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Human Behavior

Nature and nurture both contribute to gender inequality in leadership but that doesn’t mean patriarchy is forever – The Conversation US

Gender expectations can make it harder for women to achieve positions of leadership. Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty Images

Kamala Harris candidacy as vice president of the United States provoked familiar criticism, based in part on her identity as a woman. Critics find her too angry, too confident, too competitive. But when women do act less competitively, they are seen as less capable of leadership. This is the double-bind women face when aspiring to leadership positions.

To overcome it, we need to understand where it comes from. Why do gender norms privilege men as leaders?

Some psychologists tie the origins of gender norms to aspects of our nature the greater physical strength of men and pregnancy and breastfeeding in women. The idea is that in our hunter-gatherer ancestors, physical strength made men more efficient at, and thus more likely to specialize in, tasks like hunting or warfare. Ancestral women specialized in tasks like infant care, which could be compromised by excessive risk-taking or competitiveness. This got the ball rolling, so the argument goes, toward gender norms that women be less competitive than men, including in the pursuit of leadership.

As an evolutionary anthropologist who studies leadership, I think this evolutionary explanation is not especially persuasive on its own. My view is that gender norms are not just influenced by the evolution of our bodies, but also by the evolution of our minds.

Men didnt specialize in tasks like hunting just because of greater muscle mass, but also because men evolved to take risks to show-off and to overtly compete more than women. These are only average differences many women are more overtly competitive than the average man.

Nevertheless, evolved sex differences in behavior contribute to but neither determine nor ethically justify the gender norms that societies create. I suggest that taking an evolutionary perspective can actually help reduce gender inequality in leadership.

Across animal species, males tend to compete more violently and more frequently than females. Many evolutionary biologists theorize this is due to sex differences in parental investment. As females spend time bearing and nursing young, males have access to a smaller remaining pool of potential mates. Facing greater competition over mates, males tend to evolve greater body mass, weaponry such as horns, and physical aggression to prevail against rivals. Females tend to evolve greater selectivity in their use of aggression, in part because injury can impede parenting.

Do human beings fit these trends? A man of average physical strength is stronger than 99% of women. Even in the most egalitarian small-scale societies, studies find that men are likely to be more physically aggressive and more likely to directly compete against others.

Across studies, women are more often observed to engage in indirect competition, such as gossip or social exclusion. Womens willingness to compete may also be more selective. For example, when competition directly benefits their children or when results are not made public, women, on average, can be as competitive as men.

Men may also have evolved greater motivation to compete by forming large, hierarchical coalitions of same-sex peers. Men can be quicker to resolve low-level conflicts which goes along with valuing relationships based on how much they help with coalition-building. Womens same-sex coalitions tend to be smaller and more egalitarian, enforced through threat of social exclusion.

Historically, these average sex differences influenced the creation of gender norms to which women and men were expected to conform. These norms restricted womens activities beyond the household and increased mens control over politics.

Importantly, different environments can strengthen or weaken sex differences. Evolution is not deterministic when it comes to human behavior. For example, in societies where warfare was frequent or food production was more reliant on mens labor, youre more likely to find cultural emphasis on male competitiveness and coalition-building and restriction of womens opportunities.

Recognizing the influence of evolution on behavior and gender norms isnt just of academic interest. I think it can suggest ways to reduce gender inequality in leadership in the real world.

First, trying to get women and men to on average behave the same like simply encouraging women to lean in is unlikely to have tremendous effect.

Second, people should call attention to those traits that help elevate many unqualified men to positions of power. These traits include larger body size, and mens greater tendency to self-promote and to exaggerate their competence.

Third, people should scrutinize the extent to which organizations reward mens more than womens preferred forms of competition and cooperation. Organizational goals can suffer when competitive masculinity dominates an organizations culture.

Fourth, organizations that have a more equitable mix of male and female leaders have access to more diverse leadership styles. This is a good thing when it comes to tackling all kinds of challenges. In certain scenarios, leader effectiveness may hinge more on risk-seeking, direct competitiveness and creation of rigid hierarchies on average favoring male leaders.

In other contexts, perhaps the majority, leader effectiveness may depend more on risk aversion, less direct forms of competition, and more empathy-driven forms of relationship-building on average favoring women leaders. This case has been made for responses of women-led governments to the current coronavirus pandemic, particularly relative to the bravado of presidents like Donald Trump or Jair Bolsonaro.

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Finally, people can rely on other human tendencies including the impulse to emulate the prestigious to chip away at gender norms that favor men as leaders. The more that existing leaders, male or female, promote women as leaders, the more it normalizes women at the top. A now-famous study in India randomly assigned villages to elect women as chief councilors; girls in those villages subsequently completed more years of formal education and were more likely to aspire to careers outside the home.

Patriarchy is not an inevitable consequence of human nature. Rather, better understanding of the latter is key to ending the double-bind that keeps women out of leadership.

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Nature and nurture both contribute to gender inequality in leadership but that doesn't mean patriarchy is forever - The Conversation US

Human Behavior

Researchers urge caution over study linking marijuana to autism – Spectrum

Rolling research: Pregnant women are increasingly using marijuana, prompting researchers to examine its effects on babies development.

FangXiaNuo / iStock

Women who use marijuana while pregnant may be more likely to give birth to an autistic child, according to a study published last week in Nature Medicine1.

The findings generated widespread press coverage, but researchers are calling for a cautious interpretation of the results in part because the association surfaced through an analysis of birth records, not a controlled study.

This is still a database study and its not going to answer all the questions, says lead investigator Daniel Corsi, senior research associate at the Ottawa Hospital Research Institute in Canada. We dont have perfect data.

The findings are provocative, particularly given the large study size, says Stephen Sheinkopf, associate professor of psychiatry and human behavior at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, who was not involved in the work.

Women are increasingly using marijuana during pregnancy, especially as more states in the United States and other countries legalize its use2. The trend has raised questions about how the substance affects fetal development.

But scientists need to take care in communicating the new results, Sheinkopf says: These are going to be viewed not only by the public but also by policymakers.

The researchers tracked diagnoses of neurodevelopmental conditions, including autism, in more than 500,000 children born between 2007 and 2012 in Ontario, Canada. They used a birth registry to identify mothers who used cannabis during pregnancy. At a first trimester check-in, 0.6 percent of the mothers in the registry reported that they had.

Corsi and his colleagues also checked whether any of the children in the registry had been diagnosed with autism after age 18 months, or attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), intellectual disability or learning disorders after age 4.

Of the half-million registered children, 7,125 were diagnosed with autism, the team found. And, Corsi says, the prevalence of autism was higher among children born to women who had used marijuana during pregnancy: 2.22 percent, compared with 1.41 percent among women who had not.

But marijuana users differed from nonusers in many other ways that could affect pregnancy outcomes: For example, they were far more likely to have a psychiatric condition, and to use other substances, such as alcohol and prescription drugs, during pregnancy.

To control for these potential confounding factors, the researchers pared down the non-user group from nearly 500,000 to around 170,000 to match them to the user group more closely.

