It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Monday, July 10, 2023
U$A
Editorial: Shred this ruling: Federal judge’s injunction on government communication with social media is unsound
This photo illustration created in Washington, DC, on July 5, 2023, shows the Twitter logo reflected near the logo for Threads, an Instagram app. - Stefani Reynolds/AFP/Getty Images North America/TNS
In his July 4 ruling blocking the Biden administration from communicating with social media companies on issues of content, Louisiana Federal Judge Terry Doughty quickly showed himself to be a deeply unserious jurist, writing that the case “arguably involves the most massive attack against free speech in United States’ history.” He apparently slept through high school history classes on the Alien and Sedition Acts, Jim Crow and McCarthyism.
If Doughty believes that the government engaging with social media platforms to encourage certain uniform policies and flag the spread of, for example, medical and election misinformation that could be destabilizing and harmful to public health and order is unconstitutional, then it seems like Doughty could benefit from engaging with a first-year law class.
The Constitution has enshrined, for very good reason, the principle that the government cannot compel or censor almost any type of speech. It certainly has not dictated that the government can never communicate preferences or express concern to companies whose size, scope and ability to shape public opinion and discourse were unfathomable to the First Amendment’s framers.
The Daily News routinely receives calls, emails and letters from government officials of every stripe taking issue with coverage and pushing us to reword things, shift coverage, change descriptions and even pull stories. Every journalist receives such pressure, and understands it to be simply part of the push-pull of public dialogue. Is it censorship? No, because we can, and often do, simply refuse, just as social media companies have always been at liberty to tell the government to take a hike when it comes to requests to remove speech.
If anything, the tech sector is under, not over, regulated by the federal government. That doesn’t mean the feds should suddenly gain veto power over speech (they certainly shouldn’t) but efforts to constrain the power of the tech monopolies is firmly in their wheelhouse and in the public interest. Hopefully this aberration and distraction of a ruling is quickly overturned on appeal, and Doughty can look into those remedial classes.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is a crank. His views are a mishmash of right-wing fantasies mixed with remnants of the progressive he once was: Bitcoin boosterism, anti-vaccine conspiracy theories, assertions that Prozac causes mass shootings, opposition to U.S. support for Ukraine, but also favorable mention for single-payer health care. But for his last name, nobody would be paying him any attention — and despite that last name, he has zero chance of winning the Democratic presidential nomination.
Yet now that Ron DeSantis’s campaign (slogan: “woke woke immigrants woke woke”) seems to be on the skids, Kennedy is suddenly getting support from some of the biggest names in Silicon Valley. Jack Dorsey, who founded Twitter, has endorsed him, while some other prominent tech figures have been holding fund-raisers on his behalf. Elon Musk, who is in the process of destroying what Dorsey built, hosted him for a Twitter Spaces event.
So what does all this tell us about the role of technology billionaires in modern American political life? The other day I wrote about how a number of tech bros have become recession and inflation truthers, insisting that the improving economic news is fake. (I neglected to mention Dorsey’s 2021 declaration that hyperinflation was “happening.” How’s that going?) What the Silicon Valley Kennedy boomlet shows is that this is actually part of a broader phenomenon.
What seems to attract some technology types to R.F.K. Jr. is his contrarianism — his disregard for conventional wisdom and expert opinion. So before I get into the tech-bro specific aspects of this weird political moment, let me say a few things about being contrarian.
One sad but true fact of life is that most of the time conventional wisdom and expert opinion are right; yet there can be big personal and social payoffs to finding the places where they’re wrong. The trick to achieving these payoffs is to balance on the knife edge between excessive skepticism of unorthodoxy and excessive credulity.
It’s all too easy to fall off that knife’s edge in either direction. When I was a young, ambitious academic I used to make fun of stodgy older economists whose reaction to any new idea was “It’s trivial, it’s wrong and I said it in 1962.” These days I sometimes worry that I’ve turned into that guy.
On the other hand, reflexive contrarianism is, as the economist Adam Ozimek puts it, a “brain rotting drug.” Those who succumb to that drug “lose the ability to judge others they consider contrarian, become unable to tell good evidence from bad, a total unanchoring of belief that leads them to cling to low quality contrarian fads.”
