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Human Behavior

Fish Form Social Networksand They’re Actually Good – WIRED

Characterizing such subtle dynamics is a departure from how ecologists typically model ecosystems, tending to write off in-the-moment decision-making as inconsequential to long timescales. Under this convention, we tend to treat wild animals as kind of dumb, Gil says. We're really kind of bucking tradition. And we found that this convention could be way off.

Using the data theyve gathered from the reef, Gil and his colleagues have created mathematical simulationshighly accurate video games, reallyto show how these seemingly inconsequential interactions in fact have serious consequences for the health of the reef over long timescales. You can play with that ecosystem like you would a game, Gil says. You can impose different human-driven pressures on it, and you can see how it responds. These ecosystem models are incredibly valuable, because they allow us to understand how these gigantic, complex ecosystems grow and change over really long timescales, from decades to centuries, even millennia.

The results are at once troubling and promising. In their simulations, the researchers found that its not just the magnitude of a threat like overfishing that damages a reef ecosystem, but the rate. When people remove fish, theyre removing an invaluable controller of the algae that can get out of hand, blanketing corals and killing them. But we're also removing the social influence that those fish had on the other fish in their social network, Gil says. And so those fish are then left with less information about when it's safe to go out and eat and control these algae. And this feedback has these ecosystem-level consequences.

The researchers modeling finds that those consequences include ecological collapse if overfishing happens rapidly. On the other hand, you could approach that exact same target level, but slowerand in some cases even slightly slowerand you can actually preserve the entire system, says Gil. The whole system can be sustained for centuries, in the absence of other drivers like climate change. This whole phenomenon happens again because of simple individual decisionmaking by these fish.

Simply put, theres safety in numbers. If you lose those numbers quickly, you lose that safety quickly. For herbivores, the more individuals there are, the bolder they get, and the more they feed, says Luiz Rocha, curator of fish at the California Academy of Sciences, who studies reef ecosystems but wasnt involved in this research. So if you remove a bunch of individualsby fishing or anything elsethe fish that are left will be more shy and feed less, eventually leading the ecosystem to collapse quicker than if we considered only population numbers.

This new research, then, could help create more sustainable fisheries, which is good for everyone: If ecosystems are preserved, and so are the species that live there, you dont obliterate a critical source of protein for many people around the world. In fisheries, one challenge is that our models make long-term assumptions about fish populations that arent well matched with the shorter timescales of management actions, or the many timescales of fish ecology and biology, says Meredith Moore, director of fish conservation at the Ocean Conservancy, who wasnt involved in this new work. This study brings shorter-term fish social behavior into models, which is an encouraging step forward toward better understanding how fish populations and the ecosystem respond to pressures like fishing, and could ultimately improve decisions about how to keep fish populations healthy.

So Bruce the shark from Finding Nemo had it half right: Fish are friends, not food. Fish are by necessity friends with each otherbut only to form a social network that protects them from sharks like Bruce. Keep those social networks intact, and we might protect fish from humans as well.

More Great WIRED Stories

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Fish Form Social Networksand They're Actually Good - WIRED

Human Behavior

How To Navigate The ‘New Normal’ Of The Pandemic, According To Experts – WBUR

If the pandemic was a wildfire raging across the state in March and April, these days its sputtering along with scattered embers and small fires here and there. The positive test rate for coronavirus in Massachusetts has fluctuated under 1% for the last month and, for the most part, the preventive measures that public health officials put in place to curb the spread of COVID-19 seem to be working.

But the virus is still out there, andthere are still many things researchers are learning about how it spreads and how to live withthe threat of COVID-19.

The new normal were there, says Dr. Shira Doron, a hospital epidemiologist at Tufts Medical Center. We have learned that you can open things and do much of what you used to do with masks and distances outdoor and indoor dining, movies, some of the stuff that we wondered if we could ever do again.

WBUR spoke with Doron and otherhealth experts about whats changed in the last six months and put together a list of essential things to know about living in the new normal.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention put out and quickly retracted guidance that said the SARS-CoV2 virus is airborne. What does that mean, and is the coronavirus airborne?

Doron: In epidemiology, when we say airborne we talk about diseases that travel on air for long distances, and all of them have a certain [spreading rate]. The coronavirus is not like that. An airborne infection would have a household transmission rate of close to 100%. And this disease has a transmission rate of usually less than 20% [in the same household].

In experiments, you can show with a rotating drum that you can aerosolize or suspend particles of this virus for longer periods of time and for more than six feet. And there can be close-range aerosols. Thats where the confusion comes from.

But the coronavirus is not airborne. Its not a debate. The strategies we use for droplet transmission are masking and good ventilation, and that works for the coronavirus.

So, the word airborne was very unexpected to me [on the CDC page]. I wasnt surprised to see it come down.

The average positive test rate in Massachusetts has been below 1% for a while. Does that mean were safe now and can go about our everyday lives?

Doron: A caveat is that we can never depend on just one metric it has to be the whole big picture, not just percent positives.

We cant sustain [the low numbers] if we just go back to acting like we did in January. Theres absolutely no question. Israel got to a much better place than Massachusetts and is on a vertical upslope now thats what happens when you think you can pat yourself on the back and go back to normal behavior. So, we cant do that. We have to keep our guard up for ourselves and everybody else.

But we can open up and do things like indoor and outdoor dining. Will you be at zero risk with masks and distances and low numbers in your community? No. We will not get to a zero risk for a really, really long time, if ever. Its everybodys individual decision how much they want to participate in the things that society is now offering.

What sorts of things are you doing in your everyday life now? Eating at restaurants? Going to gyms? Whats safe to do?

Doron: I err on the side of outdoor dining but will go to an indoor restaurant. Ive gathered within groups outside in a big backyard like as many as 25 [people]. Indoors, less than 10. I havent been to a movie theater or a gym, but I am working all the time right here in the hospital.

Dr. Yonatan Grad, epidemiologist at Harvard University: The ideal time to travel or see people was over the summer, when case counts were so low in this area and weather was accommodating. I didnt travel, but I was seeing people and having meals outdoors. I hadnt been doing that in the spring. Its going to be a concern as we move into colder weather and becomes harder to have social time with people outdoors.

When do you think youll be able to go back to doing things like we did before the pandemic?

Dr. Barry Bloom, epidemiologist at Harvard University: Thats going to be a long time. Until theres rapid testing, and everybody can test themselves on a regular basis and has the will to lock themselves up if theres a possibility theyve been recently infected I think were going to be in a different state for a long time with or without a vaccine.

