Human Behavior

Florida university class is teaching course on Jodi Arias – ABC15 Arizona

A Florida associate professor who has studied serial killers now teaches 'Jodi Arias' as a topic in her criminology class.

Why?

The case of Jodi Arias is so unique, especially because she's a woman.

"One of the things that has made this so fascinating to the public is if they saw someone like Jodi Arias walking down the street, it wouldn't induce any fear in us," said University of South Florida Associate Professor, Dr. Bryanna Fox.

Fox, a former FBI profiler who worked at Quantico, has studied American serial killers like Ted Bundy and Charles Manson.

"They tend to be very low emotion , they tend to be very low empathy, more narcissistic, coning, manipulative," said Dr. Fox.

Prosecutors said Arias violently attacked her boyfriend Travis Alexander in a jealous rage after he wanted to end their affair and planned a trip to Mexico with another woman. Arias has acknowledged killing Alexander but claimed it was self-defense after he attacked her.

The guilt phase of Arias' trial ended in 2013 with jurors convicting her but deadlocking on punishment. A second sentencing trial ended in early 2015 with another jury deadlock, leading a judge to sentence Arias to prison for life.

Dr. Fox never met or interviewed Arias but has studied dozens of hours of her and the behavior.

She can't say without conducting analysis on Arias if she is a psychopath, but she said she appears to have similar characteristics as the serial killers she's studied.

"The fact that Jodi Arias had committed such a heinous murder, the fact that it was dozens of stab wounds, and near decapitation and shooting of Travis Alexander, that would indicate to me that she probably lacked empathy, she was probably very anti social, things that would elevate her psychopathy score which is something we also see with serial killers," said Fox.

Fox said it's one thing to teach students in a textbook 'manipulation' in a courtroom, but its another to show examples.

The associate professor is able to show her criminology students how Arias appears to change her appearance at trial to seem more sympathetic, "and when she was in front of the investigators she sort of softened her tone, acted more docile and mousy," said Dr. Fox.

Arias also showed bizarre behavior in an interrogation room while being questioned for Alexander's murder. In one surveillance video captured by police, Arias appears to do yoga in the room, sing, and then do a handstand.

Knowing a psychopath is hard to the untrained eye, explained Dr. Fox. She said stats show that one in one people are psychopaths.

However, she said its still hard to predict human behavior.

"When we think of a horrible murderer, it's important to know, they can look like Jodi Arias," said Dr. Fox.

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Florida university class is teaching course on Jodi Arias - ABC15 Arizona

Human Behavior

Third and Pine: Change the space – Seattle Times

For at least the past 20 years, downtown Seattle at Third Avenue and Pine Street has been a no mans land between our vibrant Pike Place Market and the retail activity around Westlake Park. Thus it was with some cognitive dissonance that I heard Mayor Jenny Durkan refer to it as the heart of our city. Does the mayor really want McDonalds, a payday-loans center and a tobacco shop to be at our citys heart?

Land use determines human behavior. Designate land for auto use, and people will drive cars on it, plan for residential use and people will live there. If we want different activity going on at Third and Pine, we must change the land use. And to do that we need a vision of what kinds of activity we want to have in the heart of our city instead of drug deals and gun violence. Additional police wont fix the problem. Extra police had been added before the mass shooting of Jan. 22. An armed no mans land is still a no mans land.

The mayor has an opportunity to offer a different vision, one that creates and sustains activities that will make downtown a safe and desirable place to live, work and play.

Betty Merten, Seattle

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Third and Pine: Change the space - Seattle Times

Human Behavior

Everyday Religion: What the Bible says about lying – Winston-Salem Journal

Q: What does the Bible say about lying?

Answer: The Bible has many references about unacceptable human actions and many instructive passages that speak to Gods will and laws.

A good starting place is to review the Ten Commandments found in Exodus, and Jesus Sermon on the Mount recorded in Matthew. These passages deal with love for God and love for each other (neighbors). The Ten Commandments explain the laws of God, and Jesus sermon presents Christian values.

