Machines can learn from fables

USC’s Information Sciences Institute uses short stories with moral implications to test human-like reasoning in AI

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA

 

IMAGE: RESEARCH FROM THE USC INFORMATION SCIENCES INSTITUTE SHOWS HOW AI CAN LEARN ANALOGICAL REASONING FROM FABLES. view more 

CREDIT: CHRIS KIM FOR USC

If a friend told you they were feeling blue, would you think they were changing color?

Although this question may seem facetious, it offers a simple entry into the rich world of analogical reasoning, a tool that enables humans to generalize knowledge from familiar to novel situations. We see it in areas ranging from politics to medicine; it’s a cornerstone of our daily cognition. It can be as simple as a child tossing a beach ball, which they recognize is similar to a basketball; and as complex as a physician using previous case studies to determine a care plan for a patient.

Now, researchers at the USC Information Sciences Institute (ISI) are extending this thought process to machines.

A new paper, “Understanding Narratives through Dimensions of Analogy,” presented at the Qualitative Reasoning workshop, which is co-located with the International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence taking place on July 23, 2022, teaches artificial intelligence to make creative analogies through an ancient art form…fables.

“People working in AI have been trying to get the same level of reasoning that humans have into AI systems, and it is a really hard challenge trying to mimic the analogical reasoning humans take for granted,” explains Jay Pujara, USC ISI research lead and research assistant professor at the USC Viterbi School of Engineering.

The current dominant paradigm in AI is machine learning, which relies on applying existing knowledge to novel situations. This framework cannot support analogical reasoning, which has created a significant challenge for the researchers. This is partly because analogical reasoning relies heavily on relational thinking, which is how humans discern meaningful connections between items or situations that lack surface similarities.

For example, despite the apparent differences between summer and winter, one can reasonably conclude that the following is an analogous word pair: “the sun is to summer as the snow is to winter.” In essence, analogical reasoning unifies different concepts, thereby enabling us to extract meaning from the innumerable stimuli we encounter daily. Instead of drawing connections from appearance alone, we can thus make creative connections between existing and novel scenarios.

Since AI models lack analogical reasoning mechanisms, they struggle to understand, explain, or make generalizations about novel stimuli. Creating technology with analogical reasoning capabilities would enable AIs to evaluate the relevance and meanings of language, which has numerous real-world applications. An AI with human-like conversational and interpretive abilities could be used to teach students new concepts or create novel products based on consumer marketing data. These AIs have a transformational impact on society, such as alleviating traffic by analyzing the shortcomings of current infrastructures to generate improved freeway models.

Previous studies have had limited success developing AI with the capability to draw analogies. However, the technology failed to understand the implications of such analogies and could not make large-scale generalizations. The team at USC tackled this problem by experimenting with different techniques to train AIs to understand analogies present in Aesop’s fables, a collection of simple short stories that convey moral ideas. Using natural language processing (NLP) methods, they analyzed the fables to generate story pairs based on lexical and semantic similarities or the words and meanings present in the text.

Said Pujara: “We chose short stories with a moral purpose because often you find multiple fables with the same moral purpose and message at the end but are told in very different ways. So that means there is a semantic meaning of a fable, which is very different from the surface form it takes, and humans can see those links.”

While humans recognize that the same theme of greed links stories about a fox who steals and a merchant who hoards, the study found that it was difficult for AI systems to identify these analogies.

“Although the techniques we developed could be used to build analogical frameworks, the recent advancements on NLP are still not enough to reach human-level accuracies,” explains Thiloshon Nagarajah, the paper’s co-author and a USC Viterbi master’s student in computer science. Despite this, the team successfully cataloged the different ways in which humans approach analogies, which is a promising step towards the goal of creating AI with analogical reasoning capabilities.

A secondary finding of the study was that the researchers themselves had to deeply engage with one another when determining whether specific stories constituted an analogical pair. It turns out that analogical reasoning is a more subjective and interpretive space than anticipated, which “points to the fact that there are other phenomena that have not been fully explored in this paper,” said Filip Ilievski, another co-author and USC Viterbi research assistant professor.

One such phenomenon is the influence of prior knowledge on analogical reasoning tasks. When an individual encounters a novel situation, they use their personal experiences to make connections from the unknown to the known. Since every individual possesses a unique repertoire of knowledge and skills, analogical reasoning inevitably varies from person to person.  Ilievski suggests that by further exploring the nuances of human analogical reasoning, changes can be implemented to improve the design of AI technology.

This study offers a promising beginning to developing artificial intelligence with analogical reasoning capabilities. The utility of such AI technology goes well beyond short stories — potentially improving everything from education and public policy to art and urban design.

