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Coronavirus Confirmed – Let our experts help with your questions and coverage of this emerging story
It’s here – and Washington State gets the unfortunate honor of being the location of the first confirmed case of Coronavirus on American soil. “The patient in Washington state, a resident of Snohomish County, is a male in his 30s. The CDC said the man arrived in the U.S. around Jan. 15 after visiting Wuhan. He had not, however, visited the seafood market where this virus is said to have originated.” What is a coronavirus? Coronaviruses are a group of viruses that can cause a range of symptoms including a runny nose, cough, sore throat and fever. Some are mild, while others are more likely to lead to pneumonia. They're usually spread through direct contact with an infected person. The coronavirus gets its name from the crown-like spikes on its surface, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (Corona is Latin for crown.) Including the newly identified form of the virus, there are a total of seven coronaviruses that can infect humans, the CDC says." January 21 – NBC News But how safe are Americans – and a lot of concerns to be addressed How is the virus transmitted? Are there simple and easy ways to diagnose simples? What preventable practices can be put in place? Are there vaccines or how long will it take to develop and distribute a vaccination program? And is America better equipped to handle this since the SARS epidemic? There are a lot of questions – and that’s where our experts can help. Dr. Sweeney is the Founding Dean of the School of Pharmacy at Cedarville University. He is an expert in health and wellness and advanced medical equipment. Dr. Sweeney is available to speak to media regarding this topic – simply click on his icon to arrange an interview.
Coronavirus expert available for interviews
Ralph Baric is the William R. Kenan Jr. Distinguished Professor in the Department of Epidemiology at UNC-Chapel Hill. His research specializes in coronaviruses and emerging infections. He is available to speak with reporters about the latest outbreak news. If you’d like to speak with Baric, call 919-445-8555 or email mediarelations@unc.edu. Baric serves as professor in both the Gillings School of Global Public Health and the UNC-Chapel Hill School of Medicine’s Department of Microbiology and Immunology. His substantial research focuses on advancing knowledge about — and vaccines for — coronaviruses and emerging infections like Zika virus, spanning the spectrum from discovery to translation.
Can America’s Infrastructure Withstand The Digital Economy?
When a city like New York is facing a continuous delivery stream of more than 1.5 million packages a day, something has to give. The growing number of sales by Amazon and other online retailers, combined with rapid delivery options, is choking streets within major metropolitan cities. This issue was recently featured in The New York Times — and when the journalists needed an expert perspective, they contacted Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. Here's an excerpt: The average number of daily deliveries to households in New York City tripled to more than 1.1 million shipments from 2009 to 2017, the latest year for which data was available, according to the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Center of Excellence for Sustainable Urban Freight Systems. “It is impossible to triple the amount,” said José Holguín-Veras, the center’s director and an engineering professor at Rensselaer, “without paying consequences.” Households now receive more shipments than businesses, pushing trucks into neighborhoods where they had rarely ventured. And it could be just the beginning. Just 10 percent of all retail transactions in the United States during the first quarter of 2019 were made online, up from 4 percent a decade ago, according to the Census Bureau. — The New York Times, October 28, 2019 If you are a reporter covering this or a similar topic, let our experts help! Professor José Holguín-Veras is the Director of the Center for Infrastructure, Transportation, and the Environment (CITE) at Rensselaer. He is a leading authority in freight transportation and humanitarian logistics. Professor Holguín-Veras is available to speak with media regarding the ongoing difficulties cities are facing as shopping moves online and to the streets. Simply click on his icon to arrange an interview.
Researchers at Rensselaer Can Now 3D Print Skin With Working Blood Vessels
Researchers at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute have developed a way to 3D print living skin, complete with blood vessels. The advancement, published online in Tissue Engineering Part A, is a significant step toward creating grafts that are more like the skin our bodies produce naturally. “Right now, whatever is available as a clinical product is more like a fancy Band-Aid,” said Pankaj Karande, an associate professor of chemical and biological engineering and member of the Center for Biotechnology and Interdisciplinary Studies (CBIS), who led this research at Rensselaer. “It provides some accelerated wound healing, but eventually it just falls off; it never really integrates with the host cells.” A significant barrier to that integration has been the absence of a functioning vascular system in the skin grafts. Karande has been working on this challenge for several years, previously publishing one of the first papers showing that researchers could take two types of living human cells, make them into “bio-inks,” and print them into a skin-like structure. Since then, he and his team have been working with researchers from Yale School of Medicine to incorporate vasculature. In this paper, the researchers show that if they add key elements — including human endothelial cells, which line the inside of blood vessels, and human pericyte cells, which wrap around the endothelial cells — with animal collagen and other structural cells typically found in a skin graft, the cells start communicating and forming a biologically relevant vascular structure within the span of a few weeks. “As engineers working to recreate biology, we’ve always appreciated and been aware of the fact that biology is far more complex than the simple systems we make in the lab,” Karande said. “We were pleasantly surprised to find that, once we start approaching that complexity, biology takes over and starts getting closer and closer to what exists in nature.” You can watch Pankaj Karande, associate professor of chemical and biological engineering, explain this research here: Pankaj Karande is an associate professor of chemical and biological engineering and member of the Center for Biotechnology and Interdisciplinary Studies (CBIS) at Rensselaer. He is available to speak with media regarding this latest development – simply click on his icon to arrange an interview.
