Category Archives: Human Behavior

Human Behavior

Liberty Bar owner in the age of coronavirus: I feel like the tail struggling to wag the dog – San Antonio Express-News

Dwight Hobart founded the Liberty Bar 35 years ago in a historic, but structurally odd, building it slanted on Josephine Street. Ten years ago, he moved the storied restaurant into a restored convent on South Alamo Street.

Operating the Liberty Bar, Hobart said, had always been difficult and rarely profitable. And then the pandemic hit.

He recently reopened for take-away service and limited outdoor seating.

In an email exchange with Express-News columnist Michael Taylor, Hobart reflected on the travails that he and other restaurateurs faced pre-COVID-19 and their prospects for recovery now.

The following transcript has been edited for clarity and length.

Most restaurants go broke sooner rather than later. The Liberty Bar was born broke and has pretty much stayed that way, with the exception of 10 golden years at the old location on Josephine Street, during which we enjoyed the inadvertent benefits of what amounted to an endless going out of business sale. That was before moving to our present home in the former convent on South Alamo Street. The Liberty Bar has been in business 35 years.

The rubber met the road on July 14, Bastille Day, of 1985 when we opened our doors to the public in a catawampus two-story wood-frame building that looked like it was about to fall down. We had low rent and a long-term lease in a largely vacant light industrial neighborhood. We lived upstairs and did the greater part of the renovation ourselves.

The downtown business crowd came for lunch, matrons from Alamo Heights got tipsy in the afternoon and every night the art mob was all over us like a dog on a June bug. Still, we lost money hand over fist for the first 10 years.

We had style, but when it came to facts of life we didnt know get down from sic em. The basic American restaurant format relies on bulk suppliers and their supplies are geared to the bottom line: frozen, pre-processed, pre-portioned, canned and built for volume. Hot grease is the name of the game. And the customers love it. Cut to the nuts and bolts. Even effete artists have to track inventory and control labor costs. We did not. We baked three different kinds of bread every day, then gave it away. Our baker alone ate our payroll lunch, not to mention our supper and our breakfast on the weekend.

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We did learn a few things about cost control. Never ask the people who collect money for desserts to portion out the desserts. Always look a gift horse in the mouth. There was a hardworking busboy from Tampico named Ruben who expressed the desire to move up the ladder in the kitchen and learn how to bake. He did that. And did it well. One day, he showed up with a copy of the magazine California Living. There was a Coconut Custard recipe in the magazine that called for the canned ingredient Coco Lopez, commonly used to mix pia coladas. Ruben had seen Coco Lopez behind the bar. He wanted to try the recipe. We said yes. It was a great success. We still serve the Coconut Custard today. Unfortunately, Ruben no longer works at the Liberty Bar. Six months after his inspiration, we realized that Ruben was baking twice as much as we needed, then selling the extra out the back door to other restaurants.

There are other harsh realities of human behavior in what we might laughingly call the hospitality industry. Cooks hate servers, servers hate cooks and they all disdain management. Customers are a necessary evil. One day a cook rummaged around among the memorabilia and impedimenta accumulated by a previous leaseholder and discovered a boxing ring bell. The cooks installed it in the kitchen above the order window and took pleasure in banging this ear-splitting gong with the back edge of a chefs knife every time an order was late in going out. This act never failed to enrage the servers or delight the cooks.

We own the building at 1111 South Alamo Street. The building is paid for, but even a debt-free building in the King William district of San Antonio is an expensive asset. Property taxes have doubled over the past few years. What is the city of San Antonio going to do about the loss of sales tax revenue during the coronavirus shutdown? Tax appraisals for 2019 are a done deal, but will there be adjustments to appraisals and valuations next year? Part of our building is over 150 years old. Death and taxes are inevitable. Utilities and maintenance are interminable.

After we moved, our sales fell by about half while our building costs and labor expense doubled. I could say I didnt know what I was doing, but the fact is I did know. And I did it anyway. You dont live forever. And everybody has their eccentrics as my Panhandle partner Doyle Smith puts it. Restaurants tend to be an emotional-calculus function of the owners personal identity fantasy. We could say this is irrational, but personal identity is not paid out in dollars and cents. Wages and taxes are, though. I guess I have become more rational as time goes on, but probably not enough so as you could tell the difference.

I have no idea how restaurant owners will make enough money to pay the rents they were paying before the shutdown. It seems impossible. A realistic home run in the sit-down restaurant business is holding onto 10 percent of all the money that walks through the door. If you reduce the number of potential customers 50 percent by fiat, and you were only holding onto 3 percent (or losing money) when the limit was 100 percent table occupancy, how will you ever close the gap? Raise prices? Concoct burgers out of polyurethane foam? While customers are feeling poor and fearful about the future?

The restaurant business prospers when folks are feeling flush, but gets flushed when folks are feeling flakey. Knowing may not necessitate an infinite regress because some knowledge does not depend on demonstration. But I expect the bar and restaurant contingent will come to know the sad consequences of the coronavirus to be turtles all the way down. To quote Robert Palmer, The truth is irrefutable. Or perhaps, Theres no tellin where the money went!

