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)
Saturday, August 17, 2024
Gender-sensitive job titles may affect women’s interest in job ads
In German study, job titles with gender-neutral and feminine grammatical forms drew more ad views by women
PLOS
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The new study suggests that the use of gender-sensitive language in the title of job advertisements may influence the level of interest demonstrated by female potential applicants.
A new study suggests that the use of gender-sensitive language in the title of job advertisements may influence the level of interest demonstrated by female potential applicants. Dominik Hetjens of Technische Universität Dresden, Germany, and Stefan Hartmann of Heinrich-Heine-Universität Düsseldorf, Germany, present these findings in the open-access journal PLOS ONE on August 14, 2024.
German is one of many languages in which every noun is grammatically masculine, feminine, or neutral. For instance, “teacher” is grammatically masculine, “sun” is feminine, and “boat” neutral. Because the German word for “teacher” is grammatically masculine, someone referring to a teacher of no specified gender will still use the masculine form. In recent decades, concerns have grown that this so-called generic masculine form could create a problematic male bias. Thus, a variety of alternative forms have arisen to refer to a mixed-gender group or an entity of no specific gender.
To date, research on the potential social consequences of using gender-sensitive alternatives versus the generic masculine form has been limited, and most has been conducted in small laboratory studies. To add a new perspective, Hetjens and Hartmann analyzed real-world data on 256,934 German-language job listings posted on an online job platform from 2020 to 2022.
They found that, overall, job titles that used gender-sensitive language had a consistently higher proportion of female users who clicked to view the entire job ad than job titles using the generic masculine. This behavior was more pronounced for alternative forms that make the feminine form explicit by including the feminine suffix “-in” than for other alternatives, such as the addition of the gender-neutral “-kraft.” These results held true even for ads in the female-dominated nursing profession.
These findings suggest that gender-sensitive language in job advertisements may influence the behavior of potential applicants. However, the researchers note, the underlying explanation for their results is likely complex and multifaceted, and more research is needed to clarify any cause-effect relationship between gender-sensitive language and job applicant interest.
The authors add: “We found that the use of gender-sensitive language in job titles correlates with a higher proportion of female user interaction. However, follow-up studies are needed to understand the causes of this correlation.”
Citation: Hetjens D, Hartmann S (2024) Effects of gender sensitive language in job listings: A study on real-life user interaction. PLoS ONE 19(8): e0308072. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0308072
Author Countries: Germany
Funding: The author(s) received no specific funding for this work.
Effects of gender sensitive language in job listings: A study on real-life user interaction
Article Publication Date
14-Aug-2024
Nighttime light data shows inequities in restoring power after Hurricane Michael
Study finds notable differences among urban and rural areas and socioeconomic status
Florida Atlantic University
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Images from the nighttime lightdata from NASA’s operational Black Marble produce suite (VNP46) showing nighttime light radiance before (left) Hurricane Michael landfall and after (right) landfall in Florida’s Panhandle.
Among the many devasting impacts in the aftermath of a hurricane are power outages, which can take days or even weeks to restore. Communities grappling with the loss of electricity may encounter obstacles in accessing vital services, including food, fuel and health care.
In 2018, Hurricane Michael, a Category 5 storm, wreaked havoc in Florida as it made landfall in the United States. It was strongest recorded to hit the Florida Panhandle with winds of nearly 161 miles per hour and storm surge reaching heights between 9 and 14 feet. Mexico Beach, Panama City Beach and Cape San Blas experienced the highest level of devastation.
Several counties in the hardest hit areas reported that 100% of their customer accounts were out of electricity for several days. Eight of the 14 counties in the area are classified as rural and five of these counties have poverty rates above 20%. At the household level, loss of electric power can have ripple effects for families without a means to salvage and replace refrigerated items.
After a disaster, assessing damage quickly is crucial for initiating search and rescue and prioritizing the restoration of utilities. However, inconsistent public data on power outages and a lack of standardization hinder emergency response efforts. This is particularly challenging in diverse, disadvantaged or rural areas.