Doron: Possibly not ever. This virus certainly could be around forever in small pockets.

What do we know about asymptomatic transmission now?

Doron: It does happen. But there hasnt been proven transmission after day six of getting infected, even though someone can stay positive for 30 days or more. So, the vast majority of asymptomatic positive cases are no longer contagious by the time theyre tested.

Should I worry about my kids going to school? What do we know about kids and how they spread coronavirus?

Dr. William Hanage, epidemiologist at Harvard University: Theres a lot of confusion on how children spread COVID-19. We dont know how much transmission happens in schools because we havent studied them in sufficient depth. Its unclear if young children are less likely to spread the virus although teenagers do spread the virus, same as adults. Schools will provide some contribution to COVID-19 transmission, but its obviously the case that it is safe for schools to reopen when community transmission is low.

People used to wash their groceries, but now it seems theres little evidence that grocery bags are a vector. Whats a reasonable level of precaution, given what we know about the coronavirus now?

Doron: Ive never recommended people wash their grocery bags. Certainly people who are more vulnerable should still be more careful. Personally, I think its much more effective and makes more sense to clean your hands when youve handled something thats been handled by somebody else. Having your hands clean before you touch your face or eat is always the best defense and a good lifelong habit.

We dont think that objects are a huge factor in transmitting the infection, although we see people all the time that say they cant imagine where they got it, they dont even go anywhere. I dont know what that means.

Is testing a reliable way to make sure you are able to do things safely like travel, see friends, etc?

Doron: In short, no. If you get tested for coronavirus, thats a snapshot in time. Its less likely that Ill have the virus on Tuesday if I got a negative result on Monday, but it doesnt preclude that I have the virus on Tuesday. Thats part of the problem with the testing platforms we have now. You have to have the results by the time you do that visit to grandma, but you have to get it so far in advance that it becomes less and less relevant.

My son joked that if you got a test 10 days before, and it was positive, then he could definitely go visit grandma because youre no longer infectious after 10 days.

If I already tested positive for the coronavirus and recovered, does that mean Im safe now?

Doron: We really hoped that would be the case, but there have been demonstrated cases of reinfection, and one was in less than 90 days. But just one in the millions and millions of cases seen worldwide, so its extremely rare to have reinfection within two months of infection.

Being able to spend social time outdoors has been a boon to peoples moods recently. What do you think the winter will be like? How can we keep our mental health up during those months?

Karestan Koenen, psychiatric epidemiologist at Harvard University: This is something thats been on my mind a lot recently. There are a few practical things: You should plan ahead. For instance, a lot my friends who were never really outdoorsy people are buying a lot of outdoor winter gear now. I bought an outdoor heater for my porch so that we might still be able to have some outdoor social time here.

One thing to do is find some really concrete positive things and remind yourself of them. For example, one thing I like about working from home is that I dont have to rush and get everyone out of the house in the morning. Another thing you can do is positive event scheduling put positive things in your day concretely. So, it can be as simple as, Im going to take a call on my cellphone and walk outside if its sunny. Im going to turn my phone off and watch a TV show with my kids at this time.

Is a second wave really coming?

Grad: Its important to remember that our experience with the pandemic is very much dependent on our choices. When we see a rise in cases, thats really a reflection of us providing an opportunity for the virus to transmit. Its not like weather patterns or waves in the ocean, where they came at some predictable pattern. Right now, theres an increase in cases that may be attributable to a couple things most prominently the start of in-person classes in universities and having people come from around the country.

We dont know if there will be another surge in cases. We can anticipate some rise based on movement towards opening different parts of the economy restaurants and bars and so on that will help accelerate spread. But ultimately, it depends on us and what we do this winter.

If there is a second wave, will our lives go back to the way they were in April with everything getting shut down and everyone staying at home?

Grad: It depends on how widespread the cases are and how quickly theyre detected. If we can identify where cases are taking place with testing, we may be able to proceed with much more localized interventions and increased monitoring. I think we [can do that]. Theres always room for improvement, but [testing and surveillance] infrastructure is certainly better than it was back in the spring, and the number of cases is far lower. That makes monitoring and interventions much easier to interact.

Doron: I think its unlikely that well see something like we did in April, which was out of control spread. Masking and distancing are so much more effective than we even thought it would be. The evidence suggests we dont need to go back to a total shutdown phase. We showed that we can continue to bring cases down as we reopen businesses and it wasnt businesses that caused cases. It was human behavior.

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How To Navigate The 'New Normal' Of The Pandemic, According To Experts - WBUR

Human Behavior

Econ 3.0? What economists can contribute to (and learn from) the pandemic – MIT Technology Review

For evidence that mainstream economists are taking the challenge of covid-19 seriously, look no further than the comments of Gabriela Ramos, chief of staff at the OECD, at aconference in April: For many institutions, including the OECD, which has traditionally emphasized the need for efficiency, it is not easy to accept that we should build slack, buffers, and spare capacity into our systemsbut as we now see this is literally a question of life or death.

This is the first plank of the professions response to the pandemic: questioning whether national economies, individual companies, and markets should be optimized to maximize return on capital, or to ensure resilience in the face of a crisis.

The second clear trend concerns methodology and a willingness for economists to move away from strict mathematical models. The pandemic has, in many cases, decreased our reliance on traditional economic metrics such as GDP, says Chen Long, director of the Luohan Academy, an open research institute initiated by the Alibaba Group. This, he says, means thinking outside the box and looking for non-traditional indicators, such as digital apps and internet services. It also signifies a significant shift as economists dig into high-frequency information to illustrate what is happening to our economy.

This article was written by Insights, the custom content arm of MIT Technology Review. It was not produced by the editorial staff.

The pandemic has seen a flowering of interdisciplinary research between economists and academics in fields that would not typically have been considered adjacentepidemiologists and anthropologists for example, rather than mathematicians and statisticians.

Behavioral economics, which begins from a standpoint that social norms can have as much influence over human behavior as the rational self-interest of individual actors, has featured heavily in advice to policymakers.

One example comes from India. At Mumbais Monk Prayogshala Research Institute, behavioral economist Anirudh Tagat worked with psychologistHansika Kapoor tomake policy recommendationsthat nudge Indians into conformity with social distancing. These include drawing a line of chalk beyond the door to a home to encourage families to stay home, an idea borrowed from the Hindu Lakshmana Rekha myth.

