While the jury is out on whether the Russians’ efforts actually had an impact on results, Facebook has already said it will start requiring the use of real names online so that foreign operatives can’t create fake accounts to boost their own presence. Will that work? Experts aren’t so sure. NPR reporter Ryan Lucas was able to sign up in under a minute with a fake name, and Siva Vaidhyanathan, a UVA media studies professor, says the tactic relies too much on users to be effective.
“Adrenal fatigue remains an unproven myth,” UVA professor of obstetrics and gynecology Dr. JoAnn Pinkerton says. She points to a 2016 review of articles and studies that failed to substantiate adrenal fatigue as a medical condition. “It has not been scientifically proven to exist,” Pinkerton says.
Studies have shown that moving around promotes learning, so kids in Montessori Schools are rarely required to stay in their seats, and UVA psychology professor Angeline Lilliard says they learn to write before they start reading. “Reading is very passive," she explains. "You’re taking in a stimulus, whereas writing you’re actually moving, and there are studies showing that reading is very facilitated by learning to write first.”
Tish Jennings, an associate professor at UVA’s Curry School of Education, is one of the researchers who developed the curriculum and is studying its impact in Louisville-area schools. Now in the fourth year of a six-year project, the Compassionate Schools Project aims to reach more than 10,000 students across 25 elementary schools with the curriculum, and compare them with students who are not exposed to it.
New Horizons will focus on the Kuiper Belt object, hoping to return images that have a best resolution of about 30m per pixel. The first of these should come back to Earth a couple of days after closest approach, which currently is timed to occur on Jan. 1, 2019. "Using New Horizons suite of seven instruments, we’ll be characterizing the geology and morphology of the surface, looking to see whether there are any craters. We certainly expect to see craters," explained team member Anne Verbiscer from the University of Virginia.
Democrats never expected to have a chance in Alabama, where they had not won a U.S. Senate race in 25 years. But the combination of Trump’s unpopularity, the sexual misconduct allegations that erupted against Moore in November and Trump's enthusiastic support of him anyway gave them the opportunity, experts said. “Trump was the one who got Jones within firing range, and Moore allowed Jones to win,” said Kyle Kondik, a UVA political analyst.
With its upset in Alabama, the Democratic Party has narrowed the Republicans' majority in the Senate to just one seat – energizing the party as it eyes the mid-term Congressional elections 11 months from now. "Now with 49 Democrats in the Senate, a path to a 2018 Democratic Senate majority is possible - still very tough given the seats up, but possible," tweeted Larry Sabato, professor of politics at the University of Virginia.
Jennifer Doleac is one of the very few academics who has studied ShotSpotter. She’s a UVA assistant professor of public policy and economics who specializes in the economics of crime and how technology impacts public safety. “There is very good evidence that this technology detects gunfire,” she told me when I asked her about the Chicago Police Department’s claims that ShotSpotter was behind the decrease in shootings. “But does it have an impact on anything that we care about, such as saving lives by getting victims to the hospital faster, clearing more cases, reducing crimes or decreasing gun...
President Donald Trump has suffered a setback in one of his heartland states after Roy Moore, the Republican evangelical accused of preying on teenage girls, lost a Senate election race in deeply conservative Alabama. “This is a tremendous setback for Donald Trump. He struck out twice – primary and special elections – in a state he won by 28 percent [last year],” said Larry Sabato, a UVA politics expert. “This was mainly due to Roy Moore’s craziness but it’s also due to Trump’s squandering of his chance to lead well as president.”
According to research from the UVA School of Medicine, between 1969 and 2011 cancer incidence declined in every region of the country except rural Appalachia and mortality rates skyrocketed. To address this disparity, the FCC and NCI are initiating a project that will specifically target areas of Appalachia confronted with the dual challenge of higher cancer mortality rates and lower levels of broadband access.
The committee approved two grants on Monday out of 10 submitted in its first round of funding, awarding a total of $1.4 million for research projects led by Virginia Tech and the University of Virginia, respectively. The UVA project received about $256,000 to develop an artificial pancreas that can reduce variations in blood sugar in people with diabetes.
A "promising technology" project at UVA is one of two getting funding from grants. Gov. Terry McAuliffe announced $1.4 million in grants from the Virginia Research Investment Fund on Tuesday. This is the first round of funding to support technologies in development at Virginia universities that have strong commercial prospects.
The historic Boar’s Head Resort is planning full renovations of its restaurant, bar, main entrance and lobby in 2018. The renovations, expected to begin in February and extend through September, will keep traditional elements while providing enhancements that will “add modern character” to the inn, according to a news release. The Boar’s Head is owned and operated by the University of Virginia Foundation.
UVA will receive a state grant to help bring to market an artificial pancreas for diabetes patients. The $225,855 grant was one of two announced Tuesday from the Virginia Research Investment Fund.
(Video) The report features clinical psychologist Dewey Cornell, a professor in UVA’s Curry School if Education and director of UVA’s Virginia Youth Violence Project.
Some MBA students say they've gained marketable experience by joining an investing club, and they encourage prospective students to target b-schools that offer these student groups. Peter Wilson, a second-year MBA student at UVA’s Darden School of Business and CEO of the Darden Capital Management student club, says the club offers an information session for prospective students to let them know what resources Darden offers to future investment managers.
Some suburban voters who have never cast Democratic ballots say they’ve proudly posted Jones signs in their yards, though others say they can’t stomach voting for a Democrat under any circumstance. “In an unusually timed special election where one side may have an enthusiasm advantage, Jones might be able to win,” wrote Geoffrey Skelley of UVA’s Center for Politics.
But while these blue states will be hardest hit, county-level data also shows there is a significant number of Republican enclaves in districts expected to be hotly contested in next year's polls that will feel the pain. Larry Sabato, director of UVA’s non-partisan Center for Politics, estimates that there are 16 counties where 2018 races will be toss-ups between Republican incumbents and Democratic challengers.
A win in the Deep South for Democrats, the first in an Alabama Senate race since 1992, would be a rebuke to Trump and Bannon, who have promoted Moore over the objections of establishment Republicans. The victory would also lend credibility to Democratic efforts to regain control of the Senate next year. "The Democratic path to a Senate majority in 2018 involves a miracle somewhere," says Kyle Kondik, a political analyst at UVA’s Center for Politics. "And we may be on the cusp of a Democratic miracle in Alabama."
McAuliffe ordered the Virginia Board of Education to implement an emergency regulation that would allow the state's public colleges and universities to start offering undergraduate students a major in education by March 1. Robert Pianta, dean of UVA’s Curry School of Education, said the change would streamline a process that can require two degrees and five or more years into requirements that take just four years.