Introducing AiMOS, The Most Powerful Supercomputer at a Private University
The most powerful supercomputer to debut on the November 2019 Top500 ranking of supercomputers, also the most powerful supercomputer in New York State, was recently unveiled at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Center for Computational Innovations (CCI). Part of a collaboration between IBM, Empire State Development (ESD), and NY CREATES, the eight petaflop IBM POWER9-equipped AI supercomputer is configured to help enable users to explore new AI applications and accelerate economic development from New York’s smallest startups to its largest enterprises. AiMOS is: The most powerful supercomputer housed at a private university. The 24th most powerful supercomputer in the world. The third-most energy efficient supercomputer in the world. Named AiMOS (short for Artificial Intelligence Multiprocessing Optimized System) in honor of Rensselaer co-founder Amos Eaton, the machine will serve as a test bed for the New York State-IBM Research AI Hardware Center, which opened on the SUNY Polytechnic Institute (SUNY Poly) campus in Albany earlier this year. The AI Hardware Center aims to advance the development of computing chips and systems that are designed and optimized for AI workloads to push the boundaries of AI performance. AiMOS will provide the modeling, simulation, and computation necessary to support the development of this hardware. “The established expertise in computation and data analytics at Rensselaer, when combined with AiMOS, will enable many of our research projects to make significant strides that simply were not possible on our previous platform,” said Christopher Carothers, director of the CCI and professor of computer science at Rensselaer. “Our message to the campus and beyond is that, if you are doing work on large-scale data analytics, machine learning, AI, and scientific computing, then it should be running at the CCI.” Built using the same IBM Power Systems technology as the world’s smartest supercomputers, the US Dept. of Energy’s Summit and Sierra supercomputers, AiMOS uses a heterogeneous system architecture that includes IBM POWER9 CPUs and NVIDIA GPUs. This enables AiMOS with a capacity of eight quadrillion calculations per second. You can watch Rensselaer President Shirley Ann Jackson talk about AiMOS here: Chris Carothers is the director of the Center for Computational Innovations (CCI) at Rensselaer. He is available to speak with media about AiMOS and what it can enable – simply click on his icon to arrange an interview.
Voters Split on Whether Trump Should be Removed from Office Former U.S. Vice President Joe Biden has widened his lead to 26 points among Florida voters in the race for the Democratic party’s nomination for president in 2020, according to a statewide survey by the Florida Atlantic University Business and Economics Polling Initiative (FAU BEPI). Among the Democratic candidates, Biden has increased his support to 42 percent, up from 34 percent in BEPI’s September 2019 poll. U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders jumped into second place at 14 percent, while U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren fell to third at 10 percent, down significantly from 24 percent support in September. Former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg came in fourth at 7 percent, followed by U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar at 6 percent, entrepreneur Andrew Yang at 5 percent and South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg at 3 percent. A majority of Democratic primary voters (54 percent) said they will definitely vote for their top choice, with 46 percent saying there is a chance they could change their minds and vote for someone else. The Florida Democratic primary is March 17. “Joe Biden continues to be in a very strong position in Florida,” said Monica Escaleras, Ph.D., director of the FAU BEPI. “However, it will be interesting to see what impact the early contests in New Hampshire and Iowa will have on voters in Florida regarding their support for Biden.” Sanders fared best among Florida voters in head-to-head matchups against U.S President Donald Trump, with a 53-to-47 percent advantage on the president. Biden and Warren have narrow two-point leads on Trump, 51 to 49 percent, while Buttigieg finished in a 50-50 dead heat with the president. In September, Trump held small leads in each of these head-to-head matchups. With an impeachment trial in the U.S. Senate looming, Florida voters are split on whether Trump should be removed from office, with 51 percent saying he should be removed while 49 percent are against removal. Voters are also split about how their Congress person’s decision whether or not to impeach Trump will affect their support for them as a candidate, with 40 percent saying it will make them less likely to support the candidate, 38 percent saying they would be more likely to support them and 21 percent saying it would have no effect. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who has just completed his first year in office, is popular among voters with 48 percent approval and 28 percent disapproval, while 25 percent of voters were neutral or had no opinion. With tensions rising with Iran, 61 percent of voters do not think the U.S. is going to get into a war with Iran, while 39 percent think recent military action will lead to war. Trump’s approval rating is slightly above water among Florida voters, with 45 percent approval and 43 disapproval. He continues to be hugely popular among GOP voters, with a 66-point lead on his Republican rivals, former U.S. Rep. Joe Walsh and former Massachusetts Gov. Bill Weld. “Floridians are deeply divided on the president and on impeachment,” said Kevin Wagner, Ph.D., professor of political science at FAU and a research fellow of the Initiative. “Nonetheless, Mr. Trump continues to perform better in Florida than in national polls.” The survey was conducted Jan. 9-12 and polled 1,285 Florida registered voters. The survey has a margin of error of +/- 2.6 percentage points. The margin of error for both the Republican primary and the Democratic primary is +/- 4.4 percentage points. The data was weighted by ethnicity, age, education, party affiliation, region and gender based on a 2016 voter model. It is important to remember that subsets carry with them higher margins of error, as the sample size is reduced. Data was collected using both an Interactive Voice Response (IVR) system of landlines and an online panel provided by Dynata. Are you a journalist covering the role Florida will play in the upcoming election? If so, let our experts help with your coverage. Kevin Wagner's research and teaching interests include presidential and judicial politics, political behavior and legislative behavior. Monica Escaleras is the Director of the Business and Economics Polling Initiative at Florida Atlantic University. Both experts are available to speak with reporters - simply click on either icon to arrange an interview.
Next Stop Iowa – Let our Experts Help with Your Coverage
It’s a tight race going into the Iowa and as the DNC debates now seem to be more warm ups than sparring – it’ll all likely come down to the ground game. Recent polls show Biden with a lead, but Sanders, Warren and Buttigieg all close behind. However, February 03 seems like a lifetime away and a lot could happen between now and then. So, can Biden be beat? What will it take for Sanders, Warren and Buttigieg to separate from the pack? Are there any wildcards? And the biggest question of all - can any of these contenders beat Donald Trump in November? There are a lot of scenarios and questions and if you are a reporter covering this topic – that’s where our experts can help. Mark Caleb Smith is the Director of the Center for Political Studies at Cedarville University. Mark is available to speak with media regarding the DNC Primary and the upcoming election. Simply click on his icon to arrange an interview.
In the latest round of legal decisions on the enforcement of international privacy laws between the EU and the U.S., Peter Swire, professor of Law and Ethics at the Georgia Tech Scheller College of Business, and associate director for Policy of the Georgia Tech Institute for Information Security and Privacy looks at how the EU may examine foreign intelligence surveillance in his article “Foreign Intelligence and Other Issues in the Initial Opinion in Schrems II” in Lawfare. The Schrems II case is the subject of the recent opinion from Advocate General (AG) Henrik Saugmandsgaard Øe before the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU). In the case, Austrian lawyer Max Schrems challenged Facebook’s ability to transfer personal data from the EU to the United States using the standard contractual clauses, which exist where a company such as Facebook follows EU-level privacy standards when private data is transferred outside of Europe. Schrems’s specific claim is that he cannot access any files that the National Security Agency (NSA) may have collected about him and lacks legal redress for any violation of his rights under EU law. Swire writes that the case examines the transfer of an individual’s personal data from the European Union to the United States using the standard contractual clauses and the Privacy Shield, which was negotiated in 2016 by the U.S. and the EU for privacy data transfers to the United States specifically. Facebook’s headquarters are in Ireland, and the Irish High Court ruled in favor of Schrems and certified 11 broad questions to the CJEU. The AG opinion published this week concerns this appeal in Schrems II from the Irish High Court. If Schrems wins this appeal, then many flows of personal data from the EU to the U.S. may become illegal. Swire’s expertise in U.S. privacy laws is extensive. He is a sought after privacy expert and he has been highlighted in Bloomberg Law, Le Monde, LawFare and numerous scholarly publications. He has appointments by courtesy with the College of Computing and School of Public Policy and is Senior Counsel with Alston & Bird, LLP. If you are a reporter covering this topic and would like to speak with Professor Swire – simply click on his icon to arrange an interview or email media@scheller.gatech.edu.