Dishonoring God is a sin. Intentionally dishonoring and harming another person is an act against Gods laws and will. The commandment to consider for this discussion is Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor. The words Bear false witness suggest perjury, but I believe that it includes speaking falsely, prejudicially or deceptively with harmful intent. Committing such a harmful act would require that the offender seek forgiveness and repent

Passages in the Bible deal with Gods concern about lying as found in Proverbs 12:22 The Lord detests lying lips, but he delights in people who are trustworthy and in Proverbs 25:1: Telling lies about others is as harmful as hitting them with an ax, wounding them with a sword, or shooting them with a sharp arrow. Peter 3:10 presents guidance: Whoever would love life and see good days must keep their tongue from evil and their lips from deceitful speech.

The Bible presents the consequences of lying. Ananias and Sapphira sold some property, and they lied and kept some of the money. This self-serving lie cost them their lives. The incident is found in Acts 5:3-4. Peter said, Ananias, how is it that Satan has so filled your heart that you have lied to the Holy Spirit and have kept for yourself some of the money you received for the land? What made you think of doing such a thing? You have not lied just to human beings but to God. In another memorable incident, Peter lied three times about knowing Jesus. He acted out of fear. When confronted, Peter was remorseful and was forgiven through love and grace. Also there are incidents in the Bible in which people used false words or evasive acts to save others. The story of Rahab, who lied to save the lives of the two Israelites, is described in Joshua 2:1-24. In Exodus 1:15-21, Shiphrah and Puah distorted the truth to save the lives of first-born Hebrew males. These women were brave and their actions were not sinful.

The readers question opens the door to human behavior. The tendency to fib, tell a white lie, stretch the truth or be deceptive seems natural for some people. Some of these acts are not sins but can be morally questionable. They require judgment about intentionality and consequences.

Experience reveals the danger of misusing the truth. Sir Walter Scott made a good point when he wrote, Oh, what a tangled web we weave, / When first we practise to deceive!

False statements and deceptive actions in conversations, commercial interactions and public discourse limit the possibility of building trusting relationships. The Bible stresses the importance of trustworthiness. Proverbs 6:17-19 clearly describes actions that destroy trust between people: Haughty eyes, a lying tongue, hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that devises wicked schemes, feet that are quick to rush into evil, a false witness who pours out lies and a person who stirs up conflict in the community.

Following the advice found in Zechariah 8:16-17 is a path to building trust: Speak the truth to each other, and render true and sound judgment in your courts; do not plot evil against each other, and do not swear falsely.

A Pew Research Center survey revealed that 43% of Americans think lying is morally unacceptable, but many people will accept false statements for personal gains. For the well-being of society, people should monitor information and hold each other accountable for words and deeds. Being trustworthy should be a personal, professional and communal goal.

Rosa Parks words are inspiring: People always say that I didnt give up my seat because I was tired, but that isnt true. I was not tired physically. ... No, the only tired I was, was tired of giving in. I was a person with dignity and self-respect, and I should not set my sights lower than anybody else just because I was black.

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Everyday Religion: What the Bible says about lying - Winston-Salem Journal

Human Behavior

Low Sex Drive in Men Could Be Helped by Hormone Kisspeptin, Scientists Believe – Newsweek

A hormone linked to reproduction appears to light up pathways in the brain linked to sexual attraction, according to scientists who hope it could help those struggling with problems such as a low sex drive.

The study involved 33 healthy, heterosexual men with an average age of 24.5 who filled out questionnaires on the quality of their sex lives. Researchers either hooked up the men to a drip of kisspeptin or a placebo and asked them to complete tasks while inside an MRI scanner.

In one test, they smelled the perfume Chanel No.5, which in previous studies was linked to boosting sexual arousal as a feminine scent. Kisspeptin was found to enhance activity in parts of the brain linked to smell and sexual processes.

A second test involved looking at 60 female faces in a random order, and showed the hormone appeared to help the brain with computing beauty.

Kisspeptin appeared to enhance the sexual arousal-linked brain activity of men who reported having low-quality sex lives the most.

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According to research cited by the authors of the paper published in the journal JCI Insight, one in three people experience psychosexual disorders worldwide but there are few effective treatments due to our lack of understanding of the underlying brain processes.

