New Findings…Group Settings Can Diminish Expressions of Intelligence

Research led by scientists at the Virginia Tech Carilion Research Institute found that small-group dynamics — such as jury deliberations, collective bargaining sessions, and cocktail parties — can alter the expression of IQ in some susceptible people. “You may joke about how committee meetings make you feel brain dead, but our findings suggest that they may make you act brain dead as well,” said Read Montague, director of the Human Neuroimaging Laboratory and Computational Psychiatry Unit at the Virginia Tech Carilion Research Institute, who led the study.

The scientists used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to investigate how the brain processes information about social status in small groups and how perceptions of that status affect expressions of cognitive capacity.

“We started with individuals who were matched for their IQ,” said Montague. “Yet when we placed them in small groups, ranked their performance on cognitive tasks against their peers, and broadcast those rankings to them, we saw dramatic drops in the ability of some study subjects to solve problems. The social feedback had a significant effect.”

“Our study highlights the unexpected and dramatic consequences even subtle social signals in group settings may have on individual cognitive functioning,” said lead author Kenneth Kishida, a research scientist with the Virginia Tech Carilion Research Institute. “And, through neuroimaging, we were able to document the very strong neural responses that those social cues can elicit.”

The researchers recruited subjects from two universities and administered a standard test to establish baseline IQ. The results were not viewed until after a series of ranked group IQ tasks, during which test takers, in groups of five, received information about how their performances compared to those of the other group members.

Although the test subjects had similar baseline IQ scores — a mean of 126, compared to the national average of 100 — they showed a range of test performance results after the ranked group IQ tasks, revealing that some individuals’ expressed IQ was affected by signals about their status within a small group.

The researchers wanted to know what was happening in the brain during the observed changes in IQ expression. The subjects were divided into two groups based on the results of their final rank — the high performers, who scored above the median, and the low performers, who scored at or below the median. Two of every group of five subjects had their brains scanned using fMRI while they participated in the task.

Among the researchers’ findings:

1. Dynamic responses occurred in multiple brain regions, especially the amygdala, the prefrontal cortex, and the nucleus accumbens — regions believed to be involved in emotional processing, problem solving, and reward and pleasure, respectively.

2. All subjects had an initial increase in amygdala activation and diminished activity in the prefrontal cortex, both of which corresponded with a lower problem-solving ability.

3. By the end of the task, the high-performing group showed a decreased amygdala activation and an increased prefrontal cortex activation, both of which were associated with an increased ability to solve more difficult problems.

4. Positive changes in rank were associated with greater activity in the bilateral nucleus accumbens, which has traditionally been linked to learning and has been shown to respond to rewards and pleasure.

5. Negative changes in rank corresponded with greater activity in the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex, consistent with a response to conflicting information.

6. Neither age nor ethnicity showed a significant correlation with performance or brain responses. A significant pattern did emerge along gender lines, however. Although male and female participants had the same baseline IQ, significantly fewer women (3 of 13) were in the high-performing group and significantly more (10 of 13) fell into the low-performing group.

“We don’t know how much these effects are present in real-world settings,” Kishida said. “But given the potentially harmful effects of social-status assignments and the correlation with specific neural signals, future research should be devoted to what, exactly, society is selecting for in competitive learning and workplace environments. By placing an emphasis on competition, for example, are we missing a large segment of the talent pool? Further brain imaging research may also offer avenues for developing strategies for people who are susceptible to these kinds of social pressures.”

“This study tells us the idea that IQ is something we can reliably measure in isolation without considering how it interacts with social context is essentially flawed,” said coauthor Steven Quartz, a professor of philosophy in the Social Cognitive Neuroscience Laboratory of Caltech. “Furthermore, this suggests that the idea of a division between social and cognitive processing in the brain is really pretty artificial. The two deeply interact with each other.”

“So much of our society is organized around small-group interactions,” said Kishida. “Understanding how our brains respond to dynamic social interactions is an important area of future research. We need to remember that social dynamics affect not just educational and workplace environments, but also national and international policy-making bodies, such as the U.S. Congress and the United Nations.”

The research appears in the Jan. 23, 2012 issue of the journalPhilosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B in the article, “Implicit signals in small group settings and their impact on the expression of cognitive capacity and associated brain responses,” by Kenneth Kishida; Dongni Yang, a former postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Neuroscience at Baylor College of Medicine; Karen Hunter Quartz, a director of research in the Graduate School of Education and Information Studies of the University of California, Los Angeles; Steven Quartz; and Read Montague, corresponding author, who is also a professor of physics at Virginia Tech. The research was supported by grants from the Wellcome Trust and the Kane Family Foundation to Montague and the National Institutes of Health to Montague and Kishida. The article is online athttp://rstb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/367/1589/704.abstract?sid=5fc88e56-8a71-4a9b-be8d-ad3fa88c631e

Released: January 22, 2012

Source: Virginia Tech (Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University)

Related Link:

http://www.newswise.com/articles/group-settings-can-diminish-expressions-of-intelligence

Museum to Visitors: Please Do Touch, for Scientific Purposes

Photo Credit: The Walters Art Museum, Modest Venus, or Venus Pudica, a 10.5-inch bronze statuette cast around 1500 by an anonymous Italian artist, is one of the pieces replicated for museum goers to caress for science at an exhibition in Baltimore.

Newswise — It’s the first rule at any art museum: Do not touch the artifacts. Except at this museum and at this one time.

At the “Touch and the Enjoyment of Sculpture: Exploring the Appeal of Renaissance Statuettes” exhibition — at the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore through April 15 — visitors are invited to disregard that decree and to hold, stroke and even caress the pieces.

