Men urged to train themselves to notice household chores: study

Helen ROWE
Thu, December 22, 2022


Gender imbalance in shouldering domestic work is explained by different ways in which men and women perceive chores, philosophers at Britain's Cambridge University suggest.

Women looking at an unclean surface may see something to be wiped whereas men may just observe a crumb-covered countertop, researchers argue in the journal Philosophy and Phenomenological Research.

They say data gathered during the pandemic, when both men and women spent time at the domestic coalface, throw up two important questions -- why women continue to take on most housework and why men believe it to be more equally shared than it is.


According to a survey of US households during the pandemic, 70 percent of women said they were fully or mostly responsible for housework, and 66 percent for childcare, roughly the same proportion as usual.

Tom McClelland, from Cambridge University's department of history and philosophy of science, said the fact that inequalities persisted and that many men continued to be oblivious meant that traditional explanations were not the whole story.

The researchers say "affordance theory" in which people experience objects and situations as having actions implicitly attached could explain the disparity.

According to the study, when a woman enters a kitchen, she is more likely to see dishes to be washed or a fridge to be stocked.

But the study was not about absolving men or making excuses, they said.

Perception is shaped on practice and people can train themselves into good habits, McClelland told AFP.

"If you're boiling the kettle, look to see if there are any crumbs that need wiping up. Over time you won't need the routine because the crumbs will start to grab your attention... They'll call out to be wiped up and you won't need to be so deliberate."

McClelland said the study was aimed at understanding such phenomena from an academic perspective and influencing policy areas such as paid paternal leave.

"One of the important things about parental leave is it's not just about the distribution of caring work during the early months of a child's life it's about how those early months tune you in to caring tasks in the future," he said.

"If a man has more extended parental leave, he'd be more tuned into those caring needs... and that would lead into more equitable distribution of caring and labouring in the future."

Men may not ‘perceive’ domestic tasks as needing doing in the same way as women, philosophers argue

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE

Philosophers seeking to answer questions around inequality in household labour and the invisibility of women’s work in the home have proposed a new theory – that men and women are trained by society to see different possibilities for action in the same domestic environment. 

They say a view called “affordance theory” – that we experience objects and situations as having actions implicitly attached – underwrites the age-old gender disparity when it comes to the myriad mundane tasks of daily home maintenance.

For example, women may look at a surface and see an implied action – ‘to be wiped’ – whereas men may just observe a crumb-covered countertop.    

The philosophers believe these deep-seated gender divides in domestic perception can be altered through societal interventions such as extended paternal leave, which will encourage men to build up mental associations for household tasks.

Writing in the journal Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, they argue that available data – particularly data gathered during the pandemic – suggest two questions require explanation. 

One is “disparity”: despite economic and cultural gains, why do women continue to shoulder the vast majority of housework and childcare? The other is “invisibility”: why do so many men believe domestic work to be more equally distributed than in fact it is?

“Many point to the performance of traditional gender roles, along with various economic factors such as women taking flexible work for childcare reasons,” said Dr Tom McClelland, from Cambridge University’s Department of History and Philosophy of Science.

“Yet the fact that stark inequalities in domestic tasks persisted during the pandemic, when most couples were trapped inside, and that many men continued to be oblivious of this imbalance, means this is not the full story.”

McClelland and co-author Prof Paulina Sliwa argue that unequal divisions of labour in the home – and the inability of men to identify said labour – is best explained through the psychological notion of “affordances”: the idea that we perceive things as inviting or “affording” particular actions.

“This is not just looking at the shape and size of a tree and then surmising you can climb it, but actually seeing a particular tree as climbable, or seeing a cup as drink-from-able,” said Sliwa, recently of Cambridge’s philosophy faculty and now at the University of Vienna. 

“Neuroscience has shown that perceiving an affordance can trigger neural processes preparing you for physical action. This can range from a slight urge to overwhelming compulsion, but it often takes mental effort not to act on an affordance.”

There are dramatic differences in “affordance perception” between individuals. One person sees a tree as climbable where another does not. Objects offer a vast array of affordances – one could see a spatula as an egg-frying tool or a rhythmic instrument – and a spectrum of sensitivity towards them. 

“If we apply affordance perception to the domestic environment and assume it is gendered, it goes a long way to answering both questions of disparity and invisibility,” said McClelland.

According to the philosophers, when a woman enters a kitchen she is more likely to perceive the “affordances” for particular domestic tasks – she sees the dishes as ‘to be washed’ or a fridge as ‘to be stocked’.

A man may simply observe dishes in a sink, or a half-empty fridge, but without perceiving the affordance or experiencing the corresponding mental “tug”. Over time, these little differences add up to significant disparities in who does what.  

“Affordances pull on your attention,” said Sliwa. “Tasks may irritate the perceiver until done, or distract them from other plans. If resisted, it can create a felt tension.”

“This puts women in a catch-22 situation: either inequality of labour or inequality of cognitive load.”

This gender-based split in affordance perception could have a number of root causes, say philosophers. Social cues encourage actions in certain environments, often given by adults when we are very young children. Our visual systems update based on what we encounter most frequently.

“Social norms shape the affordances we perceive, so it would be surprising if gender norms do not do the same,” said McClelland.

“Some skills are explicitly gendered, such cleaning or grooming, and girls are expected to do more domestic chores than boys. This trains their ways of seeing the domestic environment, to see a counter as ‘to be wiped’.”

The “gendered affordance perception hypothesis” is not about absolving men say Sliwa and McClelland. Despite a deficit in affordance perception in the home, a man can easily notice what needs doing by thinking rather than seeing. Nor should sensitivity to domestic affordances in women be equated with natural affinity for housework.

“We can change how we perceive the world through continued conscious effort and habit cultivation,” said McClelland. “Men should be encouraged to resist gendered norms by improving their sensitivity to domestic task affordances. 

“A man might adopt a resolution to sweep for crumbs every time he waits for the kettle to boil, for example. Not only would this help them to do the tasks they don't see, it would gradually retrain their perception so they start to see the affordance in the future.”

Collective efforts to change social norms require policy-level interventions, argue the philosophers. For example, shared parental leave gives fathers the opportunity to become more sensitive to caring-task affordances.

