Art Diamond – Page 17 – artdiamondblog.com

More Boys Choose Math Fields Due to Their Weaker Verbal Skills

(p. C2) A key tenet of modern feminism is that women will have achieved equity only when they fill at least 50% of the positions once filled by men. In some fields, women have already surpassed that target–now comprising, for example, 50.7% of new American medical students, up from just 9% in 1965, and 80% of veterinary students. But the needle has hardly moved in many STEM fields–such as the physical sciences, technology, engineering and math, in which barely 20% of the students are female.
A new study suggests some surprising reasons for this enduring gap. Published last month in the journal Psychological Science, the study looked at nearly a half million adolescents from 67 countries who participated in the Program for International Student Assessment, the world’s largest educational survey. Every three years, PISA gauges the skills of 15-year-olds in science, reading and math reasoning. In each testing year, the survey focuses in depth on one of those categories.
. . .
Some fascinating gender differences surfaced. Girls were at least as strong in science and math as boys in 60% of the PISA countries, and they were capable of college-level STEM studies nearly everywhere the researchers looked. But when they examined individual students’ strengths more closely, they found that the girls, though successful in STEM, had even higher scores in reading. The boys’ strengths were more likely to be in STEM areas. The skills of the boys, in other words, were more lopsided–a finding that confirms several previous studies.

For the full commentary, see:
Susan Pinker. “Why Don’t More Women Choose STEM Careers?” The Wall Street Journal (Saturday, March 3, 2018): C2.
(Note: ellipsis added.)
(Note: the online version of the commentary has the date March 1, 2018, and has the title “Why Aren’t There More Women in Science and Technology?”)

The print version of the Psychological Science article discussed above, is:
Stoet, Gijsbert, and David C. Geary. “The Gender-Equality Paradox in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics Education.” Psychological Science 29, no. 4 (April 2018): 581-93.

Cuomo’s Buffalo Billion Fails to Cure Buffalo Blight

(p. A18) BUFFALO — More than six years ago, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo announced his bold vision for New York’s second largest and perhaps longest-suffering city.
“We believe in Buffalo. Let’s put our money where our mouth is,” Mr. Cuomo said, announcing an economic development package of $1 billion. “That is a big ‘B’ — standing for Buffalo and standing for billion.”
. . .
“I think the Buffalo Billion sounds better than it probably turned out to be,” said Isaac Ehrlich, a SUNY distinguished professor of economics at the University at Buffalo.
Indeed, while construction work blossomed in early years, economists note broader employment growth in the city and region has consistently lagged behind the nation as a whole, as well as behind other Rust Belt cities, despite gains during the nation’s nine-year recovery. Perhaps more troubling, recent reports suggest that the job market essentially slowed to a crawl last year, as activity in manufacturing, retail and business services sectors flagged.
. . .
George Palumbo, an economics professor at Canisius College in Buffalo, said that the gleaming new buildings at the medical campus “take nice pictures,” but said the development was also illusory.
“You don’t have to go very far from that neighborhood to see Buffalo blight,” he said, “not Buffalo billion.”

For the full story, see:
Jesse McKinley. “Six Years Later, Cuomo’s ‘Buffalo Billion’ Project Yields Uneven Results.” The New York Times (Tuesday, July 3, 2018): A18.
(Note: ellipses added.)
(Note: the online version of the story has the date July 2, 2018, and has the title “‘Cuomo’s ‘Buffalo Billion’: Is New York Getting Its Money’s Worth?”)

Only Presidents with Their Names on Patents Are Lincoln and Trump

(p. A15) Fostering patentable innovation should appeal to President Trump. He is the only U.S. president other than Abraham Lincoln to have his name on a U.S. patent header. Though he wasn’t the inventor, Trump Taj Mahal Associates’ 1996 patent for a “Proportional payout method for progressive linked gaming machines” makes Mr. Trump, at least indirectly, the second presidential patenter.
But unlike Lincoln’s invention, a method of lifting boats over shoals that was cited only 10 times as prior art by subsequent inventors, the Trump Taj Mahal patent has accrued an incredible 1,066 citations. These citations are a key metric for judging economic significance and downstream impact. For someone who loves ratings, Mr. Trump must surely be pleased that his patent topped the charts.