Tech bros appear to be especially susceptible to brain-rotting contrarianism. As I wrote in my newsletter, their financial success all too often convinces them that they’re uniquely brilliant, able to instantly master any subject, without any need to consult people who’ve actually worked hard to understand the issues. And in many cases they became wealthy by defying conventional wisdom, which predisposes them to believe that such defiance is justified across the board.
Add to this the fact that great wealth makes it all too easy to surround yourself with people who tell you what you want to hear, validating your belief in your own brilliance — a sort of intellectual version of the emperor’s new clothes.
And to the extent that contrarian tech bros talk to anyone else, it’s to one another. The tech entrepreneur and writer Anil Dash tells us that “it’s impossible to overstate the degree to which many big tech C.E.O.s and venture capitalists are being radicalized by living within their own cultural and social bubble.” He calls this phenomenon of venture capitalism “VC QAnon,” a concept that I find helps explain many of the strange positions taken by tech billionaires lately.
Let me add a personal speculation. It may seem odd to see men of vast wealth and influence buying into conspiracy theories about elites running the world. Aren’t they the elites? But I suspect that famous, wealthy men may be especially frustrated by their inability to control events, or even stop people from ridiculing them on the internet. So rather than accepting that the world is a complicated place nobody can control, they’re susceptible to the idea that there are secret cabals out to get them.
There’s historical precedent here. Watching Elon Musk’s descent, I know that I’m not alone in thinking of Henry Ford, who remains in many ways the ultimate example of a famous, influential entrepreneur and who also became a rabid, conspiracy-theorizing antisemite. He even paid for a reprinting of “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion,” a forgery that was probably promoted by the Russian secret police. (Time is a flat circle.)
In any case, what we’re seeing now is something remarkable. Arguably, the craziest faction in U.S. politics right now isn’t red-hatted blue-collar guys in diners, it’s technology billionaires living in huge mansions and flying around on private jets. At one level it’s quite funny. Unfortunately, however, these people have enough money to do serious damage.
Paul Krugman has been an Opinion columnist since 2000 and is also a distinguished professor at the City University of New York Graduate Center. He won the 2008 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences for his work on international trade and economic geography. @PaulKrugman
A version of this article appears in print on July 7, 2023, Section A, Page 19 of the New York edition with the headline: The Rich Are Crazier Than You and Me.
"We are the women who clean"
Solidarity and resistance: Key to Las Kellys' making themselves seen
The strategy adopted by Las Kellys has taken their struggle beyond the boundaries of their profession as hotel room attendants, and has united workers in other invisible, feminized and precarious sectors
IMAGE: LAS KELLYS' FIGHT, BASED ON SOLIDARITY AND RESISTANCE, HAS INSPIRED OTHER SOCIALS MOVEMENTSview more
CREDIT: (PHOTO: XAVI ARIZA, FOTOMOVIMIENTO)
"We are the women who clean". With this phrase, which unites all women who work in the care and cleaning sector, Las Kellys have succeeded in consolidating a struggle that has made them seen, brought dignity to their profession, and defended their rights as workers.
Behind this and other slogans is a movement in defence of their working conditions that has become an issue for public debate, the focus of media attention, and even had political repercussions. It is a unique social movement that can provide inspiration for other groups.
Cheaper dismissals, more corporate power, and an increase in open-ended contracts. The reform of employment laws in Spain in 2012 had direct and highly negative consequences for thousands of workers. One of the groups that experienced the most negative consequences was hotel room attendants – the female workers who clean the rooms in hotels.
These room attendants very often work long and exhausting hours, for very low wages and under precarious working conditions. In addition, their work is feminized, undervalued and often invisible.
"There are several dimensions that contribute to the invisiblity of Las Kellys, in which factors of gender, race and social class converge. Likewise, they do cleaning work, which historically has been required to be invisible in the social space of hotels," explained Valenzuela, a PhD student on the UAB's Person and Society in the Contemporary World programme and the lead author of the study, supervised by Gálvez, at the UOC, and Tirado, at the UAB.
The Las Kellys organization emerged to fight against this situation, and to improve their conditions through collective action. This social movement began as a Facebook group in which hotel room attendants shared their experiences at work, listened to each other and offered each other mutual support. The movement to improve their working conditions was officially launched in 2016.
