Physicians should screen youth for cyberbullying, social media use

Physicians discuss perils and pitfalls of social media use in teens/young adults

Peer-Reviewed Publication

FLORIDA ATLANTIC UNIVERSITY

 

IMAGE: ONLY 23 PERCENT OF STUDENTS WHO WERE CYBERBULLIED REPORTED IT TO AN ADULT AT THEIR SCHOOL, WHICH SHOWS THAT MANY INCIDENCES GO UNREPORTED. view more 

CREDIT: FLORIDA ATLANTIC UNIVERSITY

Most adolescents and young adults have experienced bullying in some form, with about one-third of them experiencing cyberbullying, contributing to mental health concerns. Cyberbullying involves electronic communication such as texts, emails, online videos and social media, which has become increasingly problematic over the last few decades. Several reasons include the anonymity it allows, the fact that it is not as easily monitored, and that adolescents and young adults have easier access to devices.

In an article published in the journal Primary Care Clinical Office Practice, physicians from Florida Atlantic University’s Schmidt College of Medicine recommend primary care physicians screen adolescents and young adults for inappropriate or misuse of social media and cyberbullying utilizing screening tools developed for use in the health care setting. 

“As primary-care physicians, it is our job to screen and evaluate things that can harm our patients,” said Jennifer Caceres, M.D., first author, senior associate dean for student affairs and admissions and an associate professor of medicine in FAU’s Schmidt College of Medicine. “Among these responsibilities includes screening for social media use, bullying, cyberbullying, mental health issues, as well as countless others.”

Caceres and Allison M. Holley, M.D., corresponding author and an assistant professor of family medicine in FAU’s Schmidt College of Medicine, point out that only half of health care providers who see pediatric patients were found to be consistently screening for bullying. They say this is partially because there aren’t many screening tools specifically designed for health care settings. Among the screening tools they recommend that are available for health care providers include the Revised Olweus Bully/Victim Questionnaire (R-OBVQ), the California Bullying Victimization Scale (CBVS), the Child Adolescent Bullying Scale (CABS) and the Massachusetts Aggression Reduction Center (MARC).

“It is staggering that only 23 percent of students who were cyberbullied reported it to an adult at their school, which shows that many incidences go unreported. This is another crucial reason why we need to screen patients as well as educate parents,” said Holley. “A screening tool of the providers’ choice should be worked into the work-flow of pediatric visits to ensure that screening is consistently done and results are addressed in a timely manner.”

Among resources available is a Cyberbullying: Top Ten Tips for Health Care Providers,” developed by the Cyberbullying Research Center, which is co-directed by Sameer Hinduja, Ph.D., professor, FAU School of Criminology and Criminal Justice within the College of Social Work and Criminal Justice, and a faculty associate at the Berkman Klein Center at Harvard University.

“Physicians who work with children and teenagers must consider in their provision of care the significant emotional and psychological impact that mobile devices, social media platforms, and gaming environments can have,” said Hinduja. “Given that youth move seamlessly between their online and offline experiences - indeed, there is no longer a clear distinction - it is essential to assess health risks from not only the home, school and community, but from their electronic interactions as well.”

Caceres and Holley suggest that to screen for technology and social media use, physicians can easily ask parents or the patient themselves the following questions: “How many hours per day are spent on screens of any kind?” and “Is there a television or other device with Internet access in the bedroom?” To screen for cyberbullying or bullying of any kind, they say physicians also can ask patients if they feel safe at school, home and online, and if they have ever experienced bullying or cyberbullying either themselves or someone they know.

“In addition, physicians can ask about the many symptoms that could be warning signs of cyberbullying such as sleep disorders, mood disorders, eating disorders, suicidal thoughts, self-harm behaviors, academic problems, fatigue and headaches,” said Caceres. “Physicians can undergo training to detect bullying and ensure that their staff is trained appropriately.”

