The strange impact of the first consumer review

Shopping online? Here's what you should know about user reviews

UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA

Research News

 

IMAGE: A PRODUCT'S FIRST REVIEW CAN HAVE AN OUTSIZED EFFECT ON THE ITEM'S FUTURE -- IT CAN EVEN CAUSE THE PRODUCT TO FAIL. view more 

CREDIT: SHANNON ALEXANDER/UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA

If you're about to buy something online and its only customer review is negative, you'd probably reconsider the purchase, right? It turns out a product's first review can have an outsized effect on the item's future -- it can even cause the product to fail.

Shoppers, retailers and manufacturers alike feel the effects of customer reviews. Researchers at the University of Florida's Warrington College of Business looked at the influence of the first review after noticing the exact same products getting positive reviews on one retailer's website but negative reviews on others, said Sungsik Park, Ph.D., who studied the phenomenon as a doctoral student at UF.

"Why would a product receive a 4.7-star rating with 100 reviews on Amazon, but only four or five reviews with a two-star rating Walmart or BestBuy?" Park wondered.

To find out, Park -- now an assistant professor at the Darla Moore School of Business at the University of South Carolina -- teamed up with UF professors Jinhong Xie, Ph.D., and Woochoel Shin, Ph.D., to analyze what might cause the variation. By comparing identical vacuum cleaners, toasters and digital cameras on Amazon and Best Buy, they were able to isolate the first review as the variable in how the product fared. They showed that the first review can affect a product's overall reviews for up to three years, influencing both the amount and the tone of later reviews.

"The first review has the potential to sway the entire evolution path of online consumer reviews," Shin said.

How could one review have such a lasting impact? When the first review on a retailer's site was positive, the product went on to garner a larger number of reviews overall, and they were more likely to be positive. When a product got a negative first review, fewer people were willing to take a chance on buying it, so it had fewer opportunities to receive positive reviews, creating a lingering impact from the first unhappy customer.

"Once you think about how user reviews are generated, it makes sense," Park said.

The findings, published in the journal Marketing Science, suggest that retailers and manufacturers should take steps to detect negative first reviews and mitigate their impact.

Firms generally monitor their online reviews and evaluate their strategies accordingly, Xie explained. "However, they do so by focusing on average rating rather than a single rating, and after the product has sufficient time to be evaluated by consumers. Our research suggests that firms need to pay attention to a special single review (i.e., the first one) as soon as it is posted."

Consumers, on the other hand, might want to check multiple sites' reviews before they rule out a product. If you're looking at several sites to compare prices, Park suggests comparison shopping reviews, too. (For big ticket items, Park also checks third-party reviews like Consumer Reports.)

Because shoppers consider user reviews more trustworthy than information from advertising, it's important to understand the factors that could skew those ratings.

"We want consumers to know that this information can be easily distorted," Park said.

States with more gun laws have lower youth gun violence, Rutgers study finds

Safety in schools contributed to increased gun and weapon carrying behaviors

RUTGERS UNIVERSITY

Research News 

Gun violence among children is lower in states with more gun laws, according to a Rutgers-led study.

The study, published in the Journal of Youth and Adolescence, examined youth gun and weapon carrying data from 2005 and 2017 across several states. Researchers found the rates of youths carrying guns were higher in states with less gun laws and lower in states with more gun laws. According to researchers, this phenomenon could be associated with large urban areas and more significant safety concerns within these areas.

Louisiana and Arkansas reported the highest percentages of youth reporting gun carrying behavior in 2017 and 2013 respectively, with 12.7 percent and 12.5 percent respectively. These two states had 13 gun laws in place while the lowest rates of gun carrying among youth were reported in New York in 2013 and Iowa in 2007, with 3.0 percent and 3.5 percent respectively. They had 63 laws and 20 laws, respectively for these years.

"We understood the role of individual characteristics in youth gun carrying, but we often ignored the broader environmental context surrounding youth gun carrying behavior, such as whether gun laws are in place in a state to discourage access to guns," said Professor Paul Boxer, a co-author and professor of psychology at Rutgers-Newark. "Our study helped provide clarity to these associations."