Since then, Las Kellys have managed to shine a light on their working conditions. "Not only have they made the precarious nature of employment in the hotel cleaning sector the subject of media attention, but also they've placed it at the centre of public debate. They've shown society the terrible working conditions which they are subjected to on a daily basis in a very shocking way," explained Gálvez, who teaches Industrial and Organizational Psychology in the UOC's Faculty of Psychology and Education Sciences, and is co-author of the study.
A strategy based on solidarity, their capacity for mobilization and activism, and the enormous empowerment they have achieved as a collective are behind these achievements.
Solidarity and resistance
The Las Kellys movement was created based on two concepts: solidarity and resistance, which are in turn represented in their most evocative slogans. The first – "We are the women who clean" – creates a relationship of solidarity among all women who do this work.
"This solidarity establishes the strength for them to change their working conditions. With this slogan of 'We are the women who clean', they create a community, a collective composed of everyone who cleans, regardless of their employment status in hotels, where they come from, etc.," explained Gálvez.
"In addition, by saying that they are the women who clean, and not just room attendants, they extend their horizon of reference to many other women who also work in care and in cleaning," said Valenzuela. "They create a structure for identification rooted in solidarity with many other women who are in the most precarious layers of society and employment subject to the most exclusion," he added.
The second of the slogans is "We are the structural base of the hotel". This acts as a slogan of resistance aimed at maintaining and improving their employment conditions, mobilizing room attendants against hotels and the state. As the authors of the study point out, unlike other slogans that focus only on improvements in employment conditions (such as wages or contractual stability), this slogan aims to identify room attendants as key workers in the hotel business.
"Why should cleaning have negative connotations, if it's an essential job? Nobody's going to book a dirty hotel room. Nobody. Why isn't it given its real value? I've said it many times: we room attendants are the structural base of the hotel," said one of the workers interviewed in the study.
"This slogan empowers them, as they reassert themselves as key, active agents in a hotel's operations," said Gálvez. "What they want to convey is 'without cleaning there's nothing; it all collapses'. There are no guests, no enjoyment, no hotel... They demand recognition for the value of the work they do, and call for respect in terms of fair and decent conditions," said the expert in social psychology of work and gender.
Las Kellys' achievements
With these two slogans based on the concepts of solidarity and resistance, Las Kellys have succeeded in raising their profile and empowerment, which has helped to reinforce their message, and convey the importance of their work to society.
Furthermore, Las Kellys have succeeded not only in dignifying the image of their work that society has, but also the image that the workershave of themselves. This is essential in an organization that is striving to improve their rights and their social and working conditions.
"From the individual perspective, these female workers are not only reinforced within the social sphere of work, but also in other areas of their lives, such as in the home or the street. Being a 'Kelly' acts as a much more visible and political position, which overlaps with and enhances their other social positions, such as being a woman, mother, worker or caregiver," explained Valenzuela.
This empowerment ultimately strengthens their ability to organize, to carry out individual and collective actions, and to convey their demands to employers, unions and society in general. Feminism, which has provided the movement with basic conceptual resources to understand that its work is feminized and undervalued, plays a fundamental role in this change.
"They are very much aware that the limited attention they've received from the management structure of hotels and conventional trade unions originates in sexist conceptions that discriminate against and undervalue women's work, in general, and their work as cleaners in particular," said Gálvez.
Inspiration for other groups
Much of the work done by Las Kellys can provide inspiration to other social movements and collectives. First, their intensive use of social media to create a community, challenge their situation and raise the profile of their own aesthetic and image is important.
Other groups can also draw inspiration from their creativity in proposing alternatives and doing things differently, and from their strategies to enhance the visibility of work that was previously hidden and undervalued.
Las Kellys have succeeded in taking their struggle beyond their profession, and have involved female workers from many other sectors that are invisible, feminized and precarious. They have also succeeded in making society understand that the consequences of their working conditions are not limited to job instability and low salaries.
This research by the UOC supports Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) 5, Gender Equality; 8, Decent Work and Economic Growth, and 10, Reduced Inequalities.
Reference article:
Alan Valenzuela Bustos, Ana Gálvez Mozo, Verna Alcalde González & Francisco Javier Tirado Serrano (2023) 'We are the women who clean and the structural base of the hotel': Las Kellys, the collective agency and identity of Spain's room attendants, Current Issues in Tourism, DOI: 10.1080/13683500.2023.2198119
The UOC's research and innovation (R&I) is helping overcome pressing challenges faced by global societies in the 21st century by studying interactions between technology and human & social sciences with a specific focus on the network society, e-learning and e-health.
