It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Tuesday, March 30, 2021
SMOKERS MORALITY
Smokers motivated to 'quit for COVID' to ease burden on health system
An international survey that included 600 smokers in the UK has found that cessation messaging focused on easing the burden on our health system is most effective in encouraging people to quit.
The research, which was conducted in April-May 2020, randomly assigned participants to view one of four quit smoking messages, two of which explicitly referenced health implications and COVID-19, one referred more vaguely to risk of chest infection, and one highlighted financial motivations for quitting.
"We wanted to explore the effectiveness of smoking cessation messaging at a time when health systems the world over are beleaguered, and all our lives have had to pivot into pandemic-response mode," said ProfessSimone Pettigrew (Head of Food Policy at The George Institute for Global Health), who led the research.
or All four messages were effective in terms of increasing participants' intentions to quit within a fortnight and prompting them to seek additional information around COVID-19 risk, with the two messages that specifically mentioned COVID-19 the most impactful:
MESSAGE A. By quitting now, you can reduce your chances of experiencing complications from the coronavirus if you become infected. This will help our overstretched health services to cope with the huge increase in patients.
MESSAGE B. Quit now - it's never too late. Smoking damages your lungs so they don't work as well. This means smokers are more likely to have severe complications if infected by the coronavirus.
Message A (referring to both personal consequences and to the impact on the functioning of the health system) landed best with participants, 34% of whom reported intention to quit and 44% sought additional information about the risks of COVID for smokers.
The latest figures from NHS England reflect a heavily loaded health system, with adult critical care bed occupancy at 67% across England. Public Health England is advising smokers to quit to improve their chances of avoiding infection and surviving COVID-19 if contracted.
This research can help tailor such communication for optimal impact, prioritising messages that reference COVID-related health risk.
OR NOT
Pandemic stress, boredom caused some PA residents to increase cigarette use
HERSHEY, Pa. -- Stress, increased free time and feelings of boredom may have contributed to an increase in the number of cigarettes smoked per day during the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic by nearly a third of surveyed Pennsylvania smokers. Penn State College of Medicine researchers said understanding risk factors and developing new strategies for smoking cessation and harm reduction may help public health officials address concerning trends in tobacco use that may have developed as a result of the pandemic.
Jessica Yingst, assistant professor of public health sciences and Penn State Cancer Institute researcher, said smokers who increased the number of cigarettes they smoked per day could be at greater risk of dependence and have a more difficult time quitting.
Researchers asked 291 smokers about their tobacco use patterns before and during the early months of the pandemic including how frequently they used tobacco products, reasons why their use patterns changed and whether they attempted to quit. Nearly a third of smokers reporting increased use due to stress, increased free time and boredom. One participant stated, "Working at home allows me to smoke at will rather than being in a smoke-free environment for 8 hours per day." In contrast, 10% of participants decreased their tobacco use and attributed that to schedule changes, being around non-smokers such as children, and health reasons.
Nearly a quarter of participants reported attempting to quit smoking during the pandemic. A third of those who attempted to quit conveyed that they did so to reduce their risk of poor outcomes should they become infected with COVID-19. One participant stated, "I quit as soon as I came down with a fever and cough. Clearly, I am aware of how detrimental smoking is to my health; however, I did not consider how it could make me more vulnerable to COVID-19 and its effects. I was terrified and quit immediately." Ultimately, seven people were successful in quitting all tobacco use.
The research team also asked the participants about their perceptions of health risks during the pandemic. More than two-thirds of participants believed their risk of contracting COVID-19 was the same as non-tobacco users. However, more than half of those surveyed thought they were at higher risk to suffer serious complications from COVID-19. The results were published in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health.
"Knowing the reasons for increased tobacco use and the motivations of those who successfully quit smoking can help us identify how to better address cessation efforts during the pandemic," Yingst said. "New methods like telemedicine and increasing public health messaging could encourage people to stop smoking in the absence of public support groups or other in-person interventions."
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This study was conducted by the Penn State Center for Research on Tobacco and Health. Tobacco users interested in participating in future research can call 844-207-6392 or visit the center's website to learn more about current studies and find out if they are eligible to participate.
Nicolle Krebs, Candace Bordner, Andrea Hobkirk, Sophia Allen and Jonathan Foulds of Penn State College of Medicine also contributed to this research. Foulds has done paid consulting for pharmaceutical companies involved in producing smoking cessation medications, including GSK, Pfizer, Novartis, J&J and Cypress Bioscience. The other authors have no disclosures to report related to this publication.
