Current Antarctic conservation efforts are insufficient to avoid biodiversity declines

Ten key management strategies could benefit up to 84% of plants and animals

Peer-Reviewed Publication

PLOS

 

IMAGE: A LONE EMPEROR PENGUIN FLOATING ON AN ICEBERG FAR FROM ITS COLONY IN THE ANTARCTIC PENINSULA view more 

CREDIT: JASMINE LEE (CC-BY 4.0, HTTPS://CREATIVECOMMONS.ORG/LICENSES/BY/4.0/)

Existing conservation efforts are insufficient to protect Antarctic ecosystems, and population declines are likely for 65% of the continent’s plants and wildlife by the year 2100, according to a study by Jasmine Rachael Lee at the University of Queensland, Australia, and colleagues, publishing December 22nd in the open access journal PLOS Biology. Implementing ten key threat management strategies — at an annual cost of 23 million US dollars — would benefit up to 84% of terrestrial bird, mammal, and plant groups.

To better understand which species are most vulnerable and identify the most cost-effective actions, researchers combined expert assessments with scientific data to evaluate threats and conservation strategies for Antarctica. They asked 29 experts to define possible management strategies, estimate their cost and feasibility, and assess the potential benefit to different species between now and 2100.

Climate change was identified as the most serious threat to Antarctic biodiversity and influencing global policy to limit warming was the most beneficial conservation strategy. Under current management strategies and more than 2 degrees Celsius of warming, 65% of land plants and animals will decline by 2100. Emperor penguins (Aptenodytes forsteri) were identified as the most vulnerable, followed by other sea birds and soil nematode worms. However, regional management strategies could benefit up to 74% of plants and animals at an estimated cost of 1.92 billion US dollars over the next 83 years, equating to 0.004% of global GDP in 2019. The regional management strategies identified as offering the greatest return on investment were minimizing the impacts of human activities, improving the planning and management of new infrastructure projects, and improving transport management.

As Antarctica faces increasing pressure from climate change and human activities, a combination of regional and global conservation efforts is needed to preserve Antarctic biodiversity and ecosystem services for future generations, the authors say.

Lee adds, “What this work shows is that climate change is the greatest threat to Antarctic species and what we need is global mitigation efforts to save them. This will not only help to secure their future, but also our own.”

Reflections in the picturesque Lemaire Channel in the Antarctic Peninsula

CAPTION

Gentoo penguin walking at Yankee Harbour, Antarctic Peninsula

CREDIT

Jasmine Lee (CC-BY 4.0, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)

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In your coverage, please use this URL to provide access to the freely available paper in PLOS Biology: http://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/journal.pbio.3001921

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In your coverage, please use this URL to provide access to the freely available paper in PLOS Biology: http://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/journal.pbio.3001921

Citation: Lee JR, Terauds A, Carwardine J, Shaw JD, Fuller RA, Possingham HP, et al. (2022) Threat management priorities for conserving Antarctic biodiversity. PLoS Biol 20(12): e3001921. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3001921

Author Countries: Australia, United Kingdom, United States, South Africa, New Zealand, France, Denmark, Norway, Switzerland, Belgium

Funding: see manuscript

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JOURNAL

PLoS Biology

DOI

10.1371/journal.pbio.3001921 

Study identifies new cause of melting Antarctic ice shelves

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF EAST ANGLIA

 

IMAGE: THE THWAITES ICE SHELF IN ANTARCTICA view more 

CREDIT: KAREN ALLEY

Researchers have discovered a process that can contribute to the melting of ice shelves in the Antarctic.

An international team of scientists found that adjacent ice shelves play a role in causing instability in others downstream.

The study, led by the University of East Anglia in the UK, also identified that a small ocean gyre - a system of circulating ocean currents - next to the Thwaites Ice Shelf can impact the amount of glacial-meltwater flowing beneath it. When that gyre is weaker, more warm water can access the areas beneath the ice shelf, causing it to melt.

The Thwaites Ice Shelf is one of the biggest ice shelves in West Antarctica and buttresses the eastern side of the Thwaites Glacier, which has been retreating rapidly over the last 20 years and is the largest contributor to global sea-level rise among Antarctic glaciers.

