisis Management Program in UCF’s School of Public Administration. She has a Ph.D. in public administration and policy and a master’s of public administration (MPA) (environmental policy and management concentration, emergency management certificate) from Florida State University. She is a member of UCF’s National Center for Integrated Coastal Research 

She has nearly $5 million in funded research, and she has published more than 25 articles and eight book chapters in her areas of research which include: environmental vulnerability and disaster response, environmental policy and planning in coastal zones, cultural competency, and Habermas' critical theory. Her co-edited book, Cultural Competency for Emergency and Crisis Management: Concepts, Theories and Case Studies, won the 2021 Book of the Year from the American Society for Public Administration’s Section on Democracy and Social Justice. She has also prepared multiple white papers and reports for municipalities looking to improve their emergency and resiliency planning in Florida and Louisiana. 

 

 

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JOURNAL

Disasters

DOI

10.1111/disa.12544 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Case study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Not applicable

ARTICLE TITLE

Local emergency management's use of social media during disasters: case study of Hurricane Irma

Women resent compliments about communality at work

Peer-Reviewed Publication

CORNELL UNIVERSITY

ITHACA, N.Y. – Women feel more frustrated than men by the gendered expectations placed on them at work, even when those expectations appear to signal women’s virtues and are seen as important for workplace advancement, according to new Cornell University research.

Both women and men face gendered pressures at work. While men are expected to display independent qualities, like being assertive, women are expected to display communal qualities, like being collaborative, prior research shows. Recent polling reveals that beliefs that women possess positive communal qualities are on the rise in the U.S.; and ILR School research has found that women themselves view qualities like collaborativeness and skill at interaction as relevant to success and advancement at work.

Still, when women and men are faced with positive gendered stereotypes, women experience more frustration and less motivation to comply with the expectation than men, according to Devon Proudfoot, assistant professor of human resource studies in the ILR School and co-author of “Communal Expectations Conflict With Autonomy Motives: The Western Drive for Autonomy Shapes Women’s Negative Responses to Positive Gender Stereotypes.”

The research published April 21 in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.

“We find that one reason why women feel more frustrated than men by these positive gendered expectations is that women and men face gender stereotypes that differ in the extent to which they affirm a sense of autonomy,” Proudfoot said. “In the Western world, people tend to strive to maintain an autonomous sense of self. But while Western society is subtly communicating that an ideal self is an autonomous, independent self, society is also telling women that they should be interdependent and connected to others. We find that this conflict helps explain women’s frustration toward the positive gender stereotypes they experience.”

In the paper, Proudfoot and her co-author, Aaron Kay of Duke University, examined how women feel about positive gendered stereotypes in the U.S., a Western individualistic culture. Further, the duo engaged in a cross-cultural comparison, finding that women in a non-Western collectivistic culture, in this case India, do not feel the same resentment.

“Our findings provide initial evidence that culture influences the way that women and men respond to gender stereotypes,” Proudfoot said. “We show that it’s the interaction between cultural models of ideal selfhood and the expectations placed on women and men that shape how women and men experience gendered pressures.”

Proudfoot, whose work often examines stereotyping and discrimination, as well as what motivates employee attitudes and behavior, led participants through five studies to gauge their reactions to positive gender stereotypes. The centerpiece of each study focused on personal experience and how the participant felt as a result.

“For instance, in some studies we ask participants to recall a time when they were expected to act a certain way because their gender,” Proudfoot said. “What we find is that women report more anger and frustration when they were expected to be collaborative or socially skilled than men experienced when they were expected to be assertive or decisive.”

To further examine their theory, Proudfoot and Kay compared women and men in the U.S. with women and men in India, a country that has a collectivistic culture in which people tend to strive for social connection and interdependence with others. They found that women in India did not experience the same feelings of anger and frustration, as the positive gender stereotypes align with cultural goals.

“What I find interesting is thinking how these Western cultural ideals around autonomy and independence intersect with gender and gendered expectations,” Proudfoot said. “Our research considers how people’s experiences of gendered trait expectations are dependent on the cultural context they grew up in and the ideal model of self promoted by that culture.”

The research suggests that complimenting women employees for being collaborative or socially skilled could backfire, she said.

“Reinforcing these types of gender stereotypes could have negative emotional and motivational consequences for women in the workplace,” Proudfoot said.

For additional information, see this Cornell Chronicle story.

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JOURNAL

Journal of Personality and Social Psychology

DOI

10.1037/pspa0000311 

ARTICLE TITLE

Communal expectations conflict with autonomy motives: The western drive for autonomy shapes women’s negative responses to positive gender stereotypes.