Added Sliwa: “Our focus has been on physical actions such as sweeping or wiping, but gendered affordance perceptions could also apply to mental actions such as scheduling and remembering.”

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JOURNAL

Philosophy and Phenomenological Research

DOI

10.1111/phpr.12929 

ARTICLE TITLE

Gendered affordance perception and unequal domestic labour

Male gender bias deters men from some career paths

Jobs in early education and other fields impacted, study finds

Peer-Reviewed Publication

AMERICAN PSYCHOLOGICAL ASSOCIATION

Men are less likely to seek careers in early education and some other fields traditionally associated with women because of male gender bias in those fields, according to research published by the American Psychological Association.

Bias against men in health care, early education and domestic (HEED) fields has been documented in prior research, and the current study sought to gauge the impact of that bias. 

In one experiment with 296 online participants from the U.S., one group read an article accurately describing research that found educators preferred a female elementary school teacher applicant over a male applicant with the same qualifications. Another group read an article that claimed there was gender equality in early elementary education, and there was a control group that didn’t read any article.

Men in the group that read about male gender bias anticipated more discrimination in early elementary education and felt less sense of belonging, less positive and less interest in pursuing a career in that field. Female participants weren’t affected and reported similar responses across the different groups.

An experiment with 275 students at Skidmore College had similar findings. The research was published online in Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied.

While female gender bias in STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) fields has received much public attention, male gender bias in HEED careers has been largely ignored, even though it also has negative impacts, said lead researcher Corinne Moss-Racusin, PhD, an associate professor of psychology at Skidmore College.

“It’s a detriment to society if we keep slotting people into gendered roles and stay the course on gender-segregated career paths, regardless of whether those jobs are traditionally associated with women or men,” she said. “That’s a powerful way of reinforcing the traditional gender status quo.”

Men account for only 3% of preschool and kindergarten teachers and 13% of registered nurses in the U.S., according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. In prior research, male nurses have reported higher levels of workplace bullying than female nurses. Male early-elementary teachers have reported higher rates of discrimination and are perceived as less likeable, less hirable and a greater safety threat to children than female teachers.

Rooted in traditional views of motherhood, the stereotype that women are more caring and naturally suited for some care-oriented professions limits opportunities for men in those fields, Moss-Racusin said.  

“There’s no evidence that men are biologically incapable of doing this work or that men and women are naturally oriented toward different careers,” she said. “Both men and women are deterred by gender biases they may face in different industries, which is understandable.”

Men also may be deterred by the low pay commonly found in HEED fields, which may be related to discrimination against women and a devaluing of work associated with them, Moss-Racusin said.

More recruitment and mentoring of men in HEED fields could help reduce gender bias and lead more men to seek careers in those fields, she said.

Article: “Gender Equality Eliminates Gender Gaps in Engagement with Female-Stereotypic Domains,” by Corinne A. Moss-Racusin, PhD,  Samantha A. Rapp, BA, Sophie S. Brown, BA, Kerry A. O’Brien, BA, Skidmore College, and Alyssa Croft, PhD, The University of Arizona, Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied, published online Dec. 22, 2022.

Contact: Corinne Moss-Racusin, PhD, may be contacted at cmossrac@skidmore.edu.

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JOURNAL

Journal of Experimental Psychology

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

People

ARTICLE TITLE

Gender Equality Eliminates Gender Gaps in Engagement with Female-Stereotypic Domains

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

22-Dec-2022

Everybody needs somebody

NAIST researchers employ network analysis methods from social science to study volunteer contributions to open-source software libraries, and find correlations between dependency networks and viability, which may identify libraries about to become dormant

Peer-Reviewed Publication

NARA INSTITUTE OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

 

IMAGE: LIBRARY-LEVEL DC CONGRUENCE IN NPM JAVASCRIPT ECOSYSTEM view more 

CREDIT: KENICHI MATSUMOTO

Ikoma, Japan – Researchers from Japan have used socio-technical techniques to measure the congruence between the network of contributors to open-source programming libraries and the dependencies of that library within the ecosystem. This work suggests that the level of matching between the network of contributors and networks of dependencies could be used as an indicator of libraries at risk of becoming inactive.

The modern computer programs that run your favorite apps or websites can be extremely large, often measured in millions of lines of code. This is obviously much more complex than can be handled by any one individual. Most programming languages therefore rely on specialized modules called third-party libraries to accomplish specific tasks. These libraries are often open-source and freely available to anyone who wants to download and use them. For example, programmers in JavaScript have access to over one million libraries, while there are more than 300,000 libraries for the Python community. The libraries themselves often rely on each other, with the typical library requiring the use of about five others. However, the ecosystem of interconnected libraries and their dependencies on each other is poorly understood, which is concerning since a failure in one could have cascading effects on the entire system. Sustained contributions are crucial, because the dependencies of any one library on others must be constantly updated in response to changes. However, maintainers of these libraries are often overworked and often contribute as unpaid volunteers.

Now, a team of researchers at Nara Institute of Science and Technology (NAIST) studied these networks by defining a metric called “dependency-contribution congruence” (DC congruence), which measures how closely the network of library dependencies matches the network of contributor changes. The congruence metric is largest when the same contributor makes changes to both a library and its dependents. “We found that DC congruence shares an inverse relationship with the likelihood that a library becomes dormant. Specifically, a library is less likely to become dormant if the contributions are congruent with upgrading dependencies,” says first author Supatsara Wattanakriengkrai. The team measured the DC congruence within the npm ecosystem of JavaScript libraries and analyzed over 5.3 million change commits across 107,242 different libraries. “Peaks in our generated metrics correlate with important ecosystem events,” says senior author Kenichi Matsumoto.

This research may help keep software running and identify fragile points in the dependency network, and may ultimately encourage dependency contributions that support the maintenance of interdependent third-party libraries used in software development.

