AI shows public attitude toward COVID-19 is more 'infectious' than disease itself

The more retweets, the more people believe it--even if it's not true

NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY

Research News

 

CHICAGO --- Public attitude toward COVID-19 and its treatments is more "infectious" than the disease itself, according to a new Northwestern Medicine study using Artificial Intelligence (AI) to analyze tweets about the virus. Researchers studied the influence of Twitter on COVID-19 health beliefs as well as the competing influence of scientific evidence versus the speeches of politicians.

The study's key findings:

• People's biases are magnified when they read tweets about COVID-19 from other users, and the more times it has been retweeted, the more they tend to believe it and retweet it themselves.
• Scientific events, such as scientific publications, and non-scientific events, such as speeches of politicians, equally influence health belief trends on social media.

"In the pandemic, social media has contributed to much of the information and misinformation and bias of the public's attitude toward the disease, treatment and policy," said corresponding study author Yuan Luo, chief Artificial Intelligence officer at the Institute for Augmented Intelligence in Medicine at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine.

"Our study helps people to realize and re-think the personal decisions that they make when facing the pandemic," Luo said. "The study sends an 'alert' to the audience that the information they encounter daily might be right or wrong, and guide them to pick the information endorsed by solid scientific evidence. We also wanted to provide useful insight for scientists or health care providers, so that they can more effectively broadcast their voice to targeted audiences."

The study was published recently in the Journal of Medical Internet Research.

How can scientists counter inaccurate information from politicians?

"Politicians may talk inaccurately about a certain treatment's effectiveness or say that COVID-19 is no big deal; it's just like the flu," said Luo said, also chief AI officer at Northwestern University Clinical and Translational Sciences Institute. "These comments have as strong effect as real scientific evidence and drive people's beliefs. This is what we are concerned about."

By understanding how the public's attitudes are affected, scientists can take actions to make sure scientific fact and evidence have a loud enough voice.

"As a scientist, you need to be aware that you need to get the science out to people. If you don't put energy into this, your efforts can be easily offset by those who talk irresponsibly," Luo said. "Going forward, we may want to pay more attention to a public information campaign to educate people about the vaccine in order to maximize the inoculation impact."

How are people's attitudes toward COVID-19 influenced by tweets?

"As a lay person, you should become aware of what you retweet and do a fact check first," Luo said. "And be aware anything you see on Twitter is shaping your attitude. You need to become aware of this before you let others' tweets and opinions shape yours and you become part of that megaphone."

"A lot of people aren't aware of how much their beliefs are impacted by tweets, and don't bother to fact check what they read and retweet. When the information is biased, they ignore or did not notice it. It's like a viral marketing effect. It's just about catching eyeballs on a trending topic, but it affects everyone on social media."

How is this study novel?

The study is novel because it integrates machine learning algorithms and classic epidemiology models to retrospectively investigate the contents on social media and its effects, Luo said.

The study also allows other researchers to "look under the hood" to understand how this AI algorithm works.

Machine learning and deep learning algorithms are usually opaque, blackbox mechanisms. But in this study, investigators paid special attention to improve the model's interpretability.

"We identified the fluctuating trends of public attitudes from the tweets, then aligned the important scientific and non-scientific events that are associated with these trends," Luo said. "As a result, we are offering insights people can take action on."

How many tweets did the AI analyze?

Luo's team, led by the study's first author Hanyin Wang, a Ph.D. student in the Driskill Graduate Program, retrospectively collected COVID-19-related tweets using the Twitter API. In total, they retrieved 92,687,660 tweets corresponding to 8,967,986 users from January 6 to June 21, 2020. To train the AI model, they randomly selected 5,000 of the tweets for annotation. Each tweet was doubly reviewed to decide if it met any of the four core constructs of the health belief model, perceived susceptibility, perceived severity, perceived benefits and perceived barriers.

Next step: using AI to analyze how social media affects attitudes toward COVID-19 vaccines

Luo's team is currently integrating machine learning and deep learning in the study of how social media can affect the general public's attitude toward COVID-19 vaccines. The goal is to identify specific public concerns and inform targeted vaccination campaigns to maximize inoculation impact. They are also looking at using social media data as a way to detect gender or race disparities in and out of the pandemic.

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Other Northwestern authors include Yikuan Li, Meghan Hutch and Andrew Naidech.

The study was funded in part by grant R01LM013337 from the National Library of Medicine of the National Institutes of Health.

