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Neuroscience

Politics and the Neuroscience of Fear – Patheos – Patheos (blog)

Guest post by my friend Diogo Goncalves

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We are not thinking machines that feel, we are feeling machines that think.~Antnio Damsio

From the fall of the Berlin Wall until recently, it was common sense in developed countries that we should avoid extremes. In the UK, the far left would never take over the Labor party. In the US, the Ku Klax Klan would never rise to power. In France, Marine Le Pen and the National Front would never constitute a threat. If they tried, sensible voters would reject them.

But on the mornings of the 24th June (Brexit) and the 9th November (Trump) of 2016, the situation changed. Many people across the globe from Manchester to New York, from Brussels to Moscow were (and some still are) incredulous that we seem to be shifting toward the extremes and away from common sense. There is a great deal of fear and anxiety around the planet at these developments. Research in neuroscience shows the dangerous effects of these threatening events.

The Neuroscience of Threats

As an example, consider Mary, the daughter of an abusive alcoholic. The strongest memory she retains from her childhood is of never being able to tell whether she loved her father or hated him. Some days she thought that her father loved her, others she would remember his abuse and blame him for all the stress she had to face on a daily basis.

When people like Mary live in a constant state of fear and anxiety, their prefrontal cortex and hippocampus the thinking and memory-forming parts of the brain start shutting down.

Simultaneously, the amygdala the part of the brain responsible for our emotional responses, specifically fear gets bigger. This neurobiological process severely undermines our capacity for reflective decision making, calculated risk taking, and exploratory activity. It also makes us more prone to extreme, simple, and cognitively rigid solutions, and less empathetic to and understanding of views different from our own.

In 2006, psychologists George Bonanno and John Jost studied high-exposure survivors of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. They discovered that most went through a conservative shift. In order to manage the feelings of uncertainty and threat induced by the attacks, they moved away from liberalism towards conservatism. The authors observed that survivors embraced ideologies that provide relatively simple yet cognitively rigid solutions (e.g., good versus evil, black versus white, us versus them, leader versus follower) to problems of security and threat. However, the political shift didnt improve their overall state of mind, measured in terms of mental health symptoms or friendsrelatives ratings of their psychological adjustment.

Trumps Rhetoric of Threats

They are bringing drugs. They are bringing crime. Theyre rapists.

This and other sentences used by Donald Trump fanned the flames of fear and anxiety, by exposing his audience to stimuli the audience found threatening. This helped shift his audience in a more conservative direction.

Moreover, eliciting fear is highly effective for potentially authoritarian leaders to reach power. These leaders depict themselves as the only solution to the fear and anger felt by the increasingly conservative audience.

Living in fear feeds itself through two extensively studied psychological conditions: probability neglect and confirmation bias. The first tells us that when people are emotionally stirred by something they can vividly imagine, such as a terrorist attack, they will fear its outcome even if its highly unlikely a reaction called misfearing. When Donald Trump uses his speeches to talk about immigration in Europe linked it to terror attacks Brussels, Nice, and Paris, and even a non-event terrorist attack in Sweden, he is using these psychological bias to make people fear a very unlikely event (if they used a cold, rational probabilities analysis, they would conclude that the probability of dying in a terrorist attack is almost inexistent).

The second is related to the fact that the more we see something, such as TV depictions of immigrants who bring crime and drugs, the more we pay extra attention to it in the future, over time causing us to believe it is a widespread problem. I reality, from 1975 through 2015, the average chance of dying in an attack by a foreign-born terrorist on U.S. soil was 1 in 3,609,709 a year. For 30 of those 41 years, no Americans were killed on U.S. soil in terrorist attacks caused by foreigners or immigrants.

The Cycle of Fear

Thus, fear results in probability neglect and confirmation bias. These cause more fear, which leads to more probability neglect and confirmation bias, and so on.

Lets go back to our example with Mary. As an adult, Mary is still struggling with the problems that she faced as a child. She doesnt trust easily: how could she trust someone when her own father let her down so many times? She is closed off to love and to the world, and believes that the only person she needs to lookout for is herself. The human brain is a stress-prone machine that responds immediately to threats. Thus, fear (the brains response to a specific danger) and anxiety (the response to an uncertain danger) can be used to influence behavior.

Authoritarian regimes use these tools as a leverage to gain power. These regimes manipulate people by offering them simple ways to deal with their fear and anxiety: during difficult times, the authoritarian regime only requires a scapegoat to take advantage of the limited capability of the people for exploratory decision making. Through manipulative techniques, authoritarian governments do not permit freedom of speech and look to control every aspect of the daily lives of their citizens. Examples of this type of government can still be found today, in countries like North Korea, Zimbabwe and Belarus.

