What happened to make plague able to cause devastating epidemics, as in this depiction from 1349? (Credit: Pierart dou Tielt/Wikimedia)

One of civilizations most prolific killers shadowed humans for thousands of years without their knowledge.

The bacteria Yersinia pestis, which causes the plague, is thought to be responsible for up to 200 million deaths across human history more than twice the casualties of World War II.

The Y. pestis death toll comes from three widespread disease outbreaks, known as epidemics: the sixth century Justinianic Plague that ravaged the Eastern Roman Empire; the 14th century Black Death that killed somewhere between 40% and 60% of the European population; and the ongoing Third Pandemic, which began in China in the mid-19th century and currently afflicts thousands worldwide.

Scientists long assumed that the deadly disease began infecting humans just before the earliest epidemic, the Justinianic Plague.

But recent paleogenetics research reveals that plague has been with us for millennia longer: Ancient DNA (aDNA) from the bacteria was recovered from human skeletons as old as 4,900 years. This means people were contracting and dying from plague at least 3,000 years before theres any archaeological or historical evidence for an epidemic.

Why didnt these earlier infections lead to devastating outbreaks like the Black Death? It seems the answer is part biological genetic mutations to the bacteria itself and part cultural changes to human lifestyles that encouraged the spread of the disease.

To identify cases of ancient plague, researchers extract aDNA from a skeletons dental pulp chamber and search for genetic code from Y. pestis bacteria. If fossil teeth contain Y. pestis DNA, its safe to assume that person died from plague.

Several studies have found plague victims who lived nearly 5,000 years ago more than three millennia before the first known plague epidemic.

Pathogen aDNA analysis also revealed how Y. pestis bacteria have evolved over time. The oldest genomes recovered belong to a now-extinct lineage, which was missing certain mutations that make plague so contagious for humans. For example, later Y. pestis strains evolved a gene that allows the bacteria to efficiently infect fleas, the main carriers of the disease in recent times. More ancient Y. pestis samples lack the gene.

So far, the earliest plague genome recovered with these mutations dates to around 1800 BC from the Samara Valley, Russia. The mutations were also identified in a skeleton from Iron Age Armenia that was dated to around 950 BC.

It seems the more contagious form of plague has been infecting humans for nearly 4,000 years.

But there are no indications in the archaeological record of epidemics in the ancient societies in Russia and Armenia despite the fact that some individuals died from the highly contagious plague strain.

Its possible outbreaks occurred but the evidence simply hasnt been found yet. For example, if future excavations were to uncover a series of mass graves that differed from the usual burial customs of those cultures, this could suggest societal disruption consistent with an epidemic.

Or perhaps the bacterial strains, though genetically similar to the plagues of Justinian and the Black Death, lacked some other critical mutation, still unidentified.

Alternatively, there could be another explanation, related to the behavior of the people being infected. Did the ancient people of the Samara Valley and Armenia live in a way that protected them from plague perhaps without even knowing it?

We sought to answer this by investigating whether the populations of 1800s BC Samara Valley and Iron Age Armenia behaved differently from people in Justinians Empire in crucial ways.

First we established conditions that make a population more or less vulnerable to an outbreak. We identified criteria known to be associated with plague virulence, or how infectious the bacterium is.

Population density is important; the number of people in contact with an infected individual affects the rate of disease spread.

Permanent agricultural settlements accumulate food storage and waste, which supports co-habitating rodent species. These rodents make ideal hosts for fleas that harbor plague bacteria.

As East Asia is the likely geographic source of plague, regular trade with the region is another factor.

And we examined reliance on horses, because some scholars suggest though its not yet biologically tested that the animals carry natural immunity to plague. Regular contact with horses could reduce a populations susceptibility to the disease.

We then compared three populations on these six criteria using archaeological and historical data.

For the Justinianic Plague, we focused on Constantinople, the capital of Justinians Empire and an epicenter of the outbreak. Constantinoples culture created a perfect storm of conditions for an epidemic.

It was a congested urban center with a population of over 500,000 people, or 140 individuals per acre. All of Constantinoples staple foods, including grain, were shipped from surrounding areas and stored in large warehouses, creating ideal breeding grounds for rodents. Flourishing trade also introduced the rat species Rattus rattus from India that would later be identified as the main carrier of fleas harboring plague.

In contrast, lifestyles in Samara and Armenia may have kept the epidemic at bay.

These populations were significantly more mobile and less congested than the urban population of Constantinople. The Samara population shows little evidence for agriculture and tended to occupy small settlements of extended families. These communities managed shared herds, and horse tools found in their characteristic burial mounds suggest the animals were highly valued. Remember, horses may have had some natural immunity to the disease.

Due to shifting local powers, Early Iron Age Armenia appears to have been home to farmers as well as nomadic pastoralists. Generally, though, archaeologists presume the populations practiced cattle farming, which would have made people substantially more mobile and dispersed than inhabitants of Constantinople.

