Category: Science

New findings underscore the influence leaders have on shaping the culture of the workplace and the importance of how they communicate with employees and recognize their individual achievements.

In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, workers across the globe are reporting higher levels of negative feelings, including stress and worry. Half the American workforce is reportedly not engaged at work.

The new study finds that leadership communication helps to establish a workplace culture that values respect and recognition and delivers positive employee outcomes such as increased engagement and well-being.

“Leader communication drives respectful culture and behavior that translates into positive employee outcomes,” says Justin F. Willett, program director at the Novak Leadership Institute at the University of Missouri and lead author of the study. “Leaders need to help employees feel respected as part of the team and recognized for their unique strengths and accomplishments.”

The research team surveyed 1,512 full-time working adults, split almost evenly between men and women. Participants were asked to assess the communication of their supervisor as well as levels of respect in the workplace and individual recognition. Positive leader communication was associated with increased perceptions of a respectful workplace culture and of individual recognition for achievements.

The research team found that recognition for individuals was not only associated with better employee outcomes such as job engagement, well-being, and resilience, but also it helped to foster a culture in which employees were more inclined to respect each other’s contributions. That is, receiving individual praise for specific achievements not only fulfills an employee’s need for status but also helps increase that person’s sense of belonging, thus increasing their respect for others in the workplace. These discoveries support the conclusions of an earlier study by the research team that found young workers ages 21-34 place more value on having respectful communication in the workplace than trendy work perks.

“Our research demonstrates that leader communication is a powerful tool, but it’s not enough,” Willett says. “The primary role of leader communication is to establish a respectful culture and facilitate recognition of individual employees for their unique strengths and accomplishments. It’s respect that is directly responsible for the positive employee outcomes that contribute to organizational success.”

The research team’s next study explores the effects of leader communication on engagement and well-being of employees who have flexible work arrangements, such as working from home or hybrid home-office arrangements.

The current study appears in the International Journal of Business Communication.

Source: University of Missouri

A new video game seeks to correct misconceptions about HIV, increase awareness, and ideally motivate teens to seek HIV testing and counseling services.

Teenagers made up an estimated 20% of new cases of HIV infection in the United States in 2020. The actual percentage, however, is likely to be higher because it is known that adolescents are the least likely of any age group to be aware of their HIV status and may unknowingly transmit the virus to others.

Only 9% of high school students in the United States report ever being tested for HIV.

The reasons for this are varied and include inadequate sex education, social and economic barriers, and ongoing stigma surrounding HIV, along with misconceptions about the safety of getting tested.

“Kids in this age group also often feel like they’re basically immortal and therefore wouldn’t have a condition that would be potentially serious or life-threatening,” says Lynn E. Fiellin, professor of medicine (general medicine) at Yale University School of Medicine, and Public Health (Social and Behavioral Sciences).

“We’ve also seen a trend in which, because HIV treatment has become much more effective, some teens and young adults feel like, ‘Oh, well, if I get it, I can just treat it and it’s not a big deal.’”

To address these misconceptions, increase awareness, and ideally motivate teens to seek HIV testing and counseling services (HTC), Fiellin and colleagues conducted a randomized controlled trial using the video game intervention, called PlayTest!, to address low rates of HIV testing and counseling in adolescents.

PlayTest! was adapted and built out from an earlier video game intervention, PlayForward, the researchers developed for 11- to 14-year-olds and focused on HIV prevention and risk reduction.

“The second version includes some of the HIV prevention parts of the first game, but this one was really focused on promotion, not on prevention,” says Fiellin. “So, for example, in the first one, we had a whole mini-game on refusal skills and how to refuse risky people and risky situations. With this game, we kind of turned it on its head and created a game around persuasion skills where you as a player need to persuade people to engage in healthy things. It’s learning a whole different skillset around promoting positive things as opposed to avoiding negative things.”