How can we avoid allowing politicians to manipulate us with fear and anxiety? As individuals we can take the following proactive steps in important pre-decisional periods, such as during political campaigns:

By slowing down the pace of our brains, we reduce the riskiness of our behaviors (including the political ones), and increase the likelihood of meaningful and rational decisions.

Questions to consider:

P.S. Tired of lies in politics? Take the Pro-Truth Pledge, a research-based strategy to get politicians and other public figures to tell more truth and less lies, and push your elected representatives to do the same!

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Connect with Dr. Gleb TsipurskyonTwitter, onFacebook, and onLinkedIn, and follow his RSS feed and newsletter.

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Politics and the Neuroscience of Fear - Patheos - Patheos (blog)

Human Behavior

‘Conduct of Life,’ at LA’s Rosenthal Theater, shrewdly examines human cruelty – San Bernardino County Sun

★★

When: 8 p.m. Thursday-Saturday, 7 p.m. Sunday, through June 25

Where: The Rosenthal Theater at Inner-City Arts, 720 Kohler St., downtown Los Angeles

Tickets: $25

Length: 60 minutes, no intermission

Suitability: Mature teens and adults

Information: 323-893-3605, contactherotheatre@gmail.com, herotheatre.org.

In days gone by, people made names for themselves by doing something useful for society. Mara Irene Forns wrote plays that broke old rules, broke barriers and taught something, whether to other playwrights or to audiences.

Though she was a leader of the off-off-Broadway movement in the 1960s, the Southland knows her better from her establishing role in the also legendary Padua Hills Playwrights group and festival.

Now, her 1985 play, The Conduct of Life, is getting an airing at Inner-City Arts in downtown Los Angeles. In part because of her importance to theater but also for what the play still says about humanity, this highly stylized, challenging, disturbing work is well worth viewing.

It consists of a plotless series of scenes, many of them soliloquies or duologues, telling and not showing. It pulls from mismatched theatrical styles, the most easily recognizable of which is absurdism. It has no protagonist, no ones journey we wish to join in on. It ends in gunfire.

And yet, as a whole, it effectively and efficiently makes its points in a mere 60-minute running time, with a theatrical depth and richness not always achieved by plays with plots and standard exposition.

In what can be gleaned of story, we learn that military officer Orlando (Nick Caballero) interrogates and tortures captives in an unnamed, presumably Latin American, nation. His goal is maximum power.

He seeks that, too, in his relationships at home. His wife, Leticia (Adriana Sevahn Nichols), knows shes in a loveless marriage. But uneducated, though bright and articulate, she needs marriage to survive.

In a presumably secret room in Leticia and Orlandos home, he repeatedly rapes a child, formerly homeless and orphaned, now imprisoned there, though the play keeps us guessing, until the end, whether this is real or his fantasy.

Visiting the home, Alejo (Jonathan Medina), symbolizing passivity, cant stop himself from admiring Orlando. The sometimes-stuttering maid Olimpia (Elisa Bocanegra) disdains her employers. But she, too, cant walk away from her job (the time frame of this work seems ambiguous, though the dial telephone gives us an approximate era).

The child, Nena (Antonia Cruz-Kent), is last to speak, revealing her horrific childhood and her coping mechanisms. Likewise, the visual focus ultimately turns to Nena. Its director Jos Luis Valenzuelas statement that our actions leave the next generation to cope with the results.

Forns themes are status, gender, class, education and, in particular, how we blame others for what ails us and how our deepest misery shows up as violence, which becomes contagious.

Valenzuela makes visual and even more visceral the potent script. His actors, even working in various styles throughout the play, make their every moment believable, a pure reflection of human behavior.

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Symbolically, Franois-Pierre Coutures pristine all-white set design belies the messiness of the characters lives. It also serves as a canvas for Johnny Garofalos highly saturated lighting design that changes with the intensity of the scene.

John Zalewskis superb sound design underscores the scripts brutality, notably in the sounds almost cruel intrusions on our hearing and heartbeats, but also in the juxtaposition of classical music to the inhumaneness of words and actions here.

Dany Margolies is a Los Angeles-based writer.

Rating: 4 stars

When: 8 p.m. Thursday-Saturday, 7 p.m. Sunday, through June 25

Where: The Rosenthal Theater at Inner-City Arts, 720 Kohler St., downtown Los Angeles

Tickets: $25

Length: 60 minutes, no intermission

Suitability: Mature teens and adults

Information: 323-893-3605, contactherotheatre@gmail.com, herotheatre.org.

