Here are Canada's highest-paid CEOs

Ben Cousins, BNN Bloomberg

Canada’s highest-paid CEOs come from a variety of industries, including telecommunications, fast food, auto parts and technology.

In 2022, Canada’s highest-earning CEOs took home average salaries of $14.9 million, marking a new record that’s 246 higher than the average Canadian worker’s annual earnings, according to a new report from the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA).

Here is a list of the 10 Canadian CEOs who took home the most pay in 2022:

1. J. Patrick Doyle, executive chairman of Restaurant Brands International

Doyle was in the top spot with $151,812,911 in total compensation for the year, which includes more than $100 million in share-based awards.

Restaurant Brands, the parent company of Tim Hortons, Burger King and Popeyes, also had the tenth highest-paid executive in 2022, with former CEO José Cil earning $22,188,911 in total compensation. Joshua Kobza replaced Cil as CEO in March 2023.

2. Matthew Proud, global CEO and director of the corporate software firm Dye and Durham.

Total compensation: $98,864,268

3. Magna International Inc. CEO Seetarama S. Kotagiri

Total compensation: $36,398,662

4. Tony Staffieri, president and CEO of Rogers Communications Inc.

Total compensation: $31,515,047

5. Mark J. Barrenechea, vice-chair, CEO and CTO of IT firm OpenText Corporation

Total compensation: $30,252,989

6. Tobias Lütke, CEO of Shopify Inc.

Total compensation: $26,026,203

7. Gary Berman, president and CEO of real estate company Tricon Residential Inc.

Total compensation: $25,781,356

8. Joseph C. Papa, former CEO of Bausch Health Companies Inc.

Total compensation $25,742,006      

9. Irwin Simon, president, CEO and chairman of the board at cannabis company Tilray Brands Inc.

Total compensation: $25,319,091

10. José Cil, CEO of Restaurant Brands International Inc.

Total compensation: $22,188,911       

With files from The Canadian Press

Canada's 100 highest-paid CEOs broke new compensation records in 2022: report

Rosa Saba, The Canadian Press

Canada’s 100 highest-paid CEOs broke records with their compensation in 2022, according to the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives.

“The data this year is breaking new all-time highs,” said senior economist David Macdonald. 

The organization’s annual report found that the CEOs, most of them men, were paid an average of $14.9 million, up from an average of $14.3 million in 2021. 

That’s $7,162 an hour, 246 times more than what the average Canadian worker makes. Before the second day of the new year is over, the average CEO has already made the average worker’s yearly salary, the report said. 

That gap widened in 2022, as the average worker saw their pay rise three per cent while CEOs’ pay rose on average by 4.4 per cent. Meanwhile, prices rose by 6.8 per cent that year, the report said. 

“This is very much related to what's happening to corporate profits in 2022, similar to what happened in 2021,” said Macdonald. “It is a similar story of inflation driving profits, profits driving bonuses, and CEOs reaping the rewards.” 

CCPA has been tracking CEO pay for about a decade and a half, said MacDonald. In the early days of the report, CEOs were making closer to 150 times what the average made, he said. 

Most CEO pay comes not in the form of salary but in bonuses, company shares and stock options, said Macdonald — in fact, some CEOs don’t have a salary at all. 

Halfway through 2021, the stock-option tax deduction was capped at $200,000, noted Macdonald. Perhaps as a result, awarding shares has become a bigger part of CEO compensation recently, he said. 

The report looks at the pay of current and former Canadian CEOs in 2022 as well as executive chairs, a position that outranks CEO. 

Topping the list was executive chairman J. Patrick Doyle of Restaurant Brands International Inc., the CCPA report said. 

Doyle, whose company owns Tim Hortons, Burger King and Popeyes, made $151.8 million in 2022, the report said. His pay came exclusively in the form of share-based and option-based awards. 

Coming in second was CEO Matthew Proud of Dye & Durham Ltd., who brought in $98.9 million solely through option-based awards.

CEO Seetarama (Swamy) Kotagiri of Magna International Inc. was a distant third, making $36.4 million through a combination of his salary, share-based and option-based awards, and non-equity incentive plan compensation. 

The list includes leaders from a variety of sectors including financial, technology, energy, telecom and health. 

Only four of the top earners are women — the same number as people named "Mark" and "Scott," the report said.

“This is a boys’ club,” said Macdonald. 

The gap between average CEO pay and average worker pay is highest in Ontario, which holds almost half the people on the top-100 list, Macdonald said. The highest-paid CEOs in Ontario make 298 times the average Ontario worker, at $18.5 million. 

The report recommends making new top income tax brackets, removing the corporate deductibility of pay packages over $1 million, introducing a wealth tax and increasing the capital gains inclusion rate.