Study co-author Dr. Alexander Comninos, consultant endocrinologist and honorary senior lecturer at Imperial College, U.K., told Newsweek: "We were surprised that the boosting effect of kisspeptin on attraction centers in the brain on viewing female faces was even more pronounced in men who reported a lower sexual quality of lifebasically men who were not happy with their sex life.

"This makes us think that kisspeptin really might have some therapeutic benefits in patients with related psychosexual problemssexual problems that are predominantly psychological in origin."

He continued: "Our work is at an early stage but it improves our understanding of human behavior related to attraction and sex.

"Hopefully our work can be taken forward to assess if kisspeptin administration could be used for patients with conditions such as distressing low sexual desire, which is a really important and frequently overlooked problem affecting up to 17 percent of the population."

However, Comninos also said: "It is important to consider that human attraction is not just about smell and facial appreciation.

"There is a multitude of other factors such as body language, personality traits, conversation and so forth. Also, our work is at an early stage and so we really need our colleagues in basic science research to help us understand the precise pathways and mechanisms for what we are seeing."

He said it will be several years before kisspeptin is used as treatment.

Asked if the hormone could help with low libido in people with mental conditions such as depression, Comninos said: "Kisspeptin seems to have a variety of emotional and behavioral roles in humans that we are just starting to appreciate.

"Indeed, we have previously shown that kisspeptin can have anti-depressant like effects in humans. Obviously the recommended treatments for mental illnesses will be the standard ones like anti-depressants but let's see where we go down the line."

In order to carry out the study, the team had to work out a way to get the volunteers to sniff a perfume periodically while in an MRI body scanner. To achieve this, the team created a special device featuring plastic tubes passing from a control room to the participants. "It worked really well in the end," Comninos said.

Explaining the context of the study, Comninos said a seminal work in 2003 revealed that kisspeptin is important in controlling reproductive hormones.

But experts only recently learned that it may also be important for related emotions and behaviors. The team was inspired by research in animals which suggested kisspeptin may be important for how we interpret smells and odors.

"We were also keen to build on our previous work showing that kisspeptin has roles in sexual arousal brain activity," he said.

"Attraction is often an initial and integral part of sexual arousal, so we wanted to see if kisspeptin had effects on this."

Excerpt from:
Low Sex Drive in Men Could Be Helped by Hormone Kisspeptin, Scientists Believe - Newsweek

Human Behavior

A rare disease among children is discovered in a 66-million-year-old dinosaur tumor – WITI FOX 6 Milwaukee

A rare disease that still affects humans today has been found in the fossilized remains of a duck-billed dinosaur that roamed the Earth at least 66 million years ago.

Researchers at Tel Aviv University noticed unusual cavities in two tail segments of the hadrosaur, which were unearthed at the Dinosaur Provincial Park in southern Alberta, Canada.

They compared the vertebrae with the skeletons of two humans who were known to have a benign tumor calledLCH (Langerhans cell histiocytosis),a rare and sometimes painful disease that affects children, mainly boys.

Diagnosing diseases in skeletal remains and fossils is complicated as in some cases different diseases leave similar marks on bones. LCH, however, has a distinctive appearance that fit to the lesions found in the hadrosaur, said Dr. Hila May, head of the Biohistory and Evolutionary Medicine Laboratory, at TAUs Sackler Faculty of Medicine.

The researchers used advanced, high-resolution CT scans to analyze the dinosaur tail fossils.

New technologies,such as the micro CT scanning, enabled us to examine the structure of the lesion and reconstruct the overgrowth as well as the blood vessels that fed it, May told CNN.

The micro and macro analyses confirmed that it was, in fact, LCH. This is the first time this disease has been identified in a dinosaur, May said.

In humans, LCH is sometimes described as a rare form of cancer but May said that there are different opinions among experts as to whether it is definitively a cancer or not because in some cases its passes spontaneously.

Most of the LCH-related tumors, which can be very painful, suddenly appear in the bones of children aged 2-10 years. Thankfully, these tumors disappear without intervention in many cases, she said.