On ExpressNews.com: San Antonio restaurants owners talk of hardships caused by coronavirus shutdown

My thought process was all of the above, economic, health related, spiritual, morale-related and morality-related. In the simplest terms, technically speaking, I didnt know whether to s*** or go blind.

On Monday, May 18, 2020, the Liberty Bar decided to restart with take-out. We have elected to be a little bit pregnant. A new menu. Some golden oldies. Some stunning departures. Weve been reading Anthony Bourdain and Peter Reinhart. We're sharpening our knives and feeding the sourdough.

Right now, (most) employees are on furlough with the promise that they can return to work if we ever get the Liberty Bar back in business. The concept is simple, the fact is more complicated. Like so much of life, saying it is one thing, doing it is another.

Staying alive is a good idea.

I am 77 years old. Of course, after I have washed and shaved my face, brushed my hair and settled back with a cup of strong coffee, I look much younger. But candidly speaking I am on the backstretch of my working life. My jocular Amarillo urologist tells me I need the roto-rooter! And that is all before the coronavirus reared its ugly head, which, as I am given to understand, has a predilection for the aged and infirm.

My life partner Patty Ortiz is much younger but still old enough to know better. We both fall into the high risk category. So, again, even before the present crisis, our strategy and our priority for survival is: 1) stay alive and healthy, then: 2) make the business happen.

Over the past year we ground out a steady improvement in sales, cost control, quality of service, character of food and drink as well as the look and feel of the place. Southtown has actually become a destination. It is not the North Side. It is not the Pearl. But it does have its own cachet.

To quote the old country song, Its too soon to know. I am not now and never have been a cook, although I do cook. I was once, for a brief while, a baker. I continue to bake. I am, for better or worse, a restaurant owner, a restaurateur. I feel more like the tail struggling to wag the dog.

Michael Taylor is a columnist for the San Antonio Express-News and author of The Financial Rules for New College Graduates.

michael@michaelthesmartmoney.com | twitter.com/michael_taylor

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Liberty Bar owner in the age of coronavirus: I feel like the tail struggling to wag the dog - San Antonio Express-News

Human Behavior

Humans upend the social lives of giraffes, study shows – swissinfo.ch

June 13, 2020 - 12:47

Living near human settlements disturbs the social networks of giraffes, according to an international study led by the University of Zurich.

They have weaker bonds with other giraffes and fewer interactions with other members of the species, according to the study, which examined the social structure of over 500 female giraffes in Tanzania.

The effects of human presence on the social relationships of wild animals have rarely been studied.

Even if the animals are not hunted or killed, increasing contact with humans could have profound indirect impacts, according to the researchers. This is because proximity to humans could disturb the animals ability to perform at tasks that are important for survival such as feeding together or rearing young.

Researchers from the Department of Evolutionary Biology and Environmental Studies at the University of Zurich have now taken a closer look at this topic by studying Masai giraffes in Tanzania.

The study, carried out with researchers from the Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior, the University of Konstanz and Pennsylvania State University, provides the first robust evidence that human presence affects the social structure in this iconic herbivore.

For their study, the scientists first needed to obtain large amounts of data from field research.

Detecting signals of natural versus human-caused influences on social relationships among wild animals is challenging, says Monica Bond, first author of the study.

Over a period of six years, Bond and her research collaborators collected photographic data spanning 540 adult female Masai giraffes that live in a large, unfenced landscape in the Tarangire Ecosystem of Tanzania an environment that features varying levels of anthropogenic (human-caused) disturbance.

The researchers were able to identify individual giraffes by their unique and unchanging spot patterns. This resulted in one of the largest-scale social networks ever studied in a wild mammal.

The female giraffes in Tarangire live in a complex society, with individuals preferring to associate with some females while avoiding others.

These preferences result in discrete social communities of 60 to 90 females with little mixing among the groups, even when they move in the same general area.

The study reveals that social structuring is clearly an important feature of female giraffe populations, says Barbara Knig, UZH professor and co-author of the study.

Being exposed to humans disturbs these social networks, according to the research data. Giraffes living closer to settlements of indigenous Masai people have weaker and fewer social ties.

The researchers suspect that giraffes living near these communities are more likely to encounter livestock and humans. This potentially causes groups of giraffes to split up.

Masai giraffe populations have declined 50% in recent years due to poaching, loss of habit and changes in food supply. Researchers speculate that disrupted social systems may be a hidden cause for their decline.

The team also found that groups of female giraffes with calves were more likely to occur closer to human settlements possibly because this provides better protection from lions and hyenas.

It seems that fmale giraffes face a trade-off between maintaining important social bonds and reducing risk to their calves near these traditional settlements, explains Bond.

The studys results suggest that human presence could play an important role in determining the conservation future of this species of giraffe.

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Humans upend the social lives of giraffes, study shows - swissinfo.ch

Human Behavior

SIUE School of Education, Health and Human Behavior to host virtual discussion on dismantling institutionalized racism in higher education – Alton…

SIUE School of Education, Health and Human Behavior to host virtual discussion on dismantling institutionalized racism in higher education

EDWARDSVILLE Civil unrest has swept the globe as racial injustices and systemic oppression have again been brought to the forefront following the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis. Protests, action movements, and calls for listening and learning span the world.