Gun violence among children is a significant public health concern in the United States. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, firearms are the third leading cause of death among U.S. children ages 1 to 17.

Researchers highlighted how legislation potentially influences gun violence trends regardless of whether youth carry guns and the need for improved safety in communities and schools.

"Though more work is needed, the current findings point to the potential of gun laws to lower youth gun carrying behavior, which all sides of the gun-law debate can agree is unwanted and dangerous," said John Gunn, the study's lead author and a postdoctoral researcher at the Rutgers Gun Violence Research Center.

Using Artificial Intelligence to prevent harm caused by immunotherapy

Researchers discover biomarkers to identify lung cancer patients who could be made worse by same drugs that helps many others

CASE WESTERN RESERVE UNIVERSITY

Research News

 

CLEVELAND--Researchers at Case Western Reserve University, using artificial intelligence (AI) to analyze simple tissue scans, say they have discovered biomarkers that could tell doctors which lung cancer patients might actually get worse from immunotherapy.

Until recently, researchers and oncologists had placed these lung cancer patients into two broad categories: those who would benefit from immunotherapy, and those who likely would not.

But a third category--patients called hyper-progressors who would actually be harmed by immunotherapy, including a shortened lifespan after treatment--has begun to emerge, said Pranjal Vaidya, a PhD student in biomedical engineering and researcher at the university's Center for Computational Imaging and Personalized Diagnostics (CCIPD).

"This is a significant subset of patients who should potentially avoid immunotherapy entirely," said Vaidya, first author on a 2020 paper announcing the findings in the Journal for Immunotherapy of Cancer. "Eventually, we would want this to be integrated into clinical settings, so that the doctors would have all the information needed to make the call for each individual patient."

Ongoing research into immunotherapy

Currently, only about 20% of all cancer patients will actually benefit from immunotherapy, a treatment that differs from chemotherapy in that it uses drugs to help the immune system fight cancer, while chemotherapy uses drugs to directly kill cancer cells, according to the National Cancer Institute.

The CCIPD, led by Anant Madabhushi, Donnell Institute Professor of Biomedical Engineering, has become a global leader in the detection, diagnosis and characterization of various cancers and other diseases by meshing medical imaging, machine learning and AI.

This new work follows other recent research by CCIPD scientists which has demonstrated that AI and machine learning can be used to predict which lung cancer patients will benefit from immunotherapy.

In this and previous research, scientists from Case Western Reserve and Cleveland Clinic essentially teach computers to seek and identify patterns in CT scans taken when lung cancer is first diagnosed to reveal information that could have been useful if known before treatment.

And while many cancer patients have benefitted from immunotherapy, researchers are seeking a better way to identify who would mostly likely respond to those treatments.

"This is an important finding because it shows that radiomic patterns from routine CT scans are able to discern three kinds of response in lung cancer patients undergoing immunotherapy treatment--responders, non-responders and the hyper-progressors," said Madabhushi, senior author of the study.

"There are currently no validated biomarkers to distinguish this subset of high risk patients that not only don't benefit from immunotherapy but may in fact develop rapid acceleration of disease on treatment," said Pradnya Patil, MD, FACP, associate staff at Taussig Cancer Institute, Cleveland Clinic, and study author.

"Analysis of radiomic features on pre-treatment routinely performed scans could provide a non-invasive means to identify these patients," Patil said. "This could prove to be an invaluable tool for treating clinicians while determining optimal systemic therapy for their patients with advanced non- small cell lung cancer."

Information outside the tumor

As with other previous cancer research at the CCIPD, scientists again found some of the most significant clues to which patients would be harmed by immunotherapy outside the tumor.

"We noticed the radiomic features outside the tumor were more predictive than those inside the tumor, and changes in the blood vessels surrounding the nodule were also more predictive," Vaidya said.

This most recent research was conducted with data collected from 109 patients with non-small cell lung cancer being treated with immunotherapy, she said.

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Zinc may help with fertility during COVID-19 pandemic, researchers report

WAYNE STATE UNIVERSITY - OFFICE OF THE VICE PRESIDENT FOR RESEARCH

Research News

 

DETROIT - Wayne State University School of Medicine researchers have reported that zinc supplements for men and women attempting to conceive either naturally or through assisted reproduction during the COVID-19 pandemic may prevent mitochondrial damage in young egg and sperm cells, as well as enhance immunity against the virus.