Caceres and Holley encourage establishing community contacts with groups and organizations such as local schools, law enforcement, mental health counselors specializing in trauma care, suicide prevention groups, as well as patient and family support groups that can provide services for prevention, screening, and victim support services, which also are crucial to helping patients. In addition, posters in the waiting room or exam rooms or helpline numbers can help to educate patients and their families on how to prevent and deal with cyberbullying.

“Parents also must teach their children about appropriate online behavior, set boundaries, and give clear guidelines with appropriate consequences for rule-breaking,” said Holley.

The authors suggest setting boundaries that include not posting personal information, not sharing login information such as usernames and passwords, not responding to inappropriate messages, turning off technology if these type of messages are received, and immediately reporting an incident to an adult.

“Cyberbullying, sextortion, digital dating abuse, digital self-harm, and other forms of victimization are occurring to a nontrivial degree among youth, and initiating nonjudgmental conversation among their experiences online will help to further positive adolescent development and functioning,” said Hinduja.

- FAU -

About the Charles E. Schmidt College of Medicine:

FAU’s Charles E. Schmidt College of Medicine is one of approximately 156 accredited medical schools in the U.S. The college was launched in 2010, when the Florida Board of Governors made a landmark decision authorizing FAU to award the M.D. degree. After receiving approval from the Florida legislature and the governor, it became the 134th allopathic medical school in North America. With more than 70 full and part-time faculty and more than 1,300 affiliate faculty, the college matriculates 64 medical students each year and has been nationally recognized for its innovative curriculum. To further FAU’s commitment to increase much needed medical residency positions in Palm Beach County and to ensure that the region will continue to have an adequate and well-trained physician workforce, the FAU Charles E. Schmidt College of Medicine Consortium for Graduate Medical Education (GME) was formed in fall 2011 with five leading hospitals in Palm Beach County. The Consortium currently has five Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) accredited residencies including internal medicine, surgery, emergency medicine, psychiatry, and neurology. The college’s vibrant research focus areas include healthy aging, neuroscience, chronic pain management, precision medicine and machine learning. With community at the forefront, the college offers the local population a variety of evidence-based, clinical services that treat the whole person. Jointly, FAU Medicine’s Primary Care practice and the Marcus Institute of Integrative Health have been designed to provide complete health and wellness under one roof.

 

About Florida Atlantic University:
Florida Atlantic University, established in 1961, officially opened its doors in 1964 as the fifth public university in Florida. Today, the University serves more than 30,000 undergraduate and graduate students across six campuses located along the southeast Florida coast. In recent years, the University has doubled its research expenditures and outpaced its peers in student achievement rates. Through the coexistence of access and excellence, FAU embodies an innovative model where traditional achievement gaps vanish. FAU is designated a Hispanic-serving institution, ranked as a top public university by U.S. News & World Report and a High Research Activity institution by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. For more information, visit www.fau.edu.

 

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JOURNAL

Primary Care Clinics in Office Practice

DOI

10.1016/j.pop.2022.10.008 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Commentary/editorial

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

People

Skin samples reveal where southern right whales feed

And how their shifting use of Antarctic waters shows effects of climate change.

Peer-Reviewed Publication

MACQUARIE UNIVERSITY

 

IMAGE: SOUTHERN RIGHT WHALE view more 

CREDIT: ROB HARCOURT

Scientists have analysed chemicals in the skin of southern right whales to give new insights into the animals’ distribution, as well as long-term environmental changes in the Southern Ocean.

The research was published this week in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). [https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2214035120]

The scientists from the US, Australia, Argentina, Brazil, South Africa, Europe, UK, and Aotearoa New Zealand measured the amounts of various carbon and nitrogen isotopes in 1002 skin samples taken between 1994 and 2020.

Concentrations of these isotopes vary between different marine locations and animals feeding in an area retain that isotopic fingerprint in their skin. It takes up to six months for the isotopes to show up in a whale’s skin and so scientists can pinpoint where the animals were six months earlier.

“Despite their large size, whales can be very hard to track,” says Professor Robert Harcourt, a marine scientist at Macquarie University, and one of the authors of the paper. “Using this technique, we have been able to piece together a map of where the southern right whales have travelled across the Southern Ocean.”