To unravel the complex effects of Hurricane Michael on the Florida Panhandle, researchers from Florida Atlantic University and collaborators combined remote sensing data, official outage records, and census information to provide an in-depth view of the initial damage, the restoration process, and its impact on vulnerable populations. They examined the correlation between damage levels and power restoration rates by overlaying estimated percent recovery derived from NASA’s Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) Day/Night Band (DNB) (also known as nighttime lightdata) with a reclassification of NOAA’s National Geodetic Survey Emergency Response Imagery. This imagery was categorized into various types of land damage, including debris, sand, water, trees, barren land, and roofs around Mexico Beach.
Results of the study, published in the journal Remote Sensing, reveal notable differences in power-restoration rates between urbanized and rural areas and between disadvantaged and more affluent communities. The findings indicate that block groups with higher proportions of minorities, multi-family housing units, rural locations, and households receiving public assistance experienced slower restoration of power compared to urban and more affluent neighborhoods.
Through hotspot analysis, significant variations in power-restoration rates were highlighted, with urban areas, particularly those surrounding Tallahassee, demonstrating notably higher rates compared to rural regions and areas heavily affected by structural damage, like Mexico Beach.
“Delayed recovery in key infrastructure, such as the power grid, will further devastate these communities. Operation of air conditioning units, food storage, entertainment, working, schooling and even drinking water for households with wells, all rely on electricity,” said Diana Mitsova, Ph.D., senior author and chair and professor of the Department of Urban and Regional Planning within FAU’s Charles E. Schmidt College of Science. “Consequently, power loss and delayed restoration have a profound negative impact on households and families, ranging from health to economic productivity.”
For the study, researchers used outage data averaged over a week from the Florida Public Service Commission and NASA’s VIIRS DNB data. They also used spatial lag models to study how the speed of power restoration related to socioeconomic status. Researchers differentiated between urban and rural counties using a classification scheme from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Center for Health Statistics. Restoration rates and curves were developed for 14 counties to compare power-restoration patterns between these regions. They also aggregated electrical service loss and restoration rates at the block group level using data from the 2013–17 American Community Survey.
“Our findings further confirm that insufficient post-disaster recovery disproportionally affects households and families in disadvantaged neighborhoods and rural communities,” said Mitsova. “These communities tend to be vulnerable to natural disasters and often suffer more severe damage compared to other areas.”
In addition to underscoring the importance of revisiting building codes and fostering new mutual aid agreements between rural electrical cooperatives and larger entities within and outside Florida, findings from this study also highlight the need for more focused scholarship on disparate disaster impacts on smaller rural communities, coastal and agricultural ecosystems and policy solutions to address these disparities.
“Our study emphasizes the importance of integrating socioeconomic factors into disaster preparedness and recovery-planning efforts, stressing the need for targeted interventions to mitigate disparities in recovery times following natural disasters,” said Mitsova. “Such initiatives and scholarship hold promise for addressing future challenges and enhancing the resilience of predominantly rural and underserved communities.”
This research was supported by the National Science Foundation Grant (CMMI#1541089) awarded to Mitsova and her team.
- FAU -
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.
As use of generative artificial intelligence continues to extend into all reaches of education, much of the concern related to its impact on cheating has focused on essays, essay exam questions and other narrative assignments. Use of AI tools such as ChatGPT to cheat on multiple-choice exams has largely gone ignored.
A Florida State University chemist is half of a research partnership whose latest work is changing what we know about this type of cheating, and their findings have revealed how the use of ChatGPT to cheat on general chemistry multiple-choice exams can be detected through specific statistical methods. The work was published in Journal of Chemical Education.
“While many educators and researchers try to detect AI assisted cheating in essays and open-ended responses, such as Turnitin AI detection, as far as we know, this is the first time anyone has proposed detecting its use on multiple-choice exams,” said Ken Hanson, an associate professor in the FSU Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry. “By evaluating differences in performances between student- and ChatGPT-based multiple-choice chemistry exams, we were able to identify ChatGPT instances across all exams with a false positive rate of almost zero.”