Scientists describe 'hidden biodiversity crisis' as variation within species is lost

Many of the benefits people receive from nature depend on diversity within species, but this intraspecific variation is poorly understood and declining rapidly

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA - SANTA CRUZ

Research News

 

IMAGE: NATURE HAS ALWAYS BEEN A SOURCE OF ARTISTIC INSPIRATION AND MATERIALS, AND VARIATION, BOTH ACROSS SPECIES AND WITHIN SPECIES, AN IMPORTANT CONTRIBUTOR TO ART AND CULTURE. THIS PAINTING ILLUSTRATES INTRASPECIFIC... view more 

CREDIT: SIMONE DES ROCHES

The rapid loss of variation within species is a hidden biodiversity crisis, according to the authors of a new study looking at how this variation supports essential ecological functions and the benefits nature provides for people.

Published March 1 in Nature Ecology and Evolution, the study highlights the need to better understand and conserve variation within species in order to safeguard nature's contributions to people.

"Biodiversity means more than the number of species, and when we focus on species-level extinctions we are missing part of the story," said corresponding author Eric Palkovacs, professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at UC Santa Cruz. "Intraspecific variation is a neglected aspect of biodiversity, but it has value for people, and we need to start recognizing that and protecting this form of biodiversity."

An earlier study led by first author Simone Des Roches, a postdoctoral researcher at UC Santa Cruz now at the University of Washington, showed that the loss of variation within species can have serious ecological consequences. This got Des Roches and Palkovacs thinking about the broader implications of their findings for the values and services nature provides to people, from forest materials and clean water to commercial fisheries and medicines derived from natural products.

For the new study, they surveyed the scientific literature for studies showing how intraspecific variation supports ecosystem services and other aspects of nature's contributions to people. They found well documented connections across a wide variety of species, including fish and commercial fisheries, insects and crop pollination, woody plants and forestry products, many different crops and their wild ancestors, and more.

"There is a whole suite of documented cases, including several examples of what happens when we lose intraspecific variation," Palkovacs said. "One of the best examples is commercial fisheries, where diverse fish stocks help to stabilize the overall population."

Subpopulations of salmon, for example, are locally adapted to the conditions of different watersheds, allowing the overall population to remain stable even as environmental fluctuations cause declines in some subpopulations and increases in others. These "portfolio effects" in salmon are undermined by dams, which block subpopulations from critical spawning habitat, and by hatchery production, which can reduce genetic variation. The loss of intraspecific variation in salmon can lead to boom-bust population cycles that are detrimental to the long-term value of the fishery.

Des Roches noted that people have long depended on variation within domesticated and agriculturally important species. "Our coevolutionary history with hundreds of domesticated species is characterized by our continued selection for unusual and beneficial variants within species," she said. "We've often taken this too far and have thus lost critical genetic diversity in domesticated species. We depend on outbreeding with more genetically variable wild type or ancestral populations (when they exist) to restore this diversity."

Plants with medicinal value provide other well documented examples of the value of intraspecific variation, Palkovacs said. "Different varieties of the same plant species may have different compounds with different medicinal properties, such as different antimalarial drugs that depend on the genetic diversity of the plants they are derived from."

The authors emphasized the importance of collaborating with local and indigenous groups who have deep knowledge of the relationships between intraspecific variation and the natural products and services they use. "We need to take advantage of the local knowledge systems to inform our understanding of these connections," Palkovacs said.

He noted that Western science has focused overwhelmingly on species-level extinctions, and only the most well-studied groups of organisms have been characterized from the standpoint of intraspecific variation. Of all the species evaluated by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), for example, only about 1 percent have been evaluated below the species level, and many of those show precipitous declines in diversity.

"There is strong evidence that the loss of intraspecific variation may be a very widespread problem, but we don't even know what is being lost," Palkovacs said.

There are practical steps that can be taken now, he said, to better document this variation, preserve biodiversity, and protect its contributions to the wellbeing of people. New genomic tools, for example, are available to quickly and systematically characterize the variation within species. This intraspecific variation can be directly incorporated into biodiversity assessments, such as those done by the IUCN and the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES).

Addressing this aspect of biodiversity should be a major goal of global conservation efforts, the authors said. "The available evidence strongly suggests that the benefits of studying and conserving intraspecific variation will far outweigh the costs," Palkovacs said.

He noted that variation within species is the raw material of adaptive evolution. In a rapidly changing world, this variation is critically important to enable species to adapt to the conditions of an unpredictable future.

