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Kids with obesity need acceptance from family and friends, not just better diet tips, to succeed at managing their weight

By
Ekansh
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0
Obesity intervention programs tend to focus on healthy food and physical activity. But is that enough?
Obesity intervention programs tend to focus on healthy food and physical activity. But is that enough?

Hundreds of programs over the past four decades – from the removal of junk food from school vending machines to Michelle Obama’s “Let’s Move” campaign – have tried to get kids in the U.S. to eat healthier food and exercise more often.

But none of these efforts lowered national child obesity rates. In fact, child obesity has continued to increase. This has been particularly true during the pandemic.

We think we know why. Most programs that seek to lower children’s body mass index, or BMI, focus on healthy food and physical activity. But as child obesity researchers who specialize in human development and family science, we know that slimming down requires much more than attention to diet and exercise.

Those factors are important, but we found that acceptance from family and friends also plays a critical role in slowing the rate of weight gain for children with obesity.

To reach this conclusion, we collaborated with colleagues to follow almost 1,200 children in first through fourth grades in rural Oklahoma to find out more about the lives of kids who are overweight or obese. Our intervention programs allowed us to compare a traditional food and exercise approach to managing child obesity with approaches that also targeted the social and emotional aspects of children’s lives.

Family and peer acceptance

We conducted a randomized controlled trial in 29 Oklahoma schools. More than 500 first graders who were at-risk for obesity – meaning their BMI was above the 75th percentile – were assigned to either a control group or a group that received a combination of three interventions.

These interventions focused on family lifestyle, family dynamics and the peer group.

The family lifestyle intervention focused on healthy food and physical activity. Participants learned to use a color-coded food reference guide similar to this one when selecting food. Parents tracked their children’s food consumption and physical activity, and also learned how to avoid conflict over food. This conflict might involve arguing about how much the child is eating, whether the child can have dessert or whether the child has eaten enough of everything else on the table to get a second helping of a favorite food.

The family dynamics intervention added parenting skills and healthy emotion management. Children’s emotion regulation and emotional eating are significantly related, so teaching children to manage their feelings may reduce their tendency to eat when they are stressed out or upset. Children were taught how to deal with negative emotions, express their feelings and value their uniqueness. Parents were taught to value their children’s emotions, provide comfort and understanding, support children’s problem-solving and accept their children as they are.

The peer group intervention taught social acceptance in the children’s school classrooms. Our research has shown that the more children weigh, the more their classmates tend to dislike them. However we’ve also demonstrated that we can decrease the rejection that happens in elementary school classrooms by teaching children to be more accepting of one another.

Effect on obesity

We measured children’s heights and weights at the beginning of first grade and then after the intervention – in first, second, third and fourth grades. Only those children with obesity who received all three interventions – family lifestyle, family dynamics and peer group – had significant decreases in BMI gains compared with the control group.

Ongoing analysis indicates that the peer group intervention was particularly important for children who were severely obese, with a BMI in the 99th percentile.

Our results show that to reduce BMI gains in the early school years, kids need more than healthy food and physical activity. They need parents who encourage their healthy choices and accept their emotions. Knowing you can come home and talk about how angry and sad you are is essential to healthy physical and mental growth. And children must also have friends and peers who accept them for who they are – regardless of how much they weigh.The Conversation

This article is republished from The Conversation. Read the original article.

Cyberattacks to critical infrastructure threaten our safety and well-being

By
Ekansh
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0
Our critical infrastructures are growing increasingly complex as the number of devices and connections in these systems continues to grow
Our critical infrastructures are growing increasingly complex as the number of devices and connections in these systems continues to grow

What would happen if you could no longer use the technological systems that you rely on every day? I’m not talking about your smart phone or laptop computer, but all those systems many of us often take for granted and don’t think about.

What if you could not turn on the lights or power your refrigerator? What if you could not get through to emergency services when you dial 911? What if you could not access your bank account, get safe drinking water or even flush your toilet?

According to Canada’s National Strategy for Critical Infrastructure, critical infrastructure refers to the processes, systems, facilities, technologies, networks, assets and services essential to the health, safety, security or economic well-being of the public and the effective functioning of government.

Disruptions to these kinds of systems, especially those caused by cyberattacks, can have devastating consequences. That’s why these systems are called critical infrastructure.

A string of attacks

Over the past six months, the fragility of critical infrastructure has been given plenty of attention. This has been driven by a string of notable cyberattacks on several critical infrastructure sectors.

It was revealed that in late March 2021, CNA Financial Corp., one of the largest insurance companies in the United States was victim to a ransomware attack. As a result, the company faced disruptions of their systems and networks.

In May 2021, a ransomware attack on Colonial Pipeline halted plant operations for six days. The attack led to a fuel crisis and increased prices in the eastern U.S.

Weeks later, in June 2021, a ransomware attack hit JBS USA Holdings, Inc., one of the world’s largest meat producers. This attack brought about supply chain turmoil in Canada, the U.S. and Australia.

Also in June 2021, the Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket Steamship Authority was victim of a ransomware attack that disrupted ferry services and caused service delays.

Fragile infrastructures

On Oct. 14, 2021, hot on the heels of cyberattacks targeting the financial, gas, food and transportation sectors, the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency released Alert AA21-287.

The alert turns attention to the fragility of yet another critical infrastructure sector. It warns of “ongoing malicious cyberactivity” targeting water and wastewater facilities. These activities include exploits of internet-connected services and outdated operating systems and software, as well as spear phishing and ransomware attacks – something we have seen a lot in recent cyberattacks.

According to the alert, these cyberthreats could impact the ability of water and wastewater facilities to “provide clean, potable water to, and effectively manage the wastewater of, their communities.”