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METHOD OF RESEARCH

Content analysis

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Not applicable

ARTICLE TITLE

“Understanding Narratives through Dimensions of Analogy,”

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

23-Jul-2022

Using AI to train teams of robots to work together

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS GRAINGER COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING

 

IMAGE: HUY TRAN AND HIS COLLEAGUES TESTED THEIR ALGORITHMS USING SIMULATED GAMES LIKE STARCRAFT, A POPULAR COMPUTER GAME. view more 

CREDIT: THE GRAINGER COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING, UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS URBANA-CHAMPAIGN

When communication lines are open, individual agents such as robots or drones can work together to collaborate and complete a task. But what if they aren’t equipped with the right hardware or the signals are blocked, making communication impossible? University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign researchers started with this more difficult challenge. They developed a method to train multiple agents to work together using multi-agent reinforcement learning, a type of artificial intelligence.

“It’s easier when agents can talk to each other,” said Huy Tran, an aerospace engineer at Illinois. “But we wanted to do this in a way that's decentralized, meaning that they don't talk to each other. We also focused on situations where it's not obvious what the different roles or jobs for the agents should be.”

Tran said this scenario is much more complex and a harder problem because it’s not clear what one agent should do versus another agent.

“The interesting question is how do we learn to accomplish a task together over time,” Tran said. 

Tran and his collaborators used machine learning to solve this problem by creating a utility function that tells the agent when it is doing something useful or good for the team.

“With team goals, it's hard to know who contributed to the win,” he said. “We developed a machine learning technique that allows us to identify when an individual agent contributes to the global team objective. If you look at it in terms of sports, one soccer player may score, but we also want to know about actions by other teammates that led to the goal, like assists. It’s hard to understand these delayed effects.”

The algorithms the researchers developed can also identify when an agent or robot is doing something that doesn’t contribute to the goal. “It’s not so much the robot chose to do something wrong, just something that isn’t useful to the end goal.”

They tested their algorithms using simulated games like Capture the Flag and StarCraft, a popular computer game. 

You can watch a video of Huy Tran demonstrating related research using deep reinforcement learning to help robots evaluate their next move in Capture the Flag.

“StarCraft can be a little bit more unpredictable – we were excited to see our method work well in this environment too.”

Tran said this type of algorithm is applicable to many real-life situations, such as military surveillance, robots working together in a warehouse, traffic signal control, autonomous vehicles coordinating deliveries, or controlling an electric power grid. 

Tran said Seung Hyun Kim did most of the theory behind the idea when he was an undergraduate student studying mechanical engineering, with Neale Van Stralen, an aerospace student, helping with the implementation. Tran and Girish Chowdhary advised both students. The work was recently presented to the AI community at the Autonomous Agents and Multi-Agent Systems peer-reviewed conference.

The study, “Disentangling Successor Features for Coordination in Multi-agent Reinforcement Learning,” written by Seung Hyun Kim, Neale Van Stralen, Girish Chowdhary, and Huy Tran, appears in the Proceedings of the 21st International Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems held in May 2022.

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DOI

10.48550/arXiv.2202.07741 

ARTICLE TITLE

Disentangling Successor Features for Coordination in Multi-agent Reinforcement Learning

Twitter health amplifiers combat COVID-19 misinformation

Groups offer refuge from online harassment and a supportive, safe space to talk about issues

Peer-Reviewed Publication

NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY

 

IMAGE: AN INFOGRAPHIC CREATED BY MEMBERS OF THE TWITTER HEALTH AMPLIFIER IMPACT DISPELS THE MYTH THAT GUN VIOLENCE IS THE RESULT OF MENTAL ILLNESS IN THE U.S. view more 

CREDIT: IMPACT (ILLINOIS MEDICAL PROFESSIONAL ACTION COLLABORATIVE TEAM)

• Doctors, scientists band together to tweet and amplify accurate health information
• Goal is to promote public health guidance, combat disinformation and counter harassment
• Simple infographics created in both English and Spanish attempt to spread accurate information to groups who were not already seeing it
• Illinois group now combatting false information on reproductive health, firearm violence

CHICAGO --- At the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, when false information about the virus began to spread on Twitter, physicians and scientists from Northwestern Medicine and other institutions banded together to combat the deadly misinformation and disinformation and support one another when they ultimately were attacked online for doing so. 