CAPTION

Intraspecific variation in foundation species such as mangroves (above), corals, and kelp forests serves to maintain ecosystem resilience in the face of a rapidly changing climate.

CREDIT

Photo by Simone Des Roches

In addition to Palkovacs and Des Roches, the coauthors of the paper include environmental economist Linwood Pendleton, senior vice president for science at the Centre for the 4th Industrial Revolution, and Beth Shapiro, professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at UC Santa Cruz and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator. This work was supported by the University of California and NOAA.

Behavior of wild capuchin monkeys can be identified by marks left on their tools

Scientists who study capuchin monkeys on a nature reserve in Brazil found that stone tools are used for digging, seed pounding, and stone-on-stone percussion. The monkeys can serve as a model to help understand how humans evolved to use tools

.FUNDAÇÃO DE AMPARO À PESQUISA DO ESTADO DE SÃO PAULO

Research News

 

IMAGE: STONE TOOLS ARE USED FOR DIGGING, SEED POUNDING, AND STONE-ON-STONE PERCUSSION. THE MONKEYS CAN SERVE AS A MODEL TO HELP UNDERSTAND HOW HUMANS EVOLVED TO USE TOOLS view more 

CREDIT: TIAGO FALÓTICO/EACH-USP

A group of researchers including Tiago Falótico, a Brazilian primatologist at the University of São Paulo's School of Arts, Sciences and Humanities (EACH-USP), archeologists at Spain's Catalan Institute of Human Paleoecology and Social Evolution (IPHES) and University College London in the UK, and an anthropologist at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Germany, have published an article in the Journal of Archeological Science: Reports describing an analysis of stone tools used by bearded capuchin monkeys (Sapajus libidinosus) that inhabit Serra da Capivara National Park in Piauí State, Brazil. It is the first systematic study to characterize the tools used by capuchin monkeys living in the wild.

The animals use the tools for digging, seed pounding, nut cracking, and stone-on-stone percussion. The ultimate aim of the study was to find out whether these different activities created use-wear marks that pointed to the purpose for which the tools were used.

"Archeologists in the field analyze the tools found in a dig and the use-wear marks they bear," Falótico said. "In our case, we had both the tools used by these monkeys and the chance to observe their behavior, to see how they used the tools. This is the first comparative analysis of the different tools used by wild capuchin monkeys for different purposes. We concluded that the tools displayed different patterns of use and wear in accordance with the activities involved and that these use-wear marks served to identify the activities performed by each type of tool and by the individuals that used the tools."

The animals concerned inhabit the Caatinga, Brazil's semi-arid shrubland and thorn forest biome. To crack open encapsulated seeds or fruits, such as locust fruit or jatoba (Hymenaea courbaril) and cashew nut (Anacardium occidentale), they pound them with a stone on another that serves as an anvil. They also use stones to dig or scrape the soil in search of tubers, roots, and spiders.

"They also hammerstones with other stones. The purpose of this stone-on-stone percussion, in the case of the groups we studied in Serra da Capivara, is to crush quartzite cobbles so that they can lick the powder and smear it on their bodies," Falótico said. "We've only ever observed this behavior by the animals inhabiting the study site. We have a few theories to explain it, such as the use of quartz to combat parasites by eating the dust, or ectoparasites such as lice by rubbing themselves with it. We have yet to test these hypotheses. The behavior isn't seen all the time but it's commonplace in the population concerned."

The research is supported by São Paulo Research Foundation - FAPESP via a Young Investigator Grant for the project "Cultural variation in robust capuchin monkeys (Sapajus spp.)".

Evolutionary environment

The capuchin monkeys found in the Caatinga and the Cerrado, Brazil's savanna biome, are more terrestrial than those in the Amazon or Atlantic Rainforest. "The latter don't use stone tools. They're arboreal and rarely seen on the ground. These tools are used on the ground," Falótico said. As an evolutionary environment, he added, Serra da Capivara is very similar to that of the first hominins.

According to reputable sources, the term hominin is now defined as the group consisting of modern humans, extinct human species, and all our immediate ancestors (including members of the genera Homo, Australopithecus, Paranthropus, and Ardipithecus).

As these ancestors evolved, they too began spending more time on the ground and using stone tools. "Capuchin monkeys can serve as a model to help us understand which factors led to the use of tools by the first hominins," Falótico explained.