The research is the latest publication in a seven-year collaboration between Hanson and machine learning engineer Ben Sorenson.
Hanson and Sorenson, who first met in third grade, both attended St. Cloud State University in Minnesota for their undergraduate degrees and stayed in touch after moving into their careers. As a faculty member at FSU, Hanson became curious about measuring how much knowledge his students retained from lectures, courses and lab work.
“This was a conversation that I brought to Ben, who’s great with statistics, computer science and data processing,” said Hanson, who is part of a group of FSU faculty working to improve student success in gateway STEM courses such as general chemistry and college algebra. “He said we could use statistical tools to understand if my exams are good, and in 2017, we started analyzing exams.”
The core of this Rasch model is that a student’s probability of getting any test question correct is a function of two things: how difficult the question is and the student’s ability to answer the question. In this case, a student’s ability refers to how much knowledge they have and how many of the necessary components are needed to answer the question they have. Viewing the outcomes of an exam in this way provides powerful insights, researchers said.
“The collaboration between Ken and I, though remote, has been a really seamless, smooth process,” Sorenson said. “Our work is a great way to provide supporting evidence when educators might already suspect that cheating may be happening. What we didn’t expect was that the patterns of artificial intelligence would be so easy to identify.”
Hanson earned his doctorate in chemistry from the University of Southern California in 2010 and completed a postdoctoral position at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill before joining FSU’s chemistry faculty in 2013. His lab, the Hanson Research Group, focuses on molecular photochemistry and photophysics, or the study of light — photons — and light’s interaction with molecules. Hanson, a member of the American Chemical Society, has published more than 100 papers and holds over a dozen patents.
To learn more about Hanson’s research and the FSU Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, visit chem.fsu.edu.
Researchers collected previous FSU student responses from five semesters worth of exams, input nearly 1,000 questions into ChatGPT and compared the outcomes. Average score and raw statistics were not enough to identify ChatGPT-like behavior because there are certain questions that ChatGPT always answered correctly or always answered incorrectly resulting in an overall score that was indistinguishable from students.
“That’s the thing about ChatGPT – it can generate content, but it doesn’t necessarily generate correct content,” Hanson said. “It’s simply an answer generator. It’s trying to look like it knows the answer, and to someone who doesn’t understand the material, it probably does look like a correct answer.”
By using fit statistics, researchers fixed the ability parameters and refit the outcomes, finding ChatGPT’s response pattern was clearly different from that of the students.
On exams, high-performing students frequently answer difficult and easy questions correctly, while average students tend to answer some difficult questions and most easy questions correctly. Low-performing students typically only answer easy questions correctly. But on repeated attempts by ChatGPT to complete an exam, the AI tool sometimes answered every easier question incorrectly and every hard question correctly. Hanson and Sorenson used these behavior differences to detect the use of ChatGPT with almost 100-percent accuracy.
The duo’s strategy of employing a technique known as Rasch modeling and fit statistics can be readily applied to any and all generative AI chat bots, which will exhibit their own unique patterns to help educators identify the use of these chat bots in completing multiple-choice exams.
The University of Ottawa’s Department of Biology made a significant contribution to the comprehensive 2024 Amphibian Conservation Action Plan (ACAP). Professor Vance L. Trudeau’s work is featured in chapter 12, “Amphibian assisted reproductive technologies and biobanking.”
The ACAP, a 381-page document created by the International Union for Conservation of Nature, includes 14 chapters bringing together over 100 experts worldwide. It serves as a unified global strategy to address the alarming decline in amphibian populations over the past several decades.
Trudeau, University of Ottawa Research Chair in Neuroendocrinology, has played a crucial role in developing captive breeding methods for endangered frogs.
“Our research on reproductive hormones has led to the development of injectable treatments that can induce sperm and egg release in numerous frog species and even the hellbender, the giant salamanders of Tennessee,” says Trudeau. “This technology is vital for conservation efforts, especially considering that, worldwide, about 40% of amphibian species are currently at risk.”