They formed a new type of professional organization—the health professional amplifier—to tweet accurate health and safety information about COVID-19 and amplify one another “to combat misinformation and drown out some of the noise,” said Dr. Regina Royan, first author of a new Northwestern Medicine paper explaining the genesis of these groups and a member of the Illinois-based health professional amplifier, IMPACT (Illinois Medical Professional Action Collaborative Team), which uses the verified Twitter handle @IMPACT4HC. 

In the paper, published July 22 in the Journal of Medical Internet Research, Royan and fellow medical professionals explain how successful this group has been and why it is an effective tool to disseminate accurate medical information and combat disinformation while minimizing the harm related to personal and professional harassment that can come with social media advocacy.

“The pandemic has been really taxing for health professionals,” said Royan (@ReginaRoyan), emergency medicine research fellow and clinical instructor of emergency medicine at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. “In addition to the emotional toll caring for these very sick patients, particularly in the early waves of the pandemic, the politicization around COVID-19 added another layer of stress for many of us. One thing we highlight in this paper is that these kind of groups can be a safe space for health professionals to talk about issues like harassment on social media to keep the fight against misinformation going.”

IMPACT and other health professional amplifiers are comprised of nurses, health economists, scientists, public health professionals and physicians, Royan said. They’ve endured public harassment and attacks after posting scientifically proven medical information about the COVID-19 virus and vaccines.

IMPACT has also created numerous easy-to-digest infographics in both English and Spanish around specific issues, such as the effectiveness of masking and social distancing, and how mRNA was used to create the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna COVID-19 vaccines. It is a creative way the group is trying to reach people who may not have been reading accurate health information, Royan said. 

“We know that COVID-19 has disproportionately affected the Latino population, and it’s been important to us to partner with community organizations like Illinois Unidos to ensure that we are also addressing misinformation with Spanish-language resources,” Royan said.  

The group has recently begun to combat false information about reproductive health issues following the U.S. Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade. They’ve also started disseminating information about firearm injury, such as a recent tweet that stated, “Fact: Mental illness is not an effective predictor of gun violence against others.”

The study is titled, “Use of Twitter Amplifiers by Medical Professionals to Tackle Misinformation During the COVID-19 Pandemic.” Other Northwestern authors include Dr. Seth Trueger and Tricia Pendergrast.

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JOURNAL

Journal of Medical Internet Research

DOI

10.2196/38324 

ARTICLE TITLE

Use of Twitter Amplifiers by Medical Professionals to Tackle Misinformation During the COVID-19 Pandemic

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

22-Jul-2022

Firms time announcements of data breaches to bury the bad news

New research calls for stricter regulations, transparency for consumers

Peer-Reviewed Publication

INSTITUTE FOR OPERATIONS RESEARCH AND THE MANAGEMENT SCIENCES

INFORMS Journal Management Science Study Key Takeaways:

• New research finds firms strategically announce data breaches when the media is preoccupied so less public attention is drawn to it.
• This strategy harms consumers because the stock market doesn’t “punish” firms for their error.
• Strategically timing the announcement of data breaches reduces the median decline in market capitalization loss from $347 million to $85 million.

  

BALTIMORE, MD, July 26, 2022 – New research in the INFORMS journal Management Science finds that firms that have experienced data breaches intentionally stage the timing of such announcements around other significant breaking news as a means of reducing media coverage and minimizing public attention.

“We estimate that strategic timing reduces the median decline in market capitalization loss resulting from a data breach, from $347 million to $85 million,” says Sebastian Schuetz of Florida International University.

The study, “Data Breach Announcements and Stock Market Reactions: A Matter of Timing?” conducted by Schuetz and Jens Foerderer of the Technical University of Munich, finds that this strategy harms consumers because the stock markets do not adequately “punish” firms for their misbehavior. 

The work appears to show that strategic timing is most common in data breaches that are of greatest interest to consumers, such as those that are more severe and involve healthcare data, financial data and credentials. 

“Based on our findings, we recommend lawmakers mandate shorter disclosure deadlines, from the current 30-day deadline to just three days,” says Foerderer. “Strategic timing is harmful for consumers because it undermines the effectiveness of current U.S. data breach legislation: because consumers and investors receive less information about the occurrence of a data breach, less change is being promoted in firms to protect consumers against future security issues.”

 

Link to full study.

 

About INFORMS and Management Science

Management Science is a premier peer-reviewed scholarly journal focused on research using quantitative approaches to study all aspects of management in companies and organizations. It is published by INFORMS, the leading international association for operations research and analytics professionals. More information is available at www.informs.org or @informs. 

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JOURNAL

Management Science

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Observational study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

People

ARTICLE TITLE

“Data Breach Announcements and Stock Market Reactions: A Matter of Timing?”