In fact, handling the objects d’arts — replicas of famous 16th century statuettes held by the Walters — is one of the reasons for the exhibition, explains neuroscientist Steven Hsiao, a researcher at the Johns Hopkins Brain Science Institute. The institute is partnering with the Walters on the show, the fourth in a series of projects between the museum and Johns Hopkins.

“We’re challenging people to think about why physical contact with works of art can be so satisfying,” says Hsiao, whose work includes exploring many aspects of humans’ sense of touch. “In fact, as people browse the exhibition, we will be asking them to react to what they are seeing and feeling.”

The installation incorporates 12 works of art from the Walters collection, along with 22 replicas for visitors to touch and rate, providing data for ongoing research.

The project melds the research interests of Hsiao, who specializes in many facets of touch, and those of Joaneath Spicer, the Walters’ curator of Renaissance and Baroque art, who studies the Renaissance penchant for collecting and commissioning small statuettes and other luxury goods that were satisfying to touch and handle.

But the special appeal of this exhibition lies in the opportunity to join in comparative experiments with the statuettes (well, the replicas, actually).

“We’ll be asking visitors to handle them and to tell us what sculptures they prefer and to rate how they like sculptures that have been modified in their shape and texture. This exhibition allows us to dissect why some objects feel better than others” Hsiao says.

Visitors will register these preferences, and other reactions, on Apple iPads, and visitors will be able to see a dynamic display of their responses. The data will be used in Hsaio’s and Spicer’s research on tactile aesthetics. (Visitors will not be handling the original 16th century artwork; they will only be permitted to touch replica art exclusively fashioned for the show.)

The Walters Art Museum is open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Wednesdays through Sundays and is located at 600 North Charles St. in Baltimore.

Related links:
Steven Hsiao:
http://neuroscience.jhu.edu/StevenHsiao.php

The Johns Hopkins Brain Science Institute:
http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/brainscience/

The Walters Art Museum:
http://thewalters.org/eventscalendar/eventdetails.aspx?e=2207

Released: Released: 1/23/20

Source: Johns Hopkins

Related Link:

http://newswise.com/articles/museum-to-visitors-please-do-touch-for-scientific-purposes

Sleep Preserves and Enhances Bad Emotional Memories

Photo Credit: UMass Amherst, Based on a recent study that included polysomnography, neuroscientists at UMass Amherst suggest that emotional memories are protected by the brain during sleep.

Newswise — AMHERST, Mass. – A recent study by sleep researchers at the University of Massachusetts Amherst is the first to suggest that a person’s emotional response after witnessing an unsettling picture or traumatic event is greatly reduced if the person stays awake afterward, and that sleep strongly “protects” the negative emotional response. Further, if the unsettling picture is viewed again or a flashback memory occurs, it will be just as upsetting as the first time for those who have slept after viewing compared to those who have not.

UMass Amherst neuroscientists Rebecca Spencer, Bengi Baran and colleagues say this response could make sense from an evolutionary point of view, because it would provide survival value to our ancestors by preserving very negative emotions and memories of life-threatening situations and offer a strong incentive to avoid similar occasions in the future.

“Today, our findings have significance for people with post-traumatic stress disorder, for example, or those asked to give eye-witness testimony in court cases,” Spencer says.

“We found that if you see something disturbing, let’s say an accident scene, and then you have a flashback or you’re asked to look at a picture of the same scene later, your emotional response is greatly reduced, that is you’ll find the scene far less upsetting, if you stayed awake after the original event than if you slept. It’s interesting to note that it is common to be sleep-deprived after witnessing a traumatic scene, almost as if your brain doesn’t want to sleep on it.” The study is reported in the current issue of the Journal of Neuroscience.

In their experiments involving 68 healthy female and 38 male (total 106) young adults between 18 and 30 years old, Spencer and colleagues set out to explore, among other ideas, an assumption that the well-known enhancement of memory that occurs during sleep is tied to a change in emotional response to the memory.

Further, in a subset of subjects the neuroscientists used a polysomnograph with electrodes attached to subjects’ scalps as they slept, to investigate whether dreaming or other brain processes that occur during rapid-eye-movement (REM) sleep periods may play a role in the processing of emotions.

In the two-phase experiment, participants were shown pictures on a computer screen and asked to rate each one as sad or happy as well as their own response as calm or excited to each, on a scale of 1-9. The researchers counted sad-happy ratings and calm-excited of 1-3 as negative images and 4-6 as neutral, so each participant’s overall “emotional value” score was unique.

Twelve hours later, participants were shown a mix of new and already viewed pictures and asked whether they had ever seen the picture before and to rate each again on the two scales. They all kept a sleep diary and took a sleep quality index test, as well.

Session timing was arranged so that 82 subjects were assigned either to a Sleep group who saw the first set of pictures late in the day and the second group of pictures after they had slept overnight or to a Wake group, who saw the first set of pictures in the morning and the second set later the same day. To rule out a possible circadian effect on attention, 24 different subjects followed the same routine but with only a 45-minute break between the two phases. Polysomnography data were collected from 25 participants in the Sleep group in their own homes overnight.

Spencer and colleagues found that sleep had significant effects on participants’ memories and feelings. Recognition memory for the pictures was better following sleep compared with wake.

Importantly, the researchers found that contrary to previous assumptions that sleep might soften negative emotional effects of a disturbing event, a period of sleep was associated with participants’ maintaining the strength of their initial negative feelings compared to a period of wakefulness. This suggests that sleep’s effect on memory and emotion are independent, the authors state.

The researchers found no significant relationship between REM sleep time and participants’ accuracy in recalling whether they had seen a picture in both the first and second phases of the study. As such, how sleep protects the emotional response and the emotional memory are unanswered questions. “Sleep may, in fact, be protective of the emotional salience of a stimulus just as sleep protects the emotional memory,” the authors point out.

