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Cell Biology

Georgia Tech faculty member: I didnt think I connected with my students online. They disagreed. – Atlanta Journal Constitution

My students love not knowing me

The view from my virtual classroom is bleak. My desk -- a table salvaged from the basement -- sits in an unused corner of a spare bedroom that looks out over a radiator, a pull-out sofa, and the cats litter box. The curated science-themed bookshelf is behind me, a faade of normalcy. It is from here that I recorded dozens of videos for my cell biology course last semester. I spent my days alone with intracellular signaling pathways, motor proteins, and the cytoskeleton. I spoke to no one but my webcam. Each Sunday I sent the videos into the void and hoped some of the 60 students enrolled in my class would watch them.

Were my students even there?

Before the first exam, I held an online review session. One student showed up, connecting from the lodge at Yellowstone where she was vacationing with her family. She didnt have any questions, but it was raining outside so she decided to log in and meet me. We spoke for about 10 minutes, and she told me she didnt know anyone else in the class. I held other online office hours that no one attended. I held a review session for the final exam, and three people logged on. Within two weeks of the end of the semester, I forgot the names of everyone in the class.

Georgia Tech professor Jennifer Leavey

Credit: Christopher Moore

Credit: Christopher Moore

For me, this unexpectedly online course was a disappointment. This course was supposed to be taught at a study abroad program in Lyon, France, where I have been part of the faculty for five years. Most years, the class is small. We have seminar-style discussions. We take field trips to local tech companies so students have a sense of what research looks like in an industrial setting. I invite groups of students to my rented apartment where we get to know each other over home cooked meals I create with ingredients from the daily fresh market down the street.

We have conversations about the students hopes and dreams, and I help connect them with research advisors who share their interests. On occasion, I write them letters of recommendation for things like medical school or the Fulbright scholars program.

This semester, I didnt get to know anyone.

When my end-of-semester anonymous course evaluations arrived, I clicked the link with dread. Surely this semester would leave a stain, much like the rest of 2020. But as I started to read, it became clear that my students perception of our relationship was very different than my own. One student said, Dr. Leavey was always incredibly helpful when I ran into any issues I really appreciated her concern for us and our well-being! Another said, She respected her students and was very available for help.

Yet another said, She was very accessible and willing to go above and beyond to help students. She was very caring and considerate, especially as these are difficult and uncertain times for us all. How could this be? Somehow, I must have been conveying compassiondigitally.

I looked through my weekly class announcements for signs that I cared. Some of my notes reflected my own fears, like if you are in Georgia be safe out there. COVID-19 is worse now than it ever has been and Please stay safe and protect others by staying socially distant and wearing a mask. Other messages suggested I was available and accessible, and perhaps even desperate to connect: feel free to email me or any the TAs any time and Let me know if you would like to get together and discuss the course (or anything).

While I wasnt hearing from very many students in any given week, they must have been hearing me loud and clear.

Is it possible that remote learning can feel even more personal for the student than in-person instruction does? In a normal semester, I would be at the front of the room. Depending on where my students sit, they may not be able to see or hear me very well. But my remote class was somehow intimate. I was arriving in my students inbox every day. My face was on a screen in their lap. My voice was in their earbuds. The unused corner of my spare bedroom was in their house, no matter where they were in the world. And maybe my students knew me better than they ever have before. If only I knew them.

About the Author

Maureen Downey has written editorials and opinion pieces about local, state and federal education policy since the 1990s.

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Georgia Tech faculty member: I didnt think I connected with my students online. They disagreed. - Atlanta Journal Constitution

Cell Biology

Differential Effects of Fingolimod and Natalizumab on B Cell Repertoires in Multiple Sclerosis Patients – DocWire News

This article was originally published here

Neurotherapeutics. 2020 Nov 30. doi: 10.1007/s13311-020-00975-7. Online ahead of print.

