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May 13, 2021 By Sara Zaske, WSU News PULLMAN, Wash. – Rush hour will likely return when pandemic lockdowns lift, but a new study suggests that congestion pricing policies that charge tolls for driving during peak hours could not only cure traffic jams but also convince motorists it is safe to buy smaller, more efficient cars. Researchers from Washington State University and the Brookings Institution studied a sample of nearly 300 households in the Seattle area over a six-year period, finding that the more congested their commutes, the more likely they would buy bigger cars which they perceive as safer and more comfortable. They then modelled what congestion pricing might do to change car purchase decisions, finding it would reduce the market share of mid- to full-size SUVs by 8%. ....
May 6, 2021 By Sara Zaske, WSU News PULLMAN, Wash. With state legislatures nationwide preparing for the once-a-decade redrawing of voting districts, a research team has developed a better computational method to help identify improper gerrymandering designed to favor specific candidates or political parties. In an article in the Harvard Data Science Review, the researchers describe the improved mathematical methodology of an open source tool called GerryChain. The tool can help observers detect gerrymandering in a voting district plan by creating a pool, or ensemble, of alternate maps that also meet legal voting criteria. This map ensemble can show if the proposed plan is an extreme outlier one that is very unusual from the norm of plans generated without bias, and therefore, likely to be drawn with partisan goals in mind. ....
April 29, 2021 By Sara Zaske, WSU News VANCOUVER, Wash. – Putting on a happy face might not be enough for entrepreneurs to win over potential investors. Despite perceptions that entrepreneurs should always be positive about their ventures, a study led by a Washington State University researcher found that entrepreneurs whose facial expressions moved through a mix of happiness, anger and fear during funding pitches were more successful. “Our findings show that there’s a role for different emotions in pitches,” said Ben Warnick, WSU assistant professor in WSU’s Carson College of Business and lead author on the study published in the Journal of Business Venturing. “For example, an angry facial expression can convey how much you care about something, instead of just smiling, which on the extreme end can come off as insincere or overoptimistic. It’s good to balance that out. There are different reasons for using different expressions.” ....
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April 12, 2021 By Sara Zaske, WSU News PULLMAN, Wash. – Humans cannot live on protein alone – even for the ancient indigenous people of the Pacific Northwest whose diet was once thought to be almost all salmon. In a new paper led by Washington State University anthropologist Shannon Tushingham, researchers document the many dietary solutions ancient Pacific Coast people in North America likely employed to avoid “salmon starvation,” a toxic and potentially fatal condition brought on by eating too much lean protein. “Salmon was a critical resource for thousands of years throughout the Pacific Rim, but there were a lot of foods that were important,” said Tushingham the lead author of the paper published online on April 8 in the American Journal of Physical Anthropology. “Native people were not just eating salmon. There’s a bigger picture.” ....