Columbia Engineering team builds first hacker-resistant cloud software system

As the first system to guarantee the security of virtual machines in the cloud, SeKVM could transform how cloud services are designed, developed, deployed, and trusted

COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF ENGINEERING AND APPLIED SCIENCE

Research News

 

IMAGE: MICROVERIFICATION OF CLOUD HYPERVISORS view more 

CREDIT: JASON NIEH AND RONGHUI GU/COLUMBIA ENGINEERING

New York, NY--May 24, 2021--Whenever you buy something on Amazon, your customer data is automatically updated and stored on thousands of virtual machines in the cloud. For businesses like Amazon, ensuring the safety and security of the data of its millions of customers is essential. This is true for large and small organizations alike. But up to now, there has been no way to guarantee that a software system is secure from bugs, hackers, and vulnerabilities.

Columbia Engineering researchers may have solved this security issue. They have developed SeKVM, the first system that guarantees--through a mathematical proof--the security of virtual machines in the cloud. In a new paper to be presented on May 26, 2021, at the 42nd IEEE Symposium on Security & Privacy, the researchers hope to lay the foundation for future innovations in system software verification, leading to a new generation of cyber-resilient system software.

SeKVM is the first formally verified system for cloud computing. Formal verification is a critical step as it is the process of proving that software is mathematically correct, that the program's code works as it should, and there are no hidden security bugs to worry about.

"This is the first time that a real-world multiprocessor software system has been shown to be mathematically correct and secure," said Jason Nieh, professor of computer science and co-director of the Software Systems Laboratory. "This means that users' data are correctly managed by software running in the cloud and are safe from security bugs and hackers."

The construction of correct and secure system software has been one of the grand challenges of computing. |Nieh has worked on different aspects of software systems since joining Columbia Engineering in 1999. When Ronghui Gu, the Tang Family Assistant Professor of Computer Science and an expert in formal verification, joined the computer science department in 2018, he and Nieh decided to collaborate on exploring formal verification of software systems.

Their research has garnered major interest: both researchers won an Amazon Research Award, multiple grants from the National Science Foundation, as well as a multi-million dollar Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) contract to further development of the SeKVM project. In addition, Nieh was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship for this work.

Over the past dozen years, there has been a good deal of attention paid to formal verification, including work on verifying multiprocessor operating systems. "But all of that research has been conducted on small toy-like systems that nobody uses in real life," said Gu. "Verifying a multiprocessor commodity system, a system in wide use like Linux, has been thought to be more or less impossible."

The exponential growth of cloud computing has enabled companies and users to move their data and computation off-site into virtual machines running on hosts in the cloud. Cloud computing providers, like Amazon, deploy hypervisors to support these virtual machines.

A hypervisor is the key piece of software that makes cloud computing possible. The security of the virtual machine's data hinges on the correctness and trustworthiness of the hypervisor. Despite their importance, hypervisors are complicated -- they can include an entire Linux operating system. Just a single weak link in the code -- one that is virtually impossible to detect via traditional testing -- can make a system vulnerable to hackers. Even if a hypervisor is written 99% correctly, a hacker can still sneak into that particular 1% set-up and take control of the system.

Nieh and Gu's work is the first to verify a commodity system, specifically the widely-used KVM hypervisor, which is used to run virtual machines by cloud providers such as Amazon. They proved that SeKVM, which is KVM with some small changes, is secure and guarantees that virtual computers are isolated from one another.

"We've shown that our system can protect and secure private data and computing uploaded to the cloud with mathematical guarantees," said Xupeng Li, Gu's PhD student and co-lead author of the paper. "This has never been done before."

SeKVM was verified using MicroV, a new framework for verifying the security properties of large systems. It is based on the hypothesis that small changes to the system can make it significantly easier to verify, a new technique the researchers call microverification. This novel layering technique retrofits an existing system and extracts the components that enforce security into a small core that is verified and guarantees the security of the entire system.

The changes needed to retrofit a large system are quite modest--the researchers demonstrated that if the small core of the larger system is intact, then the system is secure and no private data will be leaked. This is how they were able to verify a large system such as KVM, which was previously thought to be impossible.

"Think of a house--a crack in the drywall doesn't mean that the integrity of the house is at risk," Nieh explained. "It's still structurally sound and the key structural system is good."

Shih-Wei Li, Nieh's PhD student and co-lead author of the study, added, "SeKVM will serve as a safeguard in various domains, from banking systems and Internet of Things devices to autonomous vehicles and cryptocurrencies."

As the first verified commodity hypervisor, SeKVM could change how cloud services should be designed, developed, deployed, and trusted. In a world where cybersecurity is a growing concern, this resiliency is highly in demand. Major cloud companies are already exploring how they can leverage SeKVM to meet this demand.

