What impact will robots and autonomous systems have on urban ecosystems?
2021-02-19
(Press-News.org) The University of Leeds has coordinated a study with 170 experts from 35 countries, including E.T.S. Agronomic Engineering lecturer Luis Perez Urrestarazu. The study conclusions have just been published in the journal Nature Ecology & Evolution.
The researchers highlighted opportunities to improve the way green spaces are monitored and maintained and helping people to interact with and appreciate the natural world around them. Similarly, as autonomous vehicles become more widely used in cities, pollution and traffic congestion are set to fall.
But they also warn that advances in robotics and automation could be harmful to the environment. They may, for example generate new sources of waste and pollution, with potentially substantial negative implications for urban nature. Cities may have to be re-planned to provide enough space for robots and drones to operate, possibly leading to a loss of planted areas. They could also increase existing social inequalities, such as unequal access to green spaces.
In any event, robots are likely to transform many of the ways in which citizens experience and benefit from urban nature.
INFORMATION:
ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:
2021-02-19
Social identity is a factor linked to wellbeing and community participation. Various studies have demonstrated the link existing between ethnic identity and empowerment and that the interaction between both of them leads to a rise in the indices of wellbeing and community participation. However, the nature of these relationships may be determined by the fact that the individual perceives his or her own group as a minority one and/or one that is subject to discrimination. In fact, these relations emerge mostly in groups that find themselves in a minority situation and/or one of discrimination, but not in groups that are more hegemonic or in the majority.
To further ...
2021-02-19
Parent education programs and interventions that begin shortly after the birth of a child have shown to significantly impact parenting behaviors that support social and academic engagement for children growing up in poverty, according to a study led by pediatricians and psychologists across the country, including NYU Grossman School of Medicine, NYU Steinhardt, and the University of Pittsburgh.
The study, published today in the journal Pediatrics, examines the Smart Beginnings Project, a first-of-its-kind comprehensive approach to the promotion of school readiness in low-income families. This model addresses one of the most important causes of inequity - that many children from ...
2021-02-19
Researchers at the Institut de Neurociències of the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (INc-UAB) obtained a highly accurate recreation of human glioblastoma's features using a novel 3D microscopy analysis. The study, published in the journal Acta Neuropathologica Communications, provides new information to help with the diagnose, by finding therapeutical targets and designing immunotherapeutical strategies.
This new analysis of 3D images and quantitative data "will help to appreciate from within how the tumor is built in its full dimensionality, and to identify where different cell types are located", explains George Paul Cribaro, first author of the study. "It provides more complete information than the usual 2D analyses performed for ...
2021-02-19
Prion diseases are a group of rapidly progressive, fatal and infectious neurodegenerative disorders affecting both humans and animals: Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE) or 'mad cow' disease is one of the most famous since in 1996 scientists found that the agent responsible for the disease in cows, is the same agent responsible for the so-called variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (vCJD), a disease affecting humans.
A new study carried out by SISSA - Scuola Internazionale Superiore di Studi Avanzati in collaboration with other institutions including Genos Glycoscience ...
2021-02-19
DURHAM, N.H.-- A new report from the University of New Hampshire's Crimes against Children Research Center (CCRC), using data collected by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, showed a marked increase in the share of child maltreatment cases resulting in fatalities as well as a decline in cases of physical abuse and neglect in 2019.
The report, which highlights 2019 statistics from the National Child Abuse and Neglect Data System (NCANDS), showed that fatalities rose 4%. The statistics gathered from child protection agencies in each state indicated that the uptick in child maltreatment fatalities was broadly distributed, with 25 states reporting an increase of 10% or more. This increase in fatalities continues an already upward trend ...
2021-02-19
The first global-scale assessment of the role ecosystems play in providing sanitation finds that nature provides at least 18% of sanitation services in 48 cities worldwide, according to researchers in the United Kingdom and India. The study, published February 19 in the journal One Earth, estimates that more than 2 million cubic meters of the cities' human waste is processed each year without engineered infrastructure. This includes pit latrine waste that gradually filters through the soil--a natural process that cleans it before it reaches groundwater.
"Nature can, and does, take the role of sanitation infrastructure," said Alison Parker, a Senior Lecturer in International Water and Sanitation at Cranfield University in the United ...
2021-02-19
SEATTLE -- February 19, 2021 -- A team of scientific experts from across the U.S. and Puerto Rico are advocating for increased diversity in vaccine trials after publishing a new report that highlights a decade's worth of disparities. The new study, published in JAMA Network Open, found that among U.S.-based vaccine clinical trials, people who are Black/African American, American Indian/Alaska Native, Hispanic/Latino and age 65 and older were the most underrepresented groups. Conversely, adult women were overrepresented.
The research team examined 230 U.S.-based vaccine trials of all ...
2021-02-19
What The Study Did: Persistent symptoms among adults with COVID-19 up to nine months after illness onset were analyzed in this study.
Authors: Helen Y. Chu, M.D., M.P.H., of the University of Washington in Seattle, is the corresponding author.
To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link https://media.jamanetwork.com/
(doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2021.0830)
Editor's Note: The article includes conflict of interest and funding/support disclosures. Please see the article for additional information, including other authors, author contributions and affiliations, conflict of interest and financial disclosures, and funding and support.
INFORMATION:
Media advisory: The full study is linked to this news release.
Embed ...
2021-02-19
What The Study Did: This survey study compared patterns of mental health concerns, substance use and suicidal ideation during June and September of the COVID-19 pandemic and examined at-risk demographic groups.
Authors: Mark É. Czeisler, A.B., Monash University in Clayton, Victoria, Australia, is the corresponding author.
To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link https://media.jamanetwork.com/
(doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2020.37665)
Editor's Note: The article includes conflicts of interest and funding/support disclosures. Please see the article for additional information, including other authors, author ...
2021-02-19
What The Study Did: Using data from completed interventional vaccine trials from 2011 to 2020, researchers examined whether racial/ethnic minority groups, females and older adults were underrepresented in U.S.-based vaccine clinical trials.
Authors: Steven A. Pergam, M.D., M.P.H., of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, and Julie K. Silver, M.D., of Harvard Medical School in Boston, are the corresponding authors.
To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link https://media.jamanetwork.com/
(doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2020.37640)
Editor's Note: The article includes conflicts of interest disclosures. Please see the article for additional information, including other authors, author contributions ...
LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES:
[Press-News.org] What impact will robots and autonomous systems have on urban ecosystems?