Behavioral economics has also been used to highlight risks that may require attention. For example, a much-discussed paper drew attention to a correlation betweencultural attitudes to hand washingin different countries and the size of covid-19 outbreaks.

The pandemic has also gone some way to breaking the silo between development economics, and its mainstream counterpart. The study of extreme market failuresshutdowns due to war, for examplehas generally been the preserve of the former discipline, but the pandemic has forced the wider economics profession to switch focus.

The rush of stimulus spending by developed world governments has emboldened development economists to call for areconsideration of public sector financing. Rgis Marodon of the Agence Franaise de Dveloppement is compiling a database of global development banks. So far, he counts 400 institutions with more than $11 trillion in assets that are responsible for 10% of world gross fixed capital formation each year. He expects to make the database publicly available in November.

Absent multilateral funding, developing economies have been unable to match the stimulus efforts of their rich world counterparts. A McKinsey study shows the stimulus programmes of India, South Africa, and Brazilhave been much smaller, as a percentage of GDP, than developed countries such as Germany and France.

Back in 2009, Andrew Haldane, chief economist at the Bank of England, famously described the collapse of Lehman Brothers and the 2002 SARS pandemic in China, as two examples of the same phenomenon: the behavior under stress of a complex, adaptive network.

This description is equally appropriate for the current pandemic, and economists are once again starting to conceptualize the economy not as a robust and self-correcting market, but a delicate and complex organism, in which a general resilience needs to be fostered, rather than individual problems remedied.

After the financial crisis, building resilience involved higher capital requirements for banks, and regular stress testing. By definition this meant lower returnsbecause banks had to leave some capital idle rather than deploy it.

Business economists are arguing over what the equivalent measures now would be to ensure that governments and companies are able to meet the needs for basic medical supplies in a future crisis. One area of focus is supply chains, where in the past three decades shareholder optimization has led to an emphasis on endless subcontracting.

Yossi Sheffi, director ofMITs Center for Transportation and Logistics, does not see subcontracting and geographically distant supply chains as necessarily a bad thing, but has called for more transparency. For instance, it is crucial to know if every ventilator producer, for example, relies on the same supplier at the fifth or sixth level of their supply chain.

Oxford Universitys Professor Doyne Farmer, an expert in the economics of complexity, has called for governments to incentivize companies to reveal supply chain information, or simply require them to do so. We need to be able to make better economic models that we build from the bottom up if we ever want to really understand macro properly, he told the OECD conference in April. Having data about global supply networks is a fundamental aspect of that.

This could pave the way for collaboration between economists and technologists, with the use of blockchain, for example, to track every component that goes into a product, increasing the transparency of dependencies within systems of production.

Again, there is potentially much to learn from development economics. Farmer points to the example of Chiles VAT system, which requires both counterparties in any trade to report the transaction details and priceelectronically in real time. Implemented on a global level, this could allow supply chains to be retrospectively reconstructed by economists from public records.

A more prosaic part of the response to covid-19 has been for economists to reconsider the data they provide to policymakers and the wider public. To satisfy the need for timely data, government statistical releases are generally based on surveys, but response rates to those surveys have fallen during the pandemic, bringing into question the accuracy of numbers derived from them.

Some economists have responded by gathering hard data in close to real time to measure the impact of the pandemic and government responses to it. In apaper released in September, economists including Raj Chetty at Harvard University pulled together anonymized credit and debit card spending data to provide azip code level viewof both consumer spending and business receipts in the US during the pandemic.

The conclusion: the wealthiest American households are not fully spending the stimulus checks issued to all families by the federal government because avenues for consumption, such as restaurants, are closed. Rather than try to save companies by stimulating spending, the government might be better served providing social insurance to those that will inevitably lose jobs. This is real-time feedback as the government embarks on a gigantic program of public spending.

Mohamed El-Erian, chief economic advisor to insurance firm Allianz, has called formore humilityamong forward-looking forecasters. When forecasts have to be made, he advocates the use of fan charts, where a range of possible outcomes are shown, rather than one central case, which suggests an unrealistic amount of certainty about the future path of growth, for example, on which companies, individuals, and governments may then act.

Fan charts are a staple of forecasting in the UK. In an amusing moment in aRoyal Economic Society webinar on forecasting, Garry Young of the National Institute for Economic and Social Research showed the forecasts for UK GDP that his organization issued in February 2020 and May 2020, side by side. In the February chart, the GDP growth rate was forecast to remain within a range of 0 to 5% for the next 5 years. By May, with the UK in a pandemic-induced lockdown, forecasts ranged from -20 to +20% growth: tougher to make fixed plans, but this is the point in a time of uncertainty.

In the future, economics may become more like an interdisciplinary data science discipline. With the digitization of the economy and the explosion of data, both the objects and the ways of research are going through fundamental changes, says Chen. It is becoming more and more reliant on data science and code and transforming into a field of study that encompasses many different subjects, from psychology to computer science.

If the economics profession wants to respond in a more diverse manner, as many in the field have earnestly professed, one statistic to have come out of the pandemic gives cause for concern.

A study of the number economic working papers issued so far this yearshows a sharp increasecompared to 2019 or 2018. That makes sense; economists have rushed to analyze disruptions to economic activity and government responses. However, the study also revealed a pronounced drop in publications authored by women, with the writers suggesting the burden of caregiving was limiting publications by female economists.

IMF economists meanwhile havepointed outthe tiny number of articles in top economics publications that deal with race. The IMF authors suggested fertile grounds for future interdisciplinary study, for example sociological studies of everyday interpersonal discrimination, as well as a redoubling of attempts to increase diversity among economists.

Covid-19 has triggered economists to rethink their profession all the way from the philosophical down to the practical. This is no mere academic exercisethe pandemic has shown us that citizen welfare, economic recovery, and future resilience are at stake.

ThePandemic Economy Tracker (PET) projectfrom the Luohan Academy offers real time estimates of economic activity and mobility based on anonymized data from providers including Apple and Google.

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Econ 3.0? What economists can contribute to (and learn from) the pandemic - MIT Technology Review

Human Behavior

Science untangles the elusive power and influence of hope in our lives – goskagit.com

(The Conversation is an independent and nonprofit source of news, analysis and commentary from academic experts.)

Richard Miller, Arizona State University

(THE CONVERSATION) On Erin Gruwells first day as a high school English teacher, she faced a classroom of 150 at risk freshmen. Most of these kids, statistically, were going to fail. They were tough, their young lives already defined by poverty, gangs, violence and low expectations. These students, she wrote, knew nearly every four-letter word except one: hope.