This work was supported by the National Institutes of Health and the UMass Amherst Commonwealth Honors College.

Released: 1/16/2012

Source:  University of Massachusetts Amherst

Related Link:

http://www.newswise.com/articles/sleep-preserves-and-enhances-bad-emotional-memories

We May Be Less Happy, but Our English Language Isn’t

Newswise — “If it bleeds, it leads,” goes the cynical saying with television and newspaper editors. In other words, most news is bad news and the worst news gets the big story on the front page.

So one might expect the New York Times to contain, on average, more negative and unhappy types of words — like “war,” ” funeral,” “cancer,” “murder” — than positive, happy ones — like “love,” “peace” and “hero.”

Or take Twitter. A popular image of what people tweet about may contain a lot of complaints about bad days, worse coffee, busted relationships and lousy sitcoms. Again, it might be reasonable to guess that a giant bag containing all the words from the world’s tweets — on average — would be more negative and unhappy than positive and happy.

But new research shows just the opposite.

“English, it turns out, is strongly biased toward being positive,” said Peter Dodds, an applied mathematician at the University of Vermont.

The UVM team’s study “Positivity of the English Language,” is presented in the Jan. 11 issue of the journal PLoS ONE.

This new study complements another study the same Vermont scientists presented in the Dec. 7 issue of PLoS ONE, “Temporal Patterns of Happiness and Information in a Global Social Network.”

That work attracted wide media attention showing that average global happiness, based on Twitter data, has been dropping for the past two years.

Combined, the two studies show that short-term average happiness has dropped — against the backdrop of the long-term fundamental positivity of the English language.

In the new study, Dodds and his colleagues gathered billions of words from four sources: twenty years of the New York Times, the Google Books Project (with millions of titles going back to 1520), Twitter and a half-century of music lyrics.

“The big surprise is that in each of these four sources it’s the same,” says Dodds. “We looked at the top 5,000 words in each, in terms of frequency, and in all of those words you see a preponderance of happier words.”

Or, as they write in their study, “a positivity bias is universal,” both for very common words and less common ones and across sources as diverse as tweets, lyrics and British literature.

Why is this? “It’s not to say that everything is fine and happy,” Dodds says. “It’s just that language is social.”

In contrast to traditional economic theory, which suggests people are inherently and rationally selfish, a wave of new social science and neuroscience data shows something quite different: that we are a pro-social storytelling species. As language emerged and evolved over the last million years, positive words, it seems, have been more widely and deeply engrained into our communications than negative ones.

“If you want to remain in a social contract with other people, you can’t be a…,” well, Dodds here used a word that is rather too negative to be fit to print — which makes the point.

This new work adds depth to the Twitter study that the Vermont scientists published in December that attracted attention from NPR, Time magazine and other media outlets.

“After that mild downer story, we can say, ‘But wait — there’s still happiness in the bank,” Dodds notes. “On average, there’s always a net happiness to language.”

Both studies drew on a service from Amazon called Mechanical Turk. On this website, the UVM researchers paid a group of volunteers to rate, from one to nine, their sense of the “happiness” — the emotional temperature — of the 10,222 most common words gathered from the four sources. Averaging their scores, the volunteers rated, for example, “laughter” at 8.50, “food” 7.44, “truck” 5.48, “greed” 3.06 and “terrorist” 1.30.

The Vermont team — including Dodds, Isabel Kloumann, Chris Danforth, Kameron Harris, and Catherine Bliss — then took these scores and applied them to the huge pools of words they collected. Unlike some other studies — with smaller samples or that elicited strong emotional words from volunteers — the new UVM study, based solely on frequency of use, found that “positive words strongly outnumber negative words overall.”

This seems to lend support to the so-called Pollyanna Principle, put forth in 1969, that argues for a universal human tendency to use positive words more often, easily and in more ways than negative words.

Of course, most people would rank some words, like “the,” with the same score: a neutral 5. Other words, like “pregnancy,” have a wide spread, with some people ranking it high and others low. At the top of this list of words that elicited strongly divergent feelings: “profanities, alcohol and tobacco, religion, both capitalism and socialism, sex, marriage, fast foods, climate, and cultural phenomena such as the Beatles, the iPhone, and zombies,” the researchers write.

“A lot of these words — the neutral words or ones that have big standard deviations — get washed out when we use them as a measure,” Dodds notes. Instead, the trends he and his team have observed are driven by the bulk of English words tending to be happy.

If we think of words as atoms and sentences as molecules that combine to form a whole text, “we’re looking at atoms,” says Dodds. “A lot of news is bad,” he says, and short-term happiness may rise and and fall like the cycles of the economy, “but the atoms of the story — of language — are, overall, on the positive side.”

Released: 1/12/2012

Source: University of Vermont

Related Link:

http://www.newswise.com/articles/we-may-be-less-happy-but-our-language-isn-t

Some Like it Hot: Popular Yoga Style Cranks up the Heat

What You Need to Know to Prevent Injuries

Photo Credit, Hospital for Special Surgery. People practicing hot yoga should take certain precautions, said certified yoga instructor Diana Zotos of Hospital for Special Surgery.

Newswise — Yoga is one of the hottest fitness trends and a style known as “hot yoga” is gaining in popularity.

Hot yoga refers to yoga practiced in a heated environment, with the room temperature generally reaching 90 to 105 degrees. The theory behind it is that hot yoga helps the body to sweat out toxins while allowing the practitioner to safely achieve deeper poses. Bikram is a common form of hot yoga.

