Tag: University of Vermont

According to a new U.S. Department of Agriculture-funded study, lack of access to affordable health insurance is one of the most significant concerns facing American farmers, an overlooked risk factor that affects their ability to run a successful enterprise.

“The rising cost of healthcare and the availability of affordable health insurance have joined more traditional risk factors like access to capital, credit and land as a major source of worry for farmers,” said principal investigator Shoshanah Inwood, a rural sociologist at the University of Vermont, who conducted the study with colleagues at the Walsh Center for Rural Health Analysis at NORC at the University of Chicago.  

“The study found that health-related costs are a cross-sector risk for agriculture, tied to farm risk management, productivity, health, retirement, the need for off-farm income and land access for young and beginning farmers,” said Alana Knudson, co-director of the NORC Walsh Center.

Study results were based on a March 2017 mail survey of farmers and ranchers in 10 study states and interviews with farm families in each of the study states in 2016.

Three of four farmers and ranchers (73 percent) in the survey said that having affordable health insurance was an important or very important means of reducing their business risk. And just over half (52 percent) are not confident they could pay the costs of a major illness such as a heart attack, cancer or loss of limb without going into debt.   

Insights from the interviews supported the survey results. “During the course of interviews with farmers, many relayed stories about their family members or neighbors who had lost their farms or dairies due to catastrophic illness or injury when they were uninsured,” Knudson said.  

Sixty-four percent report having pre-existing conditions

To meet the needs of farmers, changes in current health insurance law will need to be carefully considered, the survey suggests.

Two out of three farmers and ranchers (64 percent) reported having a pre-existing health condition. With an average age of 58, farmers and ranchers are also vulnerable to higher insurance premiums due to age-rating bands. And among farmers and ranchers 18 to 64 years old, one out of four (24 percent) purchased a plan in their state’s insurance marketplace.

“A number of farmers in their 50s we spoke with said they had left off-farm employment in the last five years to commit to full-time farming because they and their families would not be denied health insurance in the individual market due to pre-existing conditions,” Knudson said.

Health insurance costs create barriers for young and beginning farmers

Health care costs also factor into farm succession issues, potentially denying young people access to land to farm.

Almost half (45 percent) of the farmers surveyed said they’re concerned they will have to sell some or all of their farm or ranch assets to address health related costs such as long-term care, nursing home or in-home health assistance.

“These findings indicated that many farmers will need to sell their land, their most valuable asset, to the highest bidder when they need cash to cover health-related costs,” Inwood said, “making it more difficult for young farmers to afford land and increasing the likelihood farmland is sold for commercial development.”

Lack of access to affordable health insurance could potentially drive young people away from farming, the research found. Young farmers who had taken advantage of the Medicaid expansion in their states  told the researchers in interviews that it allowed them to provide health insurance for their children and have time and energy to invest in the farm or ranch rather than having to seek a full-time off-farm or ranch job with benefits.

Most farm families have health insurance, over half through public sector employment

The vast majority of farmers and ranchers (92 percent) reported that they and their families had health insurance in 2016 but that it frequently came from off-farm employment.

Over half (59 percent) of farm and ranch families received benefits through public sector employers (health, education and government).

“Public sector jobs, especially in rural areas often offer the highest wages and most generous benefits,” Inwood said. “Changes in public and private sector employment options or benefits affect the financial stability and social well-being of farm families with impacts reverberating through rural communities.”

Nearly three quarters say USDA should represent farmer interests

Given the pressing nature of their health insurance concerns, farmers are also seeking help from the federal government. Nearly three quarters (73 percent) of farmers said USDA should represent farmers’ needs in national health policy discussions, particularly due to unique health needs of farmers and farm workers (e.g., coverage for blood tests to examine potential pesticide exposures).

The timing is right, Inwood said, as the five-year update of the U.S. Farm Bill is due in 2018.  The comprehensive Farm Bill deals with agriculture and all other issues under the jurisdiction of the USDA.

“We have a shrinking and aging farm population,” Inwood said. “The next Farm Bill is an opportunity to start thinking about how health insurance affects the trajectory of farms in the United States.”