UCLA scientists discover places on the moon where it’s always ‘sweater weather’

People could potentially live and work in lunar pits and caves with steady temperatures in the 60s

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA - LOS ANGELES

Future human explorers on the moon might have 99 problems but staying warm or cool won’t be one. A team led by planetary scientists at UCLA has discovered shady locations within pits on the moon that always hover around a comfortable 63 degrees Fahrenheit.

The pits, and caves to which they may lead, would make safer, more thermally stable base camps for lunar exploration and long-term habitation than the rest of the moon’s surface, which heats up to 260 degrees during the day and drops to 280 degrees below zero at night.

Pits were first discovered on the moon in 2009, and since then, scientists have wondered if they led to caves that could be explored or used as shelters. About 16 of the more than 200 pits are probably collapsed lava tubes, said Tyler Horvath, a UCLA doctoral student in planetary science, who led the new research. Two of the most prominent pits have visible overhangs that clearly lead to some sort of cave or void, and there is strong evidence that another’s overhang may also lead to a large cave.

Lava tubes, also found on Earth, form when molten lava flows beneath a field of cooled lava or a crust forms over a river of lava, leaving a long, hollow tunnel. If the ceiling of a solidified lava tube collapses, it opens a pit that can lead into the rest of the cavelike tube.

Horvath processed images from the Diviner Lunar Radiometer Experiment — a thermal camera and one of six instruments on NASA’s robotic Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter — to find out if the temperature within the pits diverged from those on the surface.

Focusing on a roughly cylindrical 100-meter–deep depression about the length and width of a football field in an area of the moon known as the Mare Tranquillitatis, Horvath and his colleagues used computer modeling to analyze the thermal properties of the rock and lunar dust and to chart the pit’s temperatures over a period of time.

The results, recently published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, revealed that temperatures within the permanently shadowed reaches of the pit fluctuate only slightly throughout the lunar day, remaining at around 63 degrees. If a cave extends from the bottom of the pit, as images taken by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera suggest, it too would have this relatively comfortable temperature.

The research team, which also included UCLA professor of planetary science David Paige and Paul Hayne of the University of Colorado Boulder, believes the shadowing overhang is responsible for the steady temperature, limiting how hot things get during the day and preventing heat from radiating away at night. Meanwhile, the sunbaked part of the pit floor hits daytime temperatures close to 300 degrees, some 40 degrees hotter than the moon’s surface.

“Because the Tranquillitatis pit is the closest to the lunar equator, the illuminated floor at noon is probably the hottest place on the entire moon,” said Horvath.

A day on the moon lasts nearly 15 Earth days, during which the surface is constantly bombarded by sunlight and is frequently hot enough to boil water. Unimaginably cold nights also last about 15 Earth days. Inventing heating and cooling equipment that can operate under these conditions and producing enough energy to power it nonstop could prove an insurmountable barrier to lunar exploration or habitation. Solar power — NASA’s most common form of power generation — doesn’t work at night, after all. (NASA currently has no plans to establish an exploration base camp or habitations on the moon.)

Building bases in the shadowed parts of these pits allows scientists to focus on other challenges, like growing food, providing oxygen for astronauts, gathering resources for experiments and expanding the base. The pits or caves would also offer some protection from cosmic rays, solar radiation and micrometeorites.

“Humans evolved living in caves, and to caves we might return when we live on the moon,” said Paige, who leads the Diviner Lunar Radiometer Experiment.

Diviner has been mapping the moon continuously since 2009, producing NASA’s second largest planetary dataset and providing the most detailed and comprehensive thermal measurements of any object in our solar system, including Earth. The team’s current work on lunar pits has improved data from the Diviner experiment.

“Because nobody else had looked at things this small with Diviner, we found that it had a bit of double vision, causing all of our maps to a be a bit blurry,” said Horvath. The team worked to align the many images taken by the instrument until they could achieve an accurate thermal reading down to the level of single pixel. This process yielded much higher resolution maps of the moon’s surface.

Data from the early stages of this lunar pit thermal modeling project were used to help develop the thermal management system of the rover for NASA’s proposed Moon Diver mission. Horvath and Hayne were part of the science team for this mission, which aims to have the rover rappel into the Tranquillitatis pit to research the layers of lava flows seen in its walls and to explore any existing cave.

Horvath and Paige are science team members for a new lunar-bound thermal camera led by Paul Hayne named L-CIRiS, which will head to the lunar south pole in late 2023 to get the first ground-based thermal images.

