Human Behavior

Using Voice Analysis to Assess the Well-Being of Patients – Psych Congress Network

An interactive voice applications assessment of patient well-being through analysis of their speech was highly comparable with physicians tracking of patient well-being, according to a study published online in PLOS One.

The pilot study included 47 patients with diagnoses of bipolar disorder, major depressive disorder, schizophrenia, or schizoaffective disorder. For up to 14 months, patients provided speech samples by calling a toll-free number at least weekly and answering 3 open-ended questions: How have you been over the past few days? Whats been troubling or challenging over the past few days? Whats been particularly good or positive?

The application, MyCoachConnect, employed artificial intelligence trained to use a patients words to analyze well-being. The app focused mostly on word choice and how responses changed over time and had a smaller emphasis on tone of voice and other audio features.

Using Data to Better Understand Patients and Their Mental Health

The way people answer questions and the way they change their answers over time is unique to each patient, said lead author Armen Arevian, MD, PhD, director of the Innovation Lab at the Jane and Terry Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior, University of California Los Angeles. We were looking at a person as a person and not as a diagnosis.

After comparing the technologys analysis of patient well-being with patient global assessment ratings provided by clinicians, researchers deemed the app both effective and feasible to use.

Technology doesnt have to be complicated, Dr. Arevian said. In this study, patients didnt need a smartphone. It could be simple and low tech on the patient end, and high tech on the backend.

Some patients remarked that speaking to a computer-generated voice was freeing.

They also said it helped them feel less lonely because they knew that someone would be listening to it, Dr. Arevian said, and to them that meant that someone cared.

Jolynn Tumolo

References

Arevian AC, Bone D, Malandrakis N, et al. Clinical state tracking in serious mental illness through computational analysis of speech. PLOS One. 2020;15(1):e0225695.

App uses voice analysis, AI to track wellness of people with mental illness [press release]. Los Angeles, California: University of California - Los Angeles Health Sciences; January 17, 2020.

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Using Voice Analysis to Assess the Well-Being of Patients - Psych Congress Network

Human Behavior

AI in the Courtroom: Will a Robot Sentence You? – Walter Bradley Center for Natural and Artificial Intelligence

The possibility of an AI judge is raised in a recent article on new developments in artificial intelligence (AI) in court systems, which include Los Angeles Gina the Avatar for traffic ticket resolution and a proposed Jury Chat Bot.

Some experts think AI might be fairer than human judgment:

It may not be particularly hard to build an AI-based system that delivers better results than humans, panelists at the conference noted. Theres plenty of evidence of all kinds of human bias built into justice systems. In 2011, for instance, a study of an Israeli parole board showed by the parole board delivered harsher decisions in the hour before lunch and the hour before the end of the day.

But others warn of AIs limitations. Many AI decisions are not explainable because the computer system is motoring through 10,000 cases and comes up with a mathematical solution. Humans do not think that way and may not regard the decision as fair, no matter what it is.

In any event, one Superior Court judge warns that many cases dont come down to information alone:

In my experience in judging, especially with a self-represented litigant, most of the time people dont even now what to tell you, she said. If an automated system builds its decision based on the information it receives, she continued, how are you going to train it to look for other stuff? For me thats a very subjective, in-the-moment thing.

For instance, Chang said, if theyre fidgeting, Ill start asking them questions, and it will come to a wholly different result.

She cited immigration cases where the unsuccessful litigant is immediately murdered after deportation to a home country. Some such risks may be hard to quantify, especially if few wish to know about or accept responsibility for the outcomes.

On the other hand, we may be prone to inflating the difference AI will make. Gonzaga University law professor (emeritus) David DeWolf (right) doesnt see AI in the courtroom as a threat to justice. He told Mind Matters News,

Its hard to be too critical of AI in the courtroom because the current state of the U.S. legal system is so flawed. Resolving disputes through a trial is the very last resort, like going to war when diplomacy fails. It is never your first option.

Taking criminal sentencing as an example, there are multiple axes upon which the right sentence should be built. Retribution, deterrence, incapacitation, and rehabilitation are all relevant considerations. The desire to individualize a sentence to optimize these factors has to be limited to avoid arbitrary subjective judgments by the judge (or commission) imposing the sentence.

The late economist Kenneth Boulding pointed out that there were three ways of organizing human behavior: coercion, exchange, and gift. Armies and the legal system operate on the basis of coercion. Markets operate on the basis of exchange, while families, friends and churches operate on the basis of gift. All societies incorporate all three systems, but the less they rely on coercion, and the more they benefit from gift, the healthier they are.

Im less worried about the use of AI in the legal system than I am about the increasing dependence upon law a form of coercion to regulate human behavior.

If Dr. DeWolf proves correct, the principal concern should perhaps be that AI can do nothing to address fundamental problems with the way a system works. Those problems derive from human choices in the face of incentives, constructive or perverse.

We might also ask, what exactly has AI changed in various professions today? In disciplines that require years of study, like law, AI is not taking jobs so much as creating them. Just a few examples:

In general, in fields where human judgment is required, the huge increase in information that AI methods offer should result in more opportunities to exercise it.