For the new study, published in the Journal of Adolescent Health, the authors enrolled 287 participants ranging from 14 to 18 years. There were an equal number of boys and girls, an equal number of age groups, and an equal number of different racial groups; 145 were randomized to PlayTest!, while the 142 participants in the control group played a set of commercial video games that had no educational content. Each participant played their game for approximately one hour per week after school over four to six weeks.

The research was done in partnership with school-based health centers (SBHCs), novel health care clinics that are available at some schools and provide access to affordable healthcare for students as well as confidential and convenient sexual health services for adolescents to seek HTC.

All participants had to attend a school with an SBHC, the idea being that the kids who ended up wanting an HIV test after PlayTest! could simply walk to their school’s health center and get one.

In PlayTest!, the player creates an avatar that navigates through a set of stories or challenges. Within those stories are different skill-based mini-games that they have to play and perform to a certain level so they can unlock the next part of the story.

Initially, the intended primary outcome for this study was the proportion of participants who engaged in HTC within the six-month study period. The original secondary outcomes were attitudes, intentions, knowledge, and self-efficacy related to HTC.

However, the COVID pandemic forced the authors to modify the outcomes.

“We knew that once schools closed, kids would not have access to their school-based health centers, so they could not ask for testing there,” says Fiellin. “Nobody was going to just routinely go to a clinic during the first six months of the pandemic. So, based on the literature, we had to modify our primary outcome to not be actual HIV testing, but attitudes around HIV testing.”

After completing the trial, the researchers collected follow-up data from 92% of the participants at six months. Among the participants who were randomized to PlayTest!, 70% reported a positive change in their attitudes about HIV counseling and testing.

“We are extremely proud of the high retention and follow-up rates for this project, especially during the pandemic,” says Tyra Pendergrass Boomer, deputy director of the play2PREVENT Lab, Yale Center for Health and Learning Games.

“Much of this can be attributed to our ability to effectively utilize technology to collect follow-up data in a way that is adolescent-friendly, our partnerships with the schools, and the rapport that our research team was able to build with study participants.”

Source: Christina Frank for Yale University

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. – Atomos Space won a $1.6 million AFWERX contract to establish a ground-based testing facility for multi-party rendezvous and proximity operations.

Under the contract announced Oct. 18, Atomos is working with Axiom Space to establish processes for rendezvous with Axiom’s future space station.

“Developing the capability to do multi-party rendezvous, proximity operations and docking is enabling for some really interesting missions including refueling, payload delivery and cargo services,” Atomos Space CEO Vanessa Clark told SpaceNews. “Anything that enables three different spacecraft or objects in space to interact safely in a highly reliable way is enabling for government and commercial missions.”

For the AFWERX Direct-to-Phase 2 contract, Broomfield, Colorado-based Atomos will supply both the servicer and the client spacecraft to interact with the Axiom Station in the test facility. One goal is to demonstrate that communications, fault detection systems and abort procedures are consistent and compatible.

“Rather than just having software simulations to validate our approach, we have full hardware in the loop,” Clark said. “We can prove out that the full-stack flight software, all of the spacecraft sensors for rendezvous, all of the actuators and the propulsion system work together in this critical space operation. This is a capability that currently only exists at large aerospace primes or select government facilities.”

Atomos plans to launch its first orbital transfer vehicle on a SpaceX Transporter rideshare flight in 2024.

Bringing Axiom Onboard

When Atomos originally proposed the multi-party rendezvous project to AFWERX, Houston-based Axiom was not involved. Adding the Axiom Station provides “a real scenario and a real target,” Clark said. “Also, having someone like Axiom, who has to be compliant to NASA’s human spaceflight standards, will enhance the performance of our system.”

In a statement, Jason Aspiotis, director of Axiom in-space infrastructure and logistics, said “We’re excited to partner with Atomos to develop processes and requirements for Orbital Transfer Vehicles to rendezvous with Axiom Station, the world’s first commercial space station. This partnership unlocks new ways of resupplying our space station. It also lays the foundation for interoperable and cooperative uncrewed and crewed space infrastructure, thus enhancing in-space logistics capabilities for commercial and government customers.”