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JOURNAL

Geophysical Research Letters

Yoga app can reduce urinary incontinence

Yoga of Immortals app could provide a more accessible, easy-to-use, novel and effective treatment for urinary incontinence, Rutgers study finds

Peer-Reviewed Publication

RUTGERS UNIVERSITY

People with loss of urinary control who used the Yoga of Immortals mobile app – a globally used app that combines specific yogic postures in the Sanatan tradition with breathing exercises, sound therapy and meditation – found significant improvement in the frequency and severity of urine leaks at four weeks of practice, according to a Rutgers study.

Urinary incontinence is more common in women compared to men. An estimated 25 to 45 percent of women globally suffer from the condition, which can adversely affect quality of life and create difficulties in social, psychological and sexual functioning. However, only less than 20 percent of affected people seek treatment, which includes medications, pelvic floor muscle physical therapy to strengthen pelvic floor muscles or surgical procedures.

“Although these treatments are effective, there are many shortcomings: Medications have poor compliance and potential significant side effects; patients often lack the knowledge to identify specific pelvic muscles and motivation to complete physical therapy and the surgical procedures are invasive with potential complications,” said Hari Tunuguntla, lead author of the study and an Associate Professor of Urological Surgery at Rutgers, Robert Wood Johnson Medical School.

“However, the 30-minute daily app sessions are easy, safe, effective and convenient as they can be done anytime and anywhere without the need for in-person visits to the health-care provider,” he continued. “The app-based YOI practice involves specific breathing exercises, stimulation of the body’s specific energy centers for urinary control, postures to engage the pelvic floor, promote relaxation and muscle control, and alignment techniques to strengthen the pelvic floor.”

The researchers selected Yoga of Immortals for study as it provides precise video and audio instruction for this comprehensive program that engages the pelvic floor and specific energy centers of the urinary system. The YOI protocols have been shown in the study to be easily understood by participants at all education levels. YOI practice also includes breath work to enhance detoxification, mindfulness and meditation. YOI has also been shown to address mental health and quality-of-life issues resulting from depression, stress and anxiety.

The study, published in the journal Urology (the Gold Journal), is the first to the researchers’ knowledge to determine the efficacy of a mobile app-based Yoga of Immortals intervention for urinary incontinence on a global scale among various ages and ethnic groups in both men and women. (Tunuguntla also recently published a study in the journal International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health that found people who used Yoga of Immortals reported it reduced their anxiety, depression and insomnia.)

In this study, the researchers sent a survey to app subscribers to identify those who were experiencing a loss of bladder control of different types – urine leak from not being able to reach the restroom in time or loss of urine after sneezing, coughing or laughing; or a combination – and of all types of severity of urine leak. The 258 subscribers from 23 countries between the ages of 18 and 74 – the majority being women and between 18 and 44 – were sent questionnaires at four weeks and eight weeks to report on condition improvement. The researchers then assessed their responses using specific questionnaires and the Patient Global Impression of Improvement scale, which measures the subjective efficacy of therapy.

The researchers found 76 percent of the respondents felt much better at four weeks with significant improvement in frequency and severity of urine leak without in-person visits to the healthcare provider – many of whom reported continuing improvement at eight weeks. Those with more severe leakage reported the most improvement in daily life activity and quality of life. Most of the study participants felt “much better” at the conclusion of the study.

The app can potentially increase adherence to treatment and may be used to complement other treatments, the researchers said.

“Due to its convenience, flexibility and efficacy, the app may increase access to care and serve as first-line treatment for both women and men with urinary incontinence. This is an easily accessible, self-management treatment,” Tunuguntla said. “However, further studies are needed to test the app’s efficacy in improving this condition long term.”

JOURNAL

Urology

DOI

10.1016/j.urology.2022.06.011 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Survey

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

People

ARTICLE TITLE

App-based Yoga of Immortals: A Novel, Easy-to-use Intervention in the Management of Urinary Incontinence

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

30-Jun-2022

COI STATEMENT

Ishan Shivanand was employed by the company, SYC Infinite. SYC Infinite did not provide any funding for this study and had no role in the study. The remaining authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Researchers have created a profile of electric car purchasers and drivers

Main reason to buy ones is belonging to the eco-community and concern for the environment

Peer-Reviewed Publication

URAL FEDERAL UNIVERSITY

 

IMAGE: THE PRICE TO TECHNOLOGY RATIO WILL LEAD TO THE DOWNFALL OR SURGE OF THE ELECTRIC CAR MARKET. view more 

CREDIT: ILYA SAFAROV / URFU

An international group of experts has constructed a profile of today's electric vehicle buyers and drivers. Despite a lack of proper infrastructures, such as a sufficient number of charging stations, the researchers discovered that joining environmental communities and active engagement in them reduces reluctance to purchase an electric automobile. Economists published these and other findings in the Journal of Business Research.