Vulnerability factors

The need for combating cyberthreats to critical infrastructure is well recognized. However, the infrastructure today is far from secure. This is due to a many interrelated factors that create a perfect storm of exposures.

First, many of our most critical systems are extremely complex. This complexity is rapidly increasing as the number of devices and connections in these systems continues to grow.

Second, many of these systems involve a mix of insecure, outdated legacy systems and new technologies. These new technologies promise features like advanced analytics and automation. However, they are sometimes connected and used in insecure ways that the original designers of the legacy systems could not have imagined.

Taken together, these factors mean that these systems are too complex to be completely understood by a person, a team of people or even a computer model. This makes it very difficult to identify weak spots that if exploited — accidentally or intentionally — could lead to system failures.

Analyzing real-world complexities

In the Cyber Security Evaluation and Assurance (CyberSEA) Research Lab at Carleton University, we are developing solutions to address the fragility of critical infrastructure. The goal is to improve security and resilience of these important systems.

The complexities of critical infrastructure can lead to unexpected or unplanned interactions among system components, known as implicit interactions.

Exploitation of implicit interactions has the potential to impact the safety, security and reliability of a system and its operations. For example, implicit interactions can enable system components to interact in unintended — and often undesirable — ways. This leads to unpredictable system behaviours that can allow attackers to damage or disrupt the system and its operations.

We recently conducted a cybersecurity analysis at CyberSEA on a real-world municipal wastewater treatment system, where we identified and measured characteristics of implicit interactions in the system. This was part of our ongoing research, conducted in partnership with the Critical Infrastructure Resilience Institute at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Our analysis found a significant proportion of implicit interactions present in the system, and approximately 28 per cent of these identified vulnerabilities showed signs of being ripe for attackers to exploit and cause damage or disruption in the system.

A glimmer of hope

Our study showed that implicit interactions exist in real-world critical infrastructure systems. Feedback from the operators of the wastewater system in our case study stated that our approaches and tools are useful for identifying potential security issues and informing mitigation efforts when designing critical systems.

This may be a glimmer of hope in the fight against cyberthreats to critical infrastructure. Continued development of rigorous and practical approaches to address increasingly critical issues in designing, implementing, evaluating and assuring the safe, secure and reliable operation of these systems is needed.

A more robust infrastructure will lead to fewer threats to our security and access to services, ensuring our well-being and the effective functioning of our governments and society.The Conversation

This article is republished from The Conversation. Read the original article.

Type of ultraviolet light most effective at killing coronavirus is also the safest to use around people

By
Ekansh
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0
UV light at most wavelengths can kill COVID–19.
UV light at most wavelengths can kill COVID–19.

Scientists have long known that ultraviolet light can kill pathogens on surfaces and in air and water. UV robots are used to disinfect empty hospital rooms, buses and trains; UV bulbs in HVAC systems eliminate pathogens in building air; and UV lamps kill bugs in drinking water.

Perhaps you have seen UV wands, UV LEDs and UV air purifiers advertised as silver bullets to protect against the coronavirus. While decades of research have looked at the ability of UV light to kill many pathogens, there are no set standards for UV disinfection products with regard to the coronavirus. These products may work to kill SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, but they also may not.

I am an environmental engineer and expert in UV disinfection. In May 2021, my colleagues and I set out to accurately test various UV systems and see which was the most effective at killing off – or inactivating – SARS-CoV-2.

How does UV light kill a virus?

Light is categorized by wavelength – the distance between peaks of a wave of light – and is measured in nanometers. UV wavelengths range from 100 to 400 nanometers – shorter in wavelength than the violet hues in visible light – and are invisible to the human eye. As wavelength shortens, photons of light contain higher amounts of energy.

Different wavelengths of UV light work better than others for inactivating viruses, and this depends on how well the wavelengths are absorbed by the virus’s DNA or RNA. When UV light gets absorbed, the photons of light transfer their energy to and damage the chemical bonds of the genetic material. The virus is then unable to replicate or cause an infection. Researchers have also shown the proteins that viruses use to attach to a host cell and initiate infection – like the spike proteins on a coronavirus – are also vulnerable to UV light.

The dose of light matters too. Light can vary in intensity – bright light is more intense, and there is more energy in it than in dim light. Being exposed to a bright light for a short time can produce the same UV dose as being exposed to a dim light for a longer period. You need to know the right dose that can kill coronavirus particles at each UV wavelength.

Making ultraviolet lights safe for people

Traditional UV systems use wavelengths at or around 254 nanometers. At these wavelengths the light is dangerous to human skin and eyes, even at low doses. Sunlight includes UV light near these wavelengths; anyone who has ever gotten a bad sunburn knows just how dangerous UV light can be.

However, recent research has shown that at certain UV wavelengths – specifically below 230 nanometers – the high-energy photons are absorbed by the top layers of dead skin cells and don’t penetrate into the active skin layers where damage can occur. Similarly, the tear layer around eyes also blocks out these germicidal UV rays.

This means that at wavelengths of UV light below 230 nanometers, people can move around more freely while the air around them is being disinfected in real time.

Testing different wavelengths

My colleagues and I tested five commonly used UV wavelengths to see which work best to inactivate SARS-CoV-2. Specifically, we tested how large a dose is needed to kill 90% to 99.9% of the viral particles present.

We ran these tests in a biosafety level three facility at the University of Arizona that is built to handle lethal pathogens. There we tested numerous lights across the UV spectrum, including UV LEDs that emit light at 270 and 282 nanometers, traditional UV tube lamps at 254 nanometers and a newer technology called an excited dimer, or excimer, UV source at 222 nanometers.