Where has AI failed? In one spectacular example, a hospital tried to automate and streamline the process of telling a man that he was dying. Never again!, the administration vowed, after a huge outcry. But that was a failure in judgment on their part; a non-personal approach to dying should never have been considered in the first place.

Further reading:

Robot-proofing your career, Peter Thiels way

Students, dont let smart machines disruptyour futureThree ways you can avoid life in Moms basement and the job pouring coffee.

Creative freedom, not robots, isthe future of work.In an information economy, there will be a place where the human person is at the very center

and

Maybe the robot will do you a favor andsnatch your job.The historical pattern is that drudgery gets automated, not creativity

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AI in the Courtroom: Will a Robot Sentence You? - Walter Bradley Center for Natural and Artificial Intelligence

Human Behavior

Heart Disease That Hurts Others – Chron.com

The famous biblical account of the Ten Plagues visited on Egypt in an effort to liberate Israelite slaves is troublesome on various theological levels. Equally troublesome is Pharaohs response. After several of the early plagues, Pharaoh appears to acquiesce to Moses request to Let My People Go, only to have his heart hardened in the final moment. What kind of responsible leader would put his population at risk for his/her own personal gain? And, what does it mean to harden ones heart?

The contemporary psychologist Erich Fromm wrote, the hardening of Pharaohs heart is one of the most fundamental laws of human behavior. Every evil act tends to harden mans heart, that is, to deaden it. Every good act tends to soften it, to make it more alive. The more mans heart hardens, the less freedom he has to change; the more is he determined already by previous action. But there comes a point of no return, when mans heart has become so hardened and so deadened that he has lost the possibility of freedom, when he is forced to go on and on until the unavoidable end which is, in the last analysis, his own physical or spiritual destruction.

When one becomes accustomed to lying, lying becomes ones new truth. It is not that a pathological liar refuses the truth, he/she is just unable to distinguish one from the other. The same may be said with regard to Pharaohs narcistic refusal to back down in the face of his own peoples suffering. It is not that he doesnt want to, his habitual concern with his own power and authority has blinded him to the needs of anyone else.

Rabbi Hillel Silverman comments, Every time we disobey the voice of conscience, it becomes fainter and feebler, and the human heart becomes harder to reach and move. The ancient Pharaoh of the Book of Exodus has become a metaphor for leaders of every age whose personal ambition causes them to lose sight of those they lead. The dustpan of human history is littered with leaders whose only concern was ambition, power, and self-aggrandizement.

The 19th century British historian and politician, Sir John Dalberg-Acton is best known for saying, Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. It is not easy to wear the crown of leadership. The pantheon of effective and visionary leaders is few in number. We need only look around. In todays world there are far too many Pharaohs, and not enough Moses!

Rabbi Howard Siegel

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Heart Disease That Hurts Others - Chron.com

Human Behavior

‘We have not learned the lessons’: Holocaust survivor warns genocide persists around the world – Washington Examiner

Societies have failed to learn from the Holocaust and prevent the repetition of such crimes, Auschwitz survivor Ruth Cohen warned today during a commemoration event at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C.

I am so disheartened and sadly convinced that we have not learned the lessons that this history my history teaches, Cohen told U.S. and European officials, Holocaust survivors, and national Jewish organizations assembled for the 2020 International Holocaust Remembrance Day Commemoration.

Cohen, 88, was sent to Auschwitz after Nazi German forces marched into Hungary in 1944. She recalled learning shortly after her arrival at the notorious camp that our mother, brother, and little cousins who had come with us had already been murdered before emphasizing that such horrors are underway today.

As I look around our world, I see groups like the Yazidi, the Rohingya, and Uighurs, being persecuted and subject to incarceration, violence, and even genocide, Cohen said.

That was a reference to three campaigns of brutality that have taken place just in the last five years. The Yazidis, an ethnic and religious minority in Iraq, were targeted by the Islamic State through mass sex slavery and murder that the United Nations deemed a genocide in 2016. Thousands of Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar have been killed by government security forces intent on ethnic cleansing, according to the U.N. And Chinese communist officials in Xinjiang have detained more than a million Uighur Muslims in re-education camps, an industrial-scale crackdown unseen since the 1930s, according to State Department officials.

Cohens remarks contained a rebuke for U.S. and European audiences as well. I am scared at the alarming rise in anti-Semitism, in violent and deadly attacks on Jews in the U.S. and elsewhere, she said. "It is appalling to see the stunning denial of the Holocaust, and how the experience of the survivors and the victims are being distorted in the very places where it happened.

That was an implicit reference to the so-called memory wars still underway in Eastern Europe, where the history of the Holocaust remains a fraught and even geopolitically contentious topic. The Soviet Unions role in the military defeat of the Nazis is complicated by the willingness of Soviet citizens to help Nazis persecute Jews in the war between the two totalitarian regimes. Soviet authorities "imposed a policy of silence and denial after the war, according to the Kennan Institutes Izabella Tavorovsky, while contemporary Russian leaders denounce critics of the Soviet occupation of Eastern Europe as neo-Nazis.