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Growers want to produce wildlife-friendly plants, and consumers want to buy them. At least in theory, according to a new study.

While consumers say they’re eager to purchase wildlife-friendly plants, some aren’t sure they know them when they see them, researchers say. Further, experts want to make sure the plants are indeed wildlife friendly.

“Our research shows there is a lot of interest in buying and growing wildlife-friendly plants among Floridians, and there are also opportunities to improve public understanding of the concept itself as well as how to source such plants,” says Laura Warner, an associate professor of agricultural education and communication at the University of Florida Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences (UF/IFAS) and a coauthor of the study in HortTechnology.

Eventually, researchers want to establish “University of Florida Biodiversity Certified Plants.” Scientists hope to put a label on potted plants to ensure the buyer knows the plant is “biodiversity certified.”

First, though, they’re trying to gauge consumer and grower interest in wildlife-friendly plants. To do that, researchers must define “wildlife friendly.”

Caroline Nickerson, a doctoral student under Warner’s supervision, led the study, which defined “wildlife friendly” as native or nonnative ornamental plants that attract and safely support beneficial insects, birds, and other wildlife. These species provide resources, including pollen, nectar, berries, fruit, foliage, and seed that attract and are safe for wildlife to consume.

Out of 868 consumers surveyed, about 90% said they were either likely or very likely to purchase wildlife-friendly certified plants and that they would benefit from them. About 75% of consumers also say they could explain the differences between plants that are wildlife friendly and those that are not.

Of the 75 growers surveyed, 70% said they were likely or very likely to add wildlife-friendly certified plants to their inventory when available.

For the survey, researchers asked growers several other questions, including where they perceived themselves on a scale of innovation. About 40% of those growers rated themselves as “innovators,” or those most likely to adopt new things. That means they’re ahead of the curve when it comes to trying new approaches, Warner says.

To illustrate their point about why wildlife-friendly certification is critical, researchers give an example of what can happen when a consumer goes to a retail store for a plant. He or she goes to a store that sells plants that may have been treated with insecticides.

Depending on the pesticides used during production of those plants, there can be risks of residual toxicity to the plants that feed on them after retail purchase. Thus, the customer might buy a wildlife-attracting plant that actually harms wildlife.

“We want to work with growers to make sure they are growing plant species that have wildlife value and are also using the right tools to manage pests and produce quality plants, while minimizing risks to the wildlife those plants are intended to support,” says coauthor Adam Dale, associate professor of entomology. “If they’re following the recommended practices, they can have the certified plants that consumers know are safe.”

“Although this is a little down the road, we want to enable consumers to buy with confidence,” says coauthor Jaret Daniels, a professor of entomology and curator of Lepidoptera at the Florida Museum of Natural History.

“In essence, we want to cut through all this confusion and minimize risk by labeling them as UF-certified therefore giving growers confidence in the value of their products and enabling consumers to readily identify wildlife-safe and wildlife-friendly plants that have thoroughly been evaluated.”

UF Research Opportunity Seed Funding supported the work.

Source: University of Florida

WASHINGTON — The Space ISAC, an industry group dedicated to space cybersecurity, is trying to spread awareness of the dangers satellites face, not just from cyberattacks, but also from potential anti-satellite weapons and severe space weather.

The nonprofit Space ISAC (Information Sharing and Analysis Center) held a conference Oct. 17 in Colorado Springs to highlight the value of satellites as crucial infrastructure that forms the backbone of the modern digital economy and enables services critical for everyday life. 

In a speech at the conference, Frank Backes, senior vice president of Kratos Space Federal and a member of the Space ISAC board, said commercial and government satellite operators need to implement safeguards and defenses to ensure satellites can continue delivering critical communications, observation, and navigation capabilities in the face of rapidly evolving risks in the space domain.

Backes is leaving his Kratos post and will be taking over next week as CEO of Capella Space, a radar imaging satellite operator. 