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About the Study

The study is titled "A Secure and Formally Verified Linux KVM Hypervisor."

Authors are: Shih-Wei Li, Xupeng Li, Ronghui Gu, Jason Nieh, John Zhuang Hui Department of Computer Science, Columbia Engineering

The study was supported in part by National Science Foundation grants CCF-1918400, CNS-1717801, and CNS-1563555.

Publication Details

The study will be presented at the 42nd IEEE Symposium on Security & Privacy on May 26, 2021.

LINKS:

Paper: http://www.cs.columbia.edu/~nieh/pubs/ieeesp2021_kvm.pdf

DOI: 10.1109/SP40001.2021.00049

http://engineering.columbia.edu/

https://www.ieee-security.org/TC/SP2021/

https://www.linux-kvm.org/page/Main_Page

http://www.cs.columbia.edu/~nieh/

http://systems.cs.columbia.edu/

https://www.cs.columbia.edu/~rgu/

https://www.gf.org/announcement-2021/

https://www.amazon.science/research-awards/program-updates/2020-amazon-research-awards-recipients-announced

https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=ma7i8i8AAAAJ&hl=en

https://shihweili.com/

https://www.cs.columbia.edu

Columbia Engineering

Columbia Engineering, based in New York City, is one of the top engineering schools in the U.S. and one of the oldest in the nation. Also known as The Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science, the School expands knowledge and advances technology through the pioneering research of its more than 220 faculty, while educating undergraduate and graduate students in a collaborative environment to become leaders informed by a firm foundation in engineering. The School's faculty are at the center of the University's cross-disciplinary research, contributing to the Data Science Institute, Earth Institute, Zuckerman Mind Brain Behavior Institute, Precision Medicine Initiative, and the Columbia Nano Initiative. Guided by its strategic vision, "Columbia Engineering for Humanity," the School aims to translate ideas into innovations that foster a sustainable, healthy, secure, connected, and creative humanity.

Disclaimer: AAAS and E

ROFLMAO 😜

Young teens should only use recreational internet and video games one hour daily

New research finds test scores, educational aspirations drop if children overuse non-educational technology

RUTGERS UNIVERSITY

Research News

 

Middle-school aged children who use the internet, social media or video games recreationally for more than an hour each day during the school week have significantly lower grades and test scores, according to a study from the Center for Gambling Studies at Rutgers University-New Brunswick.

The findings appear in the journal Computers in Human Behavior.

Researchers say the findings give parents and children a moderate threshold for using entertainment-related technology -- no more than one hour daily on school days and four hours a day on weekends.

"Interactive technology is widely used to promote children's educational access and achievement," said lead author Vivien (Wen Li) Anthony, an assistant professor at the School of Social Work and research associate at the Rutgers Center for Gambling Studies. "During the COVID-19 pandemic, technology has been essential to facilitating remote learning. At the same time, there is a growing concern that excessive technology use, particularly for entertainment, may adversely affect children's educational development by facilitating undesirable study habits and detracting from time spent on learning activities."

The researchers, which include Professor Lia Nower of the Rutgers Center for Gambling Studies and a researcher from Renmin University of China, analyzed the China Education Panel Survey data, a national survey of educational needs and outcomes of children in China. Approximately 10,000 first-year middle school students were surveyed and followed. Their average age was 13.5 years.

The results showed that children who used the internet, social media or video games for entertainment four or more hours daily were four times more likely to skip school than those who did not. Boys used interactive technology for entertainment significantly more than girls. Boys also performed worse and showed lower school engagement levels than girls.

"Such findings are critical, particularly in light of the recent movement toward online learning in countries throughout the world," said Anthony. "In a learning environment that integrates the internet, it is easy for children to move across educational and entertainment platforms during learning without alerting teachers or adults to alternate activities."

Anthony said children in the study who used technology in moderation (i.e., less than one hour per day on weekends) experienced less boredom at school, potentially due to the positive effects of participation in social media, video games and video streaming such as peer bonding and relationship building. Using interactive technology for entertainment in moderation advanced children's cognitive development.

The findings suggest that parents place time limits on their children's interactive technology use, and that parents and teachers should help children to develop effective time management and self-regulation skills to reduce their reliance on technology.

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Games, computing, and the mind: How search algorithms reflect game playing

Scientists explore the links between game-solving search tree algorithms and the subjective experience of playing various turn-based games

JAPAN ADVANCED INSTITUTE OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

Research News

 

IMAGE: ILLUSTRATION OF PPN AND CNS AS SEARCH INDICATORS, APPLIED TO SEVERAL TWO-PERSON AND SINGLE-PLAYER GAMES. THESE INDICATORS CAN BRIDGE SEARCH ALGORITHMS AND ENTERTAINMENT VIA THE ANALOGY OF 'MOTION IN MIND'... view more 

CREDIT: HIROYUKI IIDA FROM JAIST.