The association remained after the matching, Corsi says, with 2.45 percent of cannabis-exposed children receiving an autism diagnosis, compared with 1.46 percent of children who were not exposed. It also stood after controlling for other factors, such as examining women who used cannabis but no other substances.

Its compelling that their primary finding of that association with autism was able to be upheld, says Rose Schrott, a doctoral candidate at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, who was not involved in the research but has studied the effects of marijuana on autism genes3. The findings provide a strong foundation for additional, more tightly controlled studies, such as in animal models, she says.

There are other confounding factors that the retrospective data cant capture, Corsi and others say.

For example, the information on a mothers psychiatric condition only captures her diagnosis, and does not take into account undiagnosed conditions or those in the father or other family members. Also, the socioeconomic status may be skewed because researchers measured it using census data on the area where the mothers lived, rather than individual household income.

And the data on marijuana use indicates only whether a mother used marijuana at all, not how much or often or whether for recreational or medicinal purposes to treat nausea, for example. Demonstrating that more marijuana use leads to a stronger association with autism would strengthen the finding, says Keely Cheslack-Postava, research scientist at the New York State Psychiatric Institute in New York City, who was not involved in the research.

Its a great use of the data that was there, but I would like to see that kind of evidence in the future to help us really assess if this is a true association, Cheslack-Postava says. As it stands, the study shows that the relationship between marijuana and autism is a question that deserves further examination.

The study may underestimate marijuana use, Sheinkopf says, because mothers may be reluctant to report marijuana use during pregnancy due to stigma or concerns about legal repercussions.

Theres a long history of efforts to harshly criminalize drug use during pregnancy, and this is damaging to mothers and babies because it shunts women from the healthcare system to the legal system in really damaging ways, he says. We as clinical scientists need to advocate for the findings to be used to improve healthcare and not for the purposes of criminalization of moms.

Future studies could examine cannabis use in a research setting, where privacy may be better protected than it is in a doctors office. Corsi is also planning studies that use blood or urine samples to precisely measure cannabis levels during pregnancy.

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Researchers urge caution over study linking marijuana to autism - Spectrum

Human Behavior

What Is Needed to Fix Californias Coronavirus Testing? – Governing

(TNS) The ability to get tested for the coronavirus, and get test results quickly, has been one of the most unpredictable and frustrating parts of the nations pandemic response.

While some people are getting test results back within a day, others as recently as last week were waiting two weeks or more way past the window of time when a positive test result can be used to find a sick individuals contacts to trace and contain spread.

Theres been some improvement in recent days, with times tightening in some areas. But the fact is that testing availability has fluctuated dramatically during the pandemic, and it may again.

The situation went from being nearly impossible to get tested at the start of the pandemic, because hospitals and medical clinics did not have had enough tests, to much-improved by late April through early June, when testing supply stabilized and the Bay Area flattened the curve. During that period, demand for testing was relatively low, and the medical and lab system could collect specimens and process tests in relatively short order.

But by late June, as the summer surge began to take hold in the Bay Area, testing in many parts of the region faltered. As more and more people sought testing, turnaround times for test results stretched to nearly three weeks for some patients though the most seriously ill patients were typically able to get results within a day.

Last week, turnaround times began improving. Quest Diagnostics, the largest lab provider in many regions, says it is now reporting test results in two to three days. Napa County, which earlier this month was seeing wait times of up to 19 days, is now seeing wait times of two to three days, health officials said.

So what needs to be done to prevent future testing backlogs in the event of another surge? The Chronicle sought input from local health officials and laboratory directors on what it would take to improve testing for the long haul. They zeroed in on a mix of policy, technology and human behavior.

National strategy to distribute testing supplies to labs with fastest turnaround times. Labs across the country are competing for the same limited supplies of reagents, plastic pipette tips and other parts and chemicals needed to perform coronavirus tests. And there is little transparency for why some labs are getting more supplies, or supplies more quickly than others, said several health officers and lab directors. Its become a little bit of a Wild West, said Dr. Ori Tzvieli, deputy health officer for Contra Costa County. Theres not a coordinated strategy. Thats been frustrating.

Many academic labs have the ability to turn tests around faster than commercial labs, but they appear to be lower down on the priority list to receive supplies from manufacturers, said Dr. David Lubarsky, CEO of UC Davis Health. Those supplies should be going to labs that can do tests in 24 or 48 hours, he said. It seems commercial labs are getting the lions share of supplies, which is like throwing them into the ocean, he said.

Californias testing task force is working to build out the supply chain for swabs, collection kits and other supplies, and has issued a survey to local public health departments and academic labs to assess supply limitations to ensure all labs are being used at full capacity, according to the California Department of Public Health.

Reduce reliance on large commercial labs, instead using labs that can get results faster: Health care providers and publicly funded testing sites should be sending specimens to labs that have faster turnaround times, experts said. Because large labs like Quest and Labcorp have long been the standard lab services providers for hospitals and clinics, they were among the first that states, counties and health care providers turned to for coronavirus testing. But they became overwhelmed by the demand.

The state has worked with its testing contractors Optum and Verily, which operate dozens of state-funded testing sites to identify additional labs, said a spokeswoman for the California Department of Public Health. Verily, which sends tests to Quest, plans to bring on two additional large labs this month, a company spokeswoman said. Experts stress the need to continue spreading tests around to other labs run by academic institutions or private companies. Some of this is already underway.

In the Bay Area, for instance, labs at San Franciscos Chan Zuckerberg Biohub and UC Berkeleys Innovative Genomics Institute (IGI) are processing tests within 24 to 48 hours for county public health departments and vulnerable populations in the East Bay. San Franciscos city testing program found early success in securing fast turnaround times by contracting with Color Genomics, the Burlingame firm whose lab is turning tests around in 24 to 48 hours. Other counties, like Alameda and Marin, later began contracting with Color as well to get faster results. And Contra Costa County recently approved contracts with additional private labs that have promised turnaround times of two to three days. Having multiple contracts with multiple labs will allow us to be nimble and flexible regarding which labs we send tests to, and not reliant on a single or a couple labs if they experience testing delays, Contra Costa County Health Officer Dr. Chris Farnitano said during a Tuesday update to the Board of Supervisors.

Develop faster tests for surveillance, and deploy them widely: Antigen tests are gaining traction among researchers as one potential way to test large numbers of people quickly, without gumming up the lab system. The vast majority of coronavirus testing is currently done through PCR testing at labs. This type of test detects the presence of the virus genetic material (RNA) and has long been considered the standard for testing for respiratory viruses. Antigen tests detect viral proteins through a less involved, faster and cheaper process that can report results on the spot within minutes, rather than sending the specimen to a lab, which can take days. But they are less sensitive than PCR tests. Some epidemiologists say the tradeoff may be worth it because antigen tests would enable far more people to get tested frequently, get results back fast, and likely still catch most cases. Some envision a day when people can get an at-home test, and then test themselves every morning so they know if they are negative and can go to work or school, or positive and should stay home.