ABSTRACT

Natalizumab and fingolimod are effective multiple sclerosis (MS) therapies that disrupt lymphocyte migration but have differential effects on B cell maturation and trafficking. We investigated their effects on peripheral blood (PB) and cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) B cell repertoires using next-generation deep sequencing. Paired CSF and PB B cell subsets (nave, CD27+ memory, and CD27IgD double-negative B cells and plasmablasts) were collected by applying flow cytometry at baseline and after 6 months of treatment and their respective heavy-chain variable region repertoires assessed by Illumina MiSeq. Treatment with fingolimod contracted, whereas natalizumab expanded circulating PB B cells. CSF B cell numbers remained stable following fingolimod treatment but decreased with natalizumab therapy. Clonal overlap between CSF and PB B cells was reduced with natalizumab treatment but remained stable with fingolimod therapy. Lineage analyses of pre- and posttreatment CSF B cell repertoires revealed large, clonally expanded B cell clusters in natalizumab-treated MS patients but no intrathecal clonal expansion following fingolimod therapy. Our findings suggest that natalizumab diminishes the exchange of peripheral and intrathecal B cells without impacting intrathecal clonal expansion. In contrast, fingolimod treatment fails to alter blood-brain barrier B cell exchange but diminishes intrathecal clonal expansion. Sphingosine-1 phosphate receptor inhibition may alter intrathecal B cell biology in MS.

PMID:33258072 | DOI:10.1007/s13311-020-00975-7

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Differential Effects of Fingolimod and Natalizumab on B Cell Repertoires in Multiple Sclerosis Patients - DocWire News

Human Behavior

Trump Stole the Election from Himself, Here’s How – City Watch

But when viewed through the lens of philosophy and psychology (which happens to be my particular academic training), his actions are not all that confusing. Irrational and stupid, yes. But not confusing. In other words, when we look at his mistakes leading up to the election, it becomes clear that the laws of human behavior all but determined that he would engage in self-sabotage. These five laws are well known to anyone who has studied personality traits in-depth or have observed how easy it is for human beings to become their own worst enemy. That is what happened to Mr. Trump by the time Americans finally went to the polls on November 3rd.

Number one. Trump succumbed to a series ofSelf-Fulfilling Prophecies. A self-fulfilling prophecy is when you have such a strong-felt belief that something will happen that you can influence making it happen. In Georgia and other battleground states, for example, Trump told his supporters not to use mail-in ballots. For months, he could not stop predicting massive fraud and voter suppression, and guess what, he wound up suppressing his base. Georgia Secretary of State Raffensperger, a Republican, told Atlanta ABC affiliate WSB that the president hurt his cause by discouraging mail-in voting, which he portrayed as a scam. Raffensperger told the station that 24,000 Republican voters who voted absentee in the primary did not vote in the general election. Those 24,000 people did not vote in the fall, Raffensperger said. They did not vote absentee because they were told by the president, Dont vote absentee. Its not secure. But then they did not come out and vote in person.

The second law of human behavior that proved to be an obstacle to Trump is known as theHalo Effect, which suggests we use first impressions to make a total judgment about people and events. There are many examples of the Halo Effect corrupting his ability to discern friends from enemies. But the most obvious example is how he based his assessment of foreign rulers on first impressions and gut feelings. How many conservatives and moderate Republicans could not stomach the way he threw our allies under the bus and praised rogue actors such as Kim Jong Un and Vladimir Putin?

For instance, after his first meeting with the North Korean dictator-a man who supposedly fed his relatives to wild dogs- Trump said that he and Kim understand each other, and sometimes that can lead to very good things. About Erdogan, he once said, "He's tough, but I get along with him. And maybe that's a bad thing, but I think it's a really good thing." And about Putin, Trump never tired of lavishing praise. "The man (Putin) has very strong control over a country," he said. "Now, it's a very different system and I don't happen to like the system, but certainly in that system, he's been a leader. Far more than our president has been a leader."