Hadrosaurs would have stood about 10 meters high and weighed several tons. They roamed in large herds 66 to 80 million years ago, the study, which published this week in the journalScientific Reportssaid.

Like us, dinosaurs got sick but evidence of disease and infection in the fossil record a field known as paleopathology has been scant.

However, there is evidence that tyrannosaurids, like the T-Rex, suffered from gout and that iguanodons may have had osteoarthritis. Cancer has proved more difficult for paleopathologists to diagnose but there is evidence that dinosaurs would have suffered from the disease, the study said.

Studying disease in fossils, independent of the species, is a complicated task. And it is even more complicated when dealing with those of animals that are extinct as we do not have a living reference, May explained.

The authors said the finding could help further evolutionary medicine a new field of research that investigates the development and behavior of diseases over time.

Given that many of the diseases we suffer from come from animals, such as coronovirus, HIV and tuberculosis, May said understanding how they manifest themselves in different species and survive evolution can help find new and effective ways to treat them.

When we know that a disease is independent of species or time, it means the mechanism that encourages its development is not specific to human behavior and environment, rather [its] a basic problem in an organisms physiology, May said.

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A rare disease among children is discovered in a 66-million-year-old dinosaur tumor - WITI FOX 6 Milwaukee

Human Behavior

Aldermen close another loophole in Chicagos ethics ordinance – Chicago Sun-Times

How many times can Chicagos ethics ordinance be strengthened in hopes of combating corruption that seems to continue unabated no matter how many times the law is changed?

Chicago aldermen seem determined to find out.

The City Councils Committee on Ethics and Government Oversight tried again Thursday, this time by closing a legal loophole that has allowed city employees with contract management oversight to moonlight for private contractors.

The ordinance was once again championed by Ethics Committee Chairman Michele Smith (43rd), a former federal prosecutor.

Smith was inspired by a Chicago Sun-Times story detailing how a now- retired, $125,000-a-year deputy aviation commissioner served as a paid representative for SafeSpeed LLC, a red light camera company doing business in the suburbs.

The Sun-Times reported that Bill Helm received a cut of the fines every time a motorist got a red-light camera ticket in suburban Matteson.

In a guilty plea last month, former State Sen. Martin Sandoval, D-Chicago, admitted accepting more than $250,000 in bribes, including at least $70,000 from SafeSpeed to act as its protector in the Illinois Senate.

The SafeSpeed scandal prompted aldermen to take another look at the citys ethics ordinance and close a legal loophole that has nothing to do with Helm, said Steve Berlin, executive director of the Chicago Board of Ethics.

It would prohibit city employees with contract management authority from deriving any income, compensation or thing of value from city contractors and sub-contractors or from anyone seeking to become city contractors or sub-contractors.

The definition of income, compensation or thing of value would not include dividends from shares of common stock.

If Im exercising contract management authority under current law, theres nothing that prohibits me from working on a totally unrelated contract with one of the subs because, generally speaking, Im not dealing with the sub in my city job. Im simply dealing with the prime, Berlin said.

The temptation is that I would favor the prime to keep my job with the sub that it would affect my judgments as to how I exercise my contract management authority.

Smith added, We looked at the city ordinance and realized there was a gap there. Were taking the opportunity to fill the gap and make clearer expectations.

The last round of ethics reform was tailor made to end the days of you-scratch-my-back, Ill scratch your back at least when it comes to City Hall lobbying.

That ordinance prohibited Chicago aldermen from lobbying state and local government and prevented their counterparts at those other levels from doing the same at City Hall.

Smith and Aviation Committee Chairman Matt OShea (19th) joined forces on that earlier ordinance in an attempt to stay one step ahead of the burgeoning lobbying scandal swirling around utility giant Commonwealth Edison and video gaming interests pushing to legalize sweepstakes machines.

The changes advanced Thursday mark the third round of ethics reform since Mayor Lori Lightfoot took office and the fourth, if you count the executive order she signed just hours after taking office stripping aldermen of their unbridled control over licensing and permitting in their wards.

