Human Behavior

The Illusion of Genetic Romance – Scientific American

Genetic matchmaking is entering the mainstream. The prospect of meeting and selecting potential romantic partners based upon purported DNA compatibilityuntil very recently the subject of science fiction from films like The Perfect 46 to independently published romances by Clarissa Lakehas increasingly garnered both scientific and commercial attention. Earlier this year, Nozze, a well-established Japanese dating service, established a DNA Matching Course and hosted a related DNA Matching Party, both first-time offerings in that nation. For 86,400 yen ($790), men are paired with prospective dates based upon 16,000 variations in HLA gene complexes.

Nozze joins a market commercializing the science of attraction that already includes Swiss pioneer GenePartner, Houston-based Pheramor and services that combine genetic and non-genetic profiles like Instant Chemistry and SingldOut. Considerable media attention has been devoted to investigating the science behind these services; unfortunately, both the ethical and sociological implications have received relatively short shrift.

The underlying science itself is hardly convincing. Since the 1970s, researchers have found that variations in the genes of the major histocompatability complex (MHC) play a role in mate selection in mice. Similar patterns have subsequently been found in fish, pheasants and bats, but not in sheep. The possibility that MHC plays a role in human mate selection first arose as a result of a well-known experiment by Swiss biologist Claus Wedekind that is colloquially known as the sweaty T-shirt study. Researchers had men wear T-shirts for extended periods of time before placing the shirts in boxes; then they had women sniff the shirts to rate the former wearers sexual attractiveness. They found an inverse correlation between MHC similarity and attraction score.

Since that time, studies in human beings have yielded mixed results. The most persuasive data come from an investigation of Hutterite couples in North America who appear to display nonrandom MHC assorted mating preferences. But this correlationgiving genetic matchmaking the benefit of the doubtestablishes at most a natural preference, and a natural preference is a far cry from connubial compatibility. To our knowledge, nobody has actually surveyed married Hutterite couples to determine whether MHC compatibility plays a role in their levels of marital bliss, or the quality of their dinner conversation, or the frequency of their escapades between the sheets. On a more global scale, no data have yet established a relationship between MHC compatibility and lower divorce rates.

One must ask precisely what we mean by compatibility. At the most fundamental level, couples with MHC-dissimilarity (and thus more so-called mating compatibility) demonstrate lower rates of spontaneous abortion. The dissimilarity may also increase genetic polymorphism, which in turn may lower the manifestation of recessive diseases. However, the impact of MHC-dissimilarity on either of these phenomena is likely to prove relatively small, and therefore should not be expected to play a significant role in the marital happiness or cohesion of many couples.

In addition, genetic polymorphism may help species survive environmental challengesyet evolutionary advantage is probably not a major variable that most couples consider when seeking romantic bliss. One cannot also ignore the unknowns: Matching couples based on MHC markers may pose some survival benefits, but nobody knows at what cost; it is theoretically possible that the offspring of such couples are also more aggressive or less creative, just to name two traits arbitrarilyand magnifying these effects artificially might prove significantly deleterious to our civilization in the long run.

Harvard geneticist George Church has championed another version of compatibility. Using whole genome sequencing, he hopes to match couples so as to reduce or eliminate many recessively inherited diseases. In Ashkenazi populations, the Committee for Prevention of Jewish Genetic Diseases (better known as Dor Yeshorim) already uses a voluntary testing and matching system to prevent disorders such as Tay-Sachs, Canavan and Niemann-Pick. Church hopes to implement a variation of this program for couples everywhere, claiming it could end some 7,000 genetic diseases and save 50 million lives a year.

The ethical implications of Churchs proposal are complex. If couples are encouraged to use his pairing system, then those who find love outside the realm of genetic matchmaking and produce offspring with genetic disorders may be unfairly stigmatized. At a more practical level, even if the elimination of recessive illnesses is a social good, it is clearly not the sort of compatibility most daters seek in a matchmaking service.

When most people speak of romantic compatibility, the odds are that they mean factors like temperament, tastes and interests. To date, no study has connected these with any genetic variable. MHC-dissimilarity is as likely to lead to partners with temperamental and aesthetic difference as to those with similarities. Ironically, even compatibility appears to have minimal impact on satisfaction in relationships. Multiple studies have shown that universal traits such as kindness, rather than similarities, are the keys to marital happiness.