"When we talk about electric car customers, we're talking about the so-called harbingers of change, people who love anything new, including technology." Furthermore, electric car owners are increasingly concerned about the environment and air quality. They are becoming more environmentally conscious. Simultaneously period, while consumers in large part tend to behave rationally, the decision to buy an electric car is influenced by the consumer's self-identification with the eco-society and concern for the environment," says co-author Alberto Ferraris, Senior Research Fellow at the Ural Federal University, Graduate School of Economics and Management.

The researchers conducted a bibliometric and thematic analysis of 254 studies published between 1983 and 2021. Even though there were no electric automobiles on the market in 1983, research on the usage of electric batteries was conducted. Even back then, the issue of low battery performance dictated the three primary variables that now influence electric vehicle customers' decisions: battery run and charge times, the electric car's overall performance, and its ultimate cost.

"Our study allows us to examine customer behavior from various angles. The most critical element is customer habits. Despite all of the perks associated with owning an electric automobile, the expensive price of these vehicles will prevent more people from making the switch. Consumers want electric vehicles with a large driving range, the quickest possible charging time, a high top speed, low levels of pollutant emissions, and the lowest possible pricing. Buying an electric car to get you and your family about town is quite a different purchase than, say, a new wardrobe. The fate of the electric car market rests on the price versus technological safety ratio”, advocates Alberto Ferraris.

Researchers highlight that the majority of current research focuses on the advantages of electric automobiles. As a result, electric vehicles appear to be one of the primary ecological solutions for future generations and mobility. Nevertheless, it is necessary to conduct a full investigation, which should also include a critical assessment of the proposed solution to the pollution problem.

"The widespread adoption of electric vehicles may cause an unmanageable uptick in demand, which would then be followed by an increase in the cost of energy. It's also important to keep in mind that electric car batteries, despite their energy efficiency, might release gas and other contaminants. In order to make conclusions regarding the efficacy of the decision to move from gasoline vehicles to electric cars, more study has to be done to analyze the association between purchasing an electric car and caring for the environment," argues Alberto Ferraris.

The experts also note that the European Union is home to the most developed electric car industry, where the shift to a "green path" has become a vital issue for all sectors of the economy and the younger generations. Consumer portrait studies can be helpful for the progression of this domain in nations that are just starting to investigate the subject matter regarding the manufacturing and sales of electric automobiles. These nations include countries in the Eastern as well as Russia. Furthermore, given the high cost of the final product, researchers advocate launching partner manufacturing methods and building internal motives for individual and corporate customers based on an examination of worldwide practices.

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JOURNAL

Journal of Business Research

DOI

10.1016/j.jbusres.2022.06.011 

ARTICLE TITLE

Electric vehicles’ consumer behaviours: Mapping the field and providing a research agenda

Political panel survey: Germans feel strongly threatened by current crises

Reports and Proceedings

UNIVERSITY OF FREIBURG

The majority of Germans feel that their security is threatened by the current crises: over 78 percent of respondents to the latest “Politikpanel Deutschland” (Political Panel Germany) survey conducted by the University of Freiburg regard the war in Ukraine as threatening or very threatening. The war in eastern Europe thus overshadows all other problems. In second place is the fear of inflation and rising prices (72 percent). Of the participants in the online survey, 65 percent perceive the climate crisis as rather or very threatening.

The Freiburg political scientists Prof. Dr. Uwe Wagschal and Dr. Sebastian Jäckle, in collaboration with Dr. James Kenneth Timmis from the Medical Center – University of Freiburg, interviewed more than 8,000 people from all over Germany on political and social issues for the Political Panel Germany survey.  In the current survey, the long-dominant Corona issue only ranks fifth among threatening crises, behind the issue of national debt, with only 29.6 percent of respondents still seeing a major threat here.

Clear differences by party preference

Depending on their voting intentions, respondents differ significantly in their perception of the threat: for example, only 47 percent of AfD supporters see the Ukraine war as threatening or very threatening, whereas more than 80 percent of CDU/CSU, SPD and Green Party supporters do. The perception of the climate crisis also varies greatly: 48 percent of AfD supporters do not see the climate crisis as a threat at all, while only 0.25 percent of Green supporters view it as non-threatening.

Society divided on many issues

One focus of the current political panel survey is the division of society. More than 80 percent of respondents see society as fairly strongly or very strongly divided when it comes to income and wealth distribution. When it comes to gender issues (e.g. gender sensitive language), nearly 70 percent see such a strong split. “Obviously, strong differences can be observed in society when it comes to attitudes toward values and norms,” Jäckle explains.