In "Potential Role of Zinc in the COVID-19 Disease Process and its Probable Impact on Reproduction," published in Reproductive Sciences, Husam Abu-Soud, Ph.D., associate professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology and the C.S. Mott Center for Growth and Development, said that in addition to benefiting couples attempting to conceive during the pandemic, zinc supplementation of up to a maximum of 50 mg per day for all adults could be beneficial in enhancing immunity and fighting the viral disease process of COVID-19.

Dr. Abu-Soud and co-authors Ramya Sethuram, Reproductive Endocrinology and Infertility fellow, and medical student David Bai, reviewed the pathophysiology of COVID-19, particularly in relation to reproductive function. They found that zinc depletion in connection with the cytokine storm - the overreaction of the immune system that causes inflammation, tissue damage and possible organ failure in fighting COVID-19 - can cause mitochondrial damage and an accumulation of reactive oxygen species in the immature egg and sperm. The result could prevent reproduction and conception.

Zinc has beneficial effects as an antioxidant and anti-inflammatory agent, and could prevent or mitigate the damage in the egg and sperm cells that result from the body's immune reaction to the virus, Dr. Abu-Soud said. The use of zinc could improve embryo quality and potentially lessen some pregnancy complications.

He also noted that zinc can be beneficial to the general population in enhancing immunity and fighting the viral disease process. The element works by combating oxidative cell damage.

Zinc alone may be insufficient to reverse the process once widespread oxidative cell damage has occurred. However, if the supplement is administered to those infected with COVID-19 before the cytokine storm phase, zinc may assist in ameliorating disease progression in the mild and early phases by suppressing viral replication and preventing cell damage as a pro-antioxidant, the researchers said.

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About Wayne State University

Wayne State University is one of the nation's pre-eminent public research universities in an urban setting. Through its multidisciplinary approach to research and education, and its ongoing collaboration with government, industry and other institutions, the university seeks to enhance economic growth and improve the quality of life in the city of Detroit, state of Michigan and throughout the world. For more information about research at Wayne State University, visit research.wayne.edu

Garlic and selenium increase stress resistance in carps, says a RUDN University biologist

RUDN UNIVERSITY

Research News

 

IMAGE: A BIOLOGIST FROM RUDN UNIVERSITY CONFIRMED THAT SELENIUM NANOPARTICLES AND GARLIC EXTRACT CAN EFFECTIVELY REDUCE THE NEGATIVE IMPACT OF STRESS ON THE HEALTH OF GRASS CARP IN THE BREEDING INDUSTRY. view more 

CREDIT: RUDN UNIVERSITY

A biologist from RUDN University confirmed that selenium nanoparticles and garlic extract can effectively reduce the negative impact of stress on the health of grass carp in the breeding industry. The results of his study were published in the Journal of the World Aquaculture Society.

Grass carp or Ctenopharyngodon Idella is a valuable commercial fish type. In order to increase productivity, fish farms tend to breed more and more fish in small reservoirs. This extreme population density causes stress in carps that negatively affects their health, namely, reduces immunity, slows down growth, suppresses digestion, and interferes with intestinal functions. To mitigate these effects and support the immune system of the fish, farmers often use dietary supplements. A biologist from RUDN University confirmed the efficiency of selenium and garlic extract that increase stress resistance in carps.

"Being a component of the enzyme glutathione peroxidase, selenium protects cell membranes from oxidative damage. It is also known to support immunity and gut health in fish. In its turn, garlic increases the growth rate, improves immunity and antioxidant activity, and supports the activity of digestive enzymes in fish. However, until recently, no data on the effect of selenium and garlic extract on the productivity of actively bred young grass carps has been available. Therefore, we decided to research the ability of these substances to mitigate stress," said Morteza Yousefi, PhD, an assistant professor at the Department of Veterinary Medicine, RUDN University.