###

Resource

Title: Giving back: Contributions congruent to library dependency changes in a software ecosystem

Authors: Supatsara Wattanakriengkrai, Dong Wang, Raula Gaikovina Kula, Christoph Treude, Patanamon Thongtanunam, Takashi Ishio & Kenichi Matsumoto

Journal: IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering

Information about the Software Engineering Laboratory can be found at the following website: https://isw3.naist.jp/Research/cs-se-en.html

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JOURNAL

IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering

DOI

10.1109/TSE.2022.3225197  

The hidden origin of the escalating Ukraine-Russia conflict

Events of the Maidan massacre shaped one of the most controversial hours in European history since the end of the Cold War

Ivan Katchanovski 

 January 22, 2022 
CANADIAN DIMENSION

A rally at Kiev’s Maidan Nezalezhnosti (Independence Square) before the massacre of almost 50 protesters, February 20, 2014. Photo by Mykola Vasylechko/Wikimedia Commons.

The Ukraine-Russia conflict is now in its most dangerous phase since it began in 2014 after the Western-backed overthrow of the Ukrainian government. Statements by Russian leaders and the Russian military build-up along Ukraine’s borders suggest that the danger of a significant escalation in the Donbas is real. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky failed to fulfill his election promise to end the war and resolve the armed conflict in the breakaway eastern region peacefully. Talks between the United States and Russia following Russian government demands of written guarantees to stop NATO expansion and, in particular, reject Ukraine’s membership in the alliance (despite its extreme unlikelihood) are not anticipated to resolve the standoff.

US President Joe Biden, his top officials, Western media, and some military experts cited US intelligence reports and the Russian military build-up near Ukraine’s borders as evidence of Russian plans to invade Ukraine this winter. Journalists including David Sanger of the New York Times suggest the same. However, a full-scale Russian ground invasion and occupation of the entire territory of Ukraine appears to be less likely than a more limited use of military force. This could include Russian recognition of independence of the self-proclaimed separatist republics in the Donbas (the Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics), an open deployment of Russian troops and advanced weapons in the separatist-controlled region, a seizure of the eastern and southern regions of Ukraine, or missile and air strikes of Ukrainian military targets in the Donbas and other territories.

Russian President Vladimir Putin and other Russian leaders have stated that NATO membership of Ukraine or the building of US and NATO military installations along Russia’s borders are uncrossable red lines. Such statements imply threats to use military force.

One way to solve peacefully the escalating conflicts between Ukraine and Russia, and the civil war in the Donbas, is an international agreement involving Ukraine, Russia, the US, and the European Union. Such an agreement could offer Ukraine a path to membership in the EU, provided it fulfills accession criteria—stability of institutions guaranteeing democracy, the rule of law, human rights—in exchange for agreeing not to seek NATO membership and to resolve the conflict in the Donbas based on the Minsk Protocol. However, such a scenario would be difficult to achieve due to the unwillingness to compromise and because of refusal by the EU to even acknowledge Ukraine as a potential member.

Various hawks care little about the potentially disastrous consequences of an escalation of armed hostilities for Ukraine and ordinary Ukrainians. They regard Ukraine only as a tool for geopolitical goals—in particular, the containment of Russia—and they are willing to sacrifice many lives in order to expand Western influence in the region. Of course, we should not expect any direct military involvement by US or NATO forces, because such intervention could easily result in a nuclear war.

Western and Russian leaders and their media express deeply conflicting views concerning the escalating conflict in Ukraine and its origins. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and other officials have repeatedly blasted the Kremlin for instigating the crisis along Ukraine’s border in an attempt to carve out a sphere of influence. They argue that after the pro-Russian government of Viktor Yanukovych was ousted by peaceful protesters in 2014—dozens of whom were massacred by government snipers—Russia annexed Crimea and launched a hybrid war with Ukraine in the Donbas with the help of Russian proxies. Moreover, Western officials maintain that Ukraine is a sovereign state which has a right to join NATO. In contrast, Russian leaders insist that the Ukrainian government was overthrown in a fascist putsch, which led to Crimea voluntary joining Russia and to a civil war without Russian military involvement in the Donbas. They say that Ukraine has been under de facto NATO rule since 2014 and regard unrecognized separatist republics in the Donbas as independent.

Various evidence presented in studies I have authored, which has been echoed by many other Western scholars who research these issues, show that both of these narratives are inaccurate. Indeed, the question of which side carried out the “snipers’ massacre” is central to understanding one of the “bloodiest and most controversial hours of European conflict since the end of the Cold War,” and the main tipping point in the escalating conflict between the West and Russia over Ukraine.

According to testimonies by over 100 wounded protesters, several dozen prosecution witnesses, and forensic ballistic and medical examinations by government experts, the massacre of the absolute majority of protesters and police at the Maidan (central square) in Kyiv on February 20, 2014 was perpetrated principally by members of the Maidan opposition, specifically its far-right elements. This event precipitated the violent removal of the corrupt and oligarchic but democratically elected government in Ukraine, touching off a conflict which has since killed more than 13,000 people. Western governments were at least aware of, or de facto backed, the overthrow.


Protesters at Kiev’s Independence Square, December 2013.

Photo by Sasha Maksymenko/Wikimedia Commons.

The hidden origin of the conflict

The origin of the Ukraine-Russia conflict, which goes back to the violent overthrow of the pro-Russian Yanukovych government in 2014, is often misrepresented, omitted or even covered-up by Western governments and, with some notable exceptions, the mainstream media.

Studies I have authored, analyzing the Maidan massacre trials (ongoing since their start in 2015) and investigations in Ukraine, reveal overwhelming evidence that the Maidan protesters were massacred by snipers positioned within Maidan-controlled buildings and not by government snipers or Berkut (riot) policemen, who have been accused of picking off dozens of demonstrators. Such studies include a peer-reviewed article, a book chapter, and papers and video appendices presented at major academic conferences, including at the recent virtual World Congress of the International Council for Central and East European Studies in Montréal. With some notable exceptions, such evidence was not reported by the Western media, which from the start blamed government snipers and the Berkut police for the massacre of the Maidan protesters on the orders of then President Yanukovych.

Such evidence includes videos, testimonies by more than 100 wounded protesters and several hundred other witnesses, including several dozen prosecution and defense witnesses at the Maidan massacre trial and investigation, and forensic ballistic and medical examinations by government experts.