Genetic matchmaking reflects two concerning trends in modern society. The first is the pandemic loneliness and search for connection that has arisen in the wake of the breakdown of traditional community structures. To use a metaphor first introduced by political scientist Robert Putnam, we are a society bowling alone. We are increasingly willing to shell out a few hundred dollars or a few thousand yen for anything that smacks of a cure.

Genetic matchmaking also manifests the misguided belief that science can solve all of our problems. Unfortunately, we cannot discover, pay or invent our way out of our isolation. Science may ultimately provide tools that help us rebuild societal cohesion, but without meaningful changes in social policy and human behavior, science alone has little to offer. In this case, the science in question is, at best, being misusedand arguably not science at all.

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The Illusion of Genetic Romance - Scientific American

Human Behavior

Study looks into how neurons function in adults with young-onset Parkinson’s – Daily Bruin

Adults with young-onset Parkinsons disease may be born with malfunctioning brain cells, a new Cedars-Sinai study found with assistance from UCLA researchers.

This suggests factors other than environmental exposure likely contribute to neurodegenerative diseases such as Parkinsons.

Young-onset Parkinsons disease, a type of Parkinsons that develops before the age of 50, accounts for about 10% of all Parkinsons cases. Young-onset Parkinsons is a neurodegenerative disease, meaning it damages the central nervous system and results in a loss of proper motor function.

More than a million people are affected by this in the United States alone, said Zhan Shu, a postdoctoral scholar at the Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior who participated in the Cedars-Sinai research.

To model the neurons involved in Parkinsons disease, the researchers used induced pluripotent stem cells, or iPSCs adult red blood cells that have been converted into stem cells that can give rise to any type of cell in the body. They converted iPSCs from individuals with young-onset Parkinsons disease into neurons that produce dopamine.

iPSC cells from patients with young-onset Parkinsons showed the signature changes seen in neurons in the brains of those with Parkinsons. Their findings were published in Nature Medicine in January.

Dopamine plays a large role in neural functions, and a lack of regulation of dopamine production causes many neurodegenerative diseases, Shu said. In individuals with Parkinsons disease, neurons that produce dopamine die off, which impairs motor regulation.

This will usually start with a tremor, Shu said. Its pretty obvious for family to see. Once you start to show symptoms, they move from the hands to the legs to the nonmotor parts as well.

The use of iPSCs allows researchers to determine how the disease progresses in absence of external environmental factors, said Alexander Laperle, a co-author of the study from Cedars-Sinai. iPSCs are important for this research because they simulate how diseased neurons form during human development.

Laperle compared the current research technique to a car crash. Researchers can see the impacts and physiology of the disease, however they cant see any of the development, similarly to how seeing a crashed car doesnt tell an observer how the crash occurred.

We dont know anything about how (neurodegenerative diseases) originated or progressed, he said. You cant directly observe this in a person.

Many of Parkinsons neurodegenerative symptoms occur many years before obvious symptoms can be detected, said Nigel Maidment, a professor at the Semel Institute who also participated in the research. Many of the symptoms are not as visible or obvious, Maidment said. Other symptoms can include cognitive issues, digestive tract issues and sleep disturbances.

There are many nonmotor symptoms that patients often describe as more distressing, Maidment said.

Detecting the presence of Parkinsons disease and malfunctioning neurons before major symptoms develop could assist researchers in potentially finding ways to slow or stop the diseases progression, Maidment added.

If we are to halt the progression of the disease it will be necessary to identify such changes early, Maidment said.

Many of the genetic causes of Parkinsons disease are still unknown. Laperle added that if any cases are genetic, it is likely that many genes interact to cause Parkinsons disease. The illness has no cure, but different treatment options can help individuals manage the symptoms.

Approximately 15% of Parkinsons disease patients have a family history of the illness, Shu said. It is still unclear how genetic causes contribute to the risk of developing the disease, he added.

Shu said the iPSC research at Cedars-Sinai will give researchers new models for drug development. He said he hopes to expand research territories beyond preclinical animal models.

Using human iPSCs instead of animal cells has the potential to make the search for treatment more effective, he added.

Thats the whole purpose of the paper, to find a platform for people to test (drugs), Shu said.

Many treatments that work in animal models cannot be translated to people, Laperle said. Part of this reason is because animals dont have neurodegenerative diseases the way humans do, he said.

If I give a drug to a mouse, I can have a positive impact on that animals symptoms, but its not a great predictor of when you give that drug to a person, he said.