Over 500 researchers and more than 50 research groups work in the UOC's seven faculties, its eLearning Research programme and its two research centres: the Internet Interdisciplinary Institute (IN3) and the eHealth Center (eHC).
The university also develops online learning innovations at its eLearning Innovation Center (eLinC), as well as UOC community entrepreneurship and knowledge transfer via the Hubbik platform.
Open knowledge and the goals of the United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development serve as strategic pillars for the UOC's teaching, research and innovation. More information: research.uoc.edu.
IMAGE: THIS GRAPHIC COMPARES THE LABOR MARKET INDICATORS FOR MAY 2023 AND JUNE 2023, SHOWING INCREASES IN THE EMPLOYMENT-TO-POPULATION RATIO FOR PEOPLE WITH AND WITHOUT DISABILITIES. THE LABOR FORCE PARTICIPATION RATE DECLINED SLIGHTLY FOR PEOPLE WITH DISABILITIES AND INCREASED FOR PEOPLE WITHOUT DISABILITIES.view more
CREDIT: KESSLER FOUNDATION
East Hanover, NJ – July 7, 2023 – June’s job numbers remained around all-time highs for people with disabilities, according to today’s National Trends in Disability Employment – semi-monthly update (nTIDE), issued by Kessler Foundation and the University of New Hampshire’s Institute on Disability (UNH-IOD). nTIDE experts cautioned that employment of people with disabilities may be negatively affected by further anti-inflationary efforts by the Federal Reserve.
Month-to-Month nTIDE Numbers (comparing May 2023 to June 2023)
Based on data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) Jobs Report released today, the employment-to-population ratio for people with disabilities (ages 1664) increased very slightly from 36.9 percent in May 2023 to 37.0 percent in June 2023 (up 0.3 percent or 0.1 percentage points). For people without disabilities (ages 16-64), the employment-to-population ratio also increased from 75.0 percent in May 2023 to 75.5 percent in June 2023 (up 0.7 percent or 0.5 percentage points). The employment-to-population ratio, a key indicator, reflects the percentage of people who are working relative to the total population (the number of people working divided by the number of people in the total population multiplied by 100).
“The employment-to-population ratio for people with disabilities is hovering around historic highs. We see a similar pattern for those without disabilities, where the ratio remained virtually the same as last month,” said John O’Neill, PhD, director of the Center for Employment and Disability Research at Kessler Foundation. “This pattern suggests that the Federal Reserve’s efforts to slow the labor market to curb inflation may be having the desired effect on people with and without disabilities.”
Regarding labor force participation, the labor force participation rate for people with disabilities (ages 16-64) decreased from 40.2 percent in May 2023 to 39.7 percent in June 2023 (down 1.2 percent or 0.5 percentage points). For people without disabilities (ages 16-64), the labor force participation rate increased from 77.6 percent in May 2023 to 78.4 percent in June 2023 (up 1 percent or 0.8 percentage points). The labor force participation rate reflects the percentage of people who are in the labor force (working, on temporary layoff, on furlough, or actively looking for work in the last four weeks) relative to the total population (the number of people in the labor force divided by the number of people in the total population multiplied by 100).
“In future months, the Federal Reserve is likely to take further action to reduce inflation, which may negatively affect the employment and labor force participation of people with disabilities,” reported Andrew Houtenville, PhD, professor of economics and research director of the UNH-IOD.
Year-to-Year nTIDE Numbers (comparing June 2022 to June 2023)
Compared to the same month last year, the labor force participation rate for people with disabilities (ages 16-64) increased from 38.1 percent in June 2022 to 39.7 percent in June 2023 (up 4.2 percent or 1.6 percentage points). For people without disabilities (ages 16-64), the labor force participation rate also increased from 77.6 percent in June 2022 to 78.4 percent in June 2023 (up 1 percent or 0.8 percentage points).
Similarly, the employment-to-population ratio for working-age people with disabilities (ages 16-64) increased from 34.9 percent in June 2022 to 37 percent in June 2023 (up 6 percent or 2.1 percentage points). For working-age people without disabilities, the employment-to-population ratio also increased from 74.8 percent in June 2022 to 75.5 percent in June 2023 (up 0.9 percent or 0.7 percentage points).