It is a low bar indeed to refrain from congratulating and embracing thugs and mass murderers. Yet Mr. Trump could not get over that bar. No democrat told him to speak that way. It was no "Fake News" report that captured these statements. Trump said them on the air in front of millions of viewers. To this day, he has never really had a bad thing to say about these anti-democratic rulers. Who knows for sure how many swing voters he lost as a result, but it was his poor judgment that forced them away.

Trump also succumbed toThe Ignorance Law. The Ignorance Law posits that when people do not know the facts (about another person, situation, event), they assume the worst and act as if it is true. The killing of George Floyd and the moral outrage it unleashed in our nation is a prime example of this law taking effect in the mind of a profoundly prejudicial man. Rather than denouncing white supremacy, police brutality, and structural racism, Mr. Trump double-downed on his law and order rhetoric. He tried to paint a vision of America that looked more like 1960 than 2020, labeled Antifa a terrorist organization, sanctioned the deployment of chemical weapons to disperse citizens using their first amendment rights, and threw gasoline on the fire whenever he could. In a time when America was in desperate need of a unifying message and messenger, Trump attempted to spark a racial war. It was a terrible miscalculation of the national mood and one that cost him dearly on election day, especially with moderates, young voters, persons of color, and suburban women.

Related to the Law of Ignorance is the influence ofThe Assumption Theory, which suggests that whenever we encounter a situation (people, event, idea), we assume we know what situation we are in and respond with a pre-programmed behavior already established to manage it. His total failure to understand the suburbs cost him dearly in states such as Wisconsin, Nevada, Georgia, Arizona, Michigan, and Pennsylvania. Contrary to his characterizations, suburbs no longer look like the ones he remembers. Whites comprised less than ten percent of the growth of the suburban population in the 100 largest metros between the years 2000 and 2010.

What is more, a recent Monmouth poll showed that, overall, about '3 in 4 Americans believe that having more racially integrated neighborhoods in their local communities is either very (41%) or somewhat (33%) important.' His assumption that everyone who lives in a suburb is doing so because they want to live apart from people of color is a gross distortion of reality, one that was ultimately self-defeating.

And that brings us to the fourth law of human behavior simply calledMindset. A mindset can get in the way of us seeing new options or ways of handling new situations. Whenever we approach a new problem with the same skills, expectations, and past experiences to guide us, our critical thinking diminishes and solutions become less clear. In the case of the COVID pandemic, his inability to think differently about problems ended up costing him the election and contributed to the death of thousands. All he had to do was assertively endorse masks and social distancing, utilize the full potential of the Defense Authorization Act, and galvanize the American people around a shared goal. But he could not do it. His mindset got in the way.

Because of the way he views the world, and American politics, in particular, it was impossible for him to think outside of the us vs. them paradigm. And because he is a devout follower of positive thinking as taught by the late Norman Vincent Peale, Trump could not bring himself to listen to anyone who had a dire message about the pandemic. He truly believed that he could make it go away with happy thoughts. Moreover, Trump could not bring himself to order a national mask mandate because he was unwilling to wear one. Why? Because of his vanity.

He said more than once that wearing masks is not presidential, and it makes him uncomfortable. That is what is meant by a self-destructive mindset. No one in his inner circle could convince him that telling people to wear masks would save lives and that many of those lives would be people who supported him. As a result, it was not COVID that ruined his reelection prospects. It was his dismal response to the crisis that ensured he would leave office a loser.

The bottom line is that Mr. Trump stole the election from himself. No widespread fraud. No massive conspiracy. No one else to blame but himself.

(George Cassidy Payne is a social worker, adjunct instructor of philosophy and a CityWatch contributor. He lives and works in Rochester, NY.)

