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Human Behavior

Linsey Davis discusses journey from U.Va. to ABC World News Tonight – University of Virginia The Cavalier Daily

When Linsey Davis arrived at the University in 1995, a journalism career wasnt exactly on her mind. The award-winning ABC News anchor thought she wanted to be a psychologist and focused her studies on human behavior and how people think. Two and a half decades later, she moderated two of the 2020 elections Democratic presidential debates in front of a live, national audience.

I don't think I ever had to study that hard at U.Va., Davis remarked in an interview with The Cavalier Daily about preparing for the debates.

On Feb. 1, ABC News named Davis as anchor of its Sunday broadcasts of World News Tonight the most-watched evening-news broadcast in the nation. A two-time Emmy Award winner, Davis is also an anchor for ABC News Live Prime, the networks first-ever streaming evening newscast.

Its no secret that the University has produced many notable journalists and media executives in the last half century, despite not having a journalism school. From Katie Couric to Margaret Brennan, the University has prepared many for working in the media.

Any good institution worth its salt is going to help provoke their students to be curious and to question and to wonder, Davis said. I would say that all of that my curiosity and just wanting to kind of question certain things was nurtured while I was on Grounds.

Instead of taking courses on reporting, Davis learned about psychology, astrology and African American studies while at the University even taking a course with the late Professor Julian Bond, one of the nation's preeminent civil rights leaders. It wasnt until she studied abroad in London and took a few journalism courses late in her undergraduate career that she decided to pursue journalism.

I didn't have a change in heart until it was late, Davis said. But I will say that psychology degree was not for not I mean, you can certainly use that in any, in probably most, career paths, and just understanding how people work and just like the human behavior behind it all.

Since the University lacked a communications department at the time, she had to enroll in a graduate program elsewhere landing at New York University.

After obtaining a masters degree in communications, Davis worked as a reporter and anchor at local television stations in Syracuse, N.Y., Flint, Mich. and Indianapolis, Ind. She joined ABC News in 2007 as a New York-based correspondent and made waves in 2009 with a special Nightline report examining why African American women are the least likely of any race or gender to get married.

Davis has since conducted interviews with major influential figures and politicians including Secretary Hillary Clinton, Vice President Mike Pence, Dr. Anthony Fauci, Microsoft founder Bill Gates and Myon Burrell, a Minneapolis inmate who said he was wrongfully convicted for murder in part because of Sen. Amy Klobuchar, who was the chief prosecutor in the case.

Last summer, as protests against police brutality were growing following George Floyds death, Davis led a roundtable discussion with Black female mayors and also anchored a documentary on the issue of domestic terrorism and hate-inspired violence in the U.S. As a Black female anchor, Davis wants to use her platform to talk about the issues facing her own community even if those conversations are uncomfortable.

I'm not afraid to tackle it and confront the issues and the facts, Davis said. Sometimes we don't have these conversations because people are so worried about how we address it or how we talk about it. I do think that there's a certain relevance that I'm able to bring to the table when I know that perspective of Black and Brown people in this community I live it, and it's my own personal experience.

However, she added that all Americans not just Black and Brown people should be starting conversations about racial issues.

Davis was also at the forefront of ABC News coverage of the 2020 presidential election, co-anchoring major political events such as two presidential debates, the vice presidential debate, presidential election coverage and Inauguration Day.

It was intense, Davis said. I had two huge, three-ring binders with 200 pages or more. [I spent time] just going through and talking about policy, talking about the economy, talking about climate change, whatever it might be so that I could really get a grasp and an understanding for the questions that I was going to be asking.

ABC News President James Goldston commended her skills as a journalist in a note to staff last week, saying that viewership of her streaming primetime newscast surged by over 200 percent in the last year.

Linsey has had an impressive rise at ABC News as a result of her unflinching interview prowess, her versatility and experience, Goldston said. Her presidential debate moderating performance was nothing short of commanding.

Outside of journalism, Davis is a best-selling author of three childrens books, including one coming out this month which she described as a love letter to our children. She is also a proud member of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc. and vividly remembers walking down the Lawn and Rugby Road and eating at Bodos Bagels as a University student.

It continues to be the best decision I ever made in life, Davis said. I loved U.Va. and really would attribute a lot of who I am to my four years there.

Davis will continue to anchor Live Prime Monday through Thursday in addition to being the new co-anchor of World News Tonight on Sundays.

Correction: A previous version of this article said that Davis anchors Live Prime Monday through Friday and that she moderated the presidential debates 14 years after arriving on Grounds. This article has been updated to reflect that she anchors Live Prime Monday through Thursday and that she moderated the debate 2.5 decades after coming to Grounds.

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Linsey Davis discusses journey from U.Va. to ABC World News Tonight - University of Virginia The Cavalier Daily

Human Behavior

Jodie Foster: Yes, Mel Gibson is problematic but says shell always love him – The Mercury News

Jodie Fosters friendship with Mel Gibson has long puzzled movie fans, who see the two-time Academy Award winner as always acting with integrity, professionally and in her personal life.

Gibson, on the other hand, is problematic, as Foster herself acknowledged in a new interview this week. Gibson, 65, has won an Oscar for directing and starred in popular and critically acclaimed films, including Braveheart and the Lethal Weapon buddy cop movies. He more recently received an Oscar nomination for directing the 2016 World War II film Hacksaw Ridge.

Gibson also is just as famous for his scandals involving documented ugly behavior. He was ostracized by the industry for about 10 years after he was arrested for a DUI in Malibu in 2006 and unleashed an anti-Semitic rant. That arrest was followed by Gibson being caught on leaked tapes in 2010, screaming the n-word and other racist epithets at his then-girlfriend, Oksana Grigorieva. The Russian singer-songwriter and mother of one of Gibsons nine children, also alleged he was physically abusive.

In June, Gibson was forced to deny claims from Winona Ryder that she heard him make anti-Semitic and homophobic comments at a Hollywood party.

Throughout these scandals, Foster, 58, has stayed loyal, she told Marc Maron for his WTF podcast.

Yes, he is a problematic person, Foster said. And he is warm and affectionate and loving and a really good friend.

In addition, Foster said, hes a great actor, and a deep, deep person, saying, I think thats probably whats gotten him into so much trouble in the past.

Foster, who currently stars in the Guantanamo Bay legal drama The Mauritanian, has spent the past 10 years explaining her appreciation for Gibson, although she also told Maron that she absolutely doesnt condone some of his worst behavior.

Some of Fosters appreciation for the actor and director stems from her childhood, essentially growing up on movie sets, which mostly were populated by complicated men in the cast and crew. The men looked out for her.

It was just me, and then sometimes a script supervisor and occasionally a makeup artist and sometimes the woman who played my mom, Foster said. Otherwise, it was me and a whole bunch of guys and they were my brothers and dads. And then there were the directors and other actors Ive worked with. I really like these guys who are complicated guys, and who (are not people) everyone loves. Im the sister who laughs at their jokes. I just love them.

Foster told the Hollywood Reporter in 2011 that she was drawn to Gibsons dark side after getting to know him while working on the 1994 film Maverick.

Hes not saintly, and hes got a big mouth, and hell do gross things your nephew would do, Foster said. But I knew the minute I met him that I would love him the rest of my life.