Less congestion would have made contaminating nearby villages more difficult. Lacking agriculture, Samara could not have supported human-dependent rodents, the way Constantinople did. Both populations potentially benefited from a high ratio of horses to people.

While Samara and Armenia saw occasional plague victims, the structure of their societies likely protected them from the devastation wrought in Constantinople.

While encouraging economic and technological gains, urban development and trade created ideal conditions for an epidemic in Constantinople. Vulnerability to plague was an unintended consequence of this societys lifestyle.

Meanwhile, it seems earlier cultures unwittingly shielded themselves from the same threat.

The harsh reality is that its exceedingly difficult, if not impossible, to control a pathogen, its possible mutations or its next outbreak. But understanding how human behaviors affect the spread and virulence of a disease can inform preparations for the future.

As a society, we can take organized measures to reduce the spread of infection, whether by limiting over-congestion, controlling food waste, or restricting access to contaminated areas. Human behaviors are just as critical to our disease susceptibility as are the characteristics of the pathogen itself.

This is a guest article from Sonja Eliason, MPhil Candidate in Bioscience Enterprise, University of Cambridge and Bridget Alex, Lecturer, California State University, Long Beach. The views expressed in this article belong solely to the authors.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Originally posted here:
Why People In Ancient Times Didn't Get the Plague - The Crux - Discover Magazine

Last month Google rolled out first-price auctions, whichbecause they are Googlemeans that now everyone else will follow suit. First-price will be the universal method for the $48 billion programmatic market. To provide some perspective, thats the same size as organic food sales in the U.S., the cannabis market worldwide and the entire wearables industry.

First-price means the winning advertiser pays exactly what they bid. This, versus second-price, which awards the auction to the highest bidder, means they pay only slightly more than the second highest price that was bid.

Up until now, second-price auctions were the standard. Advertisers liked them because they could avoid the winners curse, where they were stuck paying a price that may be grossly over what its true value is. Supply-side platforms liked them because they often would raise their price floors after bids came in, which allowed them to get extra money from advertisers and DSPs.

As of March 2018, the share of impressions being sold first-price was at 43.3%, up from 5.8% three months previous. But now with Google rolling it out, that share is going to skyrocket. I wouldnt be surprised if it hit 90% by the end of the year. All advertising platforms will be shifting to the first-price model; its now inevitable.

Heres the thing, though. No one likes change. And when it messes with pricing, people really dont like change. Its like the stock market. As a public company, you can change constantly as long as it doesnt negatively impact your stock price. Volatility in a person makes them interesting. Volatility in pricing makes it scary.

Volatility in a person makes them interesting. Volatility in pricing makes it scary.

Fortunately, we moved to first-price six months ago and have been through what youre about to experience. Im going to tell you exactly what happened so you can project what will happen when you or your ad platform makes this shift and what to do about it.

We had some resistance from our DSP partners because they were concerned that they would overpay for an impression and never know its true value. Performance bidders were worried that prices would get too high and negatively impact their take rate or that it would be too expensive for them to clear, which drives spend down. And everyone was wondering what it would mean from a technical standpoint.

Technically speaking, there are actually very few adjustments because the recent IAB specs already have options for both bidding types. If partners are confused about the model, explain what it means to pay what you bid and give assurance that pricing volatility will be short-lived. Emphasize the benefits of greater transparency because buyers have more insight into pricing, and publishers will get more reporting on bids.

We did see a spike in overall spend for about a week. But as bidder algorithms recalibrated, it leveled back to what it was before. After the plateau, we saw that this was a win/win for both our publisher and DSP partners. Our demand partners saw a higher win rate and a higher impression (or play) rate as a result. As they gained more buying power, overall bidding became more efficient. App developers saw their fill rate increase while yielding higher eCPMs.

And thats it. No, really, that is what you can expect. For such a major change in a pricing model, its almost anticlimactic, but the lesson here is to trust your technology. Decision-making engines were built to be able to understand which impressions are valuable and determine how much you should pay for them. They know what performs well and what doesnt. And technology, unlike human behavior, is flexible and can adapt to changes in the pricing system.

So, step up and make the investment to get on board with first-price auctions. If youre a platform, its a strategic investment. If youre a brand or agency, it might be more of an emotional one, understanding the implications and being OK with the shift. And while some say that bid shading, where the winner pays halfway between the first- and second-price winning bid, is a good compromise and limits risk, I ask why we believe there is too much risk when theres isnt. Also, that comes with a price; dont assume that youre not paying in other ways (e.g., covering the cost of the bid-shading tool).

What we need now is for everyonebuyers, sellers and those in betweento be all-in. Because first-price auctions are an important step toward transparency. It encourages a more honest pricing structure, which is an important move in a space where trust and transparency continue to be a sought after commodity.