Cohens reflections revealed the personal tragedy that those political disputes can obscure. Her happy childhood in Mukachevo, Czechoslovakia, was marred overnight by the 1938 partition that subjected her to Hungarian rule. My fathers business was taken away immediately, and our nanny had to leave because she was no longer allowed to work for a Jewish family, she said. Shortly after, we learned that members of my mothers family had been taken to Majdanek and murdered. My family officially went into mourning.

She soon witnessed murders herself, beginning with the public execution of a biology teacher, whom I admired and adored, who refused to board the cattle cars that took her Jewish community to Auschwitz. In the months that followed, Cohen and her sister occasionally received messages telling them to be at a specific place where we might see our father, who also worked in the camp. They also managed to meet their uncle and talk across the barbed wire fence that divided them.

He informed us that soon he will be taken to the gas chambers, she said, before her voice broke with emotion. Indeed, in a few days, a friend of his came to our meeting spot and told us sorry that uncle had been killed. There are no words to adequately describe the horror of that moment.

The girls were transferred, first to Nuremberg and then to the Czech town of Holysov to work in Siemens factories. The Holysov factory was overrun by White Russian partisans two days before the end of the war, armed with bayonets.

Most of the Germans did not resist arrest by the partisans, but one officer tried to flee on his motorbike, Cohen said. He was shot in front of us. Some cheered, but most of us were shocked to see such cruelty. Our humanity was still intact.

The White Russian partisans soon made clear that the Jewish captives were not welcome" among them, so the group remained in Holysov to await the U.S. Army.

"The Holocaust teaches us about human nature that there is great capacity for good, as well as for evil, Cohen said. I implore everyone, especially those in leadership positions, to be motivated by this history. Use your authority and influence to push back against those who perpetrate the worst instincts in human behavior. Do what you can to ensure that our children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren do not face the same atrocities.

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'We have not learned the lessons': Holocaust survivor warns genocide persists around the world - Washington Examiner

Human Behavior

Man and Metropolis | John Wilson – First Things

Ive been reading a lot about cities lately: Carlo Rotellas excellent book The World Is Always Coming to an End: Pulling Together and Pulling Apart in a Chicago Neighborhood, for instance, but also a number of others that are variously maddening. Imagine writing an entire book about How Latino Immigrants Saved the American City (the 400 pages of Barrio America, from which I learned a lot) and hardly mentioning Christianity. (But a large image of Our Lady of Guadalupe is featured on the cover!)

This has set me to thinking about city writing more generally, and the way in which some of the vexations of the genre present certain recurring temptations that many writers have failed to resist.

Here follow, for starters, some gems from Classic Essays on the Culture of Cities, edited by Richard Sennett (Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1969; Sennett was only in his mid-twenties when the book appeared). Max Weber (The Nature of the City): Neither the city, in the economic sense, nor the garrison, the inhabitants of which are accoutred with special political-administrative structures, necessarily constitute a community. An urban community, in the full meaning of the word, appears as a general phenomenon only in the Occident. Oh, dear. Robert Park (The City: Suggestions for the Investigation of Human Behavior in the Urban Environment; savor that subtitle for a moment): The old adage which describes the city as the natural environment of the free man still holds so far as the individual man finds in the chances, the diversity of interests and tasks, and in the vast un-conscious cooperation of city life the opportunity to choose his own vocation and develop his peculiar individual talents. Louis Wirth (Human Ecology): The studies showing significant differences in such phenomena as delinquency and mental disorders between different areas of the city are of the utmost importance for the advance of scientific knowledge. But of course!

Cities invite hubrisnot only outsized political ambitions (a l Boss Daley) but also intellectual ambitions. A big city is large enough and sufficiently complex to serve as a comprehensible surrogate for the whole world, a sort of laboratory of the human. And the overweening rhetoric of the generic City attaches itself even to projects that claim a mystique for particular cities. I have on my Kindle an e-galley that will be published by Viking this summer: Peter Lunenfelds City at the Edge of Forever: Los Angeles Reimagined. My nomination for The Worst Book of the Year in 2004 was Alex Kotlowitzs Never a City So Real: A Walk in Chicago. (That title! Lead me to the vomitorium.)

In August 2001, I wrote a couple of pieces marking the fortieth anniversary of Jean Gottmanns book Megalopolis: The Urbanized Northeastern Seaboard of the United States. Gottmann was a French geographer who lived in the U.S. for some years, and his book generated a great deal of attention; its title was, for a while, a concept to conjure with. Nowadays, as I wrote in 2001,

I would love it if my friend Noah Toly and an interesting range of fellow urbanologists would convene to talk about the way we talk and think about cities and the City now. A conversation with Gottmann, so to speak, that might avoid the hubris that seems to attend so much thinking and writing about the city.

John Wilson is a contributing editor forThe Englewood Review of Books.