In June, among workers ages 16-64, the 6,250,000 workers with disabilities represented 4.1 percent of the total 150,910,000 workers in the U.S.
Ask Questions about Disability and Employment
Each nTIDE release is followed by an nTIDE Lunch & Learn online webinar. This live broadcast, hosted via Zoom Webinar, offers attendees Q&A on the latest nTIDE findings, provides news and updates from the field, and features invited panelists who discuss current disability-related findings and events.
On July 7, 2023, at 12:00 pm Eastern, Stephanie Enyart, JD, chief public policy and research officer at the American Foundation for the Blind, joins Drs. O’Neill and Houtenville, and Denise Rozell from the Association of University Centers on Disabilities (AUCD). Join our free Lunch & Learn live or visit the nTIDE archives at: ResearchonDisability.org/nTIDE.
NOTE: The statistics in the nTIDE are based on BLS numbers but are not identical. They are customized by UNH to combine the statistics for men and women of working age (16- 64). nTIDE is funded by Kessler Foundation and was initially funded by grants from the National Institute on Disability, Independent Living and Rehabilitation Research (NIDILRR) (90RT5037).
This graphic compares the labor market indicators for June 2022 and June 2023, showing increases for people with and without disabilities.
CREDIT
Kessler Foundation
About the Institute on Disability at the University of New Hampshire
The Institute on Disability (IOD) at the University of New Hampshire (UNH) was established in 1987 to provide a university-based focus for the improvement of knowledge, policies, and practices related to the lives of persons with disabilities and their families. For information on the NIDILRR-funded Research and Training Center on Disability Statistics, visit ResearchOnDisability.org.
About Kessler Foundation Kessler Foundation, a major nonprofit organization in the field of disability, is a global leader in rehabilitation research. Our scientists seek to improve cognition, mobility, and long-term outcomes, including employment, for adults and children with neurological and developmental disabilities of the brain and spinal cord including traumatic brain injury, spinal cord injury, stroke, multiple sclerosis, and autism. Kessler Foundation also leads the nation in funding innovative programs that expand opportunities for employment for people with disabilities. For more information, visit KesslerFoundation.org.
Title: nTIDE Month-to-Month Comparison of Labor Market Indicators for People with and without Disabilities
Caption: This graphic compares the labor market indicators for May 2023 and June 2023, showing increases in the employment-to-population ratio for people with and without disabilities. The labor force participation rate declined slightly for people with disabilities and increased for people without disabilities.
Title: nTIDE Year-to-Year Comparison of Labor Market Indicators for People with and without Disabilities
Caption: This graphic compares the labor market indicators for June 2022 and June 2023, showing increases for people with and without disabilities.
How to make money with online journalism? A new LMU study shows what increases people’s willingness to pay. Interview with the authors.
Professor Neil Thurman and Dr. Bartosz Wilczek research at LMU’s Institute of Communication Studies and Media Research. Their work focuses on changes in news production and consumption due to the internet and artificial intelligence.
Is journalism currently facing a crisis?
Bartosz Wilczek: We can clearly observe a decline in specific revenue streams, particularly in the case of newspapers, where print revenues are decreasing. Online advertising is not proving effective for funding digital content. The decrease in newspaper income means there is less funding available for news content creation. Coverage of topics that were previously covered is now lacking. There is a discussion about news deserts in some areas.
Neil Thurman: Moreover, not only do we have less news, but people also consume less online compared to traditional newspaper content. In the past, individuals would spend more time reading professional news content when it was delivered in print. Online newspaper readers spend just a few minutes on average per month with these titles. One reason for this shift is the abundance of alternative content available online. This could result in the population as a whole being less well informed about certain topics.
If we consider the proportion of online advertising captured by big tech companies, it is a substantial share. Currently, both Facebook and Google individually generate more online advertising revenue than all the newspapers, magazines, radio stations, and cinemas in the world combined. These newcomers have economies of scale and possess extensive user data, making it challenging for newspapers to compete. Additionally, people are less willing to subscribe to digital newspapers compared to their print counterparts. Currently, newspapers are recognizing the need to rely less on online advertising income and instead focus on obtaining online subscription revenue.