In 2011, Foster was promoting her work with him in The Beaver, a film she directed about a depressed, alcoholic middle-aged executive who communicates through a glove puppet. Box office-wise, the film was considered a flop, and Time magazine said it was hard to separate its premise a somber, sad domestic drama featuring an alcoholic in acute crisis from Gibsons real life scandals.

Foster told the Hollywood Reporter that she knows Gibson has troubles, (but) when you love somebody you dont just walk away from them when they are struggling.

Foster repeated that sentiment to Maron when he jokingly asked whether she and Gibson had buried a body together to explain their continued bond. She explained how she always told her college-aged sons that she would be the first to call the police if they did anything illegal.

But Im going to visit you in jail every day, Foster said. Its not that I condone peoples behavior when they are wrong, but I cant not love my children or my family members (or friends). You dont abandon people in their worst moment of struggling. Instead, you extend your hand to try to teach them and help them be a better human.

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Jodie Foster: Yes, Mel Gibson is problematic but says shell always love him - The Mercury News

Human Behavior

Making global value chains sustainable and enhancing the position of LDCs: A shared responsibility – Trade for Development News

Company activities that incorporate products and services components spread throughout the world are called value chains. The value in the chain is added by certain elements of production processes in various countries, and, as a result, country economies are increasingly more connected to and dependent on each other.

Value here does not only have a financial and economic dimension, but also, and probably even more so, a social and climatic dimension. The social and climatic are important for making value chains sustainable, and joint responsibility and action by all stakeholders is required, acknowledging the interdependencies between all.

Moreover, value chains require that developed countries and companies originating in them increase their share of responsibility instead of focusing only on their own goals, as is currently happening in the distribution of vaccines against COVID-19. It seems the developed world is not realizing that the unequal distribution of vaccines is not only unfair, but due to economic interdependencies, there will also be significant damage that puts decades of economic progress at risk for developed and least developed countries (LDCs) alike.

The worldwide intertwining caused by value chains has its positives. For example, some of the world's population has risen above the poverty line, partly due to new connections to global value chains (GVCs), becoming producers and expanded roles in the playing field of international trade, versus being only consumers.

However, there are drawbacks. LDCs are still at the bottom of the ladder with activities that add the least value to the chain, and they are not benefitting sufficiently from their roles. For example, African countries participation in GVCs is largely through supplying inputs (often raw materials) to foreign firms for further processing. Another negative side effect of global interdependency is the fact that many developed countries are outsourcing their problems to LDCs, for example sending plastic waste abroad to achieve national sustainability goals.

Previously, multinationals put too much emphasis on cost savings when setting up value chains, avoiding the responsibility of providing employees with decent, safe working environments and respecting human rights, while demanding such from their suppliers.

This is a major barrier to making sustainable value chains work.

Both at the national and company level, there are policies in the developed world aimed at mitigating the risks of vulnerable GVCs. Company responses to overcoming value chain vulnerability include robotization and re-shoring of activities that were previously located in LDCs. For example, there are various initiatives to create local food systems. Although a noble goal, the impact on economies especially of LDCs needs to be considered, as those countries may see a decrease in their agricultural exports as a result. It is argued that further domestic support to agriculture in developed countries encourages overproduction, which in turn increases supplies in world markets and depresses prices. Low prices make it harder for producers in developing countries to compete in their home markets as well as international ones, thus reducing incentives for production and retarding the development of the agricultural sector.

The natural reaction of companies in developed countries is to invest more in the preservation and development of knowledge and production lines in their own countries. Investing in critical products and services should, however, be done based on solidarity and interconnectivity with the rest of the world.

The global interconnection and interdependence of value chains is such that when we take one domino from the chain, there is a chance that the entire structure will fall and that the poorest countries will suffer most. Global interconnectivity should be taken as a starting point when thinking about sustainable value chains, as opposed to the developed world focusing only on their own sustainability issues.

Multinationals are partly dependent on LDCs for their operations, from producing garments in Bangladesh to cocoa in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Given the competitive pressure these companies experience in international trade, their dominant position also puts more pressure on suppliers in LDCs, and most of these suppliers are micro-, small- and medium-sized companies. These businesses already operate in precarious conditions, and this is being exacerbated by the COVID-19 crisis. The pandemic shows even more the interdependence between companies and countries, and the need for cooperation for equitable access to medical supplies and equipment.

Where does a company's responsibility for the products and services provided by third parties in developing countries begin and where does it end?

Companies are increasingly expected to not only refrain from causing damage to the environment, but to rather make a proactively positive contribution to society, together with partners.

The ball is not only in the court of the business community. Solutions to the associated risks require public and private cooperation in which companies and governments must take responsibility, with citizens also playing a prominent role. If we want to face major challenges, such as sufficient clean water and CO2 emissions reductions, we must look at the entire value chain and its global interconnectedness.

In the everyday reality amplified by COVID-19, the world is confronted with the fact that human behavior is the cause of a lot of misery and can at the same time be the solution. With some good will, developed countries can leverage this crisis as an accelerator to change human behavior. This requires that countries must look beyond resolving their own national and local sustainability issues while ignoring the impact of those solutions in other parts of the world.

Developed countries and multinationals should focus more on dealing responsibly with scarce resources such as labor and the environment. Macro and micro, they must ask whether they are part of the solution or the problem, not only for themselves, but also for others. Developed countries must try to take even more responsibility when designing national policies, and commit themselves to making value chains truly sustainable, because we are all vulnerable, and Mother Earth does not care about the boundaries we have defined.

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Making global value chains sustainable and enhancing the position of LDCs: A shared responsibility - Trade for Development News

Human Behavior

Read of The Day author Emily Layden talks ‘All Girls’ Thursday – theday.com

It's very early in the rocket ride that will apparently be Emily Layden's career as a novelist, but she's already got the wholeinterview thing figured out. She's decided on the optimally comfortable chair for talking on the phone with reporters, and if the conversation takes place before noon, she drinks hot tea. If it happens after lunch, she shifts to sports drinks.

As for any wine and cheese receptions she might be missing out on as she undertakes her first author tour virtually, that's not a big deal.

"I actually find the idea of parties in my honor a nightmare scenario," she laughs. "I understand those receptions fit a lot of author profiles, and I'd probably get used to them. Right now, though, doing book events this way means I don't have to conquer some of the social anxiety."

Based on the advance reception for Layden's debut novel, "All Girls," the author had best get used to the attention. The book, a coming-of-age ensemble story set at Atwater, a fictitious and prestigious female prep school in Connecticut, centers around reactions to a late-breaking accusation by a long-ago student that she was raped by an unidentified faculty member a man supposedly still teaching at the institution.

Layden will discuss "All Girls" Thursday on the February episode of our virtual "Read of the Day" Book Club sponsored by The Day in partnership with Bank Square Books. Day reporter Julia Bergman will interview Layden for the event.

The author, 32, is a graduate of Stanford and, over the past six years, taught at three different female boarding schools providing experience and context for "All Girls." Layden majored in American studies at Stanford, studied creative writing, and comes from a family of writers; her father, Joe Layden, is a successful ghostwriter of celebrity biographies.