The Southern Illinois University Edwardsville School of Education, Health and Human Behavior (SEHHB) is responding with a significant opportunity for teaching and learning, as is its mission, by hosting the first in a series of virtual panels, podcasts, and community discussions on the important topic of Dismantling Institutional Racism in Higher Education. Supported by the Provosts Office and the East St. Louis Center, the panel discussion will explore how institutions of higher education (leadership, faculty, staff and students) can serve to disrupt systemic racism and white supremacy embedded into organizational life and culture.

These systems are consistently reified through everyday organizational practices that dehumanize black, indigenous and other persons of color (BIPOC). The goal of the series is to clearly identify the systems, structures, and practices that maintain institutional racism and white supremacy in PK20 institutions of education. Through collective bodies, we will explore actionable steps to identify, disrupt and ultimately dismantle systems of white supremacy. Meaningful change which restores the lost opportunities of BIPOC requires that the people of institutions engage in self-reflection, examination of practices and policies, and actions that translate to structural and systemic change. Anything less would follow a dehumanizing trend of educators and educator leaders perpetuating the status quo.

The virtual panel is free and will take place via Zoom beginning at 2 p.m. Thursday, June 11, and last for approximately 2 hours. Interested participants should register at SIUEs offical website and a zoom meeting link will be sent to registrants prior to the event.

We invite all who are concerned, questioning or frustrated to join in this critical discussion about how institutions can work towards dismantling institutionalized racism, said SEHHB Dean Robin Hughes, PhD, whose describes her own academic practice and expertise as shaped through an activist and critical race theoretical lens - or way of knowing, thinking and living.

It is crucial that we use and share our personal and professional experiences, significant research findings and collective commitment to the Universitys mission and values to take positive and effective action to dismantle institutional racism that happens everywhere, she emphasized.

Hughes designated a collective of scholar-activists to coordinate this important discussion. The group represents some SIUE scholars whose research agenda and activism focuses on race and other isms. Current members include the SEHHBs Jennifer Hernandez, PhD; Jessica Krim, EdD; J.T. Snipes, PhD; and Nate Williams, PhD.

Along with Dr. Nate Williams, speakers at the virtual panel will include:

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SIUE School of Education, Health and Human Behavior to host virtual discussion on dismantling institutionalized racism in higher education - Alton...

Human Behavior

Point of View: Path forward starts with leadership and culture – Palm Beach Post

It is foolish to believe that everything will change from this point forward, and there will never be another tragedy like Floyds. Police officers are imperfect human beings, and some will still make bad decisions in heated moments decisions that can determine whether they, their fellow officers, and the citizens they were sworn to serve will live or die.

The recent death in Minneapolis of George Floyd at the hands of a Minneapolis Police Department officer has sparked outrage in communities throughout the country, including Sarasota County.

This time, however, the national reaction feels different than when Michael Brown was killed in Ferguson, Missouri, or Freddie Gray was killed while in police custody in Baltimore, or Laquan McDonald was shot 16 times in Chicago, or Corey Jones on a roadside in Palm Beach Gardens

The relationship between citizens and police has reached a tipping point. We have never seen the shared sentiment and shows of unity between police and protestors that we are seeing now. Police leaders, including all 67 Florida sheriffs, are publicly decrying the Minneapolis Police Department and use of tactics like the knee on Floyds airway that obviously resulted in his death. They are not fearful of backlash from their brothers and sisters in uniform. It would seem that the thin blue line is slowly being erased.

This begs the question, What now?

It is foolish to believe that everything will change from this point forward, and there will never be another tragedy like Floyds. Police officers are imperfect human beings, and some will still make bad decisions in heated moments decisions that can determine whether they, their fellow officers, and the citizens they were sworn to serve will live or die. The most we can expect is a continued evolution toward trust between communities and police agencies, reducing the number of volatile situations with bad outcomes like the one we have just seen.

There are nearly 18,000 police agencies in the U.S., employing more than 680,000 people. Reform will not happen overnight. How can we accelerate it?

Recently, U.S. Rep. Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts stated that she wants to legislate police policy.

"I know when you're talking about systemic injustice, sometimes people will chalk it up to culture, but culture is human behavior. And it can be changed," Pressley said. "And I think that begins by holding all accountable, from this White House to our State House to our City Hall, to root out the scourge of police brutality and the many other intersectional injustices that also play a part."

Pressley is right on culture: it has tremendous power to shape human behavior, bad or good. She believes legislation will change behavior and improve police culture. I believe she has the process backwards.

A positive police culture must come first. It is the foundation of reform and without it, nothing changes. No amount of policy, legislation and diversity in the ranks will change the behavior of cops in a negative culture with an us versus them mentality.

How else do you explain the continued racial bias in law enforcement against African American people, despite two decades of increasingly diverse hiring practices and legislated reform measures nationwide?