The team divided 1,008 healthy juvenile grass carps with an average weight of two grams into six groups and put them into 18 48-liter pools with low (24 fish), medium (48 fish), and high (96 fish) population density. Half of the fish received 1 mg of Se nanoparticles and 1 g of garlic per 1 kg of fodder (diet 1), while the other half got twice as much of both supplements (diet 2). After 60 days, the team compared the growth rate, blood composition, and digestive enzyme activity in both groups and broke the data down by population density levels.

The fish from the pools with medium and low population density that received more selenium and garlic grew the most: by 286% and 276%, respectively. The experiment showed that both low and high population density caused a stress reaction in fish that led to the reduction of antioxidant enzyme activity. However, regardless of the density, the levels of cortisol, also known as the hormone of stress, were lower in the group that received diet 2: 30 ng/ml against 40 ng/ml in the group that received diet 1. According to the researchers, adding selenium and garlic to fodder could partially compensate for the stress of breeding in highly populated pools.

"We confirmed that both dietary supplements and population density have a prominent effect on growth rate and food utilization in grass carp. Higher concentrations of selenium and garlic extract in the diet suppress the stress reaction, reduce oxidizing damage and lipid damage, and improve the growth rate, digestive enzyme activity, antioxidant properties, and the general state of health of the fish. Moreover, at medium population density, the fish grew bigger than at low or high density. Therefore, these conditions should be considered the most optimal for breeding," added Morteza Yousefi, PhD, an assistant professor at the Department of Veterinary Medicine, RUDN University.

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COVID-19: Schools urgently need guidelines on improving ventilation in classrooms

SAGE

Research News

 

There is an urgent need for guidelines on how schools can use ventilation to reduce the risk of COVID-19 transmission in the classroom, according to doctors at Imperial College London and the headteacher of a secondary school in Pinner, Middlesex. In a commentary published by the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine, the authors say that improving air quality in classroom spaces should be as important as following government advice regarding social distancing, mask-wearing and hand washing.

The authors point to lessons from the airline industry, where the risk of contracting COVID-19 on a flight is currently lower than from an office building or a classroom. Lead author Dr Kaveh Asanati, Honorary Clinical Senior Lecturer in occupational lung disease at the National Heart & Lung Institute, Imperial College London, said: "The multi-layer risk reduction strategy used in the aviation industry seems to have been working efficiently. The strategy includes testing passengers, the use of face coverings or masks, hygiene measures and, more importantly, maintaining clean air by circulating a mix of fresh air and recycled air through High-Efficiency Particulate Air (HEPA) filters."

Few school buildings have HEPA filtration but a potential practical option for schools would, according to the authors, be the use of portable HEPA filtration units. They say that the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends for healthcare workers during COVID-19 pandemic to consider the addition of these units to augment air quality in areas when permanent air-handling systems are not a feasible option. The authors go on to describe a study in a hospital room of COVID-19 patients, where the researchers were able to detect SARS-CoV-2 in aerosols, only when they used the air samplers without a HEPA filter on the inlet tube.

Dr Asanati said: "To keep schools open, there is an urgent need to implement more effective on-site mitigation strategies, with particular attention to ventilation and testing. In addition, it is essential that teachers and other school staff should be added to the priority list for vaccination."

The authors say a feasibility study of implementing better ventilation and filtration systems in schools is needed, as well as some pilot work and research involving indoor air quality and heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) experts. Until then, they write, keeping doors and windows open - for as much as is reasonably practicable - seems to be the best way forward.

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Civil engineers find link between hospitals and schools key to community resilience

Hospitals' and schools' collective recovery must be considered in the wake of a disaster

COLORADO STATE UNIVERSITY

Research News

 

Health care and education systems are two main pillars of a community's stability. How well and how quickly a community recovers following a natural disaster depends on the resilience of these essential social services.

New research from the Colorado State University Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, published in Nature Scientific Reports, has found hospitals and schools are interdependent, suggesting their collective recovery must be considered in order to restore a community in the wake of disaster.

Because hospitals and schools are so integral to a community's well-being, Associate Professor Hussam Mahmoud and Ph.D. graduate student Emad Hassan wanted to determine the correlation between them to understand their overall influence on community recovery following extreme events. They found extensive direct and indirect relationships between health care and education, indicating recovery of one system relies on recovery of the other.