Quick success

Emily Layden, speaking by phone last week from her home in upstate New York in anticipation of her "Read of The Day" appearance, says she's known for years she wanted to write fiction.

She also knew the long odds facing anyone who wants a career as a novelist, and was prepared for the typical rough journey of rejection and setbacks as she hoped to find, first, an agent and then possibly a publisher.

What Layden didn't count on was quick success. But she'd barely submitted "All Girls" originally titled "Legacy" to agents when she was offered representation by literary agent Lisa Grubka of Fletcher & Co.In turn, St. Martin's Press offered a six-figure advance for the book less than 24 hours after receiving the manuscript.

"Certainly, the manner in which my book was sold not just the advance but the rapidity of the deal is not something any writer dares hope for," says Layden, who can now focus exclusively on writing. "I am extremely grateful for St. Martin's investment in me and my work, but it did create a different set of expectations than I'd expected. I'm more than happy to have the chance to spend my life writing, but it's sudden and different."

Ensemble cast

While the rape allegation and the identity of the accused faculty member certainly provide a "mystery" element to "All Girls," the novel is not structured like a conventional thriller. Covering one year at Atwater, the novel features an ensemble cast with each chapter taking the point of view of a different student. Against beautifully and wistfully detailed campus milestones from initiation and fall festivals to commencement and graduation the young women each must navigate the school year's academics and social interactions through the prisms of their own anxieties and desires. These developments are then skewed by the rumors about the faculty rapist and the administration's efforts to placate students and parents against the increasing belief that some sort of cover up is taking place.

If "All Girls" seems custom-crafted for our times, particularly with the #MeToo movement, Layden says the issues are important but coincidental.

"I actually did not set out to write about #MeToo," she says, "but rather the institutional mindset at a boarding school and the matter of transparency ... about the capacity of girls to speak their minds in circumstances that don't welcome that sort of initiative. And the mystery that drives the book is a lens through which we can see how all this happens at a place like Atwater."

Layden does amasterful job of establishing a cast of individuals whose experiences and day-to-day vignettes establish a broad and representative range of student types against which the plot and narrative tension develop. There's distance-running freshwoman Macy, who has major anxiety issues; Olivia, the universally adored all-everything senior, and her girlfriend, swimming star Emma. Chloe is plenty popular but hides an embarrassingsecret. And Louisa, the editor of the school newspaper, can't explain to the Head of School why a forbidden issue of the paper suddenly appeared online and triggeredtumultuous results.

Smooth assurance

If it seems risky to allot just one chapter to each character, rest assured Layden writeswith smooth assuranceand has selected her protagonists in a way that allows each one's interactions with others to continue the threads of the plot. In fact, the ensemble cast was precisely what Layden wanted to explore.

"The book really isn't about solving a mystery or the legacy of the school," she explains. "What it IS about are the ripples that spread out through the story and how each individual girl is processing them within developments in her own life. I never lost sight of wanting to write something that was about the girls."

Layden is asked if, in that writerly fashion, any of the characters surprised her developmentally as she worked through the drafts of the manuscript.

"Over the course of the book, these girls became as real to me as family members. In that sense just as with real friends or family sometimes they surprised me," Layden says. "At the same time, they do so in a way that would be consistent with human behavior from someone you know really well."

In that sense, the flow of the plot was never threatened when a character naturally evolved in a way the author didn't originally anticipate. "Fortunately, I was able to write the book I wanted, with a chorus of voices rather than just one protagonist. I will say that my favorite of the characters changed over the course of the book, but I love them all."

Oh, and as for the "whodunnit" aspect of the alleged rapist, Layden laughs and says, "I did know how it would turn out, but I'm laughing because that's been a pretty rare experience for me. This is my first novel, but all the stuff I wrote as an undergraduate, I started without knowing where the story was going. I'd just take off and see what happened. Because of the structure of 'All Girls,' I needed to have a sense of story and signposts along the way. So it worked out. I think that's probably the best way to do it."

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Read of The Day author Emily Layden talks 'All Girls' Thursday - theday.com

Human Behavior

How AI could spot your weaknesses and influence your choices – The Next Web

Artificial intelligence is learning more about how to work with (and on) humans. A recent study has shown how AI can learn to identify vulnerabilities in human habits and behaviors and use them to influence human decision-making.

It may seem cliched to say AI is transforming every aspect of the way we live and work, but its true. Various forms of AI are at work in fields as diverse as vaccine development, environmental management and office administration. And while AI does not possess human-like intelligence and emotions, its capabilities are powerful and rapidly developing.

Theres no need to worry about a machine takeover just yet, but this recent discovery highlights the power of AI and underscores the need for proper governance to prevent misuse.

A team of researchers at CSIROs Data61, the data and digital arm of Australias national science agency, devised a systematic method of finding and exploiting vulnerabilities in the ways people make choices, using a kind of AI system called a recurrent neural network and deep reinforcement-learning. To test their model they carried out three experiments in which human participants played games against a computer.

The first experiment involved participants clicking on red or blue colored boxes to win a fake currency, with the AI learning the participants choice patterns and guiding them towards a specific choice. The AI was successful about 70% of the time.

In the second experiment, participants were required to watch a screen and press a button when they are shown a particular symbol (such as an orange triangle) and not press it when they are shown another (say a blue circle). Here, the AI set out to arrange the sequence of symbols so the participants made more mistakes, and achieved an increase of almost 25%.

Read more:If machines can beat us at games, does it make them more intelligent than us?

The third experiment consisted of several rounds in which a participant would pretend to be an investor giving money to a trustee (the AI). The AI would then return an amount of money to the participant, who would then decide how much to invest in the next round. This game was played in two different modes: in one the AI was out to maximize how much money it ended up with, and in the other the AI aimed for a fair distribution of money between itself and the human investor. The AI was highly successful in each mode.

In each experiment, the machine learned from participants responses and identified and targeted vulnerabilities in peoples decision-making. The end result was the machine learned to steer participants towards particular actions.

These findings are still quite abstract and involved limited and unrealistic situations. More research is needed to determine how this approach can be put into action and used to benefit society.

But the research does advance our understanding not only of what AI can do but also of how people make choices. It shows machines can learn to steer human choice-making through their interactions with us.

Read more:Australians have low trust in artificial intelligence and want it to be better regulated

The research has an enormous range of possible applications, from enhancing behavioral sciences and public policy to improve social welfare, to understanding and influencing how people adopt healthy eating habits or renewable energy. AI and machine learning could be used to recognize peoples vulnerabilities in certain situations and help them to steer away from poor choices.

The method can also be used to defend against influence attacks. Machines could be taught to alert us when we are being influenced online, for example, and help us shape a behavior to disguise our vulnerability (for example, by not clicking on some pages, or clicking on others to lay a false trail).

Like any technology, AI can be used for good or bad, and proper governance is crucial to ensure it is implemented in a responsible way. Last year CSIRO developed an AI Ethics Framework for the Australian government as an early step in this journey.

AI and machine learning are typically very hungry for data, which means it is crucial to ensure we have effective systems in place for data governance and access. Implementing adequate consent processes and privacy protection when gathering data is essential.

Organisations using and developing AI need to ensure they know what these technologies can and cannot do, and be aware of potential risks as well as benefits.