The study shows that over the years the whales’ foraging grounds have shifted reflecting the changing distribution of the whales’ prey. This change appears to be recent and driven by climate change.

Analysis of 2614 whale-catch records from 1792 to 1968 suggests that historical southern right whale foraging grounds were largely stable in mid-latitudes.

“These results suggest that climate change has driven recent shifts in the distribution of southern right whales,” Professor Harcourt says.

Not all populations have reacted uniformly.

The southern right whales in the South Atlantic Ocean and southwest Indian Oceans travel to Antarctic waters less often, probably as there are fewer krill there.

In the southwest Pacific, however, whales still head south at certain times of the year, suggesting krill are still plentiful in that ocean.

“An important aspect of this study is that it shows that climate change doesn’t mean one thing everywhere and it is causing different effects in different parts of the ocean,” says Dr Emma Carroll, from New Zealand’s University of Auckland Waipapa Taumata Rau, lead author of the paper.

“This could help prioritise areas where conservation efforts should be focused,” says Professor Harcourt.

“This study has shown the critical importance of understanding how wide-ranging animals are adapting their movements as climate change fundamentally alters ocean structure and where they may find their prey.

“Ongoing research includes satellite tracking of individual animals from the major populations along with continued tissue collection, further refining our understanding of important ocean regions for these magnificent ocean giants.”

Professor Harcourt led the Australian arm of the study, collaborating with researchers from 36 countries. The first author, Solène Derville, is from Oregon State University, the US and the French Institute of Research for Sustainable Development, Nouméa.

“This was a great global collaboration,” says Dr Carroll. “This sort of work is just not possible without the input of many people around the world.”

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JOURNAL

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

DOI

10.1073/pnas.2214035120 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Experimental study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Animals

ARTICLE TITLE

Long-term stability in the circumpolar foraging range of a Southern Ocean predator between the eras of whaling and rapid climate change

Socioeconomic factors play a role in detection, transmission and treatment of HIV

Peer-Reviewed Publication

MCGILL UNIVERSITY

Those living in unstable housing conditions, such as hostels or informal dwellings and those who had not completed post-secondary studies were more likely to contract HIV in South Africa, according to a new study from McGill University. A team of researchers based at the Research Institute of the McGill University Health Centre (RI-MUHC) has reported survey results that show socioeconomic factors play a critical role in the detection, transmission, and treatment of HIV in regions of South Africa. “We found that factors such as education and dwelling situations still impact HIV infection,” said Cindy Leung Soo, a recent Master’s student who worked alongside principal investigator Nitika Pant Pai, MD, PhD, an Associate Professor in the Department of Medicine. Researchers found that people who did not complete postsecondary education were 82% more likely to be infected with HIV compared to those with a postsecondary education. Women with lower levels of education were more likely to engage in having sex with multiple partners, where male participants who were living in less stable housing situations or who had lower levels of education were less likely to have recently sought testing. “It appeared that socioeconomic factors impacted their utilization of HIV services,” Leung Soo said.

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JOURNAL

PLOS Global Public Health

DOI

10.1371/journal.pgph.0001502 

ARTICLE TITLE

Socioeconomic factors impact the risk of HIV acquisition in the township population of South Africa: A Bayesian analysis

Insights into the evolution of the sense of fairness

Long-tailed macaques react with disappointment when their expectations are not met

Peer-Reviewed Publication

DEUTSCHES PRIMATENZENTRUM (DPZ)/GERMAN PRIMATE CENTER

 

IMAGE: LONG-TAILED MACAQUES (MACACA FASCICULARIS) IN THE ANIMAL HUSBANDRY FACILITY AT THE GERMAN PRIMATE CENTRE IN GÖTTINGEN. view more 