This research was supported by the National Institutes of Health and the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences through Penn State Clinical and Translational Science Institute (UL1 TR002014). The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health.
One in four Germans suffers from metabolic syndrome. Several of four diseases of affluence occur at the same time in this 'deadly quartet': obesity, high blood pressure, lipid metabolism disorder and diabetes mellitus. Each of these is a risk factor for severe cardiovascular conditions, such as heart attack and stroke. Treatment aims to help patients lose weight and normalise their lipid and carbohydrate metabolism and blood pressure. In addition to exercise, doctors prescribe a low-calorie and healthy diet. Medication is often also required. However, it is not fully clear what effects nutrition has on the microbiome, immune system and health.
A research group led by Dr Sofia Forslund and Professor Dominik N. Müller from the Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine in the Helmholtz Association (MDC) and the Experimental and Clinical Research Center (ECRC) has now examined the effect a change of diet has on people with metabolic syndrome. The ECRC is jointly run by the MDC and Charité Universitätsmedizin Berlin. "Switching to a healthy diet has a positive effect on blood pressure," says Andras Maifeld, summarising the results. "If the diet is preceded by a fast, this effect is intensified." Maifeld is the first author of the paper, which was recently published in the journal "Nature Communications".
Broccoli over roast beef
Dr Andreas Michalsen, Senior Consultant of the Naturopathy Department at Immanuel Hospital Berlin and Endowed Chair of Clinical Naturopathy at the Institute for Social Medicine, Epidemiology and Health Economics at Charité - Universitätsmedizin Berlin, and Professor Gustav J. Dobos, Chair of Naturopathy and Integrative Medicine at the University of Duisburg-Essen, recruited 71 volunteers with metabolic syndrome and raised systolic blood pressure. The researchers divided them into two groups at random.
Both groups followed the DASH (Dietary Approach to Stop Hypertension) diet for three months, which is designed to combat high blood pressure. This Mediterranean-style diet includes lots of fruit and vegetables, wholemeal products, nuts and pulses, fish and lean white meat. One of the two groups did not consume any solid food at all for five days before starting the DASH diet.
On the basis of immunophenotyping, the scientists observed how the immune cells of the volunteers changed when they altered their diet. "The innate immune system remains stable during the fast, whereas the adaptive immune system shuts down," explains Maifeld. During this process, the number of proinflammatory T cells drops, while regulatory T cells multiply.
A Mediterranean diet is good, but to also fast is better
The researchers used stool samples to examine the effects of the fast on the gut microbiome. Gut bacteria work in close contact with the immune system. Some strains of bacteria metabolise dietary fibre into anti-inflammatory short-chain fatty acids that benefit the immune system. The composition of the gut bacteria ecosystem changes drastically during fasting. Health-promoting bacteria that help to reduce blood pressure multiply. Some of these changes remain even after resumption of food intake. The following is particularly noteworthy: "Body mass index, blood pressure and the need for antihypertensive medication remained lower in the long term among volunteers who started the healthy diet with a five-day fast," explains Dominik Müller. Blood pressure normally shoots back up again when even one antihypertensive tablet is forgotten.
Blood pressure remains lower in the long term - even three months after fasting
Together with scientists from the Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research and McGill University, Montreal, Canada, Forslund's working group conducted a statistical evaluation of these results using artificial intelligence to ensure that this positive effect was actually attributable to the fast and not to the medication that the volunteers were taking. They used methods from a previous study in which they had examined the influence of antihypertensive medication on the microbiome. "We were able to isolate the influence of the medication and observe that whether someone responds well to a change of diet or not depends on the individual immune response and the gut microbiome," says Forslund.
If a high-fibre, low-fat diet fails to deliver results, it is possible that there are insufficient gut bacteria in the gut microbiome that metabolise fibre into protective fatty acids. "Those who have this problem often feel that it is not worth the effort and go back to their old habits," explains the scientist. It is therefore a good idea to combine a diet with a fast. "Fasting acts as a catalyst for protective microorganisms in the gut. Health clearly improves very quickly and patients can cut back on their medication or even often stop taking tablets altogether." This could motivate them to stick to a healthy lifestyle in the long term.