Nothing is more important to the country’s food system than the viability of the farm sector, she said.

“It’s a matter of national security,” she said. 

For the study, a total of 1,062 farmers and ranchers were surveyed in March 2017 in Vermont, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Nebraska, Mississippi, Kentucky, Washington, Utah and California. Study states were selected in each of the four Census regions and included a mix of those that had expanded or not expanded Medicaid. The study results were also based on interviews of up to 10 families in each of the study states.

The study was funded with a $500,000 grant from the USDA’s Agriculture and Food Research Initiative (AFRI) as part of a National Institute of Food and Agriculture initiative designed to increase prosperity in rural America.

Source: UVM News

The University of Vermont Foundation, in partnership with the UVM Medical Center Foundation, secured a record $135,692,313 in total new commitments pledged during the fiscal year that concluded on June 30, 2017. This achievement marks the fourth year in a row that the UVM Foundation has set a new institutional record for total commitments to support the University of Vermont and the UVM Medical Center.

Commitments include new gifts, pledges, bequests and gifts-in-kind documented during the fiscal year. The prior record at UVM for commitments was $76,758,513 (established in fiscal year 2016), representing an increase this year of almost 77 percent.

Cash receipts – new one-time gifts, payments on pledges and realized estate gifts – in fiscal year 2017 totaled $46,917,902, the second-highest amount during the Move Mountains capital campaign.

FY17 was yet another strong year in the comprehensive campaign. Move Mountains: The Campaign for The University of Vermont was publicly launched in October 2015 to support four strategic areas of focus at UVM – student access and affordability, faculty support and endowments, new and renovated facilities, and academic and program support. Total commitments for the Move Mountains campaign, set to conclude on June 30, 2019, now have surpassed $430 million towards the overall goal of $500 million.

“Our donors are profoundly impacting the lives of UVM students, faculty, staff, physicians, and a number of promising research initiatives,” said Shane Jacobson, president and CEO of the UVM Foundation. “The outcomes of this record-breaking year will not only effect those who walk on campus today, but improve education for generations to come.”

A number of gifts highlighted this signature year.

• Medical education, in the words of Dr. Robert Larner, will be “second to none” at UVM thanks to a $66 million commitment from UVM dual-degree alum and Vermont native Robert Larner ’39, M.D. ’42, and his wife, Helen. The bequest, the largest gift ever to a public university in New England, caps decades of philanthropic support from the Larners and brings the couple’s lifetime giving to an estimated $100 million to support medical education at the University of Vermont. In grateful recognition, the UVM Board of Trustees announced its decision to name The Robert Larner, M.D. College of Medicine, representing the first time a U.S. medical school has been designated to honor an alumnus physician and donor.
• The UVM Foundation successfully completed the Grossman Challenge, a matching initiative from Steven Grossman ’61 and the Grossman Family Foundation to raise $10 million for the Grossman School of Business.
• In April, the University of Vermont announced its first university-wide environmental institute, the interdisciplinary Gund Institute for Environment, to connect scholars with government while encouraging business and societal leaders to address urgent sustainability issues around the globe. It was made possible by a $6 million gift from the Gund Family, including Gordon Gund (UVM honorary degree ‘95) and his wife, Llura (Lulie, UVM honorary degree ‘95); Grant Gund ’91 and his wife, Lara; and Zachary Gund ’93 and his wife, Lindsey.
• An investment to renovate the former Taft School (located on the edge of the UVM campus) into the University of Vermont’s first integrated center for the arts came from a leadership gift of $5 million from Michele Cohen ‘72 and her husband Marty.
• Since University of Vermont President Tom Sullivan arrived on campus five years ago, he has stressed the critical importance of attracting and retaining outstanding faculty. At that time, UVM had 52 endowed faculty positions. With five faculty investiture ceremonies held during this fiscal year, the university and the UVM Foundation now have more than doubled the number of endowed positions on campus with 107 as of June 30, 2017.

“I am deeply moved by the decision many have made to invest in the Move Mountains campaign,” said Tom Sullivan. “We consider donors as partners who, with the talented people here at UVM, generate excitement and momentum towards an even more purposeful future.  We are honored to steward these gifts as we uphold the generosity of those who believe so deeply in the value of a UVM education.”