Using a unique dataset collected by sensors installed beneath the Thwaites Ice Shelf - which has also thinned and weakened significantly in recent decades - the researchers observed that the shallow layers of the ocean underneath it warmed considerably during the period from January 2020 to March 2021.

Most of this warming was driven by waters with a high volume of glacial meltwater originating from the Pine Island Ice Shelf, further east, flowing into the area beneath the Thwaites Ice Shelf.

The glacial meltwater mixes with saltwater when the ocean melts the base of ice shelves and can form a buoyant layer of water that is warmer than the surrounding waters. This lighter, relatively fresher and warmer water brings heat that melts the base of the Thwaites Ice Shelf.

Lead author Dr Tiago Dotto, of the Centre for Ocean and Atmospheric Sciences at UEA, said: “We have identified another process that could impact the stability of ice shelves, revealing the importance of local ocean circulation and sea-ice.

“Circumpolar Deep Water, a warm variety of Antarctic waters, is a key player in melting the base of ice shelves. However, in this study, we show that a great amount of heat at shallow layers beneath one ice shelf can be provided by waters originating from other melting ice shelves nearby.

“Therefore, what happens to one ice shelf, can impact the adjacent ice shelf, and so on.

This process is important for regions of high ice shelf melting such as the Amundsen Sea because one ice shelf sits next to the other, and the export of heat from one ice shelf can reach the next one through the ocean circulation.”

Dr Dotto added: “These atmosphere-sea-ice-ocean interactions are important because they can prolong warm periods beneath ice shelves by allowing warm and meltwater-enriched water to enter adjacent ice-shelf cavities.

“Gyres potentially existing in other regions around Antarctica may also cause a greater number of ice shelves to be prone to intense basal melting associated with prolonged warm conditions, and as a result further contribute to global sea-level rise.”

In January 2020 colleagues from the US drilled holes in the ice and installed sensors monitoring temperature, salinity and ocean current beneath the Thwaites Ice Shelf.

For more than a year these sensors sent, via satellite, the data used to identify the ocean variations, for example how the temperature and meltwater content varied. From these observations, the researchers suspected that the excess of heat could not have originated locally at the Thwaites Ice Shelf because they did not see strong melting at the sites where the sensors were installed.

By combining the information with computer simulations to identify the origin of this heat, they found that the water that leaves the Pine Island Ice Shelf can access the areas beneath Thwaites Ice Shelf.

The mechanism that explains how these waters access the Thwaites Ice Shelf was identified by using model simulations and data collected by tags attached to seals. They both showed that a gyre near the Thwaites Ice Shelf weakens in winter, which allows more heat to reach shallow areas beneath the ice shelf.

Satellite images also showed that the Southern Hemisphere summer season of 2020/2021 was unusual because it had a high concentration of sea ice in regions near the Thwaites Ice Shelf.

Drawing on the simulations and previous research, the team hypothesised that the gyre was even weaker, so the excess of meltwater from adjacent ice shelves could not be moved away from that region by the currents and instead entered the Thwaites Ice Shelf.

This reduced even more the strength of this gyre, which enabled the inflow of water with higher concentration of glacial meltwater beneath the ice shelf.

Funding for the Automated Meteorology-Ice-Geophysics-Ocean System (AMIGOS), which collected the data, was received from the National Science Foundation in the US. The research was also supported by the UK Natural Environment Research Council (NERC).

‘Ocean variability beneath Thwaites Eastern Ice Shelf driven by the Pine Island Bay Gyre strength’ is published in Nature Communications.

JOURNAL

Nature Communications

DOI

10.1038/s41467-022-35499-5 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Observational study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Not applicable

ARTICLE TITLE

Ocean variability beneath Thwaites Eastern Ice Shelf driven by the Pine Island Bay Gyre strength

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

21-Dec-2022

Universities lag in capturing and using data to make institutional decisions

Reports and Proceedings

AMERICAN ASSOCIATION FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE (AAAS)

In a Policy Forum, Christine Borgman and Amy Brand argue that most universities lag behind industry, business, and government when it comes to leveraging data they generate for strategic decision-making and planning. Their view is informed by interviews with university leaders from 12 U.S. institutions. Interview questions addressed factors including participants' roles in considering how data is used in making key decisions, and the state of data infrastructure and management at their respective universities. Through their interviews, the authors note several common challenges universities face in capturing and exploiting institutional data. These include a lack of staff expertise in data management or governance and tension among stakeholders regarding data access, control, use and privacy. Investing in knowledge infrastructures, data management capacity, and transparent data sources could help address these challenges. “Even when their universities are ‘data rich,’ they also may be ‘data poor’ in that they are struggling to exploit data resources to their strategic advantage, or ‘data blind’ in being reluctant to initiate stakeholder discussions necessary to build consensus or governance,” write Borgman and Brand. “We encourage university leaders to embrace more objective and transparent data-informed models for decision-making.”