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The Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine (MDC)
The Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine in the Helmholtz Association (MDC) was founded in Berlin in 1992. It is named for the German-American physicist Max Delbrück, who was awarded the 1969 Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine. The MDC's mission is to study molecular mechanisms in order to understand the origins of disease and thus be able to diagnose, prevent and fight it better and more effectively. In these efforts the MDC cooperates with the Charité - Universitätsmedizin Berlin and the Berlin Institute of Health (BIH) as well as with national partners such as the German Center for Cardiovascular Research and numerous international research institutions. More than 1,600 staff and guests from nearly 60 countries work at the MDC, just under 1,300 of them in scientific research. The MDC is funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (90 percent) and the State of Berlin (10 percent), and is a member of the Helmholtz Association of German Research Centers. http://www.mdc-berlin.de
Cervical cancer testing tech could replace pap smears, save lives
Emerging techniques could help detect the virus leading to cervical cancer low-income and developing nations
IMAGE: ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE MONITORING FOR HPV (AIM-HPV) DEVICE FOR POINT-OF-CARE HPV TESTING. view more
CREDIT: ISMAIL DEGANI (CENTER FOR SYSTEMS BIOLOGY, MASSACHUSETTS GENERAL HOSPITAL)
WASHINGTON, March 30, 2021 -- Emerging technologies can screen for cervical cancer better than Pap smears and, if widely used, could save lives both in developing nations and parts of countries, like the United States, where access to health care may be limited.
In Biophysics Reviews, by AIP Publishing, scientists at Massachusetts General Hospital write advances in nanotechnology and computer learning are among the technologies helping develop HPV screening that take the guesswork out of the precancer tests. That could mean better screening in places that lack highly trained doctors and advanced laboratories.
Cervical cancer is the world's fourth-most common cancer, with more than 500,000 cases diagnosed every year. Almost all cases of cervical cancer are caused by HPV, or human papillomavirus. Detecting precancer changes in the body gives doctors a chance to cure what could otherwise become a deadly cancer.
Pap smears, which were introduced in the 1940s, are subjective and not always reliable. The tests, which can detect about 80% of developing cervical cancer if given regularly, require high-quality laboratories, properly trained clinical doctors, and repeated screenings. These test conditions are not widely available in many countries or even in low-income and remote parts of wealthier nations.
"The Pap smear has done wonders in terms of reducing mortality from a cancer that is very treatable when caught early and almost invariably fatal when it is caught late," said author Cesar Castro, an oncologist at Massachusetts General Hospital and associate professor at Harvard Medical School. "And it is not even a great test. Part of its imperfection is that there is subjectivity to it. The trained eye is the limiting step in the process. The untrained eye, or relatively untrained eye, can miss cancers."
The subjectivity of the test has led to a much higher death rate from cervical cancer in lower-income countries. The authors highlight a list of existing and emerging technologies that can be used to close the testing gap in those areas. They range from existing DNA testing and other Pap smear alternatives to next-generation technologies that use recent advances in nanotechnology and artificial intelligence.
One technique involves screening with tiny beads made of biological material that form a diamond shape when they contact HPV. Those shapes can be detected with powerful microscopes. When those microscopes are not available, a mobile phone app, built through machine learning, can be used to read them.
"Similar to COVID-19 testing, we have great technology in places like the United States that does not work well enough in other countries," said author Hyungsoon Im, a biomedical engineer at Massachusetts General Hospital and assistant professor at Harvard Medical School. "This is why there is great motivation to find next-generation, affordable technology to address this problem."
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The article "Addressing cervical cancer screening disparities through advances in artificial intelligence and nanotechnologies for cellular profiling" is authored by Zhenzhong Yang, Jack Francisco, Alexandra S. Reese, David R. Spriggs, Hyungsoon Im, and Cesar M. Castro. The article will appear in Biophysics Reviews on March 30, 2021 (DOI: 10.1063/5.0043089). After that date, it can be accessed at https://aip.scitation.org/doi/10.1063/5.0043089.
ABOUT THE JOURNAL
Biophysics Reviews publishes research studies and comprehensive review articles of new and emerging areas of interest to the biophysics community. The journal's focus includes experimental and theoretical research of fundamental issues in biophysics in addition to the application of biophysics in other branches of science, medicine, and engineering. See https://aip.scitation.org/journal/bpr.
Big data tells story of diversity, migration of math's elite
Analysis of nearly 250,000 mathematicians gives a picture of the world of math
IMAGE: THE MIGRATION OF ELITE MATHEMATICIANS BETWEEN FIVE KEY COUNTRIES SINCE 1800. THE FLOW CHART REVEALS MASS FLOWS OF RESEARCHERS DUE TO HISTORICAL EVENTS, SUCH AS WAR. view more
CREDIT: FIGURE BY HERBERT CHANG.
Math's top prize, the Fields Medal, has succeeded in making mathematics more inclusive but still rewards elitism, according to a Dartmouth study.
