From the Office of Public Affairs | http://www.news.ku.edu

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Contact: Brendan Lynch, KU News Service, 785-864-8855, [email protected], @BrendanMLynch

Researchers leverage AI to help business provide nutritious choices in American food deserts

LAWRENCE — Vast swaths of the nation, both urban and rural, are deemed “food deserts” due to their reduced access to a variety of healthy and inexpensive food. Often, people living in food deserts also experience higher poverty levels.

“In the U.S., we have a major issue regarding the inequitable distribution of resources that extends to our food supply,” said Tera Fazzino, associate professor of psychology at the University of Kansas. “There are communities all across the U.S. that don’t have access to fresh, healthy food — sometimes referred to as food deserts. In these communities, they’re saturated with foods that are packaged, hyperpalatable and have very limited options for fresh, healthy and nutritious food that we need to live healthy and productive lives.”

In response, Fazzino, along with a multidisciplinary group of researchers across several institutions, will help create an artificial-intelligence-powered digital tool, called the NOURISH platform, to help businesses and startups operating in food deserts give more nutritious choices to an estimated 24 million Americans. The work is supported by a $5 million grant from the National Science Foundation’s Convergence Accelerator program and the U.S. Department of Agriculture and led by Laura Schmidt, professor at the University of California-San Francisco.

“The overall project is designed with the goal of accelerating the growth of fresh food businesses in communities that have limited access to fresh food,” said Fazzino, who serves as a lead scientist on the NOURISH team. “We’re aiming to utilize some geospatial analyses and tools and artificial intelligence to facilitate this development, consolidate large volumes of information and help individuals from these communities connect all the pieces to launch or expand fresh food businesses in places that don’t have many.”

The multidisciplinary and institutional effort is based at the University of California-San Francisco and includes the University of California-San Diego, New York University and the International Center for Food Ontology Operability Data and Semantics (IC-FOODS).

At KU, the research will center on food psychology and the food-environment realm — long-standing research interests of Fazzino, who also serves as associate director of the Cofrin Logan Center for Addiction Research & Treatment in KU’s Life Span Institute and has helped define and study hyperpalatable foods.

“I’m working on collecting data sources and collaborating with our computer science team to gather information for what we’re calling an ‘opportunities map,’” she said. “This AI-enabled tool will suggest areas where one might want to open a business based on various metrics.”

Fazzino’s team at KU will also source data for a digital tool within the NOURISH platform to link entrepreneurs interested in starting new food businesses with local providers in their area — small farms and producers of fresh food — directly facilitating that link in the production side.

Datasets will be processed by the Supercomputer Center of UC San Diego to include government, private sector and crowdsourced information. The NOURISH platform will feature “dynamic, interactive maps of local food systems across the U.S. accessible from a mobile phone in multiple languages,” according to the researchers. Further, patented recommendation algorithms will enable the NOURISH platform to customize business plans based on local consumer preferences for price, convenience and flavor.

In addition, Fazzino is heading up the nationwide training program under the NOURISH program to train “several generations” of scientists interested in sustainable food systems that promote equitable access to fresh and healthy food.

“We’re taking the stance that using AI and geospatial modeling combined with deep collaboration and community-based design can significantly improve equitable food access,” she said. “Part of this involves making people aware of why our food system is the way it is, understanding its origins and training them to develop skills in creating a sustainable food system for the long term. We focus on how advanced data science and analytical modeling can address these issues.”

The KU researcher’s approach includes ongoing collaborations with the USDA’s 4-H program, an agricultural program for youths, as well as working with a group that has been doing geospatial and food mapping work at the high school level in several states.

In 2024-25, the NOURISH team will test the platform in lower-income areas within San Diego and Imperial counties in California, then plan to scale it nationally.

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KU News Service

1450 Jayhawk Blvd.

Lawrence KS 66045

[email protected]

http://www.news.ku.edu

Erinn Barcomb-Peterson, director of news and media relations, [email protected]

Today’s News is a free service from the Office of Public Affairs

From the Office of Public Affairs | http://www.news.ku.edu

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Contact: Mike Krings, KU News Service, 785-864-8860, [email protected], @MikeKrings

One year after newspaper raid, KU journalism professor can discuss chilling effect, influence on rural journalists

LAWRENCE — Nearly one year ago, police raided a small-town Kansas newsroom to execute a search warrant and made international headlines. As the Aug. 11 anniversary of the raid of the Marion County Record in Marion approaches, the official investigation report for the incident is pending and lawsuits are being reviewed, even after the initial search warrant was dropped.

A University of Kansas journalism faculty member has conducted research about the raid and its effects on small-town journalism and is available to discuss the raid, its aftermath, the First Amendment, legal protections for journalists and related topics with the media.

Stephen Wolgast, Knight Chair in Audience and Community Engagement at KU’s William Allen White School of Journalism & Mass Communications, closely followed the raid and co-led a study with Kansas journalists about the raid’s effects.