None of it seems to be doing any good. A burgeoning corruption scandal that includes lawmakers, lobbyists, contractors and ComEd has spread from Chicago and the south suburbs to Springfield.

I cant predict human behavior, but I can say this: We have a very reform-minded City Council and Im very proud to serve with them, Smith said.

We certainly can create the expectations of what the citizens want from their legislators and city officials.

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Aldermen close another loophole in Chicagos ethics ordinance - Chicago Sun-Times

Human Behavior

Study shows how a tiny and strange marine animal produces unlimited eggs and sperm over its lifetime – National Institutes of Health

News Release

Thursday, February 13, 2020

NIH-supported research of Hydractinia could provide clues to human reproductive conditions.

A little-known ocean-dwelling creature most commonly found growing on dead hermit crab shells may sound like an unlikely study subject for researchers, but this animal has a rare ability it can make eggs and sperm for the duration of its lifetime. This animal, called Hydractinia, does so because it produces germ cells, which are precursors to eggs and sperm, nonstop throughout its life. Studying this unique ability could provide insight into the development of human reproductive system and the formation of reproductive-based conditions and diseases in humans.

By sequencing and studying the genomes of simpler organisms that are easier to manipulate in the lab, we have been able to tease out important insights regarding the biology underlying germ cell fate determination knowledge that may ultimately help us better understand the processes underlying reproductive disorders in humans, Dr. Andy Baxevanis, director of the National Human Genome Research Institutes (NHGRI) Computational Genomics Unit and co-author of the paper. NHGRI is part of the National Institutes of Health.

In a study published in the journal Science, collaborators at NHGRI, the National University of Ireland, Galway, and the Whitney Laboratory for Marine Bioscience at the University of Florida, Augustine, reported that activation of the gene Tfap2 in adult stem cells in Hydractinia can turn those cells into germ cells in a cycle that can repeat endlessly.

In comparison, humans and most other mammals generate a specific number of germ cells only once in their lifetime. Therefore, for such species, eggs and sperm from the predetermined number of germ cells may be formed over a long period of time, but their amount is restricted. An international team of researchers have been studying Hydractinias genome to understand how it comes by this special reproductive ability.

Hydractinia lives in colonies and is closely related to jellyfish and corals. Although Hydractinia is dissimilar to humans physiologically, its genome contains a surprisingly large number of genes that are like human disease genes, making it a useful animal model for studying questions related to human biology and health.

Hydractinia colonies possess feeding polyps and sexual polyps as a part of their anatomy. The specialized sexual polyps produce eggs and sperm, making them functionally similar to gonads in species like humans.

During human embryonic development, a small pool of germ cells that will eventually become gametes is set aside, and all sperm or eggs that humans produce during their lives are the descendants of those original few germ cells. Loss of these germ cells for any reason results in sterility, as humans do not have the ability to replenish their original pool of germ cells.

In a separate study, Dr. Baxevanis at NHGRI and Dr. Christine Schnitzler at the Whitney Lab have completed the first-ever sequencing of the Hydractinia genome. In this study, researchers used this information to scrutinize the organisms genome for clues as to why there are such marked differences in reproductive capacity between one of our most distant animal relatives and ourselves.

Having this kind of high-quality, whole-genome sequence data in hand allowed us to quickly narrow down the search for the specific gene or genes that tell Hydractinias stem cells to become germ cells, said Dr. Baxevanis.

The researchers compared the behavior of genes in the feeding and sexual structures of Hydractinia. They found that the Tfap2 gene was much more active in the sexual polyps than in the feeding polyps in both males and females. This was a clue that the gene might be important in generating germ cells.

The scientists next confirmed that Tfap2 was indeed the switch that controls the process of perpetual germ cell production. The researchers used the CRISPR-Cas9 gene-editing technique to remove Tfap2 from Hydractinia and measured the resulting effects on germ cell production. They found that removing Tfap2 from Hydractinia stops germ cells from forming, bolstering the theory that Tfap2 controls the process.

The researchers also wanted to know if Tfap2 was influencing specific cells to turn into germ cells. Their analysis revealed that Tfap2 only causes adult stem cells in Hydractinia to turn into germ cells.