This article by Jon Whittle, Director, Data61, is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Published February 15, 2021 13:30 UTC

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How AI could spot your weaknesses and influence your choices - The Next Web

Human Behavior

Participants Needed for Nutrition and Health Behavior Study – University of Arkansas Newswire

Are you interested in learning more about how behavior impacts your health?

The Center for Human Nutrition and the Exercise is Medicine program at the University of Arkansas are recruiting adults over the age of 18 years to participate in research related to health and behavior.

The DFEND (Diet, Food, Exercise, and Nutrition During social distancing) research study is a 20-week education program which involves 30-minute educational meetings once per week, weekly health and behavior challenges, and the opportunity to meet weekly with personalized coaches.

Compensation for full participation for the first 75 people to sign up.

Anyone can join the DFEND educational sessions for free without signing up for the research study.

For more information, please contact us atbaum@uark.eduordfend@uada.eduor go to our websiteaaes.uark.edu/dfend3.

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Participants Needed for Nutrition and Health Behavior Study - University of Arkansas Newswire

Human Behavior

Preparation and prevention vs insider threats The Manila Times – The Manila Times

Insider threats may have been looming even before the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, but the crisis further put a corporations security in distress.

Because of the drastic changes caused by the pandemic, the various factors that could motivate employees and other insiders to put their organizations computer network in danger intensified. These include fear, anxiety, anger, depression and financial troubles.

Working remotely also cultivated an environment that offers malicious insidersopportunities to execute security breaches. And employee negligence can result in the unauthorized access to or sharing of information from laptops, mobile phones, cloud storage and other technologies.

Organizations must increase their vigilance and diligence to reduce insider threats during this time. These can be done by applying a proactive approach in balancing security and privacy.

The rise of insider threats

The dramatic increase in security breaches requires organizations to take a more comprehensive approach in combating insider threats. A study by the Ponemon Institute, a leading security research organization, showed that insider threats have jumped by 47 percent over the past two years. Reasons cited for this increase include the growing number of emboldened insiders who are determined to commit theft, fraud and espionage; negligent employees who unintentionally made disclosures by using weak passwords or divulging sensitive information by falling prey to phishing; and using compromised devices for work. These have been especially amplified by the work-from-home arrangements that many firms have adopted.

As the term indicates, insider threats are mostly caused by complacent employees, contractors and third parties, rather than malicious external threats. To provide some perspective, 62 percent of insider-threat incidents are caused by negligent, hasty or unaware employees; 23 percent resulted from compromise, with stolen and sold insider credentials leading to identify theft and sabotage; and 14 percent are linked to insiders with intent to commit theft, fraud or espionage.

Insider threats are aided by different tools, such as encryption, cryptocurrencies and dark web trading sites, and working remotely can significantly contribute to them.

Furthermore, when information is stored in the cloud, it can be accessed anywhere, thus making it easier for hackers to steal it. Understanding the signs that indicate insider threats can help organizations trace potential issues and prevent breaches from happening.

As digital transformation is currently trending, the internet has made it easy for cyberattackers to steal private data from organizations. Platforms such as dark websites and the onion router allow buyers and sellers to trade data online. Cybercriminals are exerting great effort to search for vulnerable insiders who are willing to give them the data they need while looking for ways to hack systems.

Human error

While we know that human behavior is the ultimate cause of insider threats, most organizations still rely on technology to detect and prevent attacks. This approach has led to organizations only reacting after an attack has occurred.

It is suggested that an organization must have a human-centric insider threat program from the beginning. Employees should be engaged through training, transparency and communication. The program must also make use of human behavior and analytics tools to determine possible human vulnerabilities and prevent a potential breach. Employee involvement should be a big part of any organizations cybersecurity program.

Engaging employees to identify and help prevent insider threats makes them an organizations top ally in cybersecurity. By using technology and analytics to identify and predict potential human vulnerabilities, an organization would have a more robust insider-threat program. But with all these said, it would still need to balance employee participation and behavior. This makes training, awareness, communication and assessment of privacy risk very important.

Implementing insider-threat programs

Insider threats have been established as notable cybersecurity risks that can result in heavy financial and reputational damages. To ensure consistency and compliance, organizations must carefully design insider-threat programs to cater to long-term use and sustainability.

According to Grant Thornton, the effective implementation of this program is marked by three pillars: Assess, Build and Run. Assess makes sure organizations evaluate regulatory requirements, industry standards and best practices that apply to high-value data. This includes evaluating data protection tools, solutions, risks and employee preparedness.

Under Build, organizations should implement the changes identified during Assess, and must make up of policies, procedures, governance, teams, training and tools. They must also implement and integrate technology to identify and track insider-threat indicators.

Under Run, effective programs should be managed and monitored. Among those factors monitored are employee sentiment, awareness, compliance and training, and reporting on performance and risk metrics. Programs must also be adjusted based on feedback and regular independent audits.

Overcoming the challenges of remote working

Of course, there will be challenges in implementing an insider-threat program amid the pandemic, given that many employees still work from home. Trying to maintain a secure online work environment is already difficult, and introducing such a program may even be more so. But one must remember that with employees working remotely using laptops, mobile devices and independent internet connections, the risk of security breaches increases.

As dated cybersecurity methods involving traditional firewalls are becoming obsolete, it becomes necessary for organizations to take the initiative in addressing insider threats where the line between trust and human behaviors are ever changing. Investing in cybersecurity at this time will reap great benefits as cybercriminals are still looking out for vulnerable links. Prioritizing cybersecurity is undoubtedly one of the decisions that would make or break any organizations future.

Mark Bajar is the lead consultant of the Advisory Services Division of P&A Grant Thornton. P&A Grant Thornton is one of the leading audit, tax, advisory, and outsourcing firms in the Philippines with 22 partners and more than 900 staff members. Wed like to hear from you! Tweet us with @GrantThorntonPH; like us on Facebook at P&A Grant Thornton; and email your comments to pagrantthornton@ph.gt.com. For more information, visit http://www.grantthornton.com.ph.

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Preparation and prevention vs insider threats The Manila Times - The Manila Times

Human Behavior

The secret startup weapon no one talks about: Befriending competitors – The Next Web

As an entrepreneur, you probably already know that its important to keep an eye on the competition. You want to continually analyze what theyre doing in order to learn from their approach and understand where you can stand out.

But over my 15 years of building startups, my co-founder and I have found a better strategy is to cozy up to the competition even befriend them.

I know this approach can seem counterintuitive, but it was critical to the success of our last business, Imagine Easy, and is the same playbook were following with our current one, classic games, and brain training app Solitaired.

Not convinced? Well, let me walk you through the short-, medium- and long-term benefits weve seen from this strategy and how easy it is to put into action.

A major goal of befriending the competition is to set up a future opportunity to acquire them.

Time and time again in scaling companies, Ive found that acquisition is an effective tool to build market share, gain new technologies, and grow a customer base. Moreover, youre no longer allocating resources to fend off the competition, and instead, their success becomes yours.

While you may see competition as someone you need to beat at all costs, if one of your goals is to be acquisitive, it doesnt make sense to have an acrimonious relationship.