I dont see another solution at the moment, Dr. Michael Mina, a Harvard epidemiologist and proponent of rapid antigen testing said last week during UCSF Medical Grand Rounds, a weekly meeting of medical experts. This is simple technology. ... This is the kind of thing we shouldnt be asking: Do companies have them ready to build at the point? We should be saying, How do we get the federal government to use all their might and resources to start making these? And for a fraction of the cost of the most recent stimulus bill passed for coronavirus response, we can have every American using one of these every single day for a year.

Antigen tests are not yet widely used. In July, federal health officials began shipping millions of the tests to nursing homes across the United States, including more than a dozen in the Bay Area. There are two antigen tests that have received FDA Emergency Use Authorization, made by Becton Dickinson and Quidel, and both can only be done for symptomatic people. If the data on antigen testing turns out to be good and the FDA authorizes their use for asymptomatic people as well opening the door for daily at-home testing that could be a game changer, said Nam Tran, who oversees coronavirus testing at UC Davis Medical Center.

Experts also say saliva tests which similarly are not yet widely used, except by some professional sports teams to test players and staff also hold promise. UC Berkeleys IGI in late July began a research study on saliva tests, administering them to thousands of UC Berkeley students, faculty and staff to see if the test is sensitive and specific enough to use in a clinical setting. If it is, it could greatly increase access to testing since saliva is easier to collect than having a health care professional do a nasal swab. And it could potentially be done in peoples homes, making testing more frequent and accessible.

Rethink who needs to get tested: The early narrative around testing was to test everyone, regardless of the severity of symptoms and even if they did not have symptoms, since many people with the coronavirus are asymptomatic. But thats part of the reason testing demand is overwhelming supply, said Solano County Health Officer Dr. Bela Matyas. Testing should be limited to people when knowing the result will affect their treatment plan, such as hospitalized patients, and for surveillance in nursing homes and prisons where the risk of spread is highest, Matyas said. The so-called worried well shouldnt bother getting tested, at least not when the testing system is overwhelmed, and neither should mildly symptomatic people they should simply assume they have it and self-quarantine for 10 days, he said. That would help clear up the backlog.

Adjust human behavior: Local health officials have identified social gatherings of friends and family, where households mix, to be one of the most common ways the coronavirus is spreading. If people practiced social distancing and mask-wearing more consistently in these settings, it would drive down demand for testing by driving down the disease rate in the population. All of the control is in our own hands if we exercise control, said Matyas. If we practiced some level of social distancing in our social interactions with family and friends, wed control the outbreak and thereby control the testing problem. But thats not an easy thing for people to connect the dots on. ... Its a low-tech, cheap solution.

2020 the San Francisco Chronicle.Distributed byTribune Content Agency, LLC.

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What Is Needed to Fix Californias Coronavirus Testing? - Governing

Human Behavior

Tough, timely and team-driven: 50 years of energy research – Princeton University

Princetons vital research across the spectrum of environmental issues is today and will continue to be pivotal to solving some of humanitys toughest problems. Our impact is built on a long, deep, broad legacy of personal commitment, intellectual leadership, perseverance and innovation. This article is part of a series to present the sweep of Princetons environmental excellence over the past half-century.

Yueh-Lin (Lynn) Loo's moment of clarity came while sitting at a long wooden conference table at Princeton University's Maeder Hall Auditorium. The director of the Andlinger Center for Energy and the Environment was leading a meeting with a renowned Princeton political scientist, psychologist, economist and esteemed engineering colleagues, who were all gathered to discuss a massive problem: how to provide energy to the world while simultaneously eliminating greenhouse gas emissions.

I got goosebumps along the back of my neck, said Loo, the Theodora D. 78 and William H. Walton III 74 Professor in Engineering and professor of chemical and biological engineering.

Seeing so many experts at the table, many of whom had never worked on energy before, showed me that we had built something whose sum was greater than the individual parts, said Loo.

The scene took place in June 2019 at the inaugural workshop of Rapid Switch, an international research collaboration spearheaded by the Andlinger Center. Its focus is accelerating decarbonization efforts globally, region by region and sector by sector.

Fifty years before that meeting in Maeder Hall, in 1969, a similar new collaboration was being forged at the University. A wave of energy and environmental problems were coming to bear in the United States, from the Cuyahoga River fire to the Santa Barbara oil well blowout. Universities were grappling with how to respond.

Princeton University President Robert F. Goheen learned about a young physicist, an assistant professor at Yale University, with a passion for environmental issues. The professor had just published a book, Patient Earth, and was looking to move from the abstract realm of physics to research that would more directly protect the planet. Robert Socolow was recruited to build a multidisciplinary research program on energy and the environment, the first of its kind at the University.

Princetons offer could not have been more exciting to me; building an interdisciplinary center was exactly what I wanted to do, said Socolow, now professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering, emeritus. What became the Center for Energy and Environmental Studies (CEES) was formally founded in 1971 in the School of Engineering and Applied Science, as Robert Jahn became its dean. Irvin Glassman, a former professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering, during his tenure as CEES director put the center on the campus map.

Photo courtesy of the Andlinger Center for Energy and the Environment

According to Socolow, the Universitys response to the environmental issues of the day was unusually robust. He said other Ivy League institutions were not looking to invest in a tenure-track faculty member with an environmental mission.

During its 30-year span, CEES responded to national issues and provided meaningful, timely research.

Robert Williams, a senior research scientist, emeritus, and founder of CEES Energy Systems Analysis Group, and Frank von Hippel, professor of public and international affairs, emeritus, and senior research physicist, led the burgeoning research areas energy systems and energy security. With increased interest in conservation and nuclear power after the 1973 oil crisis, the researchers made recommendations on nuclear security, and demonstrated the economic and environmental benefits of cogeneration in power plants.

The centers research paved the way for the passage of the Public Utility Regulatory Policies Act (PURPA), which promoted energy conservation and deregulated the electric industry in favor of competition among electric producers. The centers research ranged from developing the study of energy use in buildings to evaluating energy use and fuel efficiency for the automobile industry to sustainable global development, with close collaborations with top researchers in Brazil, India and Europe. In 1993, Williams and von Hippel were named Macarthur Genius Fellows. It was the first time two scholars from the same academic unit of any university were recognized at the same time with this honor.

Photo courtesy of Steven Cowley

During the same period, Princeton University became a leader in the field of nuclear fusion, the source of energy that powers stars, including the sun. In 1951, Princeton atrophysicist Lyman Spitzer met with the Atomic Energy Commission and proposed a method for controlled fusion on Earth. Realizing that fusion could become an inexhaustible energy source, the Commission greenlighted the project. After being declassified in 1958, the program became the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory, a U.S. national lab managed by Princeton University.

"Princeton's always been the leader in the world. Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory is the most famous lab in fusion and has been since it was declassified in 1958, said Steven Cowley, director of the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) and former chief executive of the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority.

PPPL was the first in the world to produce substantial amounts of fusion energy, generating 10 million watts of power with a core fusion temperature of 250 million degrees Celsius in 1994.

The draw of fusion energy today is that it could be a nearly limitless source of carbon-free energy that would help the United States and world lower its carbon footprint by weaning energy systems off of oil, coal and gas. PPPL is currently working to develop strategies to lay the groundwork for commercializing fusion in the latter half of the century, while collaborating on the worlds most advanced fusion reactor, the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor, or ITER, which is under construction in France.