When I watched the video of officer Derick Chauvin kneeling on Floyds neck, I saw what America saw unspeakable police brutality. After more nearly 34 years in law enforcement, I also saw things that many others did not. I saw black gloves that were likely not COVID-19 protection, but a statement of power and intimidation. I saw four officers, including an African American and Asian, with an attitude that said it was just another day at the office. In my mind, the situation was clear: the Minneapolis Police Department had allowed a culture to fester in which officers feel empowered and separate from their communities. De-escalation is something to which they pay lip service, but dont practice.

Could a policy against putting your knee on someones airway have saved Floyd? Possibly. But a police culture like the one in Minneapolis is a perpetual breeding ground for problems. If not Floyd, it would eventually be someone elses life lost at the hands of the police in any of a hundred ways.

Most people dont want to hear this. Changing police culture and mindset is big and messy. It takes a lot of time. You cant wrap it up in a bow like a policy or a law: There, the bill is signed now so weve solved this problem. You cant measure it easily, like the number of minority officers in your ranks.

The good news is that it is possible. It begins at the top. Law enforcement leaders are the CEOs of their organizations, and as they go, so go their people. We know this from the private sector, where CEOs and their management styles define everything about their companies. We also know from the military that good leaders can achieve remarkable things.

If America wants to accelerate change in police reform, it needs to focus seriously on its police leaders which is not the same as handcuffing them into submission. In hiring or appointing police chiefs, municipalities should look beyond credentials on paper and talk to people who have worked under the job candidates. Likewise, voters should elect sheriffs not based on their personal ideologies, but on their proven leadership qualities.

Most importantly, the people who put police leaders into position should ask themselves, Is this the person who can build a culture that creates trust? Then, hold them accountable.

TOM KNIGHT, SARASOTA

Editors note: Knight is the sheriff of Sarasota County and the secretary of the Florida Sheriffs Association.

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Point of View: Path forward starts with leadership and culture - Palm Beach Post

Human Behavior

Researchers investigate the effects of isolation in zebrafish – News-Medical.net

Reviewed by Emily Henderson, B.Sc.Jun 10 2020

Over the past few months at least half of the world's population has been affected by some form of lockdown due to COVID-19, and many of us are experiencing the impact of social isolation. Loneliness affects both mental and physical health, but counterintuitively it can also result in a decreased desire for social interaction. To understand the mechanics of this paradox, UCL researchers based at the Wolfson Institute and the Sainsbury Wellcome Centre investigated social behavior in zebrafish. Their results are published in eLife.

Most zebrafish demonstrate pro-social behavior, but approximately 10% are 'loner' fish who are averse to social cues and demonstrate different brain activity than their pro-social siblings. However, even typically social zebrafish avoid social interaction after a period of isolation. PhD students Hande Tunbak and Mireya Vazquez-Prada, Postdoctoral Research Fellow Thomas Ryan, Dr Adam Kampff and Sir Henry Dale Wellcome Fellow Elena Dreosti set out to test whether the brain activity of isolated zebrafish mimics that of loner fish or whether other forces were at play.

To investigate the effects of isolation, the researchers isolated typically social zebrafish from other fish for a period of two days and then compared their brain activity to zebrafish who demonstrated aversion to social interaction without having been isolated. The isolated fish demonstrated sensitivity to stimuli and had increased activity in brain regions related to stress and anxiety. These effects of isolation were quickly overcome when the fish received a drug that reduces anxiety.

The differences between loner fish and their siblings were found mostly in the hypothalamus, the region of the brain responsible for social rewards. The loner fish hypothalamus did not demonstrate the same pattern of activation during social exposure as its typical counterparts, indicating that loner fish do not experience rewards in the same way as typical fish during social interactions.

By contrast, 'lonely' fish--those that demonstrated typical social behavior and were isolated--demonstrated hypersensitivity to stimuli and activation of brain regions associated with stress and anxiety. Lonely fish experienced actively negative outcomes from social interaction whereas loner fish simply did not experience reward.

A detailed view of the zebrafish brain can provide important clues for all of us currently experiencing the effects of social isolation."

Dr. Elena Dreosti

Our understanding of the neural mechanisms of social behavior are limited, but we do know that zebrafish and humans share a fundamental drive for social interaction that is controlled by similar brain structures. Although human behavior is much more complex, understanding how this basic social drive arises--and how it is affected by isolation--is a necessary step towards understanding the impact of the social environment on human brains and behavior. The zebrafish, which is completely transparent throughout early development, offers neuroscientists a detailed view of its brain circuitry.

We won't all be loners after lockdown, but we will be anxious upon returning to our normal social lives. As we emerge from lockdown, we should be aware of this new sensitivity and anxiety, but recognize that overcoming it is necessary for returning to a normal, healthy, social existence.

Source:

Journal reference:

Tunbak, H., et al. (2020) Whole-brain mapping of socially isolated zebrafish reveals that lonely fish are not loners. eLife. doi.org/10.7554/eLife.55863.