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Man and Metropolis | John Wilson - First Things

Human Behavior

5G Technology: No Ordinary Upgrade-Critics Say May Change Life as We Know It (Part One and Two) – KSFR

Wake Up Call Segment Host/Producer MK Mendoza takes a look at the introduction of 5G Technology and how it stands to potentially transform life as we know it. Some historians predict it will cause a revolution more drastic than that experienced by the industrial revolution. Starting with complaints from community activists about its unprecedented potential environmental and health effects to the legal implication of it acting as the transport system to usher in the latest in smart technology-communities are speaking out. Harvard Professor and Author Shoshana Zuboff calls the new business model it will mainstream Surveillance Capitalism. She argues that this new mode of business uses our personal data as its new raw material, to be exploited and mined to predict human behavior. When combined with things like facial recognition and Artificial Intelligence, this raw material becomes a profitable item, so profitable many companies are now turning to it to make more money from the data they collect than the products they sell. Once the data hits the secondary market, there is zero accountability for how that data may be used-where it can end up in the hands of totalitarian governments like that of China where it can be used as a means of gaining social control over not just their own population, but even to subjugate certain populations like that of the Uyghurs who many compare to the modern day jews of the Holocaust. Hi-Tech companies, like Google and Facebook have hidden their means of attaining this information in the internet of things smart technology with products marketed as providing "greater convenience" and "home security". It brings a new irony to the words "personal security system" especially when these items are those used for the surveillance that collects our personal data and where opting out of this surveillance capitalist model seems near impossible, leaving many finding themselves waking up into world that might have only been previously imagined in sci-fi movies and wondering if Big Brother has already arrived. MK Mendoza speaks with local activists and legal experts to weigh in on action that can be taken on a local level to ensure greater accountability from Hi-Tech companies and more protections for consumers in terms of their concerns over their personal data and safety.

Part One (A look at Community Activist Concerns over Environmental and Health Concerns)-An Interview with Kathleen Dudley

Part Two (A Look at the New Economy-Surveillance Capitalism)-How Local Governments Can Keep Industry Accountable

(Extended Interview with Julian Gresser)

To find out more on Kathleen Dudley, email: seasidereflexology@protonmail.com

To find out more about Julian Gresser, see link below:

https://resiliencemultiplier.com/author/julian/

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5G Technology: No Ordinary Upgrade-Critics Say May Change Life as We Know It (Part One and Two) - KSFR

Human Behavior

Sin and the Rules of the Market | Morgan Guyton – Patheos

[Moms for Housing press conference in Oakland]A couple of weeks ago, a Calvinist bro on Twitter was talking about how liberation theologian James Cone was a heretic because he defined sin in an unbiblical way. So it got me thinking about how I define sin. And then I started thinking about the homeless mothers in Oakland who were violently evicted from a vacant investment property they had been squatting in. And the question came to mind: who was sinning? The mothers who broke into somebody elses property or the real estate company whose actions helped drive affordable housing out of Oakland? Im pretty sure that biblical Christians would answer the question differently than I would.

So what is sin? I tend to define it as any human behavior that contradicts Gods purpose of establishing perfect harmony and belonging throughout his creation (which is how I would define the biblical concept of shalom). Sin can be individual or collective. It can be intentional or the result of negligence. Its rarely the case that sin happens in a way where blame is clear-cut and easy to assign. Its usually a spider web of complicated personalities and social forces interacting in ways that can be justified but result in harm and further sin.

Many Christians define sin straightforwardly as breaking the rules, especially breaking a rule that is explicitly laid forth in scripture. The problem with this definition is that the choices we make in life usually involve deciding between different sets of rules, even between different rules that we find in scriptures. When we break one rule, its almost always because were following another rule that seems to trump it.

How would a rule-following German Christian in the early twentieth century resist the Holocaust? Often breaking rules that are unjust and harmful to humanity require trumping them with rules that seem soft, abstract, and unenforceable, like love your neighbor as yourself. What Jesus calls the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faith seem open to myriad possible interpretation, which means they can be cast aside for less costly, more straightforward rules, like commands to tithe mint, dill, and cumin (Matthew 23:23).

For the apostle Paul, sin is not so much a transgression against a rule as it is a master rule-maker whose rules contradict Gods plan to establish a harmonious, loving world where everyone belongs. In Romans 6, Paul says that the greatest gift of Gods grace is that we no longer have to be slaves of sin, which is to say that we no longer have to follow the rules that sin gives us. Instead we can be obedient to the love that inspires us to live with a mercy that breaks all the rules imposed by a sin-saturated world.

In our age, the most ubiquitous rule-maker that exists is the market. The market gives us rules about every aspect of our behavior. Many of the college students on the campuses where I work are thoroughly obedient to the laws of the market. They know the rules of the ironic banter that regulate their speech, their jokes, and under what circumstances they are allowed to be extra. They know the rules for fashion combinations they are allowed to wear to class and under what circumstances they can get away with sweatpants. They know what chemicals they are expected to put in their bodies every weekend. They know the rules for how they are supposed to interact with strangers theyve slept with when they see them on the sidewalk the week after.

All the things college students do that cause the older generations to gasp are simply following rules that govern a different social propriety. It is simply not accurate to see college students as rebelling against the social rules of prior generations so much as they are obeying a different set of social rules that have been imposed on them by advertising, social media trends, and peer pressure. The college students who rebel against the rules are the ones who do things like go to art galleries on a weekend evening instead of the fraternity keg party.