"This quantification has never been done before, so it was exciting to show that they depend on each other quite a bit," Mahmoud said. "Synchronizing the recovery might actually be very important if you want to optimize the overall recovery for the community."

Checking in on Centerville

A community's health care and education systems are complex on their own. Each has its own facilities and functions, requiring infrastructure, staff and supplies. To examine the intricate interactions between these systems, Hassan and Mahmoud comprehensively modeled hospitals, schools, community-built environments and even community members.

They based their study on a virtual community called Centerville, complete with physical, social and economic sectors and 50,000 individuals. The model was so detailed that the imaginary residents had their own roles within the community and were able to interact, learn, adapt and make decisions.

"The study, with this level of resolution, enabled us to capture interdependencies between hospitals and schools at the family and individual levels, which surprisingly showed that the two systems are significantly related and have an enormous role in community recovery after disasters," said Hassan, who was awarded a grant from the American Geophysical Union to present the research at the AGU Fall Meeting 2020.

Working within the NIST Center for Risk-Based Community Resilience Planning at CSU was helpful to understand the nature of these complicated systems from different perspectives, he said.

The study revealed the compounded role of hospitals and schools in communities' social stability and allowed the researchers to apply different strategies to these systems that might accelerate the whole community recovery after disasters.

Now the modeling approach Hassan and Mahmoud developed can be used to investigate other systems subjected to various kinds of disasters.

How stable is your community?

In response to the high level of interdependence they uncovered between health care and education systems, Hassan and Mahmoud created a social services stability index, so policymakers and community leaders can measure the social services stability within their own communities based on the functionality of hospitals and schools combined.

Mahmoud hopes this tool and deeper understanding of how these interdependent systems function will help communities recover faster, rather than wither, following disaster. He points to Butte County, California, where the population has dropped by 11,000 in the aftermath of the Camp Fire, which badly damaged the only local hospital.

"Without schools and hospitals, society cannot function properly," Mahmoud said.

If healthy people are purposefully infected with COVID-19 for the sake of science, they should be paid

Multidisciplinary team of international experts suggests participants should receive a "substantial" amount, be paid ethically

TAYLOR & FRANCIS GROUP

Research News

 

IMAGE: MULTIDISCIPLINARY TEAM OF INTERNATIONAL EXPERTS SUGGESTS PARTICIPANTS SHOULD RECEIVE A "SUBSTANTIAL " AMOUNT, BE PAID ETHICALLY. view more 

CREDIT: TAYLOR & FRANCIS THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF BIOETHICS

Multidisciplinary team of international experts suggests participants should receive a "substantial" amount, be paid ethically

Healthy people volunteering to be infected with SARS-CoV-2, in order to help scientists better understand how to tackle the virus, should receive payment - if it is determined that these studies are otherwise ethical to proceed.

Those are the findings of a new peer-reviewed study published in the American Journal of Bioethics, which has assessed the ethics of paying participants to take part in so-called 'Human Infection Challenge Studies' (HICS).

Over the past few months there has been vast media coverage and discussion about the first COVID-19 HICS in the world, planned to begin in the UK later this year. This type of study can be particularly valuable for testing vaccines and can speed up the development of new vaccines.

Using HICS for a disease that can be fatal and currently lacks a cure is ethically controversial. Part of that controversy has to do with whether participants should be paid for such a risky endeavor and how payment might affect their consent.

Among the advocates of pursuing COVID-19 challenge trials is the organization, 1Day Sooner.

1Day Sooner sponsored the report on which the new study is based, seeking an independent assessment of whether and how much people should get paid to take part in challenge trials.

The international research team from the UK, US, and Canada does not necessarily endorse the use of HICS for COVID-19. But if HICS proceed, their findings reflect that not only should participants be paid, but their payment should be "substantial".

The research team - including experts in bioethics, economics, science, medicine, and law, as well as two individuals expressing interest in participating in SARS-CoV-2 HICS - created a framework for scientists to follow in order to ethically assess payments for people taking part in HICS. They also looked at payment in similar studies, but noted the difficulty of finding out this information.