CREDIT: ANTON SÄCKL/DPZ

Göttingen, March 2, 2023. A sense of fairness has long been considered purely human – but animals also react with frustration when they are treated unequally by a person. For instance, a well-known video shows monkeys throwing the offered cucumber at their trainer when a conspecific receives sweet grapes as a reward for the same task. Meanwhile, researchers have observed similarly frustrated reactions to unfair rewards in wolves, rats and crows. However, researchers still debate the reasons for this behavior: Does the frustration really stem from a dislike of unequal treatment, or is there another explanation? In a study with long-tailed macaques (Macaca fascicularis), researchers at the German Primate Center – Leibniz Institute for Primate Research (DPZ) have now confirmed an alternative explanatory approach in a collaborative project involving the Departments of Cognitive Ethology and Neurobiology. The team around Rowan Titchener, PhD student at the Georg-August-Universität Göttingen and researcher in the Department of Cognitive Ethology at the DPZ, showed that long-tailed macaques rejected an inferior reward more frequently if it is selected and allocated by a person. In contrast, if the reward is provided by an automatic feeder, they accept it. The researchers conclude that the monkeys refuse the reward out of social disappointment towards the experimenter – and not because they feel that they are at a disadvantage compared to a conspecific. (Royal Society Open Science).

Humans have a strong sense of equity. If we believe that resources are being unfairly or wrongly distributed, we make this clear – with protest. This controlling behavior promotes successful cooperation and partly explains why cooperation has been a winning strategy in human evolution.

Equal effort, same reward

However, not only humans protest when the same performance is rewarded differently for no apparent reason. Many animals are likewise dissatisfied with a reward that is perceived as comparatively inferior and react in a frustrated way. The characteristic behavioral patterns can be reliably reproduced in experiments across various species of birds, rodents and monkeys. The interpretation of this protest behavior, on the other hand, is controversial among researchers. If the animals' frustration stemmed from a comparison of their own reward with that of their conspecific, this would indicate an abstract understanding of equal treatment.

The root of disappointment

In the present study, the researchers tested three alternative explanations for protest behavior following unequal treatment. The first hypothesis invokes "inequity aversion" and presupposes social comparison with conspecifics and a sense of fairness. This is based on the idea that the pattern of rewards is compared between oneself and others so that it may be perceived as unfair. The second hypothesis, "food expectation", assumes the visibility of the attractive food as a trigger for frustration. Thus, if a high-quality reward is visible, the animal expects to receive it. The third hypothesis is based on "social disappointment" about the trainer's decision to provide an inferior reward. Behind this stands an expectation to be rewarded in the best possible way by the responsible human.

Disappointing human

The results of the current study on long-tailed macaques are in line with a previously published chimpanzee study. Rowan Titchener, lead author of the study, states: "The animals' response patterns are best explained by frustration with the human trainer's decisions. Thus, the current results speak for the third hypothesis, based on social disappointment". This interpretation is supported in particular by the fact that the long-tailed macaques accepted an inferior reward from an automatic feeder more often than from a human.

Experimental setup

The researchers confronted the monkeys with four different scenarios in the experiment. The procedure was always the same: The activation of a lever was followed by the reward of low-quality food, which was brought within reach by a small conveyor belt. High-quality rewards were displayed, but remained out of reach. The experimental design was varied in two ways: Firstly, either a human provided the reward, or it was administered by an automatic feeder; secondly, the animal was either alone, or a conspecific solved the same task within sight, but received higher-quality rewards.

Clear result

The monkeys almost never refused their reward when it was provided by the automatic feeder – but did so in more than 20 percent of the experiments in which a human offered the food. This behavioural pattern is consistent with social disappointment with the human who decides to give them the inferior reward. "The monkeys have no social expectations of a vending machine and are therefore not disappointed," Titchener explains.

Stefanie Keupp, leader of the study at the German Primate Centre, draws the conclusion: "A combination of social disappointment with the human experimenter and some degree of food competition best explains the behavior of the long-tailed macaques in our study."

A long-tailed macaque (Macaca fascicularis) operates a lever in an experiment to obtain a reward. In the red carousels, high-value rewards (grapes) and low-value rewards (red pepper) are presented. If a human offers red pepper to the monkey, it reacts in frustration, but not if the reward is allocated automatically.