Synchronized videos show that specific times and directions of shooting of the absolute majority of the protesters did not coincide with the specific times and the approximate directions of live ammunition fire by the special Berkut police unit. Three protesters were killed and ten wounded even before this unit appeared in the Maidan. Synchronized video footage also show that the killings of the protesters practically stopped after the government sniper units were deployed to the regime-controlled areas near the epicentre of the protest. The videos alone prove beyond any doubt that Berkut and government snipers did not massacre the Maidan protesters.

Dozens of members and commanders of government sniper units testified as prosecution witnesses at the Maidan massacre trial that they were ordered to locate and neutralize snipers who killed and wounded the Berkut policemen. They also testified that they came under fire by snipers from Maidan-controlled buildings and areas. Even the official investigation determined that Yanukovych government snipers did not massacre the Maidan protesters. It recently charged an Omega special forces unit sniper with killing one protester. But videos, photos and forensic examinations by government experts, and trial testimonies of two protesters (both of whom were next to him) revealed that he was shot in the back from a steep direction by a corroded bullet from a Maidan-controlled building when he faced the government positions.

Videos released by the BBC, Ukraine’s ICTV, and various other footage, including unbroadcasted segments of the most famous video of the Maidan massacre by Belgium’s public-service broadcaster VRT, showed snipers in the Maidan-controlled buildings shooting the protesters and the police and dozens of the protesters and journalists pointing out snipers there. The government investigation revealed that a sniper, who was filmed shooting at the BBC crew, and at protesters in the BBC and ICTV videos, did this from a Hotel Ukraina room in which one of the leaders of far-right Svoboda party then lived.

The absolute majority of wounded Maidan protesters testified at the Maidan massacre trial and investigation that they were shot by snipers from Maidan-controlled buildings or witnessed such snipers there. Even the official investigation determined, based on their testimonies and investigative experiments, that almost half of the wounded protesters were shot from sectors other than government positions and did not charge anyone with their shooting.


A wounded Maidan protester testifies at the Maidan massacre trial about snipers in the Maidan-controlled Hotel Ukraina. From the study “The Maidan Massacre in Ukraine: Revelations from Trials and Investigation,” by Ivan Katchanovski. Presented at the 10th World Congress of the International Council for Central and East European Studies, August 3-8, 2021.

Forensic medical examinations by government experts tasked with investigating the Maidan massacre determined that the absolute majority of the protesters were shot from the side and back and top to bottom directions when they faced the Berkut police on the ground. This is consistent with their shooting from Maidan-controlled buildings. The entry and exit wound locations of three of the killed Maidan protesters, mapped using a 3D model which was produced by a New York architecture company for the Maidan victims’ lawyers and was heralded by the New York Times, do not match the wound locations in the forensic medical examinations by government experts. Consequently, they could not have been shot from the government-held positions. Further wound and bullet hole locations in shields and helmets point to shooting from the Maidan-controlled buildings.

Forensic examinations by government ballistic experts determined in about a dozen cases that the protesters were shot from the Maidan-controlled structures, including the Hotel Ukraina. It is revealing that the prosecution failed for almost eight years after the massacre to use ballistic experts to determine the locations of the shooters in the absolute majority of cases even after the Maidan massacre trial ordered this to be completed. A forensic ballistic examination conducted by government experts using an automated computer system found that bullets from killed protesters did not match bullet samples from the police database of Berkut Kalashnikov assault rifles.

No evidence of any order by Yanukovych or his ministers and commanders to fire upon the Maidan protesters has been revealed by the investigation or the media. Not a single member of his government, police or security forces, admitted involvement in the massacre or revealed any evidence that the protesters were shot by the government forces or, specifically, on a government order.

In contrast, there is evidence of the involvement of Maidan leaders, the far-right, and foreign snipers in the massacre of the police and the protesters. Several Maidan leaders and activists provided testimonies, while 14 self-admitted members of the Maidan sniper units admitted in media interviews and to the Maidan massacre trial that they themselves or other Maidan snipers shot at the police and protesters.

Several former members of the Georgian military testified that they and other groups of Maidan snipers in the Hotel Ukraina and the Music Conservatory were ordered by specific Maidan leaders and ex-Georgian leaders to fire on police and protesters and that they witnessed the massacre. What’s more, a retired Georgian officer also claimed that Georgian snipers linked to Mikheil Saakashvili, ex-president of Georgia, and senior members of his party and the government were involved in the Maidan massacre. The prosecution and the Maidan victims’ lawyers claimed that these Georgians were “actors” even though their identities are confirmed by various evidence, such as documents by the Ukrainian, Armenian, Belarusian, and Georgian authorities (a video testimony of one of them was recently admitted as evidence and shown at the Maidan massacre trial).

Two leaders of the far-right Svoboda party also stated in separate interviews that a Western government representative told them and other Maidan leaders a few weeks before the massacre that Western governments would stop recognizing Yanukovych after casualties among protesters reached 100. Such specific conditionality created incentives to “sacrifice” protesters and attribute their killing to government forces. The slain protesters were called the “heavenly hundred” even after the official investigation confirmed that 49 protesters died on that day. Immediately after the massacre, Western governments blamed the Yanukovych government and his forces for the mass killing and recognized the new Maidan government.

The investigation by the Ukrainian government denies that there were any snipers in Maidan-controlled buildings despite overwhelming evidence that they perpetrated a mass killing of protesters and police on February 20, 2014. It is striking that almost eight years after the massacre, which was verified by videos, testimonies, witnesses, and forensic ballistic and medical examinations by government experts, nobody has been arrested or convicted. Without understanding the Maidan massacre and bringing to justice its perpetrators, it is impossible to understand and resolve peacefully the internal and international conflicts involving Ukraine and the dangerously escalating war in the Donbas.

Ivan Katchanovski teaches at the School of Political Studies at the University of Ottawa. He is the author of Cleft Countries: Regional Political Divisions and Cultures in Post-Soviet Ukraine and Moldova and co-author of Historical Dictionary of Ukraine (Second Edition) and The Paradox of American Unionism: Why Americans Like Unions More Than Canadians Do, But Join Much Less.

Why did the Ottawa Citizen publish Holocaust revisionism?