Almost 16 million Americans practice some form of yoga, according to a 2008 study in the Yoga Journal.

While the practice can offer health benefits and a sense of well-being, people practicing hot yoga, especially beginners, should take certain precautions, according to Diana Zotos, a certified yoga instructor and physical therapist in the Rehabilitation Department at Hospital for Special Surgery in Manhattan.

“Yoga of any type is physically challenging, and the heated environment of hot yoga makes the practice especially demanding,” Zotos says. “The heat makes people feel as if they can stretch deeper into poses and can give them a false sense of flexibility. This can lead to muscle strains or damage to the joint, including ligaments and cartilage.”

Zotos says people over 40 who have never done Bikram yoga may be at greater risk of injury, and she recommends they familiarize themselves with it prior to trying a class. “There are many books and videos that describe this style and can demonstrate the poses and techniques,” she says. “Since classes are constructed of the same 26 poses, people can become familiar with them beforehand.”

Beginners should keep in mind that poses will require a certain level of leg, core and upper body strength, as well as balance, according to Zotos. People should also have a tolerance for stretching and moderate flexibility in their legs and spine.

“The heat factor also puts more strain on the heart and challenges endurance. That being said, people should be of good cardiovascular health; have healthy hip, knee, spine and shoulder joints; shouldn’t have balance or neurological issues; and should have a general tolerance for excessive heat,” she advises.

Zotos has these additional tips:

• Be well-prepared. Bring a mat and towel, and
wear shorts and a tank top. If possible, bring a buddy. It can be more fun and less intimidating if you take your first class with a friend.
• Make sure you drink plenty of fluids well before class (but not coffee or soda). Don’t eat anything too heavy (more than 200 calories) two to three hours prior to class.
• Make sure the studio and teachers have a good reputation. Ask about their experience and credentials. The teacher should be certified in Bikram or another form of yoga.
• Try to arrive early. This way you can introduce yourself and speak with the instructor, pick a good spot in the studio to set up your mat and get comfortable with your surroundings and the heat.
• Start slowly and learn the basics. Never push yourself to the point of pain while stretching or assuming a position.
• Listen to your body. Stop at the first sign of discomfort. If you are extremely fatigued, take a break. Do not try yoga poses beyond your experience or comfort level.
• Don’t get discouraged if you can’t reach a pose. It’s not a competition.
• Ask questions if you’re not sure how to perform a pose.
• If you get dizzy, lightheaded, overheated or experience chest pain, STOP immediately. Seek medical assistance if necessary.

Anyone who questions whether hot yoga is safe for them should consult their physician, Zotos says. “If you have sensitivity to heat, if you’ve ever had heat stroke or tend to get fatigued, dizzy or dehydrated quickly, you should ask your doctor before starting hot yoga. Anyone with osteoarthritis, any rheumatologic arthritis, pain in muscles or a joint, or any kind of previous injury should check with their doctor.”

Zotos says it’s especially important that anyone who has hypertension, low blood pressure or heart disease check with their cardiologist before trying hot yoga.

For more tips concerning other forms of exercise and wellness advice, visit www.hss.edu/wellness.

Released: 1/16/2012

Source: Hospital for Special Surgery

Related Link:

http://newswise.com/articles/some-like-it-hot-popular-yoga-style-cranks-up-the-heat

New Findings…Elderly Can Be As Fast as Young in Some Brain Tasks

Newswise — COLUMBUS, Ohio – Both children and the elderly have slower response times when they have to make quick decisions in some settings.

But recent research suggests that much of that slower response is a conscious choice to emphasize accuracy over speed.

In fact, healthy older people can be trained to respond faster in some decision-making tasks without hurting their accuracy – meaning their cognitive skills in this area aren’t so different from younger adults.

“Many people think that it is just natural for older people’s brains to slow down as they age, but we’re finding that isn’t always true,” said Roger Ratcliff, professor of psychology at Ohio State University and co-author of the studies.

“At least in some situations, 70-year-olds may have response times similar to those of 25-year olds.”

Ratcliff and his colleagues have been studying cognitive processes and aging in their lab for about a decade. In a new study published online this month in the journal Child Development, they extended their work to children.

Ratcliff said their results in children are what most scientists would have expected: very young children have slower response times and poorer accuracy compared to adults, and these improve as the children mature.

But the more interesting finding is that older adults don’t necessarily have slower brain processing than younger people, said Gail McKoon, professor of psychology at Ohio State and co-author of the studies.

“Older people don’t want to make any errors at all, and that causes them to slow down. We found that it is difficult to get them out of the habit, but they can with practice,” McKoon said.

Researchers uncovered this surprising finding by using a model developed by Ratcliff that considers both the reaction time and the accuracy shown by participants in speeded tasks. Most models only consider one of these variables.

“If you look at aging research, you find some studies that show older people are not impaired in accuracy, but other studies that show that older people do suffer when it comes to speed. What this model does is look at both together to reconcile the results,” Ratcliff said.

Ratcliff, McKoon and their colleagues have used several of the same experiments in children, young adults and the elderly.

In one experiment, participants are seated in front of a computer screen. Asterisks appear on the screen and the participants have to decide as quickly as possible whether there is a “small” number (31-50) or a “large” number (51-70) of asterisks. They press one of two keys on the keyboard, depending on their answer.

In another experiment, participants are again seated in front of a computer screen and are shown a string of letters. They have to decide whether those letters are a word in English or not. Some strings are easy (the nonwords are a random string of letters) and some are hard (the nonwords are pronounceable, such as “nerse”).

In the Child Development study, the researchers used the asterisk test on second and third graders, fourth and fifth graders, ninth and tenth graders, and college-aged adults. Third graders and college-aged adults participated in the word/nonword test.