We dont go into a relationship or conversation with an agenda to be duplicitous or to get a competitive leg up. Instead, by building good relationships over time, our company becomes the first they reach out to when theyre ready to sell.

On top of that, were able to negotiate very friendly terms, often accretive to our business, because they already know and trust us.

In the interim, befriending your competitors can provide you a lot of opportunities to collaborate. If you both have common goals, could you achieve them better together? To expand your footprint, you need to either find ways to take traffic away from competitors, target new customers, or as an alternative, partner with to expand the pie together.

Your competitors may look at your outreach and the ideas you bring forward incredulously. Instinctually, they might think you have alternative goals.

For instance, at Imagine Easy, we had one competitor who was very skeptical when we reached out to him, and it seemed unlikely we would ever be able to acquire that company.

However, we noticed a way he could be making a lot more money using some proprietary ad technology we had built, so we approached him about a partnership in which we would help him monetize his site and he would give us a cut.

We started with a one-month trial where we increased his revenue 5x and over a 5 year period we turned this into meaningful cash flow that we were able to reinvest in our main business.

In the end, it helped that founder make enough money to retire. And when he was ready to sell, we were able to buy on friendly terms because he was so thrilled with the work we had done.

Even if there isnt a clear opportunity to work with a competitor, I always tell people that its still good to build the relationship because, in doing so, your competition might become a little less competitive.

Its a very core human behavior: just by viewing each other as people instead of as a faceless enemy, you have more goodwill towards one another.

This isnt to say youll completely lose your competitive edge, but maybe instead of copying strategies or stealing features, youll both look for other ways to differentiate yourself without undercutting each other.

Additionally, you can even share information that would help you both (without hurting your business). For instance, when we noticed that Solitaired was seeing a dip in traffic, we were able to check with a friendly competitor to confirm that it was a seasonal trend they were also experiencing. As result, we were able to avoid deep-diving into site performance to understand if there may be an issue with our platform.

Opening positive communication channels with competitors is more beneficial than most realize. In one instance, a competitor told us about a technology to monetize ad-block users which increased our revenue by more than 5%.

More importantly, though, a good relationship with a competitor has the unintended side effect of pushing you to think outside the box.

So how do you actually become friends with your biggest competitors? I start by reaching out and being complimentary, sharing that I like what theyre doing, and offering to be of help in any way I can.

I find often in building these relationships, I have to give a little before a competitor will open up. So Ill often share basic things that might help them general industry insight, high-level strategies that have been working well, or new technologies Ive noticed in the space.

In one instance, I shared insights from a successful conversion rate optimization test, which I knew could be helpful to them but not harm us at the same time.

Finally, I always frame these conversations around our common goals. Could we do more or accelerate our missions together? That type of aspirational messaging always builds towards a strong long-term relationship.

This approach might seem counterintuitive at first, and its not going to lead to results overnight. Its a long-game strategy but its one I continue to pursue because the benefits can be game-changing.

Published February 15, 2021 09:42 UTC

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The secret startup weapon no one talks about: Befriending competitors - The Next Web

Genetics

How two researchers built the first genetics cohort of African children with autism | Spectrum | Autism Research News – Spectrum

Maria Chahrour

Assistant professor, University of Texas Southwestern

President, Reaching Families Advocacy and Support Group

In 2015, Maria Chahrour, assistant professor of genetics and neuroscience at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, began recruiting participants for studies on autism genetics out of her lab in Dallas. Among those who responded were parents and families who had recently immigrated from East Africa. They wanted to join the study, but they had some concerns and questions. So they asked if they could form their own group, in which they could help create the rules around how their data would be collected and used.

The collaboration that bloomed from those conversations created the first cohort of African children with autism one that continues to grow and recruit families around the globe. Chahrour and her research partner, Leah Seyoum-Tesfa, spoke to Spectrum about their experiences forming the cohort and why increasing genetic diversity is vital for autism research. Listen to the interview here, or read the transcript below or download it here.https://s3.amazonaws.com/spectrumnews-web-assets/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/12180920/Spectrum-interview-2.11.21.mp3

Spectrum: Could you both tell me who you are and what you do?

Maria Chahrour: Okay, well, hello, everyone, and thank you for having us. My name is Maria Chahrour. Im an assistant professor at the Eugene McDermott Center and the neuroscience department at UT Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas. My lab studies the genetics of autism. We want to find the genes that cause autism and to study their function in depth, so that we can understand the specific biological pathways that they function in. And ultimately, we hope that our work will inform diagnosis and therapies.

Leah Seyoum-Tesfa: My name is Leah Seyoum-Tesfa. Im originally from Ethiopia. I live in Irving, Texas. I am a mother of four children, two of whom are on the autism spectrum. In 2011, I started a nonprofit organization called Reaching Families Advocacy and Support Group. The purpose of the organization is to work with East African families who have children with intellectual and developmental disabilities. The organization started in Dallas, Texas, but its spread to we have several organizations all over the United States. By training, Im a nurse and I was a nurse practitioner. But I work, currently Im an advocate. I support families in various systems in the medical, educational, as well as the social systems. I also provide community awareness about developmental disabilities all over the United States.

I enjoy working with families; its a very rewarding thing to be able to support families access [to] early intervention and see the progress that children made throughout the year. And I support families also and their children to adulthood.

S: Thank you both for joining us, and you both do really interesting work, so Im excited to talk about how you work together. Could you tell me a little bit about how you first met each other and came to work together?

MC: Sure. So in 2015 I moved to Dallas to start my own lab. And, as I said, a big part of our mission is to identify causative genes in families with autism with a specific focus on Dallas diverse population. So I had an ongoing human genetics study, recruiting local families with autism, and someone from the Ethiopian community in Dallas found out about the study. He actually works at UT Southwestern as well, and he saw one of our flyers and told Leah about the study, and then he introduced us. And I guess, Leah, I would love to hear how that initial reach-out happened for you and what was your impression when you heard about the study?

LS-T: When Dr. Bogale [Aredo], who was the president of [the Ethiopian Health Professionals Association] I am a member of that group reminded me about this study, and he saw the flyer and he showed it to me, I was very interested, because Ive been concerned about the number of children that I see that have, from the East African community, primarily with autism. Ive felt for a while that we are seeing a higher prevalence in our population. And we also see more-affected children in our population. So when he showed me the flyer, I was very interested because our community wants to find out why the higher prevalence and if theres a genetic connection in our community. So I contacted Maria, and our collaboration started from there.

S: How did you come to collaborate rather than just participating in the study? Did you initially set out to want to have a bigger role in the study, or how did that relationship come about?

MC: I was really interested and impressed with everything that Leah had been doing and all of her efforts in her community. And you know, we had all these discussions about what she found with the higher prevalence of autism in East African families as she was working with the community. And we started having more and more of these meetings and discussions, and it sort of organically, I guess, grew into a collaboration. It was, I would say, a mutual learning journey for both of us, you know? I was really fascinated with all of the aspects that she was an expert in. And vice versa, I think.

LS-T: I agree with that. Yeah, it was a learning experience for me as well. Because other than the research that I have done as part of my training at the LEND program I had attended a training in 2013, and my project was on the prevalence of autism in the East African community in Texas. I had taken data from the Texas Education Agency, and I had found that it was a higher prevalence. And this came when I met Maria; I was very interested in studying this further.