In the late 20thcentury, the focus among scientists tracking environmental problems shifted to another issue: carbon dioxide. Fears around whether fossil fuels would run out, whether they would be affordable, nuclear accidents, and air and water pollution, were slowly overtaken by concerns of the greenhouse effect on the global climate.

We were beginning to understand that everyday human activities could overwhelm the earth, said Socolow.

Robert Williams, of the Energy Systems Analysis Group, recognized that carbon dioxide could be removed from the flues of power plants and stored instead of being released into the atmosphere. Geologists identified that there was adequate geological storage underground, which environmentalists regarded as a safer option compared to ocean storage. Williams and Socolow caught the attention of BP, which was looking to the academic community for support in this area. They teamed up with Stephen Pacala, the Frederick D. Petrie Professor in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, and their proposal to BP was chosen over proposals from Stanford and MIT.

Very few people at Princeton thought we could beat Stanford and MIT, said Socolow. But we presented ourselves as looking at a whole environmental problem, not at narrow parts of it.

BP awarded the multi-million-dollar grant to Princeton, which established the Carbon Mitigation Initiative (CMI) in 2000 as part of the Princeton Environmental Institute. To this day, CMIresearch focuses on advancing measurements and modeling of atmospheric, ocean, land and ice biogeochemical processes along with energy technology and integration to address the carbon and climate change problem.

In 2007, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) issued its fourth assessment report, which presented the scientific consensus around climate change and pointed to human activity as the cause.

For Emily Carter, who was then a Princeton professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering and applied and computational mathematics, it was the first time the IPCC report unequivocally convinced her that human beings are having a profound effect on the climate. At that moment, Carter, a chemist and physicist by training, shifted her entire research program to focus on sustainable energy. Carter made the decision to be very intentional with her work, and ensure that every grant she wrote was making use of my expertise to try to get us off of fossil fuels, to work on sustainable energy technologies, said Carter in an interview for the She Roars podcast.

At the same time, University leadership saw the need to redouble efforts to contribute meaningfully to the pressing issues of energy and climate, as it had done for the environment, under president Harold T. Shapiro more than a decade before with the founding of the Princeton Environmental Institute.

Shirley M. Tilghman, president of the University, emeritus, said she knew that the University had to act, and it had to be dramatic and significant.

If we were a serious research university in the 21st century, we had to have a strong presence in the field of energy research, said Tilghman, who is also a professor of molecular biology and public affairs, emeritus.

Tilghman found the support she needed to launch a new effort in alumnus Gerhard R. Andlinger of the Class of 1952, a businessman and philanthropist, who donated $100 million to establish the Andlinger Center for Energy and the Environment in 2008. Its mission was to create solutions for energy and environmental problems, and Carter would be the founding director.

Carter charged ahead with confidence, bringing to life the vision of a pan-University center dedicated to developing solutions, with a focus not just on engineering, but also on policy and human behavior. She sought out every relevant department to participate and collaborate with the center through grants, partnerships and recruitment efforts. The Andlinger Center brought in joint-appointed faculty members who worked on solutions ranging from low-carbon cements to technologies for improved power delivery to frameworks for environmental decision-making.

Loo, then associate director, succeeded Carter, who became dean of Princetons engineering school and later provost at UCLA. As associate director, Loo founded the centers corporate partnership program, Princeton E-ffiliates Partnership, which aims enable transformational innovations and move technologies quickly to market by engaging with industry stakeholders.

Loo strategically focused on external engagement and high-impact projects, and guided the research community to work on what she saw as the practical, unanswered questions of the century. She incorporated the Energy Systems Analysis Group into the center. She challenged researchers to identify pathways to decarbonization that are feasible and effective in all parts of the world, including areas still ramping up access to energy for growing populations.

The center also developed and launched the University's first executive education program, aimed at equipping decisiomakers to think critically and creatively about their roles in solving environmental and climate problems and to guide their organizations in support of this. In his opening remarks to the participants in 2018, Princeton University President Christopher L. Eisgruber said that the program, executed in collaboration with the World Economic Forum for its class of Young Global Leaders, exemplifies the Universitys increased commitment to partnerships that bring together the academy and entrepreneurial sectors to drive impact and progress. The center continues to investigate and assess new ways for countries, communities and companies to thrive while protecting the environment and mitigating climate effects.

Five decades after Socolow's initiative helped lay the foundations for modern environmental research and a decade since the Andlinger Centers establishment, Loo takes pride in the community the Andlinger Center has built and everyone who continues to join.

With Rapid Switch, Loo hopes to bring all necessary specialties together to expand global energy access and stymie climate change, building on a strong history of collaboration and action in this realm. No individual research group or even whole institution, will have all the expertise to solve the complex challenges, "but what I can do is bring people together, Loo said.

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Tough, timely and team-driven: 50 years of energy research - Princeton University

Human Behavior

When Several Lines Are Better Than One – Knowledge@Wharton – Knowledge@Wharton

Everyone knows the existential dread that comes along with standing in line for what seems like an eternity. But new research by Wharton operations, information and decisions professor Hummy Song, Guillaume Roels from INSEAD and Mor Armony from New York Universitys Stern School of Business suggests that knowledge-based industries should rethink how they approach this aspect of customer service. In this article, originally published in INSEAD Knowledge, the researchers write about their findings and how operational design can change organizational culture and improve performance.

Weve all been in lines that seem to last forever, especially if we choose our queue at the checkout and the one next to ours is moving faster. You know the existential dread that comes along with standing in a dedicated queue and waiting interminably. To make service of all kinds more efficient, the predominant thinking in operations management is to form a single serpentine queue that feeds different servers a pooled queue.

Traditional operations management theory has determined that pooling is more efficient. And it may be, if tasks or widgets are the items in the queue and its machines, not human beings, that are processing them. In a system with dedicated queues, its possible to have one thats empty and another queue thats full but no way to rebalance this. If the queue contains customers, naturally they can switch to the empty queue. But when we consider job assignments, for example, these cant just move across queues. So the dedicated queue is viewed as less efficient than a pooled one in terms of throughput and waiting time.

An impactful paper by Hummy Song and her co-authors focused on waiting rooms in emergency departments and found that when a part of the emergency department (ED) at a Kaiser Permanente hospital in California changed from a pooled queue to dedicated queues, patients had shorter wait times and a shorter length of stay. In the pooled setup, patients in the waiting room were assigned to a physician only when one became available. The switch to a dedicated system meant that as soon as patients were triaged, they were assigned to a particular physician and that physicians queue. Interestingly the researchers found the opposite of traditional efficiency in queueing theory; patients had a shorter stay in the ED when they were in dedicated queues. Physicians anecdotally described how they felt more responsible in the dedicated setup for the people assigned to them in the waiting room before they actually saw them as a patient.

Its unusual in operations management to consider people in all their humanity, with their own idiosyncratic biases and behaviors.