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Researchers investigate the effects of isolation in zebrafish - News-Medical.net

Human Behavior

NSF Grant Supporting Professor’s Research on Social Interaction and Distancing during COVID-19 Pandemic – Southern Miss Now

Wed, 06/10/2020 - 08:27am | By: David Tisdale

One of the biggest challenges to compliance with recommended social distancing guidelines in the COVID-19 pandemic is the inherent need of people to interact with others.

That phenomenon is the focus of a University of Southern Mississippi (USM) professors collaborative research project that has earned funding from the National Science Foundation (NSF).

Dr. Donald Sacco, an associate professor of social psychology and director of the School of Psychologys Evolutionary Social Psychology Lab, was recently awarded the $40,000-plus Rapid Response Research (RAPID) Grant from the NSF for the project that will support research costs, including summer assistantships for two of his graduate students.

Dr. Sacco will serve as co-investigator of the project along with Dr. Steven Young of the City of University of New York-Baruch. Drs. Sacco and Young have been researching how people navigate their need for social connections and desire to avoid contagious illness for nearly a decade, and published this research in numerous journals.

The primary strategy to slow the transmission of the virus being has been social distancing. Such measures involve restricting human movement to decrease direct human-to-human contact. Although social distancing measures have demonstrable effectiveness, both historically and during the current pandemic, there is considerable resistance to these efforts.

Currently, nearly two million individuals in the U.S. have tested positive for COVID-19 and approximately 110,000 have died, with estimated death tolls predicted to reach nearly 147,000 by the end of summer 2020.

In the current research, we posit that resistance to social distancing guidelines may be rooted in humans strong desire to affiliate with others that persists even when doing so could be costly, Dr. Sacco said. To do so, this funding will support two large scale studies to include nationally representative samples to examine how best to support and maintain social distancing efforts while still satisfying the need for social connections.

The first study will use experiencing sampling methods to track participants engagement with different forms of technology-mediated social interaction (e.g., Skype, text messaging, phone calls) over time, and how these mediums differentially satisfy social affiliation needs and tolerance for social distancing. This study will examine how factors including age and regional infrastructure (e.g., high speed internet availability) affect the willingness and ability to prioritize engagement in technology-mediated interactions over in-person interactions, when minimizing the spread of disease is of immediate social importance.

An experimental study is designed to provide causal evidence that indirect socialization experiences can ease the burden of isolation and increase adherence to social distancing protocols. This research will facilitate identifying best-practices during the present public health emergency, and during any future pandemics that require social distancing.

Our hope is that the information gained from this research will assist with the development of strategies that facilitate peoples adherence to social distancing policies when needed to reduce the spread of contagious illness by better ensuring people can effectively avoid physical contact

with others, while also finding suitable ways to maintain their social connections with others, Dr. Sacco said.

Alicia Macchione and Kelsey Drea, doctoral students in the School of Psychologys Brain and Behavior program, will assist Dr. Sacco as research assistants on the grant. Hopefully our work will offer support to those who are struggling to find ways to stay social while individuals are still following social distancing guidelines, Drea said, while Macchione notes the project has the potential to answer many important questions related to the present global pandemic, as well as inform behavior for future emergencies.

Dr. Alen Hajnal, associate professor of psychology and director of the USM Brain and Behavior doctoral program, said the grant reinforces the fact that empirical science has a strong role to play in the present crisis, and the results will have a clear benefit for public health and hold the potential to have a great impact for communities across the country.

During the COVID -19 pandemic, we have learned that human behavior is a crucial factor in determining the scale and spread of the disease, Dr. Hajnal said. As a result, Dr. Sacco's grant will raise the profile and value of experimental psychology as a research discipline at large, and will also put the Brain and Behavior Ph.D. program here at USM on the map as a graduate program with a rigorous scientific profile.

The School of Psychology is housed in the USM College of Education and Human Sciences, where Dr. Sacco also serves as a faculty member for the Schools Brain and Behavior doctoral program. For more information about Dr. Saccos work in the Evolutionary Social Psychology Laboratory at USM, visit https://donaldsacco.wixsite.com/esplsacco.

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NSF Grant Supporting Professor's Research on Social Interaction and Distancing during COVID-19 Pandemic - Southern Miss Now

Human Behavior

Perceptive Automata Announced as a Finalist in AUVSI’s 2020 XCELLENCE Awards – Robotics Tomorrow

Company recognized for outstanding AI software innovation

Perceptive Automata, the leader in human behavior prediction AI for machines, has been named a Finalist in the software category for this year's AUVSI XCELLENCE Awards alongside other leading companies such as Airbus.

"We are honored to sit alongside such great company and to have our team recognized by AUVSI," said Sam Anthony, co-founder and CTO at Perceptive Automata. "We provide automated vehicles the ability to interact smoothly and naturally with humans on the road by understanding what other road users are thinking and planning. This recognition from AUVSI provides further motivation for our team to continue our efforts to solve one of the most complex challenges automated vehicles face on the road to mass commercialization."

This recognition from AUVSI underscores a year of substantial growth and product innovation for Perceptive Automata, including a doubling of the team, moving to a new main office in downtown Boston, and a 2020 World Changing Ideas Finalist award from Fast Company alongside Nuro and DiDi.