He adds that this also applies with regard to a so-called cancel culture, such as the tendency to block other people on the basis of their views and attitudes and to exclude them from events. Here, too, a majority sees society as divided; at the same time, almost 30 percent of respondents are unfamiliar with this term or have no opinion on it. The least division is seen between East and West Germany, with only just over 30 percent of respondents seeing a strong division here.

Germans want to reintroduce compulsory service - especially the elderly

The issue of compulsory service (including military and civil service), which was recently raised by German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier, meets with overwhelming approval among the population. Between 60 and 70 percent of respondents over the age of 30 are in favor of compulsory service, with the strongest support among respondents over 60. The youngest group of 18- to 30-year-olds, on the other hand, rejects compulsory service by a majority, although here, too, around 42 percent have a positive attitude toward it.

There is virtually no difference between the age groups when it comes to the question of whether society is dependent on the population’s volunteerism. Around 85 percent tend to agree or agree completely with this statement. The vast majority of those who have done service in the past (for example, military or civilian service) remember it as a good and meaningful experience.

Overview of facts:

• The Political Panel Germany is a survey conducted by the Department of Political Science at the University of Freiburg. It has been held at irregular intervals since the 2017 federal election.
• The current results can be accessed at www.politikpanel.uni-freiburg.de.
• For the current survey, more than 8,000 people from all over Germany were asked online about political and social issues. The survey ran from June 30 to July 17, 2022. The data of the participants was weighted according to the socio-demographic characteristics age, gender, federal state and voting intention and thus adjusted to the real distribution in the population.
• Prof. Dr. Uwe Wagschal is Professor of Comparative Government in the Department of Political Science at the University of Freiburg. Dr. Sebastian Jäckle is an academic advisor there. Dr. James Kenneth Timmis is a staff member at the Medical Center – University of Freiburg.

Religious leaders reduce intimate partner violence in Uganda

Christian leaders exert influence to shift traditional gender norms & violence drops, study shows

Peer-Reviewed Publication

PRINCETON SCHOOL OF PUBLIC AND INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS

Intimate partner violence — or abuse and aggression in a romantic relationship — is a pervasive global issue. In Uganda, a primarily Christian country in East Africa, 56% of women who’ve been married report being sexually violated by a current partner. Strong patriarchal beliefs often influence this behavior, but those in positions of power, like religious leaders, can shift traditional gender roles.

A team of psychologists, public health and political scientists, human-centered design experts, and NGO researchers, including Betsy Levy Paluck of Princeton University, wanted to determine whether religious leaders could reduce intimate partner violence by incorporating more progressive interpretations of Bible teachings on romantic partnerships into their couples counseling.

They conducted a randomized controlled trial among 1,680 heterosexual couples in Uganda who were either enrolled in a 12-session group counseling course or wait-listed. Those in the course experienced a curriculum in which men and women were viewed as equals. The approach intentionally skirted the topic of violence and instead highlighted the benefits and religious importance of a more egalitarian relationship.

Findings

When Christian leaders in Uganda offered these types of courses, intimate partner violence decreased by 5 percentage points a year later.

• Couples who participated in the 12-week course experienced less violence, greater power-sharing in the relationship, and grew closer compared to the couples on the waitlist.
• Couples enjoyed their time together and reported less depression.
• Couples were more likely to see eye-to-eye when it came to financial decision-making.
• Men voluntarily ceded their power — rather than being coerced or pressured to share. Losing power can lead to a backlash against the partner, but it didn’t, perhaps due to the new benefits stemming from a more equal partnership.

Policy Point

Religious leaders can be effective change agents for reducing violence. This type of intervention — which included a shift in religious instruction — also has the potential to reach a massive audience.

“This approach is unique because it’s driven by leaders within a longstanding cultural and religious tradition who shape how couples relate to each other. It is a benefits-centered approach, meaning that couples are motivated by religious and interpersonal reasons to respect and enjoy one another in a more power-balanced relationship. This change-from-within strategy could be useful if there are constraints on state capacity.” — Elizabeth Levy Paluck

Study Authors

• Lead Author: Christopher Boyer, Harvard University
• Elizabeth Levy Paluck, Princeton University
• Jeannie Annan, International Rescue Committee
• Tvisha Nevatiae, Innovations for Poverty Action (Uganda)
• Jasper Cooper, University of California San Diego
• Jackline Namubirue, Innovations for Poverty Action (Uganda)
• Lori Heise, Johns Hopkins University
• Rachel Lehrer, International Rescue Committee

Data

This study measures the effect of the “Becoming One” program, which was designed by the International Rescue Committee’s Airbel Impact Lab team. Religious leaders are trained for two days and given instructional materials for themselves and the couples.