Even though executive compensation is supposed to be tied to company performance, the weakening economy in 2023 doesn’t necessarily mean CEO pay will have weakened in step, said Macdonald. Profits have been lower in 2023, but companies have historically found other reasons to compensate CEOs, he said.

“It’s tails, I win, heads, I also win.” 

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Jan. 2, 2024.

Record-breaking CEO pay should spark tax discussion: researcher

BNN Bloomberg

An economics researcher says record-breaking CEO compensation figures should spark a conversation about tax policies affecting Canada’s highest corporate earners.

Canada’s highest-earning executives were paid 246 times more than the average worker in 2022, according to a new report from the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA).

The top 100 CEOs took home average salaries of $14.9 million in 2022, setting a new record.

David Macdonald, senior economist with the CCPA and author of the report, told BNN Bloomberg many of the highest-earning CEOs fill most of their salaries with vast sums of share awards are meant to incentivize CEO performance.

However, Macdonald’s research showed that stocks at companies run by upper-echelon earners have largely declined over the past two years, suggesting high salaries don’t necessarily translate to better stock performance.

“Just because you’re paying your CEO top amounts, it might be good for them, but it’s not necessarily great for the shareholders,” Macdonald said in a Tuesday television interview.

TAX CONSIDERATIONS

The CCPA’s report found awarding shares to CEOs has emerged as the most popular pay option in recent years, as stock options and salaries have more tax implications.

Macdonald said he hopes the report raises alarm bells about tax incentives for the richest Canadians.

“I think a lot of Canadians are upset CEOs get paid so much and CEO work is valued so much more than the work of average workers,” Macdonald said.

“We don’t have to like it, but that doesn’t mean we don’t have to tax it and certainly we shouldn’t be giving tax subsidies to some of the richest people in the country.”

HIGH SALARIES REFLECT ‘UNIQUE TALENTS’: PROF

Ian Lee, an associate professor of management at Carleton University, made the case that CEOs are “superstars” in their fields and said their high compensation levels reflect their skills and expertise.

“There are some people with very, very unique talents, whether they’re Hollywood movie stars or musicians or football players or hockey players … or CEOs that have the very, very unique skills and they’re not substitutional,” Lee told BNNBloomberg.ca in a Tuesday phone interview.

“The vast majority of us are not Beyonce or Taylor Swift or Patrick Mahomes or Sidney Crosby.”

Musk leads world's richest to US$1.5 trillion wealth gain in 2023

Jordan Fitzgerald, Bloomberg News

It was a comeback year for the world's wealthiest.

The combined net worth of the 500 richest people surged by US$1.5 trillion in 2023, fully rebounding from the $1.4 trillion lost the year prior, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

Once again, their fortunes were closely correlated to the performance of tech stocks, which rose to fresh records this year despite recession fears, lingering inflation, lofty interest rates and geopolitical turmoil. Tech billionaires saw their wealth grow by 48 per cent or $658 billion, propelled by intense hype around artificial intelligence.

No one did better than Elon Musk, who recaptured the title of world's richest person from French luxury tycoon Bernard Arnault. The Tesla Inc. chief executive officer netted an additional $95.4 billion through Thursday's close, bolstered by the success of Tesla and SpaceX, after losing $138 billion in 2022. His net worth is now more than $50 billion above Arnault's after a global slowdown in demand for luxury goods dented shares of LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton SE.

Amazon.com Inc. founder Jeff Bezos added more than $70 billion to his wallet this year and is now neck-and-neck with Arnault for second place, while Meta Platforms Inc. CEO Mark Zuckerberg's fortune jumped by more than $80 billion.

The rising tide left some boats behind. Indian billionaire Gautam Adani lost $21 billion on Jan. 27 alone – and $37.3 billion across the whole year – after short-seller Hindenburg Research tanked the value of the Adani Group. Nevertheless, he still possesses an 11-figure fortune.

LOOKING AHEAD 

What does the world hold in store for the wealthiest people in 2024? While it's impossible to know for sure — few would have foreseen such a large rebound this year — here are some of the names to watch:

Miriam Adelson

Adelson, 78, became the majority shareholder of casino operator Las Vegas Sands Corp. after her husband Sheldon's death in 2021. After lying low for a time, Adelson this year reached a deal to buy a $3.5 billion majority stake in the Dallas Mavericks and courted Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley. Her net worth climbed to $34.3 billion. 

Francoise Bettencourt Meyers

As the heir to the L'Oréal fortune, Bettencourt Meyers, 70, is the richest woman on the planet and the first to possess a 12-figure net worth. Bettencourt Meyers' success comes as a result of France's thriving beauty and fashion industries, which have also thrust LVMH's Arnault, Chanel's Wertheimer brothers and the Hermès family into the realm of the ultrawealthy. Her fortune surged 40 per cent this year as L'Oréal's shares climbed to a record high.