In addition to student, faculty, and program support, capital projects also benefited from important gifts. Those efforts included the Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) Complex, Taft School and Billings Library renovations, Ifshin Hall (Grossman School of Business), UVM Alumni House and the UVM Medical Center’s new inpatient facility, the Robert E. and Holly D. Miller Building.

As of June 30, 2017, there were 61,199 donors to the University of Vermont through the Move Mountains campaign and 18,938 donors to the UVM Medical Center, with some of these donors giving to both organizations. More than a third hail from Vermont.

Source: UVM News

Barri Tinkler, associate professor in the College of Education and Social Services, has been named a Fulbright Canada Research Chair in Child and Youth Mental Health at the University of Calgary, where she will examine community-based efforts by faculty to support refugee integration.

The Werklund School of Education at the University of Calgary is a world leader in the preparation of educators to support refugee integration. Tinkler, whose research focuses on the impact of service-learning experiences on preservice teachers when working with marginalized populations, will conduct research there starting in January of 2018 with a goal of developing a model that informs the field of teacher education for all countries that undertake refugee resettlement.

“The goal of this research is to make explicit the processes by which teacher educators can support successful refugee integration,” says Tinkler. “The community-engaged work of the Werklund faculty could inform the work of teacher educators in the U.S. who are working to prepare preservice teachers to teach in increasingly diverse settings.”

Tinkler, who teaches in the Secondary Education program and the Education for Cultural and Linguistic Diversity minor, plans to conduct a qualitative research study that includes extensive interviews with faculty and community partners; classroom and community-based observations; and the development of collaborative work relationships with Werklund School of Education faculty to foster future partnerships between the University of Calgary and UVM.

Tinkler, whose latest research focuses on service-learning experiences with refugees with an eye toward fostering cultural humility, has a long history of social justice outreach, starting as a Peace Corp Volunteer in Papua New Guinea. She taught social studies in Stillwater, Oklahoma, while working on her master’s degree in education before earning her Ph.D. in curriculum and instruction at the University of Denver. She has taught multiple service-learning courses at UVM including Citizenship and Education in the U.S. that has undergraduate students work with adult refugees from Russia, Bhutan, Uganda, Nepal, South Sudan, Vietnam and other countries prepare for the U.S. citizenship test.

A total of 38 Fulbright Canada Visiting Research Chairs are conducting research, developing partnerships, and guest lecturing at 22 Canadian universities. Since its establishment in 1946 by the late U.S. Senator J. William Fulbright of Arkansas, the Fulbright Program has given more than 370,000 students, scholars, teachers, artists, and scientists in 155 countries the opportunity to study, teach and conduct research, exchange ideas, and contribute to finding solutions to shared international concerns.

Source: UVM News

In the fall of his freshman year, Gabriel Martin ‘18 was excited to learn about plants. “I just wanted to walk the woods and identify every plant I saw. And then I sat in my first systematics class and I thought: ‘well that’s out the window.’ There’s a lot—a lot—to know.”

Three years later, he’s making progress. A plant biology major, Martin has a work-study job in UVM’s Pringle Herbarium photographing and barcoding plants for the herbarium’s expanding online catalog. On this summer day, Martin is working with specimens from the geranium family, some of which were collected in Tunisia before the First World War. “I’m also a history minor,” he says, “It’s cool to connect the locations and times of the collection to world events.” He holds up one of the old sheets. “This is from 1910 and it makes me feel connected to that time.”

Martin has a growing interest in ethnobotany and the medical applications of plants. He’s considering going to graduate school to pursue a career in herbal medicine. He laughs and smiles at how far he has come. “At first I wasn’t going to go to college. My guidance counselor kind of talked—really tricked—me into it,” he says. “Basically, my high school wouldn’t let me graduate unless I applied to college. So I was like ‘alright I guess I’ll do it.’” Now he loves UVM, he says, and credits his advisor, professor of plant biology Jean Harris, with guiding him well. “She always helps me out, makes sure I’m in the classes I need,” he says. “She’s an excellent teacher and all-around good person. If you’ve got a problem with Jean, you got a problem with me.”