Its unusual in operations management to consider people in all their humanity, with their own idiosyncratic biases and behaviors. In Pooling Queues with Strategic Servers: The Effects of Customer Ownership, forthcoming in Operations Research, we show that efficiency is improved across the system if organizations consider a concept that may be unfamiliar to scholars in this area: customer ownership. Service providers may develop a greater sense of obligation and accountability when they see all the customers in their queue as belonging to them rather than as an indiscriminate pool of demand.

We modelled this upending of queueing theory using customer ownership as the motivator. We described the split in servers sense of customer ownership between when the customers enter the system and when they are right in front of the server. Our theory is human servers have human reactions that impact operational effectiveness like how long someone spends in an ED.

When Does a Person Become a Customer?

When we talk about customer ownership, its like a sense of responsibility that ED doctors had for people in the waiting room when they were triaged. Other doctors may feel customer ownership when the patient is in front of them. In our model, we stripped out financial incentive notions imagine call center workers who get a bonus dependent on short wait times, for instance to consider customer ownership on its own. (In fact, doctors at Kaiser are paid a fixed wage, so they have no financial incentive to see more patients.) Organizational behavior has documented a sense of organizational ownership, but customer ownership had not been previously analytically modelled nor had its consequences on process performance been considered.

In the model, we broke down customers who are already in the room versus the entire scope of the system. System-wide customer ownership is a combination of the people who are currently being served plus those still in the queue.

Servers either care about the customer they are currently serving or not only about that person, but also future customers as well. Incorporated in customer ownership is an interesting time dimension, whether servers focus on the present or the future and how they behave.

The Type of Task Matters

With a combination of game theory and queueing theory, one of the innovations of this paper is how we model the discretion that servers have in terms of their choice of the pace of work, which seems endogenous in practice.

In some cases, servers have very limited discretion. For instance, if you have to administer a survey of ten yes/no questions, you might have limited flexibility for taking much more or much less than the five minutes the survey was designed to last. But if the task is more knowledge-intensive, like physicians seeing a variety of cases in the ED, its up to the server to decide how much time is needed. There is a clear distinction between the routine tasks where servers have some discretion and those that are typically more knowledge-intensive where servers may have more discretion about how much time they need to complete it effectively.

The type of service matters when choosing an efficient queueing system.

The type of service matters when choosing an efficient queueing system. With a standard type of task, the traditional theory that pooling queues are the most effective mechanism holds. But if the service provided is knowledge-intensive, its important to understand that the effect can be flipped.

We modelled the utility of servers and how their notion of customer ownership maximizes it. This paper formalizes what was observed in Songs earlier work and demonstrates that the phenomenon can be justified on rational grounds. Our work is grounded in practice, and we built a theory to explain how it is transferrable to other contexts.

Our paper highlights the importance of accounting for human behavior on the part of the server, shifting attention away from the customers and the human impact on process performance.

Broader Implications of Customer Ownership

Queues arent only at the grocers or the airport. Managers in certain domains may need to consider redesigning their queueing systems not only when it comes to assigning customers to servers but also assigning work to team members. Another aspect to consider is the attention that individual contributors in knowledge-intensive services have on their own task queues. Think emails, assignments and other deliverables. Our paper suggests that in knowledge-intensive services where workers have a lot of discretion about the amount of time spent on a project, queues need to be managed a little bit differently. We find dedicating assignments to certain servers rather than pooling them to be more efficient.

Customer ownership is a concept that reflects organizational culture. As such, it can modified, like other aspects of culture. Operations management often takes organizational culture for granted; our paper shows that operational design can shape it and thus impact performance. In particular, no one had previously pointed to queue configuration, which is an important operational lever, as a way to shape organizational culture. Yet switching to dedicated queues can lead to greater customer ownership.

When we think about queues, we usually think about them from the customers point of view. But we need to look at the human on the other end of the queue. Including a servers customer ownership in consideration when planning queues will shorten the time for everyone.

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When Several Lines Are Better Than One - Knowledge@Wharton - Knowledge@Wharton

Human Behavior

Life as we know it has changed, possibly forever – Chinadaily.com.cn – Chinadaily USA

SONG CHEN/CHINA DAILY

Pandemic halts handshakes, hugging and high-fives

The steady rise in the number of coronavirus cases worldwide has had a far-reaching effect on how we live and interact with one another, producing many changes that are likely to be long-lasting or even permanent.

For example, to reduce contact during the pandemic, shaking hands, a standard style of greeting used by officials and businesspeople, among others, has been replaced by fist or elbow bumps.

In the United States, the country hardest-hit by the outbreak, with some 5.4 million confirmed cases of COVID-19 and more than 170,000 deaths, the top health official said such social niceties should end, even when the pandemic is over.

Anthony Fauci, director of the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told The Wall Street Journal in April, "I don't think we should ever shake hands ever again, to be honest with you."

Neel Gandhi, a professor of infectious diseases, epidemiology and global health at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, told ESPN, a US sports broadcaster, "When we talk about maximum transmission (of the coronavirus), the hands are the place where I focus on the most.

"When we talk about the high-five and also the handshake, this is almost the perfect pathogen to spread it," he said, suggesting that people should permanently avoid shaking hands.

If such advice from health experts is followed on a mass scale, it will produce a profound shift in human behavior.

However, some people are finding alternative ways to greet one another at a time when direct contact is frowned on.

In South Korea, bowing deeply and using fist bumps have become popular. In Australia, officials have suggested that people pat each other on the back instead of shaking hands, while Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has taken to greeting people namaste-stylepalms together and bowing slightly.

Handshakes are just one form of contact that has largely ended during the pandemic, along with hugging, high-fives and squeezing shoulders, all of which are done when standing less than 1 meter apart.

As many people worldwide emerge from lockdowns and rebuild their social lives, experts are predicting that some degree of social contact will disappear for good.

Tiziana Casciaro, a professor of organizational behavior at the University of Toronto in Canada, said shaking hands taps into "a fundamental drive" humans have to establish trust with each other, and the call by Fauci for the practice to end "flies in the face" of this.

But Casciaro said Fauci is motivated by the desire to keep people safe. She thinks that after the pandemic many people could be deterred from shaking hands in the short term. "They are going to be shell-shocked for a while," she said.

If such contact disappears completely, the way in which it is replaced is open to question. However, what is certain is that social interactions will be different.

Xu Tongwu, a professor of public policy at the Research Center for Social Organization and Public Governance at the University of Chinese Academy of Social Sciences said, "There's going to be a lot of awkwardness as people try to figure out how to greet someone, how to professionally welcome someone, or even how to greet their daughter's boyfriend for the first time."

Such uncertainty can affect relationships, Xu said, adding that people might reserve handshakes and hugs for those closest to them who they trust the most. For those outside their immediate social circle, they could develop new-style greetings that don't involve touching the skin.

"We're going to start seeing a lot more interpersonal and family-based sorts of conflict," he said. If a business colleague attempts a handshake or a friend tries a hug, and the intended recipient pulls away, "there's going to be a pretty big ripple effect in terms of the relational dynamics that we see," Xu said.

According to research by Ipsos MORI in May, many people believe that life will never return to normal after the pandemic.