See the article here:
Switching Platforms to First-Price Auctions - Adweek

U.S. democracy is a very curious beast. In U.S. democracy, it doesnt matter how big the calamity is. It also doesnt matter how many politicians urgently call for reform or how loud the public outcry is in the media.

In U.S. democracy, the law of inverse proportions applies: The louder the public outcry, the more one can be sure that nothing will happen to remedy the actual problem.

This perverted politic logic applies from the Facebook scandal and regularly occurring police killings of African-Americans to all those school shootings. Donald Trumps tenure in the Oval Office makes all this only more deplorable.

A while ago, there were those who believed that the youth protests after the high school shooting incident in Parkland, Florida would transform the political landscape. This time would be different, they said. They learned soon enough that they were kidding themselves if they didnt know it all along.

Later on, there was the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting, and now the school shooting in Santa Clarita, California. And yet, nothing much will change on gun control in the United States even though the needed solutions are entirely commonsensical. Such solutions can only prove so elusive in ideology-driven countries. Meanwhile, Donald Trump and the Republicans still resort to blaming mental health issues for any shooting.

Under those circumstances, it is hard to escape the conclusion that the United States represents the most cynical country in the history of Western thought. Nowhere is the gap between self-laudatory statements and political realities bigger.

The preferred modus operandi is to operate what might best be termed as fake government. Such a government engages for the most part in pretend actions.

In their unbridled cynicism, Republicans rely on the chronically short attention span of the American public. They count on the fact that any calls for reform, often bombastically presented to satisfy the needs of public arousal, will soon enough fizzle and/or be forgotten.

As for the Democrats, they at least try to pursue some reforms, but they ultimately know that they arent going to succeed. For that reason, in some ways they are actually the more frustrating party. They raise the publics hopes and expectations for change and then cant deliver.

As a result, policymaking in the United States has degraded to the level of one gigantic kabuki show, resolving nothing.

Congressional hearings featuring Facebooks Mark Zuckerberg are further evidence of that. The Republicans, eager to turn Facebook with its political advertising power into an ally of the political right, only go through the motions of demanding change from the internet giant.

Notwithstanding the efforts of Elizabeth Warren and AOC, even many Democrats are conflicted, not just by being on the take for campaign contributions from Silicon Valley firms. In the past, they have also often been the chief promulgators of the supposed global soft power of the U.S.-based Internet giants, pretending those were a force for good.

Meanwhile, the Silicon Valley firms continue to operate as uncontrolled control freaks that ruthlessly explore any conceivable angle of human behavior and existence with their search algorithms.

A country where democracy is rendered so dysfunctional, where Republican politicians mostly act as shameless cover-up artists, as well as deniers, aiders and abetters of corporate malfeasance, is really a nation that lives in the permanent state of impotence.

In such a nation, bringing about the common good if it occurs is a matter of happening purely accidentally, not the consequence of serious policymaking.

In such a nation, it is also no surprise that Donald Trump is getting away with so much. The 45th U.S. President is frantically working 24/7/365 at bringing out the basest of instincts in the American public. Congressional Republicans will see to it that nothing stops him. Thats just another sign of American impotence.

Excerpt from:
US Democracy and the Age of American Impotence - The Globalist

The books section is supported by a generous donation from Anne Germanacos

With all the handwringing about the declining relationship of American Jews to Israel, I sometimes find it striking that literature is rarely part of the discussion. I feel strongly that the work of Israeli writers can be one of our strongest sources of connection, and one that survives the vicissitudes of politics and policy.

Ayelet Gundar-Goshen is one of few Israeli writers under the age of 40 to have made a strong impression outside the nation, including in a semester-long course she taught at San Francisco State University last year. The international success of her novel Waking Lions is owed in part to the broad resonance of its plot centered on the population of undocumented African workers in Israel. But it is also due to the fact that Gundar-Goshen, trained as a psychologist, has proven an astute analyst of human behavior both in Waking Lions and in her debut, often funny historical novel One Night, Markovitch.

Her new novel The Liar focuses on miserable teenager Nofar, who dreams of having a boyfriend, but who barely has any friendships at all and trails her more conventionally attractive sister Maya in securing the attention of others (including her parents).

Nofar is spending the summer working in an ice cream shop when a frustrated customer who turns out to be Avishai Milner, a winner on an American Idol-style television program whose 15 minutes of fame have elapsed unleashes an unjustifiable verbal attack focused on her appearance. Devastated, Nofar runs off in tears while still holding Milners change, and he follows her into an alley. Her screams attract a crowd and the police, and before long she has, in the heat of the moment, given the nod to their assumption that Milner had attempted to assault her sexually. Because of Milners stature, the case blows up in the media, and Nofar suddenly has the eyes of her nation and her classmates on her. And she has her first boyfriend, albeit one who emerges out of an attempt to blackmail her.