Recent op-ed seeks to erase the ugly history of Ukrainian Nazi collaboration

Jeremy Appel / December 21, 2022 /

CANADIAN DIMENSION

National Holocaust Monument in Ottawa. Photo from Wikimedia Commons.

On the second night of Hanukkah, the Postmedia-owned Ottawa Citizen published a crude piece of gross Holocaust revisionism from a Ukrainian nationalist academic.

This comes during a year that has been a boon for rehabilitating Nazi collaborators and neo-Nazis as a result of Russia’s criminal invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

That month, Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland shared a photo of herself on Twitter at a rally in support of Ukraine holding a black and red banner associated with the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN), led by Nazi collaborator Stepan Bandera. The tweet was promptly deleted without explanation.

The organization’s military wing, the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA), worked with the Nazis to ethnically cleanse Volhynia and Eastern Galicia of Poles and Jews in an effort to establish an ethnically-pure Ukrainian state, culminating in the murder of 100,000 Poles by 1943.

Meanwhile, the neo-Nazi Azov Battalion has gone from pariahs to heroes after its participation in the battle of the Azovstal steel plant in Mariupol in May, with media outlets downplaying the group’s explicit neo-Nazi and fascist origins.

But the author of the Citizen op-ed wants to go a step further in erasing Ukrainian nationalists’ history of Nazi collaboration.



Calling for the Holocaust Monument to recognize Ukrainian deaths

“I’m offended,” begins the piece by Royal Military College professor and Fellow of the Chair of Ukrainian Studies at the University of Toronto Lubomyr Luciuk, headlined “Ottawa’s National Holocaust Monument must include Ukrainians.”

Luciuk goes on to describe how his mother, Maria Luciuk, was arrested by the Nazis when she was a teenager and then mentions his friend, Ukrainian nationalist Stefan Petelycky, who was placed in Auschwitz.

Petelycky even had a number tattooed on his arm, like Jewish victims of the Holocaust.

“Certainly, Ukrainians weren’t the Holocaust’s only victims. Millions of Jews died,” he says in a paragraph that has to be seen to be believed:
Millions of Polish Catholics were murdered. And I acknowledge the Russians who ran afoul of Nazi racism, even if I despise the fascism infecting Russia today. Indeed all Slavic peoples were considered untermenschen (subhumans). The Nazis planned to exterminate or deport most of them, leaving only a few to serve as helots, bond servants of the Third Reich’s settler-colonial imperialism. Thankfully, the Nazis were defeated. Millions of Ukrainians died making sure of that.

Never mind all the Jewish Ukrainians who were murdered with the assistance of Nazi-sympathizing nationalists, like the 33,000 murdered in the massacre at Babi Yar.

Luciuk is putting forward a fictitious narrative, where the Nazis’ local collaborators were just as victimized as the people they targeted for extermination.

As Holocaust historian Jean-Paul Himka, who happens to be Freeland’s uncle by marriage, has said, Ukrainian nationalists saw their main enemy as the Soviet Union and to that end were willing to work with the Nazis, and adopt their antisemitic views, to fight the Soviets.

However, these sympathies weren’t reciprocated by the Nazis.

“The Germans did not agree to a Ukrainian state, and in fact they placed the major OUN leaders and placed them under house arrest, because they did not want the Ukrainian state encroaching on their Lebensraum,” Himka explained during the Toby and Saul Reichert Holocaust Lecture at the University of Alberta in October 2021.

But even as relations between Ukrainian nationalists and the Third Reich frayed, the UPA continued massacring Jews and Poles, he said.

“Certainly, the Germans are absolutely the most responsible for the Holocaust—no question, but they could not have done what they did without local help,” Himka concluded.

In Himka’s book, Ukrainian Nationalists and the Holocaust: OUN and UPA’s Participation in the Destruction of Ukrainian Jewry, 1941–1944, he calls Luciuk’s friend Petelycky’s memoirs of his time with the OUN “airbrushed but still informative.”

Petelycky witnessed a brutal massacre of Jews by the Ukrainian militia Wiking in 1941, but said he and the OUN did nothing to stop it because they regarded Jews as Soviet collaborators. However, Petelycky added, it wasn’t fair to view all Jews in this light.
A blatant lie in Luciuk’s column

Luciuk presents a blatant falsehood in his piece, arguing a plaque at the National Holocaust Monument says: “The National Holocaust Monument commemorates the six million Jewish men, women and children murdered during the Holocaust by Nazi Germany and its collaborators.”

“Underscoring Nazi Germany’s responsibility for a genocide is essential. Emphasizing the six million Jewish dead is required. But why, despite almost two dozen other plaques, was the suffering of millions of non-Jewish victims largely ignored?” the author complains.

But his transcription is inaccurate and incomplete, as evidenced by an image of the plaque included at the bottom of the article, which clearly reads: “The National Holocaust Monument commemorates the six million Jewish men, women and children murdered during the Holocaust and the millions of other victims of Nazi Germany and its collaborators.”

How did this get past an editor?
Musing about defacing a Holocaust monument

Luciuk continues by offering to pay for a new plaque that recognizes Polish, Ukrainian, and Russian Holocaust victims, calling their lack of explicit inclusion “deliberate” and “discriminatory.”

The column’s penultimate paragraph is the most bizarre, in which Luciuk expects admiration for not defacing the Holocaust memorial, throwing in a dash of culture war nonsense:
There are too many hungry people out there for me to toss tomato soup at this monument; I’ll donate the can to a food bank instead. Likewise, I won’t indulge in criminal vandalism, like those hooligans who spray-paint statues at night. Armed with the courage of my convictions, I protest in daylight, sans balaclava. As for those stoked-up packs tearing up about tearing down statues—doing so neither erases their purportedly unhappy pasts nor does it compensate for present-day failings.


This paragraph also contains a subtle reference to Duncan Kinney, the progressive Edmonton-based journalist who is accused of defacing two local monuments to Nazi collaborators—one to UPA commander Roman Shukhevych at the Ukrainian Youth Unity Complex and another to the 14th Waffen SS Division at St. Michael’s Cemetery.