Individuals may use the same tool in more than one activity, but this is unusual. "It also depends on the environment. In Serra da Capivara, there are lots of rocks and stones, so they can easily switch between tools," he said. "In places with less stone available, they may use the same tool for different purposes. We have sightings of monkeys using a stone to dig and then pound a tuber they've found by digging."

The capuchin monkeys of Serra da Capivara also use twigs, sticks, and other kinds of wood as tools. "In this case, the tools may be used off the ground, and they modify the shape and size by removing leaves and branches, for example. They may understand the physical properties of these tools," he said. "We expected to observe this behavior in other less terrestrial populations, but it appears not to be the case. We have reports that it occurs occasionally but not habitually, as in Serra da Capivara." The monkeys may also use different tools in the same activity. "They may use a stone to enlarge a rock crevice and then use a twig to probe the hole for food, for example," he said.

As a rule, males handle objects more than females, but skill does not vary by sex. "Males and females are good at manipulation once they've become adult and acquired the skill," he said.

Primate tool library

Primate archeology, Falótico explained, is a relatively new field. Among non-human primates, only chimpanzees, capuchin monkeys, and long-tailed or crab-eating macaques use tools. "We now know that when capuchin monkeys bang stones together, they create flakes that closely resemble those made by the first humans," Falótico said. "The same goes for the simpler percussive tools - stones used for hammering and pounding - which can be confused with tools used by humans for the same purposes. In short, we provide more data for archeologists, who often come across these remains."

Creating a primate tool library is one of the aims of the Young Investigator project. "If the tools are described, it will be easier for archeologists and anthropologists to know at a later stage which groups used them and for what purpose," he said.

In this study specifically, the sample comprised 29 tools: 16 were used solely for pounding, 12 for digging, and one for stone-to-stone percussion. The technological analysis was based on a classification into active elements (hammers) and passive elements (anvils). The scientists set out to establish use-wear patterns, and to this end analyzed attributes such as general tool metrics, raw material, and surface traces such as fractures, impact points, battered areas formed by superimposed impacts, and percussive mark location.

The digging tools had fewer conspicuous use-wear marks on their surfaces when analyzed microscopically. Tools used to crush quartz most frequently had perceptible use-wear traces. Soft fruit and cashew nut processing tools displayed a wider spatial distribution of pounding marks than digging tools, although they also displayed a low degree of physical modification.

According to Falótico, tools differed more in terms of size than in terms of use-wear marks, especially those used for stone-to-stone percussion, which were much larger and heavier than the rest. "Digging stones are typically smaller," he said. "Pounding stones vary according to the chosen object. The monkeys prefer larger stones to crack open a hard object."

The researchers looked for traces of pollen among the residues found on the tools, in order to discover which plant species the monkeys preferred. "We identified starch grains and other non-pollen palynomorphs, such as fungal spores, algae and other organic elements found alongside pollen in palynology, the subdiscipline of botany in which pollen grains are examined and identified," Falótico said. "We experienced some difficulty for lack of a reference library to identify the origin of the pollens and starches occurring in this part of the Caatinga."

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About São Paulo Research Foundation (FAPESP)

The São Paulo Research Foundation (FAPESP) is a public institution with the mission of supporting scientific research in all fields of knowledge by awarding scholarships, fellowships and grants to investigators linked with higher education and research institutions in the State of São Paulo, Brazil. FAPESP is aware that the very best research can only be done by working with the best researchers internationally. Therefore, it has established partnerships with funding agencies, higher education, private companies, and research organizations in other countries known for the quality of their research and has been encouraging scientists funded by its grants to further develop their international collaboration. You can learn more about FAPESP at http://www.fapesp.br/en and visit FAPESP news agency at http://www.agencia.fapesp.br/en to keep updated with the latest scientific breakthroughs FAPESP helps achieve through its many programs, awards and research centers. You may also subscribe to FAPESP news agency at http://agencia.fapesp.br/subscribe

The Part Played by Labor in the Transition From Ape to Man

www.marxists.org › marx › works › part-played-labour

The first operations for which our ancestors gradually learned to adapt their hands during the many thousands of years of transition from ape to man could have been only very simple ones. ... Thus the hand is not only the organ of labour, it is also the product of labour.

Neanderthal and early modern human stone tool culture co-existed for over 100,000 years

Research from the University of Kent's School of Anthropology and Conservation has discovered that one of the earliest stone tool cultures, known as the Acheulean, likely persisted for tens of thousands of years longer than previously thought.