To test each device we spiked a sample of water with millions of SARS-CoV-2 viruses and coated a petri dish with a thin layer of this mixture. We then shined UV light on the petri dish until we achieved a specific dose. Finally we examined the viral particles to see if they could still infect human cells in culture. If the viruses could infect the cells, the dose was not high enough. If the viruses did not cause an infection, the UV source at that dose had successfully killed the pathogen. We carefully repeated this process for a range of UV doses using the five different UV devices.

While all of the wavelengths we tested can inactivate SARS-CoV-2 at very low doses, the ones that required the lowest dose were the systems that emit UV light at a wavelength of 222 nanometers. In our experiment, it took a dose of less than 2 millijoules of energy per square centimeter to kill 99.9% of viral particles. This translates to needing about 20 seconds to disinfect a space receiving a low intensity of short wavelength UV light, similar to that used in our test.

These 222-nanometer systems are almost twice as effective as conventional UV tube lamps, which are often used in ultraviolet disinfecting systems. But importantly, the winning lamp also happens to be the safest for humans, too. At the same UV light intensity it takes to kill 99.9% of SARS-CoV-2 in 20 seconds, a person could be safely exposed to 222-nanometer light for up to one hour and 20 minutes.

What this means is that widely available types of UV lamp lights can be used to safely knock down levels of the coronavirus with people present.

Better use of existing tech

Many places or organizations – ranging from the U.S. Air Force to the Space Needle in Seattle to Boeing – are already using or investigating ways to use UV light in the 222 nanometer range to protect public health.

I believe that our findings are important because they quantify the exact doses needed to achieve various levels of SARS-CoV-2 control, whether that be killing 90% or 99.9% of viral particles.

Imagine coffee shops, grocery stores, school classrooms, restaurants and concert venues now made safe by this technology. And this is not a solution for just SARS-CoV-2. These technologies could help protect human health in public spaces in future times of crisis, but also during times of relative normalcy, by reducing exposure to everyday viral and bacterial threats.The Conversation

This article is republished from The Conversation. Read the original article.

4 key issues to watch as world leaders prepare for the Glasgow climate summit

By
Ekansh
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0
Glasgow climate summit
4 key issues to watch as world leaders prepare for the Glasgow climate summit

Glasgow sits proudly on the banks of the river Clyde, once the heart of Scotland’s industrial glory and now a launchpad for its green energy transition. It’s a fitting host for the United Nations’ climate conference, COP26, where world leaders will be discussing how their countries will reduce the greenhouse gas emissions that are driving climate change.

I’ve been involved in climate negotiations for several years as a former senior U.N. official and will be in Glasgow for the talks starting Oct. 31, 2021. As negotiations get underway, here’s what to watch for.

Ambition

At the Paris climate conference in 2015, countries agreed to work to keep global warming well below 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 Fahrenheit), aiming for 1.5 C (2.7 F). If COP21 in Paris was the agreement on a destination, COP26 is the review of itineraries and course adjustments.

The bad news is that countries aren’t on track. They were required this year to submit new action plans – known as national determined contributions, or NDCs. The U.N.’s latest tally of all the revised plans submitted in advance of the Glasgow summit puts the world on a trajectory to warm 2.7 C (4.86 F), well into dangerous levels of climate change, by the end of this century.

All eyes are on the G-20, a group of leading world economies that together account for almost 80% of global emissions. Their annual summit takes place in Rome on Oct. 30-31, immediately before COP26 begins.

Some key G-20 countries have not submitted their updated plans yet, including India. Brazil, Mexico, Australia and Russia have filed plans that are not in line with the Paris Agreement.

Details of how China will achieve its climate goals are now emerging, and the world is poring over them to see how China will strengthen its 2030 emissions reduction target, which currently involves cutting emissions 65% per unit of gross domestic product, moving up the date when the country’s emissions growth will peak, and setting industrial production targets for other greenhouse gases, such as methane.

A delicate dance between the United States and China, and deft diplomacy by France, was critical to reaching the Paris climate agreement in 2015. Six years later, a growing rivalry threatens to spiral down what had been a race to the top.

Meanwhile the world’s eyes are on the United States. Opposition from two Democratic senators, Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, appears likely to force the Biden administration to scrap a plan that would have incentivized utilities to switch to cleaner power sources faster. If their planetary brinksmanship guts that key part of President Joe Biden’s Plan A for how the U.S. will reach its 2030 emissions targets, the world will want to see details of Plans B, C or D in Glasgow.

Carbon markets

One leftover task from the Paris conference is to set rules for carbon markets, particularly how countries can trade carbon credits with each other, or between a country and a private company.

Regulated carbon markets exist from the European Union to China, and voluntary markets are spurring both optimism and concern. Rules are needed to ensure that carbon markets actually drive down emissions and provide revenue for developing countries to protect their resources. Get it right and carbon markets can speed the transition to net zero. Done badly, greenwashing will undermine confidence in pledges made by governments and companies alike.

Another task is determining how countries measure and report their emissions reductions and how transparent they are with one another. This too is fundamental to beating back greenwashing.

Also, expect to see pressure for countries to come back in a year or two with better plans for reducing emissions and reports of concrete progress.

Climate finance

Underpinning progress on all issues is the question of finance.

Developing countries need help to grow green and adapt to climate change, and they are frustrated that that help has been on a slow drip feed. In 2009 and again in 2015, wealthy countries agreed to provide $100 billion a year in climate finance for developing nations by 2020, but they haven’t reached that goal yet.