He said cybersecurity vulnerabilities, Russian satellites stalking other nations’ assets in space, and severe weather events are the top concerns for ISAC members. 

As nations become more dependent on satellites, any disruptions to their services could have significant ripple effects on Earth, said Backes. 

A key accomplishment of the Space ISAC this past year was the establishment of a “watch center” facility to monitor, analyze, and respond to threats to space systems in real time. The center is co-located at the National Cybersecurity Center in Colorado Springs.

“This helps our ability to communicate internationally, commercially, with our federal government, about threats against space systems,” Backes said.

The conflict in Ukraine has served as a major wake-up call regarding the cyber threat to satellites, he said. And the effects of attacks on space critical infrastructure were not limited to just the country of Ukraine. 

A cyberattack in February 2022 against Viasat’s KA-SAT network disrupted broadband satellite internet access across Europe, Backes said. “That network was also being used by Germany to control all of their wind farm infrastructure. And so when that attack occurred, the command and control of that wind farm went offline,” he added. “That entire power grid was impacted.”

Russian stalking satellites

Most recently, in early October, the Space ISAC watch center tracked the activities of Russia’s Luch Olymp K-2 geostationary spy satellite.

“Every time that satellite moves in the geostationary belt, it is traversing the geo belt specifically to impact and gather information about the commercial satellite communications infrastructure,” Backes said. “It has nestled up against and near satellites from Inmarsat. Intelsat, SES and others in an effort to disrupt and affect the commercial communications infrastructure.”

Analysts at the watch center also track space weather events that routinely affect satellites such as solar flares that can disrupt electronics, clouds of solar plasma that can damage satellites and disturbances in the Earth’s magnetic field.

A rather unusual threat emerged this year, known as the South Atlantic Anomaly. “That’s one of the events that we’re also tracking because of its impact on low Earth orbit satellites,” Backes said. 

The anomaly was identified in the Earth’s magnetic field over the South Atlantic region. Scientists described it as a weak spot in the Earth’s magnetic field, which protects the planet from high doses of solar wind and cosmic radiation. This anomaly can cause disturbances in orbiting satellites. 

“Just about every LEO satellite can be affected when flying through that particular area, because you have very high energy particles,” said Backes.

Push to designate space sector as ‘critical infrastructure’ 

The Space ISAC is leading an effort to have the U.S. government designate space systems as the 17th U.S. critical infrastructure sector.

“I think it’s overdue. I think it should have been done yesterday,” Samuel Visner, technical fellow at Aerospace Corp. and vice chairman of the board of Space ISAC, said at the conference. 

Supporters of this move argue that critical infrastructure designation would ensure emergency federal funding in the event of a major disruption of critical services and more consistent access to federal government decision-making processes.

“This discussion is underway right now in Washington,” said Visner. The Biden administration is reviewing options under Presidential Policy Directive 21. 

The proposal to designate space as critical infrastructure has been criticized by some industry sectors that worry it will bring about more regulatory burdens. 

“There are people who fear that this is a regulatory move,” said Visner. But he pushed back on that criticism. “Many industries are regulated, but not because they’ve been designated as critical infrastructure sectors,” he said. 

A decision needs to be made soon, Visner said. “While we are trying to figure out if we’re going to make that designation, our adversaries Russia and China have also decided that our space systems are critical infrastructure, they’re treating it that way, and building and demonstrating the capability to attack it.”

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A new study shows just how much damage dementia does to a person’s bank account—as well as the higher demands it places on their family members.

In all, people diagnosed with dementia saw their out-of-pocket spending for health care more than double, and their net worth decline by more than 60%, within the first eight years of being diagnosed, the study finds.

Meanwhile, other people of similar ages and in similar health, but without dementia, didn’t see much change in either financial measure in that time, according to the findings in JAMA Internal Medicine.

The study also reveals major differences in demand on family members. By the end of their second year after the onset of symptoms, people with dementia needed three times more hours of care from family and friends than their peers without dementia did.