Steve Cohen

The founder of Point72 Asset Management is all in on New York dynasties — old and new. Cohen, 67, owns the News York Mets and is attempting to revitalize the baseball franchise after years of lackluster performance. He's also partnering with Hard Rock International in an attempt to secure one of the state's limited new casino licenses, giving beleaguered Mets fans the chance to gamble their sorrows away. His wealth rose to $13.9 billion in 2023. 

Mark Cuban

Cuban, 65, has a knack for getting out at the right time, selling his radio-streaming website Broadcast.com shortly before the dot-com bubble burst. He purchased the Dallas Mavericks in 2000 for $285 million, winning three division titles, two conference championships and an NBA championship before flipping them to Adelson for $3.5 billion. (He'll keep a minority stake.) Whether this goes down as another well-timed Cuban sale remains to be seen. His fortune climbed to $6.8 billion this year.

Carl Icahn

It was a rough year for the activist investor after short-seller Hindenburg Research initiated a meltdown that wiped $18.1 billion from his fortune, including more than $10 billion in just one day. Still, 87-year-old Icahn has a lot of fight left in him. He intends to launch a new proxy battle to take control of Illumina Inc.'s board, according to people familiar with the matter, after the DNA-sequencing company terminated a costly acquisition that Icahn had criticized. 

Rupert Murdoch

The 92-year-old News Corp. founder has officially retired, ceding control to his son, Lachlan. It's set to be a rocky year for the heir as candidates including Joe Biden and Donald Trump vie for the presidency again. Fox Corp. already settled with Dominion Voting Systems for $787.5 million after the company accused the network of airing false claims that it rigged the vote against Trump. Fox still faces another lawsuit by Smartmatic Corp. in a similar case. The controversy hasn't dented Rupert Murdoch's net worth, which rose to $8.9 billion in 2023.

Masayoshi Son

The Japanese investor made a big bet on WeWork, which officially crumpled in 2023, and people are questioning his judgment after he continued to pour money into Adam Neumann's remote-work business even after it was clearly struggling. The SoftBank Group Corp. founder, 66, is likely to struggle further as deals dry up. But he's pulled himself out of deeper holes before, climbing back after losing tens of billions of dollars in the dot-com crash. Son's wealth fell to $11.4 billion this year.

Donald Trump

The former president and current candidate may have lost the 2020 election, but his wallet has only gained. His wealth has grown by ​​$500 million since 2021, giving him a total net worth of $3.1 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. Still, 2024 will be a battle for Trump, 77, as he defends himself in lawsuits related to his defamation of author E. Jean Carroll, alleged fraud as well as his attempts to overturn the 2020 election – all while running for president.

Changpeng “CZ” Zhao

In many ways it was a rough year for the 46-year-old founder of Binance, the world's biggest crypto exchange. In November, CZ and Binance pleaded guilty to money laundering and U.S. sanctions violations. He agreed to step down as CEO and personally pay a $50 million fine in addition to the $4.3 billion Binance will have to fork over. Still, the rebound in crypto boosted CZ's wealth by nearly $25 billion this year, even as he may be headed to jail in 2024.

 

LOSER

Air Canada ranks last for on-time performance in North America

Christopher Reynolds, The Canadian Press

Air Canada notched the worst on-time performance among large airlines in North America in 2023, according to a new report, even as the carrier surged back to profitability.

The country's biggest carrier landed 63 per cent of its flights on time last year, placing it last among the continent's 10 largest airlines. That means roughly 140,000 planes rolled up to the gate late — more than 15 minutes after scheduled arrival.

The score was five percentage points below the second- and third-lowest carriers, JetBlue Airways and Frontier Airlines, respectively.

Canada's other major airline, WestJet, placed seventh in North America with a score of 69 per cent.

"When I joined the industry, good OTP was 75 per cent-plus," said Willy Boulter, a Cirium advisory board member and 35-year aviation veteran.

Targets have gone up since. Delta Air Lines came first with an on-time performance (OTP) of 85 per cent, followed by Alaska Airlines at 82 per cent.

Better technology in areas ranging from jet engines to air traffic control have made on-time goals more achievable than ever, said Boulter. 

Other, smaller airlines in Canada and the U.S. may have had worse on-time records than Air Canada's, but weren't included in the report due to their size.

Air Canada said its outcomes reflected challenges that affected carriers across the country last year.

"However, our operation has been consistently improving so that by year-end our monthly on-time performance showed a double-digit improvement over July, a significant increase," said Air Canada spokesman Peter Fitzpatrick in an email.

Forty-nine per cent of Air Canada flights in July arrived late, according to Cirium.

The airline's focus remains on reducing the number of delays and cancellations in 2024, Fitzpatrick said.