Luciuk wrote about this case in a November 4 article for the Times of Israel, which has since been mysteriously scrubbed from its website, perhaps because it cites security footage from the Ukrainian community centre that is evidence in a criminal case Luciuk has no involvement in.

In it, he writes:
Mr Kinney can believe whatever he wants about Ukrainian nationalists. The same goes for the others from whom he musters denunciations of General Shukhevych. Often as not those commentators studiously ignore how some of their people were the foot soldiers of settler-colonial regimes or enablers of the Soviet occupation of Ukraine.


Who is “their people,” you might ask.

Despite the fact that Kinney hasn’t been convicted of the crime he’s accused of, Luciuk demands “this hooliganism… be atoned for.”

“The penance should involve a public confession and reparations paid for the damages done, followed by a spell of meaningful community service—cleaning graffiti from public spaces around Edmonton suggests itself,” he wrote.

But it’s not just regarding Ukrainian nationalism where Luciuk’s opinions are unhinged.

Luciuk, who sat on the Immigration and Refugee Board from 1996-98, wrote a 2001 op-ed, where he boasted of rejecting 90 percent of refugee claimants, earning himself the moniker of “Dr. No.”

“Be a liar. That is the first lesson most claimants who come before the Immigration and Refugee Board learn,” reads the column’s opening paragraph.

Hilary Evans Cameron, a former immigration lawyer and Osgoode Hall law professor, told Global News an adjudicator must assume all claimants are telling the truth until proven otherwise.

She teaches Luciuk’s article in her first-year law class to give students a “sense of the kind of ideas that might be in a decision-maker’s mind if they were getting the law wrong.”

Perhaps Holocaust historians ought to start teaching his Citizen op-ed as an example of a disturbing mainstreaming of Holocaust distortion.

The question is through what sort of editorial oversight was this schlock published in the first place.

Jeremy Appel is an independent Calgary-based journalist. He’s also the co-host of the Forgotten Corner and Big Shiny Takes podcasts.

Acids help against airborne viruses

Peer-Reviewed Publication

ETH ZURICH

 

IMAGE: CONCENTRATION OF INFECTIOUS VIRUSES IN A ROOM WITH ONE SICK PERSON PER 10 M3 AS A FUNCTION OF THE STRENGTH OF FRESH AIR SUPPLY WITH DIFFERENT TYPES OF AIR TREATMENT WITH RESPECT TO NITRIC ACID (HNO3) AND AMMONIA (NH3). view more 

CREDIT: THOMAS PETER / ETH ZURICH

Viruses such as SARS-CoV-2, influenza virus and others travel from person to person essentially by hitchhiking on aerosols. These are finely dispersed particles containing liquid suspended in the air that an infected person expels when coughing, sneezing, or simply exhaling, and can be inhaled by someone else.

That’s why it is generally seen as important to ventilate rooms effectively and filter indoor air: lowering aerosol particle concentrations in homes, offices and public transport vehicles can reduce the risk of infection.

How do suspended particles become acidic?

It’s not clear how long viruses in aerosols remain infectious. Some studies suggest that the humidity and temperature of the air may play a role in virus persistence. A factor that has been underestimated so far is the exhaled aerosols’ chemical composition, in particular its acidity and its interactions with the indoor air. Many viruses, such as influenza A virus, are acid-sensitive; exhaled aerosol particles can absorb volatile acids and other airborne substances, among them acetic acid, nitric acid or ammonia, from the indoor air, which in turn affects the acidity (pH) levels of the particles.

No research had yet been conducted on the effect the acidification of aerosols post exhalation has on the viral load they carry. Now a team of researchers from ETH Zurich, EPFL and the University of Zurich has investigated exactly that.

In a new study, they show for the first time how the pH of aerosol particles changes in the seconds and hours after exhalation under different environmental conditions. Further, they show how this impacts the viruses contained in the particles. The study has just been published in the journal Environmental Science & Technology.

Exhaled small aerosol particles become acidic quickly

According to the researchers, the exhaled aerosols acidify very rapidly, faster than some might expect. How fast they do this depends on the concentration of acid molecules in the ambient air and the size of the aerosol particles. The team examined tiny droplets – a few micrometres across – of nasal mucus and of lung fluid synthesised specifically for the study. In typical indoor air, it took these droplets only about 100 seconds to reach a pH of 4, which is roughly equivalent to the acidity of orange juice.

The pH value is a measure of acidity: a neutral solution has a pH of 7; the pH of acidic solutions is less than 7; that of basic solutions is greater than 7.

The researchers contend that the acidification of aerosols is largely due to nitric acid that enters from the outside air. It enters indoor spaces either through open windows or when ventilation systems draw in air from outside. Nitric acid is formed by the chemical transformation of nitrogen oxides (NOx), which are released into the environment mainly as a product of combustion processes along with the exhaust gases of diesel engines and domestic furnaces. Accordingly, there is a permanent supply of nitrogen oxides and thus nitric acid in cities and metropolitan areas.

Nitric acid quickly adheres to surfaces, furniture, clothing and skin – but is taken up by the tiny exhaled aerosol particles as well. This increases their acidity and lowers their pH.

Aerosol pH is key to virus inactivation

The research team further shows that the acidic environment can have a decisive impact on how quickly viruses trapped in exhaled mucus particles are inactivated. The two kinds of virus were found to have different acid sensitivities: SARS-CoV-2 is so acid-resistant that at first the experts didn’t believe their measurements. It took a pH of below 2, i.e. very acidic conditions such as those in undiluted lemon juice, to inactivate the coronavirus. Such conditions cannot be reached in typical indoor air.

Influenza A viruses, on the other hand, are inactivated after just one minute in acidic conditions of pH 4. Freshly exhaled mucus particles reach this level in less than two minutes in typical indoor environments. Adding the time it takes to acidify the aerosol to the time it takes to inactivate the flu viruses at a pH 4 or lower, it quickly becomes clear that 99 percent of influenza A viruses will be inactivated in the aerosol after roughly three minutes. This short time span surprised the researchers.

SARS-CoV-2 is a different story: since aerosol pH hardly ever falls below 3.5 in typical indoor spaces, it takes days for 99 percent of coronaviruses to be inactivated.