-cw

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Trump Stole the Election from Himself, Here's How - City Watch

Human Behavior

Silent Spillover: Ebolavirus antibodies detected in people in DR Congo before the 2018 outbreak – On Health – BMC Blogs Network

Our new study published in One Health Outlook detected antibodies to ebolaviruses in people prior to the outbreak, suggesting exposure may be more common than previously thought, earlier cases may have been missed, and infection may not always lead to disease.

Tracey Goldstein 1 Dec 2020

Al-Hadji Kudra Maliro / AP Photo / picture alliance

Since Ebola virus first emerged in 1976 (Zaire ebolavirus = EBOV) there have been eight outbreaks in the Democratic Republic of Congo, of which the second largest in history was declared in August 2018. By the time the outbreak was declared over in June 2020, the region had experienced 3,481 cases and 2,299 deaths.

Goma, DR Congo; Credit: One Health Institute (PREDICT)

Our new study published in One Health Outlook detected antibodies to ebolaviruses in people prior to the outbreak, suggesting exposure may be more common than previously thought, earlier cases may have been missed, and infection may not always lead to disease. Sampling also detected the first antibodies to Bombali ebolavirus in one child, first discovered in bats in West Africa in 2018, providing critical evidence that spillover of this virus from bats to humans has likely occurred. Sampling also revealed that women were significantly more likely to be positive for antibodies than men, a finding consistent with other studies where the activities of women increase their risk of exposure.

So, how can we use this information to increase our understanding of viruses and advance our ability to reduce future outbreaks?

People sampled were patients seeking care for a range of clinical symptoms between May 2017 and April 2018, in the North Kivu Province of the Democratic Republic of Congo near Virunga National Park. Samples were collected and tested from 272 people (identified as male or female) ranging in age from 2 to 68 years. None were diagnosed with hemorrhagic fever at the time of treatment or had been previously diagnosed with ebolavirus infection or disease.

Of the 272 patients sampled, 30 were seropositive (antibodies present) for ebolaviruses (EBOV = 29; BOMV = 1).

Location of villages and the Rubare Health Center in Rutshuru Health Zone, North Kivu Province where febrile study participants traveled from and were treated prior to Ebola Virus Disease outbreak in Eastern DRC that began in 2018. The outbreak was first observed in the Mabalako Health Zone (yellow) in North Kivu before spreading to other areas (brown). Inset map of the DRC: Location of the 20182020 outbreak (yellow), study location (purple) and other EBOV outbreaks in the DRC to date (orange)

Demographic and behavioral information was also collected to identify risk factors for exposure. Livelihoods mainly consisted of crop production. Limited contact with wild animals (e.g. non-human primates, bats) was reported but contact with rodents and domestic animals (e.g. goats, sheep, dogs) was common.

Although both sexes tested positive for antibodies, as mentioned above, women were significantly more likely to be positive, and children (2-17 yrs) comprised 45% of the positives. This finding is consistent with other infectious disease studies demonstrating women have been shown to have an increased risk for exposure, likely due to their gender roles caring for children, the sick, and for animals. Children are also likely coming into contact with wild animals more frequently through hunting and play behaviors, increasing their risk of exposure.

Can antibody detection help prevent future outbreaks?

Detecting antibodies before or between outbreaks can help understand the geographic exposure to viruses. Spillover is likely more frequent than we realize and recognizing that spillover doesnt always lead to outbreaks is important, reinforcing the need to study and understand viral infection and exposure between outbreak events.

The fact that women and children were more likely to have antibodies suggests that awareness of the human behaviors that increase the risk of exposure is critically important to understanding how and when exposure may occur. When we understand the connections between human behavior and viral exposure we can begin to break those connections and reduce outbreaks.

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Silent Spillover: Ebolavirus antibodies detected in people in DR Congo before the 2018 outbreak - On Health - BMC Blogs Network

Human Behavior

Too early to tell if Utahns followed Thanksgiving health recommendations – fox13now.com

SALT LAKE CITY After weeks of pleading from health leaders across not only the state but the country for people to avoid traveling for Thanksgiving and to only see people they live with, the holiday is over and it becomes a wait and see game.