My youngest son thinks its a rule that he has to finish whatever game he starts on the X-Box. This rule trumps the rule that when Dad tells you to stop, you stop right away. Its not so much that hes rebelling against my authority, but that he truly believes something about the universe will be violated if he stops before the end of the game. In some cases, this actually does involve betraying his team of fellow players on the Internet, as hes explained to me.

I used to think it was a rule that I had to consume two large glasses of wine (and sometimes a fair bit more) in order to effectively write a blog post. The wine was supposedly a necessary tool to help me relax. Nothing in the Bible told me that I couldnt or shouldnt do this (or at least whatever the Bible had to say could be easily rationalized away). But on March 16, 2016, a voice said to me, You really dont have to drink, and I accepted the invitation and have been sober ever since.

Many of the problematic rules Ive described so far are relatively innocuous, though addictive, compulsive behavior is certainly the root of all sorts of other harm. But what about the rules of the market that arent just social norms that compel obedience but the structural boundaries of our economic system and our sense of whats even possible in the real world?

What about the rule that says homeless women are trespassing when they take over a house that is a vacant investment property in a city full of vacant investment properties instead of saying that real estate companies are stealing valuable land and shelter from cities whose taxpaying, voting residents are being squeezed out into the streets?

The homeless mothers squatting the property in Oakland were arrested andviolently removed from the home (thankfully theyve since been able to negotiate an opportunity to buy the property). Wedgewood Properties, which owns the house, is a national home-flipping conglomerate, which buys thousands of foreclosed and other properties for cheap, repaints them, raises the price dramatically, and lets them sit until somebody can afford them. One of the homeless moms said there are four times as many vacant properties in Oakland as there are homeless people.

In biblical Israel, the existence of empty investment properties amidst a shortage of affordable housing would be understood as a mockery of God even if there wasnt a specific Torah commandment about affordable housing. The prophet Isaiah says, Woe to you who add house to house and join field to field till no space is left and you live alone in the land (Isaiah 5:8). But that verse is not a Thou shalt not. So it presumably doesnt have any authority to the type of Christian who talks about biblical authority but believes that the laws of the market are just the way things are, and the Bible has nothing to say about them.

So who is the sinner in the case of these homeless women? It might be easy for a biblical Christian to conclude straightforwardly the sinner is the one who trespasses and uses someone elses private property, even if that property belongs to an anonymous real estate company that has thousands of vacant investment properties. In this view, homelessness and poverty are unfortunate circumstances at best and a result of presumably irresponsible, immoral living at worst. The idea that theres any semblance of collective moral responsibility for the survival of individual citizens is understood to be secular socialist nonsense.

To me, this mindset actually illustrates the entrenched power of sin that the apostle Paul wrote about. Our greedy, sin-soaked market creates rules that establish just the way things are and our societys wealthy investors and homeowners go about their lives without an inkling of conflict in their consciences. Sin is deadly when it tells us that we cant live any differently because its too complicated and its not our fault anyway.

To my understanding, that is precisely the state of moral suffocation that the apostle Paul believes we must be liberated from. As much as we want the rules the market gives us about private property to be categorically morally distinct from the rules the market gives us about casual sex and alcohol consumption, they are all intertwined together in the same mass-engineered reality called capitalism. Being liberated from sin means to be liberated from obedience to the way things are.

This isnt to say that having a free market is innately evil. There are certainly worse ways to organize an economy. We just need to be vigilant and aware of the ways that rules are constantly being imposed on us by forces other than God that define the boundaries of what we think is possible. Its easy for many biblical Christians to bracket off economic activity as being outside the purview of moral analysis (even though there are many very explicit teachings in the Bible concerning how resources are distributed and how poor people are treated).

If our duty as Christians is not merely to secure a happy afterlife for ourselves and people we evangelize, but to work for a world in which Gods desire for harmony and belonging is manifested fully (a.k.a. living in the kingdom of God), then we need to be involved in challenging and breaking the rules of the market that hurt people. This may include squatting a house or supporting people who do, even though trespassing is still wrong in many circumstances.

Sin is not primarily rebellion against rules. Sin is primarily obedience to rules that defy Gods love. Its somewhat arbitrary for me to say that, because rebellion to one thing is always obedience to another. But I think its more productive to think of sin as an impostor rule-maker that stands in the place of God and against which God has to lead a revolt through Jesus.

There are plenty of laws and rules in our world that are good and valid; there are also laws and rules (written and unwritten) that straightjacket us into thinking the world cannot be a place of perfect harmony and belonging. I really think the rules that suffocate our imagination are the sin that Jesus died on the cross to liberate us from, whether they manifest themselves in traditionally understood immorality or the selfishness the world tells us is respectable.

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Sin and the Rules of the Market | Morgan Guyton - Patheos

Biochemistry

Casual Friday: Staben returns to the classroom, with eyes toward the future – Lewiston Morning Tribune

Chuck Staben has returned to his roots as a university professor, but its not where he wants to finish his career in higher education.

Staben, who served as president of the University of Idaho from 2014-19 before the State Board of Education opted not to renew his contract, took a semester off and recently started teaching again as a professor of biological sciences at UI.