Interestingly, the Tfap2 gene also regulates germ cell production in humans, in addition to its involvement in myriad other processes. However, in humans, the germ cells are separated from non-germ cells early in development. Still, despite the vast evolutionary distance between Hydractinia and humans, both share a key gene that changes stem cells into germ cells.

This press release describes a basic research finding. Basic research increases our understanding of human behavior and biology, which is foundational to advancing new and better ways to prevent, diagnose and treat disease. Science is an unpredictable and incremental process each research advance builds on past discoveries, often in unexpected ways. Most clinical advances would not be possible without the knowledge of fundamental basic research.

The National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI) is one of the 27 institutes and centers at the NIH, an agency of the Department of Health and Human Services. The NHGRI Division of Intramural Research develops and implements technology to understand, diagnose and treat genomic and genetic diseases. Additional information about NHGRI can be found at: https://www.genome.gov.

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

NIHTurning Discovery Into Health

###

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Study shows how a tiny and strange marine animal produces unlimited eggs and sperm over its lifetime - National Institutes of Health

Human Behavior

Operationalizing Training in Manufacturing: Part 2 – ATD

In Pay No Attention to the Man Behind the Curtain, we talked about the need to do more with less in this ever-changing volatile environment. That post set the tone for helping your organization achieve a foundation around training and development and ensuring you, as a practitioner, have a seat at the decision-making table. The following model was created to help depict a fast way to roll out training initiatives for your organization.

When you are establishing or developing a training program, your site is most likely in a static or reactive phase. (Being in a reactive phase means that there is no or minimal vision and that resources are inadequate or barely cutting it and content is nonexistent or extremely scattered.)

Step 1. Locate the following information:

a. vision and strategyb. your sites key performance indicators.

Look for poor-performing indicators. At this point, you are looking for quick wins. What areas is your company suffering in based on data? Are any of these in part to human behavior? Can any of these indicators be influenced by development or training? Start here.

A good example of an indicator that you may be able to influence that is tracked due to government requirements, no matter where you work, is safety. Have there been any incidents recently that are trending and seemingly mindless? Mistakes like these usually can be influenced by refreshed and an increased rigor around safety training.

Dont try to do too much at oncegather your list of areas that you can impact and drill down a little further. After looking at your list of priorities, decide:

Who is the biggest customer? This could be an issue that affects the entire facility, or an issue that influences the largest department, or a department with the most money. (We need wins and to team up with those that can make that happen.) When you identify your biggest customer, sit down with them and complete a training analysis or a general interview to understand their pain points and use creativity for how training and can provide a solution.

Once you have narrowed who youre going to help and how you are going to help, you need to pilot and deploy.

After communicating to the stakeholders and the second- and first level-leaders, its time to pilot. We dont want to roll the program out to the entire group without ironing unseen kinks in the program. The best way to do that is to test the program on a smaller group. It is in this phase that you need to get, keep, and build engagement. During the pilot group, its best to get as much communication about the program as you can, and if the audience mentions any outstanding concerns, make sure you close those concerns before you deploy to the larger audience. This smaller pilot group is going to be a part of your success champions, and the goal is to get this group to be your advocate to the larger deployment audience.

Once you have tested your program on your pilot group, its time to deploy. Make sure youre ready; the biggest item here is the metric are we reporting on.

This may seem as if its oversimplifying the issue, but the foundation is clearget buy-in, determine priorities, pilot and deploy, evaluate, and determine next priority. Whats more, always align to strategy.

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Operationalizing Training in Manufacturing: Part 2 - ATD

Human Behavior

Viziblezone taps AI and smartphone data to alert drivers to pedestrians – VentureBeat

The World Health Organization reports that 1.5 million people were killed in road accidents in 2018, of which more than half were pedestrians and cyclists. One of the biggest culprits is the so-called hidden pedestrian problem, in which people obscured by obstacles suddenly appear in front of high-speed vehicles. Sensors like lidar, radar, and cameras promise to improve the detection of people on and near the road, but in some cases, not even cutting-edge advanced driver assistance systems can anticipate a persons next position.