"Our work was spurred by concerns that payment for SARS-CoV-2 HICS might require a novel ethical framework, which we ultimately determined to be unfounded," states lead author Holly Fernandez Lynch, John Russell Dickson, MD Presidential Assistant Professor of Medical Ethics at the Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania.

"Payment for HICS participation should be treated like payment in other clinical studies involving healthy participants," she says.

"High offers of payment are sometimes met with scrutiny and concern, but it can be ethically appropriate to offer substantial payment for research participation and we have to consider that low payment also raises significant ethical concerns."

Professor Fernandez Lynch, who is a lawyer and bioethics expert, adds: "SARS-CoV-2 HICS should not be allowed to proceed in any setting in which there have not been adequate provisions made for compensating research-related harms, as well as other efforts to minimize risk and promote social value.

"Our hope going forward is that our analysis will serve both to ease concerns about payment in these studies, should they proceed, and to advance the broader project of ensuring ethical payment to participants in all clinical research."

The framework the team has developed is split into two-parts. The first focuses on three main motives for payment: 'reimbursement' (for out-of-pocket expenses), 'compensation' (which includes payment for time, burden, inconvenience of isolating, etc.), and 'incentive' (to broaden the range of individuals willing to consider participation). The second part considers appropriate compensation in the event any harm materializes - ranging from injury to death.

In developing the framework, the team paid special attention to public trust, acknowledging that "research payments could affect public trust in several ways". Ultimately, they conclude that "the best way to promote trust in HICS is by helping the public understand why this design can be both scientifically important and ethically acceptable".

"HICS can proceed only when strict research and ethical standards are satisfied," says co-author Thomas Darton, from the Department of Infection, Immunity and Cardiovascular Disease at The University of Sheffield.

Dr Darton is a HICS researcher, although he does not work with the SARS-CoV-2 virus.

He states: "If the risks associated with these studies are unreasonable in relation to their potential benefits, payment for participation cannot help achieve ethical acceptability. But if the research is otherwise ethical, it doesn't become unethical simply because payment is offered."

Another factor the team considered is whether COVID-19 HICS would be "uniquely risky" and how that should influence payment levels. Ultimately, they concluded that "the ethical concerns about payment for these studies are the same as those for payment in all clinical research".

"Although certainly relevant to considerations regarding the ethical acceptability of HICS, including the importance of planning for research-related harm, heightened risks do not support adopting a novel framework for HICS payment as compared to other types of research," adds co-author Emily Largent, the Emanuel and Robert Hart Assistant Professor of Medical Ethics at the Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania.

Limitations of the project include the team's perspectives being "limited to the Global North". They state, therefore, that additional considerations may be relevant when research is conducted elsewhere. The team also declined to identify a payment amount or even a range that would be appropriate for HICS or SARS-CoV-2 HICS. "Stakeholders must take the final step between conceptual guidance and actual payment offers on their own," the paper concludes. "This means that there may be several different payment offers that could be justified, but the framework can help determine which offers are ethically appropriate," says Professor Fernandez Lynch.

New study shows pandemic's toll on jobs, businesses, and food security in poorer countries

A new study by an international team of economists published Feb.5 in Science Advances finds COVID-19 and its economic shock present a stark threat to residents of low- and middle-income countries -- where most of the world's population resides.

INNOVATIONS FOR POVERTY ACTION

Research News

 

IMAGE: SHARE OF HOUSEHOLDS EXPERIENCING DROPS IN FOOD SECURITY view more 

CREDIT: INNOVATIONS FOR POVERTY ACTION

Washington, D.C.. -- The onset of the COVID-19 pandemic caused a sharp decline in living standards and rising food insecurity in developing countries across the globe, according to a new study by an international team of economists.

The study, published Feb. 5 in the journal Science Advances, provides an in-depth view of the health crisis's initial socioeconomic effects in low- and middle-income countries, using detailed micro data collected from tens of thousands of households across nine countries. The phone surveys were conducted from April through July 2020 of nationally and sub-nationally representative samples in Bangladesh, Burkina Faso, Colombia, Ghana, Kenya, Nepal, Philippines, Rwanda, and Sierra Leone. Across the board, study participants reported drops in employment, income, and access to markets and services, translating into high levels of food insecurity. Many households reported being unable to meet basic nutritional needs.