Iahikawa, Japan - Humans benefit from playing games more than some might realize. Games can be a relaxed approach to learning or honing our problem-solving skills while relieving stress. However, game playing generally carries a considerable amount of decision-making, involving mathematical and statistical considerations that we make to decide on what we think is the best move. Thus, games showcase many of the impressive faculties and inner workings of the human brain, which in turns makes them a great testbed and playground for research on artificial intelligence (AI).

One aspect common to many games is decision making based on uncertain information about current and potential future game states. Experienced players can 'look ahead' from the current state of a game and analyze what could happen several turns or moves down the line, allowing them to strategize accordingly. Most notably, this mental process is akin to what some search algorithms are designed to do--not just for game solving, but also in general computing tasks across various areas of application. But how do we establish a formal connection between these fields?

At the Japan Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (JAIST), Professor Hiroyuki Iida's research group is developing new theories to analyze and ultimately understand the many facets of games and game playing, both from purely objective and psychological points of view. In their latest study published in IEEE Access Prof. Iida, alongside first author of the paper Anggina Primanita and Mohd Nor Akmal Khalid, also from JAIST, attempted to bridge computing notions with the experience of game playing. To do this, they proposed two indicators to be used in search tree algorithms--the probability-based proof number (PPN) and the single conspiracy number (SCN)--and applied them to various turn-based games.

These search indicators are values that search tree algorithms calculate to 'assess' their progress towards a desired objective. When playing a game, for example, an AI based on a search algorithm would use search indicators to analyze potential future states while looking mainly for plays that somehow maximize the chances of winning. Ultimately, search indicators and algorithms should be crafted carefully to minimize computing resources used; not every possible play has to be considered in detail, but only those that are likely to win.

The researchers applied these two indicators in search tree frameworks in the context of different games, including Chess, Chinese Chess, Connect 4, Othello, and 2048. The results revealed interesting information on what each indicator brings to the table. "The PPN-based search provided a means for determining the quality of information available in the game and seemed to operate in a similar fashion to human intuition. Contrarily, the SCN-based search provided a platform to understand the player's experience and how they manage risks when taking decisions," explains Prof. Iida.

Additionally, the SCN-based search approach was linked with another theoretical framework developed at Iida's lab: the concept of motion in mind. This approach analyzes various objective and subjective aspects of the game-playing experience in a mathematical fashion by drawing analogies with motion-related concepts from physics, such as those in classical mechanics. By comparing the SCN with these analogies of motion in games, the researchers found that the underlying computations are directly related to the oscillations (from losing to winning positions) that happen in both single-player and two-player competitive games.

Both search approaches analyzed in this study have applications in and outside the realm of games. For example, PPN can be used to save valuable resources and time during intensive computing tasks, such as optimization problems, planning, scheduling, and simulations. Meanwhile, the SCN is useful in contexts where high-stakes decisions must be made or when long-term planning is necessary, as it allows for optimizing values and minimizing risks. "Both PPN and SCN can be crucial components for research in the field of artificial intelligence, including evolutionary computations and high-performance computing," remarks Prof. Iida, "Moreover, they both provide stepping stones for measuring entertainment from an information science point of view."

Further multidisciplinary studies shall help us find more links between entertainment, information science, and the human mind. Hopefully, in the long run, we will be able to tailor games from a more subjective and even purpose-driven perspective, maximizing our enjoyment while being useful in many other ways.

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Reference

Title of original paper: "Computing Games: Bridging The Gap Between Search and Entertainment"

Journal: IEEE Access

DOI: 10.1109/ACCESS.2021.3079356

About Japan Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, Japan

Founded in 1990 in Ishikawa prefecture, the Japan Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (JAIST) was the first independent national graduate school in Japan. Now, after 30 years of steady progress, JAIST has become one of Japan's top-ranking universities. JAIST counts with multiple satellite campuses and strives to foster capable leaders with a state-of-the-art education system where diversity is key; about 40% of its alumni are international students. The university has a unique style of graduate education based on a carefully designed coursework-oriented curriculum to ensure that its students have a solid foundation on which to carry out cutting-edge research. JAIST also works closely both with local and overseas communities by promoting industry-academia collaborative research.

About Professor Hiroyuki Iida from Japan Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, Japan

Dr. Hiroyuki Iida received his Ph.D. in 1994 on Heuristic Theories on Game-Tree Search from the Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology, Japan. Since 2005, he has been a Professor at JAIST, where he is also Trustee and Vice President of Educational and Student Affairs. He is the head of the Iida laboratory and has published over 300 hundred papers, presentations, and books. His current research interests include artificial intelligence, game informatics, game theory, mathematical modeling, search algorithms, game-refinement theory, game tree search, and entertainment science.