Published in Nature's Humanities and Social Sciences Communications, the study analyzed the effectiveness of the Fields Medal to make math at its highest level more representative across nations and identities. The result provides a visual, data-driven history of international migration and social networks among math elites, particularly since World War II.
"With so much recent discussion on equality in academia, we came to this study recognizing that math has a reputation of being egalitarian," says Herbert Chang, a research affiliate in Dartmouth's Fu Lab and lead author of the paper. "Our results provide a complex and rich story about the world of math especially since the establishment of the Fields Medal."
The Fields Medal, widely considered the Nobel Prize of mathematics, is awarded every four years to mathematicians under the age of 40. It was first presented in 1936 to honor young mathematicians from groups that were typically underrepresented in top math circles.
According to the Dartmouth mathematicians, the prize has received criticism over its history for rewarding existing power structures rather than making math more inclusive and equitable at the elite level. Against this criticism, the study set out to explore how well the award has lived up to its original promise.
The analysis shows that the Fields Medal has elevated mathematicians of marginalized nationalities, but that the there is also "self-reinforcing behavior," mostly through mentoring relationships among math elites.
As example, the study found that the award succeeded in integrating mathematicians from Japan and Germany after WWII. But it also found that two-thirds of 60 medalists emerged from the same math "ancestral tree."
Although the study found diversity among award winners from top math countries, it also found that groups with Arabic, African, and East Asian language identities remain under-represented at the elite level.
The research team defines "elite" as a connection between Fields medalists, rather than other indicators that measure academic productivity and impact.
"It's a privilege for a young mathematician to inherit a powerful network of relationships from an influential academic advisor," says Feng Fu, an assistant professor of mathematics and the senior researcher for the study. "The growing number of doctoral degrees awarded to international mathematicians in the U.S. indicates that mathematics can be a powerful integrative force in our common humanity."
According to the paper, only France exports more elite mathematicians to the United States than it receives from the U.S. "This seems to affirm France as the intellectual capital of mathematics," say the authors.
"A mathematician that is French and attends a top 50 institution means they are 6.4 times more likely to gain membership into the elite circle," the research team says in the study. "On the other hand, being East Asian and attending a top 50 institution only affords you 1.5 times the likelihood of gaining membership into this elite circle."
Among other findings of the study:
- All Fields medalists can be traced to nine "academic family trees"; the largest holds 44 out of 60 medalists.
- Germany has consistently high levels of pluralism in mathematics except for the period of WWII.
- Japan has recently opened to higher levels of non-Japanese elites within the country.
- The number of Russian elite mathematicians decreased significantly after the dissolution of the Soviet Union.
The research team used artificial intelligence techniques to study data on more than 240,000 mathematicians dating as far back as the 16th century. The information was taken from the Mathematics Genealogy database maintained by North Dakota State University.
Researchers organized elite mathematicians by countries and lingo-ethnic categories and then mapped their flow between nations and across ethnic lines. Connections were drawn to show the physical movement, identity and academic relationship of mathematicians.
"There are many sources of inequality in elite-level math and academia. Our goal was to characterize how a single factor--mentorship--plays a role, while telling a comprehensive story about mathematics," says Chang, who was in Dartmouth's Jack Byrne Scholars Program in Math and Society as an undergraduate.
Prior studies of the Fields Medal and elitism in math have focused on how mathematicians cite research. According to the research team, such an approach might miss the structural forces that prevent access to individuals from outside elite math circles.
The research advances past studies by providing a high-level view of the relationship between mentorship, prize giving, and ethnicity.
The research team concludes, as other researchers have in the past, that the Fields Medal should "return to its roots" in order to achieve its original goal of elevating marginalized voices.
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The research was supported by the Shapiro Visitors Program in the Department of Mathematics and the Neukom Institute.
IMAGE: GIRLS WHO EXPERIENCED FOUR OR MORE ACES BY AGE FIVE, DURING THE MOST SENSITIVE PERIOD OF BRAIN DEVELOPMENT, WERE 36% MORE LIKELY TO PARTICIPATE IN DELINQUENT BEHAVIOR view more
CREDIT: BYU PHOTO
About 61% of Americans have had at least one Adverse Childhood Experience (ACE), experts' formal term for a traumatic childhood event.
ACEs--which may include abuse, neglect and severe household dysfunction--often lead to psychological and social struggles that reach into adulthood, making ACEs a major public health challenge. But the long-term consequences of ACEs are just beginning to be understood in detail. To fill in the picture, two recent BYU studies analyzed how ACEs shape adolescents' delinquent behaviors as well as fathers' parenting approaches.