The AUVSI XCELLENCE Awards honor innovators in the unmanned systems industry, including individuals and organizations, with a demonstrated commitment to advancing autonomy, leading and promoting safe adoption of unmanned systems, and developing programs that use these technologies to save lives and improve the human condition.

"The AUVSI XCELLENCE Awards celebrate the achievements of individuals and organizations who have applied unmanned systems technology to create solutions to address a range of challenges affecting business and society," said Brian Wynne, president and CEO of AUVSI. "AUVSI is pleased to recognize these finalists for their perseverance and dedication to turn dreams into reality."

About Perceptive AutomataPerceptive Automata is helping automakers solve a complex problem for self-driving cars: understanding the human state of mind. The company combines behavioral science techniques with machine learning to give autonomous systems the capability to anticipate and react to human behavior, enabling autonomous vehicles to navigate safely and smoothly around pedestrians, cyclists, and other drivers. This is essential for autonomous systems to seamlessly roll out in human-dominated road environments and to deliver a smooth ride experience for passengers of autonomous mobility services. For more information about Perceptive Automata, visit https://www.perceptiveautomata.com.

About AUVSIThe Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International (AUVSI)the world's largest non-profit organization dedicated to the advancement of unmanned systems and roboticsrepresents corporations and professionals from more than 60 countries involved in industry, government, and academia. AUVSI members work in the defense, civil and commercial markets. For more information, visit AUVSI.org.

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Perceptive Automata Announced as a Finalist in AUVSI's 2020 XCELLENCE Awards - Robotics Tomorrow

Human Behavior

EGHS Wall of Honor Saved From Going Dark! – East Greenwich News

Above: Sue and Don Carcieri at the 2015 EGHS Wall of Honor ceremony. The Carcieri family is taking over as sponsor of the EGHS Wall of Honor.

While the world seems to be tipped upside down lately, and, perhaps, there are more important issues to be considered, it is still important to bring some normalcy to local lives and routines.

The high school graduates are doing all they can to bring some sense of return to their lives with news articles, online videos and parades. Businesses are reopening and professional sports are attempting to start play. All this is important, especially for people who have isolated and insulated themselves for over 75 days.

The East Greenwich Wall of Honor was not only forced to cancel their traditional April ceremony, but they were also faced with the uncertainty of any future when it was announced that longtime sponsor, Allen Gammons, was moving and no longer going to be a backer for the Wall of Honor program. The Committee sincerely thanks him for all his years of support, and wishes him well in his new endeavor. However, with that loss it was not certain whether the program could continue.

That uncertainty has ended with the announcement that former Rhode Island Governor, Donald Carcieri, and his family, will step in and sponsor the East Greenwich High School Wall of Honor for the near future. Governor Carcieri is on the wall, as is his recently deceased wife, Sue, the former First Lady of Rhode Island, and his father, legendary EGHS coach Nicola Carcieri.

This year five people were to be inducted: Susan Stevens Crummel, nationally recognized childrens books author; her sister, Janet Stevens, nationally known childrens books Illustrator; Phil Garvey, longtime educator, coach and Marine officer; Dennis Lynch, former CEO of NYCE Payments and chairman of Cardtronics; Dr. Francis Pescosolido, clinical associate professor in psychiatry and human behavior.

Also to be honored with the Walls Appreciation Award was Mark Gee, an activist in East Greenwich, former Town Councilor and Rhode Island state senator. He and the five honorees above will be honored next April along with whomever is chosen for the Class of 2021.

To be considered for inclusion on the Wall, the nominee must be either a graduate of East Greenwich High School or East Greenwich Academy (precursor to EGHS), or someone who attended East Greenwich schools but for some reason had to leave (service, parents job, etc.). For those of you who know the history of East Greenwich, you know that there was no high school until 1942 and people who attended East Greenwich schools in lower grades, were free to go to the Academy, paid for by the town, or they could attend any surrounding schools (NK, Warwick, etc.) or Catholic schools or other private schools, also paid for by the town. Thus someone who lived in town, went 8 years to EG schools and graduated from, say, LaSalle Academy, would be eligible.

Suggestions for possible candidates can be made to Bruce Mastracchio, (401) 885-3160; Robert Houghtaling, (401) 230-2246, or Chris Cobain, (401) 398-1562, from the EGHS Wall of Honor Committee.

There is already a list of candidates for the 2021 Wall. They will be considered this fall for induction in April 2021 in the shared ceremony with this years class. If you have someone to nominate there is still time to do so.

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EGHS Wall of Honor Saved From Going Dark! - East Greenwich News

Human Behavior

Eytan Shander: Change doesn’t just happen on the front lines, and that’s where sports comes in – PhillyVoice.com

This past week saw some faces speak out thankfully against police brutality and in support of the Black Lives Matter message. It was no coincidence two of the strongest trends on Twitter this past Sunday were Mitt Romney, and NASCAR's Bubba Wallace. I strongly urge you to NOT use any social media platform as any barometer for human behavior, so lets examine the real-world ramifications.