For the full commentary, see:
Mike Kalutkiewicz and Richard L. Ehman. “A Government Agency That Produces Real Innovation; What does Trump have in common with the National Institutes of Health? Patents.” The Wall Street Journal (Friday, June 23, 2017): A15.
(Note: the online version of the commentary has the date June 22, 2017.)

Entrepreneur Carr’s Philanthropy Harmed Mozambique

(p. C6) It is an old, old story. A wealthy man comes to town, promising change and a brighter future. He’s the expert. He knows best. Inevitably, it doesn’t exactly work out that way.
Stephanie Hanes, an American correspondent for the Christian Science Monitor, spent three years watching one particular version of that fairy tale unfold in central Mozambique.
The wealthy man was Greg Carr. An Idahoan, Mr. Carr had made millions first by selling voice-mail systems and then by running Prodigy, an early internet service provider. At age 40, he turned to philanthropy . . .
. . .
In “White Man’s Game,” Ms. Hanes outlines, in a nonpolemical way, the long history of Western involvement in Africa’s wilderness.
. . .
Turning to the present day, Ms. Hanes takes World Wildlife Fund, Nature Conservancy and other Western groups–known as Big Green–to task for their conservation colonialism.
. . .
She . . . points out that they are a bit cynical. “The conservation industry mirrors the humanitarian assistance industry,” she writes, “with alarmist pledge drives, heart-stirring photos and admonitions to ‘act now!’–all to be repeated for the next grant cycle.”
. . .
It is clear from Ms. Hanes’s account that a complex interplay of social, political and economic matters affected Gorongosa, not just one man’s ambition. The imported elephants inevitably roamed outside the park and into nearby towns, damaging crops and perhaps killing a villager. Mr. Carr’s tree planting, a laudable goal on the surface, was seen negatively by the people there because, culturally, tree planting was a way of marking one’s territory. When visiting a prominent local leader, Mr. Carr arrived in a red helicopter, oblivious to the fact that, in Gorongosi culture, red is the color of violence. For locals, Mr. Carr was the latest in a long line of outsiders invading their land. He destabilized rather than restored.
In the West, Mr. Carr’s work catalyzed praise: a glossy piece on Gorongosa in National Geographic by the noted biologist E.O. Wilson, a profile in the New Yorker. But the reality on the ground was different. Few tourists came to Gorongosa, and a flare-up of civil-war tensions led to violence. Overall the 150,000 Mozambicans who lived in the district, according to Ms. Hanes, saw little measurable improvement in their lives. Park staff even tortured suspected poachers.
In the most powerful scene in the book Ms. Hanes observes Mr. Carr and his associates staring at a map of Mozambique and contemplating expanding the park borders to incorporate a vast swath of land so that animals could migrate again. They wanted to rewild central Mozambique. It was just another example of the “generations of white man standing around maps,” observes Ms. Hanes. They never mentioned the millions of people who lived in those lands.

For the full review, see:
James Zug. “The Do-Gooders’ Playground.” The Wall Street Journal (Saturday, Aug. 5, 2017): C6.
(Note: ellipses added.)
(Note: the online version of the review has the date Aug. 4, 2017.)

The book under review, is:
Hanes, Stephanie. White Man’s Game: Saving Animals, Rebuilding Eden, and Other Myths of Conservation in Africa. New York: Metropolitan Books, 2017.

Inventor of Fiber Optics “Didn’t Believe What Experts Said”

(p. A9) In the 1960s, Charles Kao often annoyed his wife, Gwen, by coming home late for dinner.
Dr. Kao, a refugee from the Chinese Communist revolution, told her his research for a British subsidiary of International Telephone & Telegraph Corp. could change the world one day.
. . .
In a 1966 paper written with George Hockham, he outlined the potential for using pulses of light to carry huge volumes of voice and data signals long distances through strands of glass that became known as optical fibers. Few took him seriously until several years later, when Corning Glass Works found ways to do just that.
. . .
Dr. Kao was once asked how long fiber optics would be used. Nothing better was likely to come along for 1,000 years, he said. “But don’t believe what I say,” he added, “because I didn’t believe what experts said either.”