Many of the drugs currently on the market only address the symptoms, Laperle said. For example, the drug levodopa helps replace missing dopamine in the central nervous system. However, patients can develop a tolerance to the drug and its efficacy eventually decreases.

Laperle said he hopes this research may allow for the development of more effective drugs that slow or stop the progression of this disease.

There arent any good approaches yet to slow this (progression) down or restore function, he said.

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Study looks into how neurons function in adults with young-onset Parkinson's - Daily Bruin

Human Behavior

Vectra Empowers Organizations to Detect and Stop Office 365 Breaches – AiThority

As Account Takeovers Continue for Office 365, Controlling Risk Remains the Top Concern for Organizations Adopting SaaS Models

Cyber risk is becoming an escalating concern for organizations around the world, and Office 365 data breaches are at the forefront. Even with the rising adoption of incremental security approaches like multi-factor authentication, access controls continue to be circumvented. In fact, 40% of organizations suffer from Office 365 account takeovers. As these data breaches make headlines with growing consistency, the resulting financial and reputational costs mount.

It is far too easy for an attacker to manipulate human behavior and gain high privilege access to business-critical SaaS resources. According to Microsofts Q3 FY19 earnings call, there are more than180 millionmonthly users on Office 365.With so many users, 100% cyber hygiene becomes impossible. To make matters worse, teams continue to struggle to keep up with weekly vendor-driven configuration changes and new best practices. And once an initial foothold is gained in a SaaS application, it is just a matter of time before they laterally move and cross into other parts of the infrastructure.

Recommended AI News: The Surprising Lesson A Blue Cow And AI Can Teach Us About Being Successful In E-Commerce

Against this backdrop, amassive number of alerts are flooding Security Operations Centers (SOCs), forcing analysts to spend time manually analyzing and prioritizing which ones deserve attention. This is overwhelming security analysts time and organizations security budgets. As threat actors become more efficient at dodging and targeting the enterprise, most analysts simply cant keep up.

Attackers will follow a path of least resistance and the convergence of these elements makes exploiting the cloud easy for them.In no other construct is it fair to expect a person, or security team, to be correct 100% of the time. This is an unacceptable expectation and entirely unfair to security teams, said Vectra CEOHitesh Sheth. The last thing we want is to create more work for security teams. What is needed is technology that removes the dependency on human behavior and human error and brings control back to the security team. This is what Vectra can provide.

Recommended AI News: NTT DATA Announces Strategic Collaboration Agreement With Amazon Web Services

Credential abuse is the leading attack vector in SaaS, especially for Office 365. In an effort to help organizations securely and successfully protect their applications,Vectra AI, the leader innetwork threat detection and response (NDR), is announcing the launch of Cognito Detect for Office 365. Backed by new detection models focused on credentials and privilege in SaaS applications, Vectra expands cloud coverage from Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) and extends the ability totrack attacker activity pivoting between on-premise, data center, IaaS and SaaS. Given that attackers dont operate in silos, a security solution shouldnt either. Vectra delivers the complete visibility across your deployment footprint that leaves attackers without a place to hide.

Prevention technology has long been available and continues to evolve, however, it doesnt guarantee that data is safe. The real growth has been in detection and response capabilities, which have been long missing from most organizations resources, continued Sheth. We are the first and only NDR to apply privilege-based detections in SaaS applications. Our AI-driven solution seamlessly ties into your existing Office 365 deployment, and detects privilege-based attacker behaviors, giving you full visibility into your SaaS deployments. We continue to be at the forefront of security by detecting privilege abuse behaviors across the entire lifecycle of an attack in the cloud.

Recommended AI News: NICE Introduces Game-Changing Robotic Process Automation Offering to Fast-Track Adoption and Success

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Vectra Empowers Organizations to Detect and Stop Office 365 Breaches - AiThority

Human Behavior

Sticking to Your New Year’s Resolutions: Brown Alpert Medical School Expert LIVE at 4 PM – GoLocalProv

Wednesday, February 12, 2020

Smart Health on GoLocalProv

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Dr. Dale Bond PHOTO: Warren Alpert Medical School

Studies show that only 8% of Americans who make a New Year's resolution actually keep them all year and 80% have failed by the start of February Bond, a Professor of Psychiatry and Human Behavior at The Miriam Hospital and Brown Alpert Medical School, will talk about setting a workout habit, and when the best time to workout is.

About Bond

Bond received M.S. andPh.D. degrees in Health Promotion and Education at Purdue University and the University of Utah, respectively, and completed postdoctoral training in behavioral medicine at Brown Alpert Medical School.