The study involved a pair-matched randomized control trial with 3,360 men and women in monogamous heterosexual relationships and with 140 religious leaders (mainly catechists, pastors, and priests) identified by World Vision, the implementing NGO partner, in three districts in Western Uganda.

Men and women were invited to participate through informed consent. Within each pair, they randomized one couple to begin the 12-session program immediately (October 2018) and the other to begin in December 2019.

Funding

The study was supported by the Wellspring Foundation, awarded through Innovation for Poverty Action’s Intimate Partner Violence Initiative.

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JOURNAL

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Randomized controlled/clinical trial

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

People

ARTICLE TITLE

Religious leaders can motivate men to cede power and reduce intimate partner violence: Experimental evidence from Uganda

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

25-Jul-2022

Tree fern genome provides insights into its evolution

Peer-Reviewed Publication

CARL R. WOESE INSTITUTE FOR GENOMIC BIOLOGY, UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS AT URBANA-CHAMPAIGN

 

IMAGE: ALSOPHILA SPINULOSA IN A FOREST view more 

CREDIT: QUANZI LI

Land plants evolved 470 million years ago from algae and have since reshaped our world. Throughout their evolution, ferns have undergone a series of changes that have helped them survive on land. For the first time, researchers have characterized the genome arrangement of tree ferns, which sheds new insight into how ferns evolved.

A major event in the evolution of land plants was the invention of their vascular systems, which help them conduct water, nutrients, and food throughout their bodies. These systems consist of two tissues: xylem and phloem. While the xylem enables the transport of water to the stems and leaves, the phloem helps transport sugars, made from photosynthesis, to the rest of the plant. Additionally, only xylem cells are lined with lignin—supportive structural materials that provide rigidity to wood and bark. The researchers wanted to understand how these vascular systems evolved in ferns and how lignin is made.

“Ferns are the earliest vascular plants, and lignified cell walls were a key innovation during the evolution of these plants,” said Ray Ming (GEGC), a professor of plant biology. “This study has improved our understanding of how vascular tissues developed in ferns and other land plant species.”

For this study, the researchers sequenced the genome of flying spider-monkey tree fern Alsophila spinulosa and investigated how its vascular tissues are constructed. They found that two Vascular-related Mac-Domain genes were highly expressed in xylem compared to other tissues, indicating that these might be key regulators in the formation of xylem-specific cells.  

Using microscopy and biochemical methods, the researchers also measured the levels of lignin and secondary metabolites—compounds that are not required for growth or reproduction, but confer certain benefits—in ferns. They found that lignin made up 40% of the stem cell wall. In comparison, wood generally contains 25%. They also discovered a new secondary metabolite primarily made in the xylem, which they named “alsophilin”.

“This new compound is abundant in the xylem, likely as one of the compounds filling up the cavity of non-functional tracheid cells. We also identified the genes involved in the biosynthesis of alsophilin in the genome,” Ming said.

To understand how ferns evolved, the researchers compared the genomic sequence of A. spinulosa to other members of the same species across nine locations in China. To their surprise, they discovered that there were six distinct populations, differing in their genomic sequences. Based on their sequencing results, the researchers reconstructed the history of the fern population and saw that there were two times that these species underwent a drastic decrease in population numbers. The first one occurred 35.6 – 34.5 million years ago and the second occurred 2.5 – 0.7 million years ago.

“This analysis of genomes and lignin composition from a broader collection of ferns will help us understand the role of lignin in the early lineage of vascular plants,” Ming said. “In our future studies, we hope to increase the number of locations and the sample sizes for the genomic analysis.”

The paper “The flying spider-monkey tree fern genome provides insights into fern evolution and arborescence” was published in Nature Plants and can be found at https://doi.org/10.1038/s41477-022-01146-6.

The biochemical analysis was performed in collaboration with Quanzi Li’s group at the State Key Laboratory of Tree Genetics and Breeding, Beijing, China.

The study was funded by the Fundamental Research Funds of Chinese Academy of Forestry; the National Natural Science Foundation of China; the Beijing Advanced Innovation Center for Tree Breeding by Molecular Design, Beijing Forestry University; CAMS Innovation Fund for Medical Sciences; PUMC Disciplinary Development of Synthetic Biology; and the DOE Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center.

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JOURNAL

Nature Plants

DOI

10.1038/s41477-022-01146-6 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Experimental study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Not applicable

ARTICLE TITLE

The flying spider-monkey tree fern genome provides insights into fern evolution and arborescence