The study shows that in well-ventilated rooms, inactivation of influenza A viruses in aerosols works efficiently, and the threat of SARS-CoV-2 can also be reduced (see figure). In poorly ventilated rooms, however, the risk that aerosols contain active viruses is 100 times greater than in rooms with a strong supply of fresh air.

This leads the researchers to advise that indoor rooms be ventilated frequently and well, so that the virus-laden indoor air and basic substances such as ammonia from emissions of people and indoor activities are carried outside, while acidic components of the outside air can enter the rooms in sufficient quantities.

Filtration removes acids from the air

Even normal air conditioning systems with air filters can lead to a reduction in volatile acids. “Acid removal is likely even more pronounced in museums, libraries or hospitals with activated carbon filters. In such public buildings, the relative risk of influenza transmission can increase significantly compared to buildings supplied with unfiltered outside air,” the team writes in the article.  

In response, the research team could imagine adding small amounts of volatile acids such as nitric acid to filtered air and removing basic substances such as ammonia in an attempt to accelerate the aerosols’ acidification. According to the study, a concentration of nitric acid at levels around 50 ppb (parts per billion of air, which is 1/40th of the 8-hour legal limit in the workplace) could reduce the risk of COVID-19 infection a thousandfold.

A long road to a healthier indoor climate

However, the researchers are also aware that such a measure will be highly controversial, as it is not clear what consequences such levels of acid may have. Museums or libraries filter the air very thoroughly to prevent damage to works of art and books. Civil engineers would also be less than pleased, since the addition of acids might damage materials or conduits. The researchers involved in the study therefore agree that long-term studies are needed to assess the risks to people and structures. Therefore, the use of volatile acids to efficiently inactivate viruses in aerosol particles may not be easily established as a virus control measure, while the removal of ammonia – a compound readily emitted by people and a substance that stabilizes viruses as it elevates pH – should not be controversial.

Successful collaboration

The present study is the result of an interdisciplinary collaboration between researchers at ETH Zurich, EPFL and the University of Zurich. Following years of preparation, this work got underway in 2019 as an influenza-only project. In light of the COVID-19 pandemic, the researchers expanded the scope to include the new coronavirus.

How these two viruses react to acidic environments was investigated by researchers in the group led by Silke Stertz at the University of Zurich’s Institute of Medical Virology together with colleagues from the Environmental Chemistry Laboratory at EPFL led by Tamar Kohn, who is also the overall leader of this SNSF Sinergia project. They tested the sensitivity of influenza A and coronaviruses to different acidic conditions in artificially generated lung fluid and in nasal or lung mucus, which the scientists had previously harvested from specially grown mucus cell cultures.

Researchers from the Atmospheric Chemistry Group at ETH Zurich, led by Thomas Peter and Ulrich Krieger, investigated the behaviour of mucus aerosols using an electrodynamic particle trap. With this apparatus researchers can “hold” individual suspended particles for days or weeks and study them without contact to surfaces, for example to see how changes in humidity affect them.

The Peter group was also responsible for performing model simulations. This modelling-based approach might prove to be a weakness in the overall study; how airborne viruses really behave in acidic aerosols is something that remains to be seen in further experiments. With these in mind, researchers led by Athanasios Nenes at EPFL, who initially proposed that acidity may be an important modulator of virus activity, have developed experimental techniques and modelling approaches that will allow future experiments to be carried out both under strict biosafety conditions and using different compositions of indoor air.

Reference

Luo BP, Schaub A, Glas I, Klein LK, David SC, Bluvshtein N, Violaki K, Motos G, Pohl MO, Hugentobler W, Nenes A, Krieger UK, Stertz S, Peter T, Kohn T: Expiratory aerosol pH: the overlooked driver of airborne virus inactivation. Environmental Science & Technology, 20th Dec 2022. DOI: 10.1021/acs.est.2c05777

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JOURNAL

Environmental Science & Technology

DOI

10.1021/acs.est.2c05777 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Experimental study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Not applicable

ARTICLE TITLE

Expiratory Aerosol pH: The Overlooked Driver of Airborne Virus Inactivation

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

20-Dec-2022

The academic journal “Polar Science” features Energy and Buildings in cold & Polar regions

Business Announcement

RESEARCH ORGANIZATION OF INFORMATION AND SYSTEMS

 

IMAGE: POLAR SCIENCE SPECIAL ISSUE ENTITLED "ENERGY RESOURCES AND BUILDING DEMANDS IN COLD REGION AND POLAR AREAS". view more 

CREDIT: @NIPR

The National Institute of Polar Research (NIPR) publishes Polar Science, a peer-reviewed quarterly journal dealing with polar science, in collaboration with Elsevier B. V. The special issue titled "Energy resources and building demands in cold region and Polar areas" was published as part of the latest issue (Vol. 34, posted on 1 December 2022). This issue focused on the research between buildings and energy, aiming to overview the recent scientific research, new technology, and future perspectives. This special issue consists of seven high-quality papers, which are state-of-the-art multi-disciplinary work performed by international researchers. The full text of issue 34 will be freely accessible worldwide until 31 May 2023.

It is gradually becoming clear that recent global climate changes are more pronounced in parts of the Polar areas. In turn, it has also become clear that the environmental changes in Polar regions significantly affect low-latitude ecosystems and human activities. In addition, global warming has opened up the ocean areas previously closed by large-scale thick ice, raising some expectations for the economical use of these areas for sea routes and oil/natural gas field development. 

These factors have made research and development more critical in cold and polar regions. Despite the progress of global warming, these areas are still the coldest and driest environments on Earth. Thus, special provisions are required for buildings used for living (Cold regions and Arctic) and research (Antarctic). Building performance in such areas depends on local materials, particular structural types, energy resources, and possible supply ways. However, the basic relationship between energy use and building thermal performance in such areas has yet to be revealed due to limited research.

“In this special issue, the results of a broad field are collected to understand the relationship between buildings and energy," said Dr. Jianhui Hu, a tenure-track Associate Professor at Shanghai Jiao Tong University and the Managing Guest Editor of this issue. " The traditional methods can generate or obtain a large amount of valuable data while the cutting-edge technology has the advantage of opening up new research areas. Therefore, the results and conclusions combined with traditional methods and new techniques are essential to understanding the basic relationship between buildings and energy in these fields.”