Yet four years later, every one of her at risk students at Wilson High School in Long Beach, CA, had graduated from high school. More than half went on to graduate from college. The stories written by Gruwells students were published as a book called The Freedom Writers Diary. It became a New York Times bestseller and in 2007 was made into a major motion picture called Freedom Writers starring Hilary Swank.

Gruwell taught English but also taught them an elusive trait: hope. Science has, in the past 30 years, documented that hope can serve as a strategy for success.

Teaching hope

Although hope is a common theme in mythology, philosophy and theology, it wasnt a subject of psychological research until University of Kansas psychologist Richard Snyder began his pioneering study in the 1990s. His work paved the way for science to measure, teach and distinguish hope from other psychological disciplines. His research recognized hope as a cognitive function, an emotional state accompanied by action.

Goals are basic to human behavior, Snyder noted, whether they are long- or short-term. They are the first step in imagining future achievement. Being successful, he writes, requires a way to pursue a goal and the will not give up will power and way power. Snyder and social scientist Shane Lopez confirmed that hope can be taught and learned and that it provides benefits in the public sphere.

What kids need to excel

I am a professor of practice and clinical director for Arizona State Universitys Center for the Advanced Study and Practice of Hope. The centers team is made up of researchers, practitioners and graduate students who are advancing the understanding, strategy and practice of hope.

Other academic institutions including the University of Oklahomas Hope Research Center are committing resources to better understand the dynamics of hope. In 2014, the John Templeton Foundation funded The Hope and Optimism initiative, a $4.5 million, four-year grant at Notre Dame and Cornell. The project explored hope from various lenses including religion, medicine, sociology and psychology.

There is a new generation of hope scientists emerging on university campuses around the globe dedicated to further unraveling hopes potential. These research topics include coping skills, depression, aging, social justice and creating communities of hope.

It is my long-standing belief that society often defines children and their future by disproportionately identifying and focusing on risk and trauma but ignoring hope.

Applying hope to life

To better understand how hope theory could be translated into practice, in 1993 I enlisted a group of seven researchers, practitioners and graduate students to participate in a seven-year literature review. In 2000, our team shared its conclusions, launching a new initiative called Kids at Hope. The Kids at Hope strategy, at its core, promotes the practices and belief that all kids are capable of success no exceptions.

These findings informed the design of a framework that teaches hope as a cognitive skill. Teaching hopefulness begins by believing in all kids, connecting with young people in meaningful ways and teaching children how to imagine their goals, a process called mental time travel, that encourages the brain to plan for future opportunities and challenges.

The ability to mentally time travel is the process of remembering the past to draw from those memories and construct a future. Recalling past events is a great advantage in determining who and what to trust, and what works and what doesnt. Through past experiences, people are able to picture where they would like to be and how to get there.

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A central part of this work focuses on teaching the science of hope so that it can flourish in communities whether that is the juvenile justice system, education, child welfare, behavioral health or youth development systems. The science is clear. Hopeful people are happier, healthier and achieve more of their goals than those who lack hope.

If it takes a village to raise and educate a child, I believe hope theory should be part of that strategy. As Gruwell and her students discovered, hope is a gift that can positively change lives.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article here: https://theconversation.com/science-untangles-the-elusive-power-and-influence-of-hope-in-our-lives-144546.

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Science untangles the elusive power and influence of hope in our lives - goskagit.com

Human Behavior

ESAs -Week 2020 Highlights Digital Twin Earth, AI, and Quantum Computing – Science Times

This year's ESA's -week event started on September 28 and would last until October 2. It showcases a series of stimulating speeches about Digital Twin Earth, an update on -sat-1, and an exciting novel initiative that involves quantum computing.

ESA's 2020 -weekgives people to connect and form networks with experts, scientists, educators, students, developers, global industries, start-ups, and institutions in the field of space. It aims to explore the latest applications of transformative technologies and inspire early-career scientists, citizens, entrepreneurs.

The -week event goes virtual this year and focuses on how Earth observation contributes to Digital Twin Earth. The Digital Twin Earth provides a precise representation of Earth's past, present, and future changes.

Through Digital Twin World, human and nature activity on the planet will be visualized, monitored, and forecasted. Digital Twin Eart will monitor the Earth's health and conduct simulations of the interconnected system of Earth with human behavior, and support viable development that reinforces Europe's efforts for a better environment in response to Green Deal's the urgent challenges and targets.

Experts will discuss the concept, practical implementation, and infrastructure of the Digital Twin Earth and exhibit insights on the way industries. The community contributes to making the project successful during the ESA's 2020 -week.

On September 3, the first artificial technology (AI) was launched onboard the European Earth Observation Mission. The -sat-1 is the first of its kind and the first experiment in improving the efficiency of sending vast quantities of data back to Earth.

ESA and cosine remote sensing are delighted to reveal on the first day of ESA's -week event that the Deep Convolutional Neural Network has performed the first-ever hardware-accelerated artificial intelligence inference Earth observation images on an in-orbit satellite. It was the University of Pisa that developed the Deep Convolutional Neural Network.

The -sat-1was successful in prefiltering Earth observation data. Only the essential usable part of the image is downlinked to the ground, which improves the bandwidth utilization and significantly reduces the aggregated costs of the downlink.

Initial data coming from the satellite showed that that the automatic cloud detection algorithm operated by the AI has correctly filtered hyperspectral Earth observation imagery from the sensor of the satellite into cloudy and non-cloudy pixels.

Read Also: Watch! Latest Flyover Footage From ESA's Spacecraft Shows Stunning View of Ice-Filled Crater of Mars

As mentioned in the opening speech, the novel initiative involving quantum computingexploits quantum phenomena like superposition, entanglement, and tunneling to improve performance, decrease computational costs, and solve intractable problems in Earth observation.

The novel initiative uses artificial intelligence to support programs like Digital Twin Earth and Corpenicus in creating a quantum capability that can solve the demanding Earth observation problems. Quantum computing will be developed at ESA's -lab at ESA's center for Earth observation in Italy that embraces transformational observation.

ESA and CERN collaborated on many projects before, and this will be extended to the CERN Quantum Technology Initiative announced last June this year by Fabiola Gianotti, CERN Director-General.

Through this, both ESA and CERN will make new synergies and build on their shared experience in data mining, big data, and pattern recognition.

Read More: NASA/ESA's Hubble Captures Images of Cygnus Supernova Blast

Check out for more news and information on ESA at Science Times.