ACEs linked to girls'--but not boys'--delinquent behavior
Although the role of adversity in adolescent delinquency has long been examined in the field of criminology, only in the past decade have criminologists referred to these events as ACEs and seriously considered how early ACEs predict a person's delinquency, according to BYU sociology professors Hayley Pierce and Melissa S. Jones.
In their study of that relationship, published in the Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency, Pierce and Jones showed that ACEs do have a significant effect on teenagers' criminal behavior--at least for girls. Girls who experienced four or more ACEs by age five, during the most sensitive period of brain development, were 36% more likely to participate in delinquent behavior. Boys' delinquent behavior, on the other hand, appeared unrelated to early ACEs, although boys have an overall higher rate of delinquency.
"These results run counter to previous research suggesting that girls are far more likely than boys to internalize trauma through developing an eating disorder or other self-harming behaviors," said Jones. "What we find here is the opposite: girls are externalizing trauma through delinquent acts."
Pierce and Jones drew their data from the longitudinal Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing study. The survey examined childhood adversity and adolescent behavior over a 15-year period for approximately 5,000 children, with a high proportion born to poor, single-parent or minority families in the U.S.
"Our analysis points toward the need for gendered strategies in working with children with ACEs because the different ways boys and girls are socialized shape how they process trauma," Jones said.
The study should also promote compassion and understanding for adolescents who act out, the researchers emphasized.
"One of the most important things I teach in my juvenile delinquency class is that delinquency is a symptom of an underlying problem," said Jones. "If an adolescent is getting arrested, there's often something else going on in the child's life, such as problems at home."
"When adolescents engage in delinquency, it's important first to ask, 'Okay, what got you here?' and work from that knowledge," Pierce added.
CAPTION
Fathers who had experienced at least three ACEs were more likely to use harsh disciplinary techniques.
CREDIT
BYU
ACEs predict less warmth, more harsh discipline in fathers
Even though ACEs may not be linked to teen boys' delinquency, having ACEs earlier in life does apparently impact how men parent.
Most existing research on ACEs and parenting focuses on mothers and looks exclusively at abuse. Curious about ACEs' effects on fathers and the wider range of ACEs that may influence more day-to-day aspects of parenting, BYU sociologist Kevin Shafer and Scott Easton of Boston College decided to examine parenting patterns in men with past ACEs.
In a study published in the Journal of Marriage and Family, they found that fathers who had experienced at least three ACEs were more likely to use harsh disciplinary techniques. Compared to the mothers with ACEs from previous studies, these men were also less likely to exhibit positive parenting characteristics, such as giving affection to their kids, providing care for young children and being emotionally supportive. The more ACEs a father had, the greater their effect on his parenting.
ACEs likely influence fathering partly because ACEs are associated with poor mental health, including depression, anxiety or anger management problems. Mental health challenges in turn influence how men parent their children.
"While on the face of it that sounds bad, it's weirdly also a good thing because even though ACEs happened in the past and can't be changed, you can get treatment for mental health issues in the present," said Shafer. "When men get that help, they can blunt the impact of their ACEs on how they parent their kids, and that improves their kids' outcomes. So their own childhood isn't destiny."
The study analyzed data from the 2015-16 U.S. Survey of Contemporary Fatherhood, which queried over 2,000 fathers about their adverse childhood experiences, degree of psychological distress and parenting habits.
The connection between ACEs and negative fathering techniques is especially indicative of the "untreated trauma" suffered by many men, which Shafer believes is "one of the biggest public health issues we have."
"We have a lot of individuals walking around with ACEs going untreated, and our study shows that has a wide-ranging impact on people in their lives," said Shafer. A big part of the solution would be a "comprehensive public mental health strategy" for fathers, which may include better incorporating fathers into the childbirth experience and early pediatric care, as well as regularly screening fathers for mental health, he concluded.
Teens describe their gender and sexuality in diverse ways, but some are being left behind
A growing number of young people are identifying as part of the LGBTQ+ community, and many are challenging binaries in gender and sexual identity to reflect a broader spectrum of experience beyond man or woman and gay or straight. But not everyone is participating equally in these diverse forms of expression, according to new research from the University of California, Santa Cruz.
Psychology Professor Phillip Hammack's latest paper, published in the Journal of Adolescent Research, is shedding light on the social factors that can either hinder or support expression of diversity in sexual and gender identity among teens and young adults. In particular, regional differences and pressures to conform to masculinity may have a dampening effect on expression.
Hammack's research focused on teens between the ages of 14 and 18, who are among the younger members of Generation Z. Researchers wanted an in-depth understanding of these young people's experiences, so they performed detailed research at a small number of field sites in the San Francisco Bay Area and California's Central Valley.