UNIVERSITY OF KENT

Research News 

The Acheulean was estimated to have died out around 200,000 years ago but the new findings suggest it may have persisted for much longer, creating over 100,000 years of overlap with more advanced technologies produced by Neanderthals and early modern humans.

The research team, led by Dr Alastair Key (Kent) alongside Dr David Roberts (Kent) and Dr Ivan Jaric (Biology Centre of the Czech Academy of Sciences), made the discovery whilst studying stone tool records from different regions across the world. Using statistical techniques new to archaeological science, the archaeologists and conservation experts were able to reconstruct the end of the Acheulean period and re-map the archaeological record.

Previously, a more rapid shift between the earlier Acheulean stone tool designs often associated with Homo heidelbergensis - the common ancestor of modern humans and Neanderthals - and more advanced 'Levallois' technologies created by early modern humans and Neanderthals, was assumed. However, the study has shed new light on the transition between these two technologies, suggesting substantial overlap between the two.

Acheulean stone tool technologies are the longest-lived cultural tradition practiced by early humans. Originating in East Africa 1.75 million years ago, handaxes and cleavers - the stone tool types which characterise the period - went on to be used across Africa, Europe and Asia by several different species of early human. Prior to this discovery, it was widely assumed that the Acheulean period ended between 300-150,000 year ago. However, the record was lacking in specific dates, and the timing of its demise has been heavily debated. The Kent and Czech team discovered that the tradition likely ended at different times around the world, varying from as early as 170,000 years ago in Sub-Saharan Africa through to as late as 57,000 years ago in Asia.

To understand when the Acheulean ended, the team collected information on different archaeological sites from around the world to find the latest known stone tool assemblages. A statistical technique known as optimal linear estimation - commonly used in conservation studies to estimate species extinctions - was used to predict how much longer the stone tool tradition continued after the most recent known sites. In effect, the technique was able to model the portion of the archaeological record yet to be discovered.

Dr Alastair Key, a Palaeolithic Archaeologist and the lead author of the study, said: 'The earliest archaeological record will always be an incomplete picture of early human behaviour, so we know that the youngest known Acheulean sites are unlikely to actually represent the final instances of these technologies being produced. By allowing us to reconstruct these missing portions of the archaeological record, this technique not only gives us a more accurate understanding of when the tradition ended, but it gives us an indication of where we can expect to find new archaeological discoveries in the future.'

Dr Roberts added: 'This technique was originally developed by myself and a colleague to date extinctions, as the last sighting of a species is unlikely to be the date when it actually became extinct. It is exciting to see it applied in a new context.'

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Their research paper 'Modelling the end of the Acheulean at global and continental levels suggests widespread persistence into the Middle Palaeolithic' is published by Humanities & Social Sciences Communications. doi:10.1057/s41599-021-00735-8

The Part Played by Labor in the Transition From Ape to Man

www.marxists.org › marx › works › part-played-labour

The first operations for which our ancestors gradually learned to adapt their hands during the many thousands of years of transition from ape to man could have been only very simple ones. ... Thus the hand is not only the organ of labour, it is also the product of labour.

Watch: Recycled cotton becomes new fabric

LUND UNIVERSITY

Research News

 

A lot of us recycle our old textiles, but few of us know that they are very difficult to re-use, and often end up in landfills anyway. Now, researchers at Lund University in Sweden have developed a method that converts cotton into sugar, that in turn can be turned into spandex, nylon or ethanol.

WATCH: New method transforms old cotton into glucose
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B1V--prLs08

Every year, an estimated 25 million tonnes of cotton textiles are discarded around the world. In total, 100 million tonnes of textiles are thrown out. In Sweden, most of the material goes straight into an incinerator and becomes district heating. In other places, it is even worse, as clothes usually end up in landfills.

"Considering that cotton is a renewable resource, this is not particularly energy-efficient", says Edvin Ruuth, researcher in chemical engineering at Lund University.

"Some fabrics still have such strong fibres that they can be re-used. This is done today and could be done even more in future. But a lot of the fabric that is discarded has fibres that are too short for re-use, and sooner or later all cotton fibres become too short for the process known as fibre regeneration."

At the Department of Chemical Engineering in Lund where Edvin Ruuth works, there is a great deal of accumulated knowledge about using micro-organisms and enzymes, among other things, to transform the "tougher" carbohydrates in biomass into simpler molecules. This means that everything from biological waste and black liquor to straw and wood chips can become bioethanol, biogas and chemicals.