Nofars life has improved, but at the cost of carrying an enormous dilemma. If she continues to lie, a man will be wrongly convicted of sexual assault even though he is horrible in other respects. And if she reveals the truth, her life will not simply return to its former unhappy state, but she will become vilified for her actions.

The questions expand with the increasing number of lies surfacing elsewhere. For example, Nofars hapless boyfriend pretends to apply for an elite military unit in order to gain the affection of his father, a career soldier. And in a parallel plot, a Moroccan-born woman assumes the identity and life of her friend, a Holocaust survivor from Poland, after her friend dies.

What unites these stories is that the lies actually bring their purveyors love and respect otherwise missing from their lives. They momentarily overturn a system, whether within a family or within a nation, that has landed the characters at the bottom.

As the weight of ethical responsibility or the sheer practical challenge of maintaining a web of interdependent lies forces the characters to reconsider their mendacity, the reader joins in the questioning. Is the value of truth an absolute? In what cases can a lie be justified?These questions affect our personal lives and are now prominent in our political culture. Gundar-Goshen gives us much to consider.

Ronit Matalons novel And the Bride Closed the Door presents a decidedly different picture of a young woman in crisis. Hours before 500 guests are to show up to her wedding, Margie locks herself in her mothers bedroom and announces, Not getting married.

Remarkably different from Matalons other works, the novel plays a bit like a screwball farce, with each character choosing a different strategy to attempt to resolve the situation. Meanwhile, Margie barely communicates, except for slipping her transcription of a poem by the iconic Israeli poet Leah Goldberg under the door, but with its title altered from The Prodigal Son to The Prodigal Daughter and its language changed from masculine to feminine. (Hebrew nouns and verb forms are gendered.) The family members are left to interpret the meaning of her gesture.

The apartment becomes something of a microcosm of Israel, reflected in Margies Mizrachi family, the grooms Ashkenazi family, and the Arabs who have brought a ladder from the Palestinian Authority. Fascinatingly, the closest thing to a breakthrough comes when Margies grandmother, who has appeared to be on the verge of dementia, sings the Arabic lyrics of popular Lebanese singer Fairuz through the door. For Matalon, who was born to two immigrants from Egypt and advocated for Mizrachi Jews in Israel, this restoration of harmony with cultural roots in the Arab world likely had special meaning.

This was Matalons final novel, for which she received the coveted Brenner Prize the day before she tragically died of cancer in 2017 at the age of 58. In the acceptance speech read by her daughter, Matalon noted that there is something sad yet a little bit funny in the fact that I, just like my locked-in bride, am not attending this wedding. Her absence is indeed deeply felt, and we are fortunate to have the literary legacy she left behind.

Excerpt from:
Two Israeli novelists explore truth and integrity - The Jewish News of Northern California

byNICOLE FITZSIMMONS,Staff Writer

The Heart is a Lonely Hunter is a novel that truly makes you think about human behavior. It makes us recognize that what we really desire is someone who will listen to us, who will make us feel like they want to listen to us. Yet, we fail to think about the person who is listening to us. We crave solace and will blindly share our soul to escape having the thoughts in our own mind. Rarely do we recognize the impact all of our thoughts can have when they are being driven into the mind of someone else. The novel shares vignettes of the main characters through the lens of a man who does nothing but listen.

The Heart is a Lonely Hunter was Carson McCullers debut novel. NICOLE FITZSIMMONS/ THE QUADRANGLE

The first time I ever really fell in love with a book was the first time I read The Heart is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers. It was a required reading for my AP English Literature and Composition Class, so I thought it was going to be another novel that I skimmed through quickly at one in the morning the night beforehardly taking in any of the content, hoping I wouldnt be quizzed on it the day I walked into class. But this novel was different. I still have the same copy I had from the summer before my senior year, which is still covered in scribbles of annotations and underlines.

At just 23 years old, McCullers wrote this novel containing extremely complex and interesting figures. The story is based around a deaf-mute, John Singer, in an old mill town of the South during the 1930s. John Singer embodies a mystery to all of the surrounding people living in the town. He has the ability to read, write and read lips, yet does not like to do so. He is a distant and conscientious character.

The one person that Singer feels comfort with is his best friend, who is also a deaf-mute, Spiros Antonapoulos. Antonopoulos is the ultimate other; he is quite impetuous and his head is frequently up in the clouds. This is very distinct from Singer who is constantly aware of what he is doing, and always has a motive to his actions.

There is a deep admiration that is seen for Antonapolous from Singer, which does not seem to be completely mutual considering the apathetic characteristics Antonopoulos inhibits. This is parallel to the relationship between Singer and the rest of the characters: the lack of mutuality.

The mark of Antonopolous character is made when he is sent away to an asylum in the beginning of the novel. All the while, Singer bears Antonopoulos gifts and writes him letters as often as he could, with little reciprocation. After ten years of living with Antonopolous, Singer is forced to pay rent and live in a familys shared home located in the town.