An intriguing solution emerged last year from Viziblezone, a startup within the Jerusalem-based investment platform OurCrowds Labs/02 incubator program. Using a combination of AI and machine learning models, smartphones, and commodity car hardware, its capable of alerting drivers about potential nearby hazards while helping them to avoid accidents.

VentureBeat caught up with Shmulik Barel, one of the companys cofounders, for a live demo of the system at the OurCrowd 2020 Global Investor Summit in Jerusalem.

It starts with data collection. According to Barel, Viziblezones software development kit (SDK) for third-party apps chiefly apps for smart cities and transportation companies collects anonymized information including GPS and sensor data. Drawing from a pool of hundreds of thousands of people, Viziblezone trains and refines its AI algorithms to build behavioral profiles that factor in attributes of those peoples surroundings.

Those models are generalizable to an extent, but they have to be tailored to each city where theyre deployed, like Helsinki, Finland. Thats because pedestrians and drivers, for that matter dont behave the same everywhere. [Were working to minimize] false positives, said Barel.

Using these behavioral profiles, participating smartphones broadcast their locations to passing vehicles equipped with Viziblezones software for third-party chipsets, which receive and process these signals in real time. An AI-driven system then determines accident risk based on pedestrian information, the driver profile, and the road environment. When the system detects a high risk of an accident, it alerts the driver and the vehicles engines control unit, providing enough lead time (around 3 seconds) to avoid a collision.

Simultaneously, the system can pop up a notification on the pedestrians phone to alert them when a drivers passing by, if the pedestrian grants it permission to do so. [W]e have amazing capabilities to understand exactly what is going on, Barel said.

Barel asserted that the system can detect pedestrians up to 150 meters (about 500 feet) away in any weather, any visibility, daytime, and nighttime. He noted that theres a bit of a battery drain on the smartphone side its at about 5% in a 24-hour period, on average but that Viziblezone is working to bring that down by half.

During a demo drive on the streets of Jerusalem, along the perimeter of the International Convention Center, Barel showed the Viziblezone system in action with actors posing as pedestrians. When the actors strolled down a sidewalk close to the road, the in-car interface which integrates with infotainment systems including Android Auto suppressed all alerts. (The AI models can distinguish between a person whos about to cross a road versus walking nearby.) On the other hand, when one actor suddenly pivoted in the direction of the road and took a step toward it, the system audibly alarmed.

Barel tells me Uber is among the companies with which Viziblezone is in discussions; he says the ride-hailing company has expressed interest in building Viziblezones system into its apps, in order to prevent accidents at pick-up time. But the near-term focus is scaling up the number of devices funneling data to the algorithms to further improve their accuracy. It also plans to expand its partnerships with smart cities, to pilot tie-ins with infrastructure like traffic lights.

Viziblezone is tackling the most complicated issue in the automotive domain: the unpredictability of human behavior near roads, said Moshe Raines, CEO of OurCrowd Labs/02. There are many technologies out there such as smart cameras, lidar, radar, and others, solving for many causes of road accidents, but until now there has been no adequate solution to the problem of hidden pedestrians obscured by obstacles, and who appear suddenly in front of a traveling vehicle. By turning the pedestrians mobile phones into accident prevention devices, Viziblezone offers a comprehensive solution for pedestrian safety.

Viziblezone, which was founded in 2019, has raised $1.2 million in seed funding and has six employees.

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Viziblezone taps AI and smartphone data to alert drivers to pedestrians - VentureBeat

Human Behavior

Brown researchers to start clinical trial funded by Alzheimer’s Association – The Brown Daily Herald

University researchers are conducting a phase one clinical trial that will look at the potential therapeutic effect that a class of HIV drugs can have on the progression of Alzheimers Disease.

The 2.5 year clinical trial was funded through a $750,000 grant from the Alzheimers Association Part the Cloud Translational Research Funding program, which the researchers learned they would receive at the end of 2019. This initiative is a relatively new program funded by the largest private financial supporter of Alzheimers research in the world, said Stephen Salloway, director of neurology and the memory and aging program at Butler Hospital, Martin M. Zucker professor of psychiatry and human behavior and professor of neurology and co-principal investigator of the trial. This is a very prestigious award, and we are very excited to have this opportunity.