In the past, the Montreal-based company has pointed to a shortage of air traffic controllers, bad weather and a network running at full tilt amid high demand, which can mean longer recovery times after a disruption.

CEO Michael Rousseau has acknowledged Air Canada's relatively low ranking, including after a wave of flight delays in June and July.

Despite more staff and revamped technology, the carrier's operations failed to meet "expected levels," he told analysts on a conference call in August.

The chief executive identified "severe weather" — thunderstorms, in particular — and global supply chain issues as among the culprits.

He also acknowledged that high load factors — when all planes are almost fully booked — do result in more "spilling traffic" after flights are cancelled, as passengers scramble to rebook with competitors and may arrive hours or days later than planned.

John Gradek, who teaches aviation management at McGill University, noted that those challenges were not unique to Air Canada, despite its tardier track record. Air Alaska deals with inclement weather too, for example.

Air Canada is "counting on Canadians" to prioritize availability over punctuality, Gradek argued. 

"It's more important for us to be able to get a seat to Jamaica or to Dubai or to Bangkok, and the heck with the on-time," he said. "And that's a shame."

Gabor Lukacs, president of the Air Passenger Rights advocacy group, says Air Canada's explanations for its low on-time standing "ring hollow."

“WestJet is flying the same weather, the same air traffic control environments," he said.

The results stem partly from a failure to ensure the number of tickets align with the capacity of the whole flight ecosystem, from airport slots to Nav Canada staff.

“The airlines cannot just pretend that the capacity’s in place," he said. “There are no proper systems in place to rein in airlines that do this type of behaviour.”

The summer travel peak poses a slew of obstacles, as carriers look to maximize their fleets to fly as many customers as possible.

"The harder I work the airplane, the higher the risk that that airplane will have a mechanical issue ... and that these airplanes will not operate on time," said Gradek, who worked at Air Canada for 18 years.

"Delta does value on time performance quite highly. Air Canada does not," he claimed, stating that its last-place results partly reflect business decisions around scheduling and route choices.

Other reasons can account for delays. The cold weather in Canada means planes need to be de-iced as early as October, runways need to be cleared of snow, and landing and takeoff times can be more spread out.

The frosty hurdles make achieving parallel on-time performance north of the border a challenge, experts say.

Over the holidays, however, the fairly mild temperatures across the country meant that most passengers enjoyed smooth sailing. That outcome stood in contrast to the tales of travel nightmares from 12 months earlier, when thousands of passengers saw their flights delayed or cancelled largely due to poor weather.

In peak travel season, some fleets are often stretched too thin to find a backup plane right away, Gradek pointed out.

Strained capacity in the sector extends to labour as well, from pilots to baggage handlers. In July, the International Air Transport Association called out air traffic control organizations in North America, which include Nav Canada, for staffing shortages that "continue to produce unacceptable delays and disruptions."

Nav Canada has acknowledged that occasional delays at the country's biggest airports are related in part to a lack of air traffic controllers. More than 400 new recruits are now in training, with 600 more slated to be hired in the next two years, the organization said.

On average, every minute of delay for one airplane costs the carrier about US$100 on average, according to aviation analyst Tony Brooks, drawing on 2022 data from the U.S. Department of Transport. 

"It is estimated delays cost over US$1 billion each year to the industry, a vast sum which could be put to better use towards investment in airline and airport infrastructure," he said in the Cirium report.

Air Canada earned $2.08 billion in profit in the first three quarters of 2023. The resurgence followed 11 straight quarters of losses totalling $10.01 billion between 2020 and 2022, when demand for travel dried up due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Jan. 2, 202

 

Transat flight attendants reject tentative contract deal

The Canadian Press

Flight attendants at Air Transat have voted to reject a tentative deal with the Canadian leisure carrier. Air Transat aircraft are seen on the tarmac at Montreal-Trudeau International Airport in Montreal, on Wednesday, April 8, 2020. , THE CANADIAN PRESS/Paul Chiasson

Flight attendants at Air Transat have voted to reject a tentative deal with the Canadian leisure carrier.

The Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE), which represents the 2,100 flight attendants at the airline, says more than 98 per cent of workers voted against the tentative contract reached Dec. 14. 

The union says it will be back at the bargaining table with Transat later this week.

In November, Air Transat flight attendants voted to approve a strike mandate if a new contract cannot be reached.

But CUPE says there is currently no timetable for a strike.

The collective agreement for Air Transat's flight attendants based at airports in Montreal and Toronto expired on Oct. 31, 2022.

 

Memory, brain function, and behavior: exploring the intricate connection through fear memories

In new research, Boston University neuroscientist Dr. Steve Ramirez and collaborators examine the dynamic nature of fear responses in varied environments and their impacts

Peer-Reviewed Publication

BOSTON UNIVERSITY

 

IMAGE: 

Dr. Steve Ramirez.

view more 

CREDIT: PHOTO COURTESY OF STEVE RAMIREZ.