He is enjoying spending time with students, but ultimately he believes he can do more good at the helm of a public university.

I am continuing to look for other opportunities as a president or perhaps other opportunities, Staben said. In fact, I was a ... finalist for the job recently at the University of North Dakota.

Craig Clohessy: What are you teaching this semester and how has the transition been from the presidents office back to the classroom?

Chuck Staben: Im teaching Biochemistry 2, which is Biology 454, and its cross-listed as a graduate course, 554 primarily a senior undergraduate course. Im also doing a little bit of teaching in education leadership.

The transition has been fine. I had a one-semester leave that allowed me to prepare as well as do a few other things during that time, and I enjoy being back in the classroom. I like the contact with students. I liked contact with students when I served as president as well.

CC: Do students and faculty treat you any differently now from when you were president?

CS: I have a different role, so in that respect students and faculty and others treat me somewhat differently. Generally, in a personal sense, no, I dont think they treat me differently. And I enjoy interacting with colleagues that I knew when I was president and, as I said, I enjoy interacting with students.

CC: In addition to teaching, are you doing any research work?

CS: Im not doing any sort of laboratory research. I participated on a report for the Association of Public and Land Grant Universities on what their member universities universities like the University of Idaho are doing with respect to the opioid crisis and what opportunities they might have to do additional work on the opioid crisis. So more public impact research than what I would call traditional biological research.

CC: You continue to search out professional advancements. What are you looking for? What type of opportunities would appeal to you?

CS: What Im looking for is primarily the opportunity to contribute in higher education, and I have a particular love for public higher education, for ensuring that students of all types and backgrounds, socioeconomic status, etc., can access public higher education. I think I have more to contribute to higher education and can do more as a president than I can as a professor, although I know that I can also contribute in the classroom.

CC: What did you learn during your time as president either success or failure that you think will help you in your next position?

CS: If Im fortunate enough to get another presidency, I think one of the things that became very clear to me as I served as (UI) president is just how important communication and consistency in communication are to being successful as a president. And I think that I would put even more emphasis ... on ensuring student success. That students can come to the university and access an education, but that they also will progress from freshman to sophomore to senior and on to a great career. And I think that we have to work very conscientiously on ensuring that sort of success.

CC: UI is facing serious budget challenges with a $22 million deficit, a freeze on tuition and declining state support. Do you feel fortunate not to have to be making those tough decisions that will be coming, or do you actually miss being part of finding those solutions?

CS: I think you phrased it well. I miss being part of finding those solutions. Ive never shied from tough decisions. I feel I am imaginative and capable and would be happy to be still in charge and facing these issues.

CC: Does the current president, Scott Green, seek out your advice?

CS: I met Scott when he was a member of the U of I Foundation Board early in my presidency, around 2015. And he and I had a number of conversations leading up to the time that he became president, and weve had a few conversations afterwards, but at this point we dont confer frequently. Im sure that he has assembled his leadership team and has his initiative and, you know, has the reins at this point and wants to keep moving the university forward.

CC: In your free time you love marbling paper. Explain what that is.

CS: Marbling is an old process for making unique patterns on things like paper or fabric. Basically what you do is ... take a big flat tray, and you put a viscus sort of gelatinous solution in it and you put paints on. ... You often draw through these with a stylus or with combs or other ways. But you put a unique pattern on the top of this bath, and then you take a piece of paper and you lift the pattern off the bath. Its a one-time-only printing process. It makes these beautiful patterns of colors.

Where you might have encountered it is if you have old books. The front and end papers were typically marbled papers. Thats what its used for in bookbinding. ... I think it was first devised in the 1300s in Turkey actually.

CC: How did you come to be interested in this process?

CS: I love old books. Ive always loved to be in a library and looking at the old books and journals that one has there. I spent a lot of time in libraries, especially as a young scientist, and I always wondered how these unique and beautiful patterns were made.

I read some craft books about how you did it. It seemed really hard and I never did it, and then one Christmas I decided Im going to investigate this more closely it was about 10 years ago.

I looked around on the internet, and I found some beautiful marbling examples and this guy who sold marbling supplies and the kits. Funny enough, you couldnt order them on the internet. ... There was a phone number, so I called him up. Turns out its a guy who is president of the American Marbling Association, and he wants to talk to everyone he sells a kit to, and thats why you cant find them over the internet.

The kids and I did it, and it turns out its terrifically easy to make something that is unique and beautiful. Im kind of a klutzy nonartistic guy, and so I thought, Wow, I mean its amazing that this process works so incredibly easily and well. To really control it and be a master of the process is a little different, but to make something that is cooler than you ever thought you could make is remarkably easy.

CC: You did this as a team-building exercise with your cabinet when you were president.

CS: I think it was the most popular cabinet meeting, hands down. I think you could call almost any member of the cabinet and ask them that question, and thats probably the one cabinet meeting they would remember.

CC: Anything else youd like to add?

CS: I have a deep love of higher education. I love students I like to see them succeed. Im enjoying teaching my biochemistry class. Biochemistry has changed quite a bit since the last time I taught it in 1982. Ive taught related courses, but it has been intellectually refreshing to think about what is it that todays student needs to know about biochemistry as opposed to how has biochemistry traditionally been taught.