With one week to go, the U.K. revealed a climate finance plan, brokered by Germany and Canada, that would establish a process for counting and agreeing on what counts in the $100 billion, but it will take until 2023 to reach that figure.

On the one hand it is progress, but it will feel begrudging to developing countries whose costs of adaptation now must be met as the global costs of climate impacts rise, including from heat waves, wildfires, floods and intensifying hurricanes, cyclones and typhoons. Just as with the global vaccine rollout, the developing world may wonder whether they are being slow-walked into a new economic divergence, where the rich will get richer and the poor poorer.

Beyond the costs of mitigation and adaptation is the question of loss and damage – the innocuous term for the harm experienced by countries that did little to contribute to climate change in the past and the responsibility of countries that brought on the climate emergency with their historic emissions. These difficult negotiations will move closer to center stage as the losses increase.

Public climate finance provided by countries can also play another role through its potential to leverage the trillions of dollars needed to invest in transitions to clean energy and greener growth. Expect big pledges from private sources of finance – pension funds, insurance companies, banks and philanthropies – with their own net zero plans, including ending finance and investments in fossil fuel projects, and financing critical efforts to speed progress.

It’s raining pledges

A cross section of the world will be in Glasgow for the conference, and they will be talking about pathways for reducing global carbon emissions to net zero and building greater resilience.

From emissions-free shipping to aviation, from ending coal financing to green steel and cement, from platforms to reduce methane, to nature-based solutions, the two-week conference and days leading up to it will see a steady stream of commitments and new groups of countries, nongovernmental organizations and businesses working together.

Keeping track and verifying achievements toward these pledges will be critical coming away from COP26. Without that, climate activist Greta Thunberg’s “blah blah blah” speech thrown at delegates to a pre-COP meeting in Milan a few weeks ago will continue to echo around the world.

This article is republished from The Conversation. Read the original article.

An infectious disease expert explains new federal rules on ‘mix-and-match’ vaccine booster shots

By
Ekansh
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0
Discuss with your doctor whether or not you need a booster – and if so, which vaccine will work best for you.
Discuss with your doctor whether or not you need a booster – and if so, which vaccine will work best for you.

Many Americans now have the green light to get a COVID-19 vaccine booster – and the flexibility to receive a different brand than the original vaccine they received.

On the heels of the Food and Drug Administration’s Sept. 22, 2021, emergency use authorization of a third dose – or “booster shot” – of the Pfizer-BioNtech vaccine for certain Americans, on Oct. 20, the agency also gave emergency authorization to a third Moderna shot and a second dose of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine.

On Oct. 21, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention also recommended these vaccinations in light of the FDA’s authorization. The CDC’s signoff will make the Moderna booster shot available to people 65 and older, younger adults at higher risk of severe COVID-19 due to medical conditions and those who are at increased risk due to their workplace environment. People are now eligible for the Moderna booster six months after completion of their original series – as is already the case for the third Pfizer shot. The authorization made all Johnson & Johnson vaccine recipients eligible for a second shot two months after the initial dose.

Notably, the FDA and CDC also authorized a “mix-and-match” strategy, enabling eligible Americans to get a booster shot from a brand different from their original vaccine.

As an infectious disease expert, I have closely followed the development of the COVID-19 vaccines and the research on how immunity and vaccine efficacy shift over time.

With the swirling mass of news around how effective the COVID-19 vaccines are and who needs booster shots and when, it can be challenging and confusing to make sense of it all. But understanding how the immune system works can help bring clarity to the reasons some people could benefit from the authorized shots.

How vaccine efficacy evolves

The discussion and perceived urgency around booster shots has partially been driven by the occurrence of “breakthrough” COVID-19 infections in fully vaccinated people. The term breakthrough misleadingly implies that the vaccines failed, but this is not the case. The intention of the vaccine is to reduce hospitalizations and deaths, a goal that the COVID-19 vaccines continue to meet.

While the Pfizer mRNA vaccine shows decreasing efficacy against asymptomatic and mild infections over the first six months after vaccination, studies show that it continues to be highly effective at preventing hospitalizations and deaths, including against the delta variant, in the first six months.

A clinical study of the Moderna vaccine showed that antibody levels remain strong after six months as well. But studies after the six-month mark have been mixed, with reports of waning antibody levels leaving some researchers concerned that a booster shot strategy is essential. However, the limited data left too many questions for the FDA and CDC to approve a booster shot for all Americans, at least at this time.

Still, the overwhelming majority of intensive care admissions and deaths from COVID-19 continue to be in unvaccinated people. The rare deaths from COVID-19 in vaccinated people are mostly in people with immune systems weakened either by age or underlying conditions, which is why booster shots have been authorized for these groups. While boosters clearly help the individual, it is just as important for everyone to get fully vaccinated to protect vulnerable people by reducing the overall number of cases in the community.

Vaccines rev up the immune system

All three of the authorized vaccines in the U.S. work by giving the body instructions for making the spike protein from the SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes COVID-19. The spike protein, which resembles a stem with three buds on the end, is what enables the actual virus to invade cells and cause infection. The mRNA vaccines by Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna provide the blueprint for the spike protein in the form of mRNA in a drug-delivery system called a lipid nanoparticle. The Johnson & Johnson vaccine gives DNA instructions inside the coat of a different virus, called a viral vector.

The immune system quickly recognizes that these foreign proteins do not belong, and it generates an immune response to fight them off. These newfound defenses gear the body up to protect against the real virus. During this primary immune response, immune cells encounter spike proteins and, as a defense, they produce antibodies, “memory” cells and T-cells that can kill infected cells to prevent the virus from multiplying. Some of these antibodies and T-cells from the primary immune response persist over time, though they decrease during the first month after vaccination, while memory cells last much longer.