“There is a lot of interest around this because it was so out of the blue,” Wolgast said. “As far as we know, it hasn’t happened in Kansas ever before this and rarely happens in the United States. You just don’t see law enforcement raiding newspapers and taking away hard drives.”

The raid came after the Marion County Record received a tip that a local restaurateur was driving on a suspended license following previous DUI convictions. A reporter accessed public files to investigate the tip, but a story was never published. Shortly thereafter, the Marion police, with the help of the sheriff and a fire marshal, executed a search warrant on the paper’s offices and publisher Eric Meyer’s home. Meyer’s 98-year-old mother was at home at the time of the search, and the stress of the event was a factor that led to her death the following day, the coroner said.

Wolgast said the Colorado Bureau of Investigation led a formal review of the raid after it was revealed the Kansas Bureau of Investigation knew about the planned search prior to its execution. The CBI has presented its findings to Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach’s office, which has yet to act on it. In the meantime, Wolgast and Nick Mathews of the University of Missouri have conducted a study to gauge the event’s effects on Kansas journalists.

With independent researcher Deborah Dwyer, they interviewed 18 Kansas journalists who held positions including editor, manager, publisher, owner, reporter and desk editor. They were asked four primary questions.

What were their personal and professional responses to the raid?
How, if at all, did the raid change how journalists approach their work?
What changes, if any, have newsrooms implemented in reaction to the raid?
What resources could journalists use to better protect themselves?

Several respondents said the raid had a chilling effect on their work. While about half of respondents said it didn’t change how they work, others made statements including “there’s a sense that if they can get away with this, it’ll be open season on all of us,” referring to raids on journalists. Another commented that their publication could not afford to fight such an action in the courts.

“It suggests to me some degree of reporting less aggressively than they otherwise might,” Wolgast said of the responses.

The respondents who said the raid did not change how they approach their work often stated that they have good relationships with their local law enforcement and government agencies. They also commonly said they did not make any changes in their newsrooms and even reported that many in their communities, including law enforcement and people of all political persuasions, coming together to support their newspapers and voicing displeasure at what they saw as government overreach in the raid.

When asked what resources they could use to protect themselves, several respondents reported they were unaware that Kansas has a shield law until the raid happened. They were also unaware of federal protections under the Privacy Protection Act of 1980 and said they either had received or would be interested in training from organizations like the Kansas Press Association on such protections. Others expressed concerns about their home offices being raided.

“Something we didn’t think about in advance was reporters who work from home,” Wolgast said. “They said, ‘If I’m working from home and a search warrant is executed on my newsroom, they could execute it on my home and phone.’ They asked if there was some way to protect themselves from that.”

Wolgast and Mathews will present the initial findings of their research at the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communications conference Aug. 10 in Philadelphia, the day before the raid’s anniversary. They continue to follow the case and will publish more of their findings in the future. They also hope to study similar press freedom cases in Mississippi, where the governor is suing a publication for defamation, and in Alabama, where a reporter and her publisher were arrested after receiving leaked grand jury testimony.

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KU News Service

1450 Jayhawk Blvd.

Lawrence KS 66045

Phone: 785-864-3256

Fax: 785-864-3339

[email protected]

http://www.news.ku.edu

Erinn Barcomb-Peterson, director of news and media relations, [email protected]

Today’s News is a free service from the Office of Public Affairs

From the Office of Public Affairs | http://www.news.ku.edu

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Contact: Carrie Caine, Institute for Policy & Social Research, 785-864-9102, [email protected]

New dashboard shows the scope and uses of federal funding streams in Kansas

LAWRENCE — The Institute for Policy & Social Research at the University of Kansas published a new data dashboard showing the flow of federal funding from the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act and the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) into Kansas. As of March 2024, over $11.5 billion has been expended across the state through programs funded by the CARES Act and ARPA. 

This tool offers a transparent look at the funding released through these programs, and the dashboard can help users understand how that funding has affected different parts of Kansas.

“I believe this is an important step toward showing Kansans how their tax dollars are being spent. The more transparency and accountability, the better,” said former Kansas lawmaker Jim Slattery, who helped formulate the project. “I believe it is very important for the people of Kansas to know how many tax dollars they send to Topeka and to the federal government in Washington, D.C., and to know how much money flows back to the different counties in Kansas from Topeka and Washington. This information may be surprising to many Kansans.” 

The dashboard shows funds received by county, by fund and by spending categories such as child care, education and economic revitalization.

Users can filter spending data by funding program, including both CARES Act and ARPA programs. Expenditures include $7.38 billion in Payroll Protection Program (PPP) loans under the CARES Act, which accounts for about 64% of total Kansas federal expenditures to date. As of September 2023, 99% of PPP loans in Kansas had been forgiven.   