Now the researchers have also succeeded in breaking down the plant fibre in cotton - the cellulose - into smaller components. However, no micro-organisms or enzymes are involved this time; instead, the process involves soaking the fabrics in sulphuric acid. The result is a clear, dark, amber-coloured sugar solution.

"The secret is to find the right combination of temperature and sulphuric acid concentration", explains Ruuth, who fine-tuned the 'recipe' together with doctoral student Miguel Sanchis-Sebastiá and professor Ola Wallberg.

Glucose is a very flexible molecule and has many potential uses, according to Ruuth.

"Our plan is to produce chemicals which in turn can become various types of textiles, including spandex and nylon. An alternative use could be to produce ethanol."

From a normal sheet, they extract five litres of sugar solution, with each litre containing the equivalent of 33 sugar cubes. However, you couldn't turn the liquid into a soft drink as it also contains corrosive sulphuric acid.

One of the challenges is to overcome the complex structure of cotton cellulose.

"What makes cotton unique is that its cellulose has a high crystallinity. This makes it difficult to break down the chemicals and reuse their components. In addition, there are a lot of surface treatment substances, dyes and other pollutants which must be removed. And structurally, a terrycloth towel and an old pair of jeans are very different", says Ruuth.

"Thus it is a very delicate process to find the right concentration of acid, the right number of treatment stages and temperature."

The concept of hydrolizing pure cotton is nothing new per se, explains Ruuth; it was discovered in the 1800s. The difficulty has been to make the process effective, economically viable and attractive.

"Many people who tried ended up not utilising much of the cotton, while others did better but at an unsustainable cost and environmental impact", says Ruuth.

When he started making glucose out of fabrics a year ago, the return was a paltry three to four per cent. Now he and his colleagues have reached as much as 90 per cent.

Once the recipe formulation is complete, it will be both relatively simple and cheap to use.

However, for the process to become a reality, the logistics must work. There is currently no established way of managing and sorting various textiles that are not sent to ordinary clothing donation points.

Fortunately, a recycling centre unlike any other in the world is currently under construction in Malmö, where clothing is sorted automatically using a sensor. Some clothing will be donated, rags can be used in industry and textiles with sufficiently coarse fibres can become new fabrics. The rest will go to district heating.

Hopefully, the proportion of fabrics going to district heating will be significantly smaller once the technology from Lund is in place.

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Assessing hemp-containing foodstuff

The BfR recommends acute reference dose as basis for assessing hemp-containing foodstuff

BFR FEDERAL INSTITUTE FOR RISK ASSESSMENT

Research News

 

In order to avoid the occurrence of such effects, the Federal Institute for Health Protection of Consumers and Veterinary Medicine (BgVV) recommended guidance values for maximum THC levels in various food groups in 2000. The guidance value for beverages was given as 0.005 mg/kg, for edible oils with 5 mg/kg and for all other foods with 0.150 mg/kg. In 2018, the BfR came to the conclusion that these values no longer correspond to current scientific knowledge.

Instead, the BfR recommends that the toxicological assessment of hemp-containing foods be carried out on the basis of the acute reference dose (ARfD) of 1 microgram Δ-THC/kg body-weight derived by the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) in 2015. The ARfD specifies the estimated maximum quantity of a substance that can be consumed with food in the course of one day - either during one meal or during several meals - without a detectable risk to health. From the point of view of the BfR, whether the ARfD can possibly be exceeded should be checked on a case-by-case basis for each product under assessment. The measured THC levels and the estimated consumption quantities are used for this assessment. Information on the latter can be found in the "EFSA Comprehensive European Food Consumption Database".

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Link to BfR Opinion No 006/2021 issued 17 February 2021:
https://www.bfr.bund.de/cm/349/the-bfr-recommends-acute-reference-dose-as-basis-for-assessing-hemp-containing-foodstuff.pdf

About the BfR

The German Federal Institute for Risk Assessment (BfR) is a scientifically independent institution within the portfolio of the Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture (BMEL) in Germany. It advises the German federal government and German federal states ("Laender") on questions of food, chemical and product safety. The BfR conducts its own research on topics that are closely linked to its assessment tasks.

This text version is a translation of the original German text which is the only legally binding version.