Funding information

This study was funded by a grant from the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science in the framework of the Grant-in-Aid for Challenging Exploratory Research (Grant Number: 19K22893).

HOUSING IS A RIGHT

Analyzing the impact of college gameday homes in the American south

How vacant gameday homes affect housing prices, neighborhoods in Southern college towns

PROPERTY IS THEFT 

GEORGIA STATE UNIVERSITY

Research News

 

ATLANTA--Absentee property ownership in many small college football towns has a negative impact on permanent residents of those communities, according to a study by a Georgia State University geosciences researcher.

The research is the first known attempt to quantify and map local geographies of gameday home investments.

Each weekend in the fall tens of thousands of football fans flood into college towns to watch their favorite teams kick off against rival schools. Many of them stay in gameday homes, investment properties that sit vacant for much of the year. Taylor Shelton, assistant professor of geosciences and the study's author, examined data from more than a dozen college towns in the South where schools in the Southeastern Conference attract large fan followings. He compared cities like Athens, Ga., Gainesville, Fla., and Auburn, Ala., and developed a study of Starkville, Miss., home of theMississippi State Bulldogs.

"The city of Starkville only has 25,000 people, and Mississippi State students make up nearly another 20,000," saidShelton. "But the football stadium holds over 60,000 fans, so the population of the city doubles or triples on gameday weekends, meaning the entire nature of the town is transformed."

The study, published in Cities: The International Journal of Urban Policy and Planning, analyzed local property ownership records, construction permits and U.S Census data. Shelton found that between five and 10 percent of all housing units in Starkville are likely gameday homes, and much of the town's net growth in housing units over the last 15 years is made up of vacant properties that are suspected to be gameday homes. In some neighborhoods, more than 75 percent of housing units are used as gameday homes.

According to Shelton, these properties -- which have grown significantly in the Southeast in recent years -- are owned by wealthy alumni, fans and investors who rarely occupy the homes, resulting in a net-negative for permanent residents.

"Having so much of the activity in the housing market focused on these limited-use, largely vacant properties drive up housing prices for the people who actually live and work in the area," said Shelton. "A lot of these smaller towns are now seeing rapid growth, but it really cuts into the kind of vibrancy and energy that you expect from a college town."

Changes to zoning and tax laws could ease some of the impacts, according to the study, but Shelton said implementation of these changes has been slow because gameday homes confer financial benefits for state and local governments.

"Bigger cities have implemented vacancy taxes on properties to discourage people from buying homes for speculative or temporary uses," Shelton said. "Being able to access some of that money and then reinvest it directly into affordable housing is a really simple step. But smaller cities are hesitant to do too much because they like the property tax revenue and they don't have the simultaneous burden of providing municipal services to year-round residents."

Cities like Starkville are often hamstrung by state laws that preempt localities from enacting stricter regulations on landlords or developers beyond what's prescribed at the state level, according to Shelton, which means things are likely to get worse over time.

One of the main goals of the study was to develop a reproducible method to identify gameday homes that can be applied in any city or college town across the U.S., helping researchers and policymakers make sense of what's driving this phenomenon.

"I hope this research can provide some legitimacy to efforts to create a more just and equitable housing in these smaller cities," said Shelton. "We should place the focus on what residents actually want and need to make their lives better, rather than having places that cater towards wealthy out-of-town alumni and fans."

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New research shows ridesharing services reduce sexual assault

INSTITUTE FOR OPERATIONS RESEARCH AND THE MANAGEMENT SCIENCES

Research News

 

Research Study Key Takeaways:

• Ridesharing can reduce a passenger's risk of being a target of sexual assault by providing a more reliable and timely transportation option for traveling to a safer place.

• The entry of Uber into a city contributes to a 6.3% reduction in rape incidents.

• A 1% increase in Uber pickups in a neighborhood translates to a more than 3% decrease in the likelihood of sexual assaults.

CATONSVILLE, MD, May 24, 2021 - Contrary to portraits painted in popular media, new research involving ridesharing services shows they provide an additional level of protection for potential sexual assault victims, particularly in neighborhoods with inadequate public transportation or in circumstances that are more prone to sex crimes.

The study, "The Deterrent Effect of Ride-sharing on Sexual Assault and Investigation of Situational Contingencies," published in the INFORMS journal Information Systems Research, found the entry of Uber into a city in the United States contributes to a 6.3% reduction in rape incidents.

"Even a 1% increase in Uber pickups in a neighborhood translates to a more than 3% decrease in the likelihood of sexual assaults," said Jiyong Park of the University of North Carolina at Greensboro.

The study was conducted by Park alongside Min-Seok Pang of Temple University, Junetae Kim of the National Cancer Center Korea and Byungtae Lee of the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology.