"COVID-19 and its economic shock present a stark threat to residents of low- and middle-income countries -- where most of the world's population resides -- which lack the social safety nets that exist in rich countries," said economist Susan Athey, of Stanford University's Graduate School of Business. "The evidence we've collected show dire economic consequences, including rising food insecurity and falling income, which, if left unchecked, could thrust millions of vulnerable households into poverty."

Across the 16 surveys, the percentage of respondents reporting losses in income ranged from 8% in Kenya to 86% in Colombia. The median, or midpoint of the range, was a staggering 70%. The percentage reporting loss of employment ranged from 6% in Sierra Leone to 51% in Colombia with a median of 29%.

"Painting a comprehensive picture of the economic impact of this global crisis requires the collection of harmonized data from all over the world," said Edward Miguel, the Oxfam Professor of Environmental and Resource Economics at the University of California, Berkeley, Director of the Center for Effective Global Action, and a co-author of the study. "Our work is an exciting example of fruitful collaboration among research teams from UC Berkeley, Northwestern, Innovations for Poverty Action, The Busara Center for Behavioral Economics in Kenya, Yale, and many others working in multiple countries simultaneously to improve our understanding of how COVID-19 has affected the living standards of people in low- and middle-income countries on three continents."

Significant percentages of respondents across the surveys reported being forced to miss meals or reduce portion sizes, including 48% of rural Kenyan households, 69% of landless, agricultural households in Bangladesh, and 87% of rural households in Sierra Leone -- the highest level of food insecurity. Poorer households generally reported higher rates of food insecurity, though rates were substantial even among the better off. The steep rise in food insecurity reported among children was particularly alarming given the potentially large negative long-run effects of under-nutrition on outcomes later in life, according to the study.

Survey results from Bangladesh and Nepal suggest that levels of food insecurity were far higher during the pandemic than during the same season in previous years.

In most countries, a large share of respondents reported reduced access to markets, consistent with lockdowns and other restrictions on mobility implemented between March and June 2020 to contain the spread of the virus. The amount of social support available to respondents from governments or non-governmental organizations varied widely across the surveys, but the high rates of food insecurity reported suggest that support was insufficient even when present, the researchers state.

The study shows that in addition to increasing food insecurity, the pandemic and accompanying containment measures have undermined several other aspects of household wellbeing. Schools in all sample countries were closed during most or all of the survey period. Respondents also reported reduced access to health services, including prenatal care and vaccinations. Combined, these factors could be particularly damaging to children in the long run, the researchers note.

"The pandemic's economic shock in these countries, where so many people depend on casual labor to feed their families, causes deprivations and adverse consequences in the long term, including excess mortality," said study co-author Ashish Shenoy, of the University of California, Davis. "Our findings underscore the importance of gathering survey data to understand the effects of the crisis and inform effective policy responses. We demonstrate the efficacy of large-scale phone surveys to provide this crucial data."

Current circumstances may call for social protection programs that prioritize addressing immediate poverty and under-nutrition before tackling deeper underlying causes, the researchers state. They suggest policymakers consider identifying poor households using mobile phones and satellite data and then provide them mobile cash transfers. The researchers also recommend providing support for basic utilities, such as water and electricity, through subsidies and by removing penalties for unpaid bills. They note a fundamental link between containing COVID-19 and providing economic relief as households facing acute shortages may be less willing than others to follow social distancing rules so that they can find opportunities to meet basic needs.

CAPTION

A scene in Bangladesh

CREDIT

Rajib Dhar/Dhaka Tribune

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Researchers on the study represent the following institutions: University of California, Berkeley and the Center for Effective Global Action; The World Bank; Innovations for Poverty Action; University of California, Davis; Northwestern University, Global Poverty Lab and the Kellogg School of Management; Yale University and Y-RISE; University of Basel, Switzerland; Princeton University; Busara Center for Behavioral Economics, Nairobi, Kenya; Stanford University; WZB Berlin Social Science Center; Columbia University; London School of Economics and Political Science, International Growth Centre; Vyxer Remit Kenya, Busia, Kenya; American University; University of Goettingen, Germany; Harvard University; and Wageningen University, Netherlands.