For the full obituary, see:
James R. Hagerty. “‘Early Bet on Optical Fibers Yielded Pipes for Internet.” The New York Times (Saturday, Sept. 29, 2018): A9.
(Note: ellipses added.)
(Note: the online version of the obituary has the date Sept. 28, 2018, and has the title “‘Chinese Refugee Developed Fiber-Optic Technology That Made the Internet Possible.”)

In 10 Years after iPhone, Apple Added Almost 100,000 Jobs

Source of graph: online version of the WSJ article quoted and cited below.

(p. B1) SAN FRANCISCO–Since Apple Inc. launched the iPhone in June 2007, the smartphone revolution it unleashed has changed the way people work and socialize while reshaping industries from music to hotels.
It also has transformed the company in ways that co-founder Steve Jobs could hardly have foreseen.
Ten years later, the iPhone is one of the best-selling products in history, with about 1.3 billion sold, generating more than $800 billion in revenue. It skyrocketed Apple into the business stratosphere, unlocking new markets, spawning an enormous services business and helping turn Apple into the world’s most valuable publicly traded company.
. . .
(p. B8) . . . , Apple didn’t open the device to application developers until 2008, when it added the App Store and began taking 30% of each app purchase.
Since then, app sales have generated roughly $100 billion in gross revenue as Apple has registered more than 16 million app developers world-wide.
. . .
As sales surged, Apple staffed up. The company hired about 100,000 people in the 10-year span, bringing its global workforce to 116,000 from 18,000 in 2006. New workers were brought on to manage relationships with cellphone carriers, double the number of retail stores and maintain an increasingly complex supply chain.

Source of graph: online version of the WSJ article quoted and cited below.

For the full story, see:
Tripp Mickle. “‘How iPhone Decade Reshaped Apple.” The Wall Street Journal (Wednesday, June 21, 2017): B1 & B8.
(Note: ellipses added.)
(Note: the online version of the story has the date June 20, 2017, and has the title “Among the iPhone’s Biggest Transformations: Apple Itself.”)

Uncertainty on Future Government Policies Reduces Firm Investment

(p. A6) A shoe factory owner, Rafeeque Ahmed, says he has put expansion plans on hold until he has more confidence about New Delhi’s policy plans, particularly about minimum wages. The $16 million he was going to invest to boost his production capacity by 20% may now go to setting up facilities in Myanmar or Bangladesh.
“We are afraid to invest,” because the government could suddenly change policies and thus our costs, he said.

For the full story, see:
Anant Vijay Kala. “Uncertainty Dulls India’s Business Appetite.” The Wall Street Journal (Tuesday, November 7, 2017): A6.
(Note: the online version of the story has the date November 6, 2017, and has the title “Apple’s Market Cap Hits $1 Trillion.”)

Origin of “Round Up the Usual Suspects!” at End of Casablanca

(p. C5) David Thomson’s “Warner Bros: The Making of an American Movie Studio” is the latest in the exemplary Yale Jewish Lives series, which now stretches from Jacob the Patriarch to Jacob Wonskolasor, known to the world as Jack L. Warner (1892-1978).
. . .
Jack told Julie Garfinkle that “people are gonna find out you’re a Jew sooner or later, but better later.” Julie became John Garfield. I can’t resist adding that Jack approached Phil and Julie Epstein with the same advice. After turning him down they snuck into his office and stole a piece of stationery. To the newly arrived Don Taylor, a fellow Nittany Lion, they wrote, “All of us at Warner Bros are looking forward to your great career as an actor and to a long and fruitful relationship with you under your new name of Hyman Rabinowitz. Sincerely, Jack L. Warner.”
. . .
(p. C6) As this fine book progresses, Mr. Thomson turns his attention away from the brothers and their studio and onto individual actors and films. These form a remarkable series of critiques and vignettes–cranky, idiosyncratic, sometimes improbable, but always ingenious, and now and then inspiring.
. . .
Of course he has the most to say about “Casablanca,” much of it insightful and cogent. On the one hand, it’s an “adroit masquerade,” yet also part of what it was, and no less is, to be American: “Wry, fond of sentiment yet hardboiled, as if to say we’re Americans, we can take it and dish it out, we’re the best, tough and soft at the same time.” Thus did the qualities of this film, and others, pass “into the nervous system of the country,” making it what it remains to this day.
I am in a position to point out one of the few outright mistakes, not of judgment but of facts, in this book. Mr. Thomson naively accepts screenwriter Casey Robinson’s claim that he created the ending of “Casablanca.” The truth is that the ending was thought up at a red light on the corner of Sunset and Beverly Glen, when Phil and Julie turned to each other, as identical twins will, and cried out, “Round up the usual suspects!” By the time they reached Doheny they knew Maj. Strasser had to be shot and by the time they reached Burbank they knew who was going to get on the plane with whom.