Gabriel Martin places another dried geranium under the bright glare of a lightbox and snaps the camera. A high-resolution image appears on his computer screen and he turns to the next sheet. “I love to learn. And that’s a life-long commitment,” he says. “I can’t wait to be an old guy running around the woods, looking at plants. I’ll know a lot then, if not everything.”

Source: UVM News

When describing ethnic identity in America, John Gennari suggests you picture a pinball machine. “We all say we come from somewhere, we have these family backgrounds. But then we mix it up. We’re in a pinball machine, we’re bouncing around. The balls are all scattering all over the place all the time.”

Gennari, an associate professor of English and critical race & ethnic studies at UVM, has spent decades researching and analyzing Italian American and African American cultures and practices separately, but he drops himself right into the middle of a whirling, swirling cultural pinball game in Flavor and Soul: Italian America at Its African American Edge (University of Chicago Press, 2017).

Gennari’s book explores the “cultural edge” between these two ethnic groups, a complicated place where identities overlap, intertwine, and clash throughout American history. He takes an energetic dance through connections in music, food, sports, and film, and examines ideas about gender and family, with a dash of his own experiences growing up in an Italian American household.

Take, for example, the place where Flavor and Soul begins: a case study of “Ol’ Blue Eyes” Frank Sinatra, an icon for Italians and, as Gennari details, young, black men like hip-hop mogul Puff Daddy, who dubbed himself “The Black Sinatra.” “The word ‘respect’ is central to all of this, and it resonates with why it is that young rappers take on Sinatra as an icon. There’s this idea of the ethnic outsiders becoming the ultimate insiders, these guys who are able to navigate the world of the street and the schoolyard and get elevated into the world of popular culture,” says Gennari.

This shared affinity for Sinatra is just one example of what Gennari calls black-Italian “mutual emulation” in the 20th Century, a time when both groups were searching for a way in. Another contact zone, which Gennari explores in a chapter called “Sideline Shtick,” is in college basketball in the 1980s. The number of Italian-American coaches and broadcasters increased at the same time as the number of black players on the court. “You don’t hear broadcasters saying much about ethnicity, but people see that there’s an ethnic presence and story there. [Italians and blacks] are now in people’s living rooms.” 

Beyond these cultures’ influence on each other, the book also considers the ways in which “Afro-Italian sensibility has nourished and vitalized American culture,” adding flavor and soul to the melting pot through self-expression.

For those who grew up watching the Sesame Street crew “celebrate differences,” it may be a foreign notion to consider cultural intersections. Gennari says this old-school model of multiculturalism is insufficient. “We’ll move conversations and the lived experience of race and ethnicity forward the more that we get explorations of edges and overlaps and contact zones.”

Sure, the places where ethnic groups meet aren’t always proverbial multicultural potlucks (Flavor and Soul does detail times when Italian Americans and African Americans have dangerously, even violently, clashed). But Gennari argues understanding our edges is a key part of understanding our identity. “We need to recognize that we’re all American, but all Americans are multiple. They have multiple identities, and those identities are changing all the time.”

Source: UVM News

A fire is in progress at Torrey Hall on the University of Vermont campus. The fire has been contained, and the Burlington Fire Department is actively working to fully extinguish it. The fire began at 8:10 and was caused by the soldering of copper material on the roof as part of a renovation of the building taking place this summer.

No injuries have been reported.

The building houses two classrooms. No classes were being held in the building over the summer.

The Pringle Herbarium is housed in Torrey Hall, with two-thirds of the collection located on the third floor. With 300,000 samples, it is the third largest herbarium in New England and the largest Vermont flora collection in the world. The status of the collection is unknown at this point and it will not be possible to conduct a full assessment until after Burlington Fire Department releases the building.

The building also houses the Zaddock Thompson Zoological Collection on the second floor. The status of this collection is also unknown.

Aside from the two classrooms, the building is used primarily for research by UVM’s Biology Department and Plant Biology Department. The building contains offices for both departments. As a precaution, the university is beginning to work with academic deans and university’s Campus Planning Department to find alternative space for the building’s occupants.