His research involves twoprincipal areas: (1) assessing and intervening on energy balance behaviors and related mechanisms in the context of bariatric surgery and obesity; and (2) assessment and treatment of behavioral risk factors and comorbidities among individuals who have a migraine.

Dr. Bond has been awarded grants from NIH and other organizations to conduct prospective studies and randomized trials pursuant to advancement of these areas. He also sits on the editorial boards for multipleobesity-relatedjournals, is a member of severalAmerican Society for Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery (ASMBS)and Obesity Society (TOS) committees, was a recent member ofthe NIH Behavioral Interventions and Outcomes study section, and is a research mentor within the NHLBI T32 Postdoctoral Training in Cardiovascular Behavioral Medicine Program at The Miriam Hospital and Brown University.

Warren Alpert Medical School

Since granting its first Doctor of Medicine degrees in 1975, the Warren Alpert Medical School has become a national leader in medical education and biomedical research. By attracting first-class physicians and researchers to Rhode Island over the past four decades, the Medical School and its seven affiliated teaching hospitals have radically improved the state's health care environment, from health care policy to patient care.

"Smart Health" is a GoLocalProv.com segment featuring experts from The Warren Alpert Medical School GoLocal LIVE.

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Sticking to Your New Year's Resolutions: Brown Alpert Medical School Expert LIVE at 4 PM - GoLocalProv

Human Behavior

Work In Progress: Finding A Job In The Matrix – Worldcrunch

In early civilizations, landing a job amounted to interning until your employer died. Fast-forward a few thousand years and fortunately, internships have gotten shorter ... and life expectancy has gotten longer! Still, job hunting has become a journey marked by alternating pulls of hope and hysteria. The swift ascension of global connectedness, Artificial Intelligence, the shifting nature of social norms are uprooting the way we're evaluated by recruiters.

This edition of Work In Progress dives into how these transformations affect us today and what expectations we should have for recruitment in the future. In many countries, the classic curriculum vitae is becoming obsolete as recruiters use AI and virtual-reality simulations to evaluate candidates; in Russia, employers are shifting their focus from looks to merit; while in the U.S., "likability" might soon be more important than your masters' degree.

WHAT IF AI DOESN'T LIKE ME? In Amsterdam, ketchup manufacturer Kraft Heinz relies on Artificial Intelligence to recruit, assess, hire, and manage their staff. Defenders of AI-based recruitment claim it removes human bias and promotes diversity, but others say it might just as well enhance existing biases or actively create new ones since the algorithms must be designed by human (usually male) developers. It's still probably too early to decide whether machines should be welcomed as gatekeepers to our dream jobs. Frida Polli, CEO of the AI-driven recruitment platform used by Heinz, puts it this way: "AI is like teenage sex, everyone says they're doing it, and nobody really knows what it is."

STAT DU JOUR

Big Brother is watching, and we are starting to like it: In 2015, only 30% of companies were using monitoring techniques to collect data on how employees spend their time at work, reports Workplace Intelligence. That number is expected to grow to 80% in 2020. Today, 30% of people say they are comfortable with having their email monitored by employers, up from 10% in 2015.

BIG OR THICK, OR BOTH? Perhaps the way to a bias-free recruitment process is to merge artificial and human intelligence. Big data can provide real-time information on consumer and social trends, but a deeper social analysis would require adding "thick data" or information derived from human behavior. Diego Fuentes dives into these two data types in Santiago-based America Economia, and Worldcrunch has the full article here in English.

NO RESUMES NEEDED! In addition to the new challenge of outfoxing algorithms, your future career might ultimately depend on a much more basic standard: whether people like you. Psychologist Dawn Graham writes in Forbes on the topic of "likability," which many believe is an innate quality. Yet Graham gives some practical advice on how to raise your likability quotient during a job interview:

1: Be Human! A big part of the interview is evaluating if you're a good fit for the team. That isn't something you can fake ... Prepare the best you can, and then be yourself.

2: Know Your Audience. In order to sell the product (which is you), it's critical to know what's important to the buyer.

RUSSIAN BEAUTY A study found that the number of employers in Russia who saw appearance as an important recruitment factor has fallen from 82% to 66% over the last decade, reports Rossiyskaya Gazeta. While many in the looks-conscious country may still airbrush their LinkedIn photo, the study found that employees now perceive looks as less important in career advancement, down from 84% to 60% over the same period.