Continued here:
'Conduct of Life,' at LA's Rosenthal Theater, shrewdly examines human cruelty - San Bernardino County Sun

Biochemistry

Career counselling: questions and answers | Lahore | thenews.com.pk – The News International

Q1). I am a student of MBBS second year. I want to know what should I do after MBBS? I want to do CSS after it. Will it be right? Will it be possible to continue both fields? Please tell me the future of both fields in detail. (Sehrish Iqbal Islamabad)

Ans: Since you are a 2nd year MBBS student, I would like you to concentrate on your studies and first complete your MBBS and get yourself register as a doctor. Following this if you wish to join the civil service or come into public sector job you can look at doing a CSS exam. If you wish to go abroad for further studies whether to America or UK you should decide once you are a qualified doctor. My suggestion at this stage is to work hard and pass all your professional examination so that you have a full MBBS degree to make you eligible for applying for a CSS exam.

Q2). Sir, I am doing BS Biochemistry and I have decided to do my research work in Clinical Biochemistry. I wanted to ask what career prospects I can have with this kind of research. Also, then in what field should I choose for MPhil? (Zehra Mumtaz Islamabad)

Ans: Biochemistry is a very strong and emerging subject area with huge opportunities for research. It is important for you to decide whether you want to do your MPhil from Pakistan or abroad? In Pakistan you will need to search some good universities and look at the Department of Biochemistry before you choose the final university. There are many areas that you can continue your research either at MPhil level or PhD level. Some of these areas could include Endocrinology and Metabolism, Core Bio analysis and Toxicology, Core Developmental Biochemistry.

Q3). I want to do MS in Pathology as this area is quite in demand. My CGPA is undergraduate degree is 3.60. Please let me know what is the scope of Pathology? (Zahid Munnawar Hyderabad)

Ans: Pathology is a very in-demand subject area, however, you will have to be careful in choosing the right specialization with a combination of the subjects that include Molecular Biology, Micro Biology, Bio Chemistry and Clinical Bio Chemistry when choosing your post graduate course. There are quite a few universities that offer courses leading to the above you may also find many scholarships abroad in these areas.

Q1). My son has completed BBA (honor) Finance and ACCA. Do you advise to do MBA (Finance) or something else? (Rafi Fazal - Lahore)

Ans: The first thing your son should do is to gain some experience whether through paid employment or an unpaid internship to get real time experience. My suggestion would be to look at pick chartered accountants or companies engaged in making financial feasibilities and budgets that also involves risk assessment and evaluation. Having worked for a few years in the commerce he can then look towards doing an MBA.

(Syed Azhar Husnain Abidi is a renowned educationist in Pakistan, with more than 20 years of experience as provider of education counselling services. He has represented Pakistan in over 100 national and international seminars, conferences and fora. He is a recipient of the most coveted civil award Tamgha-e-Imtiaz).

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Career counselling: questions and answers | Lahore | thenews.com.pk - The News International

Anatomy

The anatomy of Caliphate colonialism (5) – Vanguard

By Douglas Anele

But despite their remarkable capacity for creative ingenuity and accomplishments, the Igbo as a group, according to Prof. Chinua Achebe, have the deadly flaws of hubris, overweening pride, obsession with material success and irritatingly noisy exhibitionism or showiness which tend toinvite envy from members of other ethnic groups. Yet, those flaws do not justify their being massacred periodically by northerners or treated as second class citizens in their own country. The May riots of 1966, Ironsis gruesome murder and massacre of Ndigbo afterwards led to a radical rethinking of their attitude to the idea of a unified Nigerian nation. The Igbo began to realise that their belief in a strong central authority that provides a level playing field which enables Nigerians from every ethnic group to actualise the ideal of one nation, one citizenship, and one destiny was a delusion.

The belated Igbo questioning of One Nigeria was consistent with the memorandum submitted by the northern delegation to the Nigerian ad hoc constitutional conference of September 1966. In it, northern representatives claimed that We have pretended for too long that there are no differences between the peoples of this country. The hard fact which we must honestly accept as of paramount importance in the Nigerian experiment especially for the future is that we are different peoples brought together by recent accidents of history. To pretend otherwise would be folly. The north even went further to demand that in any new constitution a secession clause should be inserted granting any member state the right to unilaterally secede completely from the union, and to make arrangements for cooperation with other members of the union in such a manner as they may severally or individually deem fit. Now, from what transpired later, it became clear that northerners were only interested in regional autonomy as long as it favours the north.