Trudeau’s contribution focuses on assisted reproductive technologies for amphibians, drawing parallels with human fertility treatments. “Just as we have hormone treatments and IVF for infertile human couples, we’ve developed similar methods for endangered frogs,” Trudeau says. “Additionally, we’re exploring biobanking strategies, such as freezing sperm, to preserve genetic material of endangered species.”
While Trudeau’s research is based at the University of Ottawa, his captive breeding methods have been successfully implemented in various countries, including the United States and Argentina.
The ACAP not only synthesizes the latest developments in amphibian conservation over the past 15 years but also identifies critical knowledge gaps and priorities for future action. This collaborative effort demonstrates that assisted reproduction techniques can be applied on a broad scale to combat the global amphibian crisis.
“It’s truly remarkable that we can now induce breeding in endangered species,” Trudeau says. “This global initiative shows that diverse groups can join forces to combat species loss.”
Amphibian conservation action plan : a status review and roadmap for global amphibian conservation
Consumer-grade insecticide sprays fail to control cockroaches, study shows
DIY pyrethroid residual sprays provide "little to no value" against German cockroach infestations, researchers say
Entomological Society of America
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A common variety of consumer insecticide sprays is of "little to no value" in eliminating cockroach infestations, according to a new study published August 14 in the Journal of Economic Entomology. Residual insecticides are sprayed on surfaces where cockroaches are likely to appear, exposing them to the toxic ingredient when they contact the surface later. But laboratory testing at the University of Kentucky and Auburn University shows the residues have little effect on German cockroaches (Blattella germanica), a primary species infesting homes and buildings around the world.
Annapolis, MD; August 14, 2024—A common variety of consumer insecticide sprays is mostly ineffective and of "little to no value" in eliminating cockroach infestations, a new study shows.
Residual insecticides are designed to be sprayed on surfaces where cockroaches are likely to appear, exposing them to the toxic ingredient when they move across the surface later. But laboratory testing by researchers at the University of Kentucky and Auburn University shows that the residues have little effect on German cockroaches (Blattella germanica), a primary species infesting homes and buildings around the world.
The study found that liquid and aerosol sprays using pyrethroid insecticides killed less than 20 percent of German cockroaches that were exposed to sprayed surfaces for 30 minutes. Moreover, even when cockroaches were confined to the sprayed surfaces, most products took eight to 24 hours to kill the cockroaches, with some taking up to five days. Published August 14 in the Journal of Economic Entomology, the study tested the sprays on German cockroaches that had been collected from real-world infestations, where the insects have evolved resistance to pyrethroids, previous research shows.
"If residents do not have access to effective professional pest control or consumer solutions, they continue to be impacted by the effects of an infestation, including the health risks associated with cockroach allergens. Home is where people should be able to relax and feel comfortable," says Johnalyn Gordon, Ph.D., lead author on the study and a postdoctoral associate at the University of Florida. Gordon conducted the study while a graduate research assistant at the University of Kentucky in the lab of Zach DeVries, Ph.D., assistant professor of urban entomology and senior author on the study. Their study was supported by a grant from the U.S Department of Housing and Urban Development.
Cockroach control, while challenging at times, is obtainable, the researchers say, but it typically is time intensive and costly in terms of products applied. A key problem is that German cockroaches are almost universally resistant to pyrethroids.
"Due to the frequent use of pyrethroid-based residual products, it is very likely that German cockroaches inside of homes will have some degree of pyrethroid resistance," Gordon says. "To the best of our knowledge, a pyrethroid-susceptible German cockroach population has not been documented from the field in decades."
However, current requirements from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency do not require insecticide products to be tested on cockroaches recently collected from the field or with demonstrated insecticide resistance.
"Hopefully studies like this one can drive changes in product testing and evaluation, so that labels accurately reflect the level of control these products can provide," Gordon says.