In a world grappling with the complexities of mental health conditions like anxiety, depression, and PTSD, new research from Boston University neuroscientist Dr. Steve Ramirez and collaborators offers a unique perspective. The study, recently published in the Journal of Neuroscience, delves into the intricate relationship between fear memories, brain function, and behavioral responses. Dr. Ramirez, along with his co-authors Kaitlyn Dorst, Ryan Senne, Anh Diep, Antje de Boer, Rebecca Suthard, Heloise Leblanc, Evan Ruesch, Sara Skelton, Olivia McKissick, and John Bladon, explore the elusive concept of fear engrams, shedding light on the physical manifestation of memory in the brain. As Ramirez emphasizes, the initiative was led by Dorst and Senne, with the project serving as the cornerstone of Dorst’s PhD.

Beyond its implications for neuroscience, their research marks significant strides in understanding memory formation and holds promise for advancing our comprehension of various behavioral responses in different situations, with potential applications in the realm of mental health. In this Q&A, Dr. Ramirez discusses the motivations, challenges, and key findings of the study.

What motivated you and your research collaborators to study the influence of fear memories on behavior in different environments?

The first thing is that with fear memories, it’s one of the most, if not the most, most studied kind of memory in rodents. It’s something that gives us a quantitative, measurable behavioral readout. So when an animal’s in a fearful state, we can begin looking at how its behavior has changed and mark those changes in behavior as like an index of fear. Fear memories in particular are our point because they lead to some stereotyped behaviors in animals such as freezing in place, which is one of many ways that fear manifests behaviorally in rodents..

So that’s one angle. The second angle being that fear is such a core component of a variety of pathological states in the brain. So including probably especially PTSD, but also including generalized anxiety, for instance, and even certain components of depression for that matter. So there’s a very direct link between a fear memory and its capacity to evolve or devolve in a sense into a pathological state such as PTSD. It gives us a window into what’s going on in those instances as well. We studied fear because we can measure it predictably in rodents, and it has direct translational relevance in disorders involving dysregulated fear responses as well.

Can you explain what fear engrams are and how you used optogenetics to reactivate them in the hippocampus?

An engram is this elusive term that generally means the physical manifestation of memory. So, whatever memory’s physical identity is in the brain, that’s what we term an engram. The overall architecture in the brain that supports the building that is memory. I say elusive because we don’t really know what memory fully looks like in the brain. And we definitely don’t know what an engram looks like. But, we do have tips of the iceberg kind of hints that for the past decade, we’ve been able to really use a lot of cutting edge tools in neuroscience to study.

In our lab, we’ve made a lot of headway in visualizing the physical substrates of memories in the brain. For instance, we know that there’s cells throughout the brain. It’s a 3D phenomenon distributed throughout the brain but there’s cells throughout the brain that are involved in the formation of a given memory such as a fear memory and that there’s areas of the brain that are particularly active during the formation of a memory.

What were the main findings about freezing behavior in smaller versus larger environments during fear memory reactivation?

It’s thankfully straightforward and science is often anything but. First, if we reactivate this fear memory when the animals are in a small environment, then they’ll default to freezing–they stay in place. This is presumably an adaptive response so as to avoid detection by a potential threat. We think the brain has done the calculus of, can I escape this environment? Perhaps not. Let me sit in a corner and be vigilant and try to detect any potential threats. Thus, the behavior manifests as freezing.

The neat part is that in that same animal, if we reactivate the exact same cells that led to freezing in the small environment, everything is the exact same: the cells that we’re activating, the fear memory that it corresponds to, the works. But, if we do that in a large environment, then it all goes away. The animals don’t freeze anymore. If anything, a different repertoire of behaviors emerge. Basically, they start doing other things that is just not freezing, and that was the initial take home for us, was that they, when we reactivate the fear memory up, or artificially, when we do that in the small environment, they freeze, when we do that in the large environment, they don’t freeze.

What was cool for us about that finding in particular was that it means that these fear memory cells are not hardwired to produce the same exact response every single time they’re reactivated. At some point, the brain determines, “I’m recalling a fear memory and now I have to figure out what’s the most adaptive response.”

Were there any challenges or obstacles you encountered during the research process, and how did you overcome them?

There’s a couple. The first is that the behavior, ironically enough, was reasonably straightforward for us to reproduce and to do again and again and again–so that we were convinced that there was some element of truth there. In the second half of the study, and the one that probably takes up the most space in the paper, was figuring out what in the brain is mediating this difference. As we observed, the animals are freezing when we artificially activate a memory in a small environment, and they’re not freezing in the large environment. But, we’re activating the same cells. So, what is different about the animal’s brain state? What is the animal’s brain state when we’re reactivating this memory in the small environment compared to the large environment? Clearly it’s manifesting as totally opposite behaviors–freezing and lack thereof.