Unless people really took the public health warnings and stayed home and didnt congregate as multiple household units coming together, this has the potential of being a big spreading event, this entire holiday season, Erin Clouse, Strategic Engagement Manager for Health Sciences at the University of Utah Health said.

READ: Utahs high schools are seeing more and bigger COVID-19 outbreaks

In March, Clouse, like many Utahns, began working from home. She began to develop a curiosity of COVID-19 trends, so she started plotting and making graphs.

I wanted to see for myself, I thought maybe there were some interesting stories that werent being described very well, she said.

Months later, what started as a hobby has turned into something people are using to look at COVID-19 Trends and providing an easy to understand look at the pandemic. The most surprising thing has been to see how much you can predict human behavior, Clouse said.

It was just really interesting to see human behavior really leading to spreading of this disease, over and over again, she said.

After every major holiday since the pandemic, Utah has seen a spike in cases, Clouse said. This will be the first holiday that was mostly celebrated inside which adds another level of concern. It usually takes 10-14 days to see the impact from an event, Clouse said.

It is going to be a wait and see how vigilant was the population over Thanksgiving to stop and slow the spread, she said.

READ: Man arrested after refusing to wear face mask on airplane departing from Utah

People who did travel or meet with people outside of their immediate household should monitor for symptoms and take extra precautions including possibly getting tested or even quarantining if someone believed they were exposed, Dr. Todd Vento, infectious disease physician for Intermountain Healthcare, said.

Youre hearing out of the White House task force from Dr. Burks and others is that they are essentially saying, make an assumption that you were exposed at Thanksgiving if you traveled and you met with individuals outside your home, he said.

Right now, Utah is seeing a slight decrease in the rolling COVID-19 seven-day positivity rate and while hospitals are spread thin, they are managing, Vento said. There is true concern what the Thanksgiving holiday, and the remainder of the holiday season will bring, Vento said.

The next step is are we going to have a surge within a surge because of something like a super spreader event like traveling associated with Thanksgiving. If that were to happen, thats when I think you would see what people are considering a tipping point of having to transition more into crisis standards of care potentially, he said.

It will all depend on how many people contract COVID-19 and how many of them end up in the hospital.

READ: Contracting COVID-19 can lead to PTSD, anxiety, depression

The latest available data shows most people are contracting COVID-19 from informal, casual gatherings, a spokesperson for the Utah Department of Health said. The current surge in cases already is impacting COVID-19 contract tracing, Jenny Johnson said.

In some areas we are not able to do full contract tracing, which means you could be exposed to COVID-19 and youre never going to get a call from the Health Dept. simply because our staff cannot keep up with the people who test positive, she said.

It could be three weeks before Utahns see the full impact of the Thanksgiving holiday including hospitalizations.

For the latest information on COVID-19 in Utah, CLICK HERE.

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Too early to tell if Utahns followed Thanksgiving health recommendations - fox13now.com

Human Behavior

5 Hot IoT Trends To Watch In 2021 And Beyond – CRN

The coronavirus pandemic took a hit on worldwide IoT spending this year, according to research firm IDC, but double-digit growth is expected to return in the next few years.

Among the drivers for this increased spending which will reach an annual growth rate of 11.3 percent over IDCs 2020-2024 forecast period will be a greater need for connected devices to enable remote operations and artificial intelligence to monitor human behavior.

[Related: The 10 Coolest Industrial IoT Startups Of 2020]

Many of these things have come to the forefront this year due to the coronavirus pandemic, but their collective importance is expected to increase in the near future.

The COVID-19 pandemic drove businesses and employees to become more reliant on technology for both professional and personal purposes, Forrester wrote in October for its Predictions 2021: Technology Diversity Drives IoT Growth.

What follows are five hot IoT trends to watch in 2021 and beyond.