Clohessy is managing editor of the Lewiston Tribune. He may be contacted at cclohessy@lmtribune.com or (208) 848-2251.

Title/occupation: Professor of biological sciences; former president at the University of Idaho.

Family: Married to Mary Beth Staben, MD, a hospitalist practicing at St. Lukes, Boise; sons Mac Staben, an anesthesiology resident at University of Pennsylvania, and Cal Staben, emergency medicine resident, University of Louisville, who is married to Sarah Staben; daughter Rae is a medical student at Vanderbilt University.

Education: Grew up in Waukegan, Ill., and attended grade schools and public high school there; Bachelor of Science in biochemistry, University of Illinois in 1978; Ph.D. in biochemistry, University of California, Berkeley, 1984; postdoctoral research at Chiron Corp., 1985-86, on HIV virus sequence variation and at Stanford University, 1987-89, on fungal mating type genes.

Work history: Assistant professor, associate professor, professor of biology at University of Kentucky, 1989-2008; also served as chairman of the School of Biological Sciences, 2000-04, associate vice president for research, 2004-08, and as acting vice president for research, 2006-07; provost, University of South Dakota, 2008-14; president, University of Idaho, 2014-19; professor of biological sciences, UI, 2019-present.

Hobbies/interest: Family, skiing, biking, hiking, fitness, travel, bridge.

Hidden talents: I learned to marble paper and taught a couple of sessions on marbling for an arts class at the University of South Dakota and have used marbling as a group activity for the University of Idaho cabinet. I use the paper that I marble for bookbinding, gift wrapping, and for handmade notecards for our family and as special thank-you notes.

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Casual Friday: Staben returns to the classroom, with eyes toward the future - Lewiston Morning Tribune

Biochemistry

Focus: Explaining the Ruffles of Lotus Leaves – Physics

January 24, 2020• Physics 13, 8

A new theory accurately predicts a wide range of leaf shapes and explains the differences between dry lotus leaves and those that grow on water.

In many ponds in Asia, flat, circular, lotus leaves with wrinkled edges float near other elevated stems of the same plant holding cupped leaves with gently wavy borders. Theoretical work and experiments with leaflike membranes now reveal that genetically identical leaves can grow into distinctly different shapes as a result of mechanical effects, such as the support of water under a floating leaf. The researchers extended a theory for the growth of thin, elastic tissues to account for some previously unexplored mechanical aspects of the environments of lotus and other plants. The findings bolster mounting recognition of the major role that mechanical influences play alongside genes and biochemistry in determining plant shapes.

Modeling the growth of soft tissues in plants and animals has challenged scientists and engineers because these structures deform in ways that are difficult to describe mathematically. More than 25 years ago, researchers proposed a mathematical framework to describe soft tissue growth in which proliferation of new cells takes place in tandem with stretching and shifting of existing tissues [1]. In 2008. physicists in France adapted the theory to elastic membranes (see Focus: Elizabethan Geometry) [2], providing insights into some developmental patterns of algae and mushrooms.

In 2018, mechanical engineer Fan Xu of Fudan University in Shanghai saw several different lotus leaf shapes in a pond on campus, which led him to study the shapes of growing leaves. He and his colleagues now report extending the 2008 model to produce a more complete description of the growth of thin tissues, and it accurately predicts a range of complex leaf shapes. The team used some specialized numerical techniques that allowed them to solve more complicated equations than researchers could previously manage.

F. Xu et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. (2020)

F. Xu et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. (2020)

Their theory incorporates two new elements: support for floating leaves from the water beneath them and the option for different leaf layers to grow at different rates, which can cause leaf bending. This second element was needed to accurately represent how leaves grow. For example, sunlight-induced growth of lotus leaves can occur faster on the side opposite the light, which tends to curve the leaf toward the sun. Related light-induced motion occurs in other plants, says Xu. Sunflowers harness this bending effect to face the Sun.

To supplement their calculations with experiments, the Fudan team cut leaf facsimiles from sheets of a material that grows when contacted by water. They selectively wetted the material at locations where growth in real leaves was anticipated or allowed the fake leaves to float for a prescribed duration to mimic growth constrained by underlying water. This growth-like expansion produced leaf shapes in agreement with the simulations and with observations of real leaves.

Simulations using the model, validated by observations of floating lotus leaves in the wild, showed that the water-supported leaves grow flat and largely smooth except near their edges, which have short-wavelength ruffles. In contrast, lotus leaves suspended on stems assume cupped shapes with long-wavelength undulations.

In each case, the edge waves appear because the growing leaf produces more surface area than can fit in a perfectly smooth sheet. The model favors the lowest-energy configuration, and a water-bound leafs short-wavelength, low-amplitude waves minimize the energy needed to lift the water that adheres to the leafs underside, compared with long-wavelength, high-amplitude waves. But a dry, suspended leaf is free to develop longer-wavelength oscillations that are less energetically costly in the absence of water. However, leaves with more robust stems and veins have shorter wavelengths than flimsier leaves because the stiffness also imposes an energy cost to large-amplitude waves.