Generalists and Specialists – Key Ingredients for an Innovation Ecosystem
David Epstein describes in his book Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World, the relationship between specialists and generalists. Specialists being the masters of depth while generalists integrate across a range of options and diverse applications. The combination of the two leads to powerful potential for innovation. InventionShare seeks to create a similar relationship between inventors and corporations. Leveraging inventions that have very broad applicability, InventionShare systematically researches across many industries searching for businesses that are poised to leap forward with a strategic technology injection. One such technology is called Circuit Seed which redefines analog electronic design with a new paradigm that enables configurable analog in a scalable digital format. This technology dramatically lowers the cost, power, noise and temperature thresholds enabling breakthrough advances in a diversity of applications such as: automotive radar, Lab-on-a-chip and many more. By applying Epstein’s principles, InventionShare through its unique business model, is creating an innovation ecosystem spanning many industries through partnership and collaboration. For more information, please contact: Lesley Gent Director Client Relations, InventionShare™ lgent@InventionShare.com (613) 225-7236, Ext 131 Or visit our website at InventionShare.com
Social Media Spaces Can Be Instruments of God’s Unconditional Love, Theologian Says
Being 'always on' can be a source of anxiety or sorrow, but it also can be a way to strengthen faith, Baylor author says Many of us are “always on” — scrolling through social media, checking email or searching the web, says author Angela Gorrell, Ph.D., assistant professor of practical theology at Baylor University’s George W. Truett Theological Seminary. In her book “Always On,” she writes about how social media spaces can be instruments of God’s unconditional love — but also sources of anxiety, jealousy and depression. With the arrival of 2020 — and its potential for change for the better — she discusses in this Q&A some tools for understanding social media and enabling Christian communities to address its use in constructive ways. Q: From your perspective as a practical theologian, are the social media strategies you recommend aimed solely at people of faith? Dr. Gorrell: Practical theology takes different forms. Ultimately, I aim to write about issues — like social media — that matter to people and shine the light of the Gospel on them. I also research and write about theology and faith in practice, how people express and perform their values, hopes and beliefs through practices, rituals, disciplines, activities, relationships, work—through their way of life. While I write about social media from a Christian perspective, much of what I have written about using social media mindfully and having “interested conversation” about media is applicable to people from a variety of religious and philosophical perspectives. Q: There is much talk about how people spend too much time on social media, to the point of ignoring family and friends when in their presence. How much is too much? And what problems can this create for people? Dr. Gorrell: The most important thing for people to realize is that how you spend time online is more important than how much time you spend online. There are a variety of issues that “passive,” unintentional, unregulated, time online can extend and nurture. I say extend because all of these issues can also be in-person issues. For example, empathy burnout, depression, anxiety and jealousy. We often encounter an enormous amount of suffering online. The amount of suffering and the velocity of these encounters — and rapidly seeing multiple examples back to back in articles or our newsfeeds — can nurture empathy burnout. We can become numb to the suffering we see online and take in but do nothing about it or think very little of it. Likewise, being on social media and passively scrolling through people’s status updates, tweets and stories for unbounded sets of time and looking at copious amounts of content but never replying, messaging, posting or sharing has been linked to depression and anxiety. Similarly, passive following, which is following people closely that we do not know (e.g., celebrities) or people we do not see regularly in person (e.g., high school friends) has been linked to jealousy, which can negatively impact how we perceive ourselves and our lives . . . When we see someone a lot in person or talk to them regularly by phone, we know that their lives have a lot more going on than what they are sharing online. Q: What strategies do you suggest help people use social media wisely? Dr. Gorrell: The goal is meaningful participation. I encourage people to limit passive scrolling and following as much as possible. Create something and share it online. Join conversations. Reply to people’s statuses rather than just clicking emojis. When you see that someone is celebrating, share their joy in a significant way. Share it as your status with a note of congratulations or text them or call them. When you notice someone is mourning, message them. When you encounter suffering online, stop scrolling and do something in response. Get offline, take a walk and pray about this suffering. Give money to an organization that is relieving this suffering. Find other articles and educate yourself on the issue. Learn more about how to help or how to invite other people to care. Q: Any suggestions as to how and where people might create a space to ask and answer questions about social media use? Dr. Gorrell: Asking powerful questions about people’s online experiences that encourage storytelling and helping each other think about new media can happen around the dinner table, in a church small group or on a road trip in the car. When family and friends ask each other about one another’s lives, we can include asking questions about and discussing social media experiences. We can ask curious, open-ended questions without simple yes or no answers like: 1. How do you make decisions about what to respond to online? 