The results showed that there was a rise in accuracy and decrease in response time on both tasks from the second and third-graders to the college-age adults.

The younger children took longer than older children and adults to respond in the experiment, Ratcliff said. They, like the elderly, were taking longer to make up their mind. But the younger children were also less accurate than younger adults in this study.

“Younger children are not able to make as good of use of the information they are presented, so they are less accurate,” Ratcliff said. “That improves as they mature.”

Older adults show a different pattern. In a study published in the journal Cognitive Psychology, Ratcliff and colleagues compared college-age subjects, older adults aged 60-74, and older adults aged 75-90. They used the same asterisk and word/nonword tests that were in the Child Development study. They found that there was little difference in accuracy among the groups, even the oldest of participants.

However, the college students had faster response times than did the 60-74 year olds, who were faster than the 75-90 year olds.

But the slower response times are not all the result of a decline in skills among older adults. In a previous study, the researchers encouraged older adults to go faster on these same tests. When they did, the difference in their response times compared to college-age students decreased significantly.

“For these simple tasks, decision-making speed and accuracy is intact even up to 85 and 90 years old,” McKoon said.

That doesn’t mean there are no effects of aging on decision-making speed and accuracy, Ratcliff said. In a study in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, Ratcliff, McKoon and another colleague found (like in studies from other laboratories) that accuracy for “associative memory” does decline as people age. For example, older people were much less likely to remember if they had studied a pair of words together than did younger adults.

But Ratcliff said that, overall, their research suggests there should be greater optimism about the cognitive skills of seniors.

“The older view was that all cognitive processes decline at the same rate as people age,” Ratcliff said.

“We’re finding that there isn’t such a uniform decline. There are some things that older people do nearly as well as young people.”

Ratcliff co-authored the Child Development paper with Jessica Love and John Opfer of Ohio State and Clarissa Thompson of the University of Oklahoma. Ratcliff and McKoon co-authored the Cognitive Psychology and Journal of Experimental Psychology: General papers with Anjali Thapar of Bryn Mawr College.

Some of the research was supported with grants from the National Institute on Aging and the National Institute of Mental Health.

Released: 12/26/2011

Source: Ohio State University

Related Link:

http://newswise.com/articles/elderly-can-be-as-fast-as-young-in-some-brain-tasks

Time for a Change? Johns Hopkins Scholars Say Calendar Needs Serious Overhaul

Newswise — Researchers at The Johns Hopkins University have discovered a way to make time stand still — at least when it comes to the yearly calendar.

Using computer programs and mathematical formulas, Richard Conn Henry, an astrophysicist in the Krieger School of Arts and Sciences, and Steve H. Hanke, an applied economist in the Whiting School of Engineering, have created a new calendar in which each new 12-month period is identical to the one which came before, and remains that way from one year to the next in perpetuity.

Under the Hanke-Henry Permanent Calendar, for instance, if Christmas fell on a Sunday in 2012 (and it would), it would also fall on a Sunday in 2013, 2014 and beyond. In addition, under the new calendar, the rhyme “30 days hath September, April, June and November,” would no longer apply, because September would have 31 days, as would March, June and December. All the rest would have 30. (Try creating a rhyme using that.)

“Our plan offers a stable calendar that is absolutely identical from year to year and which allows the permanent, rational planning of annual activities, from school to work holidays,” says Henry, who is also director of the Maryland Space Grant Consortium. “Think about how much time and effort are expended each year in redesigning the calendar of every single organization in the world and it becomes obvious that our calendar would make life much simpler and would have noteworthy benefits.”

Among the practical advantages would be the convenience afforded by birthdays and holidays (as well as work holidays) falling on the same day of the week every year. But the economic benefits are even more profound, according to Hanke, an expert in international economics, including monetary policy.

“Our calendar would simplify financial calculations and eliminate what we call the ‘rip off’ factor,’” explains Hanke. “Determining how much interest accrues on mortgages, bonds, forward rate agreements, swaps and others, day counts are required. Our current calendar is full of anomalies that have led to the establishment of a wide range of conventions that attempt to simplify interest calculations. Our proposed permanent calendar has a predictable 91-day quarterly pattern of two months of 30 days and a third month of 31 days, which does away with the need for artificial day count conventions.”

According to Hanke and Henry, their calendar is an improvement on the dozens of rival reform calendars proffered by individuals and institutions over the last century.

“Attempts at reform have failed in the past because all of the major ones have involved breaking the seven-day cycle of the week, which is not acceptable to many people because it violates the Fourth Commandment about keeping the Sabbath Day,” Henry explains. “Our version never breaks that cycle.”

Henry posits that his team’s version is far more convenient, sensible and easier to use than the current Gregorian calendar, which has been in place for four centuries – ever since 1582, when Pope Gregory altered a calendar that was instituted in 46 BC by Julius Caesar.

In an effort to bring Caesar’s calendar in synch with the seasons, the pope’s team removed 11 days from the calendar in October, so that Oct. 4 was followed immediately by Oct. 15. This adjustment was necessary in order to deal with the same knotty problem that makes designing an effective and practical new calendar such a challenge: the fact that each Earth year is 365.2422 days long.

Hanke and Henry deal with those extra “pieces” of days by dropping leap years entirely in favor of an extra week added at the end of December every five or six years. This brings the calendar in sync with the seasonal changes as the Earth circles the sun.

In addition to advocating the adoption of this new calendar, Hanke and Henry encourage the abolition of world time zones and the adoption of “Universal Time” (formerly known as Greenwich Mean Time) in order to synchronize dates and times worldwide, streamlining international business.