We have noted that the civil war that lasted from July 1967 to January 1970 proves the deadly extent caliphate colonialists can go to maintain its dominance in Nigeria. But before the war proper, a last ditch attempt was made in Ghana to save the country from disintegration occasioned by the fallouts of the two military coups in 1966. The Aburi meeting hosted by Ghanas military ruler, Lt. Gen. Joseph Ankrah and attended by senior military and police officers as well as government secretaries, resolved that each region should be responsible for its own affairs, and that the federal government would be responsible for issues dealing with the whole country, such as defence, currency and external affairs. In my opinion, if the Aburi accord had been implemented, the Biafran war would have been averted because eastern region would not have seceded. The agreement collapsed because ab initio there was a mismatch between the delegation led by Gowon and the one from eastern region headed by its military governor, Lt. Col. Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu: whereas Gowon and delegates from other regions apart from the east arrived Aburi with the vague idea that somehow Nigeria must remain as one country, Ojukwu and his group came with a well-articulated detailed vision of what the future political architecture of Nigeria should be. Thus, although the eastern position was eventually adopted, the two parties left Aburi with different ideas of what the agreement meant in practice. As a corollary, some aspects of the accord, especially those dealing with the issue of power relations between the central government and the regions, were unrealistic and impractical to implement given the growing domination of the army and political power by the north, coupled with the strained relations between the Igbo and northerners as a result of pogroms against Ndigbo resident in the north. Moreover, top federal civil servants in Lagos vehemently opposed the accord, and convinced Gowon that it was unworkable. The problem was aggravated by the all-or-nothing attitude to the contents of the accord by Gowon and Ojukwu, which was unnecessarily rigid and myopic. Gowons unilateral repudiation of the agreement was matched by Ojukwus insistence on its full implementation as quickly as possible: both men failed to realise that a give-and-take approach and compromises are required forsuccessful implementation of agreement on troublesome political conflicts.

The non-implementation of the Aburi accord by the federal military government heralded the end of the concept of regional autonomy and self-sufficiency in Nigeria, leading to the consolidation of caliphate colonialism. After Gowon had emerged as military head of state, he started implementing measures that effectively turned Nigeria into a unitarist federation, which increased the powers of the federal government over the federating units beyond what was allowed by the unification decree promulgated when Ironsi was in power and which was used by northern soldiers and their civilian collaborators to justify the bloodthirsty coup of July 29, 1966. Interestingly, northern emirs who had for long opposed the creation of states mainly in order not to compromise the norths geographical and political domination of Nigeria suddenly urged Gowon to create states. Gowon complied with the demand. The creation of states was more detrimental to solidarity among the three regions in the south than to the northern region because southern Nigeria did not have the equivalents of the theocratic emirate system, Islam and a dominant language (Hausa) which tended to unify different ethnic nationalities in the north. Besides, by concentrating more power at the centre ostensibly to keep Nigeria as one united country, Gowon also ensured that the federal government dominated by northerners controlled all revenues from recently discovered large deposits of petroleum mostly in the eastern region. As a result, Gowon not only expanded the pre-independent policy of using resources from the south to develop the north, he instigated the bizarre practice of northern preponderance in the ownership of oil wells in oil-bearing communities. One can claim justifiably that some of the most significant pre-war decisions taken by the federal government headed by Gowon are responsible for the extremely damaging effects of caliphate colonialism in Nigeria since 1967.

Any student of Nigerian history who blames the eastern region, particularly Ndigbo, for seeking self-determination after the horrendous atrocities they suffered in northern Nigeria is either a pathological misanthrope or moron. It is difficult to imagine a self-respecting ethnic nationality with the quantum of human and natural resources of the defunct eastern region that would not desire to take its destiny in its own hands. As Prof. Achebe observed, The Nigeria that meant so much for [Ndigbo] was not reciprocating the affection we had for it. The country had not embraced us, the Igbo people and other easterners, as full-fledged members of the Nigerian family. Hence, on May 30, 1967, when Ojukwu, on behalf of the 335-member Consultative Assembly of Chiefs and Elders who unanimously mandated him to pull out the east from the rest of Nigeria at an early practicable date, announced the secession of Biafra, he was actually demanding that Igbo people and their immediate neighbours be allowed to develop at their own pace untrammelled by the yoke of caliphate colonisation. Many uninformed Nigerians believe the pernicious falsehood that the Igbo declared war on the rest of Nigeria. Far from it because, as I have stated earlier, if there is any group that have contributed most to the building of modern Nigeria and lived the concept of One Nigeria (and still does, admittedly,to its own detriment) it is the Igbo. Therefore, it is in Ndigbos interest that Nigeria continues to exist and prosper. When the eastern region seceded, caliphate colonialists led by Gowon decided to respond with a short, surgical strike through what he called a police action.

In every war, it is always plausible to argue, after the fact, that it could have been averted or avoided if the combatants had shown more restraint. The Biafran case is not anexception. The war was led by two young military officers in their early thirties, Ojukwu and Gowon. Perhaps, older and more experienced statesmen could have handled the complex issues that led to the bloody conflict much better in a manner that would have led to a peaceful resolution, although it would have been extremely difficult, judging by the horrors they suffered in the hands of their northern compatriots, to persuade the eastern populace shortly before the civil war broke out that they are equal stakeholders in the Nigerian project.