Only 7 percent of Britons want businesses that have closed to reopen if the virus is not fully contained, while 70 percent strongly oppose life returning to normal.

About 60 percent of Australians and US citizens, 70 percent of Canadians and 50 percent of people from France and Brazil don't want society to return to normal, as they believe the virus will never die out completely.

Xu said: "The pandemic has changed everything we know, particularly how we remain socially connected. People have risen to the challenge and have tried to maintain social connections in creative ways, but at the same time life has been different and it can be hard to adjust to the new changes."

Long lines vanish

In China, where the pandemic has been successfully brought under control, with only a small number of new COVID-19 cases now being reported, many containment measures look set to remain for a long time.

For example, in Beijing, Gui Jie, or Ghost Street, a long, bustling thoroughfare, is lined on both sides by a string of brightly lit restaurants. Many of them used to be so popular that diners waiting for a table often sat patiently outside on stools placed on the sidewalk.

However, the lines of customers have disappeared during the pandemic, with restaurants introducing separated seating areas for customers, to prevent cross-contamination.

The lines are unlikely to return anytime soon, as many establishments nationwide have placed 1-meter markers on the ground to separate people as they wait to be admitted. Lines outside grocery stores in cities have snaked around blocks as shoppers try to maintain social distancing.

Crowded concerts and mosh pits will not be allowed at entertainment venues while the coronavirus remains a risk to public health. Many singers have turned to online concerts during the outbreak, unexpectedly attracting a large number of fans and views.

In the US, a report in Rolling Stone magazine in May on a performance in Arkansas by the blues-rock band Bishop Gunn appeared under the headline "US' first pandemic concert".

Only about 200 fans were admitted to the 1,100-seat venue, and they had to wear face masks, sit in assigned seats and maintain social distancing. They also had their temperature checked before being admitted, and use of the restrooms was limited to 10 people at a time.

Quarantine measures have resulted in much of the global workforce operating from home, and a report by the Center for the Digital Future at the University of Southern California's Annenberg School of Communications suggests that many of them like being away from the office.

The report said 42 percent of survey participants said the experience has made them want to work from home more. Over 60 percent working away from the office said they enjoyed being able to dress casually, the increased flexibility and lack of commuting.

Some 78 percent said they were just as effective working from home as in the office, or even more so, according to the report, which surveyed more than 50,000 people from 86 countries.

Debra Dinnocenzo, president of the consultancy VirtualWorks, which advises companies in the US and Europe on transitioning to working from home, said: "I think there will be some upside to this disruption that workers will want to preserve. People and families are going to be spending more time together.

"I think people will be increasingly adamant that they want more time to work at home and not return to all the crazy commuting they were doing before."

In Silicon Valley, California, many companies have permanently adopted working from home.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said up to 50 percent of the company's employees could be working remotely in the next five to 10 years, while Twitter has said it will allow some of its staff members to continue working from home permanently if they want to.

Nearly 75 percent of corporate finance officials surveyed in late March by Gartner, the business research and consulting organization, said their companies plan to switch at least 5 percent of onsite workers to operating from home permanently as part of their cost-cutting efforts after the pandemic.

Unenviable position

Zach Emmanuel, an analyst at global market research company Mintel, said pandemics have always been the enemy of crowded urban living, and increased working from home means fewer people are using public transportation.

The virus has placed public transit systems in the unenviable position of urging people not to use them unless absolutely necessary. Turning such a situation around will be difficult and involve changes in how such agencies operate, especially when it comes to convincing people to return to crowded buses and subway cars, Emmanuel said.

He added that a range of technologies are being developed to enhance safety, including the use of ultraviolet light. Seating arrangements on buses are being reconfigured and travelers' temperatures are checked before they board.

But Emmanuel also said many transportation companies have slashed services due to a severe reduction in the number of travelers during the pandemic.

The worst-case scenario would be for these reductions to be made permanent, as cash-strapped transit agencies did during the Great Recession, he said, adding, "Once you do that, riders change their plans, and they don't really come back."

Chen Xuefeng, deputy director of the Institute of Psychology at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, said: "In the post-pandemic era, people are likely to behave more conservatively for a while. They will pay more attention to themselves, such as caring for their health, spending more time alone, moving offline activities online, socializing less and saving more."

This new way of life means that some industries where old habits are engrained will face challenges in transforming and upgrading, Chen added.

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Life as we know it has changed, possibly forever - Chinadaily.com.cn - Chinadaily USA

Human Behavior

How China surveils the world – MIT Technology Review

The CCP doesnt only collect data through invasive surveillance technologies like cameras that employ facial recognition. It also relies on technologies that provide everyday services, like devices associated with smart cities. Long before AI or big data became buzzwords, the Partys intent was to co-optnot simply coercesociety to participate in its own control.

A: The CCP collects data in bulk and worries about what to do with it later. Even if its not all immediately usable, the Party anticipates better technical ability to exploit the data later on.

Large data sets can reveal patterns and trends in human behavior, which help the CCP with intelligence and propaganda as well as surveillance. Some of that data is fed into tools such as the social credit system. Bulk data, like images and voice data, can also be used to train algorithms for facial and voice recognition.

The CCPs methods are not that different from what we see in the global advertising industry. But instead of trying to sell a product, the CCP is trying to exert authoritarian control. Its using capitalism as a vehicle to access data that can help it disrupt democratic processes and create a more favorable global environment for its power.

A: Citizens of liberal democracies are rightly concerned with how tech companies abuse their data, but at least in liberal democracies there are growing restraints on how data is used. In China, where the party-state literally says that the purpose of the law is to strengthen and improve the Partys leadership, technology is deployed to extend the political power of the party-state and developed according to that standard. The Party talks about its intent to shape global public opinion in order to protect and expand its own political power. At the same time, Chinese tech companies collect data in support of such efforts. Anyone living in a liberal democracy should be concerned about the ramifications this has for freedoms and privacy.

A: I will not put it on mine. TikTok is a good example of a seemingly benign app that can give the CCP a lot of useful data. You wouldnt think of a social-media app that is used by a lot of children around the world as being inherently problematic for political reasons. But the sentiment data from an app like TikTok can be used to understand how people are influenced and how they think. A lawsuit recently filed against the company in California alleges that face data collected from the app was connected to PRC [Peoples Republic of China]based servers, raising significant privacy concerns.

TikTok has said that it stores user data in servers located in the US and Singapore, but this is a way of evading questions about the Partys potential political control over the company. Additionally, the app has been found censoring or suppressing Black Lives Matter and LGBTQ content, among other subjects. To me this has happened frequently enough around the world to look like a pattern rather than a mistake, and this is a wrong that I cannot overlook.

A: GTCOM is a big-data and AI company that is controlled by Chinas Central Propaganda Department, which is deeply involved in Party attempts to shift the global narrative around Chinas power. One of their products claims to collect 10 terabytes of data a day, or two to three petabytes per year, from web pages, forums, Twitter, Facebook, WeChat, and other sources. In terms of size, thats the equivalent of 20 billion Facebook photos. The company describes its work as contributing directly to Chinas national security, including military intelligence and propaganda.