ODD JOB

GREEN-COLLAR JOBS IN ARGENTINA A more sustainable economy has created a new workforce in advanced fields like electricity generation, transportation and energy storage. However, not all green-collar jobs require a master's degree. In Argentina, more than 150,000 people work with recovering recyclable materials in urban centers or at garbage dumps, reports La Nacion. Under the banner of "inclusive recycling," many of the workers are organizing in cooperatives to promote social security. On average, every worker recovers about 100 kilos of waste per day the equivalent of what is generated by 100 people.

FUTURE OF WORK, FLASHBACK How far is it from New York to Buffalo? Why is cast iron called pig iron? What country produce the finest china?

You don't know?! Well, then we regret to inform you that Thomas Edison wouldn't have hired you. A century ago, Edison pioneered the employment form, with his 146-question quiz for prospective employees at his power plant. In 1921, the New York Times revealed the quiz, which became a national topic of controversy. Reporters even took the test to Albert Einstein who flunked for not knowing the exact speed of sound Duh. Trivia masochists can take the test, republished here on Gizmodo. And we'll leave it to the AI developers to feed Edison's data into their next algorithm!

See more from Work In Progress here

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Work In Progress: Finding A Job In The Matrix - Worldcrunch

Human Behavior

Gamers will teach AI how to control military drone swarms – The Next Web

Gamers could soon be guiding military robots afterresearchers won a grant to investigate what they can teach an AI about controlling swarms of drones.

Scientists from the University of Buffalowillstudy the decisions, brainwaves and eye movements of people playing video games. They will then use this data to build an AI that can controlautonomous air and ground robots

The participants will play a real-time strategy game developed by the research team thats comparable to the likes of Starcraft and Company of Heroes,UBNow revealed.

[Read: How DeepMinds AI defeated top players at StarCraft II]

While they play, the researchers will record their decisions, track their eye movements with high-speed cameras, and monitor their brain wave patterns through electroencephalography (EEG)headsets.

The data they extract will be used to create algorithms that guideswarms of up to 250 military drones.

We dont want the AI system just to mimic human behavior; we want it to form a deeper understanding of what motivates human actions. Thats what will lead to more advanced AI, principal investigatorChowdhury told UBNow.

The study will be funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), which recentlypublished a video showing how itsdrone swarms could conduct anurban raid.

StarCraft experts left unimpressed by DARPAs efforts now have a chance to demonstrate that their own tactics are superior.

Youre here because you want to learn more about artificial intelligence. So do we. So this summer, were bringing Neural to TNW Conference 2020, where we will host a vibrant program dedicated exclusively to AI. With keynotes by experts from companies like Spotify, RSA, and Medium, our Neural track will take a deep dive into new innovations, ethical problems, and how AI can transform businesses. Get your early bird ticket and check out the full Neural track.

Published February 12, 2020 18:24 UTC

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Gamers will teach AI how to control military drone swarms - The Next Web

Human Behavior

AI and Predictive Analytics: Myth, Math, or Magic? – TDWI

AI and Predictive Analytics: Myth, Math, or Magic?

Don't fall into the trap of thinking that math-based analytics can predict human behavior with certainty.

We are a species invested in predicting the future -- as if our lives depended on it. Indeed, good predictions of where wolves might lurk were once a matter of survival. Even as civilization made us physically safer, prediction has remained a mainstay of culture, from the haruspices of ancient Rome inspecting animal entrails to business analysts dissecting a wealth of transactions to foretell future sales.

Such predictions generally disappoint. We humans are predisposed to assuming that the future is a largely linear extrapolation of the most recent (and familiar) past. This is one -- or a combination -- of the nearly 200 cognitive biases that allegedly afflict us.

A Prediction for the Coming Decade

With these caveats in mind, I predict that in 2020 (and the decade ahead) we will struggle if we unquestioningly adopt artificial intelligence (AI) in predictive analytics, founded on an unjustified overconfidence in the almost mythical power of AI's mathematical foundations. This is another form of the disease of technochauvinism I discussed in a previous article.

Science fiction author and journalist Cory Doctorow's article, "Our Neophobic, Conservative AI Overlords Want Everything to Stay the Same," in the Los Angeles Review of Books, offers a succinct and superb summary of technochauvinism as it operates in AI. "Machine learning," he asserts, "is about finding things that are similar to things the machine learning system can already model." These models are, of course, built from past data with all its errors, gaps, and biases.

