News by Subject Social & Behavior

Chatbots, which use artificial intelligence to simulate human conversation through voice commands or text chats, incur almost zero marginal costs and can outsell some human employees by four times, so why aren't they used more often? According to new research, the main contributor is customer pushback.

A new artificial intelligence (AI) tool available for free in a smartphone app can predict near-term crop productivity for farmers in Africa and may help them protect their staple crops -- such as maize, cassava and beans -- in the face of climate warming, according to Penn State researchers.

A recent analysis from Canada found that information on health-related quality of life is often not collected for investigational cancer drugs or used to calculate the balance of costs and benefits of these drugs when they are submitted for reimbursement, according to findings published early online in CANCER, a peer-reviewed journal of the American Cancer Society.

Scientists call for governments around the world to urgently invest in reducing the rate and magnitude of climate change. 'Acting on climate change has a good return on investment when one considers the damage avoided,' said lead author Prof Ove Hoegh-Guldberg, Deputy Director of the ARC Centre for Excellence for Coral Reef Studies (Coral CoE) at the University of Queensland (UQ).

The BBVA Foundation has presented the first module of its European Values Survey 2019, examining a broad set of values and attitudes held by the adult population of five European countries (Germany, the United Kingdom, France, Italy and Spain). The aim of the study is to capture a broad set of preferences, values and beliefs that inform individual conduct in multiple facets of public and private life, and to examine how these conducts interrelate.

This is a peer-reviewed mixed methods study. New research has shown how parental engagement has a positive effect on a child's academic attainment -- regardless of age or socio-economic status. The study, conducted by the Universities of Plymouth and Exeter, also highlighted areas of promise for how schools and early years settings can support parents in a way that improves their children's learning.

The answer to food insecurity could be as simple as a prescription for healthy food from your health care provider and the means to obtain it, particularly in food deserts, said researchers led by The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth) School of Public Health.

LSU Health New Orleans-led research reports that the key to improving community resiliency following disasters is a dynamic partnership between community-based organizations and public health agencies established pre-disaster.

Organizations endorsing a win-at-all-costs environment may find this management style good for the bottom-line, but it could come a price. Teamwork and civility between co-workers are severely compromised which can lead to major issues down the road (remember Enron?).