Now, northern hardliners such as MurtalaMohammed wanted full-blown war as the final solution to teach the Igbo a brutal lesson and consolidate the norths domination of federal power, whereas Gowon saw it as an opportunity to cut the arrogant and rebellious Ojukwu to size. Eastern leaders who mandated Ojukwu to secede at the earliest practicable opportunity were desperate and confused, and the people themselves were emotionally exhausted and disillusioned. In such a psychologically charged atmosphere, critical thinking and logic would be replaced by the exciting logic of war hysteria such that anyone who questions the extreme measures taken by Ojukwu in response to Gowons prevarications and provocations or expresses doubt concerning the propriety of secession without adequate preparation for war would bebranded a spineless coward or saboteur. To be continued.

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The anatomy of Caliphate colonialism (5) - Vanguard

Immunology

In Brief Immunology expert Robert Ferris named director of UPMC Hillman Cancer Center – The Cancer Letter Publications

publication date: Jun. 16, 2017

In Brief Immunology expert Robert Ferris named director of UPMC Hillman Cancer Center

Robert Ferris, an expert in immunotherapy and specialist in head and neck cancer, was named director of UPMC Hillman Cancer Center.

Starting July 1, Ferris, a 15-year veteran of the UPMC Hillman Cancer Center, will have overall responsibility for all aspects of cancer research and education at the NCI-designated comprehensive cancer center. His appointment follows a nationwide search after the departure of Nancy Davidson (The Cancer Letter, Oct. 14, 2016).

Ferris serves as chief of the Division of Head and Neck Oncologic Surgery in the departments of Otolaryngology and Immunology. He also serves as co-leader of the Cancer Immunology Program and most recently was appointed associate director for translational research and co-director of the Tumor Microenvironment Center.

The development and implementation of immunotherapy to treat head and neck tumors has been the primary research focus of the Ferris laboratory. The goals of this research are to boost the bodys immune response against cancer. More recently, his work focuses on how immune cells in the tumor microenvironment influence cancer progression and can be harnessed to advance treatment.

Ferris is co-chair of the NCI Steering Committee for Head and Neck Cancer, at-large director of the Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer, senior examiner of the American Board of Otolaryngology, and chair of the NCI Tumor Microenvironment Study Continue reading Immunology expert Robert Ferris named director of UPMC Hillman Cancer Center

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In Brief Immunology expert Robert Ferris named director of UPMC Hillman Cancer Center - The Cancer Letter Publications

Human Behavior

‘Riot’ The Film Seeks To Predict Human Behavior In Volatile Situations – CBS New York

June 16, 2017 11:30 PM

NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) Weve all seen reports about protests that spin dangerously out of control, it could happen anywhere.

Would you know what to do if you were caught in the middle? CBS2s Jessica Moore has some information that could save your life in the impulse reaction.

The protesters surged forward, the police pushed back, I got hit by a baton, CBS2s Dick Brennan recalled.

Brennan was reporting from the center of Occupy Wall Street protests that turned violent.

I remember having my hands over my head, someone stepping on me and thinking this is a really bad situation, he said.

What if you could predict how someone might react in a volatile situation, or even teach them how to stay safe?

Thats the concept behind Riot, a one of a kind interactive film.

It was created and designed by Karen Palmer. She said she was inspired by the events in Ferguson.

I wanted to create an experience that will show somebody how they would actually really respond in a conflict situation. I started thinking thats AI, thats facial recognition, she said.

While watching, a webcam tracks expressions using a complex series of algorithms. It can register calm, anger, or fear.

I was distracted by the person right in front of me, and that could have led to my demise, Moore said.

The viewers reactions determine the outcome.

It responds in real time to emotions, so the narrative will change depending on your emotional reaction, Palmer explained.

Hawk Newsome, founder of the New York chapter of Black Lives Matter, said hes seen situations change in a flash.

People see video on the news, but they dont experience. This is the closest that anyone can come to being on the front line, he said, You can feel it, something is going to happen.

He agrees a calm response can be most effective.

There may be pushing, there may be shoving, but stand your ground, be calm, and well get through this, he said.

Retired NYPD detective Joe Giacalone said having an understanding of how participants might react can also affect police response.

They can have it stream live into a temporary headquarters vehicle near the scene, and then be able to dictate what personnel needs to move at what location, he said.

Palmer said shes heard from some police departments and organized protest groups about her film and the findings to see how it might be helpful to both of these organizations in the future.

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'Riot' The Film Seeks To Predict Human Behavior In Volatile Situations - CBS New York

Human Behavior

Letters – Arkansas Online

Greenberg a treasure

Many years ago, when Paul Greenberg was with Pine Bluff's then-daily newspaper, I received a handwritten note from him stating that he enjoyed my letter to the editor that had recently been published. It doesn't get any better than that, a note from a Pulitzer Prize-winning author saying that he enjoyed something that I had written.