Torrey Hall was built in 1863. The building is on the National Register of Historic Places.

Source: UVM News

When the roof of Torrey Hall caught fire the morning of Aug. 3, burning and smoldering into the afternoon hours, UVM researchers feared that the 300,000 historic and rare plant specimens housed primarily on the top floor wouldn’t survive the blistering heat of the flames. 

Or, if by some chance they did, surely the gallons of water firefighters used to control and extinguish the fire would ruin the prized scientific collection, the third largest herbarium in New England, exceeded only by those at Harvard and Yale. 

But a $470,000 grant from the National Science Foundation secured in 2014 was used to upgrade storage of the collection, from wooden cabinets — tinder, in a fire — to cabinets designed to protect against fire and water damage. When the fire was out, a preliminary examination showed that the cabinets had done their job. The collection was safe. Only materials that had not been processed and were outside the new cabinets sustained damage.

The new storage also had an assist from the Burlington Fire Department. Briefed on the importance of the collection inside, firefighters arriving on the scene entered the burning building to cover the cabinets with tarps in an effort to further protect the collection (pictured below). The fire was ignited by soldering work under way as part of renovations on the 1863 building.

“If we didn’t have the funding support from the National Science Foundation, which provided us full replacement of the old cabinets, the material would have been incinerated. We would have lost the whole thing,” says plant biologist Dave Barrington, curator of the Pringle Herbarium. “And we have to give credit to the firefighters because they made some excellent decisions.”

The herbarium contains specimens collected by botanists dating back to Fanny Allen, widow of Revolutionary War leader Ethan Allen. It’s named for Cyrus Pringle, a native of Charlotte, Vermont, who traveled to the western frontier in the late 1800s to discover new species, braving rugged terrain, malaria, and stage coach robbers to press, dry, and ship specimens to scientists in the east. By the end of his life, he had collected more than 500,000 specimens, 12 percent of which were entirely new to science.

The collection is critical for researchers studying plant diversity and systematics, or how living things evolve and change over time. “It’s a world-renowned resource,” Barrington says. 

Two floors below, the Zadock Thompson Zoological Collections (which together with the herbarium comprise the University of Vermont Natural History Museum) were also safe from the flames and water. In total, Torrey Hall houses more than one million specimens.

The National Science Foundation grant, in addition to upgrading storage conditions for these important specimens, also provided funding to significantly expand digital imaging of the plant and animal collections, providing access to interested researchers around the globe. (Read about undergrad Gabriel Martin’s work as part of that project.)

“Everything is coming out of the building,” says Barrington, who expects the specimens to move to Jeffords Hall. In the meantime, Janie Cohen, director of the Fleming Museum, has given the herbarium access to their large Marble Court to spread out wet plants, and staff from UVM Libraries have also jumped in. A team of experts will come in to figure out how to rescue the wet material.

“It’s amazing,” says Barrington. “It takes a village, and this is one hell of a village.”

Source: UVM News

Seeking to expand the applications of computational, social and data science, Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Company (MassMutual) announced today that it is providing the University of Vermont (UVM) $500,000 to fund an innovative pilot program within the university’s Vermont Complex Systems Center.

The partnership with UVM focuses on three specific initiatives:

• Funding for a newly created MassMutual Ph.D. Fellowship. This four-year fellowship will provide funding for a Ph.D. student working in data science and complex systems at UVM. The MassMutual fellow will explore research at the intersection of human health and well-being, data science, and complex systems.
• Supporting faculty collaboration. Through a named research fund, MassMutual will support exploratory questions related to wellness, human behavior and networks with a team of interdisciplinary faculty in UVM’s Vermont Complex Systems Center.
• Hiring a visual data artist-in-residence. Visual data is an essential tool that communicates complex information clearly, creatively and effectively. The MassMutual Visual Data Artist-in-Residence will partner with Complex Systems Center students and faculty and with MassMutual’s data science team to create visualizations that allow people to easily understand and interact with complex data.

“We are excited to be working with the Vermont Complex Systems Center, and the world class research talent it brings to our strategic initiative of blending and applying academic and industrial capabilities to many fundamental issues,” said Sears Merritt, MassMutual’s head of data science. “Our partnership with UVM aims to enable the development of novel quantitative methods, as well as uncover new insights related to changes and patterns in human behavior and the determinants of social well-being.”