This research investigates the relationship between ridesharing and sexual assault, which has been a controversial, but underexplored topic in public debates on the sharing economy and ridesharing. This study is the first to present systematic empirical evidence that a ridesharing platform can provide a viable means to prevent sexual crimes under certain circumstances.

"Ridesharing can reduce a passenger's risk of being a target of sexual assault by providing a more reliable and timely transportation option for traveling to a safer place," said Park. "Moreover, ridesharing contributes to a more significant reduction in the likelihood of rape occurrences in neighborhoods with limited transportation accessibility, such as the city's outskirts and neighborhoods where a higher percentage of the population is non-Caucasian."

The study also found that ridesharing is more effective in deterring sexual crime in riskier circumstances, such as around alcohol-serving establishments on weekend nights or when the probability of crime occurrences increases.

"Despite the common misconception due to popular media stories, our work proves that digital platforms can be leveraged to solve societal challenges by matching supply and demand closely for relevant services, which calls for spatiotemporal investigations of granular-level data in designing platform businesses and devising policy instruments," concluded Park.

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About INFORMS and Information Systems Research

Information Systems Research is a premier peer-reviewed scholarly journal that covers the latest theory, research and intellectual developments for information systems in institutions, organizations, the economy and society to advance knowledge about the effective and efficient utilization of information technology. It is published by INFORMS, the leading international association for operations research and analytics professionals. More information is available at http://www.informs.org or @informs.

Contact:

THEY BECOME CAREGIVERS

Helping adults navigate the decision to move back in with parents

NORTH CAROLINA STATE UNIVERSITY

Research News

 

A recent study offers insight into how adults can navigate the often awkward experience of moving back in with their parents.

"People move back in with their parents for a lot of reasons, and the trend is increasing due to the COVID-19 pandemic and related economic woes," says Lynsey Romo, co-author of the study and an associate professor of communication at North Carolina State University.

"We launched this study before the pandemic happened because we wanted to learn more about how adults who move back in with their parents manage that process," Romo says. "How do they think about it? How do they talk about it?

"We think the findings are valuable because they provide some guidelines people can use to help ensure that 'moving back home' is a step forward instead of a step backward," Romo says.

For this study, researchers conducted in-depth interviews with 31 adults between the ages of 22 and 31. And the findings were straightforward.

"On one hand, study participants were certainly aware of the stigma associated with moving back in with one's parents as an adult," Romo says. "However, it was equally clear that framing the decision to move back in with one's parents as an investment in the future helped people think about the decision in a positive way and communicate about it in a positive way."

Specifically, the researchers found there were four things people did to make the move back home a positive experience for themselves and their parents.

1). Communicate clear expectations: It was important to have clearly defined expectations for both parents and adult children. For example, do the children pay rent? Are they expected to be home by a certain time each evening?

2). Contribute to the household: Things worked more smoothly when grown children made clear what they would do to benefit the larger household, such as attending to domestic chores.

3). Lay out intended timelines: It was good for all parties when the people moving back home had thought out how long they would be living with their parents, what their career and financial goals were, and how living with their parents would help them achieve those goals.

4). Embody adult behavior: Adults returning home should avoid slipping into habits formed when they were children, if they want to be treated as adults. In short, both parents and their grown children should give and expect respect in their relationships.

"Moving back home is a reality for a lot of people right now," Romo says. "Hopefully, this work will help them make the most of that circumstance and avoid any stigma associated with it."

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The study, "A Normative Approach to Understanding How 'Boomerang Kids' Communicatively Negotiate Moving Back Home," is published in the journal Emerging Adulthood. Corresponding author of the study is Jenna Abetz, an associate professor of communicaton at the College of Charleston.

 UK

Sustainable funding needed to provide nursery places

UNIVERSITY OF LEEDS

Research News

 PRINT  E-MAILExtra funding should be made available for early years care in the wake of the pandemic, researchers say.

Experts at the University of Leeds, University of Oxford and Oxford Brookes University have made the call after assessing the benefits of early childhood education and care (ECEC) for children under three during COVID-19.

They found children who attended childcare outside the home throughout the first UK lockdown made greater gains in language and thinking skills, particularly if they were from less advantaged backgrounds.

And now they are making several policy recommendations including

- A sustainable funding model for nursery provision

- Promotion of funded places in target areas where take-up is low

- Removal of administrative barriers to the take-up of places

Dr Catherine Davies, Associate Professor in Language Development in the School of Languages, Cultures and Societies, who co-authored the study, said: "Our data clearly show that children from all backgrounds benefit from attending childcare for all or part of the week. Their cognitive skills become stronger, which will help them in their later learning and development, too. Government investment in sustainable, high-quality early years education and care is crucial so that all families can access this support."