The researchers primary goal for this trial is to test an HIV drug called emtricitabine, sold as Emtriva, in older people with Alzheimers disease to ensure that the drug is safe and that patients tolerate it well, Salloway said. Their secondary goal is to look at the effect that emtricitabine has on inflammation, memory and daily function. This is a very favorable circumstance for research since we have the drug on the shelf, and we can repurpose (it) for another disease, Salloway said.

The study was inspired by earlier experiments conducted by John Sedivy, Hermon C. Bumpus professor of biology and professor of medical science and co-principal investigator of the current clinical trial. The prior studies found that an HIV drug, Lamivudine, could decrease inflammation in various mice tissues. Lamivudine blocks the activity of the HIV-linked reverse transcriptase enzyme, a molecular substance that allows HIV to replicate and incorporate into peoples DNA. The findings showed that retrotransposable elements, which are portions of DNA that can reinsert into other parts of a persons genome, were likely implicated in this inflammation.

While these retrotransposable elements are normally suppressed and therefore unnoticed by the body, Sedivys research suggests that the aging body reacts to the activation of the retrotransposable elements and triggers a response from the immune system. This leads to sterile inflammation. While most types of inflammation are a response to an infection, sterile inflammation is different because, as far as doctors can tell, those experiencing it are not necessarily infected. More recently, it is now believed that this sterile inflammation may not be the cause, but it exacerbates diseases normally associated with old age, Sedivy said.

Patients with Alzheimers disease, or other neurologic diseases, have been shown to have inflammation in the brain. No one really knows where this neuroinflammation is coming from. Our idea is that it might be coming from these retrotransposable elements, Sedivy added.

After discovering what may be a link between the elements and aging-affiliated diseases, Sedivy approached Salloway, who has conducted numerous Alzheimers studies.

The team for this project also includes University researchers and partners abroad. Rami Kantor, professor of medicine at the division of infectious diseases, HIV physician-scientist and co-director of Providence/Boston Center for AIDS Research Basic Science Core, was approached by Sedivy, who expressed interest in the potential incorporation of HIV medications for non-HIV purposes. My role is to follow the (study participants) clinically to make sure (the medications) are safe.

For this clinical trial, the researchers are focusing on emtricitabine. While very similar to Lamivudine, (emtricitabine) has (fewer) side effects, and it is a bit more efficacious, Kantor said. Yet, the mechanism of action is the same.

Emtricitabine is currently prescribed to millions of people as HIV therapy and is very well tolerated, Sedivy said. Still, the researchers are concerned about unanticipated side effects that these drugs may have when given to the target subjects of the study: older people and specifically older people with Alzheimers disease. But older people with HIV have already been using these kinds of drugs without experiencing adverse reactions exceeding those of younger patients, so there really are no significant red flags, Sedivy said.

Using emtricitabine and lamivudine in individuals without HIV is not an entirely novel concept. Some people who are at high risk of developing HIV have already taken lamivudine and emtricitabine as components of their treatment and have mostly tolerated the drugs, Kantor said.

The researchers are awaiting final approval from the Institutional Review Board. Afterwards, the company that produces Emtriva, Gilead Sciences Inc., will prepare and supply the drug for the research.

Following media coverage of the trial, people have expressed interest in participating in the study. The double-blind study will provide 25 participants with the active emtricitabine drug and 10 others with a placebo, which is an inactive control drug. All 35 participants will have to have early Alzheimers disease to qualify for the trial.

There is the big hope and expectation, which I think everybody shares, that this will possibly be a cure for Alzheimers, Sedivy said. But the phase one clinical trial that the researchers are undertaking is the very first baby step in that direction.

Correction: A previous version of this article referred to Rami Kantor as the co-director of Providence/Boston Center for AIDS Research, when in fact, Kantor is the co-director of the Providence/Boston Center for AIDS Research Basic Science Core. The Herald regrets the error.

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Brown researchers to start clinical trial funded by Alzheimer's Association - The Brown Daily Herald