“One time throughout the world, one date throughout the world,” they write in a January 2012 Global Asia article about their proposals. “Business meetings, sports schedules and school calendars would be identical every year. Today’s cacophony of time zones, daylight savings times and calendar fluctuations, year after year, would be over. The economy — that’s all of us — would receive a permanent ‘harmonization’ dividend.”

View a website about the Hanke-Henry Permanent Calendar here:
http://henry.pha.jhu.edu/calendar.html

Read Hanke and Henry’s January 2012 Global Asia article about calendar reform here:
http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=13940

Released: Released: 12/27/2011

Source: Johns Hopkins

Related Link:

http://newswise.com/articles/time-for-a-change-johns-hopkins-scholars-say-calendar-needs-serious-overhaul

Marketing Trends in 2012: Traditional Expensive Advertising No Longer Effective, Says Expert

Newswise — Traditional product advertising — full-page magazine ads and 30-second television commercials — may be going the way of the rotary phone. Emerging concepts such as crowdsourcing, viral Internet campaigns, product placements and guerilla promotions will dominate the marketing and advertising landscape in 2012 and beyond, says a marketing expert at Washington University in St. Louis.

“Traditional expensive advertising is no longer effective given all the clutter, as well as the emergence of technologies, like digital video recorders, that block the ads from even being viewed, much less absorbed, by consumers,” says Seethu Seetharaman, PhD, the W. Patrick McGinnis Professor of Marketing at Olin Business School.

Seetharaman says the success of “ingeniously crafted” inexpensive viral ad campaigns, such as BlendTec’s “Will it Blend?” YouTube campaign for its blenders, indicates that such non-traditional, low-cost/high-impact promotional campaigns will be on the rise moving forward.

Product placements, though they’ve been around a long time, will continue to gain popularity as well in place of more traditional advertising, he says.

“The movie Transformers 3 created a record, even by Hollywood standards, in terms of the number of brands that were ‘product placed’ within the movie,” Seetharaman says. “This will catch on in the future, although the concept of product placements goes back to the times of the Marx Brothers.”

The reason for its reemergence, he says, is that there are very few opportunities these days to get consumers in a “captive” mode of having no choice but to take in the brand being advertised.

“One of those few opportunities is being stuck in a dark auditorium, consuming entertainment, having no choice of whitening out a brand on screen, or using a DVR to fast-forward,” Seetharaman says. “In fact, product placements are also on the rise in sitcoms, video games and other media for the same reason.

“In fact,” he says, “pre-movie advertising interspersed between movie trailers will increase as well.”

Social media will play a critical role in product development, as well as advertising.

“I think crowdsourcing is only going to increase,” Seetharaman says.

Crowdsourcing refers to the open innovation model, pioneered by sites like Threadless.com, where customers design and vote on new product designs.

This allows them to take active charge of the new product development process, rather than reacting to product concepts developed by firms, he says.

“This product development model has already moved to information markets like the Huffington Post, and is now moving to high-ticket products such as furniture and cars, albeit for limited target markets for now,” Seetharaman says.

Given the popularity of campaigns such as the T-Mobile Flash Mob, one is more likely to see non-traditional “grassroots” campaigns get more noticed than traditional billboard advertising in city streets.

“With the explosion of smartphones, these grassroots campaigns are swiftly recorded by people and then posted on YouTube in short order, which then makes these guerilla campaigns go viral in a big way,” Seetharaman says. “This ‘guerrilla promotion’ style of advertising will blossom in 2012 and beyond.”

Released: 12/21/2011

Source: Washington University in St. Louis

Related Link:

http://www.newswise.com/articles/marketing-trends-in-2012-traditional-expensive-advertising-no-longer-effective-says-wustl-expert

Experts Offer 15 Predictions for 2012

Newswise — For the 31st consecutive year, The University of Alabama Office of Media Relations offers predictions from faculty experts for the coming year. So, what’s ahead for 2012? Look for President Barack Obama to face, and defeat, a surprise Republican nominee, online doomsday groups to spike, the Occupy Movement to re-emerge, fuel prices to remain unstable and much more.

Expanded versions of each of these guesses is available atwww.uanews.ua.edu

Obama to Battle, Beat Late-Entry Republican

President Obama is likely to win re-election in 2012, but his Republican opponent will not be one of the current candidates battling one another in the early primaries, a University of Alabama political scientist predicts. “I think there are a lot of Republicans who are not going be satisfied with the best of who’s out there now,” says Dr. Richard C. Fording, chair of the UA political science department. “They don’t have a candidate who can beat Obama,” he says. Although a new candidate – for example, former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, businessman Donald Trump or New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie — might be behind in organization and fund-raising, she or he would avoid the scathing political battles under way in the debates and in the Iowa caucuses.

Cuba May be State’s Next Big Customer

The Alabama business community needs to practice its Spanish, and that suggestion has nothing to do with the state’s controversial immigration law. Dr. Jase Ramsey, an assistant professor of marketing at The University of Alabama, predicts the United States will continue to ease trade sanctions on Cuba and, as early as this time next year, some U.S. businesses will visit the island nation on state-sponsored trade missions to size up market potential. “Alabama’s proximity to the Communist country makes our businesses especially attractive for potential foreign direct investment into Cuba,” Ramsey says. “A key component that will determine who gets access to Cuba is prior relationships with the Castro regime and with Cuban politicians.

Online Doomsday Groups to Spike

Warnings about apocalyptic cataclysms in 2012 potentially will serve as a catalyst for Internet hysteria, a University of Alabama psychology professor predicts. According to some scholars, the ancient Mayan calendar predicts that the world will end in 2012. Figures in popular culture and the Internet are taking this prediction seriously. The result could be panic on the level of the Y2K scare of 1999, says Dr. Rosanna Guadagno, assistant professor of psychology. “We’re going to see a lot of doomsday groups grow online,” says Guadagno, an Internet scholar. “If one of them gets big enough, we’ll see hysteria spreading over the Internet. Then we’ll see the kind of crazy things some people were doing on New Year’s Eve in 1999.”