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JOURNAL

Science

DOI

10.1126/science.add2734 

ARTICLE TITLE

Data blind: Universities lag in capturing and exploiting data

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

23-Dec-2022

Inflation Reduction Act offers significant benefits for public health

New article by GW Law Professor Robert Glicksman in New England Journal of Medicine finds law uses novel tax incentives that will lead to improved public health

Peer-Reviewed Publication

GEORGE WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY

WASHINGTON (Dec. 21, 2022)— In August President Joe Biden signed into law the Inflation Reduction Act, the most significant measure ever adopted by the U.S. Congress to combat climate change. While the Act’s measures to mitigate climate change have largely been the focus of attention, an analysis published today in the New England Journal of Medicine describes the significant benefits it offers to improve public health through the Act’s tax credits and other financial incentives.

“This law offers the United States a novel roadmap for mitigating climate change and improving public health,” Robert Glicksman, the J. B. and Maurice C. Shapiro professor of environmental law at George Washington University Law School, said. “At this juncture, the Inflation Reduction Act provides a more politically feasible foundation for efforts to abate climate change and reduce its public health effects than a cap-and-trade program or traditional regulatory approaches.”

The analysis, “Protecting the Public Health with the Inflation Reduction Act–Provisions Affecting Climate Change and its Health Effects,” was published Dec. 21 in the New England Journal of Medicine.

“Greenhouse gases – such as carbon dioxide and methane – are endangering public health and welfare,” Glicksman said. Yet these health risks are not evenly distributed, hitting socially vulnerable populations — people with low household income and members of historically marginalized racial and ethnic groups – the hardest.“ The same is true for the adverse health effects of other forms of pollution, including conventional air pollutants, such as particulate matter, and carcinogenic chemical contaminants. The Act also targets these forms of air pollution in an effort to reduce the adverse health effects for which they are responsible.

Previous congressional efforts to mitigate climate change would have relied on a combination of mandatory emission limits on greenhouse gases and the use of a cap-and-trade program. Those efforts never attracted sufficient political support to be viable, and would almost certainly not have done so now. Congress therefore chose to try something different in the Inflation Reduction Act. It relied instead on a combination of carrots, sticks, and direct federal investments to move the country’s industries away from greenhouse gas-generating activities towards those that are less polluting and dangerous.”

Glicksman said he believes using the Internal Revenue Code and federal infusions of money to shift the country to cleaner energy would likely be less vulnerable to legal challenge than more traditional forms of regulation. He pointed to the Supreme Court’s decision this year in West Virginia v. EPA, which restricted the EPA’s authority under the Clean Air Act to reduce GHG emissions from one of its largest source categories, electric generating plants.

“It’s possible that not every mechanism in the Act will yield all of the desired outcomes, but in a few years it should be possible to begin measuring the impacts of the new law to see if it’s doing what its sponsors hoped it would do,” Glicksman said. “The Inflation Reduction Act represents an encouraging effort by Congress to mitigate the broad array of negative consequences that result from climate change without triggering the reflexive opposition that tends to be directed at regulatory mechanisms. This bill isn’t just about slowing down the melting of ice to preserve Arctic ecosystems that are far away from most Americans’ daily concerns. The Inflation Reduction Act will also help reduce the extent to which the American people will suffer the increasingly serious adverse health effects that stem from climate change and its consequences, such as worsening ozone pollution and the spread of viral and other communicable diseases.”