Prior to Mr. Greenberg's semi-retirement at the Democrat-Gazette, he wrote about items of interest that needed to be written. Now he writes about subjects that he just enjoys writing about. Now that I think about it, he is still writing articles that need to be written. Long live Paul Greenberg!

Now if I could just remember where I stashed that note for safekeeping.

FLOYD FRY

Star City

Our behavior up to us

Re Al Case's letter: First, I had to locate Onia. A beautiful part of Arkansas indeed, but I did not see his glass house on Google Maps.

I would like to suggest that he plow a couple of rows with the rest of us. When I was about 20 years old, I announced to my father that organized religion was the cause of the worst tragedies in human history. I remember he opened his mouth, the paused to look at me, and seeing a closed mind, closed his mouth and walked away. I smiled and nodded my head, confident that I had won. What we both knew as we continued the conversation 20 years later was that God does not necessarily do or condone everything done in his name. I had come to know that human behavior is (barring medical reasons) up to each human.

I do not propose to try to convince Case of God's existence. That is his decision and it does not affect mine. However, please do not use a sweeping generalization as I did at 20. The Ten Commandments, regardless of whether you believe they came from God, extraterrestrials, or were just a grain from Moses' cultivated mind, are the basis of living peacefully with your fellow human beings. They do not make you complacent or dull. Quite the contrary. They demand that you hold yourself to very high standards of respect for yourself and for others, and that you be a kind, generous and respectful good citizen.

Neither do I say he is entirely wrong. Swindlers and greed of all kinds are rife among us, and common courtesy seems to have been abandoned for screaming or shooting at those with whom we disagree. But I beg that he keep seeking good people with which to associate. They are out there, and as he grows in understanding, he might just find that most of them admit to belonging to an organized religion.

CAROL MOSELEY

Mabelvale

Different life and day

Glen Campbell could not have paid a higher tribute to Arkansas farm families than the song "Arkansas Farmboy" on his latest album. As he sings, you can feel his memory of growing up on a Pike County farm. And you, the listener, cannot help but remember your days on the farm.

Thanks, Glen Campbell, for reminding us of a different life and a different day.

JAMES B. DAVIS

Hot Springs

Amazing statement

In the High Profile story about Chad Hunter Griffin, Griffin made this statement about homosexuals: "They're second-class citizens, and they're judged and they're attacked because of who they are, because of how God made them."

This statement is amazing in light of the fact that three of the major religions in the world (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam) believe that homosexuality is an "abomination" to God as a perversion of his image. I am aware there are some among these groups that want to reform their traditional views and accept homosexuality as inborn rather than learned behavior. Yet all three of the named religions base their beliefs on what they consider divine revelation, which is not subject to human alteration.

There are many changes taking place in the world that lie within the permissive will of God, but not his purposive will. Yet God has not changed nor does he compromise his eternal word. I am a Christian who has no desire to see homosexuals persecuted or mistreated in any way, and will defend them from such abuse. I believe that God loves the sinner, but abhors sin. I have served as the pastor for homosexuals as well as for others whose lifestyle was condemned in the Bible. I loved these whom I served in behalf of God as I loved all in my congregations.

Hate and oppression have no place in the heart of a person who truly knows God. But God, who is the very essence of love, never refrained from condemning what he deemed to be sinful, but acted in that love to forgive the sinner and make him to again reflect his own image in which he created him. I regard myself as a sinner who has been saved by God's grace! This is sincerely shared without ill will.

DENNIS M. DODSON

Monticello

On promoting causes

Your statement of core values doesn't mention promoting particular social causes. However, in the last two years you have printed many articles that appear to be promoting lifestyles that were once identified as alternate lifestyles, LGBT. The feature on Mr. Chad Griffin was filled with references to his advocacy of those suffering because of their lifestyles. This is a polarizing subject. Why would you choose to alienate those who disagree with those embracing LGBT?

I'd like to make a suggestion. Please find other areas of advocacy to promote. Can you find people feeding thousands of hungry children in Arkansas? Or maybe there are people that are helping wounded warriors with visible and hidden disabilities due to their military service. Perhaps firemen, policemen, teachers, or medical personnel are giving extraordinary service in seriously adverse conditions.

Please give LGBT a rest. Readers have many choices of sources for news and other stories of interest. Continuing to subscribe to your publication is in question for those disagreeing with continued promotion of the LGBT lifestyle. The Bible has specific teachings about LGBT. I choose to follow those guidelines.