CREDIT

Screenshot: Jana Wilken, Video: Rowan Titchener/DPZ

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JOURNAL

Royal Society Open Science

DOI

10.1098/rsos.221225 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Experimental study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Animals

ARTICLE TITLE

Social disappointment and partner presence affect long-tailed macaque refusal behaviour in an ‘inequity aversion’ experiment

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

1-Mar-2023

Security vulnerabilities detected in drones made by DJI

Reports and Proceedings

RUHR-UNIVERSITY BOCHUM

 

IMAGE: THE SECURITY OF DRONES WAS ALREADY THE SUBJECT OF NICO SCHILLER’S MASTER’S THESIS AT RUHR UNIVERSITY BOCHUM. HE IS CURRENTLY RESEARCHING THIS TOPIC FOR HIS DOCTORATE. view more 

CREDIT: RUB, MARQUARD

Researchers from Bochum and Saarbrücken have detected security vulnerabilities, some of them serious, in several drones made by the manufacturer DJI. These enable users, for example, to change a drone’s serial number or override the mechanisms that allow security authorities to track the drones and their pilots. In special attack scenarios, the drones can even be brought down remotely in flight.

The team headed by Nico Schiller of the Horst Görtz Institute for IT Security at Ruhr University Bochum, Germany, and Professor Thorsten Holz, formerly in Bochum, now at the CISPA Helmholtz Center for Information Security in Saarbrücken, will present their findings at the Network and Distributed System Security Symposium (NDSS). The conference will take place from 27 February to 3 March in San Diego, USA.

The researchers informed DJI of the 16 detected vulnerabilities prior to releasing the information to the public; the manufacturer has taken steps towards fixing them.

Four models put to the test

The team tested three DJI drones of different categories: the small DJI Mini 2, the medium-sized Air 2, and the large Mavic 2. Later, the IT experts reproduced the results for the newer Mavic 3 model as well. They fed the drones’ hardware and firmware a large number of random inputs and checked which ones caused the drones to crash or made unwanted changes to the drone data such as the serial number – a method known as fuzzing. To this end, they first had to develop a new algorithm.

“We often have the entire firmware of a device available for the purpose of fuzzing. Here, however, this was not the case,” as Nico Schiller describes this particular challenge. Because DJI drones are relatively complex devices, the fuzzing had to be performed in the live system. “After connecting the drone to a laptop, we first looked at how we could communicate with it and which interfaces were available to us for this purpose,” says the researcher from Bochum. It turned out that most of the communication is done via the same protocol, called DUML, which sends commands to the drone in packets.

Four severe errors

The fuzzer developed by the research group thus generated DUML data packets, sent them to the drone and evaluated which inputs caused the drone’s software to crash. Such a crash indicates an error in the programming. “However, not all security gaps resulted in a crash,” says Thorsten Holz. “Some errors led to changes in data such as the serial number.” To detect such logical vulnerabilities, the team paired the drone with a mobile phone running the DJI app. They could thus periodically check the app to see if fuzzing was changing the state of the drone.

All of the four tested models were found to have security vulnerabilities. In total, the researchers documented 16 vulnerabilities. The DJI Mini 2, Mavic Air 2 and Mavic 3 models had four serious flaws. For one, these bugs allowed an attacker to gain extended access rights in the system. “An attacker can thus change log data or the serial number and disguise their identity,” explains Thorsten Holz. “Plus, while DJI does take precautions to prevent drones from flying over airports or other restricted areas such as prisons, these mechanisms could also be overridden.” Furthermore, the group was able to crash the flying drones mid-air.

In future studies, the Bochum-Saarbrücken team intends to test the security of other drone models as well.