The Vermont Complex Systems Center supports data science and complex systems education through interdisciplinary learning, and the Center’s Master’s and Ph.D. level graduates have gone on to work for leading data science teams in the private sector at major US and international companies. The data science initiative with MassMutual represents the largest single corporate collaboration with the Center since its inception in 2009.

“All of us at the Vermont Complex System Center are very excited about our new and growing connection with MassMutual,” said Peter Dodds, director of the Vermont Complex Systems Center. “In this increasingly data-rich age, our students are becoming ever more valuable for companies like MassMutual, and we’re also seeing a vast landscape of basic science possibilities.”

“MassMutual’s investment in the Vermont Complex Systems Center aligns well with two critical campus priorities at UVM – STEM and Health research – so our hope is that this collaboration with MassMutual is the first step in a long-lasting partnership,” said Shane Jacobson, president and CEO of the UVM Foundation. The UVM Foundation is spearheading Move Mountains: The Campaign for The University of Vermont to raise private support for UVM as one of the nation’s best public research universities.

This new, multi-pronged initiative with the Vermont Complex Systems Center represents MassMutual’s latest effort to support data science and cyber initiatives, with the University of Vermont joining MassMutual’s expanding list of strategic university research partners.

In the past four years, MassMutual has made several investments in data science initiatives, including a $2 million, four-year program providing Mount Holyoke College and Smith College – both established leaders in educating women – the resources to hire five visiting faculty positions and support the development of a data science-focused curriculum; the opening of a state-of-the-art 5,000-square-foot data science lab in Amherst and, most recently, the MassMutual Foundation in 2016 announced a donation to UMass Amherst of $15 million over 10 years to further strengthen the university’s world-class data science and cybersecurity research and education programs in Western Massachusetts.

EDITOR’S NOTE: The field of data science draws on statistical methods to answer questions in an array of disciplines in the sciences, social sciences and humanities. Graduates work in fields ranging from medicine to environmental science, actuarial professions and statistics.

About MassMutual
MassMutual is a leading mutual life insurance company that that is run for the benefit of its members and participating policyowners.  MassMutual offers a wide range of financial products and services, including life insurance, disability income insurance, long term care insurance, annuities, retirement plans and other employee benefits.  For more information, visit www.massmutual.com.

About the Vermont Complex Systems Center
The Vermont Complex Systems Center, established in 2009, is an interdisciplinary research and teaching center at the University of Vermont that is focused on complex systems, data science/data analytics, computation, social contagion, and machine learning. Housed in the College of Engineering and Mathematical Sciences, the Center’s research explores human behavior, relational networks, health and biology, evolutionary robotics, weather prediction, and measuring happiness, among other things. The program offers a Master’s degree in Complex Systems and Data Science, a Certificate of Graduate Study in Complex Systems, and supports Ph.D. students focused on complex systems and data science.

About The University of Vermont Foundation
The University of Vermont Foundation is a nonprofit corporation established to secure and manage private support for the benefit of the University of Vermont. The UVM Foundation, in partnership with the University, is currently engaged in a comprehensive campaign with four strategic priorities: student access and scholarship; faculty research and support; student-centered programs; and long-term investments in the physical campus. Move Mountains: The Campaign for The University of Vermont seeks to raise $500 million in private support and assert UVM’s position as one of the nation’s best public research universities. For further information about giving to UVM, contact the University of Vermont Foundation, 411 Grasse Mount, Burlington VT 05401; 802-656-2010, www.uvmfoundation.org, email foundation@uvm.edu. For corporate engagement opportunities, contact Director of Corporate and Foundation Relations Alexa Woodward at Alexa.Woodward@uvm.edu.

Source: UVM News

When you’re feeling blue, your photos turn bluer, too. And more gray and dark as well, with fewer faces shown. In other words, just like people can signal their sadness by body language and behavior—think deep sighs and slumped shoulders—depression reveals itself in social media images.