Additional factors likely contribute to the poor performance of the residual spray products, such as surface type and cockroach behavior. Gordon and colleagues tested the sprays on painted drywall, ceramic tile, and stainless steel and found that they performed significantly worse on drywall. Even a population of cockroaches without resistance to pyrethroids that was included in the study was minimally affected by the residual sprays on drywall. "This suggests that how porous a surface is may have a significant impact on product efficacy," Gordon says. "Given common applications of residual insecticides along baseboards, reduced efficacy on painted drywall was a particularly striking finding."
Meanwhile, cockroaches are unlikely to come to rest for extended periods on surfaces treated with insecticides, both because they are often on the move and because they may actively avoid them. A separate study in DeVries' lab published last year found resistant German cockroaches will not remain in contact with pyrethroid-treated surfaces for an extended period time, if given the choice.
Combined, these factors paint a dim picture for cockroach control via insecticide sprays. "Based on our results, pyrethroid-based DIY products are likely to fail against German cockroaches inside the home, especially if they are being used as residual products," Gordon says.
More promising DIY options for cockroach control include gel or liquid baits, which attract roaches to a food source laden with a slow-acting insecticide, Gordon says. Ideally, consumers could also have access to affordable professional pest-control services that take a multipronged approach known as integrated pest management, or IPM. However, this is often not the case for residents of low-income, multi-family housing, where cockroach infestations are often stubbornly persistent.
"There is a strong base of knowledge and research on how we can control cockroaches, but there are numerous economic and procedural barriers that mean that this control is not occurring in these areas, arguably where it is the most needed," Gordon says. "Targeting improved technologies that can close these management gaps is really critical to achieving accessible pest management, whether that is through different active ingredients and modes of action, formulations, or product-deployment strategies."
A common variety of consumer insecticide sprays is of "little to no value" in eliminating cockroach infestations, according to a new study published August 14 in the Journal of Economic Entomology. Residual insecticides are sprayed on surfaces where cockroaches are likely to appear, exposing them to the toxic ingredient when they contact the surface later. But laboratory testing at the University of Kentucky and Auburn University shows the residues have little effect on German cockroaches (Blattella germanica), a primary species infesting homes and buildings around the world. Here, an infestation is revealed on the back of a home appliance.
Credit
Zach DeVries, Ph.D.
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"Common consumer residual insecticides lack efficacy against insecticide-susceptible and resistant populations of the German cockroach (Blattodea: Ectobiidae)" will be published online on August 14 in the Journal of Economic Entomology. Journalists may request advance copies of the article via the contact below or download the published paper after 10 a.m. U.S. ET, August 14, at https://doi.org/10.1093/jee/toae158.
ABOUT: ESA is the largest organization in the world serving the professional and scientific needs of entomologists and people in related disciplines. Founded in 1889, ESA today has nearly 7,000 members affiliated with educational institutions, health agencies, private industry, and government. Headquartered in Annapolis, Maryland, the Society stands ready as a non-partisan scientific and educational resource for all insect-related topics. For more information, visit www.entsoc.org.
The Journal of Economic Entomology publishes research on the economic significance of insects and is the most-cited journal in entomology. It includes sections on apiculture and social insects, insecticides, biological control, household and structural insects, crop protection, forest entomology, and more. For more information, visit https://academic.oup.com/jee, or visit www.insectscience.org to view the full portfolio of ESA journals and publications.
Common consumer residual insecticides lack efficacy against insecticide-susceptible and resistant populations of the German cockroach (Blattodea: Ectobiidae)
Article Publication Date
14-Aug-2024
Sex and the flu
Pitt and Wisconsin researchers seek to understand how hormones impact influenza in men and women
Turns out that there is a biological reason why women and men suffer viral infections like influenza differently – and a team of engineers, immunologists, and virologists at the University of Pittsburgh and University of Wisconsin, Madison are extending their research to better understand why and how to design better, possible sex-specific treatments.