KAY HICKS

Little Rock

Editorial on 06/17/2017

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Letters - Arkansas Online

Human Behavior

UNL researchers find 400 percent spike in wildfire destruction in Great Plains – Omaha World-Herald

The grasslands of the Great Plains have seen one of the sharpest increases in large and dangerous wildfires in the past three decades, with their numbers more than tripling between 1985 and 2014, according to new research.

The study, published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, found that the average number of large Great Plains wildfires each year grew from 33 to 117 over that time period, even as the area of land burned in these wildfires increased by 400 percent.

This is undocumented and unexpected for this region, said Victoria Donovan, the lead author of the study and a researcher at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Most studies do document these shifts in large wildfires in forested areas, and this is one of the first that documents a shift, at this scale, in an area characterized as a grassland.

Donovan published the study with two university colleagues. The research looked at large wildfires, defined as fires about 1,000 acres or more in size.

In other parts of the globe, such as Africas savannas, grassland fires are extremely common and that used to be true for the Great Plains as well. But in the past century or more, Donovan said, wildfire suppression techniques such as rapidly catching fires and putting them out had largely eradicated them from the region.

However, theyve begun to come back, a trend that has been consistent not only with climate change but also an incursion of more invasive plant species that could be providing additional fuel, Donovan said. However, the study merely documented the trend toward increased large wildfires without formally attributing its cause.

The year 2011 saw a particularly large surge of Great Plains wildfires, which accounted for half of the total acreage burned in the United States that year.

By specific region, some of the largest wildfire increases occurred in the Cross Timbers region of Texas and Oklahoma (which saw a 2,200 percent increase in the total area burned), the Edwards Plateau of Texas (a 3,300 percent increase), and the Central Irregular Plains, encompassing parts of Iowa and northern Missouri, as well as parts of Kansas and Oklahoma (1,400 percent increase).

Guido van der Werf, a scientist at VU Amsterdam who studies global forest fires and was not involved with the current study, said it was difficult to attribute causes behind the recent uptick in burning.

These grassland fires are somewhat different than the forest fires we are probably more used to, and follow-up research is needed to better understand what the drivers of the upward trends were, he said by email. Agricultural abandonment could be one, wetter conditions later in the record another one (leading to higher and more continuous fuel beds), climate change leading to warmer temperatures, etc.

Max Moritz, a wildfire researcher at the University of California, Berkeley who also was not involved in the study, said the new results are consistent with other work. But he added that he suspects they reflect not so much human-caused climate change but rather changing human behavior.

In particular, he cited a study from earlier this year led by Jennifer Balch of the University of Colorado at Boulder that found that humans were overwhelmingly responsible for lighting U.S. wildfires over the past 20 years (presumably, mostly by accident).

That study shows the Great Plains to have increasing patterns of both lightning- and human-caused fires over this period; yet the vast majority here are caused by humans, he wrote in an email. This suggests that the trends in question may largely be due to shifts in the amount, type, and timing of human activities.

For some time, wildfire researchers have worried about the growth of what they call the wildland-urban interface, in which more and more people are living in proximity to areas conducive to burning.

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UNL researchers find 400 percent spike in wildfire destruction in Great Plains - Omaha World-Herald

Human Behavior

Understanding human behavior through the power of data – The Drum

Just a few years ago, the world was abuzz with the potential that beacon technology offered to reshape the retail industry. Now, several years on, there are even more technologies that offer similar promise. Beacons represent an important source of data regarding in-store customer movement, but the emergence of other sophisticated data collection technologies has added to the potential for understanding human behavior in the real world. To that end, what companies really need now is a solution that allows them to understand the fragmented data sets and their sources -- whether its beacons, sensors, or GPS -- and get a better sense of the bigger picture.

People spend an average of 5 hours a day on their phones. That sounds like a lot, but what happens in those other 19 hours? People have lives outside of their phones. The problem for marketers, then, is how to access that information to better understand how people behave in the real world, and then integrate that with what they already know about their online persona. At the moment, there are bits and pieces of data everywhere -- some proximity data here, some geodata there -- but otherwise, there are so many fragmented data sources that each tell a tiny piece of the story of a consumers offline activity. Moreover, the initial promise that beacons held to completely revitalize brick-and-mortar businesses and drastically increase in-store attribution has taken longer to materialize than expected.

Beacons were implemented so that retailers and other businesses could tell where a customer was at any given point, and allow businesses to send out targeted messages to phones that have activated a beacon. Businesses were quick to adopt this new technology, including Macys, Lord & Taylors, Major League Baseball, and American Airlines. However, there are still blank spots on the canvas. The real world is fluid, made up of many different behaviors and movements -- there is no one magic solution.

The information gleaned from one data source alone is not enough to get a complete view into peoples behavior or motivations. That said, proximity and location data have tremendous potential for filling in the blank spots on the canvas when used strategically. For the proximity industry alone, weve seen companies double down on their investments, validating the demand for technologies that provide a clearer understanding of how people behave in the real world.