S: I think Maria had told me previously that once you wanted to include more people from your community in the study, that there were some questions that came up about participating, and it actually spawned its own separate cohort study instead. Can you tell me about some of those questions that came up? And then how that led to a separate study being made for the African community around autism?

MC: So, as I mentioned, you know, the two of us started meeting and discussing the study designs and what elements we had to take into consideration. So, specifically, the communitys concerns about privacy and data protection and the stigma associated with autism within the community. I visited the community center and church multiple times, spoke to family members about autism and genetics, and about the study that we were running. And, you know, myself and Leah, we answered their questions and addressed their concerns. And I would say, then, we took care of some logistics. Before I go into that maybe Ill let Leah tell you a little bit more about the families specific concerns around these issues.

LS-T: Theres a lot of stigma around it. And people are very careful to admit their children have autism, or a family member. Unfortunately, its associated with mental health issues, and somebody being crazy, or somebody being like an evil spirit. So the stigma around it was a big issue that we have to deal with, and I still deal with in the community. The other concern was lack of knowledge. They didnt know what research would mean. Its not something that weve participated [in] as a community in the DFW area, or even any area that Im aware of as an immigrant community. So doing a study was something new.

S: And DFW, is that Dallas-Fort Worth?

LS-T: Dallas-Fort Worth, Im sorry.

The other piece was, what is going to come with this study? Whats the outcome and what the data was going to be used for?

S: And so, what kind of things did you do, both in the recruiting and in the study design, to kind of allay those concerns?

MC: I would say we really had a lot of discussions. A critical part of this was just meeting with family members, addressing all of their questions, making sure that everyone is comfortable with everything we had in the study forms. Leah had reviewed all of the study forms. And we translated them into Amharic and Tigrinya. And then after we finalized all of these logistics, Leah announced the start of recruitment and enrollment to the community members and the families that she was supporting through the Reach foundation. I would say it took us about two years from when we initially met, to set everything up and have all of these really important and critical discussions with community members so that we can incorporate their feedback, before we actually started actively enrolling participants.

S: Wow, two years. Thats a long time.

MC: Yeah.

S: And so what has the recruitment process been like since then? You know, how many families have you been able to recruit and is it still ongoing? Catch me up to how its been going the last couple of years.

MC: This past year, its been really slow, of course, with everything thats going on with the COVID-19 pandemic. But you know, so far weve enrolled 30 families, I would say, and thats over 120 individuals, and its still very much ongoing and active.

When UT Southwestern shut down earlier in March, human subject research that did not involve a critical procedure was kind of put on hold. So we couldnt bring in study participants for their research appointments. I think that was the main hit. But now, you know, were hoping that things are going to get better, and that were able to deal with all of these logistical issues. Were all adapting, I would say.

S: So, Leah, you told us at the beginning about what Reach does. Can you tell me how that plays a role in the study that you do with Maria?

LS-T: I work by bringing community awareness. I go to several churches before COVID. Now through Zoom, I do community awareness; I teach families about early signs of autism. And the purpose is to get early intervention. At that time, I do offer all the families an opportunity to participate in the study. And not all families are ready to do that. Theyre still trying to accept that their child has autism. Were also going through the difficult diagnostic process, finding a diagnostician and waiting on these long lines with the various providers. So it takes a little bit longer. I think within a year after the diagnosis, a lot of families will agree or decide to participate or not.

So the purpose, as I said, is to provide early intervention and help families, but as part of that I do explain to them about the research and the opportunity to join the research. Like I said, its not every family that chooses to participate. But some families are very interested; some choose to just do a genetic study through their pediatrician or specialist. But thats how we are able to reach families. Now I do have like I said, I started with families in [the] Dallas area but I do have families, we even have some families in Europe, that live in Germany and I think other countries, that were able to participate in this study.

S: Wow. Do you have partners in Europe that sort of help with the recruitment there?

LS-T: No, I do 100 percent of the recruitment, families that I support through accessing interventions. We do have a heavy online presence, and through our website, and through our Facebook and other resources, we provide information. We have monthly educational meetings that are available to any families recorded. We teach them about various things about early intervention, about therapies, about [applied behavior analysis], about all kinds of things, dietary interventions. We have specialists that come and speak to families about, the bigger one is a lot of behavior support. Fortunately, we do have many community members that are in the profession that are able to share this information in Tigrinya and in Amharic that is very accessible to these families. So families from all over the world, we have families in Africa as well, in Asia; people, immigrants, families can access our educational information. And part of that educational information is we had Maria speak about the genetic study, and they can access that and reach Maria at UT Southwestern to participate in the study.

MC: Once we make contact with the families, you know, my study coordinator sort of arranges for the research appointment if theyre local, or otherwise we send them a study kit with instructions of what to do and how to actually collect samples and things like that.

S: And when youre doing this global outreach, are you mostly focused on families from Ethiopia specifically?

MC: So were focusing on East African families, specifically from Ethiopia and Eritrea, although weve had Kenyan and Somali families participate as well. But the vast majority are from Ethiopia and Eritrea.

LS-T: We do support, actually, Kenyan families. Theres not a heavy presence in the DFW area. But we do have a mother that supports the Kenyan families, and through her we were able to recruit a few families I believe, but its heavy Ethiopian, Eritrean immigrant families in the DFW area.

S: And you have a partner in Ethiopia, correct? An organization there that you partner with?

MC: It sort of started as this part of our long-term capacity-building project for autism in Ethiopia. So I got to visit the Joy Autism Center in Addis Ababa in the summer of 2019. And I discussed our study with the center founder, Zemi Yenus. And as part of that trip, I also gave a talk and ran a workshop with colleagues on autism and autism genetics at the Bahir Dar University, and that was geared towards healthcare professionals. So Zemi is interested in collaborating with myself and Leah, but we havent actually started enrolling participants simply because of logistical issues that were caused by the pandemic and the recent political unrest. Of course, we are planning to expand our study and collaborate with colleagues and community partners in Ethiopia. Thats our long-term plan.

S: And so now that its been going on, the studys been going on for a few years, what have you been hearing from families about their experience participating in the study?

MC: I believe theyre excited about the study. Weve had a meeting after we completed the latest batch of sequencing to discuss our preliminary analysis with the community. And were planning for other community update meetings as we finalize our analysis. But I think Leah can speak more to the familys impressions and how motivated they are to participate.

LS-T: The ones that have participated are very eager to know the results. They call me often and say, What have we found? Where are we now? Theyre just eager to find out; the process was very easy. Maria really made it easy in that the kit was sent home; when we were drawing blood, the phlebotomist came to the home to draw the blood. And it was really a very smooth process for a lot of the families, even the ones in Europe. They told me the process was very easy. And were just waiting for the results. Everybodys eager. We are realizing the prevalence; were seeing a lot of our friends and siblings also having children with autism. So thats what we really need to know, if there is a genetic connection here.

S: Im curious if youve seen any kind of shifts, like you mentioned that theres some stigma in the community or just not being as familiar with research studies. Have you seen, anecdotally, shifts from people who have participated in any of those attitudes?