Data from decades of traditional methods are now available as big data and can be analyzed on a regional basis. By applying artificial intelligence to such big data, it should be possible to identify, among many factors, the critical factors for clarifying the relationship between buildings and energy resources. Based on these new techniques, the issue reported the efficient submarine pipeline design results using artificial intelligence and a study of safe and fuel-efficient navigation routes based on the associated real-time satellite data. 

“I hope this special issue can draw more attention from the academic and engineering community to enhance or start research on buildings and energy in such areas. With new ideas, novel techniques, and newly-built projects, in the near future, I believe that we will understand how the buildings and energy resources interact with each other, which will open the way to the use of limited energy to maintain the required building performance. There is also great potential for new engineering fields in polar and extraterrestrial areas, such as the moon and Mars,” said Dr. Jianhui Hu.

 

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About Special Issue of Polar Science Volume 34

   Title : Energy resources and building demands in cold region and Polar areas

   Managing Guest Editor : Jianhui Hu

   Guest Editors: Xiangbin Cui, Anastasia Kulachinskaya, Ang Hu

 

About Polar Science

Polar Science is a peer-reviewed comprehensive academic journal relating to the polar regions of the Earth and other planets, which the NIPR began to publish in collaboration with Elsevier B.V. in 2007. The primary purpose of this journal is to inform people about polar science. Currently, more than 100 articles are submitted per year. As a result, this journal is recognized globally as one of the few comprehensive academic journals in the field of polar science. In addition to normal issues, Polar Science publishes a special issue annually on a given topic from various fields.

The main characteristics of Polar Science are summarized as follows.

• Polar Science is an international academic journal with an impact factor of 2.355 as of 2021
• Polar Science covers 15 disciplines related to the Antarctic and the Arctic, such as:

- Space and upper atmosphere physics

- Atmospheric science/Climatology

- Glaciology

- Oceanography/Sea ice studies

- Geology/Petrology

- Solid earth geophysics/Seismology

- Marine earth science

- Geomorphology/Cenozoic-Quaternary geology

- Meteoritics

- Terrestrial biology

- Marine biology

- Animal ecology

- Environment

- Polar engineering

- Humanities and social sciences

• Polar Science has an Open Archive whereby published articles are made freely available from ScienceDirect after an embargo period of 24 months from the date of publication.
• Printed products are also published.
• After Polar Science became an open archive in 2016, article downloads have increased rapidly since then. Currently, more than 180,000 papers are used (PDF download and HTML Views) annually.

 

About National Institute of Polar Research, Japan

The NIPR engages in comprehensive research via observation stations in Arctic and Antarctica. As a member of the Research Organization of Information and Systems (ROIS), the NIPR provides researchers throughout Japan with infrastructure support for the Arctic and Antarctic observations, plans and implements Japan's Antarctic observation projects, and conducts Arctic research of various scientific fields such as the atmosphere, ice sheets, the ecosystem, the upper atmosphere, the aurora, and the Earth's magnetic field. In addition to the research projects, the NIPR organizes the Japanese Antarctic Research Expedition and manages samples and data obtained during such expeditions and projects. As a core institution in research of the polar regions, the NIPR also offers graduate students a global perspective on originality through its doctoral program at the Graduate University for Advanced Studies, SOKENDAI. For more information about the NIPR, please visit: https://www.nipr.ac.jp/english/

 

About the Research Organization of Information and Systems (ROIS)

ROIS is a parent organization of four national institutes (National Institute of Polar Research, National Institute of Informatics, the Institute of Statistical Mathematics, and National Institute of Genetics) and the Joint Support-Center for Data Science Research. It is ROIS's mission to promote integrated, cutting-edge research that goes beyond the barriers of these institutions, in addition to facilitating their research activities as members of inter-university research institutes.

 Does diabetes during pregnancy increase the risk of neurodevelopmental conditions in children?

Peer-Reviewed Publication

WILEY

New research published in Developmental Medicine & Child Neurology has revealed a link between maternal diabetes during pregnancy and a range of neurodevelopmental conditions in children—including autism, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), developmental delay, intellectual disability, cerebral palsy, and epilepsy.

The retrospective study included 877,233 children born between 2004 and 2008 in Taiwan whose mothers had type 1, type 2, or gestational diabetes during pregnancy. The effect of type 1 diabetes on neurodevelopmental disorders was the largest, followed by type 2 diabetes, and then gestational diabetes.

Type 1 diabetes was associated with an increased risk of developmental delay, intellectual disability, and epilepsy in children. Type 2 diabetes was associated with an increased risk of autism spectrum disorder, ADHD, developmental delay, intellectual disability, cerebral palsy, and epilepsy. Gestational diabetes was associated with an increased risk of autism spectrum disorder, ADHD, and developmental delay.

“Mechanistic studies are needed to explore how maternal conditions, such as diabetes, may shape brain development in the womb,” said corresponding author Pao-Lin Kuo, MD, of National Cheng Kung University Hospital. 

URL upon publication: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/dmcn.15488

 

Additional Information

NOTE: The information contained in this release is protected by copyright. Please include journal attribution in all coverage. For more information or to obtain a PDF of any study, please contact: Sara Henning-Stout, newsroom@wiley.com.

About the Journal

Developmental Medicine & Child Neurology (DMCN) is a multidisciplinary journal that has defined the fields of paediatric neurology and childhood-onset neurodisability for over 60 years. DMCN disseminates the latest clinical research results globally to enhance the care and improve the lives of disabled children and their families.

About Wiley

Wiley is one of the world’s largest publishers and a global leader in scientific research and career-connected education. Founded in 1807, Wiley enables discovery, powers education, and shapes workforces. Through its industry-leading content, digital platforms, and knowledge networks, the company delivers on its timeless mission to unlock human potential. Visit us at Wiley.com. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Instagram.

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JOURNAL

Developmental Medicine & Child Neurology

DOI

10.1111/dmcn.15488 

ARTICLE TITLE

Childhood neurodevelopmental disorders are associated with maternal diabetes: a population-based cohort study

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

21-Dec-2022