These sites were selected to represent higher and lower levels of resources, rights, and visibility for sexual and gender diversity. Within these communities, researchers surveyed 314 LGBTQ+ teens and conducted extensive interviews with 28 LGBTQ+ youth informants and 24 adult LGBTQ+ leaders.
Almost a quarter of all LGBTQ+ youth surveyed expressed some form of nonbinary gender, and use of they/them pronouns was common. But there was a difference of more than 11 percentage points in the proportion of youth expressing nonbinary gender identity in the Bay Area compared to the Central Valley. Some study participants told researchers that, while they felt diverse sexuality is becoming more broadly normalized, gender diversity is still less accepted.
Researchers found that there was also less open discussion of sexual diversity in Central Valley communities compared to the Bay Area, but in this case, there was no corresponding difference in diversity of sexuality labeling. Study participants often mentioned finding information through the internet and social media, rather than their geographic communities.
"Being online is kind of like the great equalizer for LGBTQ youth, and I think that benefits them all tremendously," Hammack said.
Researchers also noticed that teens who were assigned female at birth seemed more comfortable with diverse forms of gender expression. Among teens in the study group who identified with a nonbinary gender label, 78.7 percent were assigned female at birth. There were also notably more transgender boys in the study than transgender girls.
During interviews, study participants consistently shared stories of how those who were assigned male at birth faced strong pressures to conform to standards of masculinity. Accounts of violence against transgender women of color were common in interviews, along with other fears that it might not be safe for those assigned male at birth to express nonconforming gender or sexual identities.
Hammack said he believes harmful "regulation of masculinity" may stem from feelings of insecurity among boys as gender hierarchies are being challenged. The paper's documentation of these trends contributes to the future of LGBTQ+ research and support.
Ultimately, perceptions of gender and sexuality labels can affect which types of resources are most accessible for teens. For example, Hammack said that cisgender gay males in the research areas were noticeably missing from LGBTQ+ support groups, which may indicate that these spaces are being perceived as "feminine."
Similarly, the study found that some identity labels are racialized in ways that may make boys of color less likely to identify with them. But targeted recruitment efforts could help LGBTQ+ support groups for teens to better reflect the true diversity of the community.
Hammack hopes his research might offer a window into that diversity to create greater acceptance and recognition across all labels.
"I've actually been trying to shift my speech away from saying LGBTQ+, with that uncomfortable plus sign, because there are so many identities that are not captured within that label," Hammack said. "I've been thinking about these issues instead as phenomena of sexual and gender diversity, and I'd like to see more researchers and educators recognizing those nuances within the community."
When parole, probation officers choose empathy, returns to jail decline
More caring court-appointed supervision officers could lead to fewer repeat offenders, study suggests
Heavy caseloads, job stress and biases can strain relations between parole and probation officers and their clients, upping offenders' likelihood of landing back behind bars.
On a more hopeful note, a new University of California, Berkeley, study suggests that nonjudgmental empathy training helps court-appointed supervision officers feel more emotionally connected to their clients and, arguably, better able to deter them from criminal backsliding.
The findings, published March 29 in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, show, on average, a 13% decrease in recidivism among the clients of parole and probation officers who participated in the UC Berkeley empathy training experiment.
"If an officer received this empathic training, real-world behavioral outcomes changed for the people they supervised, who, in turn, were less likely to go back to jail," said study lead and senior author Jason Okonofua, an assistant professor of psychology at UC Berkeley.
The results are particularly salient in the face of nationwide efforts to reduce prison and jail populations amid a deadly pandemic and other adversities. The U.S. criminal justice system has among the highest rates of recidivism, with approximately two-thirds of incarcerated people rearrested within three years of their release and one-half sent back behind bars.
"The combination of COVID-19 and ongoing criminal justice reforms are diverting more people away from incarceration and toward probation or parole, which is why we need to develop scalable ways to keep pace with this change," said Okonofua, who has led similar interventions for school teachers to check their biases before disciplining students.
At the invitation of a correctional department in a large East Coast city, Okonofua and graduate students in his lab at UC Berkeley sought to find out if a more caring approach on the part of court-appointed supervision officers would reverse trends in recidivism.
Among other duties, parole and probation officers keep track of their clients' whereabouts, make sure they don't miss a drug test or court hearing, or otherwise violate the terms of their release, and provide resources to help them stay out of trouble and out of jail.
For the study, the researchers surveyed more than 200 parole and probation officers who oversee more than 20,000 people convicted of crimes ranging from violent crimes to petty theft. Research protocols bar identifying the agency and its location.