New App to Displace Craigslist, Professor Predicts

Application software, also known as an application or an “app,” seems ubiquitous these days. The computer software is designed to help users perform specific tasks. You can play games, learn guitar, set up a workout program, shop and a jillion other things. Dr. Craig E. Armstrong, assistant professor of management at The University of Alabama, says he expects someone to create, within the next year, an “app” that performs “Craigslist” functions for the exchange of goods and services. Need to find someone to paint your house? Check the app. Want to earn some extra money by applying a skill you have? Check the app. The app platform will displace Craigslist because it will enable transactions with less traction and allow buyers and sellers to create reputations, Armstrong says.

Social Media to Serve as New Opinion Polls

One of the biggest changes from the 2008 presidential election to the 2012 election is the increase in social media outlets and usage. Dr. Kristen Heflin, assistant professor of advertising and public relations in The University of Alabama’s College of Communication and Information Sciences, says she expects the public to have more access to candidates than ever before – and that access will include the good, the bad and the ugly. “Social media will continue to serve as an echo chamber for candidate gaffes, as we’ve already seen …” Heflin says. “Social media will be mined for information on public opinion. Social media buzz will serve as the new opinion polls. News organizations will base their stories off of social media buzz.”

Has the ‘Occupy’ Movement Faded? Don’t Bet on It

As Occupy encampments around the country seem to be fading as we move into a new year, some analysts and media personalities are criticizing the movement for lack of focus and mission, and they are voicing the inevitable predictions of doom and failure for the movement. But, not so fast, my friend, says Dr. Gary Hoover, a UA economics professor. He says the movement only appears to have gone dormant in places like New York and Oakland where demonstrators were forced by police to leave their staging grounds. “ … I predict that we have not heard the last of the Occupy Movement. In fact, I think they will be heard again and re-emerge on the political and economic landscape more determined and forceful than ever.”

Female Running Mate May Determine Election

Whereas many eyes were on presidential candidates in the final days of 2011, one University of Alabama professor believes the vice presidential race is the one to watch. Dr. Janis Edwards, associate professor of communication studies, says the VP slot may actually determine the outcome of the 2012 presidential election. “On the Republican side, none of the current candidates is likely to beat Obama, despite his perceived weakness,” Edwards says. “Romney is not popular, nor a good campaigner. Gingrich will produce buyer’s remorse. Therefore, the partner on the ticket could be very meaningful for Republican momentum, especially if there is great appeal to women voters.” Edwards says there is an outside chance that current vice president Joe Biden could assume the role of secretary of state, opening up the vice presidential spot on the Democrat side.

Stressful 2011 Could Make for a Depressed 2012

2011 has been a turbulent one for the people of Alabama, and a professor in The University of Alabama Capstone College of Nursing thinks many people will feel the effects mentally during 2012. “I predict an increase in the number of patients seeking care for a new-onset of depression, anxiety and mental health conditions,” says Dr. Amy Bigham, assistant professor of nursing. Traumatic events can cause anxiety, stress and depression later, once the initial shock wears down. “The year 2011 was stressful for many Alabamians due to changes in the economy, increases in job losses and natural disasters,” says Bigham.

Year of Natural Disaster to Bring Changes in 2012

The United States was particularly hard hit with a string of natural disasters in the past year: unprecedented summer heat and drought in the Southwest, deadly tornadoes, a massive blizzard in the Northeast, major river floods in the Midwest, an earthquake on the East Coast followed by a hurricane that caused massive flooding. So we can expect municipalities around the nation to look for ways to mitigate losses caused by natural disasters. “The U.S. can no longer afford to ignore the management of catastrophic losses at the state and federal levels,” said Dr. William Rabel, professor of finance and head of the insurance program at The University of Alabama’s Culverhouse College of Commerce. “They will have to identify and evaluate exposures and then select the optimum tools for controlling and financing losses. “Every state and the federal government will need a chief risk officer.”

One of Least Productive Years in Congressional History Ahead

The 2012 congressional elections will see Republicans hold onto the U.S. House of Representatives and Democrats hold onto the Senate, a University of Alabama political scientist predicts. But, new faces may emerge as Republican and Democratic candidates challenge incumbents in primaries. “This will be a status-quo election for Congress in terms of the partisan breakdown,” says Dr. Stephen Borrelli, professor of political science. Borrelli also predicts continued stalemate in Congress as the presidential election approaches, particularly if unemployment continues to fall. “You’re going to see one of the least productive years in the history of Congress,” Borrelli says. “It will be all they can do to keep the government running …”

Tablets, Other Mobile Devices to Become More Evident in Hospitals

iPads aren’t just on little Bobby and Susie’s list – medical workers also have an iPad or other tablet device at the top of their holiday gift-wish list. Dr. Heather D. Carter-Templeton, in The University of Alabama Capstone College of Nursing, says there will be a surge in the use of tablets and mobile devices in the hospital and community health clinical settings in 2012. “Recent studies have found rapid growth in the use of mobile technology among health-care professionals, such as physicians and nurses,” she says. “They’re small, easily portable and can carry a tremendous amount of evidence-based information accessible at the point-of-care.” However, the industry must adjust, she says. “The type of work, the physical space of the nursing unit and who will be using the devices needs to be considered when planning for the use of mobile technology within the clinical setting.”