So, we wanted to find out what in the brain is happening in those two conditions that are different. That led us down a multi-year rabbit hole of trying to map out activity patterns in the entire brain, as a result of stimulating these memories in these different sized environments. We went through a whole mess of technologies where we looked at the brain–we can actually make the brain completely transparent–so that we can take fancy microscopes and image the brain in three dimensions. Think of it as a cellular MRI for rodents. We created these brain wide maps of what’s responsive in the brain when we stimulate a memory. Then we asked ourselves, how does that map of the brain in the small environment compare to the map of the brain when we’re activating the memory in the large environment?

In short, there’s similarities and there’s differences. That there’s certain parts of the brain that are always active when we stimulate a memory, regardless of the environments that the animals are in. But, then there’s other parts that are only active in the large environment or only active when we do the experiment in the small environment. That’s neat because that lets us know that those areas that are not in common between the two might be the ones that are actually important in mediating the brain’s decision to either freeze or to not freeze. However, this process was challenging because it required a lot of technical prowess such as making brains transparent and imaging them in three dimensions down at the cellular level.

How might the insights from this research be applied or extended in the future, particularly in the context of understanding and treating fear-related disorders?

Context clearly matters. One relatable example is that two people might be experiencing the same level of anxiety, but the underlying reason for that anxiety might be wildly different across the two people. The ways that anxiety affects the people behaviorally may also be very different. One person might be pacing up and down the room, whereas the other one is just kind of sitting and lost in their own thoughts. The same faculty of cognition can appear two very different ways, in how it’s expressed. In this case, we think it’s the same thing with fear memories — how they’re expressed will depend on what the animal is experiencing. Perhaps in people, how a given memory is expressed also is going to depend on the context, like the who’s there, the what, where, why, and so on.

So that’s one angle, but I think that the more direct relevance is that we’ve known for a decade that these cells in the hippocampus are enough to jumpstart a memory when we reactivate them. But then there’s the question of, what happens if we reactivate them, and we change up more than just the environment size? If we activate a fear memory, but while an animal is with his rodent buddies in the cage, will that change how that fear memory manifests differently?

In that sense, we hope it gives more of a roadmap on what these experiments can look like, and really build off the idea that we can activate memories and chart out what’s happening throughout the brain in three dimensions. We can use that to try to continue this scavenger hunt of finding targets in the brain for mitigating fear responses.

In terms of broader implications, how could the findings of this study contribute to our understanding of the relationship between memory, brain function, and behavioral responses in various situations?

The biggest take home is that the brain processes a lot of information before a memory is translated into action. I think that for me, one of the most important points is that a thought–and I’m using thought and memory here interchangeably–particularly one linked to a memory, will make us feel all sorts of things associated with that memory. Again, it could be a positive memory, it could be a negative memory, and everything in between, but it doesn’t have to appear the same way. I think it’s a really important point for people to understand, because it serves as a reminder that the process of turning thought into action varies across individuals and what they are experiencing in real time.

Let’s say I was sitting in front of you right now. I could go through the most euphoric memories that I have and the dimmest darkest memories that I have — go through the whole spectrum of emotion from happiness, gleefulness and euphoria to somber, pensive, or sad, the works. But, I could go through all of that without ever really batting an eye, and you would never really know that those are the thoughts that I’m having unless I somehow volunteer that information. But the other thing to consider would be, maybe there’s subtle things happening underneath the hood here that we could pick up on. Maybe when I’m thinking about sad memories I slouch a little bit more, my pupils dilate, or I sweat a little bit more.

Whereas when I recall positive memories, maybe I kind of chipper up a bit, my posture is better, my pupils dilate another way, and my heart rate goes up. There’s other not so obvious metrics for reading out a memory that I think can be used. Ultimately, I hope that this research at least inspires people to dive a bit more deeply into what’s really going on and learn how our memories are ultimately leading to an action. I want to understand the magic that’s happening, and I hope that the study helped unpack a little bit of that magic.

 

Republishers are kindly reminded to uphold journalistic integrity by providing proper crediting, including a direct link back to the original source URL here.

---

JOURNAL

JNeurosci

DOI

10.1523/JNEUROSCI.0340-23.2023 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Observational study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Animals

ARTICLE TITLE

Hippocampal engrams generate variable behavioral responses and brain-wide network states

 

Influencers’ vulnerabilities: a double-edged sword

Peer-Reviewed Publication

CORNELL UNIVERSITY

ITHACA, N.Y. – New Cornell University-led research finds that social media platforms and the metrics that reward content creators for revealing their innermost selves to fans open creators up to identity-based harassment.