People with dementia also entered nursing homes at nearly five times the rate of their peers in those first two years. Those who had less family support available were much more likely to enter a nursing home.

People with dementia were also much more likely than their peers to use paid in-home care, which is often not fully covered by Medicare.

Another sign of financial distress: enrollment in Medicaid, the safety-net health care program for people living in poverty, nearly doubled for people with dementia in the first eight years after diagnosis. The rate of enrollment stayed flat for their peers.

‘Striking and persistent’ dementia toll

For the new analysis, researchers used data from the Health and Retirement Study, a long-term in-depth study based on interviews and health exams—to reveal trends that previous studies using Medicare data alone could not.

The researchers analyzed data from nearly 2,400 adults who had the onset of dementia, and an equal number of older adults who were carefully matched based on extensive socioeconomic characteristics, health, and health care status. They looked at data for both groups from before the dementia onset, all the way to eight years after the diagnosis. HRS is based at the University of Michigan’s Institute for Social Research.

“The differences between these two groups, both in terms of use of care and financial impacts, were even larger than we had expected,” says HwaJung Choi, a health economist and research associate professor in the University of Michigan Medical School’s internal medicine department.

“What we found regarding unpaid caregiving from family and others is the most striking and persistent care use difference, with 45 hours per month on average for people with dementia, compared with 13 hours for those without, by the end of two years,” says Choi, who is also a faculty associate at ISR. “The difference remains sustained at that level across eight years.”

Providing much needed support for family caregivers is being addressed by two programs taking effect in 2024 from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services: one that will allow clinics to get paid to provide caregiver education, and a pilot program specifically focused on improving support and care coordination for caregivers of people with dementia.

Choi and her colleagues, including Cathleen Connell, a research associate professor and health economist, used an approach called propensity score matching to carefully match each person with dementia with a person whose health and other factors were very similar to theirs. Dementia onset was based on a validated measure using an array of data from the Health and Retirement Study.

This matching process allowed the researchers to see just how substantial the additional financial and health care burden of dementia really is for an individual.

Planning needs

With 6.7 million Americans currently diagnosed with dementia, and an increasing number expected to receive that diagnosis in coming years, Choi says it’s critical to get a realistic picture of these impacts to inform policy decisions at the state and national level, but also for individuals and families to plan.

She notes that the high rate of hours of care provided by family members for people with dementia persisted across the eight years, even as paid home-based care and hospital stays decreased as more individuals were admitted to nursing homes. Choi notes that staff shortages in nursing homes exacerbate the demand on family caregivers.

At baseline, the time before their dementia diagnosis, study participants’ wealth averaged $79,000 when all assets and debts were counted. Overall, the wealth of the peer group without dementia was about the same.

Both groups had annual out-of-pocket spending for medical expenses such as co-pays, deductibles, over-the-counter purchases and home care of about $4,000 at baseline.

By the end of two years, people with dementia saw their average wealth drop to $58,000, and their out-of-pocket costs double to around $8,000. Their peers saw neither of these impacts.

By the end of eight years, people with dementia had spent twice as much as their peers out of their own pockets for health expenses and had seen their wealth drop to an average of $30,500 while their peers saw no significant drop.

“What we’re really seeing here is two very different situations over a relatively short time for very similar families, determined just by a single diagnosis,” says Connell. “It’s a really striking comparison and may be driven largely by the ‘spend down’ of assets by many families in order to qualify for Medicaid coverage of long-term care in a nursing home.”

Keeping people with dementia living in their home or a non-nursing home setting such as assisted living is a key goal of major policy proposals—but means that Medicare, rather than Medicaid, would pay more of the cost.

The availability of family support was a critical factor in moving to nursing home residence, both at baseline and by the end of eight years after dementia onset.

Nearly one in three people with dementia who had no spouse or child at baseline were living in nursing homes by their eighth year after dementia onset.

The rate was nearly as high—about 1 in 4—among those who had a spouse with a disability and a child who lived nearby, and those who had no spouse but had a child who lived nearby.