Location data is transmitted unencrypted

In addition, the researchers examined the protocol used by DJI drones to transmit the location of the drone and its pilot so that authorised bodies – such as security authorities or operators of critical infrastructure – can access it. By reverse engineering DJI’s firmware and the radio signals emitted by the drones, the research team was able to document the tracking protocol called “DroneID” for the first time. “We showed that the transmitted data is not encrypted, and that practically anyone can read the location of the pilot and the drone with relatively simple methods,” concludes Nico Schiller.

The researchers looked for security gaps in the firmware and scrutinised the inner workings of the drones.

CAPTION

The researchers looked for security gaps in the firmware and scrutinised the inner workings of the drones.

The security of drones was already the subject of Nico Schiller’s master’s thesis at Ruhr University Bochum. He is currently researching this topic for his doctorate.

CREDIT

RUB, Marquard

DOI

10.14722/ndss.2023.24217 

ARTICLE TITLE

Drone Security and the Mysterious Case of DJI’s DroneID

A bridge between hydrophobicity and hydrophilicity of flax fiber: A breakthrough in the multipurpose oil-water separation field

Peer-Reviewed Publication

HIGHER EDUCATION PRESS

 

IMAGE: NONE view more 

CREDIT: CHEN XIUJUAN，LIU YUNQIU，HUANG GORDON，AN CHUNJIANG，FENG RENFEI，YAO YAO，HUANG WENDY，WENG SHUQING

The large number of oily wastewater discharges and oil spills are bringing about severe threats to environment and human health. Corresponding to this challenge, a number of functional materials have been developed and applied in oil-water separation as oil barriers or oil sorbents. These materials can be divided into two main categories which are artificial and natural.

Natural materials such as green bio-materials are generally low cost and abundant with biological degradability, which are also regarded as promising alternatives for oil-water separation and have been paid increasing attention. Many kinds of biomass materials, such as cotton fabrics, plant fibers, and kapoks, had been used for oil-water separation. To further improve the oil-water separation performances of biomass materials, many of them were artificially coated a functional layer with special wettability on their surfaces. However, these modified flax fibers merely have either hydrophobic or hydrophilic property, without the ability of switching between each other (or switchable wettability). Such a limitation may hinder their practical applications in oil-water separation. Functional flax fibers with switchable surface wettability are thus desired.

In this study, the researchers from University of Calgary, University of Regina, Concordia University, Canadian Light Source and McElhanney Inc. aimed to develop a functional flax fiber with switchable wettability for multipurpose oil-water separation. The flax fiber was coated with ZnO-hexadecyltrimethoxysilane (HDTMS) nanocomposites through a plasma-grafted poly (acrylic acid) (PAA) layer which acted as the binding agent. The as-prepared PAA-ZnO-HDTMS flax fiber was hydrophobic initially and could be switched to hydrophilic through UV irradiation. Its hydrophobicity could be easily recovered through being stored in dark environment for several days without UV irradiation. This study entitled “Functional flax fiber with UV-induced switchable wettability for multipurpose oil-water separation” is published online in Frontiers of Environmental Science & Engineering in 2022.

To optimize the performance of the PAA-ZnO-HDTMS flax fiber, the effects of ZnO and HDTMS concentrations on its switchable wettability were investigated. The developed PAA-ZnO-HDTMS flax fiber was comprehensively characterized through contact-angle measurement, SEM imaging, and synchrotron-based FTIR and X-ray analyses. The optimized PAA-ZnO-HDTMS flax fiber had a large water contact angle (~130°) in air and an extremely small oil contact angle (~0°) underwater initially. After UV treatment, the water contact angle was decreased to 30°, while the underwater oil contact angle was increased to more than 150°.