Why are people less willing to pay for the same content online as in print?
Wilczek: Print newspapers were typically paid content, whereas the internet originally offered free content. This ‘free mentality’ contributes to the challenge of changing the payment mechanism. Transitioning from a price of zero to any price at all is a challenging change to make.
Thurman: Also, when purchasing a print newspaper, you receive something physical, which psychologically makes a difference. Another point to consider is how uncomplicated the payment process is. While it is relatively easy to make micro payments for items from large online retailers, there are still barriers when it comes to subscribing or paying for a newspaper.
What are the different approaches to funding online journalism, and how do they vary?
Thurman: There are four main ways that online news is funded. Firstly, there is the option of people subscribing, where a paywall restricts access, and the only way to bypass it is by making a payment. Secondly, there is advertising. Some sites solely rely on advertising revenue, but they need to attract a large number of visitors. This often requires producing a significant amount of content that appeals to a wide audience. Another funding method is through donation-based models, where sites do not force people to pay but instead invite donations. Lastly, there are sites funded through philanthropy, with foundations, crowdfunding, or wealthy individuals paying for the content. Many platforms employ a combination of these four methods.
Germany has a system where society collectively pays for public broadcasting. Is this also present in other countries?
Thurman: Yes. For instance, the BBC funds its news website through television licenses. However, newspapers often view this as unfair competition. In Germany, the newspapers successfully lobbied the government to restrict publicly funded online news publishers from writing articles longer than a certain word limit. This was done to protect the market share of the newspapers. In contrast, in the UK, the BBC Online News website has been highly innovative, extensive, and provides a wide range of content including lengthy articles and various forms of media. It has attracted a large audience. Some people argue that it offers high-quality and balanced journalism for free, which is beneficial. However, for some newspapers, having a publicly funded competitor was not welcomed.
You recently conducted a study on online journalism and the likelihood of people paying for online content. Can you tell us more about it?
Wilczek: Previous research has focused on understanding the demographics of who pays for online news, such as age or income levels. However, there hasn’t been much research on how advertising messages can impact people’s willingness to pay for online news. Our study fills that gap and sheds light on the effectiveness of different appeals in motivating users to pay for online content.
We focused on the implementation of paywalls and online subscriptions, specifically examining the communication surrounding them. We investigated different strategies for writing and framing subscription pages that users encounter when they hit a paywall. The study design involved exploring four types of messages or appeals:
The digital-specific appeal focused on highlighting the advantages of accessing news exclusively online, emphasizing that the online version provides additional benefits such as personalized news or quicker access to information.
The social appeal, highlighted that subscribing to online news facilitates being a member of a community. It emphasized the opportunity to engage in online forums, discussions with other readers, and the possibility of attending events.
The price transparency appeal involves informing users about the critical situation of the media industry and the need to implement paywalls.
The normative appeal emphasizes that subscribing supports independent and watchdog journalism, appealing to users’ altruistic motives beyond the product itself.
The results showed that the combination of a normative appeal and a price transparency appeal was the most effective in motivating users. This result is particularly interesting because it suggests that altruism matters a lot to consumers of online news. It seems to be important to them to contribute to journalism as an important part of society by paying for their news.
What would a perfect version of the future of journalism look like for you?
Wilczek: Journalism provides essential information for citizens to make informed decisions on economic and political matters. In a perfect scenario, journalism would continue to improve, remaining relevant and adapting to the latest technologies, fostering innovation.
Thurman: It would be highly desirable to witness journalism being able to sustain itself in a way that enables the production of a wide range of high-quality journalism, free from undue influence from undesirable sources. While philanthropic or government funding can be part of the funding mix, these sources come with their own challenges. Therefore, it is crucial to find a sustainable business model that allows independent journalism to thrive.
ARTICLE TITLE
Subscribe Now: On the Effectiveness of Advertising Messages in Promoting Newspapers’ Online Subscriptions
PLOS to extend accessible data to more articles and repositories
SAN FRANCISCO — PLOS today is announcing that it has extended the scope of its “Accessible Data” experiment, which was first launched in March 2022, with support from a Wellcome Trust grant. The experimental “Accessible Data” feature is designed to increase research data sharing and reuse by highlighting links to select repositories with an eye-catching icon on the article page. We are now expanding from the original three repositories to nine, which together host about three quarters of the outputs linked to from PLOS articles.