For suspended leaves, different growth rates in different layers leads to a bending force that can also affect leaf shape. Under some conditions, this bending force transforms flat leaves into deep, steep-sided bowls without their characteristic wavinessanother shape that has been observed in nature.

The findings by the Fudan team reflect a revival of interest in recent years in the role of mechanicsas opposed to genetics and biochemistryin determining the shapes of biological structures, according to Ellen Kuhl, a mechanical and bioengineer at Stanford University in California. In studies of brain-tissue folding, for example, people have always looked at just the cells, she says, but now theyre starting to recognize the importance of mechanical forces.

This research is published in Physical Review Letters.

Peter Weiss

Peter Weiss is a freelance science reporter and editor in Washington, D. C.

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Focus: Explaining the Ruffles of Lotus Leaves - Physics

Biochemistry

NAU professor, researcher named 2020 Emerging Scholar for dedication to helping Native Americans in and outside the lab – NAU News

Naomi Lee, an assistant professor ofchemistry and biochemistryat Northern Arizona University, received the email the night before she gave a lecture to the Maximizing Access to Research Careers students at Fort Lewis College in Durango, Colorado. It was perfect timinggiving her a new sense of purpose to motivate the students she met the following day.

For the past 18 years,Diverse: Issues In Higher Educationhas recognized an interdisciplinary group of minority scholars who represent the best of the U.S. academy. This year is no exception.

On a daily basis, Dr. Lee is breaking down biases and stereotypes, transforming the views and potential of students, Provost Diane Stearns writes in her nomination letterthe nomination that would earn Lee the much-deserved honor of the 2020 Emerging Scholars Award.

Selected based on research, educational background, publishing record, teaching record, competitiveness of field of study and uniqueness of field of study, Lee is one of 15, hand-picked from hundreds of nominations, joining the 2020 cohort of Emerging Scholars. These professors have distinguished themselves in their various academic disciplines and have had broad impact in their universities and beyond.

I didnt even know I was nominated! Lee said. In fact, I almost ignored the email since I thought it might be spam. However, once I read it, I was completely shocked and honored.

Gabe Montao, professor and department chair in the Applied Physics and Materials Science department, spearheaded Lees nomination, and Stearns submitted the letter, highlighting her accomplishments and the impact she has on the university, NAU students, fellow faculty and surrounding communities.

In addition to being an emerging scientific leader, Dr. Lee is an education beacon, mentor and role model, Stearns writes.

Of Native American descent, Lee, who was highly recruited by several prestigious institutions in 2018, chose NAU because of its diversity and the opportunity the university provided to have the greatest impact on Native American students. One of the NAUs five strategic goals is to become the nations leading university serving Native Americans; currently, more than 1,500 Indigenous students from more than 115 tribal nations throughout the country attend.Lees dedication to Native Americansboth in research and mentoringwill only help the university further that mission.

I once heard someone say, Research is supposed to be culturally neutral, but someones culture is always influencing it, Lee said. As a Native researcher, it is my duty to serve my community in order to ensure ethical and relevant research is conducted.

Trained in chemistry, biochemistry, virology, molecular biology, ethics, epidemiology and public health, her laboratory is student-focused with students coming from all disciplines and representing diverse backgrounds, ethnicity and gender. She also is designing culturally relevant chemistry curriculum to engage early Native American and other underrepresented scholars in addition to developing research training programs aimed at reducing the attrition rates in high school and college.

She is quickly becoming one of the most highly sought-after science faculty at NAU with students requesting to work with her on a continual basis. She has already mentored 23 students at the current early stage of her career path, Stearns said. She is creating a deep and diverse student research experience that will launch many future STEM careers.

Lees research focuses on novel vaccine development. She also focuses her work on improving the health care of Indigenous populations through health disparities research and STEM education.

Scientifically, I aim to be the first Native researcher that designs a vaccine specifically for Native communities, she said. While my work may be beneficial to the general population, I strive to look at research questions through an Indigenous lens. For example, I am collaborating with colleagues at the University of New Mexico on a vaccine against opioids. We see the impact the opioid epidemic is having on a national level. However, my interest in the project was because of the impact opioids are having across our Native American communities. I want to use my skills to make healthier and happier communities.

Throughout her career, Lee has been published multiple times, including a study in the Journal of Infectious Diseases of the Oxford University Press that found American Indian and Alaska Native women are at greater risk of HPV and cervical cancer than their white counterparts; given nearly two dozen talks and presentations; and has received more than $800,000 in research funding. She also is active duty in the National Guard with multiple awards to her name, including the Army Achievement Medal.

As a Native American female scientist and a highly decorated Army captain who devotes her time to advancing opportunities for all students, particularly underrepresented minorities in STEM, Dr. Lee is outstanding and truly deserving of this award, Stearns said.

Lee was recognized in the Jan. 23 Emerging Scholars edition of Diverse: Issues In Higher Education.

Carly Banks | NAU Communications(928) 523-582 | Carly.Banks@nau.edu

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NAU professor, researcher named 2020 Emerging Scholar for dedication to helping Native Americans in and outside the lab - NAU News