Statements are like preseason games; they look great but dont count until theres action. Romney might have had his 13-for-13 Sammy Sleeves moment, but its nothing without meaningful action that has a larger impact. The same goes for NASCAR. But lets be real here, their fight isnt to convince any protestor, member of the black community, or anyone else on the front lines fighting for root change.

No, their energy is best served elsewhere. Add league owners. Throw the NHL players in there. If they are all serious about putting action behind their statements for change, simply turn around and address your majority base. This fight will be won on multiple fronts. Its having people who can force change within their base the majority of whom disagree which can be a key factor in anything from adding numbers to a protest to swinging votes in November.

Its not on the victims of police brutality or of systemic racism for centuries to convince people who dont believe it exists. Instead, have Romney and Kevin Harvick take on that fight. Have them turn around and change minds within their own base.

The other front will be handled just fine by the current leaders of the protest movements, as well as the millions of black people across the country who are currently who are opening up and sharing their own experiences and ideas on how we can begin to fix this deep-seeded problem in our country.

And we must not only listen, but also amplify those voices who need to be heard. Last week I had three important people in my life, who Ive worked with and respect. Exavier Pope is a friend and mentor. Robert Littal has been a vocal supporter of me since day one. Anthony Gilbert is one of the smartest people Ive had the pleasure of working with, from the NBA to life.

We turned over the radio show to them, and now will do the same in this column space because its important for you to hear their message.

Exavier Pope

Robert Littal

Anthony Gilbert

I want to keep this as open of a forum as possible. Please send any questions you have to my DM on Twitter.

Dr. Aryeh Shander MD, FCCM, FCCP, FASA

Director of TeamHealth Research Institute; Emeritus Chief Department of Anesthesiology, Critical Care and Hyperbaric Medicine, Englewood Health; Courtesy Clinical Professor, UF College of Medicine; Adjunct Clinical Professor of Anesthesiology, Medicine and Surgery, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York; Adjunct Clinical Professor of Anesthesiology and Critical Care, Rutgers University, Newark, NJ

I saw this pop up online about a month or so ago and as we move towards the second half of the year, theres still some value here. Social Distancing is my play at +200, knowing that we havent used this term before the pandemic hit. But as we always do, lets weed out the other contenders.

Take off the odds-on favorite right now COVID-19 isnt a general enough term to win the award. Sure, it will be added and referenced, but the popularity of the word comes in the form of a searchable hashtag. As we hit the fall, we may see a second wave, we may see things become milder. While the term itself wont go away, it wont be as prevalent as it was initially.

Unfortunately, the term and actual viruses coronavirus has been around for a little bit. This one is called COVID-19. While we are using the term and variations like rona, its not enough to put it in the forefront to win the coveted Word of the Year.

I havent heard anyone call anyone in real life a covidiot. In fact, I dont think Ive seen that term on Twitter.

We are past any self-quarantine and should be hitting the middle or final phases of reopening in the next month. Thats enough to remove that term from our memory, long enough to knock it out of contention.

Pandemic would be tricky if things get worse than they currently are thankfully they are not. Spikes, second waves, it would have to get really bad for the term to come back to the stage in conversation.

Work from home has a shot, mainly because this practice isnt going to change for a lot of people even when they can technically return to an office. The odds are pretty good here with a chunky return. When we see a drop in numbers and people continuing to stay home, this term might have enough staying power to hold on and win in longshot fashion.

Zoom and Epidemiologist are the long-shots worth taking a look at, if not hedge both. Zoom meetings will still roll on and might be bet on pretty significantly over the next month or two. Jump in now before that drops to +500 in September. I dont trust Epidemiologist at +1000 despite the term gaining a lot of steam over the past two months. People are already fed up being told to stay at home.

Courtesy ofBetOnline (Twitter:@betonline_ag).

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Follow Eytan on Twitter:@shandershow

You can listen to Eytan onSB Nation Radio(Mon.-Fri. from 11 a.m.-1 p.m.; weekends from 6-9 p.m.) and@foxphlgambler(Mon.-Weds., 6-8 p.m.).You can also catch him on FOX 29 Good Day.

Like us on Facebook:PhillyVoice Sports

Originally posted here:
Eytan Shander: Change doesn't just happen on the front lines, and that's where sports comes in - PhillyVoice.com

Human Behavior

Jerry Moore: The painful reality of life | A Second Opinion | nny360.com – NNY360

WATERTOWN Offers of spiritual guidance to military personnel during the novel coronavirus pandemic recently landed two Fort Drum chaplains in a tad bit of hot water.

U.S. Army Maj. Scott Ingram and Capt. Amy Smith, ministers serving on the post, put videos on the Facebook page of the 10th Mountain Division Sustainment Brigade. Eight soldiers stationed at Fort Drum objected to the videos being put on a social media site representing the posts leadership.

Mikey Weinstein, founder and president of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, called these Facebook posts illicit proselytizing videos; the Fort Drum chaplains have a Facebook page of their own and should have put the videos there, wrote MRFF senior research director Chris Rodda. The civil liberties organization brought the soldiers concerns to the attention of Fort Drum authorities, and commanders there had the videos removed.