With a significant number of employees expected to continue working from home next year, some employers are expected to consolidate their real estate holdings and find ways to save money on space and energy. One way they will do this, according to Forrester, is through IoT applications for smart office initiatives. These initiatives will include smart lighting, energy and environmental monitoring as well as sensor-enabled space utilization and activity monitoring, according to Forresters Predictions 2021: Technology Diversity Drives IoT Growth report.

The coronavirus pandemic has changed the way many organizations think about virus spread, so expect to see more IoT technologies in the field that monitors behavior in various ways to enforce health and safety guidelines, according to Gartners Top Strategic Technology Trends For 2021 report. This will include using sensors or RFID tags to ensure employees are washing hands and using computer vision to determine if employees are wearing masks. Gartner refers to this collection and analysis of behavioral data to influence how people behave the Internet of Behavior. But this concept will expand beyond public health concerns to other areas, like commercial vehicles, which organizations are starting to monitor using various sensors. However, Gartner noted, privacy laws will impact the extent to which these new ways of tracking and influencing behavior will be adopted.

Location data became more relevant than ever this year due to the coronavirus pandemic prompting many retailers and other kinds of organizations shifting to things like curbside pickup and remote check-in. Forrester expects this to become the norm next year as location data becomes core in delivering convenient customer and employee experiences. This means there will be greater need for technology vendors and partners who can help these businesses use location data in addition to a third-party source for collecting location data that consumers can trust, according to Forresters Predictions 2021: Technology Diversity Drives IoT Growth report.

Manufacturers, distributors, utilities and pharmaceutical companies have had to connect industrial assets this year to enable remote operations and that will lead to even greater investments in IoT in 2021 to meet growing demand from customers, according to Forrester. This approach is allowing companies to increasingly rely on remote experts to repair systems so that downtime is minimal and expensive travel is avoided. More companies, particularly field service firms and industrial OEMs, will increasingly use this approach, making connected machines more ubiquitous than ever before, according to Forresters Predictions 2021: Technology Diversity Drives IoT Growth report.

With the coronavirus pandemic keeping many people at home in 2020, there will be a greater need moving forward to use connected health care solutions to manage illnesses and monitor health. Forrester expects this will drive a surge in adoption of wearables and sensors to help patients keep track of things like chronic conditions and cancer. There will also be greater interest in digital health devices among consumers due to convivence and more affordable prices, according to Forresters Predictions 2021: Technology Diversity Drives IoT Growth report.

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5 Hot IoT Trends To Watch In 2021 And Beyond - CRN

Human Behavior

Opinion: We Need Human Services That Serve Communities – The Lund Report

Local human services perform a critical role in strengthening the foundation of our communities. Yet despite their vital contributions, for more than four decades they have been largely ignored, denigrated and defunded.

The divided nation we see around us is due in no small part to the inadequate maintenance of and increasingly hostile attitude toward the human service agencies and programs at our core. In allowing our society's foundation to crumble, we have left most Americans living on a playing field progressively tilted toward poverty. Many in what used to be the middle-class fight the escalating gravitational pull as they fall closer and closer to the bottom. Lacking opportunity and a place to make a stand, they have little freedom to resist.

We have acted as though systemic problems can automatically fix themselves; that the imaginary invisible hand will magically make everything better. Despite all evidence of their failure, the haves continue to champion simplistic answers to complex problems that only continue to widen the chasm and leave the have-nots behind with hard truths and limited hope. The very words we use to describe our situation no longer have shared meaning, and the more we try to communicate in either relatively wrong vocabulary, the further apart we grow literally and figuratively.

The reality these facts describe is more concerning when you consider this list represents how our country was doing in late 2019, prior to the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic. Human behavior in response to the virus has only clarified the depth of our underlying dysfunction; the cracks in our foundation are multidimensional, huge and filled with years of anger and frustration.