Middle East Unrest, Sputtering Economies to Keep Fuel Prices Unstable

Fuel prices will remain unstable in 2012 as pressure from all sides influence the cost of crude oil, according to a University of Alabama engineering professor who follows the petroleum markets. A decrease in demand the last month or so of 2011 slightly reversed jumps in gasoline prices in the United States, but there is too much political uncertainty ahead to believe that should continue, says Dr. Peter Clark, professor of chemical engineering. If anything, demand in the U.S. should increase with the slow-recovering economy and the annual price spike from the summer thirst for fuel. “Volatility in the oil market translates to volatility in gasoline prices,” Clark says. Continued unrest in the Middle East and instability among European economies, combined with a recovering economy at home, could mean higher prices at the fuel pump in 2012, he says.

Health Care Will Continue to be a Pain in the Head

If you think the health-care reform debate has been intense and confusing so far, take two aspirins and try to follow it through 2012. “I think that in 2012, Americans will begin to seriously debate the entire health-care question,” says Dr. William Rabel, professor of finance and head of the insurance program at the Culverhouse College of Commerce. “Not just how it is financed, but how it is created and delivered as well. Whether Obamacare is upheld by the Supreme Court or not, it is only a transitional phase as we grope our way to a health-care system that will have substantial differences from the one we know today,” Rabel says.

Occupy Protesters Unlikely to See Increase in Court Victories

Recent events surrounding the Occupy Wall Street movement have led to questions regarding the First Amendment rights of citizens. Dr. Matthew D. Bunker, Reese Phifer Professor of Journalism, says protesters could expect mixed results in litigation. “Public places such as parks and streets have traditionally been considered public forums for the expression of ideas, but the government retains the ability to impose reasonable restrictions based on the time, place or manner of the speech,” Bunker says. “That means that courts will often side with local officials who try to regulate tents and 24-hour campsites for reasons of public health and safety.” For media members covering the events, Bunker says results were likely to be similar but that the courts might see an increase in individual actions for false arrest or excessive force.

Low Interest Rates Ain’t Gonna Last

So, if interest rates are at record low levels, it’s pretty safe to predict that they are going to increase, right? “Right,” says Dr. Benton Gup, professor of finance at The University of Alabama, “but let’s not make the same mistakes that led to the failure and consolidation of thousands of financial institutions in the 1980s. Simply stated, when market rates of interest were low in the 1970s, lenders borrowed short-term funds at low rates and made long-term fixed rate mortgage loans at slightly higher rates.” Gup says the important point is that mortgage lenders should not make long-term fixed rate loans unless they can hedge their interest rate risk or match the maturity of their assets and liabilities. So, look for interest rates to go up but in a more constrained lending environment.

Released: 12/20/2011

Source: University of Alabama

Related Link:

http://newswise.com/articles/experts-offer-15-predictions-for-2012

Resolution Solution: How Making a Plan Can Help You Meet New Year’s Goals

When making New Year’s resolutions this year, committing to a specific plan for when and where you are going to accomplish each goal will make you more likely to succeed, says psychologist E.J. Masicampo. In a recent study published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, he found that committing to a specific plan to accomplish a goal not only makes it more likely to be done, but also gets it off your mind so you can think about other things.

Newswise — When making New Year’s resolutions this year, committing to a specific plan for when and where you are going to accomplish each goal will make you more likely to succeed, says a Wake Forest University psychology professor.

In a recent study published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Assistant Professor E.J. Masicampo found that committing to a specific plan to accomplish a goal not only makes it more likely to be done, but also gets it off your mind so you can think about other things.

“Once a plan is made, we can stop thinking about that one goal,” says Masicampo, who studies goal setting and will power. “This frees our minds to focus on other tasks or simply enjoy the current moment.”

But, not just any plan will work, he says. “The ones that work specify exactly what you are going to do, including when and where you are going to do it.”

He describes four essential elements of a successful plan:

1. Specifies exactly what you’re going to do and in what situation (where and when)
2. Is under your control and not dependent on someone else’s actions
3. Includes specific opportunities to meet the goal in situations likely to occur
4. Focuses on a goal you are motivated to accomplish

Most importantly, he says, “You have to picture yourself carrying out your plan. That’s where the power of the plans lie, in imagining yourself completing the tasks.”

Imagining doing something has a similar effect on the brain as really doing it. Since keeping resolutions is often about creating new habits, this gives you a head start on developing the desired behavior.

“It’s all about making a habit out of the goal. A plan is like creating a habit ahead of time,” says Masicampo, “before you have actually done anything.”

This sort of planning works best for less complex goals. He suggests breaking down New Year’s resolutions into steps, so the overall goal can more likely be attained. Someone with a goal to lose weight, for example, should make “if, then” plans for specific situations that can help them accomplish the overall goal. “An ‘if, then’ plan pre-decides how you will act in a given situation,” Masicampo says. For example, if you visit a particular restaurant, then you will order a salad instead of the cheeseburger and onion rings. The plan gives you a cue to act. If you commit to the plan, all you have to do is wait for the cue. When the situation arises, you just do it because you already know what you’re going to do.

“Making a plan is like setting an alarm because you don’t have to think about it until the alarm sounds and then you’ll act.”

A typical person is juggling as many as 15 different goals at one time. Planning makes it possible to stop thinking about one goal until the planned time and place.

“Every time you make a plan, you tether a goal to a future context, and it can stop floating around in your head and distracting you from your other goals,” Masicampo says.

So, with good planning, this may be the year to check more than one New Year’s resolution off the list.

Released: 12/16/2011

Source: Wake Forest University

Related Link:

http://www.newswise.com/articles/resolution-solution-how-making-a-plan-can-help-you-meet-new-year-s-goals