For the full review, see:
Leslie Epstein. “The House That Jack Built; Warner Bros was the smartest, toughest studio, and Jack L. Warner its smart, tough driving wheel.” The Wall Street Journal (Saturday, Aug. 5, 2017): C5-C6.
(Note: ellipses added.)
(Note: the online version of the review has the date Aug. 4, 2017.)

The book under review, is:
Thomson, David. Warner Bros: The Making of an American Movie Studio. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2017.

Steve Jobs’s Apple Is First U.S. Company Valued at $1 Trillion

(p. B1) Apple Inc. on Thursday [August 2, 2018] became the first U.S. company to surpass $1 trillion in market value, underscoring the iPhone maker’s explosive growth and its role in the technology industry’s ascent to the forefront of the global economy and markets.
. . .
Apple’s rise has been propelled by the sustained success of the iPhone developed under late co-founder Steve Jobs, a product visionary who helped revive the company from a death spiral in the late 1990s.

For the full story, see:
Tripp Mickle and Amrith Ramkumar. “Apple Value Surges to $1 Trillion.” The Wall Street Journal (Friday, August 3, 2018): B1 & B5.
(Note: ellipsis, and bracketed date, added.)
(Note: the online version of the story has the date Aug. 2, 2018, and has the title “Apple’s Market Cap Hits $1 Trillion.”)

“Entrepreneurs Are Often Driven by Personal Experiences”

(p. B5) Eczema entrepreneurs are often driven by personal experiences that they or their family members have had with the skin condition. Joe Paulo, for example, created Smiling Panda clothing after he had eczema as a teenager.
. . .
Mr. Paulo, 23, has already made some inroads with adults seeking relief with his Smiling Panda brand, which he started after getting eczema on his arms. The eczema appeared after he moved from California to Philadelphia in 2012 to attend college.
His eczema, he said, “got significantly worse” when he had to wear professional clothing during college internships. When even bedsheets began irritating his skin, he started researching the properties of different fibers and how clothing was made. He chose a bamboo-cotton blend for his clothing because bamboo is soft and cotton fibers allow a closer fit, he said. He began cutting and stitching his own shirts, with flat seams and no tags.
When he wore his shirts to bed, he said: “I went from having a really tough time falling asleep to having no trouble at all.”
“I thought there might be other working adults interested in this type of clothing, and that comfortable clothing would help them in the same way it helped me,” he said. He found a small manufacturer willing to make a batch of sizes for women and men. He chose Smiling Panda as the company name and started a website in February 2016.
. . .
Mr. Paulo said he did not know if the company would ever be profitable. “I like doing it because I feel like our products make a difference in our customers’ lives,” he said. “I know from personal experience how miserable clothing can be when you are itching from eczema.”

For the full story, see:
Elizabeth Olson. “Personal Stories Drive Start-Ups In Eczema Products.” The New York Times (Thursday, July 20, 2017): B5.
(Note: ellipses added.)
(Note: the online version of the story has the date July 19, 2017, and has the title “‘The Beginning of a Wave’: A.I. Tiptoes Into the Workplace.”)