Failures of this scale and magnitude arise from system behavior. We will not repair the fissures and restore strength to our communities by blaming the poor for their reality and leaving them to their fate. Poverty limits everyones potential rich or poor. Instead of wasting our time arguing the isms capitalism, socialism, libertarianism, individualism and other outmoded theoretical ideologies, we should instead focus on the immutable rules of nature.

All people and every community are biological systems, and every pattern of being within biology exists in the social systems emerging from them. We desperately need to recognize the limited applicability of ideas from our 18th century icons and concentrate our efforts on developing a solid 21st century understanding of systems, especially biological systems. Alignment with nature's rules and processes will put the wind at our back, pointing us toward a better, more sustainable future.

A human community is a biological system that should grow opportunity for people, in the same way that soil is a biological system that grows fertility, supporting life on earth. And biology is bottom-up, not top-down: the survival of larger organisms depends on the survival of smaller. This system is not designed but rather grows and adapts through self-organization.

In many ways, it is the opposite of industrialization. Industrial engineering produces systems designed to operate under predetermined conditions. Rigid assumptions and narrow focus make such systems fragile when unexpected events or situations arise.

Conversely, biological systems use a highly flexible paradigm and quickly develop adaptive responses to novel conditions. They are robust because they contain many complex components that continuously co-evolve. These components participate in a dense network of interdependency constrained by a common goal: survival.

Our goal, then, should be to transform the human service system into a similar natural system constrained to desired outcomes. The work of James. M. Whitacre explaining the dynamics of biological systems published in the Journal of Theoretical Biology and Medical Modeling can point to a better, more productive organization of human services. This is something none of us can do alone, but all of us can do together.

Dr. Michael Rohwer is executive director of Curandi and a member of The Lund Report's board of directors. You can reach him at [emailprotected].

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Opinion: We Need Human Services That Serve Communities - The Lund Report

Human Behavior

State awaits Thanksgiving COVID surge – Alton Telegraph

This is the time to be extra careful

Scott Cousins, scousins@thetelegraph.com

CHICAGO While an uptick in new cases and positivity rates may be a reflection of increased testing, Gov. J.B. Pritzker said Tuesday state officials continue to take a close look at the numbers to see if it is an indication of the post-Thanksgiving coronavirus surge that has been predicted.

One thing Im certain of is this virus is circulating widely in every county in Illinois, Pritzker said.

Statewide the Illinois Department of Public Health reported 5,835 people in Illinois hospitalized with COVID, 1,195 in the ICU, and 721 on ventilators.

Locally, the St. Louis Metropolitan Pandemic Task Force, which looks at COVID-19 and related issues in both Illinois and Missouri, said hospital admissions and other critical numbers were up.

It was announced Tuesday that hospitals in four major healthcare systems (BJC HealthCare, Mercy, SSM Health and St. Lukes Hospital) are at 82 percent capacity, and ICUs are at 90 percent of staffed capacity.

Pritzker noted that new cases, hospitalizations and deaths announced today are the result of actions taken a week or more ago, and they will start to see whether or not the expected surge begins in a day or two.

We know we arent going to see the bulk of the impact from Thanksgiving just yet, he said.

He also noted that past experience has taught us decisions about whether to get tested are different around holidays, with many being tested prior to Thanksgiving, followed by a drop off.

Todays uptick in the positivity rate could be fluctuations in testing, he said, saying that is one of the reasons they need time to study the data.

He cautioned that many who traveled or met with others for the holiday could be infected but asymptomatic.

You may feel fine right now, but you may be passing COVID-19 to others, Pritzker said, saying those who traveled or celebrated outside of their immediate family should be tested 5-7 days after potential exposure if they are asymptomatic.

This is the time to be extra careful, he said, citing the predictions of a new surge. These next few weeks are a time to stay home as much as possible. Its the safest thing you can do for the people you love, and the healthcare workers who will be there when you need them.

Illinois Department of Public Health Director Dr. Ngozi Ezike said the increases are the result of human behavior, including failure to wear masks, practice social distancing and washing hands.