Then, when someone gets an additional dose of vaccine, the immune system goes through a secondary immune response. Thanks to the memory cells, the secondary immune response activates more rapidly, triggering lots of antibody production and T-cell activation. More mature antibodies are produced as well, and they are even better at trapping the spike proteins. And T-cells proliferate, helping to stop the intruder in its tracks. This type of secondary immune response can be activated again and again when repeat exposures to a vaccine – or booster doses – occur. Each time, the immune response mounts a stronger and more effective defense.

Mix-and-match vaccine boosters

Multiple studies, including preliminary research from the National Institutes of Health that is not yet peer-reviewed, have shown that the mix-and-match strategy is safe and effective at providing a significant immune boost.

Additionally, mixing vaccine types may be most beneficial in those who initially received a non-mRNA vaccine. The NIH data suggests that people who got the single-shot Johnson & Johnson vaccine had a bigger increase and achieved a higher antibody concentration after receiving an mRNA booster than if they received the Johnson & Johnson booster. For people who first received one of the mRNA vaccines, Pfizer or Moderna, followed by a third shot with Johnson & Johnson, the antibody response was similar to that seen in those who got a third, or homologous, mRNA dose.

Studies exploring why the mix-and-match strategy is more effective with some initial vaccines and not others are underway. Understanding this and the effectiveness of different vaccine combinations, including using vaccines that are authorized in other countries, will help improve vaccination strategies all over the world.

Interchanging vaccine types may have greater advantages in some people than in others, which will become clearer as more data is gathered. But the good news is that the immune response seems to get a solid boost from booster shots, regardless of which vaccine combination is used.

This article is republished from The Conversation. Read the original article.

The future of work is hybrid – here’s an expert’s recommendations for success

By
Ekansh
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0
A hybrid work arrangement means employees divide work time between the office and home
A hybrid work arrangement means employees divide work time between the office and home

COVID-19 has changed the way we work. Even before the pandemic, the U.S. workforce increasingly relied on remote collaboration technologies like videoconferencing and Slack. The global crisis accelerated the adoption of these work tools and practices in an unprecedented way. By April 2020, about half of companies reported that more than 80% of their employees worked from home because of COVID-19.

That shift was made possible by decades of research into, and then development of, technologies that support remote work, but not everyone uses these technologies with the same ease. As early as 1987, groundbreaking research identified some of the challenges facing women working from home using technology. That included the difficulties of child care, work-home separation and employee growth opportunities.

Since that time, we have learned much more about virtual collaboration. As an associate professor of information systems, I’m interested in what we can expect as we eagerly anticipate a post-pandemic future. One thing stands out: Hybrid work arrangements – that is, employees who do some tasks in the office and others virtually – is clearly going to be a big part of the picture.

One survey from April 2021 shows 99% of human resources leaders expect employees to work in some kind of hybrid arrangement moving forward. Many have already begun. As just one example, Dropbox, the file hosting service, made a permanent shift during the pandemic, allowing employees to work from home and hold team meetings in the office.

The definition of “hybrid” varies in other organizations. Some workers might be in the office a couple days a week or every other day. Other businesses may require only occasional face-to-face time, perhaps meeting in a centralized location once each quarter.

Either way, research does show many companies fail in their implementation of a virtual workforce.

Remote work versus in the office

In-office work promotes structure and transparency, which may increase trust between management and workers. Developing an organizational culture happens naturally. Casual office conversations – a worker walking down the hall for a quick and unscheduled chat with a colleague, for instance – can lead to knowledge-sharing and collaborative problem-solving. That’s difficult to replicate in a virtual environment, which often relies on advance scheduling for online meetings – although that’s still feasible with enough planning and communication.

But if you look at different metrics, in-office work loses out to working from home. My recent research discovered remote workers report more productivity and enjoy working from home because of the flexibility, the ability to wear casual clothes, and the shortened or nonexistent commute time. Remote work also saves money. There is a significant cost savings for office space, one of the largest budget line items for organizations.

Hybrid arrangements attempt to combine the best of both worlds.

It’s not perfect

It’s true that hybrid work faces many of the same obstacles of face-to-face work. Poor planning and communication, ineffective or unnecessary meetings and confusion about task responsibilities happen remotely as well as in-person.

Perhaps the largest issue when working at home: technology and security concerns. Home networks, an easier target for cyberthreats, are typically more vulnerable than office networks. Remote workers are also more likely to share computers with someone else outside of their organization. Hybrid organizations must invest upfront to work through these complicated and often expensive issues.

With hybrid work, managers cannot see the work taking place. That means they must measure employee performance based on outcomes with clear performance metrics rather than the traditional focus on employee behavior.

Another potential pitfall: Fault lines can develop within hybrid teams – that is, misunderstandings or miscommunication between those in the office and those at home. These two groups may start to divide, potentially leading to tension and conflicts between them – an us-versus-them scenario.

Establishing a hybrid environment

Numerous recommendations exist on the best way to develop a hybrid model. Here are a few of the best ideas.

Meeting too often or with little purpose – that is, meeting for the sake of meeting – leads to fatigue and burnout. Not everyone needs to be at every meeting, yet finesse from management is required to make sure no one feels left out. And meeting-free days can help with productivity and allow employees a block of uninterrupted time to focus on complex projects.

Listening to employees is critical to making sure the hybrid environment is working. Continually seeking feedback, through one-on-one conversations, focus groups or human resources surveys, is important too. So is recognizing and rewarding employees with in-person or virtual kudos for their achievements. Performance incentives, such as financial rewards or tokens of appreciation including food delivery, help develop a supportive culture that increases employee commitment.