The mechanism of the acquired UV-induced switchable wettability was investigated. It could be concluded that the ZnO-HDTMS nanocomposites immobilized to the flax fiber surface endowed the UV-induced switchable wettability to the asprepared PAA-ZnO-HDTMS flax fiber. During the modification process, the silanol groups of HDTMS bonded with hydroxyl groups on the surfaces of flax fiber and ZnO NPs. Thus, the alkyl groups of HDTMS exposed on the surface of the fresh PAA-ZnO-HDTMS flax fiber, thus the flax fiber exhibited hydrophobic property. Nano-ZnO as a photo-responsive semiconducting material, electronhole pairs could be generated on its surface during UV irradiation. These holes could interact with the lattice oxygen of nano-ZnO to produce oxygen vacancies, which could then adsorb the surrounding water in the atmosphere to generate hydroxyl groups. These hydroxyl groups changed the surface property of modified flax fiber from hydrophobicity to hydrophilicity. When the PAA-ZnOHDTMS flax fibers were stored in a dark environment, ambient oxygen could replace the hydroxyl groups, reconverting the flax fiber surface from hydrophilic to hydrophobic.

Based on this UV-induced switchable wettability, the developed PAA-ZnO-HDTMS flax fiber was applied to remove oil from immiscible oil-water mixtures and oil-in-water emulsion with great reusability for multiple cycles. Thus, the developed flax fiber could be further fabricated into oil barrier or oil sorbent for oil-water separation, which could be an environmentally-friendly alternative in oil spill response and oily wastewater treatment.

A bridge between hydrophobicity and hydrophilicity of flax fiber: a breakthrough in the multipurpose oil-water separation field 

CREDIT

Chen Xiujuan，Liu Yunqiu，Huang Gordon，An Chunjiang，Feng Renfei，Yao Yao，Huang Wendy，Weng Shuqing

About Higher Education Press

Founded in May 1954, Higher Education Press Limited Company (HEP), affiliated with the Ministry of Education, is one of the earliest institutions committed to educational publishing after the establishment of P. R. China in 1949. After striving for six decades, HEP has developed into a major comprehensive publisher, with products in various forms and at different levels. Both for import and export, HEP has been striving to fill in the gap of domestic and foreign markets and meet the demand of global customers by collaborating with more than 200 partners throughout the world and selling products and services in 32 languages globally. Now, HEP ranks among China's top publishers in terms of copyright export volume and the world's top 50 largest publishing enterprises in terms of comprehensive strength.

The Frontiers Journals series published by HEP includes 28 English academic journals, covering the largest academic fields in China at present. Among the series, 13 have been indexed by SCI, 6 by EI, 2 by MEDLINE, 1 by A&HCI. HEP's academic monographs have won about 300 different kinds of publishing funds and awards both at home and abroad.

 

About Frontiers of Environmental Science & Engineering

Frontiers of Environmental Science & Engineering (FESE) is the leading edge forum for peer-reviewed original submissions in English on all main branches of environmental disciplines. FESE welcomes original research papers, review articles, short communications, and views & comments. All the papers will be published within 6 months since they are submitted. The Editors-in-Chief are Prof. Jiuhui Qu from Tsinghua University, and Prof. John C. Crittenden from Georgia Institute of Technology, USA. The journal has been indexed by almost all the authoritative databases such as SCI, Ei, INSPEC, SCOPUS, CSCD, etc.

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JOURNAL

Frontiers of Environmental Science & Engineering

DOI

10.1007/s11783-022-1588-6 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Experimental study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Not applicable

ARTICLE TITLE

Functional flax fiber with UV-induced switchable wettability for multipurpose oil-water separation

THE ANCIENT LOWLY

UCD Archaeologist receives prestigious Dan David Prize for research on the invisible workforce behind ancient forms of art

Dr Anita Radini is first in Ireland to win the world's largest history prize

Grant and Award Announcement

UCD RESEARCH & INNOVATION

 

IMAGE: DR ANITA RADINI, UNIVERSITY COLLEGE DUBLIN view more 

CREDIT: JASON CLARKE PHOTOGRAPHY

The Dan David Prize, the largest history prize in the world, has announced University College Dublin (UCD) Archaeologist, Dr Anita Radini, as one of nine recipients for 2023.

Each of the winners - who work in Kenya, Denmark, Israel, Canada, the US and Ireland - will receive $300,000 (USD) in recognition of their achievements as emerging scholars and to support their future endeavours in the study of the human past. Dr Radini is the first in Ireland to receive this award.