She added those who are not complying with the current Tier 3 mandates are not helping the situation.

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State awaits Thanksgiving COVID surge - Alton Telegraph

Human Behavior

Now Is the Time for Climate Action – Open Society Foundations

As someone who has been working on climate policy for 20 years, I am often asked to speak to student and youth groups. This is one of my favorite parts of my job, and it has been a joy to watch in recent years as young peoples interest in and knowledge about the climate crisis has increased.

Despite the overall increased public awareness, however, a gap clearly exists between what weknowabout the climate crisis and what were willing todo about it. Indeed, as a new report from d|part makes clear, outright denial of the climate crisis is rarebut people remain confused about how much of the problem can be attributed to human behavior.

In our surveys, significant minorities of respondents in the United States and several European countriesranging from 17 percent to as much as 44 percentstill said, incorrectly, that climate change is equally caused by human society and natural processes. Just as concerning, significant minorities also said that scientists were divided among themselves on the issue, even though the truth, as theConsensus Projecthas shown, is anything but.

Of course, the prevalence of climate misinformation is not new. But what our research shows is that this confusion about causes ultimately harms the chances of enacting good climate policy. Soft skepticism can quickly turn into rigid opposition. With time running out, its clear that more work needs to be done to improve the publics understanding of the climate issue, on the one hand, and to confront and weaken the power of disinformation, on the other.

To be sure, disinformation is a symptom of our time, and its effects are not limited to the politics of climate science. Rallying public opinion behind action is always difficultand its exponentially more so when populist political movements spread conspiracy theories and falsehoods. The good news, though, is that our research also found that, despite these hurdles, respondentsexpectedtheir governments to address the issue of climate change. Across all nine countries polled, clear majorities (from 58 percent in the United Kingdom to 57 percent in the United States) agreed that climate change requires a collective response.

This is crucial momentnot only for the future of climate justice, but for the future of the world. And as we can see through narrative-shifting developments like2018s UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Changereport, theParis Agreement, and the European Commissions 2019European Green Dealproposal, the political space for climate action is growing. The challenge of our time, then, is translating the publics demand for action into policy that works for peopleandthe planet.

D|parts report shows that this wont be easy, and that misinformation remains a serious threat to climate justice. At the same time, though, the report also underlines that there is already sufficient public will behind government-backed action. Rather than waiting until 100 percent of the public embraces reform, policymakers and advocates alike should seize this moment and push for strong climate action. The time to act is now.

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Now Is the Time for Climate Action - Open Society Foundations

Human Behavior

Uncomfortable ground truths: Predictive analytics and national security – Brookings Institution

Executive summaryReducing uncertainty in all aspects of life is undoubtedly an action that all individuals, societies, and governments seek to achieve. In the national security policy space, such forewarning takes on even greater importance owing to the high stakes and lives on the line. It is no surprise, then, that forecasting is a longstanding tradition, both within the intelligence community and the Department of Defense. More recently, the Department of State also started to seek its own oracle through the establishment of the Center for Analytics, the first enterprise-level data and analytics hub that will utilize big data and subsequent data analytic tools to evaluate and refine foreign policy.

This paper focuses not on those predictive analytics systems that attempt to predict naturally occurring phenomenon. Rather, it draws attention to a potentially troublesome area where AI systems attempt to predict social phenomenon and behavior, particularly in the national security space. This is where caution must be advised for the policy crowd. This paper discusses human behavior in complex, dynamic, and highly uncertain systems. Using AI to predict ever more complex social phenomena, and then using those predictions as grounds for recommendations to senior leaders in national security, will become increasingly risky if we do not take stock of how these systems are built and the knowledge that they produce. Senior leaders and decisionmakers may place too much reliance on these estimations without understanding their limitations.

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Uncomfortable ground truths: Predictive analytics and national security - Brookings Institution