Finally: Both managers and employees must be transparent in their communication and understanding of hybrid plans. Policies must be in place to define what tasks happen in the office and remotely. Access to reliable communications is essential, particularly for remote work. All employees must receive the same information at the same time, and in a timely manner. After all, whether in the office or online, workers don’t want to feel they’re the last to know.The Conversation

This article is republished from The Conversation. Read the original article.

Xevant Recognized as a Great Place to Work®-Certified Company.

By
Mathew Carson
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0

Today, Xevant, the leader and creator of automated data analytics for pharmacy benefits organizations, announced its recent certification as a Great Place to Work® company. The Great Place to Work Certification is a badge of honor that validates the employee experience and great workplace culture organizations create for their people.

Xevant

Achieving the Great Place to Work® Certification is based entirely on what current employees say about their experience working at Xevant. This year, 100% of employees said it’s a great place to work-41% higher than the average U.S. company. Xevant was thrilled to far exceed the required responses to earn the certification.

“We work hard to cultivate an environment that’s inclusive, communicative, and employee-driven,” said Brandon Newman, Xevant CEO. “Our team has been vital to our rapid and continued growth. I can’t express enough how appreciated they are and I’m truly humbled that they choose to lend their expertise and time to Xevant.”

About Xevant: Xevant’s revolutionary pharmacy benefits platform infuses real-time automation and alerts throughout the data analysis process accelerating and simplifying the painstaking task of report building for PBMs, TPAs, Health Plans, and Brokers. With Xevant, critical pharmacy analysis that took weeks, months or more can now be done instantly. The results are optimized business processes, reduced operating costs, and improved patient outcomes. Xevant is the recipient of the Globee StartUp of The Year Award and is a certified Great Place to Work company. For more information about how Xevant helps its customers deliver faster, more accurate results visit www.xevant.com. You can also follow Xevant on LinkedIn.

About Great Place to Work®: Great Place to Work is the global authority on workplace culture. Since 1992, they have surveyed more than 100 million employees worldwide and used those deep insights to define what makes a great workplace: trust. Learn more at www.greatplacetowork.com.

Media Contact: Greg Heaps

Phone: 801.634.5717

Email: greg.heaps@xevant.com

Atmospheric river storms can drive costly flooding – and climate change is making them stronger

By
Ekansh
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0
Atmospheric river storms can drive costly flooding – and climate change is making them stronger
Atmospheric river storms can drive costly flooding – and climate change is making them stronger

Ask people to name the world’s largest river, and most will probably guess that it’s the Amazon, the Nile or the Mississippi. In fact, some of Earth’s largest rivers are in the sky – and they can produce powerful storms, like the ones now drenching northern California.

Atmospheric rivers are long, narrow bands of moisture in the atmosphere that extend from the tropics to higher latitudes. These rivers in the sky can transport 15 times the volume of the Mississippi River.

When that moisture reaches the coast and moves inland, it rises over the mountains, generating rain and snowfall. Many fire-weary westerners welcome these deluges, but atmospheric rivers can trigger other disasters, such as extreme flooding and debris flows.

In the past 20 years, as observation networks have improved, scientists have learned more about these important weather phenomena. Atmospheric rivers occur globally, affecting the west coasts of the world’s major land masses, including Portugal, Western Europe, Chile and South Africa. So-called “Pineapple Express” storms that carry moisture from Hawaii to the U.S. West Coast are just one of their many flavors.

My research combines economics and atmospheric science to measure damage from severe weather events. Recently I led a team of researchers from Scripps Institution of Oceanography and the Army Corps of Engineers in the first systematic analysis of damages from atmospheric rivers due to extreme flooding. We found that while many of these events are benign, the largest of them cause most of the flooding damage in the western U.S. And atmospheric rivers are predicted to grow longer, wetter and wider in a warming climate.

Rivers in the sky

On Feb. 27, 2019, an atmospheric river propelled a plume of water vapor 350 miles wide and 1,600 miles long through the sky from the tropical North Pacific Ocean to the coast of Northern California.

Just north of San Francisco Bay, in Sonoma County’s famed wine country, the storm dumped over 21 inches of rain. The Russian River crested at 45.4 feet – 13.4 feet above flood stage.

For the fifth time in four decades, the town of Guerneville was submerged under the murky brown floodwaters of the lower Russian River. Damages in Sonoma County alone were estimated at over US$100 million.

Events like these have drawn attention in recent years, but atmospheric rivers are not new. They have meandered through the sky for millions of years, transporting water vapor from the equator toward the poles.

In the 1960s meteorologists coined the phrase “Pineapple Express” to describe storm tracks that originated near Hawaii and carried warm water vapor to the coast of North America. By the late 1990s atmospheric scientists had found that over 90% of the world’s moisture from the tropics and subtropics was transported to higher latitudes by similar systems, which they named “atmospheric rivers.”

In dry conditions, atmospheric rivers can replenish water supplies and quench dangerous wildfires. In wet conditions, they can cause damaging floods and debris flows, wreaking havoc on local economies.

Helpful and harmful

Researchers have known for some time that flooding due to atmospheric rivers could cost a lot of money, but until our study no one had quantified these damages. We used a catalog of atmospheric river events compiled by Scripps Institution of Oceanography’s Center for Western Weather and Water Extremes, and matched it to 40 years of flood insurance records and 20 years of National Weather Service damage estimates.

We found that atmospheric rivers caused an average of $1.1 billion in flood damages yearly in the western U.S. More than 80% of all flooding damages in the West in the years we studied were associated with atmospheric rivers. In some areas, such as coastal northern California, these systems caused over 99% of damages.