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ESAs -Week 2020 Highlights Digital Twin Earth, AI, and Quantum Computing - Science Times

Human Behavior

The US health department is planning a $250 million COVID ad campaign to ‘defeat despair’ before the election – Poynter

Covering COVID-19 is a daily Poynter briefing of story ideas about the coronavirus and other timely topics for journalists, written by senior faculty Al Tompkins. Sign up here to have it delivered to your inbox every weekday morning.

Politico has six sources for its story that says you can expect to begin seeing a star-studded ad campaign from the Department of Health and Human Services before the election aimed at defeating despair over the COVID-19 pandemic.

The campaign is mentioned in some federal government budget documents and is estimated to be worth around $250 million. Politico reports:

Senior administration officials have already recorded interviews with celebrities like actor Dennis Quaid and singer CeCe Winans, and the Health and Human Services Department also has pursued television host Dr. Mehmet Oz and musician Garth Brooks for roles in the campaign.

The public awareness campaign, which HHS is seeking to start airing before Election Day on Nov. 3, was largely conceived and organized by Michael Caputo, the health departments top spokesperson who took medical leave last week and announced on Thursday that he had been diagnosed with cancer. Caputo, who has no medical or scientific background, claimed in a Facebook video on Sept. 13 that the campaign was demanded of me by the president of the United States. Personally.

Politico adds that Dr. Ozs representative says Oz is not scheduled to be involved at this time. And while Politico says campaign planners have talked with Brooks, there is no confirmation that he is going to be involved.

HHS said in a statement that the campaign would be strictly informative, not partisan, and intended to help Americans make informed decisions about the prevention and treatment of COVID-19 and flu.

One of the first words about the campaign came when HHS started looking for public relations agencies to which to make proposals. Politico published that story Aug. 31, which said:

Several weeks ago, the department sent out to a number of communications firms a performance work statement, which lays out what work will be expected of the winning firm. The document says that the vast majority of the money will be spent from now until January.

The document also lists the goals of the contract: defeat despair and inspire hope, sharing best practices for businesses to operate in the new normal and instill confidence to return to work and restart the economy, build a coalition of spokespeople around the country, provide important public health, therapeutic and vaccine information as the country reopens, and give Americans information on the phases of reopening.

By harnessing the power of traditional, digital and social media, the sports and entertainment industries, public health associations, and other creative partners to deliver important public health and economic information the administration can defeat despair, inspire hope and achieve national recovery, the document also says.

There certainly is nothing unprecedented about having celebrities deliver public service messages. History is full of instances of celebs helping to promote vaccines, for example. But when the government launches a dont despair campaign worth hundreds of millions of dollars right before an election, it is no surprise that Democrats are already asking for an investigation.

Democrats are pushing HHS Secretary Alex Azar to suspend the contract for the ad campaign and to supply documents about the contract with the public relations firm producing it and information about how HHS will keep the campaign from being overtly political.

Here are the 10 vendors who were asked to submit proposals for the campaign. The Democrats letter to Azar mentions that the contract went to Fors Marsh Group, based in Arlington, Virginia. The firms website lists the many federal agencies that have used its work over more than 16 years, producing campaigns and research on everything from reducing alcohol abuse in the military to fighting Medicare and Medicaid waste and fraud.

PR Week says the request for proposals included this description of what was expected:

The campaign would be divided into four parts: program management and strategy and evaluation (10%); market research (10%); message and material (PSAs) production (15%); and paid and earned media distribution (65%).

The campaign would have a large paid traditional and digital media component, the document stated but would also include earned media and digital and social media outreach.

The digital campaign would also share content with bloggers and influencers and place HHS subject matter experts in social media events on Facebook and Twitter. It would also develop and manage HHS-led social media events.

Campaign, a website that tracks the work of public relations agencies, reports:

Ben Garthwaite, CEO of Fors Marsh, said via email that his firm proposed an evidence-based approach built upon principles of behavioral and social science in its bid. It also focused on understanding and meeting the needs of the communities hardest hit by COVID-19 and bringing in partners to help with media access and purchasing power.

Two of our key large partners include VMLY&R and iHeartMedia, which will be integral to our creative execution and media outreach strategy, he said.

iHeartMedia, as you no doubt know, owns 850 radio stations in 153 markets across America and so is heard virtually everywhere in the country over the airwaves, online and through apps.

Perhaps in the presidential debate tomorrow night we could hear more about how the candidates propose to improve health care in a pandemic. Big issues including protection for people with preexisting health conditions, drug pricing and to what extent the government will make health insurance available are all at stake.

Then there is the matter of the president promising $200 drug discount cards to every person on Medicare within weeks.

On Thursday night, President Donald Trump surprised everyone by announcing that within the next few weeks meaning a few weeks before the 2020 election 33 million Medicare recipients will get coupons that the president says can be used to help pay for medications. This is all he has said about it, and the White House has not added much more to explain it. The president said:

The America First Healthcare Plan includes another historic provision to benefit our great seniors. Under my plan, 33 million Medicare beneficiaries will soon receive a card in the mail containing $200 that they can use to help pay for prescription drugs. Nobody has seen this before. These cards are incredible. The cards will be mailed out in coming weeks.

That would amount to a $7 billion program. Nobody is able to say how it would work, how the government will pay for it or how the president might offer such a benefit without Congressional approval.

As the Washington Post explained:

One White House official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to be candid, said the idea of a drug discount card was a last-minute thing that is still being worked out and originated in the office of White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows.

StatNews reported:

The nearly $7 billion required to send the coupons, A White House spokesman said, would come from savings from Trumps most favored nations drug pricing proposal. That regulation has also not yet been implemented meaning the Trump administration is effectively pledging to spend $6.6 billion in savings that do not currently exist. The cards, he said, would be actual discount cards for prescription drug copays.

The so-called most favored nation policy is something the pharmaceutical industry has bitterly battled and will almost certainly litigate. If any discount cards go out in weeks as the president promised, they will be spending money that has yet to be saved and may not be saved. And then there is the question of Congress: Even if Medicare does save money somehow, it is Congress that approves spending. StatNews says:

It is unclear whether Trumps promises on $200 credits for prescription drug coupons will come to fruition. Under the Constitution, it is Congress, not the White House, that is empowered to spend taxpayer money, and it is unclear where the roughly $6.6 billion for the program would come from. The idea has never been formally proposed or sketched out by health officials, though the New York Times reported this week that Trump officials had tried to convince the pharmaceutical industry to pay for similar cards worth $100. The drug industry refused.