Using their own and other scholars' methodologies, the researchers designed and administered a 30-minute online empathy survey that focused on the officers' job motivation, biases and views on relationships and responsibilities.
To trigger their sense of purpose and values, and tap into their empathy, the UC Berkeley survey asked what parts of the work they found fulfilling. One respondent talked about how, "When I run across those guys, and they're doing well, I'm like, 'Awesome!'" Others reported that being an advocate for people in need was most important to them.
As for addressing biases -- including assumptions that certain people are predisposed to a life of crime -- the survey cited egregious cases in which probation and parole officers abused their power over those under their supervision.
Survey takers were also asked to rate how much responsibility they bear, as individuals and members of a profession, for their peers' transgressions. Most answered that they bore no responsibility.
Ten months after administering the training, researchers found a 13% decrease in recidivism among the offenders whose parole and probation officers had completed the empathy survey.
While the study yielded no specifics on what prevented the parolees and people on probation for reoffending in the period following the officers' empathy training, the results suggest that a change in relationship dynamics played a key role.
"The officer is in a position of power to influence if it's going to be an empathic or punitive relationship in ways that the person on parole or probation is not," Okonofua said.
"As our study shows," he added, "the relationship between probation and parole officers and the people they supervise plays a pivotal role and can lead to positive outcomes, if efforts to be more understanding are taken into consideration."
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Co-authors of the study are Kimia Saadatian, Joseph Ocampo, Michael Ruiz and Perfecta Delgado Oxholm, all at UC Berkeley
OLD FASHIONED NAZI SYNFUEL Porsche takes its synthetic E-Fuel gas racing to test performance and efficiency
Sean Szymkowski
Porsche thinks its synthetic gasoline, which it calls E-Fuel, could be as clean as an electric vehicle. First, it needs to prove that theory, and that starts this year. In fact, it starts today. The German company on Tuesday said drivers and their vehicles participating in the Porsche Mobil 1 Supercup race series will be topped off with the renewable E-Fuel. The series kicks off today in Zandvoort, Netherlands, and the fuel will power the race cars through the whole season to test its performance and efficiency.
Porsche expects this first iteration of the E-Fuel to burn with 85% fewer emissions than regular ol' gasoline, and on top of that, the synthetic gas filling up race cars today is blended to current market standards for passenger vehicles. To be clear, the fuel isn't E-Fuel in its final form, which promises greener days for the internal combustion engine. Sourced from Porsche and partner ExxonMobil's plant in Chile, the companies plan to produce over 34,000 gallons of the fuel through 2022 to continue testing. The plant splits water into hydrogen and oxygen, and CO2 is filtered out of the air and processed with the hydrogen to create synthetic methanol. From there, a secretive ExxonMobil methanol-to-gasoline operation takes place to create renewable gasoline.
While the cars burn through the fuel on track, Porsche engineers and bright minds will continue investigating its potential. The potential is huge, mind you, because this gasoline works in anything from a new 911 you can go home with today, to a classic 911 built decades ago when E-Fuel wasn't even a twinkle in someone's eye. The company maintains this investment and operation will be a compliment to its electrification efforts, but if E-Fuel becomes the next big thing, everyone wins as the world works to take carbon emissions out of the equation.
STAY THE COURSE GIVE PROVINCES MORE $$$$ Liberals should drive daycare improvements, not redo system, report says
OTTAWA — A new report is urging the Trudeau Liberals to embrace "aggressive incrementalism" on their promised path toward a national child-care system, arguing the government should quickly build on what's already there rather than push wholesale change. RIGHT WING THUNK TANK The paper from the C.D. Howe Institute suggests that trying to revamp how child care is delivered in Canada by moving responsibility to Ottawa from the provinces appears unlikely to succeed.
Provinces aren't likely to agree to national standards, the authors write, pointing to recent federal efforts on child care. The think-tank's report says the federal government should bundle funding for child care into an annual transfer payment similar to one it already provides to help provinces cover the cost of health care. The report's authors say the money should focus first on expanding the supply of licensed child-care spaces.
The authors add that any federal moves need to be aimed at quickly building up child-care services nationally because the status quo is not sustainable.
The report is the latest in a series of arguments being put before the Trudeau Liberals on the road to next month's budget, in which child care is expected to feature prominently.
Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland has promised the budget will outline a plan for a national child-care system, modelled on the publicly funded program in Quebec.
Child care has been debated federally for decades, including the role Ottawa should play in an area of provincial jurisdiction
Ken Boessenkool, one of the C.D. Howe report's authors, said there is no need to shift jurisdictions, just have Ottawa help the country do more of what has worked and do it better.