Our data showed that in an average year, about 40 atmospheric rivers made landfall along the Pacific coast somewhere between Baja California and British Columbia. Most of these events were benign: About half caused no insured losses, and these storms replenished the region’s water supply.

But there were a number of exceptions. We used a recently developed atmospheric river classification scale that ranks the storms from 1 to 5, similar to systems for categorizing hurricanes and tornadoes. There was a clear link between these categories and observed damages.

Atmospheric River category 1 (AR1) and AR2 storms caused estimated damages under $1 million. AR4 and AR5 storms caused median damages in the 10s and 100s of millions of dollars respectively. The most damaging AR4s and AR5s generated impacts of over $1 billion per storm. These billion-dollar storms occurred every three to four years.

A moister atmosphere means worse storms

Our most significant finding was an exponential relationship between the intensity of atmospheric rivers and the flood damages they caused. Each increase in the scale from 1 to 5 was associated with a 10-fold increase in damages.

Several recent studies have modeled how atmospheric rivers will change in the coming decades. The mechanism is simple: Greenhouse gases trap heat in the atmosphere, warming the planet. This causes more water to evaporate from oceans and lakes, and increased moisture in the air makes storm systems grow stronger.

Like hurricanes, atmospheric rivers are projected to grow longer, wider and wetter in a warming climate. Our finding that damages increase exponentially with intensity suggests that even modest increases in atmospheric river intensity could lead to significantly larger economic impacts.

Better forecasting is critical

I believe that improving atmospheric forecasting systems should be a priority for adapting to a changing climate. Better understanding of atmospheric rivers’ intensity, duration and landfall locations can provide valuable information to residents and emergency responders.

It also is important to discourage new construction in high-risk areas and help people move to safer locations after major disasters, rather than rebuilding in place.

Finally, our study underlines the need to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions. These storms will keep coming, and they’re getting stronger. In my view, stabilizing the global climate system is the only long-term way to minimize economic damage and risk to vulnerable communities.

This article is republished from The Conversation. Read the original article.

Remote workers can feel left out and disengaged from their workplace.

By
Mathew Carson
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0
Remote workers can feel left out and disengaged from their workplace

Remote workers can feel left out and disengaged from their workplace.

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Listening

The digital transformation of the workplace has created greater opportunities for new forms of work arrangements — remote, hybrid, distributed and flexible work.

While in-person meetings create opportunities for conversation, employees in online meetings tend to drop off immediately at the end of the meeting and return to their work in a split-second.

Physically, we may no longer work in the same office, have hallway conversations or grab a quick lunch or coffee together. The spontaneous conversations that occur in a shared physical environment requires deliberate attention with remote work.

Even before the pandemic, research has shown that remote workers feel left out and are less engaged with their work.

They worry that colleagues talk behind their backs, or that their work is considered a lower priority in the eyes of their supervisors. It’s more difficult to interpret body gestures and facial expressions through a computer screen; the lack of informal yet physical nods of approval in the traditional setting can also let our negativity take over and paranoia hinder productivity.

These experiences have an impact on employees’ sense of a shared reality — the perceived commonalities with other people when it comes to feelings, beliefs and concerns about the world. As researchers on listening, we provide some perspectives for managers to build this shared reality through what we call deliberate listening.

Here are three practices to deliberate listening:

Listening is often referred to as a muscle — it has to be developed. Building good listening skills can be a boon to any workplace.

Listen to bridge boundaries

The idea of shared reality arises from our fundamental need to bond with other people and to understand the world around us. We communicate in order to share our realities, which also form the basis of our thoughts.

Listening builds bridges between different experiences and perspectives. Co-workers and employees may hesitate to share their struggles at home or their conflict with colleagues if not asked. They often only talk about these experiences via deliberate listening.

Managers can engage in deliberate listening to acknowledge differences, reduce defensiveness and to bridge the gaps between “us and them.” Employees can express themselves more fully, expand their thinking and correct faulty generalizations.

Questions aimed at listening — such as a simple as “How are things at home?” or “What’s on your mind?” — can bridge these gaps and the invisible barriers created by distance.

Listen to affirm

Sharing our inner thoughts strengthens our social connections. People tend to feel more connected if they have the same interpretation of events. American psychologist and researcher E. Tory Higgins introduced the idea that “sharing is believing” — people not only tweak what they say to fit with their communication partner’s attitude, they also subsequently remember the observations they share.

In order to listen well, managers can use external tools, like taking notes, to help them. Larry Bossidy, the former CEO of Honeywell, used the technique of dividing a sheet of paper and scribbling notes of what he heard on one side and his thoughts about the matter on the other.

Listeners can also intentionally adjust tones and descriptions to align with the attitude of their conversation partner. Sentences like “I feel the same way” and gestures such as nods build a two-way communication relationship in which interaction partners build on common beliefs and feel closer to each other.

Successful listening results in people feeling they clicked and fuels a desire to maintain this close relationship. That feeling can extend to other colleagues and thereby create a sense of cohesion at work.

Listen to challenge

When others disclose negative emotions, mere listening as support offers minimal help, and can actually perpetuate the frustrating situation.

If the listener validates the negativity, the speaker can brood by immersing in the negativity and replaying the adverse reaction. The magic recipe for constructive listening is attentiveness plus some enlightenment.

Responses that gently challenge the validity of the aggrieved person’s feelings or their appraisal of a perceived problem are most effective for mitigating negativity. Such an approach can motivate people to re-evaluate their initial reaction to the problem and reposition themselves, cognitively and emotionally.