A spokesperson for PhRMA, the drug industry trade group, said that one-time savings cards will neither provide lasting help, nor advance the fundamental reforms necessary to help seniors better afford their medicines.

Gallup updates its polling every month on the most important problem facing the country today. You will often find these numbers come to life in the messages that candidates deliver because these are the topics their own polling shows will resonate with the public.

Conventional wisdom usually is that the economy is the No. 1 issue, except in wartime. But now, the economy is far from the top.

The coronavirus tops the list of the issues that concern Americans the most, tied with the government/poor leadership. Concerns about leadership rose in September while Americas concern about COVID-19 is down from July and August.

It is important to point out that while concerns over the judicial system rank low in this survey, the polling occurred before the death of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

Concerns over race relations dropped some from this summer while concerns about crime doubled since August. The Marshall Project shines some light on those concerns by compiling the latest crime data for 2020:

Most types of crime decreased this summer, while serious violent crimes such as aggravated assault and murder increased, according to an analysis of crime rates in 27 major US cities by the Council on Criminal Justice, a criminal justice think tank. A preliminary crime report published by the FBI earlier this month shows similar trends nationwide.

It is interesting to look back four years to see what was on our minds before the last election. The economy ranked No. 1 and the more generic answer government was No. 2. Race relations was named top by 8% of Americans, which was way up from previous years. In July 2016, race relations saw a spike of interest in Gallup polling after the high-profile police killings of Philando Castile and Alton Sterling.

Leslie Cooper sings inside a closed and empty Back Room in New Orleans, Tuesday, April 28, 2020, as part of a livestream. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)

I recommend you take a look at this piece from NBCLX that takes us inside the struggling music world where bands you have not heard of are hanging on by their toenails. The piece reminds us that the band members are the proverbial tip of the iceberg when it comes to the performance world. All of the people who support concerns big and small are out of work, too. Save our Stages, an effort by the National Independent Venue Association, is urging supporters to contact members of Congress to ask for help.

WAFF TV in Huntsville, Alabama, reported:

If there isnt some sort of help, federal help, the estimation is 90 percent of those venues is going to close, Ryan Murphy said.

Ryan Murphy is the president of the Huntsville Venue Group, he says the Save our Stages Act thats on the table in Washington D.C. is needed.

I am starting to see more newspapers and news sites get behind a rescue movement for these venues. This is an op-ed from the Missoulian in Montana.

The Mercury News brings us one of the more interesting stories of the day. Scientists have discovered that when we humans produced less noise while we were sheltered in place this spring, the birds sang more softly than when they had to compete with human-produced noise.

The sound levels of bird songs fell by more than four decibels during the shutdown; because decibels are measured on a logarithmic scale, songs were about one-third softer. No longer forced to compete with human pandemonium, birds also dropped their pitch by 160 vibrations per second.

It highlights how much of an effect that humans have on wildlife behavior and how quickly wildlife can respond when human behavior changes, said lead researcher Elizabeth Derryberry, an animal communication expert at the University of Tennessee.

Nature takes over as soon as people get out of the way, she said.

We found clear evidence that birds responded to the reduction in noise pollution during the COVID-19 shutdown, the researchers reported in the Science journal.

And the study found the birds had a greater vocal range: Birds also exhibited greater vocal performance in response to being released from masking by high energy, low frequency noise. We found that birds sung at lower minimum frequencies, achieving greater bandwidth songs in newly open acoustic space.

White House reporters have normal lives, too.

Saturday=mask washing day! Amazed how kids get food ON their masksare they trying to eat while wearing it?

(This is probably only 1/3 of our collection ) pic.twitter.com/FpwClIIXxq

Karen Travers (@karentravers) September 26, 2020

Well be back tomorrow with a new edition of Covering COVID-19. Sign up hereto get it delivered right to your inbox.

Al Tompkins is senior faculty at Poynter. He can be reached at atompkins@poynter.org or on Twitter, @atompkins.

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The US health department is planning a $250 million COVID ad campaign to 'defeat despair' before the election - Poynter

Human Behavior

Making Room at the Top: Andrew and Peggy Cherng – UNLV NewsCenter

As Asian immigrants who turned a Los Angeles-area mom-and-pop Chinese restaurant into a multibillion-dollar corporation, Andrew and Dr. Peggy Cherng know a little something about living the American dream.

They also know a little something about whats required to achieve that dream: Hard work and perseverance. Ingenuity, adaptability, and humility. A whole lot of guts. And a little bit luck.

Each of those ingredients was essential to the Cherngs growing their Panda Restaurant Group into one of the nations largest, most successful privately owned restaurant companies including more than 2,200 Panda Express stores. It's made the Cherngs the undisputed champions of the fast-casual restaurant concept.

But the couple, who this year celebrated their 45th anniversary, will be the first to tell you that genuine life fulfillment comes not from an annual revenue report but rather what you do with those revenues to improve the lives of others. Call it the secret ingredient to truly living the American dream: giving back.

Giving is essential for us, says Peggy Cherng. Giving allows us to show our appreciation to communities that embraced us.

Adds Andrew Cherng: We didnt have a lot growing up, so we are very blessed to have what we have today. Giving back and helping others are our way of paying it forward its simply a question of why not give back when we can?

Through the years, academic institutions have benefited greatly from that giving philosophy, as the Cherngs have donated millions of dollars to support various university programs. UNLV became the latest benefactor when the Cherngs recently donated $5 million to the William F. Harrah College of Hospitality. This historic gift, announced during a small celebration on September 10, will be used to enhance current programs and create new ones including a first-of-its-kind fast-casual concentration.

It continues a valued relationship that began several years ago when the Cherngs relocated to Las Vegas and were introduced to Hospitality College Dean Stowe Shoemaker. Not long after that initial introduction, Andrew Cherng began serving on the Hospitality Colleges Deans Global Advisory Board.

Since moving to Las Vegas, we have gotten to know the community as well as Dean Shoemaker, says Andrew Cherng. We believe in his vision and passion for the fast-casual space and know the [new fast-casual] program will help so many students discover a great career path and financial success.

UNLVs hospitality program and staff are top-notch, and we want to be part of developing these students and providing them with opportunities to thrive in all aspects of their lives. We look forward to the program growing and becoming very relevant under UNLVs leadership.

Shoemaker calls the gift transformative for the college.