By comparison, nursing home residence was half as common among those who either lived with a non-disabled spouse when they were first diagnosed, or who had both a spouse and a child living with them, whether or not their spouse had a disability.

Choi plans to continue her work on family dynamics related to dementia, including examining the impact of COVID-era changes in health care and nursing home visitation, as well as the role of family members beyond spouses and adult children, such as grandchildren, siblings, and stepchildren.

The National Institute on Aging funded the work.

Source: University of Michigan

TAMPA, Fla. — One-year-old Californian startup AnySignal emerged from stealth mode Oct. 16 with $5 million in funding behind a multi-purpose space radio platform.

AnySignal’s kit works across multiple spectrum bands, chief operating officer and co-founder Jeffrey Osborne told SpaceNews, and comes with ground equipment for hardware-in-the-loop tests, modems that can be upgraded for different waveforms, licensing support, and software that enables the radio to interface with various flight systems. 

The Los Angeles-area venture hopes its focus on end-to-end customer products will give it an advantage over incumbent radio providers such as L3Harris Technologies, an aerospace and defense giant that made more than $22 billion last year.

An L3Harris spokesperson said there are more than 180 of its AppSTAR software-defined radio platforms currently on orbit, and the company provides the ground segments for many of them.

But while traditional primes also provide end-to-end services, Osborne said AnySignal aims to optimize performance and lower costs by tightly integrating its offering, which unlike many larger competitors has not been formed through acquisitions.

“Think of SpaceX versus ULA,” he said, “where the former has vertically integrated and built their business from the ground up versus the latter which is far more [siloed] and how that has evolved in terms of differentiation and market leadership.”

John Malsbury, AnySignal’s CEO, is a former SpaceX engineer who helped manage signal processing development for its rockets, Starshield military product line, Starlink communications network, and Dragon 2 space capsule, according to AnySignal’s news release that announced its funding Oct. 16.

Osborne, who also co-founded Canadian small satellite operator Kepler Communications, said AnySignal’s radio is set to fly for the first time in November with a customer onboard SpaceX’s Transporter 9 rideshare mission.

The radio is manifested on follow-on Transporter missions, he added, and is also flying on hypersonic vehicles next year under test programs. 

AnySignal’s software-defined radio platform has a dual-antenna global navigation satellite system receiver, and is compatible with ultra-high frequencies (UHF), S-band, L-band, and X-band. 

Frequencies across these spectrum bands are used for a variety of applications in space, ranging from Earth observation downlinks to communications between two in-orbit spacecraft. The radio is not compatible with high-speed Ka-band and Ku-band broadband spectrum.

The company also offers more basic services such as antenna placement and cable routing support. AnySignal says these services are geared toward young space companies with limited resources.

Osborne said AnySignal is already generating revenue from a mix of commercial and government customers.

He said the venture plans to expand a team of eight full-time employees to around 15 by the end of this year, and about 30 by summer. 

The company mainly aims to expand its engineering and sales teams to increase production and environmental testing capacity, improve security compliance to meet Department of Defense contracting requirements, and seed development of additional products.

Venture capital firm Blueyard Capital led AnySignal’s seed funding round, joined by early-stage investors First In, Also Capital, Acequia Capital, and Caffeinated Capital.

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WASHINGTON — The co-founder of synthetic aperture radar (SAR) imaging company Capella Space is stepping down as chief executive as the company seeks to grow its business, particularly with government customers.

Capella Space announced Oct. 17 that Payam Banazadeh would step down as chief executive effective Oct. 23, remaining on the company’s board of directors. He will be replaced by Frank Backes, senior vice president at Kratos Defense and Security Solutions.

Banazadeh said in a statement that the leadership change was part of efforts to expand the company’s business offering high-resolution SAR imagery after launching a series of SAR satellites. “Frank is a proven leader with a diverse background in software and hardware across both national security and commercial markets,” he said. “He understands our customers’ problems and challenges and is the perfect leader to further accelerate our growth by unlocking new opportunities.”