Listening builds shared reality

Listening to others is often undervalued as only passive acceptance. But effective listening as people disclose details of both their professional and personal lives, including hardships and emotions that affect the workplace, takes dedication and skills.

Listening is not passive. It creates a shared reality — one that is crucial for understanding, collaboration and action.

By bridging, affirming and challenging, listeners can build a shared sense of belonging and understanding that shape the realities of our work and world around us. That’s regardless of whether we work in a physical office or online.

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Can Facebook’s smart glasses be smart about security and privacy?

By
Mathew Carson
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0
Can Facebook’s smart glasses be smart about security and privacy?

Facebook’s smart glasses ambitions are in the news again. The company has launched a worldwide project dubbed Ego4D to research new uses for smart glasses.

In September, Facebook unveiled its Ray-Ban Stories glasses, which have two cameras and three microphones built in. The glasses capture audio and video so wearers can record their experiences and interactions.

The research project aims to add augmented reality features to smart glasses using artificial intelligence technologies that could provide wearers with a wealth of information, including the ability to get answers to questions like “Where did I leave my keys?” Facebook’s vision also includes a future where the glasses can “know who’s saying what when and who’s paying attention to whom.”

Several other technology companies like Google, Microsoft, Snap, Vuzix and Lenovo have also been experimenting with versions of augmented or mixed reality glasses. Augmented reality glasses can display useful information within the lenses, providing an electronically enhanced view of the world. For example, smart glasses could draw a line over the road to show you the next turn or let you see a restaurant’s Yelp rating as you look at its sign.

However, some of the information that augmented reality glasses give their users could include identifying people in the glasses’ field of view and displaying personal information about them. It was not too long ago that Google introduced Google Glass, only to face a public backlash for simply recording people. Compared to being recorded by smartphones in public, being recorded by smart glasses feels to people like a greater invasion of privacy.

As a researcher who studies computer security and privacy, I believe it’s important for technology companies to proceed with caution and consider the security and privacy risks of augmented reality.

Smartphones vs. smart glasses

Even though people are now used to being photographed in public, they also expect the photographer typically to raise their smartphone to compose a photo. Augmented reality glasses fundamentally disrupt or violate this sense of normalcy. The public setting may be the same, but the sheer scale and approach of recording has changed.

Such deviations from the norm have long been recognized by researchers as a violation of privacy. My group’s research has found that people in the neighborhood of nontraditional cameras want a more tangible sense of when their privacy is being compromised because they find it difficult to know whether they are being recorded.

Absent the typical physical gestures of taking a photo, people need better ways to convey whether a camera or microphone is recording people. Facebook has already been warned by the European Union that the LED indicating a pair of Ray-Ban Stories is recording is too small.

In the longer term, however, people might become accustomed to smart glasses as the new normal. Our research found that although young adults worry about others recording their embarrassing moments on smartphones, they have adjusted to the pervasive presence of cameras.

Smart glasses as a memory aid

An important application of smart glasses is as a memory aid. If you could record or “lifelog” your entire day from a first-person point of view, you could simply rewind or scroll through the video at will. You could examine the video to see where you left your keys, or you could replay a conversion to recall a friend’s movie recommendation.

Our research studied volunteers who wore lifelogging cameras for several days. We uncovered several privacy concerns – this time, for the camera wearer. Considering who, or what algorithms, might have access to the camera footage, people may worry about the detailed portrait it paints of them.

Who you meet, what you eat, what you watch and what your living room really looks like without guests are all recorded. We found that people were especially concerned about the places being recorded, as well as their computer and phone screens, which formed a large fraction of their lifelogging history.

Popular media already has its take on what can go horribly wrong with such memory aids. “The Entire History of You” episode of the TV series “Black Mirror” shows how even the most casual arguments can lead to people digging through lifelogs for evidence of who said exactly what and when. In such a world, it is difficult to just move on. It’s a lesson in the importance of forgetting.

Psychologists have pointed to the importance of forgetting as a natural human coping mechanism to move past traumatic experiences. Maybe AI algorithms can be put to good use identifying digital memories to delete. For example, our research has devised AI-based algorithms to detect sensitive places like bathrooms and computer and phone screens, which were high on the worry list in our lifelogging study. Once detected, footage can be selectively deleted from a person’s digital memories.

X-ray specs of the digital self?

However, smart glasses have the potential to do more than simply record video. It’s important to prepare for the possibility of a world in which smart glasses use facial recognition, analyze people’s expressions, look up and display personal information, and even record and analyze conversations. These applications raise important questions about privacy and security.

We studied the use of smart glasses by people with visual impairments. We found that these potential users were worried about the inaccuracy of artificial intelligence algorithms and their potential to misrepresent other people.

Even if accurate, they felt it was improper to infer someone’s weight or age. They also questioned whether it was ethical for such algorithms to guess someone’s gender or race. Researchers have also debated whether AI should be used to detect emotions, which can be expressed differently by people from difference cultures.

Augmenting Facebook’s view of the future

I have only scratched the surface of the privacy and security considerations for augmented reality glasses. As Facebook charges ahead with augmented reality, I believe it’s critical that the company address these concerns.

I am heartened by the stellar list of privacy and security researchers Facebook is collaborating with to make sure its technology is worthy of the public’s trust, especially given the company’s recent track record.

But I can only hope that Facebook will tread carefully and ensure that their view of the future includes the concerns of these and other privacy and security researchers.

This article has been updated to clarify that future Facebook augmented reality glasses will not necessarily be in the Ray-Ban Stories product line and that, while the company’s goals include identifying people, the Ego4D research data was not collected using facial recognition technology.The Conversation

This article is republished from The Conversation. Read the original article.

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