LS-T: You know, I see a change in that even families that have not participated in the study are now very interested in doing that. Initially, people were worried about whats going to happen with the data is my name is going to be available on [the] internet about my child having autism? those kinds of concerns. But now that they know, and Maria has come and explained to us how the data is saved, there are more families interested. Because of COVID, theres a lot going on with the disability community. COVID has been even harder. Families are struggling with kids not attending school. So its kind of been really hard. And then finding even somebody to diagnose the children during this time has been difficult.

But Ive seen a shift. Ive seen a shift in stigma, because theres so many of us, many centers all over the United States, that we are going to the churches and talking about autism. Were in a good place; I think were going in the right direction. Kids are getting help sooner.

S: It sounds like a really powerful community-based approach to doing this kind of science.

MC: Yes, yes, for sure.

LS-T: Definitely. Definitely.

S: And maybe we can talk a little bit about, you know, what youre finding from the study. What kind of gaps is that filling for the science about autism?

MC: Populations in Africa are the most genetically diverse in the world and carry up to three times as many rare variants as, say, populations of European origin. And research so far on the genetics of autism has overwhelmingly focused on people of European ancestry. And, of course, although these studies are extremely valuable to our understanding of this complex genetics of autism, they dont really capture the genetic diversity on the African continent. And this loss of genetic diversity in the current studies really limits our scope of understanding autism.

So because genomic studies so far have been largely focused on European populations and identifying autism variants in these European cohorts, the transferability of these findings to non-European populations is limited.

And then, of course, as genetic findings move into the clinic, this lack of diversity and lack of genetic data from non-European populations translates to healthcare disparities. So when a genetic diagnosis is made in the clinic, its vital to understand the variant in the context of ancestry, because the frequencies of some of these variants are population-specific.

So for clinical genetics to be equitable, it needs to be able to offer patients and their families interpretation that encompasses their specific ancestry. And as a genetics community, the community as a whole recognizes this need for diversity and the need to do more sequencing on the African continent to be able to understand variants in the context of ancestry, and is working to be more inclusive. An example of this, you know, theres a big effort right now thats focused on exactly doing this. And its the Human Heredity and Health in Africa, or the H3Africa consortium, which was conceived to address the paucity of genomics research in Africa. So I think we have a lot to learn from this. We have a lot to find and discover. And we have this amazing opportunity to do this now.

LS-T: We realize theres a very heavy burden of more affected children in our community. I strongly believe in that. Were seeing more kids in our community. Siblings I have a lot of families that have two, three children somewhere on the spectrum. I myself have two kids on the autism spectrum, fraternal twins. So we are very eager to find out what is causing this high incidence of autism in our children. And hopefully, this research will answer some of our questions.

MC: I just want to add to that we are really interested and we set out to see: What is this genetic factor thats predisposing the community to autism? And thats sort of the big question that were going after.

S: When you say theres a higher prevalence in the community, what kind of numbers would you say there are?

MC: Leahs own work on public schools in the state of Texas showed that the prevalence is up to three times higher than the prevalence in the general non-African population. And also, there is one of the sites where the [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] does the monitoring network for autism is in Minnesota, and they found that the prevalence of autism in the Somali population in Minnesota was, I believe, up to two to three times higher than the general population as well.

So there are all these findings that were pretty much from prevalence studies that were done on immigrant populations outside of Africa because, unfortunately, I believe there are only two prevalence studies for autism in Africa one out of Uganda and one out of Nigeria. You know, of course, depending on who you ask, there might be other factors that influence or result in this higher prevalence. And of course, these prevalence studies on immigrant populations are smaller than what you would typically see from other prevalence studies. But we think its a start. We think that in the meantime, we can do something with the information that we already have. And you know, as a geneticist, Im really interested in the genetic risk factors. Although were not eliminating other hypotheses, of course, but were testing our hypothesis that there is a genetic risk factor in this community

LS-T: And the study that I did, it wasnt published, but it was part of my report. In the Amharic-speaking population, we saw 1 in 40. In the Tigrinya-speaking, we saw 1 in 51. And in the Ethiopic they call it Ethiopic because theres other languages spoken in Ethiopia, including Amharic, Tigrinya, Oromo 1 in 22 children had autism.

And then in the whole Texas population, at that time is 1 in 167 children were identified educational identification of autism, with my research. And then, as Maria mentioned, we reviewed a lot of studies that were done in Europe. And theres also a study out of California that showed higher prevalence in immigrant families who have children with autism who are African American. The European studies looked in depth about East African families. There was also a New Zealand and Australian study that had higher prevalence in our community.

S: Wow, those are some very big discrepancies. Very big differences.

LS-T: There was, there was. And you know, the other thing is, this is in educationally identified children. They were looking at the children that are, they tend to identify the more affected children. And the kids that are less affected are not identified, even so in our community, because parents dont want their children identified. If theres a little bit of, you know, social problems, and the kids end up being verbal, they usually dont want their kids identified. These are kids that have significant disability and are often educated separately in a self-contained classroom.

So were looking at even a much higher rate in our community, because were not always identifying all the children. This was, if you look at the Somali study in Minnesota, the first study came out in 2014. Those identified were 100 percent of those children had intellectual disability. Whereas a much lesser number of children in the Minnesota study of the other races had intellectual disability. What that tells me, and I think the researchers concluded, is that were not identifying those kids that are less affected in these communities. Were just looking at those with intellectual disability that are easily identified in the school system.

MC: Yeah, yeah. So, you know, basically, were missing a lot of kids who are more mildly affected. And I think that, again, speaks to this really big need for doing comprehensive prevalence studies in Africa.

LS-T: Definitely, definitely.

S: And does your genetic study mostly then lean toward having people who have intellectual disability? Or are you also working to identify those less affected kids and get them in the study as well?

MC: So we do have kids on both ends of the spectrum, I would say. Its because these families were primarily identified through Leahs efforts in the Reach foundation, and she works with all kinds of kids on the spectrum. So, you know, we are enrolling everyone at this point, yeah.

LS-T: We do have the same, even people, families that come to me for help, usually have more affected children. These kids are identified early on; usually theyre all over the spectrum. But the older kids that are identified usually are more significantly affected that come to me for help.

S: So just thinking about the more broad need in the field to have greater diversity in genetic studies, are there any kind of lessons that you think youve learned in creating and working on this cohort that might inform other researchers about how to increase diversity in genetic studies?

MC: Yes, this is a big question. And we could both go on and on. So we certainly learned a lot. For one, we need to continue doing this and expand our study to enroll more participants and sequence more genomes. And the genetic diversity on the African continent can teach us a lot about the genetics of autism and about the biological pathways and mechanisms underlying the disorder.

We learned that theres still a lot of stigma associated with having autism in many communities. And we need to really be diligent about removing that stigma and spreading the right information so that we can empower families to deal with this in their communities. And we need to listen to, understand and respect the communities concerns. And we need to work together. It has to be a true partnership between scientists and parents for us to be successful. We also learned that a lot of these families are facing and dealing with the burdens of autism without much support. So participating in research studies may not necessarily be a top priority when you dont have access to basic services.