While the statement said that Capella is looking to expand its customer base for both government and commercial users, it suggested its focus was on government markets, including national security and intelligence. Backes led federal space and commercial cyber operations at Kratos for the last six years, and the statement noted his “deep understanding of the government and defense markets.”

Backes, in the statement, thanked Banazadeh for his “thoughtful, strategic guidance” of the company. “I am grateful for his leadership and look forward to working with him and the entire Capella Space team to take the company to new heights.”

The company has raised $250 million in venture capital to date, which includes a $60 million round announced in January. Capella Space has launched 12 satellites, although the most recent of those 12, the second in its new Acadia line of spacecraft, was lost in an Electron launch failure Sept. 19.

In a panel session at World Satellite Business Week Sept. 15, Banazadeh said the company planned to launch additional Acadia satellites “over the coming quarters,” although that schedule will depend on when Rocket Lab returns its Electron to flight. Some of those satellites will operate in mid-inclination orbits, which offers “new capabilities and new collection opportunities” for its customers.

Capella said in the statement that its revenue has grown by more than 180% annual since beginning commercial operations in 2021, but did not release revenue figures. Capella is one of seven companies selected by NASA for its Commercial Smallsat Data Acquisition Program Oct. 2, making it eligible to compete for task orders worth up to $476 million over five years.

The company, like many other commercial satellite imaging companies, stands to benefit from a decision by the Commerce Department in August to remove many “Tier 3” restrictions on its commercial remote sensing license. The lifting of those conditions enables companies to provide higher-resolution imagery and other capabilities that previously had been restricted.

Banazadeh said at the conference in September that while he was “pretty excited” about the change, it was still too early to know how the end of the Tier 3 restrictions would affect its business. “It remains to be seen what that does to the market,” he said, because of limited experience with advanced SAR features that are now commercially available. “It will take a while before they realize the full power and the possibilities are.”

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SAN FRANCISCO – The University of California, Berkeley, and the NASA Ames Research Center unveiled plans Oct. 16 for a $2 billion Berkeley Space Center in Mountain View, California.

The University of California-NASA Ames partnership, in the works for more than 20 years, “has the potential to inspire not only the next generation of technologies and discoveries but the next generation of explorers, the students of today who will be the future engineers, scientists, technologists and business professionals in aviation science and space exploration,” NASA Ames Director Eugene Tu said during a news conference.

Academic and Industry Tenants

Pending an environmental impact review, initial construction could begin in approximately three years. The University of California is likely to claim approximately 10 percent of the 130,000-square-meters set aside for offices and research and development facilities.

“A very broad selection of private industry” is likely to lease remaining facilities, said Dan Kingsley, managing partner of SKS Partners, the commercial real estate developer working with UC Berkeley and NASA Ames on the project.

With 18 acres of outdoor space, the new Berkeley Space Center campus is designed to promote collaboration among government, industry and academic tenants.

“So much collaboration results from people bumping into one another,” said Carol Christ, UC Berkeley chancellor. “I’ve been struck by the intentionality of the design in regard to pathways and to people finding outdoor meeting spaces, bumping-into spaces that fuel scientific discovery and collaboration.”

Berkeley Space Center clusters will focus on space robotics, remote sensing, planetary sciences, climate change, electric aviation, mixed autonomy traffic operations and firefighting.

“Once we start assembling tenants in this new Berkeley Space Center, they will have R&D teams that are crucially focused around key disciplines that advance each of these applications, in particular machine learning and artificial intelligence, data science, advanced robotics, computing and many others,” said Alexandre Bayen, UC Berkeley associate provost for Moffett Field Program Development.

Workforce Development

The UC Berkeley-NASA partnership also is likely to help expand the aerospace workforce.

“We think these new opportunities that we’re providing for both undergraduates and graduate students will help produce the kinds of professionals of the future that companies are looking for,” Christ said.