“Creators share deeply personal – often vulnerable – elements of their lives with followers and the wider public,” said Brooke Erin Duffy, associate professor of communication. “Such disclosures are a key way that influencers build intimacy with audiences and form communities. There’s a pervasive sense that internet users clamor for less polished, less idealized, more relatable moments – especially since the pandemic.”

Duffy is the lead author of “Influencers, Platforms, and the Politics of Vulnerability” published in the European Journal of Cultural Studies.

The research team conducted in-depth interviews with content creators to get a sense of how they experience the demands to make their content – and often themselves – visible to audiences, sponsors and the platforms.

Among their findings:

• The value of vulnerability for platform-based influencers cannot be overstated – authenticity sells, and that means projecting intimacies, insecurities and even secrets;
• These authentic revelations are often tied to one’s identities, which can open a person up to attacks based on gender, race, sexuality and other perceived traits;
• Personal and social vulnerabilities were often compounded by the vulnerabilities of platform-dependent labor: Not only did participants identify the failures of their platforms to protect them from harm (as “contractors” instead of “employees”), many felt these companies incentivize networked antagonism.

“Influencers and creators have relatively few formal sources of support or protection,” Duffy said. “In contrast to those legally employed by Meta, Twitch and TikTok, creators are independent contractors. They’re left wanting for a lot of the workplace protections traditionally afforded to employees.”

The researchers examined informal strategies – both anticipatory and reactive – that creators deploy to manage their vulnerabilities. The former included the use of platform filtering systems to sift out abusive, profane or hurtful language. The latter strategies ranged from simply not reading the comments to employing the platform’s tools to minimize the impact of what, for many, felt like an inevitable onslaught of critique.

The authors acknowledge the difficulties of resolving endemic issues of internet hate and harassment. “‘Getting off the internet’ is hardly a viable option for participants in the put-yourself-out-there neoliberal job economy,” they wrote – and offer a warning to those wishing to join the creator economy.

“It is something of a truism that ‘everyone gets the same platform,’” they wrote. “We would caution, however, that the politics of visibility – and hence, the politics of vulnerability – are far less egalitarian that platforms lead us to believe.”

For additional information, see this Cornell Chronicle story.

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JOURNAL

European Journal of Cultural Studies

DOI

10.1177/13675494231212346 

ARTICLE TITLE

The politics of vulnerability in the influencer economy

 

Women’s and girls’ sports: more popular than you may think

About half of Americans consume female sports content

Peer-Reviewed Publication

OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY

COLUMBUS, Ohio – The number of Americans who watch or follow girls’ and women’s sports goes well beyond those who view TV coverage of women’s athletic events, a new study suggests.

 

In fact, just over half of American adults spent some time watching or following female sports in the past year, the results showed.

 

U.S. adults spend about one hour a week consuming female sports content, which may seem higher than expected, according to the researchers.  Still, it is only a small fraction of Americans’ overall sports consumption.

 

The study was unique in that it took a broad look at how Americans consume female sports and incorporated all types of involvement, said Chris Knoester, co-author of the study and professor of sociology at The Ohio State University.

 

That could include those who watched girls participate in high school athletics or read about female athletes in sports publications, as well as watching professionals live or on TV.

 

“It’s not just people who are passionate and invested who consume girls’ and women’s sports,” Knoester said.

 

“Sometimes it’s parents watching their daughters play soccer, or sports fans who are flipping through channels looking for something to watch, or a person who reads about female sports stars.”

 

The study, which was published recently in the Journal of Emerging Sports Studies, was led by Rachel Allison, associate professor of sociology at Mississippi State University.

 

Allison noted that there have been intriguing signs that interest in women’s sports has been growing, such as the National Women’s Soccer League setting a new attendance record of more than 1 million fans this past season and a record-breaking 55,000 people attending a women’s college basketball exhibition game.

 

“But there’s surprisingly little research on consumers of women’s sports – this is one of the first studies to examine how common it is for American adults to watch or follow women’s and girls’ sports,” she said.

 

Survey data came from the National Sports and Society Survey (NSASS), sponsored by Ohio State’s Sports and Society Initiative.

 

The survey was completed by 3,993 adults who volunteered to participate through the American Population Panel, run by Ohio State’s Center for Human Resource Research. Participants, who came from all 50 states, answered the survey online between the fall of 2018 and spring of 2019.

 

Because NSASS participants are disproportionately female, white and Midwestern, the researchers weighted the survey results to reflect the U.S. population more accurately.

 

Results showed that 55% of respondents said they spent at least some time over the previous year watching or following female sports.  The survey did not define what it means to “watch or follow” sports, so responses are based on participants’ perceptions of those terms.