Users can also look at county totals and spending per capita alongside statewide figures. State and local governments have until Dec. 31, 2026, to spend funds awarded by ARPA. Most CARES Act spending was concluded by the end of 2022. The dashboard will be updated as spending reports are submitted to the federal government.  

“Determining the extent to which geographic areas are benefiting from federal funds is always an important, if challenging, public policy metric,” said Chris Courtwright, member of the Governor’s Council on Tax Reform. “The new data dashboard rolled out by KU’s IPSR provides a fascinating look at two of the most recent federal funding streams coming into Kansas provided under CARES and ARPA. Keeping this modeling capacity updated for additional federal expenditures from these and other federal revenue streams would be especially useful for policymakers at all levels.” 

The Kansas Office of Recovery funded this project. IPSR staff will continue to maintain and update the dashboard through at least 2027. Should users have questions, ideas or comments, they can contact the Kansas State Data Center at IPSR by email.  

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KU News Service

1450 Jayhawk Blvd.

Lawrence KS 66045

Phone: 785-864-3256

Fax: 785-864-3339

[email protected]

http://www.news.ku.edu

Erinn Barcomb-Peterson, director of news and media relations, [email protected]

Today’s News is a free service from the Office of Public Affairs

From the Office of Public Affairs | http://www.news.ku.edu

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Contact: Jon Niccum, KU News Service, 785-864-7633, [email protected]

New translation of Ovid’s ‘Heroides’ offers insight into ‘ancient fan fiction’

LAWRENCE — Publius Ovidius Naso — better known to modern readers as Ovid — was a Roman poet who lived during the reign of Augustus. Much of his life was shrouded in mystery, and his works remain equally admired and scrutinized.

“His poetry straddles that line between humor and sincerity,” said Tara Welch, a professor of classics at the University of Kansas. “You can’t always tell whether to take him seriously or not.”

Welch is part of a team responsible for a new translation of Ovid’s “Heroides.” A collection of 15 letters written by women to the men who have left them behind, “Heroides” (translated as “The Heroines”) can be described as “ancient fan fiction.” Along with KU professor emeritus of classics Stanley Lombardo and University of Oxford graduate student Melina McClure, Welch wrote the 37-page intro that contextualizes the poems.

It is published by Hackett Classics.

A younger contemporary of Virgil and Horace, Ovid (43 B.C. to 17 or 18 A.D.) is ranked as one of the three canonical poets of Latin literature.

“He’s very clever. I find it hard to pin down whether he’s being cute or serious — I think he’s being both at the same time. So sometimes I pick up the text and have fun with it. And then other times, I pick it up and say, ‘Wow, that hits really hard,’” she said.

The professor said it was challenging to marshal 200 years of scholarship through a half-dozen different languages. For her, the hardest thing was getting so much background into a comprehensible format for people who might be familiar with the myths but not with their complexity in classical literature. She notes how there are many technical literary concepts that bring to bear on this work, such as genre and intertextuality.

She cites the opening poem, “Penelope to Ulysses,” as among her favorites in the collection.

“I love the first line: ‘Don’t write back — just get yourself home!’” she said.

“It brings together the collection’s core ideas of separation and closeness. The letter is supposed to bridge the gap between Penelope and her husband, but is the letter actually an act of communication, or is she just complaining?”

Welch said there are several reasons why modern audiences should appreciate the work of a poet who lived two millennia ago.

“One, it’s just a beautifully written text. It’s artistically gorgeous. Another is that many of our ideas about heroism, myths, culture and women come from ancient Roman culture. It’s easier to see those ideas at work and hold them up to scrutiny when it’s voiced by someone else,” she said.

“Finally, Ovid wrote at a time when we have many other extant authors. It was a watershed moment in history when the Roman Republic has just fallen and there’s a new empire under essentially a monarch. Reading him in that context is really great. He’s not just a one-off who is our only voice from that time. He can help illuminate a truly complex situation.”

Does Welch consider Ovid a feminist?

“Yes and no,” she said. “But more yes than no. He’s a feminist in that he exposes some of the aspects and workings of gender ideology in antiquity. But he was not trying to radically change society.”

Now in her 27th year at KU, Welch specializes in Latin poetry. She is the author of “Tarpeia: Workings of a Roman Myth” (Ohio State University Press, 2015) and “The Elegiac Cityscape: Propertius and the Meaning of Roman Monuments” (Ohio State University Press, 2005).

“I would be thrilled if more people outside classics read ‘Heroides,’” Welch said. “Right now mythology is so popular with young adult readers — they help keep those stories alive. I hope Ovid’s voice will be part of that evolving dialogue.”

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KU News Service

1450 Jayhawk Blvd.

Lawrence KS 66045

Phone: 785-864-3256

Fax: 785-864-3339

[email protected]

http://www.news.ku.edu

Erinn Barcomb-Peterson, director of news and media relations, [email protected]

Today’s News is a free service from the Office of Public Affairs