“Our winners represent the next generation of historians,” said Ariel David, board member of the Prize and son of the late founder. “They are changing our understanding of the past by asking new questions, targeting under-researched topics and using innovative methods. Many of the winners we are recognising today are in the early stages of their careers, but they have already challenged how we think about history. Understanding the past, in all its complexity, is critical to illuminating the present and confronting the challenges of the future.” 

Dan David, the founder of the Prize, believed that knowledge of the past enriches us and helps us grapple with the challenges of the present. David lived through persecution in Nazi-occupied and then Communist Romania, becoming an accomplished photographer and later an entrepreneur and philanthropist.

The Dan David Prize Selection Committee said: “Anita Radini is developing novel techniques to track the artists and craftspeople of ancient times by their skeletal remains. In addition, Radini studies the elements present in dental calculus in order to obtain data on diet, activities and health. This is a radically pioneering line of research with extraordinary potential to answer fundamental questions about the lifestyles and environmental contexts of past populations. Radini’s multi-disciplinary approach to past diet, environment and health has important implications for society today.”

Professor Orla Feely, UCD Vice-President for Research, Innovation and Impact and incoming University President said: "I congratulate Dr Anita Radini on this very prestigious award. It is wonderful to see a UCD archaeologist recognised on such a global and high-profile platform. We are very proud of Anita's research and I look forward to seeing it continue to flourish." 

While we may be familiar with ancient monuments and artwork that exemplify ancient craft skills, the crafters themselves often remain invisible. An Archaeological Scientist and Human Palaeoecologist at UCD School of Archaeology, Dr Radini analyses the tiny remains of dust in dental plaque on ancient people’s teeth to uncover more about their lives.

“Multiple aspects of an individual’s life history are preserved in their teeth for millennia.” Radini said. “These people were exposed to particular kinds of dirt when practising their crafts - wood carving, traditional leather work, fabric dyeing, etc. By approaching the human mouth as a ‘depositional environment’ and using Experimental Archaeology, we can reveal more about who they were and the conditions they worked in.”

In 2019, a unique discovery by Dr Radini and her colleagues helped to illuminate the role of women in mediaeval crafts and to challenge the widespread assumption that male monks were the sole producers of books in the Middle Ages. The team identified particles of blue pigments in the dental plaque of a mediaeval woman’s remains as lapis lazuli, a stone more precious than gold at the time. These findings were the first to provide direct archaeological evidence from skeletal remains that women were involved in illustrating mediaeval manuscripts. 

The study suggested potential to track other “dusty” crafts and reveal the invisible workforce behind many ancient forms of art. Dr Radini is currently developing novel methodologies to understand exposure to dirt and pollution and their links to health in past populations.

”Our knowledge of occupational health in ancient times is limited by paucity of historical texts and lack of specific markers on ancient skeletal remains. My research aims to push the boundaries of how we approach labour division, by exploring health impacts and inequalities in past societies I believe we can gain valuable insights for our modern world. Dust entrapped in teeth, combined with demographic (age/sex) and other osteoarchaeological parameters, can reveal many unknown aspects of past lives.”

The significant Dan David Prize fund will help Dr Radini to expand her work in this field and to create a better understanding of how labour division and crafts affect health through time.

“I am thrilled to receive this prize and deeply honoured to be recognised among leading scholars of the human past from all over the world. I am particularly delighted to see the  great diversity of studies and people that were awarded the prize.”

Projects from this year’s Dan David Prize recipients include a virtual reality tour of mediaeval Angkor Wat and a digital archive of disappearing architecture in Kenya, as well as explorations of interfaith rifts after the Holocaust, illicit sexuality in colonial Nigeria and white women’s complicity in slave ownership in the US South.

All nine winners for 2023 will be honoured at the Dan David Prize Award Ceremony in Tel Aviv this May. The recipients were selected from hundreds of nominations submitted by colleagues, institutions and the general public in a worldwide open nomination process. 

To learn more about the Dan David Prize visit www.dandavidprize.org.