Singers new-found loneliness leaves him looking like a vulnerable target for those around him in the town. Throughout the novel, McCullers introduces the reader to four extremely complex and interesting characters battling with the isolation and struggles they face. Singers lack of response leaves the characters around him with a confidant. It is almost as if he is a mere diary to them; he listens, and they share everything. Despite his own sense of isolation, the characters use him as a mechanism to battle their own remoteness.

The reader meets 13-year-old Mick Kelley at the Kelly family home Singer lives in, a young girl who is struggling with finding herself, sharing her thoughts and feelings and growing in her impoverished household that is trying its best to keep going. She uses music as her escape and uses it to battle with the isolation she faces, along with her confidant John Singer.

The next character is Jake Blount, a highly inconsistent and rash character who battles with alcoholism. He goes off on tirades about social injustice in drunkenness, in which Singer simply listens to. He has trouble internally accepting the socio-economic position that he and others in the town have to deal with, and even talks about leading a socialist revolution.

Benedict Mady Copeland is a black doctor and medical professional who has worked in the town for 25 years. During the tense period the novel is set in, he struggles with his desire to mend racial relations. This struggle is intense because of his nobility in working to make personal sacrifices and devote his entire lifes work to furthering the education of and aiding the black community. Besides this internal struggle in which he confides in Singer, he is also ill and his son is physically mistreated in prison.

The most interesting of the characters to me is Biff Brannon. He is the owner of the towns New York Caf, a place where both Jake Blount and Singer both frequently hang out in. It is a lonesome place that dwellers walk into at all hours of the night, yet it is important to the town and the novel. He is generous with all of his customers, including Mick. Despite dealing with tense relations with his own wife, Biff Brannon is one character that is continuously haunted by the fact that he cannot completely understand Singer.

The end of the novel is significant because it leaves the reader with a mountain of unanswered questions. For some this is the most irritating thing an author can do, but its something Ive really grown to love.

New beginnings are laid out as the four characters deal with the loss of the one person they shared their secrets with. Id like to think that there is hope in the ending of this novel, and that the thoughts they shared with Singer can now face reality as things begin to change completely with a small sense of hope in some strange way. The sun will rise again, and the characters will go on, seems to be part of the message.

Yet it is hard to deny that the ending of this novel is not sorrowful and eye-opening. McCullers intriguing take on isolation starts with the surrounding characters but ultimately ends in the greatest isolation of the one who aids the rest. I recommend this novel to anyone who is interested in works of literature that change the way you look at things.

The Heart is a lonely hunter with only one desire! To find some lasting comfort in the arms of anothers firedriven by a desperate hunger to the arms of a neon light, the heart is a lonely hunter when theres no sign of love in sight! writes McCuller.

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The Exploration of Isolation and Human Nature in the The Heart is a Lonely Hunter - The Quadrangle

Do you know what a social engineering attack is? If you say you are not worried about it because you have a strong anti-virus/malware solution in place, it wont help you at all.

This video shows just how easy and scary social engineering attacks are.

This is because social engineering exploits human behavior and not the vulnerabilities of your software or hardware. And this is why your cybersecurity strategy has to change and adapt to address the different ways cybercriminals are launching attacks.

According to a new report from GetApp, only 27% of businesses are providing social engineering training for their employees. Considering October was National Cyber Security Month, the data from GetApp is timely and insightful.

The title of the report is, 10 Cybersecurity Statistics That Every Business Should Know. And according to the report, the complexities of the IT security landscape require, an array of training on many topics. Unfortunately, businesses often provide security training only on a portion of these concerns while leaving employees in the dark on others.

The FBI says social engineering is designed to get you to let your guard down. It goes on to say it is a common technique criminals, adversaries, competitors, and spies use to exploit people and computer networks. Why, because it doesnt require technical skills.

Social engineering attacks use deception to manipulate the behavior of people. The goal is to talk the person into divulging confidential, personal and protected information. When they get this information, the scammers use it to go after their final target. And the final target can be everything from sensitive data to making disparaging remarks about a person, political candidate, or even a brand.

In the past these very same criminals might have been called con artists/grifters, but the premise is the same, gain the trust of the person being scammed.

The one thing you should know about social engineering attacks is they are always evolving. For this reason, you have to train your employees on a regular basis. Because you never know what the next form of attack will be.

Some of the types of attacks which criminals use are:

Pretexting Attackers pretend to need personal or financial information to confirm the identity of the recipient.

Water-holing Attackers infect a website to compromise people who frequently visit that site to gain network access.

Diversion Theft The scammers trick delivery or courier companies to drop a package to a wrong address by intercepting the transaction.

Quid Pro Quo As the name implies attackers promise the victim something in return for information or help.