GTCOMs research and development arm has developed algorithms that look for military keywords in the information it collects, which could for instance come from CVs or patents. The company has specifically stated that its work assists with state security. In 2017, a senior executive said that GTCOM had established an information security system that relies on image, text, and voice recognition to prevent security risks and provide technical support and assistance for state security.

A: GTCOM has strong relationships with Chinese tech companies that have a large global presence. For instance, it has a strategic agreement with Alibaba Cloud to embed its translation services in the companys technology. GTCOMs service-providing business model allows it to collect any data that GTCOM translation services generate. At face value, it might look like its services are used to improve translation quality, but in reality they are also used to build other products, including products connected to national security work.

GTCOM has established partnerships with linguistics researchers worldwide. These partnerships give GTCOM access to a broad variety of data. What GTCOM is doing is not dissimilar to [American analytics company] Palantir in terms of big-data analytics. The difference is that the intent driving GTCOMs work is framed by the CCP, whose interests run counter to those of a liberal democracy.

A: Ideal solutions dont exist yet, partly because research on these issues hasnt been in-depth or forward-looking. But we can start with greater investment in data literacy and data transparency programs. Liberal democracies must improve due diligence around security in the digital supply chain, invest in research and development, and become more competitive in the smart technologies market. They cannot go at this alone; alliances must be strengthened. Finally, liberal democratic governments must bolster data privacy laws and rethink how to manage propaganda from both foreign and domestic sources in the digital agebut without compromising democratic values along the way. To do that, they must be clear about what their values are and why they differ from those of authoritarian regimes.

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How China surveils the world - MIT Technology Review

Human Behavior

10 things you need to know before the opening bell on August 21 – CNBCTV18

Market

Updated : 2020-08-21 07:55:53

The Indian market is likely to open higher on Friday following a rally in global markets. At 7:40 am, the SGX Nifty was trading 79.00 points or 0.70 percent higher at 11,378.00, indicating a positive start for the Sensex and Nifty50.

1. Asian Stocks | Asia Pacific stocks edged higher in Friday morning trade following the release of mixed US economic data overnight. Overall, the MSCI Asia ex-Japan index traded 0.35 percent higher. (Image: Reuters)

2. Wall Street | Nasdaq ended at a record high on Thursday, with the S&P 500 and Dow also rising, as gains in heavyweight tech stocks outweighed downbeat data that affirmed the Federal Reserve's view of a difficult road to economic recovery. The Dow Jones Industrial Average ended up 46.85 points, or 0.17 percent, to 27,739.73, the S&P 500 gained 10.66 points, or 0.32 percent, to 3,385.51 and the Nasdaq Composite added 118.49 points, or 1.06 percent, to 11,264.95. (Image: Reuters)

3. Market at Close | Indian shares tracked global equity markets lower to end lower on Thursday, snapping 3 sessions of gains. The sentiment was cautious amid rising concerns about the economic recovery from the coronavirus outbreak. The domestic indices were dragged by banking stocks and index heavyweight Reliance Industries. The Sensex ended 394 points lower at 38,220 while the Nifty fell 96 points to end at 11,312.

4. Crude Oil | Oil fell 1 percent on Thursday after Reuters reported OPEC+ needed to address daily oversupply of more than 2 million barrels, and the number of U.S. unemployment benefit claims rose unexpectedly, signaling a slow economic recovery. Brent crude fell 47 cents, or 1 percent, to settle at $44.90 a barrel while West Texas Intermediate (WTI) for September delivery ended the session 35 cents, or 0.8 percent lower, at $42.58 a barrel on the last day of trading. The more active October WTI contract ended down 29 cents, or 0.7 percent, at $42.82 a barrel. (Image: Reuters)

5. Rupee | The Indian rupee slid 20 paise to settle at 75.02 to the US dollar on Thursday, tracking weaker Asian currencies amid concerns over global economic recovery due to rising coronavirus cases. At the interbank forex market, the domestic unit hit an intra-day high of 74.93 and low of 75.05 against the US dollar. It finally ended at 75.02, down 20 paise over its previous close of 74.82.

6. Nifty Changes | SBI Life Insurance and Divi's Laboratories will enter benchmark index Nifty 50 from September 25, NSE Indices, a subsidiary of the National Stock Exchange, said on Thursday. Bharti Infratel and Zee Entertainment Enterprises will be dropped from the Nifty 50. Besides SBI Life Insurance Company and Divi's Laboratories, NHPC, Page Industries and Shriram Transport Finance Company will be excluded from Nifty Next 50. In their places, Adani Green Energy, Alkem Laboratories, Bharti Infratel, Larsen & Toubro Infotech and Tata Consumer Products will be added in the index (Image: Reuters)

7. RBI MPC Minutes | Members of the Reserve Bank of Indias Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) deliberated at length about the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on growth, inflation and human behavior in general at the meeting held on August 4-6 even as the committee decided to hold the benchmark interest rate. Minutes of the meeting showed that MPC unanimously agreed that to stand pat on interest rates but also said the RBI should be ready to act to further help the economy when needed.

8. US Jobless Claims | Data showed that the US jobless claims rose unexpectedly back above the 1 million mark last week after slipping below that level for the first time since the start of the pandemic. (Image: Reuters)

9. US-China Trade Deal | The Trump administration on Thursday declined to acknowledge any plans to meet with China over the Phase 1 trade deal after the commerce ministry in Beijing said bilateral talks would be held "in the coming days" to evaluate the agreement's progress. Commerce Ministry spokesman Gao Feng made the comments about the forthcoming discussions at a weekly briefing held online, but did not elaborate. (Image: Reuters)

10. COVID-19 Vaccine | Russia is looking for a partnership with India for producing the Covid-19 vaccine Sputnik V. Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF) is likely to do phase 3 clinical trials in Russia, UAE, Saudi Arabia, Brazil and Philippines. Russia is capable of producing 500 million doses in the next 12 months and the mass production of the vaccine is expected to start in September 2020.

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10 things you need to know before the opening bell on August 21 - CNBCTV18

Human Behavior

Thousands of students return to campus for move-in day at Kent State – News 5 Cleveland

KENT, Ohio A five-day move-in period kicked off at Kent State University Wednesday ahead of the first day of class on August 27.

Its nice being back, Savannah Matthews said. Having some structure again.

Assigned move-in time slots are staggered based on last name and dorm assignment in order to reduce large crowds and each student is gifted a welcome kit with two KSU masks and sanitizer upon arrival.

We are not testing all students who are coming back but we are testing students who are symptomatic, Manfred Van Dulmen said.

Housing facilities are operating at a smaller capacity with approximately 3,800 students spread among 23 residence halls.

Students are allowed to have one visitor in their room at a time, Van Dulmen said. If they have a roommate, their roommate also at the beginning of the semester has to agree.

The drastic changes are visible - with more than 90,000 printed flyers reminding students and staff to practice social distancing.

Administrators have implemented smaller class sizes, limited campus activities, and fewer students living in dorms.

On average, were somewhere between 20 and 25% of our pre-COVID utilization of classroom capacities, Jay Graham said.