This incident amounted to a minor flare-up in our nations long-running debate over church and state issues. But it raises an interesting question thats been posed for millennia: How should we relate to a divine being while enduring a lifetime of pain?

The videos made by the Fort Drum chaplains offered faith-building strategies in response to the coronavirus. One video invited soldiers to ask where God is in the midst of this catastrophe.

Two well-known books from religious authors approach this topic from different perspectives.

Harold Kushner wrote his landmark work When Bad Things Happen to Good People in 1981. He tackled one of religions essential problems: Why doesnt a deity who is all loving and all powerful prevent us from suffering?

Aaron Kushner, the son of this Conservative Jewish rabbi, died when he was 14 of a condition called progeria, in which people appear to age very rapidly. Harold Kushner concluded that God is all loving but not all powerful and cant stop our suffering.

Philip Yancey wrote a true classic in Christian literature in 1977: Where is God When it Hurts? He examined the physiological function of pain as well as what happens to those who cannot experience it in parts of their bodies. He also highlighted people who overcame suffering to transform their lives.

One point Yancey made in his book is that pain serves a vital role for humans. While its very unpleasant, it usually signals that something is wrong and requires our attention. Yancey focused on the suffering that God endured through Jesuss crucifixion and challenged the Christian church to be on the frontline of alleviating pain whenever possible.

Theres a larger question here than why a supreme being doesnt prevent our suffering:

Does God actually cause it?

Theres a sharp difference between whats been responsible for reducing suffering (human endeavor) and the traditional religious understanding of what causes it (divine judgment).

Many people have found the latter to be a major stumbling block to maintaining belief, and this couldnt be overcome.

In his 2008 book, Gods Problem: How the Bible Fails to Answer Our Most Important Question Why We Suffer, biblical scholar Bart Ehrman chronicled his loss of faith due to this issue.

He examined the classical view of suffering, suffering as the consequences of sin, redemptive suffering, whether suffering makes any sense and the apocalyptic views of suffering.

Pointing to God as the cause of our suffering is no longer in vogue these days among many theists.

Weve witnessed some horrific atrocities in recent history, and a deity whos to blame for bringing them about doesnt hold all that much appeal as the object of worship.

People of faith will direct our attention to human behavior that inflicts injury upon others and promote God as the one who wants this eliminated.

But any consideration of a supreme being as the creator and sovereign ruler of everything cannot overlook the fact that physical pain and mental anguish were built into the foundation of the universe. Why?

One train of thought is that pain, tragedy and death are the result of our disobeying God. This, however, suggests that all such suffering is justified.

Is this a defendable position? Did the Jewish victims of the Holocaust during World War II deserve to be systematically exterminated by the Nazis?

And must animals and plants be subject to the consequences of human sin? If some suffering is unjustified, why is it allowed by a just supreme being?

Another response is that God desired our love and gave us free will when creating us, but we must be allowed to use it as we see fit. Its part of human nature to choose sin, and our choices often hurt others.

But dont angels have free will? Christianity teaches that some angels rejected God while others did not.

And what happens to people after they die? Do they retain their free will once they enter heaven? Does the Almighty want us to choose obedience while were alive here on Earth but prefer robotic souls in the afterlife?

This presents the prospect of an environment where living beings choose to remain in Gods service for all eternity.

Therefore, a commitment to perfect love and obedience given freely by non-deities to their creator is not only possible but has been common in the supernatural realm since before our universe came into being, according to the Judeo/Christian narrative.

So what need does a supreme being have of children who will all rebel against the divine will? God already has worshipers who freely choose the path of righteousness.

Why create a new category of individuals who will, by their inherited nature, reject Gods authority leading to their suffering, death and eternal punishment? Its like we were intentionally set up to fail. Couldnt an all-powerful deity have given us a world free of suffering?

The oft-given reply of God couldnt have done this any other way places severe limits on an omnipotent deity, which would prove Kushners assertion. Theists have not successfully overcome this contradiction.

Religious belief grew out of fear and ignorance: Prehistoric humans trembled before that which they didnt understand. They created supernatural agents to explain natural phenomena.

But they became so wedded to these stories that they refused to abandon them even after comprehending many aspects of their surroundings.

This created an interesting conundrum: Few people wanted to consider a world without God, but many couldnt fathom a deity who permitted such pain.

Suffering was inevitable precisely because there was no all-powerful, all-loving supreme being to create a perfect world for us.

If anyone ever wondered what a godless universe would look like, were in it! Regardless of what the Fort Drum chaplains preach, the only hope of relief from suffering that we have is through our own efforts. Make the most of this life because thats all there is.

In my final column in this series, Ill look at whether we fully understand the gods our ancestors invented and how this affects us today.

Jerry Moore is the editorial page editor for the Watertown Daily Times. Readers may call him at 315-661-2369 or send emails to jmoore@wdt.net.

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Jerry Moore: The painful reality of life | A Second Opinion | nny360.com - NNY360