Part of a nationally-funded project on Social Distancing and Development, the aim of the study was to analyse the impact of attending childcare - and of missing out - on children from different backgrounds, and to provide evidence for policymakers planning for further lockdowns and disruptions to early education and care.

The researchers worked with 189 UK families with children aged 8 to 36 months old during spring and winter 2020, when nurseries were closed to all children except those of critical workers or those classed as vulnerable. Between March and June 2020, nursery attendance dropped to less than 10% of usual levels. This was followed by an extended period of quarantine measures, reduced attendance, and disruption to sessions.

The families answered questions about their use of formal childcare such as nursery and childminders before, during and between lockdowns, informal childcare from family members or friends, and about their income, level of education, occupation and neighbourhood. Parents completed surveys about the number of words that their child said or understood, and their child's early thinking skills, or executive functions - the control of attention, behaviour and emotion. They followed up six months later, reporting again on their child's language ability and thinking skills.

Parents were asked to record their child's understanding and use of words across categories such as animals, vehicles and food. They were also asked how often their child exhibited different behaviours, and then played games designed to elicit skills such as waiting, finding, and sorting.

The team then explored associations between time spent at ECEC, the families' socioeconomic background, and children's growth in language and thinking skills.

Their findings showed that a child who regularly attended ECEC one day per week during the pandemic could be expected to understand an average of 24 more new words over the Spring-Winter 2020 period compared with their peers, while a child regularly attending two days could be expected to understand 48 more new words than their peers over the same period, and so on. This effect was greater among children from less affluent backgrounds. Overall, the results suggest that those children who could not attend nursery were disadvantaged by the social distancing measures.

In addition, children from all backgrounds who continued to attend nursery displayed boosted growth in thinking skills.

Study co-author Dr Alexandra Hendry, a research fellow at the University of Oxford, said: "Lower-income families have been disproportionately impacted by infections, deaths, unemployment, and mental ill-health during the pandemic - all stressors which are likely to negatively affect home interactions with children. We have demonstrated that early childhood education and care boosts these children's vocabulary skills, and all children's thinking skills.

"Solid abilities in these areas are likely to have cascading positive effects as children move through their preschool years and beyond. To maintain these benefits for child development and for levelling inequalities, properly-funded, high-quality early childhood education and care is crucial."

The project lead for the Social Distancing and Development Study, Dr Nayeli Gonzalez-Gomez, Senior Lecturer in Psychology at Oxford Brookes University, noted "Our findings add to the evidence base that providing access to properly-funded, safe, and high-quality early childhood education and care may be a way to level some of the inequalities experienced by children from less privileged background, while still benefiting all children."

The paper, Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) during COVID-19 boosts growth in language and executive function, is published in Infant and Child Development.

The research was funded by the Economic and Social Research Council as part of its rapid response to COVID-19.

Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists' chief executive Kamini Gadhok MBE says: "This important research provides clear evidence that young children from disadvantaged backgrounds have been disproportionately affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, with a worrying impact on their language development.

"Given the importance of language skills for young people's life chances, it's imperative that governments across all four nations put support for children's communication and language development at the centre of education recovery plans. This must include action and funding in the early years which supports pre-school settings to work in partnership with speech and language therapists."

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Notes to editor:

* The Social Distancing and Development Study is funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) as part of the UK Research and Innovation's rapid response to COVID-19 (ES/V004085/1). The Social Distancing and Development Study has been undertaken by Nayeli Gonzalez-Gomez at the Oxford Brookes University, in collaboration with Catherine Davies at the University of Leeds, Alexandra Hendry at University of Oxford, Theodora Gliga at the University of East Anglia, and Michelle McGillion at the University of Warwick. Dr Hendry is supported by the Scott Family Junior Research Fellowship in Autism, at University College Oxford.

The University of Leeds

The University of Leeds is one of the largest higher education institutions in the UK, with more than 38,000 students from more than 150 different countries, and a member of the Russell Group of research-intensive universities. The University plays a significant role in the Turing, Rosalind Franklin and Royce Institutes.

We are a top ten university for research and impact power in the UK, according to the 2014 Research Excellence Framework, and are in the top 100 of the QS World University Rankings 2021. Additionally, the University was awarded a Gold rating by the Government's Teaching Excellence Framework in 2017, recognising its 'consistently outstanding' teaching and learning provision. Twenty-six of our academics have been awarded National Teaching Fellowships - more than any other institution in England, Northern Ireland and Wales - reflecting the excellence of our teaching. Over a third of our academics are involved in applied research or as consultants to industry, and over the last ten years, the University of Leeds has produced more than 100 'spin-out' companies. http://www.leeds.ac.uk

University of Oxford

The University of Oxford's Experimental Psychology Department's mission is to conduct world-leading experimental research to understand the psychological and neural mechanisms relevant to human behaviour. Wherever appropriate, we translate our findings into evidence-based public benefits in mental health and well-being, education, industry, and policy. Key areas of research include Behavioural Neuroscience, Developmental Psychology, Social Psychology, and Psychological and Brain Health.