With this gift, I and future deans will be able to ensure that the educational opportunities presented to students are at the highest level, he says. Whats especially inspiring is the primary motivation for Mr. and Dr. Cherng has always been trying to improve the lives and opportunities of people thats their core philosophy. They practice this belief every day as they run their business. And their success has allowed them to give back to organizations that share their same beliefs.

The relationship between the Hospitality College and Panda Restaurant Group goes far beyond a friendship between the Cherngs and Shoemaker. In fact, of the 70 Panda Express restaurants based in Southern Nevada, no fewer than 30 are managed by current Hospitality College students or alumni. Additional alumni left the Southern Nevada market to assist with Pandas national growth, having been promoted to leadership positions. On top of that, dozens of UNLV students work as associates at Pandas local stores, including one at the campus Student Union.

We have been fortunate to recruit UNLV alumni who are growing in the company, Andrew Cherng says. Many have since transferred out of state to open up Panda stores in other markets, taking their knowledge from UNLV and their Las Vegas Panda experience to help others.

More than just a paycheck, all of the current and former UNLV students who have worked for Panda have benefitted from the organizations deep-seated ambition to enrich the mind, body and soul of every associate. Its a culture that Andrew Cherng says places a strong emphasis on developing not just better employees but better people in a way that inspires them to better their lives and see more possibilities for themselves, for each other, and for our company.

Shoemaker, for one, has witnessed first-hand the positive impact of that employee-first philosophy.

Our students who have chosen to work with Panda have truly had life-changing experiences, Shoemaker says. For not only do the Cherngs educate their associates on how to better do their jobs, but they also spend a lot of time educating them on how to lead better lives. They truly are concerned about the holistic view of the employee, not just what the employee can do for them over the course of their daily eight-hour shift. And thats rare.

Also rare: A universitys hospitality program offering students the opportunity to learn the complexities of the fast-casual restaurant industry that Panda has dominated since the first Panda Express opened in the food court of a southern California mall in 1983. A spinoff of the Panda Inn full-service restaurant that Andrew Cherng opened a decade earlier in Pasadena, California, the original Panda Express served customerstop-quality Chinese foodbut at a faster pace and lower price point.

When Panda Express proved an immediate hit, the Cherngs set about expanding to additional food courts, and later brick-and-mortar establishments. By 1993, the company had opened its 100th Panda Express location. Today, Panda Restaurant Group operates more than 2,200 restaurants (including dozens under the Hibachi-San brand of Japanese teppanyaki grills). Those establishments which are spread across 49 U.S. states/territories and 12 countries are staffed by more than 40,000 associates.

Given the immense success of Panda Express across nearly four decades, its no surprise that many competitors over the years have jumped into the fast-casual game which means those Hospitality College students who choose to pursue the fast-casual concentration are poised to have a distinct advantage when they enter what is an ever-expanding job market.

Peggy and I have enjoyed great success through Panda, and we wanted to help provide an education and curriculum for the fast-casual industry to help young talent see the possibilities in this sector, Andrew Cherng says. Fast-casual restaurants continue to be one of the fastest-growing industries, even in the midst of the pandemic. We believe the fast-casual sector is still not well understood, but through this specialized program, well be able to introduce this exciting entrepreneurial career to more young talent.

Students who choose the fast-casual concentration will be able to learn everything that goes into running their own business, from cleaning the store to business strategies for growth.

That opportunity to gain a broad range of skills is a big reason why Shoemaker believes the new concentration, which will launch its first class in the spring semester, will be a big hit with current and future Hospitality College students.

Managing a fast-casual restaurant is very technical, he says. It requires financial knowledge; it requires human-resources knowledge the understanding of human behavior as you try to build a team. It also involves lots of peaks and valleys, if you consider the breakfast, lunch and dinner rushes, as well as a broad understanding of all of the operational aspects of running a restaurant. The people who run these restaurants are well paid because of the talent it takes to run the operations.

And who knows? Maybe a future UNLV Hospitality College student who completes the fast-casual concentration will one day create their own restaurant concept, work tirelessly to grow it into a multibillion-dollar business, and live their version of the American dream.

Certainly, nothing would be more pleasing to Andrew and Peggy Cherng especially if that future entrepreneur was generous enough to pay it forward.

Our mission is about supporting people in our industry, Andrew Cherng says. That includes support through education, health needs, and related charities. We believe strongly that generosity can become contagious the more you practice it.

And practice they have: Since establishing their philanthropic arm, the Panda Cares Foundation, the Cherngs have raised more than $216 million. Thats in addition to countless personal gifts, such as the one bestowed upon the Hospitality College.

This gift shows that Mr. and Dr. Cherng have faith that the William F. Harrah College of Hospitality is heading in the right direction and that they want to help us continue to move forward, Shoemaker says. It shows they believe our college isnt just educating students but truly changing their lives.

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Making Room at the Top: Andrew and Peggy Cherng - UNLV NewsCenter

Anatomy

New anatomy hub proposed by University of Sunderland – The Northern Echo

PLANS for a new facility to train the next generation of medical professionals have been lodged.

The University of Sunderland has applied for planning permission from Sunderland City Council to build the hub to the north of the science complex at the City Campus.

If approved, the centre will provide a state-of-the-art anatomy teaching resources for the universitys medical school.

The building is sidelined for the former site of the Darwin annex a cluster of buildings which have since been removed.

Dry anatomy facilities, currently located within the Dale building, would be relocated to the new site to provide a new integrated teaching facility.

This would include a flexible learning space for 30 students using both physical and digital anatomical models.

A wet anatomy room would provide teaching for up to 60 students where specimens would be dissected.

A planning statement outlines the benefits of the scheme, including bringing a vacant site back into use, job opportunities and providing an enhanced offering for students so the university could compete with others in the north.

Artist's impression of new medical facility at University of Sunderland, from Waterworks Road

It states: The proposed development would develop and enhance the current offering at the Universitys School of Medicine, enabling it to compete with other universities in the north, such as Newcastle, who currently offer this facility as part of their relevant teaching programmes.

The proposed development would offer medical students an outstanding environment for hands-on anatomical education, ensuring they graduate with the specialised skills required to make a meaningful change to the health of people in the north east region.

For surgical training, cadaveric anatomy is viewed as the gold standard.

Simulation cannot reproduce the variability and complexity of the human body; that said, modern simulation equipment is seen as a highly effective learning and teaching tool.

The proposed development would offer both methods, it is this blended approach that will be of the greatest benefit to students and place the University of Sunderland School of Medicine as one offering the latest and most effective teaching methods.