Graham said classrooms will be professionally disinfected frequently and sanitization stations have been installed in classrooms and lecture halls.

They will be cleaned on a heightened schedule through the university, Graham said. The students will clean up their spaces. It gives them peace of mind that they have some control over making sure that the spaces are sanitized for them and then the faculty as well up at the teaching stations.

However, students and faculty will not be screened for fever or other symptoms at the door.

A lot depends on human behavior and were seeing whats happening in the national headlines, but at Kent, we feel that weve prepared our facilities, Graham said. So we are not taking temperatures at classroom entrances, but its up to them to self-assess and they can call our task force at the health center to report any symptoms.

Van Dulmen said positive cases among students and staff members are inevitable.

We know there will be positive cases on campus, Van Dulmen said. As you also see at other institutes of higher education, thats the reality.

However, administrators believe the creation of isolated living facilities for students who have tested positive and those waiting on test results will help to slow the spread of the virus.

You just have to worry about what your other roommates are doing, Matthews said. Who theyve been seeing and all that.

Ultimately, contact tracing will be up to Portage County health officials.

The contact tracing I think for many institutions is one of the areas that is a challenge, Van Dulmen said. Contact tracing is the responsibility of the local health departments but were assisting with this team on campus to make sure that they have the information they need.

Van Dulmen said health precautions will be loosely enforced per the student code of conduct.

Were referring to our classroom disruption policy and were asking instructors, when a student shows up without a face covering to first offer a face covering, Van Dulmen said. If a student is not willing to take a face covering the instructor will ask the student to leave. If the student is not willing to leave, the instructor will dismiss the class and follow up with communication to the student.

And what about students whose letter grades depend on class attendance? Van Dulmen said instructors have been asked to be lenient.

Let our students have a note if theyre sick. We dont want anybody who feels kind of achy to come to campus, Van Dulmen said. So weve not changed the formal policy but we have a temporary policy in place where were asking instructors to be flexible.

Savannah Matthews is returning to campus for her sophomore year after abruptly being instructed to return home to Illinois in March.

Its surreal. Its pretty bizarre, Matthews said. I left for spring break and just didnt end up coming back at all.

She said a collective effort of responsible decision making is the only way for higher education institutions to carry on.

Im going to be in my dorm the whole time except for when Im at practice, so Ill be good hopefully, Matthews said. All of my classes are remote. I think they have a mix of remote and hybrid for other students as well, so I think theyre doing okay for right now, but I guess well see in a couple weeks.

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Thousands of students return to campus for move-in day at Kent State - News 5 Cleveland

Human Behavior

Youre loving high-flying growth stocks now, but your money should be in these companies, this market pro says – MarketWatch

Historically, the stocks of smaller companies have outperformed those of larger companies. And relatively inexpensive stocks have outperformed more expensive stocks.

If studying financial markets for 50 years teaches you anything, its tokeep things in perspective.

During times of great uncertainty, like were experiencing now, investors may feel tempted to project todays headlines forward or forget the useful lessons weve learned from the past.

Ive been thinking about this a lot lately in the context of the growth vs. value stock debate.

Too often, news headlines distract us from taking the long view. They create a sense of urgency around whats happening in the marketright now. But we have nearlya centurys worth of data, and decades of financial science, to look to for guidance. That evidence reveals many investment lessons. For example, over long periods of time, stocks have generally outperformed bonds. This makes sense when you think about it. Stocks are riskier than bonds, so you expect to earn a premium return.

Most investors are probably familiar with this so-called equity premium, but they may be less familiar with the markets size- and value premiums. The same basic logic applies, andthe same record backs them up. Historically, the stocks of smaller companies have outperformed those of larger companies. And relatively inexpensive stocks have outperformed more expensive stocks.

Theres solid theory behind thinking about investments in this way, but the premiums dont necessarily show up every day. In fact, there can be long stretches when they dont stretches that can test the faith of investors.

Read: CNBCs Jim Cramer urges investors not to be fooled by new highs in the stock market

Plus: Warren Buffett said this metric signaled the 2001 crash now its sounding the alarm on global markets

I havent met many people who expect stocks to return less than U.S. Treasury bills. And yet back when we started Dimensional Fund Advisors (DFA), in the early 1980s, we found ourselves at the end of a 14-year period where T-bills actually outperformed the stock market. I remember a cover ofBusiness Week magazineproclaiming The Death of Equities. People then were saying the stock market would never be positive again. Of course, investors have since experienced one of the longest bull market runs in history.

Were experiencing a similar historical variance right now with value stocks. Over the past decade, growth stocks have largely outperformed value stocks. But its important to keep things in perspective. According to Dimensionals research, while values performance in the U.S. from 2009-2019 was in line with its historical average (12.9% vs. 12.7%), growth significantly exceeded its historical average (16.3% vs. 9.7%). In other words,value has performed similarly to how it has behaved historically its growth thats been the outlier, performing better than expected. Financial science suggests you should enjoy these unexpectedly good returns, but dont count on them repeating.

In my view, the rationale for investing in value stocks is as strong as ever: The less you pay for a stock, the higher your expected return. This is simple algebra. Still, some people are questioning whether the value premium has somehow disappeared. If value investing no longer worked, wed have to throw out our economic textbooks and develop a new algebra.

Im often asked what investors can do during times like these. The key to capturing any premium is to maintain consistent exposure to it. While we understand that the value premium may not show up every day, every year, or even every decade, sticking with value stocks can help you capture that premium over time.

Value stocks are crouching lower now so they can spring up higher later.

No one can predict when premiums will show up, but we know they can show up quickly. In fact, some of the weakest periods for value stocks compared with growth stocks have been followed by some of the strongest. On March 31, 2000, growth stocks had outperformed value stocks in the U.S. over the prior year, prior five years, prior 10 years, and prior 15 years, according to research conducted by our firm. As of March 31, 2001 one year and one market swing later value stocks had regained the advantage in each of those time periods.

Why such a dramatic swing? Its human behavior to stick with whats working, and during periods when growth stocks are outperforming, many investors keep piling into those stocks. But many long-term investors think of it another way: The expected return on relatively cheap stocks is getting higher, which means more opportunity. As I like to say, value stocks are crouching lower now so they can spring up higher later.

Over half a century of observing markets, time and again Ive seen that returns come in spurts. Thats why getting into and out of the market repeatedly is such a bad idea youre too likely to get caught on the wrong side of your decision. You cant time returns. And you cant predict them. To capture the historical premiumsyou have to stay disciplined.

My long career in finance has taught me that theres great value in keeping perspective, which includes keeping perspective on value. As my friend Robert Novy-Marx says, I wake up every day expecting to see the value premium. I, too, wake up every day expecting value stocks to deliver higher returns for investors. Time has only strengthened that conviction.

DavidBoothis founder and executive chairman of Dimensional Fund Advisors.

More:Value stocks, which trade lowest to growth stocks since 2001, look like a smart play as the economy rebounds

Also read:Should I still use the 60/40 investing rule for retirement?

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Youre loving high-flying growth stocks now, but your money should be in these companies, this market pro says - MarketWatch