The selection of leaders of political parties through primary elections penalizes women

Researchers at the UPF Department of Political and Social Sciences, published in the journal Party Politics , concludes that the odds of women candidates winning in primary processes fall relative to other selection methods

UNIVERSITAT POMPEU FABRA - BARCELONA

Research News 

IMAGE: PREDICTED PROBABILITIES OF WINNING A MIXED-GENDER CONTEST ACROSS GENDER AND TYPE OF SELECTION METHOD. view more 

CREDIT: UPF

A study by two researchers at the UPF Department of Political and Social Sciences (DCPIS) has examined the effect of selecting party leaders by direct vote by the entire membership (a process known in southern Europe as "primaries" and in English-speaking countries as "one-member-one -vote", OMOV) on the likelihood of a woman winning a leadership competition against male rivals.

Javier Astudillo and Andreu Paneque, a tenured lecturer and PhD with the DCPIS, respectively, and members of the Institutions and Political Actors Research Group, are the authors of the article published recently in the journal Party Politics: "Our statistical analysis shows that 'controlling for other influential factors', while the probability of a male candidate winning hardly varies according to the type of selection method, in the case of a female candidate, her likelihood of winning falls significantly in primaries compared to other methods", they assert.

In the case of primaries, a female candidate has a 14 percentage points lower likelihood of winning than a male candidate.

The researchers determine that, while under other, less inclusive selection systems the likelihood that men and women have of winning the contest is practically the same (the difference is not statistically significant, although it slightly favours women), in the case of primaries, a woman candidate has a 14 percentage points lower chance of winning than a male candidate.

Contributions to the debate around the primaries selection method

In their study, the authors re-examine the debate currently existing in the specialized literature concerning the possible effects of this system of selecting leaders and candidates in comparison with traditional methods (primarily via congresses of delegates).

One of the most recent proposals, developed by the researchers Rahat, Hazan and Katz, proposes that the selection system by means of primaries involves having to choose between two democratic values: on the one hand, the "inclusion" of members that form a group in their decision-making, and, on the other, the "representation" of social groups that have traditionally been excluded, such as women ("descriptive representation").

In its current format, the system for selecting leaders through primaries implies choosing between "inclusion" and "representation."

To subject this proposal to a more robust empirical test than those conducted to date, Javier Astudillo and Andreu Paneque constructed a database of leadership contests held in the main centre-right and centre-left parties, both national and regional, in eight western democracies (Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Spain, Portugal and the UK) between 1985 and the present. This database contained 608 male and female candidates who contested 168 mixed competitions.

From their analysis, the authors show that the female candidates perform worse than males in party primaries, and they argue that in its current format this leadership selection mechanism effectively involves a trade-off between "inclusion" and "representation": "Our study confirms that the introduction of party leaders through primaries, in its current form, poses a handicap for women to break the glass ceiling", they assure.

Influence of the type of people competing

The study authors have also considered whether the difference might be due to the fact that primaries differ from other selection systems not only with regard to who participates in the voting (whether rank and file members or party delegates and leaders), but also the type of candidate who stands, whether male or female.

"Our study indicates that even when controlling for 'type' of candidate (measured by age and political experience), women achieve worse results under primaries".

According to researchers, it may occur that in conferences and in other more restricted selection processes only those women take the step to stand who are previously highly confident of their chances of winning, for example, having extensive experience within the parties, while in primaries, a wider variety of women are encouraged to compete, in the belief that selection by the membership removes the traditional "gatekeeper" barriers in the parties.

However, following their analysis, the authors assure that their "study indicates that even when controlling for '0type' of candidate (measured by age and political experience), women achieve worse results under primaries".

A problem of "demand" and a proposal for improvement

These results lead the researchers to believe that there is really a problem of "demand" (that is, in the selectors) and not so much a problem of "supply" (of those standing): "Further studies should clarify whether this is so due to a simple matter of party membership underestimating women's leadership, or if it hides another type of problem", they posit.

However, Javier Astudillo and Andreu Paneque uphold that these results do not necessarily have to lead to the conclusion that primaries should be avoided and claim that other mechanisms can be explored to make democratic values of inclusion and representation compatible within an institution: "One possible way could be the combination of mixed co-leaderships, as introduced in several parties, and selection by means of primaries, with one contest for men and another for women. Such a 'quota' system would ensure the presence of women in party leadership", they conclude.