The premise that AI makes better (e.g., less biased) predictions than humans is already demonstrably false. Employment screening apps, for example, are often riddled with a bias toward hiring white males because the historical hiring data used to train its algorithms consisted largely of information about hiring such workers.

The widespread belief that AI can predict novel aspects of the future is simply a case of magical thinking. Machine learning is fundamentally conservative, based as it is on correlations in existing data; its predictions are essentially extensions of the past. AI lacks the creative thinking ability of humans. Says Tabitha Goldstaub, a tech entrepreneur and commentator, about the use of AI by Hollywood studios to decide which movies to make: "Already we're seeing that we're getting more and more remakes and sequels because that's safe, rather than something that's out of the box."

A Predictive Puzzle

AI, together with the explosion of data available from the internet, have raised the profile of what used to be called operational BI, now known as predictive analytics and its more recent extension into prescriptive analytics. Attempting to predict the future behavior of prospects and customers and, further, to influence their behavior is central to digital transformation efforts. Predictions based on AI, especially in real-time decision making with minimal human involvement, require careful and ongoing examination lest they fall foul of the myth of an all-knowing AI.

As Doctorow notes, AI conservatism arises from detecting correlations within and across existing large data sets. Causation -- a much more interesting feature -- is more opaque, usually relying on human intuition to separate the causal wheat from the correlational chaff, as I discussed in a previous Upside article.

Nonetheless, causation can be separated algorithmically from correlation in specific cases, as described by Mollie Davies and coauthors. I cannot claim to follow the full mathematical formulae they present, but the logic makes sense. As the authors conclude, "Instead of being naively data driven, we should seek to be causal information driven. Causal inference provides a set of powerful tools for understanding the extent to which causal relationships can be learned from the data we have." They present math that data scientists should learn and apply more widely.

However, there is a myth here, too: that predictive (and prescriptive) analytics can divine human intention, which is the true basis for understanding and influencing behavior. As Doctorow notes, in trying to distinguish a wink from a twitch, "machine learning [is not] likely to produce a reliable method of inferring intention: it's a bedrock of anthropology that intention is unknowable without dialogue." Dialogue -- human-to-human interaction -- attracts little attention in digital business implementation.

The Dilemma of (Real) Prediction

Once accused of looking too intently in the rearview mirror, business intelligence has today embraced prediction and prescription as among its most important goals. Despite advances in data availability and math-based technology, truly envisaging future human intentions and actions remains a strictly human gift.

The myth that math-based analytics can predict human behavior with certainty is probably the most dangerous magical thinking we data professionals can indulge in.

About the Author

Dr. Barry Devlin defined the first data warehouse architecture in 1985 and is among the worlds foremost authorities on BI, big data, and beyond. His 2013 book, Business unIntelligence, offers a new architecture for modern information use and management.

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AI and Predictive Analytics: Myth, Math, or Magic? - TDWI

Human Behavior

Fire safety conference brings researchers from across the globe to UMD – The Diamondback

Almost two years ago, research administrators from the University of Melbourne visited the University of Maryland to discuss a possible collaboration.

But the two teams left the meeting with a more ambitious goal to create an international group of experts that would address fire safety issues on a global scale.

Since then, the International Fire Safety Consortium has added three other institutions: the University of Queensland in Australia, Lund University in Sweden and the University of Edinburgh in Scotland. And on Monday, the researchers met for the very first time with federal, corporate and nonprofit partners.

Monday began a four-day workshop at the University of Maryland, where researchers talked with representatives from the National Institute of Standards and Technology, the World Bank and the Federal Emergency Management Agency, among others.

Those are very helpful conversations [to] inform the consortium efforts and help us focus on problem areas where our researchers can be useful, said Ted Knight, a staff member from this universitys research division.

University of Maryland professor Dr. Arnaud Trouv speaks at the International Fire Safety Consortium at J.M. Patterson Building on Feb 11, 2020. (Joe Ryan/The Diamondback)

During the workshop, the researchers will also narrow down the projects theyre considering and discuss regions of interest for their research. The focus areas include structure fires, especially ones in marginalized communities, and wildfires.

The problems are becoming more intense and more difficult at a pace that is higher than the pace at which we are producing new knowledge and new technical expertise, said Arnaud Trouv, a professor in this universitys fire protection engineering department who is involved in the consortium.

Bryce Bathras, a sophomore fire protection engineering major at this university, is hopeful the consortium might help researchers tackle the larger problems, like wildfires, by working as a team.