Oxford University has been placed number 1 in the Times Higher Education World University Rankings for the fifth year running, and at the heart of this success is our ground-breaking research and innovation. Oxford is world-famous for research excellence and home to some of the most talented people from across the globe. Our work helps the lives of millions, solving real-world problems through a huge network of partnerships and collaborations. The breadth and interdisciplinary nature of our research sparks imaginative and inventive insights and solutions.

For further information, please contact: Genevieve Juillet, Media Relations Manager (Research and Innovation), University of Oxford, gen.juillet@admin.ox.ac.uk, phone 01865 280534.

* Set in a historic student city, Oxford Brookes is one of the UK's leading universities and enjoys an international reputation for teaching excellence and innovation as well as strong links with business and industry. More information is available on the Oxford Brookes website at http://www.brookes.ac.uk

Further information: For media enquiries, contact University of Leeds press officer Lauren Ballinger via l.ballinger@leeds.ac.uk.

A community health worker intervention reduces hospital readmissions

The benefit was seen among patients discharged to short-term rehabilitation

MASSACHUSETTS GENERAL HOSPITAL

Research News

 

BOSTON - The Community CAre Transitions (C-CAT) clinical trial, which paired community health workers (CHWs) with patients admitted to Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), has found that fewer intervention group participants were readmitted within 30 days than control group participants. The effect was significant for those discharged to short-term rehabilitation but not for those discharged home. The study has been published in JAMA Network Open.

"These results indicate that CHW interventions may help reduce hospital readmissions and improve preventive care among some clinically complex patients within an accountable care organization," says lead author and C-CAT trial principal investigator Jocelyn Carter, MD, MPH, a physician-scientist in the MGH Division of General Internal Medicine.

Hospital readmissions have been identified as a major contributor to health care costs, accounting for a third of total U.S. health care expenditures. Thirty-day readmissions are common and about 27% of adult 30-day readmissions are estimated to be preventable. Previous studies have identified factors such as medical complexity and social determinants of health as contributing to readmission risk.

While community health workers are one of few interventions demonstrating compelling evidence of improving outcomes in clinically and socially complex populations, most CHW studies have focused on disease-based cohorts. The study of CHW interventions at the time of hospital discharge has been underutilized and prior trial results have been mixed.

In the C-CAT study, CHWs, trained in basic knowledge of clinical conditions, provided health coaching and connected patients to specific low and no-cost resources (e.g., food, transportation, housing-related) contributing to gaps in care. Using the framework of motivational interviewing and psychosocial support, CHWs sought to strengthen patient connections to primary care while addressing unmet needs. To test the effect of CHW care delivery on 30-day readmission in a population insured by a Mass General Brigham accountable care organization, 278 participants were randomized to receive usual care along with the 30-day CHW intervention and 273 participants were randomized to usual care only. Members of the C-CAT study team enrolled patients on six internal medicine units from 2017 to 2019. CHWs met participants in-hospital prior to discharge.

Of the 550 participants analyzed, the mean age was 70.1, 48.4% were women, and 70.5% were Medicare insured. All trial participants had a mean of three hospitalizations in the 12 months prior. Overall, 24.5% of control and 21.7% of intervention participants were discharged to rehabilitation with a mean length of stay of 3.9 days.

Just 12.6% of intervention group participants were readmitted in the 30 days following hospital discharge, as opposed to 24.5% of control participants. However, Carter and her colleagues noted a statistically significant reduction in readmissions among patients discharged to rehabilitation but not in those discharged directly home: Intervention vs. control participants discharged to rehabilitation demonstrated a 32.3% reduction in readmissions (5.0% vs 37.3%) compared to a 5.7% reduction seen in those discharged home (14.7% vs 20.4%) . In addition, fewer intervention than control patients had missed appointments (22.0% vs. 33.7%) and ED visits (11.2% vs. 16.8%).

While the intervention effect was seen in patient discharged to short-stay rehabilitation prior to returning home, the researchers note that prior studies have shown that patients with complex co-morbidities discharged to rehabilitation facilities have markedly elevated rates of readmission, ranging from 28% to 75%. CHWs might have positively influenced these numbers by addressing unmet medical and social issues that occurred during the transition from rehabilitation to home, and improving communication between patients, rehabilitation staff, and the primary care providers after discharge. Carter notes: "Surprisingly, there was a strong and significant reduction in 30-day readmissions for patients discharged to rehabilitation. This is a population with limited demonstrated interventions shown to improve outcomes. Additional research is needed to examine why this effect was seen as well as which patients benefitted most from certain CHW intervention activities."