Phishing and SMishing Phishing attacks use email and SMishing uses text messages to get the end-user to click on a malicious link or download. Considering 91% of successful attacks start out as a phishing email, it is especially important to increase awareness of these types of attacks.

Honey Trap Attackers pretend to be an attractive person and they start a fake online relationship to get sensitive information.

Baiting Attackers leave a device infected with malware, such as a flash drive in a place where it can be found easily. When the drive connects to a computer, it installs the malware.

These are just some of the social engineering attacks scammers use, but there are others and undoubtedly the criminals are creating new ones this very moment.

Awareness is key for protecting your business against all forms of attack, whether it is in the physical or digital world. Conversely, social engineering attacks rely on the complacency of the people they target.

With that in mind, you have to eliminate the behaviors which are responsible for any complacency in your organization. And this means going against innate traits people have, such as trust and willingness to help others. Given these points, you have to insist your employees verify, verify, verify.

The three-step system to verify a request by Kevin D. Mitnick comes from a real-life hacker and his book, The Art of Deception: Controlling the Human Element of Security.

At first glance, this may seem simplistic. However, if someone you dont know is requesting some information you will know who they are if you follow the steps.

With these three simple steps, your data will never be given out to the wrong person. It is worth repeating, your employees cant be lax in following these steps or making any changes to them.

Some of the other ways you and your employees can protect yourselves and the business include:

The criminals are going to throw everything at your employees to overlook a step, and the second they do that; your data is in danger.

A strong and strict governance with accountability can make this work. Best of all, it wont cost you anything.

Image: Depositphotos.comMore in: "What Is"

Read more here:
What are Social Engineering Attacks and How Can You Prevent Them? - Small Business Trends

New research suggests dating apps like Tinder can make people feel more romantically desirable, and subsequently more likely to pursue other romantic or sexual opportunities outside of their current relationship. The findings have been published in the journal Computers in Human Behavior.

I became interested in this topic because I stumbled across a couple of study findings that linked social media use with extradyadic behavior, said study author Cassandra Alexopoulos, an assistant professor at the University of Massachusetts Boston.

Although convenience is the most obvious reason for this relationship, I thought that there must be something more going on. What about being in this online environment is so conducive to searching for alternative partners?

The study of 395 dating app users found that self-perceived desirability mediated the relationship between perceived dating app success and willingness to be unfaithful to a partner. In other words, participants who reported receiving more matches and having more people start conversations with them tended to perceive themselves being as a more desirable partner, which in turn was associated with heightened intentions to commit infidelity.

As we expected, people who received positive feedback and attention from other dating app users reported greater intentions to commit infidelity, as this kind of experience can boost ones confidence in themselves as a potential mate, Alexopoulos told PsyPost.

However, its also possible for people to feel overwhelmed by dating app responses: those who reported an increase in their number of available dating partners reported lower intentions to commit infidelity.

Most of the participants (36.5%) indicated they were single, but 23% said they were casually dating and 18.5% said they were seriously dating. About 14 percent of the participants were using a dating app while married.

A previous study of 550 college students found that 12.5 percent had spent time with someone they met on Tinder, 17.1 percent had messaged someone on Tinder, 8.9 percent had been physically intimate and 7.2 percent reported having sexual relations with someone they met on Tinder while in an exclusive relationship.

But the new study, like all research, includes some limitations.

The major caveat of interpreting these findings is that this is cross-sectional data, and longitudinal data is needed to further support these findings, Alexopoulos said. In addition, although the link between intention to commit infidelity and actually committing infidelity has been supported, there is indeed a difference between a persons intentions and a persons behavior we hope to one day measure this in follow-up studies.

The study, Swiping more, committing less: Unraveling the links among dating app use, dating app success, and intention to commit infidelity, was authored by Cassandra Alexopoulos, Elisabeth Timmermans, and Jenna McNallie.

See more here:
Feedback plays an important role in the link between dating app use and intentions to cheat - PsyPost

Despite Bill Gates predicting the demise of passwords back in 2004, they are still very much in use. Passwords, like email, seem future proof; but they are also the source of many cybersecurity problems. Key drivers of these issues are human behavior and the desire for convenience, which results in password reuse across multiple accounts.

The 2018 Global Password Security Report shows a staggering 50 percent of users use the same passwords for their personal and work accounts. A 2019 online security survey by Google identified that 65 percent of people use the same password for multiple or all accounts. These statistics validate the magnitude of the password reuse problem and organizations need to take action to mitigate the accompanying risk.

In the first six months of 2019, data breaches exposed 4.1 billion records and, according to the 2018 Verizon Data Breach Incident Report, compromised passwords are responsible for 81% of hacking-related breaches. The latest data from Akamai states that businesses are losing $4m on average each year due to credential stuffing attacks, which are executed by using leaked and exposed passwords and credentials. Organizations cant afford to ignore this growing problem and need to take steps to mitigate the risks from poor password hygiene.