Its a really good thing that were coming together to talk about fire safety, Bathras said. Since Maryland is the only ABET-accredited undergraduate for fire protection its just a lot of the same people working on most of the topics.

Read more: [Meet the UMD students who volunteer overnight to keep the community safe from fires]

Bathras, who had always wanted to become an engineer, settled on fire protection engineering when some of her family members in California were affected by large amounts of smoke from wildfires.

The state had its deadliest wildfire season on record two years ago, destroying wildlife and forcing thousands of people to leave their homes. The recent wildfires are more intense partly due to climate change, Trouv said. Scientists dont know if thats the only cause, he said, as their understanding of how fire spreads is still limited.

And last spring, when the roof of the historic Notre-Dame cathedral located a little over 20 miles from Trouvs alma mater, cole Centrale of Paris caught fire, the researcher thought to himself: It might have been prevented if a fire protection engineer was involved in the buildings maintenance.

In this way, Trouv said, fire safety reminds him of cars.

Theres a difference between the mechanic and somebody who designs the engine, he said.

Tackling fire safety issues requires knowledge of structural engineering, toxicity and even human behavior, said Margaret McNamee, a professor from Lund University.

Read more: [Out here by ourselves: Women aerospace majors are fighting to increase their numbers]

Fire science is a little bit different to [other] engineering sciences, McNamee said. Fire safety can only be created through a multidisciplinary approach.

Another focus area of the initiative is social inequality in fire safety. In a meeting room with several other researchers, Graham Spinardi, a professor from the University of Edinburgh, was the only social scientist.

Spinardi said changes to an areas environment are not possible unless they get residents on board, especially in the developing world.

If you dont understand that, you cant make any progress, Spinardi said.

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Fire safety conference brings researchers from across the globe to UMD - The Diamondback

Human Behavior

The T-Mobile Sprint Merger Just Got Rubber Stamped and We All Lose – VICE

A federal judge has ruled in favor of T-Mobiles $26 billion merger with Sprint, despite ample historical evidence showing the deal will likely erode competition, raise U.S. wireless data prices, and result in significant layoffs as redundant jobs are eliminated.

In the ruling, U.S. District Judge Victor Marrero shot down the complaints of numerous state attorneys general, insisting that eliminating one of just four major U.S. wireless carriers was not reasonably likely to substantially lessen competition in the wireless space.

At times Marrero was strangely esoteric as he tried to justify approval of the controversial deal.

How the future manifests itself and brings to pass what it holds is a multifaceted phenomenon that is not necessarily guided by theoretical forces or mathematical models, Marreno wrote. Instead, causal agents that engender knowing and purposeful human behavior, individual, and collective, fundamentally shape that narrative.

A coalition of state attorneys general collaboratively sued to stop the deal last year, claiming the reduction of competitors in the U.S. market from four to three would reduce the industrys incentive to compete on price, driving up already expensive U.S. wireless consumer bills.

From Ireland to Canada, theres abundant evidence that similar four to three mergers routinely result in significantly higher rates courtesy of less overall competition. Regulators have blocked similar mergers in the U.S. for just this reason; from AT&Ts attempted acquisition of T-Mobile in 2011, to a seperate Sprint T-Mobile merger proposed in 2014.

The deal had already been a source of major controversy after the Ajit Pai FCC quickly approved the merger before staffers had even had a chance to review the proposal. The DOJ then rubber stamped the deal against the advice of many agency staffers.

To justify its approval, the DOJ signed off on a T-Mobile proposal that would involve shoveling some of T-Mobiles spectrum to Dish Network, which would then build an entirely new, replacement fourth carrier over a period of seven years. But Dish has a history of empty promises in wireless, and economists have warned the plan isnt likely to work.

Under the proposal Dish will spend several years as little more than a rebranded version of T-Mobiles existing service. Economists say its unlikely the Trump FCCwhich has been little more than a rubber stamp to the telecom industry over the last three yearswill be willing to hold either company accountable should the deal not deliver on its promises.

From the start, this merger has been about massive corporate profits over all else, and despite the companies false claims, this deal will endanger wireless subscribers where it hurts most: their wallets, New York Attorney General Letitia James said of todays ruling.

Then theres the layoffs.

Contrary to T-Mobiles claims that the deal will create jobs, analysts have predicted that the merger could eliminate anywhere between 10,000 and 20,000 jobs as redundant retail, support, and middle management positions are inevitably eliminated. Unions claim the merger could eliminate as many as 30,000 positions over the next five years.