2. Have you ever been frustrated or sad about new forms of technology? What causes frustration or sadness for you? 3. When have you had a joyful experience online? Could you describe a time when you felt heard, affirmed or understood online? 4. How does social media help you love God and others and/or prevent you from loving God and others? 5. When have you had a painful experience online? Could you describe a time when you felt unheard, bullied, left out or misunderstood online? 6. What are the top two feelings you experience when using social media, and why do you think this is so? Q: How can we do a better job of using social media? Dr. Gorrell: Develop a rhythm for life with your friends or family that specifically addresses technology — when you will use it and for what purposes, when you will not use it, what boundaries you will have. Using social media constructively requires intentionality. I encourage people to find times in their week or month or year to not use devices and social media and to write down their plan on a calendar. A college student told me that he and his friends put all their phones in the center of the table at restaurants and say that the first person to pick up their phone during dinner pays the entire bill. Since they started this ritual, no one has picked up a phone during dinner. Practices like these help people to be present to people they are with in person. It is a great idea to put all devices away at night one to two hours before bed so minds and bodies can get prepared for sleep. I know families that have a basket for this purpose in their homes. I especially encourage parents to make sure children under 18 do not have a device in their room during sleeping hours so they can get adequate rest. I invite people to consider turning off notifications from all social media platforms and email and only check apps and email at a certain time each day. It is also important to have a plan for difficult moments and conversations online. What will you do when you get angry, disagree with someone else or feel depressed about your life or feel left out? What will you do next? It is equally important to think about what you will use social media for. How can you use social media to love people well, truly stay connected to people, expand your thinking on certain subjects, remain humble and open to being corrected, and nurture your creativity and increase your compassion? How might meaningful participation online support goals like these? ABOUT ANGELA GORRELL Angela Gorrell, Ph.D., assistant professor of practical theology at Baylor’s Truett Seminary, is the author of “Always On: Practicing Faith in a New Media Landscape,” which addresses the perils and possibilities of Christian faith in an era of massive technological change. She also is writing a book that addresses America’s crisis of despair, illuminated by its suicide rates and opioid addiction, and describes joy as the counteragent to despair. Gorrell earned a bachelor’s degree in youth ministry from Azusa Pacific University and an M.Div. and Ph.D. from Fuller Theological Seminary. She came to Baylor from the Yale Center for Faith and Culture at Yale Divinity School, where she developed relationships with more than 250 scholars from roughly 150 institutions on four continents while managing metrics and evaluation for the project. She has more than 14 years of experience in congregational and parachurch ministry, including serving as a chaplain at a women’s maximum-security prison. ABOUT BAYLOR UNIVERSITY Baylor University is a private Christian University and a nationally ranked research institution. The University provides a vibrant campus community for more than 17,000 students by blending interdisciplinary research with an international reputation for educational excellence and a faculty commitment to teaching and scholarship. Chartered in 1845 by the Republic of Texas through the efforts of Baptist pioneers, Baylor is the oldest continually operating University in Texas. Located in Waco, Baylor welcomes students from all 50 states and more than 90 countries to study a broad range of degrees among its 12 nationally recognized academic divisions. ABOUT GEORGE W. TRUETT THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY AT BAYLOR UNIVERSITY Baylor University’s George W. Truett Theological Seminary is an orthodox, evangelical school in the historic Baptist tradition that equips God-called people for gospel ministry in and alongside Christ’s Church by the power of the Holy Spirit. Accredited by the Association of Theological Schools, Truett Seminary provides theological education leading to the Master of Divinity, Master of Arts in Christian Ministry, Master of Theological Studies, Doctor of Ministry and Ph.D. in Preaching. The MACM and MTS degrees also can be completed at the seminary’s Houston campus. In addition, Truett Seminary offers joint degrees: M.Div./M.S.W. and M.T.S./M.S.W. with the Diana R. Garland School of Social Work, M.Div./M.B.A. with the Hankamer School of Business, M.Div./J.D. with Baylor Law School, M.Div./M.M. with the School of Music and M.Div./M.S.Ed. or M.Div./M.A. with the School of Education. Visit www.baylor.edu/truett to learn more.