“While there are a lot of anecdotal stories about how men and women respond to respiratory diseases, the research shows that women are more likely to have a more serious response to some viruses,”1,2,3 Shoemaker explains. “However, we’re not sure how hormones impact the immune system. Specifically for flu, there is strong evidence that women 18-40/45 years old are more likely to experience severe infection, even though demographically they tend to be the healthiest.”4
“Animal studies have shown that hormones potentially affect the outcome of infection, specifically in the lungs,” he notes. “In part two of this project, we’ll examine human respiratory cells and lung macrophages from male and female donors that are exposed to estradiol and then infected with influenza virus. Mathematical models will enable us to integrate the data.”
Through this computational modeling, Shoemaker’s group hopes to identify the molecules or pathways that are affecting the cells and begin to identify potential treatments that are personalized to a person’s sex or hormone levels.
“Typical treatments for respiratory infections are homogenous, but if hormones and chromosomes indeed create a different immune response between men and women, then we need to develop more targeted therapies,” Shoemaker says. “The impact of the Covid-19 pandemic gave us tremendous amounts of data to better understand the immune system, and advances in computational modeling reduce trial and error in developing more effective treatments.”
Shoemaker's Pitt and Wisconsin co-investigators include:
John Alcorn, University of Pittsburgh, Dept of Immunology & Dept of Pediatrics
William Hawse, University of Pittsburgh, Dept of Immunology
Amie Eisfeld, Department of Pathobiological Sciences, University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI
Yoshihiro Kawaoka, Department of Pathobiological Sciences, University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI
1Sex Differences in Influenza: The Challenge Study Experience. Giurgea LT, Cervantes-Medina A, Walters K, Scherler K, Han A, Czaikowski LM, Baus HA, Hunsberger S, Klein SL, Kash JC, Taubenberger JK, Memoli MJ. J Infect Dis. 2021 Aug 23;jiab422. doi: 10.1093/infdis/jiab422.
In subdivided communities cooperative norms evolve more easily
Researchers simulate social norms with supercomputer
Max-Planck-Gesellschaft
Researchers from the RIKEN Center for Computational Science (Japan) and the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Biology (Germany) have published new findings on how social norms evolve over time. They simulated how norms promote different social behavior, and how the norms themselves come and go. Because of the enormous number of possible norms, these simulations were run on RIKEN's Fugaku, one of the fastest supercomputers worldwide.
Models of indirect reciprocity describe how social norms promote cooperation. This literature stipulates that people cooperate, in part, to gain a positive reputation. This positive reputation in turn can be useful in future interactions. According to this logic, people donate to charities not only because of their altruistic tendencies. Instead, they also want to increase (or maintain) their social status. The precise relationship between people’s cooperative interactions and their social status depends on the social norm in place.
Some communities impose rather strict rules on how people ought to behave, and how people‘s actions should be evaluated. In contrast, other communities are more tolerant with respect to what their members should do. Interestingly, a community’s social norm itself may be subject to evolutionary change. Norms that prove beneficial, or which can be enforced effectively, are comparably stable. Detrimental norms with little support are expected to go extinct.
The dynamics of social norms can be understood with the toolbox of evolutionary theory. Norms that are more successful are expected to spread, whereas inferior norms disappear. Although there has been quite some effort to understand these dynamics quantitatively, existing models have been quite restricted. Most often, they only permit people to choose from a handful of possible norms. This restriction is due to pragmatic reasons: The more social norms are added to the model, the more complex the model becomes to solve.
Computer simulations
To address this challenge, the research group employed large-scale computer simulations. They analyzed the reputation dynamics among all 2,080 norms of a natural complexity class, the so-called "third-order norms". The results are remarkable. This research shows that cooperative norms are difficult to sustain if the population consists of a single well-mixed community. However if the population is subdivided into several smaller communities, cooperative norms evolve more easily. The most successful norm in the simulations is particularly simple. It views cooperation as universally positive and defection as generally negative—except when defection is used as a means to discipline other defectors.
This research offers new insights into the complex interplay between social norms, their induced reputation dynamics, and population structure. It suggests that the structure of a population significantly influences which social norms prevail and how durable cooperation is.