T-Mobile and Sprint have claimed that Sprint would collapse unless the deal that was approved, though economists were quick to note there were numerous deals (like collaboration with Comcast) that didnt require the elimination of a major, direct competitor. Similarly, experts have shot down T-Mobiles claims that the deal was necessary to speed up 5G deployment.

In the end, consumers will be the losers, as they have over the past three decades of massive telecommunications and media mergers, former FCC lawyer Gigi Sohn told Motherboard.

U.S. consumers already pay some of the highest prices in the developed world for wireless service, thanks in large part to revolving door regulators and lax antitrust enforcers that repeatedly refuse to hold the industry accountable for market failure, Sohn said.

Over and over again, consumers are promised enormous benefits and so-called efficiencies by merging parties, she added. But what they are left with each time are corporate behemoths who can raise prices at will, use their gatekeeper power to destroy competition and new voices and hijack regulatory and legislative processes.

While Congress routinely hyperventilates over the many justified problems with big tech, big telecom continues to get a free pass from both Congress and the Trump administration, despite engaging in many of the same (or worse) behaviors.

Comcast and NBC Universal; AT&T and Time Warner; AT&T and BellSouth, AT&T and Cingular; Spectrum and Time Warner Cable; theres 40 years of clear historical data showing that mindless consolidation in the telecom space results in higher prices, fewer jobs, and steadily-worse customer support. Its a history lesson America refuses to learn.

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The T-Mobile Sprint Merger Just Got Rubber Stamped and We All Lose - VICE

Human Behavior

The Government Wants to Use Your Brainwaves to Train Swarms of Military Robots – Popular Mechanics

Douglas Levere/University at Buffalo

In what sounds like a Black Mirror-esque approach to military strategy, the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is funding a study that will use gamers' brain waves to teach hives of defense robots how to swarm together to complete missions.

DARPA has given a $316,000 federal grant to the University at Buffalo Artificial Intelligence Institute to study gamers' brain waves and eye movements. The aim is to improve organization and strategy among autonomous air and ground robots.

Why would the U.S. want to invest in robot swarms? Because bevies of bots are already being pursued elsewhere in the world, like Russia. Flock-93, for example, is a vision of 100 kamikaze-like drones, each armed with an explosive charge, swarming targets like vehicle convoys. In theory, these hordes of robots are drastically more difficult to defend against, so the U.S. certainly doesn't want to lag behind.

"The idea is to eventually scale up to 250 aerial and ground robots, working in highly complex situations," said Souma Chowdhury, assistant professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at Buffalo, in a press statement. "For example, there may be a sudden loss of visibility due to smoke during an emergency. The robots need to be able to effectively communicate and adapt to challenges like that."

Douglas Levere/University at Buffalo

To put it simply, groups of more primitive robots can complete certain tasks better than one really intelligent robot could on its own. This theory in artificial intelligence is referred to as "swarm intelligence."

It's a trait found throughout nature. Consider the modest ant: By itself, an ant can lift 5,000 times its own body weight, but that still doesn't amount to much. A colony of ants working together, meanwhile, can pull off some pretty unbelievable feats, like creating superhighways of food, waging war, and enslaving other ants.

This biomimicry is a hot topic in computer science, Chowdhury told DigitalTrends.

"Its becoming known that there are a lot of different applications which could be done by not using a single $1 million robot, but rather a large swarm of simpler, cheaper robots," he said. "These could be ground-based, air-based, or a combination of those two approaches."

Douglas Levere/University at Buffalo

In Chowdhury's study, experts will play real-time strategy games similar to StarCraft, Stellaris, and Company of Heroes, which force players to use resources to build units and defeat opponents. The researchers are developing their own unique strategy-based game.

As gamers play, the decisions they make are recorded, and researchers will track their eye movements through high-speed cameras. In tandem, their brain activity will be monitored through electroencephalograms. (Those are the headsets with a bunch of electrodes on the cap that you might wear during a sleep study).

Then, based on the data they've gathered, the scientists will build new algorithms that will guide autonomous drones and ground robots used in military applications.

"We dont want the AI system just to mimic human behavior; we want it to form a deeper understanding of what motivates human actions," Chowdhury said. "Thats what will lead to more advanced AI."

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The Government Wants to Use Your Brainwaves to Train Swarms of Military Robots - Popular Mechanics