 

However, 60% of respondents reported watching or following female sports none or almost none of the time.

 

The researchers estimated the number of hours participants spent watching or following girls’ or women’s sports over the past year by taking the total hours of watching/following sports and multiplying that by the approximate proportion of time they reported watching or following female sports.

 

The result: Researchers estimated survey participants watched or followed female sports for about an hour a week.

 

“It was relatively moderate levels of consumption of female sports,” Allison said.

 

The study also dug into who were most likely to take in women’s sports. Lesbians were a key audience for women’s sports, results showed, and were among those most likely to be avid consumers.

 

“But we did find some evidence that men disproportionately consume more total hours of female sports than women do, which is really striking,” Knoester said.

 

The reason appears to be that men tend to follow and watch much more sports in total than women do, so they come into contact with more female sports.

 

People’s family background also played a key role. As might be expected, people whose families were deeply embedded in sports in general had more interest in following or watching female athletes. Having more girls and women family members encouraged more exposure to and appreciation of female sports.

 

“In particular, having mothers who were highly athletic or who were involved as a sports fan seems to elevate people’s consumption of women’s sports, even later in adulthood,” Allison said.

 

The study also examined how beliefs about women and men in society and sport were related to women’s sport consumption.

 

Not surprisingly, those who thought that women were inferior to men in sports were less likely to watch or follow them.

 

But, curiously, those who didn’t believe women and men were equals – for example, those who said husbands should make all important decisions in a family – were also more likely than others to be women’s sports consumers.  The same was true for those higher in homophobia.

 

The researchers believe that may be because sports, in general, tends to attract men who have less egalitarian and more homophobic views.

 

Overall, the researchers say the findings show that there is already moderate interest in women’s and girls’ sports and that it is growing and has the potential to grow even larger.

 

“Even though women’s sports receive less than 5% of all sports media coverage, according to some estimates, our results suggest that the interest may be larger than assumed,” Knoester said.

 

Allison added that knowing the audience is critical.

 

“What we are learning about who watches and follows female sports is critical to successful marketing efforts and audience building,” she said. “It can help women’s sports achieve a higher level of commercial success.”

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METHOD OF RESEARCH

Data/statistical analysis

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

People

ARTICLE TITLE

Who Watches and Follows Girls’ and Women’s Sport? A Gendered Life Course Analysis of U.S. Adults’ Consumption

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

2-Jan-2024

 

How big data transforms the insurance sector

Peer-Reviewed Publication

KEAI COMMUNICATIONS CO., LTD.

 

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CREDIT: HAITHAM NOBANEE, ET AL.

In 2022, the insurance industry made a whopping USD 6 trillion globally—more than the entire economy of big countries like Japan and Germany. A new study, published in The Journal of Finance and Data Science, looked at how technology, especially big data, is shaking things up in insurance. Big data means using a lot of information to make better decisions.

The study found that by using big data, insurance companies can understand risks better, offer fair prices and keep customers happier.

“What's surprising is how fast insurance companies are jumping on the big data bandwagon,” says first author of the study, Nejla Ellili. “They're investing a lot of money in it—around $3.6 billion by 2021! And guess what? It's paying off! Big data helps them save money, offer better insurance deals, and catch more fraud. But it's not all sunshine; there are some problems too.”

 The study found that these is a need to be careful about privacy and ethics when using all this data. The findings also revealed that while much is known about how big data is helping insurance right now, there's still a lot to be elucidated in terms of the long-term effects.

“This means researchers and people in charge of insurance rules need to keep studying to make sure big data is used the right way,” adds Ellili. “Our findings give us a roadmap, like a guide, for future research, telling us what we should look at next.”

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Contact the author: Professor Haitham Nobanee

College of Business, Abu Dhabi University, Abu Dhabi 59911, United Arab Emirates

Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies, University of Oxford, Marston Rd, Headington, Oxford OX3 0EE, UK

The University of Liverpool Management School, The University of Liverpool, Liverpool, Lancashire, United Kingdom

Emails: (haitham.nobanee@liverpool.ac.uk; haitham.nobanee@adu.ac.ae; haitham.nobanee@oxcis.ac.uk; nobanee@gmail.com ).

The publisher KeAi was established by Elsevier and China Science Publishing & Media Ltd to unfold quality research globally. In 2013, our focus shifted to open access publishing. We now proudly publish more than 100 world-class, open access, English language journals, spanning all scientific disciplines. Many of these are titles we publish in partnership with prestigious societies and academic institutions, such as the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC).

 

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JOURNAL

The Journal of Finance and Data Science

DOI

10.1016/j.jfds.2023.100102 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Systematic review

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Not applicable

ARTICLE TITLE

The applications of big data in the insurance industry: A bibliometric and systematic review of relevant literature