Having a strong understanding of the various technologies on the market has also helped us determine that the efficacy of this data and technology depends on what goals companies wish to achieve. Deterministic methodologies used by beacon and Wifi technology can pinpoint almost exactly where someone was at any given point -- where they were in a store, for example, or even what floor they were on. Probabilistic technologies, such as GPS and geodata, on the other hand, provide massive scale as well as an overarching idea of people's movements in less densely-populated spaces.

In order for companies to understand a consumers offline behavior as accurately as they understand their online activity, they first need to stitch these different data sources together as they apply to their specific goals. That being said, there are over 400 proximity service providers (PSPs) alone, and thousands of GPS sources and geo-enabled apps -- just getting access to the data requires forming partnerships with each of those entities individually.

The Real World Graph

Unacast built the Real World Graph to provide a solution to that problem. Unacast has created a platform of proximity and location providers to paint a clear picture of how people move in the real world. Just as Google has indexed online behavior and Facebook has created the Social Graph, The Real World Graph provides a place where multiple data sets and technologies are collected and harmonized, all while ensuring individual privacy is respected. Our meticulous methodologies filter for quality to provide transparency, and highlight strategic data that can be used to marry online profiles with real world behaviors. Different data sources tell different stories, and The Real World Graph goes beyond the boundaries of industry to bring those stories together.

The mission at Unacast is to provide the technology and tools that will help data-driven industries understand the physical world the same way we understand the online world. Not only is this vital for the evolution of retail, advertising and other consumer-centric industries, but it can also significantly affect the evolution of e-commerce, financial technology, real estate, and health technology, among other industries.

Data from sensors, beacons, proximity data, GPS, NFC all tell an individual piece of a users behavior in the real world. But combined, the different data sources can tell the most in-depth, accurate story about what people are doing in the real world, and thats what matters most.

Thomas Walle, CEO & Co-founder, Unacast.

Email: hello@unacast.com

Web:unacast.com

Twitter:@unacast

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Understanding human behavior through the power of data - The Drum

Genetics

Genetics in the Himalayas | Euronews – euronews

What are the mechanisms that allow us to adapt to extreme altitude and lack of oxygen? What role do genetics play?

Sherpa Everest is a pioneering project whose goal is to try to find the answers.

A team of scientists from Barcelona traveled to the Himalayas to join the expedition of mountaineer Ferran Latorre, who has just climbed Mount Everest, his 14th and final eight-thousander the name given to the worlds 14 mountain peaks that stand taller than 8,000 metres.

Its been a long and tough journey: This is my temporary home: the tent, here. You try to adapt things to your needs, but, of course, you spend many hours here alone and you miss your home, your house and the people. There are times when you feel a bit down, he says.

Latorre is one of the projects so-called guinea pigs. At a field hospital 5.400 metres high at Everest Base Camp, doctors working on the project take samples from 15 mountaineers from all over the world and 22 sherpas. As electricty is a rare commodity, the blood samples are kept cold in the icefall of the Khumbu glacier.

From there, they are flown by helicopter to Kathmandu. They will arrive in Barcelona in the coming weeks to be analyzed at the Hospital of Santa Creu i Sant Pau.

When we are exposed to extreme environmental situations, be it high altitudes or lack of oxygen, or hypoxia, our DNA sequence doesnt change, Jos Manuel Soria, head of Genomics at the Institute of Research of Sant Pau explains. What does change in these situations is how we regulate those genes, that is, the expression of those genes. And thats what we want to study.

Samples taken in the Himalayas will be compared with those of fifty patients suffering from respiratory conditions like asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and chronic oxygen deficiency.

The aim of the project is to study how we adapt to oxygen deficiency at sea level, at Everest Base Camp and after trying to reach the summit, more than 8,000 meters high and then to compare it with people who live at Everest Base Camp year round, in an oxygen-poor environment, explains Oriol Sibila, a pneumologist at Sant Pau Hospital.

So who will benefit from this research?

In addition to people suffering from chronic respiratory disease, its hoped it will help people travelling to high altitudes and mountaineers like Ferran Latorre, who says hes not prepared to hang up his boots yet.

Well, the truth is that after finishing the 14 eight-thousanders, I have other plans like opening up a new route on an eight-thousander, which I have so far failed to do, he tells us. I also want to try climbing Mount Everests northern slope without oxygen. And then I want to climb Cerro Torre, the north face of the Eiger Those are all the things a mountaineer has to do before he can hang up his hiking boots.

Whether the goal is scientific, athletic or personal, its an invitation for everyone to pursue their own Everest.

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Genetics in the Himalayas | Euronews - euronews