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Carter is an instructor in Medicine at Harvard Medical School (HMS). Senior author Anne Thorndike, MD, MPH, is an investigator in the Division of General Internal Medicine at MGH and associate professor of Medicine at HMS. Additional co-authors are CHW staff members Susan Hassan, B.A., Anne Walton, RN, AsEd AE-C; Karen Donelan, ScD, EdM, of the MGH Department of Medicine and the Mongan Institute and who is also the Stuart H. Altman Chair at the Heller School at Brandeis University; and Liyang Yu, MS Bioinformatics Specialist at MGH.

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The study was supported by a Partners HealthCare Center for Population Health Delivery System Innovation Implementation Grant and the Healthcare Transformation Lab at MGH.

About the Massachusetts General Hospital

Massachusetts General Hospital, founded in 1811, is the original and largest teaching hospital of Harvard Medical School. The Mass General Research Institute conducts the largest hospital-based research program in the nation, with annual research operations of more than $1 billion and comprises more than 9,500 researchers working across more than 30 institutes, centers and departments. In August 2020, Mass General was named #6 in the U.S. News & World Report list of "America's Best Hospitals."

New study shows never before seen nutrient exchanges between algae and bacteria

Research co-led by Newcastle University has shed new light on important microscopic scale interactions between algae and bacteria predicated on the mutually beneficial exchange of nutrients.

NEWCASTLE UNIVERSITY

Research News

 

IMAGE: THE FIGURE SHOWS HOW THE AMOUNT OF LABELLED CARBON IN ALGAE AND BACTERIA GROWING TOGETHER CHANGES WITH TIME (LOW IS BLUE AND HIGH IS RED). ON THE RIGHT HAND SIDE,... view more 

CREDIT: THE AUTHORS

Research co-led by Newcastle University has shed new light on important microscopic scale interactions between algae and bacteria predicated on the mutually beneficial exchange of nutrients.

The research was carried out at the University of Cambridge and the Nordsim laboratory at the Swedish Museum of Natural History in Stockholm by Dr Hannah Laeverenz Schlogelhofer, now at the University of Exeter, and a team led by Dr Ottavio Croze, of Newcastle University's School of Mathematics, Statistics and Physics.

They have used an advanced high-spatial resolution isotope mapping technique called 'SIMS' (secondary ion mass spectrometry) to chart for the first time how long it takes for labelled carbon produced by microalgae to be transferred to the bacteria they are growing with.

The study reveals the details of important nutrient exchanges between algae and bacteria. Such exchanges determine the functioning of microbial communities in the environment, relevant to climate change cycles and agricultural productivity. Microbial interactions within microbial communities are important on many levels, ranging from the ecology of aquatic and terrestrial food webs, to wastewater treatment. A key characteristic of the interactions within these communities is the exchange of nutrients between species.

Publishing their findings in the journal PLOS ONE, the research team, involving also scientists from Stockholm University, Sweden, also used a mathematical model to predict how the concentrations of nutrients exchanged between the microbes change with time, including vitamin B12, which occurs in very low concentrations and is not easily trackable.

Many species of algae and bacteria share mutually beneficial resources. In this study, the algae depend on bacteria as a source of vitamin B12, as they can't make it themselves. On the other hand, bacteria rely on carbon produced by algae for their growth. The research combines SIMS and mathematical modelling to show what happens when microbial partners able to exchange nutrients are initially brought together.

Principal investigator of the study, Dr Croze said: "The paper concerns the onset of the mutualistic interaction between microalgae and bacteria, that is microbes that need each other to grow and survive, and the transfer of nutrients between them.

"Our results allow establishing when the microbial partners first form a 'relationship' by growing exclusively on the nutrients they respectively produce. The method we have developed is widely applicable to other microbial systems, and we hope it will contribute to furthering a mechanistic understanding of interactions within microbial communities in the environment and biotechnological applications."

Dr Laeverenz Schlogelhofer added: "It is the interdisciplinary nature of our approach to studying microbial interactions that I think will have broad applications. While the single-cell technique SIMS allowed us to visualise and measure the carbon exchange between algae and bacteria, mathematical modelling provided a link between the experimental observations and our understanding of the underlying nutrient kinetics."

Co-author Dr Rachel Foster, from Stockholm University, said: "I appreciate most that the work takes highly resolved single cell measurements and directly applies them for predicting nutrient acquisitions between cells. Hence we can use calculated rate measurements based on the SIMS measures instead of assuming an activity rate, and this approach should be far-reaching and applicable to many other microbial populations-free and/or symbiotic."

CAPTION

The figure shows a schematic of the processes that we considered in out mathematical model, including the production of dissolved organic carbon (DOC) by the algae and its assimilation by the bacteria, and the production of vitamin B12 by the bacteria an its assimilation by the algae.

CREDIT

The authors