The facility would be licensed by the Human Tissue Authority with a new access created for private ambulances.

Surgeons and surgical trainees across the region are also expected to benefit from continual professional development (CPD) courses at the centre.

The planning statement goes on to say: Provision of CPD for surgeons would enhance the university and citys reputation, and also have a positive impact within the region by providing opportunities to establish centres of excellence in surgical training.

A final decision on the plans is expected by the end of November followingconsultation.

Comments can be made by writing to the councils planning department or visiting its online planning portal.

For more information, visit sunderland.gov.uk/online-applications and search planning reference: 20/01727/FUL

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New anatomy hub proposed by University of Sunderland - The Northern Echo

Anatomy

Anatomy of a wage subsidy | EUROPP – EUROPP – European Politics and Policy

Last week, the UK introduced a wage subsidy scheme that has strong similarities with the German Kurzarbeit (short work) programme. Bob Hanck, Toon Van Overbeke and Dustin Voss argue that much in the UKs approach is misguided. The German scheme works, they write, because it has three critical elements that are wholly or mostly absent in the UK. It would be a surprise, therefore, if it worked as intended even leaving aside the potentially prohibitive shift in costs from government to employers.

The new UK wage subsidy scheme (the Job Support Scheme or JSS), introduced by Chancellor Rishi Sunak on 24 September, tries to balance the cyclical short-term problems of an economic downturn with the longer-term structural problems of adjusting to the emerging new economy. As our colleague Nick Barr points out, there are many problems with that balance. But leaving that aside, the policies are likely to be problematic for a set of deeper-rooted, institutional reasons.

The new scheme is copied almost verbatim from the existing German Kurzarbeit programme that has become something like the gold standard in this area. But crucially the performance of such schemes does not just hinge on how sensible the policies themselves are; they are also a result of the wider institutional context in which they are introduced. Three elements in particular seem vital for the success of this type of wage subsidy scheme.

Carrots and sticks aka incentives

The carrot: German employers want to safeguard their large investments in sophisticated workforce skills, while employers in the UK have little investment to protect: Most education and training is paid for by government and the individual. The stick: German employers are forced to negotiate large and expensive social plans with trade unions, while British employers can more or less unilaterally fire and pay out a ludicrous notice period (one week per year worked above two years, else zilch).

German employers thus face very strong incentives to adopt Kurzarbeit, almost regardless of the cost, while British employers face the opposite incentives. That helps understand why, as the Resolution Foundation has calculated, the scheme is simply too expensive for most employers in the UK. Those in the real world outside No 11 think it is a poor scheme because it is too expensive and contains very few incentives for employers to pick it up. In light of the carrot point above: the policy makes little sense for employers, unless they were going to do something similar on their own account anyway and can now have the government pay part of that.

German company governance

In the company, where it is implemented, the German scheme is governed by employer and works council or trade union (or other workforce) representatives, who police the fairness, correctness and fraud in its implementation. That works because this form of micro-corporatism is deeply embedded in a thick web of long-established mutual agreements, expectations and trust (supported and shaped by vetoes that the workforce can exercise in particular areas of company organisation). Calling this a bit weaker in the UK might qualify as a euphemism.

Macro-corporatism

At a political level, the Kurzarbeit scheme is in many ways an outcome of deeply embedded tripartite arrangements a form of political exchange that assign rights and responsibilities to business/employers and labour and are often financially and institutionally supported, instigated or steered by government. Participating in Kurzarbeit is therefore almost a moral obligation for employers not because German employers are fundamentally nice people but because they understand the strategic long-term benefits of having a stable, functioning macro-level governance arrangement beyond the market. Such a settlement, if it ever existed, disappeared in the Thatcherite hurricane of the 1980s.

Combined, these three points show why importing such a policy and expecting the same outcome as elsewhere is questionable at best. That might help explain why few observers have actually seen much good in it. As the days go on, we expect an avalanche of criticism of precisely those details that make the whole JSS a big mess. The opening shots were fired in the FT and the Guardian over the past few days. Added to the more fundamental critiques here, it would be a surprise to us if the scheme survived in its current form.

Note: This article gives the views of theauthors, not the position of EUROPP European Politics and Policy or the London School of Economics. Featured image credit:Number 10 (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

Related

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Anatomy of a wage subsidy | EUROPP - EUROPP - European Politics and Policy

Anatomy

Plans submitted for anatomy teaching facility to train the next generation of medics at the University of Sunderland – Sunderland Echo

Artistic impression of the facility

The proposed hub will be based to the north of the University of Sunderlands Science Complex at the City Campus.

Plans were verified by Sunderland City Councils planning department earlier this week.

If approved, the centre will provide a state-of-the-art anatomy teaching resource for the universitys medical school.

The building is sidelined for the former site of the Darwin annex a cluster of buildings which have since been removed.

Dry anatomy facilities, currently located within the Dale building, would be relocated to the new site to provide a new integrated teaching facility.

This would include a flexible learning space for 30 students using both physical and digital anatomical models.

A wet anatomy room would also provide teaching for up to 60 students where specimens would be dissected.

A planning statement outlines the benefits of the scheme, including bringing a vacant site back into use, job opportunities and providing an enhanced offering for students.

The statement reads: The proposed development would develop and enhance the current offering at the Universitys School of Medicine, enabling it to compete with other universities in the north, such as Newcastle, who currently offer this facility as part of their relevant teaching programmes.

The proposed development would offer medical students an outstanding environment for hands-on anatomical education, ensuring they graduate with the specialised skills required to make a meaningful change to the health of people in the north east region.

For surgical training, cadaveric anatomy is viewed as the gold standard.

Simulation cannot reproduce the variability and complexity of the human body; that said, modern simulation equipment is seen as a highly effective learning and teaching tool.

The proposed development would offer both methods, it is this blended approach that will be of the greatest benefit to students and place the University of Sunderland School of Medicine as one offering the latest and most effective teaching methods.

It would be licensed by the Human Tissue Authority with a new access created for private ambulances.

Surgeons and surgical trainees across the region are also expected to benefit from continual professional development (CPD) courses at the centre.

The planning statement goes on to say: Provision of CPD for surgeons would enhance the university and citys reputation, and also have a positive impact within the region by providing opportunities to establish centres of excellence in surgical training.

A final decision on the plans is expected by the end of November following consultation.

Comments can be made by writing to the councils planning department or visiting its online planning portal.

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Plans submitted for anatomy teaching facility to train the next generation of medics at the University of Sunderland - Sunderland Echo