LS-T: Yeah. You said it really well, Maria. Families are struggling, caring for the kids and accessing resources. Sometimes research is not a priority for them. I think the fact that Maria was able to come and explain everything really well for us, that was very helpful. And she also had an opportunity to come back and update us about where the research is. And we were able to recruit more families after that.

I think just understanding their culture and the stigma around it was very good for Maria to understand and work with us [and make] research easy for the families. She accommodated the needs of the families, because it would have been very hard for the families to take their kids to have their blood drawn, the whole family; she made that very easier. And those things are very important. Making things very accessible for the families and continuing to communicate with them. Its very important, especially for communities that are not, might not have a lot of knowledge about research.

S: Great. Well, this has been a really fascinating discussion about your work. Im really curious to see where it goes in the next couple of years.

MC: Thank you. Yeah, were both really excited about this, and hopeful.

LS-T: And thank you for giving us the opportunity to share our research and about our concern in our community.

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How two researchers built the first genetics cohort of African children with autism | Spectrum | Autism Research News - Spectrum

Genetics

Genetic study of Lewy body dementia supports ties to Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases – National Institutes of Health

News Release

Tuesday, February 16, 2021

NIH-led study locates five genes that may play a critical role in Lewy body dementia.

In a study led by National Institutes of Health researchers, scientists found that five genes may play a critical role in determining whether a person will suffer from Lewy body dementia, a devastating disorder that riddles the brain with clumps of abnormal protein deposits called Lewy bodies. Lewy bodies are also a hallmark of Parkinsons disease. The results, published in Nature Genetics, not only supported the diseases ties to Parkinsons disease but also suggested that people who have Lewy body dementia may share similar genetic profiles to those who have Alzheimers disease.

Lewy body dementia is a devastating brain disorder for which we have no effective treatments. Patients often appear to suffer the worst of both Alzheimers and Parkinsons diseases. Our results support the idea that this may be because Lewy body dementia is caused by a spectrum of problems that can be seen in both disorders, said Sonja Scholz, M.D., Ph.D., investigator at the NIHs National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS) and the senior author of the study. We hope that these results will act as a blueprint for understanding the disease and developing new treatments.

The study was led by Dr. Scholzs team and researchers in the lab of Bryan J. Traynor, M.D., Ph.D., senior investigator at the NIHs National Institute on Aging (NIA).

Lewy body dementia usually affects people over 65 years old. Early signs of the disease include hallucinations, mood swings, and problems with thinking, movements, and sleep. Patients who initially have cognitive and behavioral problems are usually diagnosed as having dementia with Lewy bodies, but are sometimes mistakenly diagnosed with Alzheimers disease. Alternatively, many patients, that are initially diagnosed with Parkinsons disease, may eventually have difficulties with thinking and mood caused by Lewy body dementia. In both cases, as the disease worsens, patients become severely disabled and may die within eight years of diagnosis.

A growing body of evidence suggests genetics may play a role in the disorder and that some cases may be inherited. Scientists have found that some of these rare cases can be caused by mutations in the gene for alpha-synuclein (SNCA), the main protein found in Lewy bodies. Further studies have found that variants in the gene for apolipoprotein E (APOE), which is known to play a role in Alzheimers disease, may also play one in Lewy body dementia.

Compared to other neurodegenerative disorders, very little is known about the genetic forces behind Lewy body dementia, said Dr. Traynor. To get a better understanding we wanted to study the genetic architecture of Lewy body dementia.

To do this, they compared the chromosomal DNA sequences of 2,981 Lewy body dementia patients with those of 4,931 healthy, age-matched control participants. Samples were collected from participants of European ancestry at 44 sites: 17 in Europe and 27 across North America. The DNA sequencing was led by Clifton Dalgard, Ph.D., and researchers at The American Genome Center, a series of state-of-the-art laboratories at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences and supported by the Henry M. Jackson Foundation for the Advancement of Military Medicine.

Initially, they found that the sequences of five genes from the Lewy body dementia patients were often different from those of the controls, suggesting that these genes may be important. It was the first time that two of the genes, called BIN1 and TMEM175, had been implicated in the disease. These genes may also have ties to Alzheimers and Parkinsons diseases. The other three genes, SNCA, APOE, and GBA, had been implicated in previous studies, and thus, strengthened the importance of the genes in Lewy body dementia.

The researchers also saw differences in the same five genes when they compared the DNA sequences of another 970 Lewy body dementia patients with a new set of 8,928 control subjects, confirming their initial results.

Further analysis suggested that changes in the activity of these genes may lead to dementia and that the GBA gene may have a particularly strong influence on the disease. The gene encodes instructions for beta-glucosylceramidase, a protein that helps a cells recycling system break down sugary fats. The researchers found that both common and rare variants in the GBA gene are tied to Lewy body dementia.

These results provide a list of five genes that we strongly suspect play a role in Lewy body dementia, said Dr. Traynor.

Finally, to examine the apparent links between Lewy body dementia and other neurodegenerative diseases, the researchers further analyzed data from previous studies on Alzheimers and Parkinsons disease. They found that the genetic profiles of the patients in this study had higher chances of suffering from either Alzheimers or Parkinsons disease than the age-matched control subjects. These predictions held even after they lowered the potential impact of known Alzheimers and Parkinsons disease-causing genes, like APOE and SNCA. Interestingly, the patients genetic risk profiles for Alzheimers disease, on the one hand, or Parkinsons disease, on the other, did not overlap.

Although Alzheimers and Parkinsons disease are molecularly and clinically very different disorders, our results support the idea that the problems that cause those diseases may also happen in Lewy body dementia, said Dr. Scholz. The challenge we face in treating these patients is determining which specific problems are causing the dementia. We hope studies like this one will help doctors find precise treatments for each patients condition.

To help with this effort, the team published the genome sequence data from the study on the database of Genotypes and Phenotypes (dbGaP), a National Library of Medicine website that researchers can freely search for new insights into the causes of Lewy body dementia and other disorders.

Article:

Chia, R., et al. Genome sequencing analysis identifies new loci associated with Lewy body dementia and provides insights into the complex genetic architecture. Nature Genetics, February 15, 2021 DOI: 10.1038/s41588-021-00785-3

This study was supported in part by the NIH Intramural Research Programs at the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NS003154) and the National Institute on Aging (AG000935).

NINDS (https://www.ninds.nih.gov) is the nations leading funder of research on the brain and nervous system.The mission of NINDS is to seek fundamental knowledge about the brain and nervous system and to use that knowledge to reduce the burden of neurological disease.

About the National Institute on Aging (NIA): NIA leads the U.S. federal government effort to conduct and support research on aging and the health and well-being of older people. Visit the NIA website for information about a range of aging topics inEnglishandSpanish. Learn more about age-related cognitive change and neurodegenerative diseases via its Alzheimer's and related Dementias Education and Referral (ADEAR) Center website. Stay connected with NIA!

About the National Institutes of Health (NIH):NIH, the nation's medical research agency, includes 27 Institutes and Centers and is a component of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. NIH is the primary federal agency conducting and supporting basic, clinical, and translational medical research, and is investigating the causes, treatments, and cures for both common and rare diseases. For more information about NIH and its programs, visit http://www.nih.gov.

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Genetic study of Lewy body dementia supports ties to Alzheimer's and Parkinson's diseases - National Institutes of Health