Password reuse is an understandable human behavior, but organizations need to make good password hygiene a priority to ensure that passwords are not a weak link in their security posture. Every user, system, application, service, router, switch, and IP camera should have a unique, strong password.

There are three key steps that organizations should take to strengthen their defenses:

Make sure users select strong passwords that are not vulnerable to any dictionary attack. Its critical that new passwords are significantly different from the last one and that you prohibit too many consecutive identical characters. You should also prevent the reuse of old passwords. Fuzzy-matching is a crucial tool for detecting the use of bad password patterns, as it checks for multiple variants of the password (upper-lower-case variants, reversed passwords, etc.)

Organizations have historically addressed the threat from compromised passwords by enforcing password resets. However, this policy has proven to be ineffective as it does nothing to ensure that the new password is strong and has not already been exposed. It can also drive up operational costs and have a negative impact on employee and user productivity. Microsoft and NIST guidelines advise against this approach.

NIST advises companies to verify that passwords are not compromised before they are activated and check their status on an ongoing basis. As the number of compromised credentials expands continuously, checking passwords against a dynamic database rather than a static list is critical. If a compromise is detected, its vital to perform a password reset or prompt users to create a new password the next time they login.

Passwords are here to stay and organizations need to rethink their password-hardening strategy as we move into the next decade. They need to stop looking at it as a compliance task and start looking at it as a layer of protection. By adhering to the recommendations outlined above, organizations can reduce the risks from poor password hygiene, including password reuse.

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The password reuse problem is a ticking time bomb - Help Net Security

Casualty (re)insurance is often overshadowed by developments in property lines. As the last two years have shown, the human impact and devastating damage caused by catastrophes such as hurricanes, typhoons, wildfires and earthquakes tend to dominate the headlines, according to Julian Alovisi, Head of Research and Publications, Guy Carpenter.

The casualty market rarely gets the same level of attention, even though it has been the main catalyst of nearly all past market turns. Its underlying complexity, driven by human behavior and other (medical, legal and economic) factors, makes it difficult to assess financial losses and, by extension, the adequacy of underwriting. Long-tail risks are particularly vulnerable to unanticipated developments that are not priced at policy inception. Indeed, the asbestos crisis of the 1980s took seven or so decades, and a revolution in injury law, to manifest.

Claims Environment

Favorable conditions in liability lines for example, a benign inflationary environment and historically low loss experiences have nevertheless supported underwriting results for much of the current decade. This period of low loss cost inflation and frequency has enabled carriers to release redundant reserves into earnings, thereby compensating for historically low investment yields, as well as elevated catastrophe losses.

But the situation now appears to be changing as a combination of higher loss costs, increased severity and growing instances of adverse reserve development are squeezing carriers margins in a number of liability classes. Social inflation appears to be the main driving force behind these trends. Indeed, spiraling litigation, higher costs and more generous jury awards (and attitudes) have coincided with some prominent carriers rethinking underwriting appetites and pulling back or withdrawing capacity.

Although these factors can be difficult to quantify, some areas are clearly seeing increasing pressures. Federal securities class actions (and costs) in the United States, for example, have risen in recent years. The number of companies being sued for securities claims has nearly doubled in the last three years as more suits are being filed for mergers and acquisitions deals and significant stock price movements. Median settlement values jumped last year to reach a decadal high of USD 13 million, according to National Economic Research Associates. This has also coincided with rising legal services costs.

This is indicative of increased loss frequency and severity observed in a number of business classes, including the U.S. commercial motor market most prominently, but also directors and officers, medical malpractice, general liability and other liability lines.

Lurking Threats

It typically takes a significant amount of time for long-tail claims trends to emerge fully. The loss potential associated with opioid addiction is just one example that could have serious implications for the sector on this front. Multiple lawsuits have been filed against pharmaceuticals and other companies involved in the distribution and sales process, and a surge in claims has already led to coverage disputes between these companies and their insurers.

Furthermore, the degree of change that is to come with technological disruption, the shift from tangible to intangible assets and the transfer of liability from individuals to large manufacturers has the potential to redefine liability risks like never before.

There is therefore growing evidence that loss cost pressures are starting to build in the casualty market. The recent (and often notable) pricing increases observed in several business lines support this theory. Given the smaller pool of carriers operating in the global casualty market, replacing lost or reduced capacity can be difficult, making it more vulnerable to capacity constraints should carriers claims assumptions change.

The potential implications of a tightening casualty market are clear. The difficulties posed by estimating total ultimate losses for long-tail business mean sector capital levels become uncertain when reserves, which can represent multiples of annual earned premiums and equity, begin to appear deficient even at the margin.