POSTMODERN ALCHEMY

Mysterious organic scum boosts chemical reaction efficiency, may reduce chemical waste

UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS AT URBANA-CHAMPAIGN, NEWS BUREAU

Research News

 

IMAGE: ILLINOIS RESEARCHERS ARE PART OF MULTI-INSTITUTIONAL TEAM THAT FOUND THAT SOLVENTS SPONTANEOUSLY REACT WITH METAL NANOPARTICLES TO FORM REACTIVE COMPLEXES THAT CAN IMPROVE CATALYST PERFORMANCE AND SIMULTANEOUSLY REDUCE THE ENVIRONMENTAL... view more 

CREDIT: GRAPHIC COURTESY ALEX JEREZ, IMAGING TECHNOLOGY GROUP - BECKMAN INSTITUTE.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. -- Chemical manufacturers frequently use toxic solvents such as alcohols and benzene to make products like pharmaceuticals and plastics. Researchers are examining a previously overlooked and misunderstood phenomenon in the chemical reactions used to make these products. This discovery brings a new fundamental understanding of catalytic chemistry and a steppingstone to practical applications that could someday make chemical manufacturing less wasteful and more environmentally sound.

The study led by University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign researcher David Flaherty, University of Minnesota, Twin Cities researcher Matthew Neurock and Virginia Tech researcher Ayman Karim is published in the journal Science.

Combining solvents and metal nanoparticles accelerates many chemical reactions and helps maximize yield and profit margins for the chemical industry. However, many solvents are toxic and difficult to safely dispose, the researchers said. Water works, too, but it is not nearly as efficient or reliable as organic solvents. The reason for the difference was thought to be the limited solubility of some reactants in water. However, multiple irregularities in experimental data have led the team to realize the reasons for these differences were not fully understood.

To better understand the process, the team ran experiments to analyze the reduction of oxygen to hydrogen peroxide - one set using water, another with methanol, and others with water and methanol mixtures. All experiments used palladium nanoparticles.

"In experiments with methanol, we observed spontaneous decomposition of the solvent that leaves an organic residue, or scum, on the surface of the nanoparticles," said Flaherty, a professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering at Illinois. "In some cases, the scumlike residue clings to the nanoparticles and increases reaction rates and the amount of hydrogen peroxide formed instead of hampering the reaction. This observation made us wonder how it could be helping."

The team found that the residue, or surface redox mediator, holds oxygen-containing species, including a key component hydroxymethyl. It accumulates on the palladium nanoparticles' surface and opens new chemical reaction pathways, the study reports.

"Once formed, the residue becomes part of the catalytic cycle and is likely responsible for some of the different efficiencies among solvents reported over the past 40 years of work on this reaction," Flaherty said. "Our work provides strong evidence that these surface redox mediators form in alcohol solvents and that they may explain many past mysteries for this chemistry."

By working with multiple types of experiments and computational simulations, the team learned that these redox mediators effectively transfer both protons and electrons to reactants, whereas reactions in pure water transfer protons easily, but not electrons. These mediators also alter the nanoparticles' surface in a way that lowers the energy barrier to be overcome for proton and electron transfer, the study reports.

"We show that the alcohol solvents as well as organic additives can react to form metal-bound surface mediators that act much in the same way that the enzymatic cofactors in our bodies do in catalyzing oxidation and reduction reactions," Neurock said.

Additionally, this work may have implications for reducing the amounts of solvent used and waste generated in the chemical industry.

"Our research suggests that for some situations, chemical producers could form the surface redox mediators by adding small amounts of an additive to pure water instead of pumping thousands of gallons of organic solvents through these reactors," Flaherty said.

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The Energy and Biosciences Institute through the EBI-Shell program and the National Science Foundation supported this research.

Editor's notes:

TThe paper "Solvent molecules form surface redox mediators in situ and cocatalyze oxygen reduction on Pd" is available from the U. of I. News Bureau