In addition, the Berkeley Space Center will offer opportunities for retraining workers. Aerospace engineers who completed degrees many years ago, for example, may be eager to enhance their knowledge of machine learning and artificial intelligence, data science, computing and space robotics.

“This is an opportunity to come here to the Berkeley Space Center and be trained in these new disciplines, disciplines that are fundamental to the quest of space innovation,” Bayen said.

NASA Ames leaders have envisioned this type of research campus for many years.

“Ever since NASA took over stewardship of Moffett Field after the Naval Air Station was closed in the mid-90s, we have envisioned a major academic campus to complement the federal, industry and academic research complex we are building right here in the heart of Silicon Valley,” Tu said. “In many ways this is one of the final major pieces of the puzzle that we have been looking forward to.”

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Parents may do more “helicopter parenting” than they realize, new poll results show.

As they grow, children start doing certain activities without their parents watching over them, including trick-or-treating with friends, staying home alone, or biking to a friend’s house.

“There’s a sizable gap between parent attitudes about promoting children’s independence and what they actually allow or encourage their children to do without supervision,” says Sarah Clark, co-director of the University of Michigan Health C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital National Poll on Children’s Health.

“This suggests some parents may be missing opportunities to guide their children in tasks of autonomy and unintentionally hindering kids’ development of independence and problem-solving skills.”

Four in five parents of children ages 9-11 agree that it’s good for children to have free time without adult supervision. But fewer report their child actually does certain things without an adult present, the poll suggests.

About three in five parents have let their tween-aged child stay home for 30-60 minutes while half say their child has separated from them to find an item at another aisle in the store. Less than half say their child has waited in the car while the parent runs a quick errand, walked, or biked to a friend’s house, or played at the park with a friend, and less than a sixth of parents have let their child trick-or-treat with friends.

The top reason behind parents’ hesitancy to promote such independent milestones was safety. Yet, while a little more than half worried someone might scare or follow their child, just 17% of parents say their neighborhood is not safe for children to be alone.

“To some extent, worrying about your child is natural. But some parents are limiting their child’s independent activities due to highly publicized media reports, even if those outcomes are very unlikely to occur or cannot be prevented,” Clark says.

“Parents can ease in with small steps such as letting their child spend time with a friend at a familiar public place. Discussions before and after can help parents assess if their kids understand the importance of following safety rules.”

Other parents say they keep children from taking on such tasks alone because they don’t believe they’re ready, while some parents believe state or local laws don’t allow children that age to be alone and that someone might call the police. A little more than one in 10 parents also think others will think they are a bad parent if their child is seen unsupervised.

Over half of parents say that unsupervised children cause trouble while a quarter have criticized another parent, and 13% have been criticized for not adequately supervising their child.

“Parents may be affected by ‘blame culture’—the expectation that they will be criticized if something happens to their child,” Clark says.

The poll report also suggests a disconnect between what parents of younger children ages 5 to 8 say and what they do in fostering independence.

Nearly three-quarters say they make it a point to have their child do things themselves. But less than half of these parents say their child regularly engages in actions such as talking with the doctor or nurse at health visits; deciding how to spend allowance or gift money; speaking to unfamiliar adults in business situations, such as ordering at a restaurant; or preparing their own meal or snack.

Among reasons were safety, getting stuck in habits, the parent belief that their child doesn’t want to do things themselves or isn’t mature enough, thinking it will take too long, or that it won’t be done in the parent’s preferred way.

The elementary school years, Clark notes, is an important phase for developing independence with parental guidance.

“Becoming independent is a gradual process of allowing children increasing amounts of freedom, with parents there to teach skills and help the child understand the consequences of their choices,” Clark says.

“As children become more experienced and comfortable with tasks, they can assume responsibility for doing them regularly. Research shows encouraging independence fosters a child’s self-confidence, resilience, problem-solving ability, and mental health.”

The nationally representative poll is based on responses from 1,044 parents of children aged 5-11 years surveyed in August.

Source: University of Michigan