That’s the conclusion of new research showing that computers, applying machine learning, can successfully detect depressed people from clues in their Instagram photos. The computer’s detection rate of 70 percent is more reliable than the 42 percent success rate of general-practice doctors diagnosing depression in-person.

“This points toward a new method for early screening of depression and other emerging mental illnesses,” says Chris Danforth, a professor at the University of Vermont who co-led the new study with Andrew Reece of Harvard University. “This algorithm can sometimes detect depression before a clinical diagnosis is made.”

The team’s results were published Aug. 8 in a leading data-science journal EPJ Data Science.

Emotional filters

The scientists asked volunteers, recruited from Amazon’s Mechanical Turk, to share their Instagram feed as well as their mental health history. From 166 people, they collected 43,950 photos. The study was designed so that about half of the participants reported having been clinically depressed in the last three years.

Then they analyzed these photos, using insights from well-established psychology research, about people’s preferences for brightness, color, and shading. “Pixel analysis of the photos in our dataset revealed that depressed individuals in our sample tended to post photos that were, on average, bluer, darker, and grayer than those posted by healthy individuals,” Danforth and Reece write in a blog post to accompany their new study. They also found that healthy individual chose Instagram filters, like Valencia, that gave their photos a warmer brighter tone. Among depressed people the most popular filter was Inkwell, making the photo black-and-white.

“In other words, people suffering from depression were more likely to favor a filter that literally drained all the color out the images they wanted to share,” the scientists write.

Faces in photos also turned out to provide signals about depression. The researchers found that depressed people were more likely than healthy people to post a photo with people’s faces—but these photos had fewer faces on average than the healthy people’s Instagram feeds. “Fewer faces may be an oblique indicator that depressed users interact in smaller settings,” Danforth and Reece note, which corresponds to other research linking depression to reduced social interaction—or it could be that depressed people take many self-portraits.

“This ‘sad-selfie’ hypothesis remains untested,” they write.

Algorithmic aid

As part of the new study, Danforth and Reece had volunteers attempt to distinguish between Instagram posts made by depressed people versus healthy. They could, but not as effectively as the statistical computer model—and the human ratings had little or no correlation with the features of the photos detected by the computer. “Obviously you know your friends better than a computer,” says Chris Danforth, a professor in UVM’s Department of Mathematics & Statistics and co-director of the university’s Computational Story Lab, “but you might not, as a person casually flipping through Instagram, be as good at detecting depression as you think.”

Consider that more than half of a general practitioners’ depression diagnoses are false—a very expensive health care problem—while the computational algorithm did far better. The new study also shows that the computer model was able to detect signs of depression before a person’s date of diagnosis. “This could help you get to a doctor sooner,” Danforth says. “Or, imagine that you can go to doctor and push a button to let an algorithm read your social media history as part of the exam.”

As the world of machine learning and artificial intelligence expands into many areas of life, there are deep ethical questions and privacy concerns. “We have a lot of thinking to do about the morality of machines,” Danforth says. “So much is encoded in our digital footprint. Clever artificial intelligence will be able to find signals, especially for something like mental illness.” He thinks that this type of application may hold great promise for helping people early in the onset of mental illness, avoid false diagnoses, and offer a new lower-cost screening for mental health services, especially for those who might not otherwise have access to a trained expert, like a psychiatrist.

“This study is not yet a diagnostic test, not by a long shot,” says Danforth, “but it is a proof of concept of a new way to help people.”

Source: UVM News

“Love is blind.” “Don’t judge a book by its cover.” “The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.” Proverbs like these are woven into the fabric of American English; many of us use them in our daily lives without a second thought. But as Professor of German and Folklore Wolfgang Mieder notes, upon closer inspection, proverbs have much to tell us about our culture.

Mieder is an internationally recognized scholar and the author and editor of hundreds of books and articles on proverbs. He served as chair of UVM’s Department of German and Russian for more than three decades. 

About Faculty Feature:

What makes our faculty members tick? In this video series, get up close and personal with our professors. Hear them talk about their passions, their paths to UVM and why they love what they study, from the mysteries of Lake Champlain’s sculpin to the stories of homeless children in Pakistan.

Source: UVM News