PLOS began its Accessible Data experiment with two overarching goals. First, to increase reuse of datasets linked to PLOS articles and second, to increase authors’ use of data repositories by visually acknowledging and rewarding repository use on articles. Through analysis of 543 Figshare datasets linked to PLOS articles, we observed a 20% relative increase in the average number of views received per month.
PLOS now has a third goal, which is to understand if there are meaningful differences in how readers engage with different types of data, and different types of research output. To achieve this, PLOS is increasing the number of articles that will qualify for the icon on an article by diversifying the repository and output types that are included. In this next phase, articles will display an icon if they:
Were published from 2016 onwards
Include a link to a research output in a repository in their Data Availability Statement, and
Extending the icon achieves two things. First, it increases the number of articles that qualify for the feature threefold, to more than 15,000 articles, rewarding more researchers and increasing our potential to promote discovery of research data and code. Second, by adding different types of repositories, PLOS is increasing its potential for learning. We've added repositories specializing in life sciences, social sciences, and medicine to better understand where readers engage differently in domain-specific repositories vs generalist repositories.
The results of the next phase of the experiment will inform future strategies to support discovery and reuse of research outputs produced by PLOS authors. For more information on this experiment, a summary is available as a poster in Figshare, along with the supporting data from our surveys.
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About the Public Library of Science
PLOS is a nonprofit, Open Access publisher empowering researchers to accelerate progress in science and medicine by leading a transformation in research communication. Since our founding in 2001, PLOS journals have helped break boundaries in research communication to provide more opportunities, choice, and context for researchers and readers. For more information, visit http://www.plos.org.
New center merges math, AI to push frontiers of science
ITHACA, N.Y. -- With artificial intelligence poised to assist in profound scientific discoveries that will change the world, Cornell is leading a new $11.3 million center focused on human-AI collaboration that uses mathematics as a common language.
The Scientific Artificial Intelligence Center, or SciAI Center, is being launched with a grant from the Office of Naval Research and is led by Christopher J. Earls, professor of civil and environmental engineering at Cornell Engineering. Co-investigators include Nikolaos Bouklas, assistant professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at Cornell Engineering; Anil Damle, assistant professor of computer science in the Cornell Ann S. Bowers College of Computing and Information Science; and Alex Townsend, associate professor of mathematics in the College of Arts and Sciences. All of the investigators are field faculty members of the Center for Applied Mathematics.
With the advance of AI systems – built with tangled webs of algorithms and trained on increasingly large sets of data – researchers fear AI’s inner workings will provide little insight into its uncanny ability to recognize patterns in data and make scientific predictions. Earls described it as a situation at odds with true scientific discovery.
“Scientific theories are explanatory stories that offer mechanistic insights into how the universe works,” Earls said. “These theories offer reasoning behind what has been observed, but also, they predict that which has yet to be observed. Such extrapolatory power is entirely beyond anything standard AI can achieve. Our new center will pioneer radically new AI approaches for scientific discovery.”
The SciAI Center will use mathematics as a common language between humans and machines because, Townsend said, math is how scientists have modeled the world for hundreds of years.
“Instead of getting AI to predict the future using data from a physical system, we will get AI to speak in the language of calculus and derive the underlying differential equations that govern a physical system,” Townsend said. “We are trying to develop an AI-human collaboration that can become our science teacher, revealing patterns of the natural world.”
The SciAI Center will have four intellectual thrusts – scientific data, operator learning, closure models and complex systems. Its three application areas of focus will be materials, turbulence and autonomy.
“By blending machine learning techniques with physics-informed algorithms, we can accelerate computational methods to aid in the understanding of materials and molecular systems,” said Damle, who added that Cornell’s fostering of interdisciplinary research makes it a natural home for such a center, enabling researchers from a broad set of areas to contribute.
Aside from its research goals, the center will be committed to helping populations underrepresented in science and engineering gain access to emerging AI tools through a series of student pathway programs that prepare young researchers to work in new industries.
Other institutions participating include the United States Naval Academy; the University of California, Santa Cruz; the California Institute of Technology; the University of Cambridge; Brown University; the University of California, Berkeley; and Integer Technologies.