"We're saying we're not on the wrong path, we just have to do more of what we've been doing and do it more quickly," said Boessenkool, the J.W. McConnell Professor of Practice at the Max Bell School of Public Policy at McGill University.
"And we don't need to blow the system up to fix it."
He said the federal government should pick a lane on what it wants to do on child care to drive the agenda, specifically focusing on funding the expansion of spaces where they are needed most. A report this month from Deloitte Canada estimated the government could spend between $7 billion and $8 billion on child care, which would return between $1.50 and $5.80 for every dollar spent through a combination of new revenues and reduced spending on social supports.
The two reports argue the federal government is better placed financially than provinces to boost spending on child care because federal fiscal room should loosen if and when emergency COVID-19 spending subsides. To help with household finances, Boessenkool and co-author Jennifer Robson, an associate professor of political management at Carleton University, say the government should make the federal child-care tax deduction refundable, meaning that eligible parents could get more money back from the government. At the moment, it is deemed non-refundable, so it can only lower amounts owed, not boost a tax refund.
The authors contend the change in tax treatment would help low-income families qualify for the deduction, and help middle-income families more easily afford daycare.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published March 30, 2021.
Jordan Press, The Canadian Press
WHO report on coronavirus origins 'only scratched the surface,' scientists say
A joint investigation by the World Health Organization and China into the origins of the coronavirus released Tuesday offered little in the form of concrete findings about how the pandemic started — something scientists say will take months and maybe years of work.
"This is only the start," Peter Ben Embarek, a WHO food safety scientist who led the research team, said Tuesday in a news briefing. "We've only scratched the surface of these very complex set of studies that need to be conducted."
The report said the coronavirus likely emerged in bats and spread to an intermediary animal before it spilled over into humans. It also downplayed a speculative theory that the virus leaked from a lab in China, describing that scenario as "extremely unlikely."
The newly released findings are the culmination of a joint study by Chinese scientists and a WHO-led team that visited China last month. The trip was hampered by delays by China and took place more than a year after the first reported outbreak.
Joint WHO-China study says origins of coronavirus still an open question
Critics have also said the probe was limited and insufficient because it relied on access dictated by the Chinese government. Many of the Chinese scientists involved were affiliated with state-run institutions, and, in some cases, investigators did not have full access to records and raw data.
Yanzhong Huang, a senior fellow for global health at the Council on Foreign Relations and a professor at Seton Hall University's School of Diplomacy and International Relations, said China's support — and the transparency issues that go along with it — will continue to be a challenge moving forward.
"If you want to conduct further studies on this, you need the cooperation from China," Huang said. "I didn't find anything in the report to suggest the Chinese side said they are going to be cooperating with further investigations in China."
In his presentation of the report's findings, Embarek said all members of the research team — both the experts convened by the WHO and their Chinese counterparts — agreed to the recommendations for further research in the coming weeks and months. But it's not clear what specific commitments have been made between China and the WHO, or when additional investigations could begin.
The next round of studies aim to zero in on some of the likely pathways that were identified. The proposed investigations include combing through genomic data to identify outbreaks before December 2019 that may have been missed, and to follow possible chains of transmission from the first-known cases in humans.
"So many of the studies now, as is typical in an outbreak situation, have been casting quite a broad net, but have now provided us with a very deep dive into what happened in the early phase of this pandemic," Marion Koopmans, a Dutch virologist who was a member of the WHO delegation, said Tuesday in a news briefing. "That really will help us target the follow-up studies."
Huang said China may be motivated to work with the WHO, but added that the government is likely cognizant of potential political fallout from the findings.
"China does have incentives to build a good reputation and show that it is indeed a responsible stakeholder in this global fight against the pandemic and future pandemics," he said, "but the politicization around tracing the origin has also raised the stakes way too high. The government is keenly aware of the negative ramifications if the study points to China as the origin of the outbreak."
Adding to the tense political atmosphere are the persistent speculations that the virus leaked from a lab. Members of the WHO-led delegation have said they did not find credible evidence to support such a hypothesis, but skeptics, including Dr. Robert Redfield, the former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, have promoted the theory.
Embarek said that while the current body of research seems to point to bat origins, the investigators are keeping an open mind and will follow the science.
WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus echoed that nothing has been ruled out, adding that it will take time to pin down the exact origins of the virus.
"As far as WHO is concerned, all hypotheses remain on the table," he said in a statement. "This report is a very important beginning, but it is not the end. We have not yet found the source of the virus, and we must continue to follow the science and leave no stone unturned as we do."