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Reference work: Astudillo, J., Paneque, A. (January 2021). "Do Party Primaries Punish Women? Revisiting the trade-off between the inclusion of party members and the selection of women as party leaders". Party Politics

The missing trillions

Establishing the true cost of the planet's energy and transport systems

UNIVERSITY OF SUSSEX

Research News

 

IMAGE: BENJAMIN K SOVACOOL, PROFESSOR OF ENERGY POLICY IN THE SCIENCE POLICY RESEARCH UNIT (SPRU) AT THE UNIVERSITY OF SUSSEX BUSINESS SCHOOL. view more 

CREDIT: UNIVERSITY OF SUSSEX

The hidden social, environmental and health costs of the world's energy and transport sectors is equal to more than a quarter of the globe's entire economic output, new research from the University of Sussex Business School and Hanyang University reveals.

According to analysis carried out by Professor Benjamin K. Sovacool and Professor Jinsoo Kim, the combined externalities for the energy and transport sectors worldwide is an estimated average of $24.662 trillion - the equivalent to 28.7% of global Gross Domestic Product.

The study found that the true cost of coal should be more than twice as high as current prices when factoring in the currently unaccounted financial impact of externalities such as climate change, air pollution and land degradation.

The study authors say the research highlights the market failure of the world's energy systems. Factoring in their true costs by including social costs almost equal to production costs, would make many fossil fuelled and nuclear power stations economically unviable, the research published in Energy Research & Social Science found. Even wind, solar, hydro, and other renewable energy systems have their own hidden costs.

Benjamin K. Sovacool, Professor of Energy Policy in the Science Policy Research Unit (SPRU) at the University of Sussex Business School, said: "Our research has identified immense hidden costs that are almost never factored into the true expense of driving a car or operating a coal-powered power station. Including these social costs would dramatically change least-cost planning processes and integrated resource portfolios that energy suppliers and others depend upon.

"It is not that these costs are never paid by society, they are just not reflected in the costs of energy. And unfortunately these hidden costs are not distributed equally or fairly. The most affected parties are under-represented in the marketplace, and have external costs imposed upon them, whether that be the families forced to live in areas of highest air pollution and toxicity because they have no other choice to the inhabitants of low-lying island states such as the Maldives or Vanuatu who are threatened most immediately by rising sea levels."

Professor Jinsoo Kim, from the Department of Earth Resources and Environmental Engineering at Hanyang University, said: "Or study clearly reveals oil, coal, and waste in electricity portfolios generate far more externalities than alternative sources of supply. If you factored in the true cost of fossil fuels, the multi-national giants that dominate this sector would be huge loss-making operations. Instead, it is left to society and government to pick up the considerable bill."

The researchers sought to find the range and scope of externalities, e.g. the unexpected costs or benefits resulting from economic activity that affects people other than those engaged in that activity for which there's no proper compensation, associated with electricity supply, energy efficiency, and transport.

To do so, they carried out a meta-analysis and research synthesis of 139 studies with 704 distinct estimates of externalities: 83 studies (with 318 observations) for electricity supply, 13 studies (with 13 observations) for energy efficiency, and 43 studies (with 373 observations) for transport.

They found that coal accounts for by far the largest share of energy externalities ($4.78 trillion, or 59%) followed by oil (more than $2 trillion, 26%) and gas ($552 billion, or 7%) across the four largest energy markets of China, Europe, India, and the United States.

The study found coal to have about three times as many negative externalities as solar PV, five times as many as wind energy, and 155 times as many as geothermal energy.

The researchers found that the externalities of coal amounted to 14.5 ¢/kWh compared to its levelized cost of energy (LCOE) of between 6.6 to 15.2 ¢/kWh. Similarly natural gas combined cycle turbines has externalities of 3.5¢ and an LCOE of 4.4 to 6.8 ¢/kWh.

Prof Sovacool said: "The challenge is for policymakers, regulators, and planners to ensure that electricity and transport markets function as they should and accurately price the trillions of dollars in external costs that the energy and mobility industries surreptitiously shift to society currently.

"At the moment, consumers have become shielded from the true costs of energy extraction, conversion, supply, distribution or use, which means the immense ecological or community impacts of our existing systems becomes far less discernible. The fundamental policy question is whether we want global markets that manipulate the presence of externalities to their advantage, or a policy regime that attempts to internalize them."

Prof Kim said: "Our findings are timely and we hope it will help inform the design of Green New Deals or post-pandemic Covid-19 recovery packages around the world.

"Some of the most important commonalities of many stimulus packages have been bailouts for the fossil fuel, automotive and aeronautic industries but a global and national recovery may not be sustainable if the true cost of these industries is not correctly factored in."