-GW-

 

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JOURNAL

New England Journal of Medicine

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Meta-analysis

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Not applicable

ARTICLE TITLE

Inflation Reduction Act Offers Significant Benefits for Public Health

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

21-Dec-2022

Conspiracy believers more likely to endorse mythical causes of cancer

Results suggest direct connection between digital misinformation and erroneous health decisions, say researchers

Peer-Reviewed Publication

BMJ

People who believe in conspiracies, reject the covid-19 vaccine, or prefer alternative medicine are more likely to endorse mythical causes of cancer than non-conspiracists but are less likely to endorse actual causes of cancer, finds a study in the Christmas issue of The BMJ. 

These findings highlight the difficulty that society faces in distinguishing the actual causes of cancer from mythical causes owing to the mass information on the news and social media platforms, say researchers.

Cancer is a leading cause of death worldwide, yet up to half of diagnosed cancer is preventable through lifestyle changes and vaccination, such as human papillomavirus (HPV).

Misinformation about what causes cancer can lead to people refusing to adopt such preventive measures. But no data exist on vaccination scepticism or conspiracy beliefs in relation to beliefs about and attitudes to cancer prevention.

To examine this, researchers surveyed users of several popular online discussion platforms on their beliefs about cancer from January to March 2022.

They asked participants to provide information on their age, gender, country of birth, country of residence, education level, and whether their job was medical related. 

Questions on health habits and behaviours included a preference for conventional or alternative medicines, attitudes towards covid-19 vaccination, smoking status, alcohol consumption, weight and height, and personal history of cancer. 

Further questions assessed conspiracy beliefs (flat earth or reptilian theories) and beliefs about both actual and mythical (non-established) causes of cancer based on the validated Cancer Awareness Measure (CAM) and CAM-Mythical Causes Scale (CAM-MYCS).

Responses were recorded on a five point scale ranging from “strongly disagree” to “strongly agree.”

Actual causes of cancer included smoking, consuming alcohol, low levels of physical activity, getting sunburnt as a child, family history of cancer, HPV infection, and being overweight. 

Mythical causes included eating food containing artificial sweeteners or additives and genetically modified food; using microwave ovens, aerosol containers, mobile phones, and cleaning products; living near power lines and feeling stressed.

After excluding incomplete questionnaires, 1494 responders were included in the analysis. Of these, 209 were unvaccinated against covid-19, 112 preferred alternative rather than conventional medicine, and 62 reported flat earth or reptilian beliefs.

Among all participants, awareness of causes of cancer was poor, although awareness of the actual causes of cancer was greater (median CAM score 64%) than that of mythical causes (42%). 

The most endorsed actual causes of cancer were active and passive smoking, family history of cancer, and being overweight. The most endorsed mythical causes of cancer were eating food containing additives or sweeteners, feeling stressed, and eating genetically modified food.

Awareness of the actual and mythical causes of cancer among the unvaccinated, alternative medicine, and conspiracy groups was lower (average 55% and 19% for actual and mythical causes, respectively) than among their counterparts (average 64% actual and 42% mythical).  

Almost half (673; 45%) of the participants, whether conspiracists or not, agreed with the statement “It seems like everything causes cancer.” No significant differences in this outcome were seen among the unvaccinated (44%), conspiracist (42%), or alternative medicine groups (36%), compared with their counterparts (45%, 46%, and 46%, respectively).

These are observational findings and the researchers acknowledge that their results may have been affected by “troll” or fake responses, which could overestimate conclusions, but also may be prone to other biases that could underestimate conclusions. 

Nevertheless, they say this study is the first to show the possible patterns of beliefs about cancer among conspiracy believers and results on the overall endorsement of causes of cancer are mostly in line with previous studies.

The fact that almost half of the participants, regardless of other beliefs, agreed with the statement “It seems like everything causes cancer,” highlights the difficulty that society encounters in differentiating actual causes of cancer from mythical causes owing to mass (veridical or not) information, note the researchers.

“These results suggest a direct connection between digital misinformation and consequent erroneous health decisions, which may represent a further preventable fraction of cancer,” they conclude.

 

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JOURNAL

The BMJ

DOI

10.1136/bmj-2022-072561 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Observational study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

People

ARTICLE TITLE

Everything causes cancer? Beliefs and attitudes towards cancer prevention among anti-vaxxers, flat earthers, and reptilian conspiracists: online cross sectional survey

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

21-Dec-2022

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.