While reserve adequacy is notoriously difficult to predict, the analysis shown in Figure 1 implies that the sector may be in a danger phase in which carriers are continuing to release reserves even as accident year experience indicates that redundancies are diminishing. The overriding trend in recent years towards fewer reserve releases is clear to see and may partly reflect the deteriorating claims environment. Notably, the second quarter of 2019 was only the second time since 2004 that the sector experienced net reserve strengthening.

At the very least, our proprietary research indicates that carriers can no longer rely on reserve redundancies to protect or enhance profits as they have done since the mid-2000s.

Figure 1: Calendar Year Reserve Development by Quarter for Top 35 Global P&C Carriers versus Accident Year Reserve Experience 1998 to Q2 2019

Source: Guy Carpenter

Value of Reinsurance

This backdrop points to the value of reinsurance solutions. Freeing up capital can enable carriers to enhance capital management strategies and to improve capital efficiency. Transactions can take many forms, including new quota share programs, adverse development covers and loss portfolio transfers. Although market conditions are tightening in some areas, cover remains available for those with the foresight to move quickly. The obvious implication is that now is the time to seek protection.

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Emerging From the Shadows: Casualty - GC Capital Ideas

Though Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a hot topic for businesses right now, it has so far failed to shake up the real estate industry and the use of property software in the same way it has transformed sectors such as banking and healthcare. Tom Shrive explains how the sector is ripe for AI disruption, and why this burgeoning tech will not jeopardise jobs.

AI is an inescapable buzzword at the moment and has become an essential part of the technology industry. However, the emergence of Artificial Intelligence (AI) has not come without controversy, provoking polarized responses from the general public.

By definition, artificial intelligence is technology that can perform human-like tasks. AI mimics human behavior and learns to adapt through machine learning and problem solving.

For many, there are fears that our increasing dependence on AI will generate widespread unemployment in jobs that could, in theory, be automated.

Yet AI has already made a huge impact within diverse sectors such as agriculture and manufacturing, without eliminating jobs. In reality, the introduction of AI to these industries has helped individuals carry out their jobs more efficiently, reducing the time spent on tedious and time-consuming tasks with office software, which could be better handled automatically.

In light of this, the property industry seems comparatively stagnant due to its reliance on traditional methods, making it well positioned for disruption with the successful implementation of AI.

Tom Shrive is the CEO of Google-backed askporter.

Having managed a small property portfolio, I discovered that there are numerous administrative tasks that could be better managed with the assistance of automated technology.

Though straightforward, tasks such as collecting rent, updating accounting software and organising and logging household maintenance, are hugely time-consuming.

Traditional property management methods mean that it can take days or even weeks of toing and froing between tenant and contractor to organise a suitable time for a repair, waiting for parts, and handling billing and invoicing software.

The efficacy of the property management industry could be vastly improved if irreplaceable human experts worked in tandem with sophisticated AI technology to simplify certain aspects of the job.

AI has the potential to make managing spaces simple and remove laborious legwork. With AI, a boiler repair, for example, could be organised automatically, so that property managers could focus on issues that cannot be resolved by automated solutions.

AI has already improved and simplified so many aspects of our everyday lives. Though we may not realise it, millions of us interact with AI in some way every day.

Our interaction with virtual assistants like Apples Siri, Amazons Alexa and Google Assistant reflects this. And this is only the beginning. New advances in AI, such as driverless cars, are well underway.

Just as Siri or a Google Assistant can help save time by ordering the weekly food shop or turning on the heating at home, AI could revolutionise the way household issues are resolved for tenants, streamlining the process for all parties.

For some, AI might conjure up frightening images of robots taking over our jobs and homes. But the increasing use of AI shouldnt be a thing to fear, nor is it far away in the distant future.

One of the foremost concerns surrounding AI in the property industry is that machines will eventually develop to outperform humans, leading to unemployment. But this is not true because AI cannot replace humans to perform all tasks. AI has been specifically developed to simplify repetitive and time-consuming processes; freeing up time for property managers, letting agents and contractors to deal with more pressing problems.

There are a number of prop-tech start-ups beginning to disrupt and reform the industry, utilising advanced technology to improve property market infrastructure and maintenance management.

There are always risks associated with new technology, especially when it aims to disrupt current practices. But the successful implementation of AI in order to accelerate processes and improve efficiencies across the board makes it a risk worth taking.

According to LSE professor of robotic process automation, Leslie Willcocks, AI: takes the robot out of the human. Companies will automate only the tedious aspects of office jobs and continue to retain staff to work alongside machines. This means that employees would be able to focus on significant tasks such as liaising with clients and managing important decisions, which require sound human judgement, rather than getting bogged down by repetitive administrative tasks.

Thus, the increasing popularity and prevalence of AI is sure to grow and develop, going on to challenge and inevitably change and improve all industries. This will lead to the creation of more efficient businesses, so that time and resources can be better prioritised, resources saved and services improved.

Tom Shrive is the CEO of Google-backed askporter.

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AI ready to disrupt the property market - TechRadar