Science Increases Trust Addendum

There’s such a rich trove of material that could be tapped for an addendum to last Friday’s blog topic, Science Increases Trust, I thought I’d roll out a dessert cart instead offering a single treat. As a reminder, the blog post reviewed a Cornell study that documented how adding scientific-looking data to a sales pitch for a medication increased confidence in the product, even if the data provided no new information. 

A package of Ivory Soap
that I bought last week.

Ivory Soap has been touting that it’s 99.44 percent pure since the 1880s! That scientific-sounding data apparently came about when chemical analysis determined that “impurities” totaled 0.56% of the soap’s content. Actually, the impurities--uncombined alkali, carbonates and mineral matter--sound better than Ivory’s “pure” ingredients, fatty acids and alkali, which are the chief ingredients of most soap.

Most TV ads for pharmaceuticals,
2008-2010, were found to be
misleading or worse. (photo on
multiple websites)

The Cornell study addressed promotions with redundant, not misleading data; however, an earlier investigation by collaborators from Dartmouth and the University of Wisconsin took a swing at consumer-targeted television drug advertising. 

They analyzed the most emphasized claims of 84 prescription and 84 nonprescription drug ads, randomly selected from national news broadcasts from 2008 through 2010. Taken together, 57% of the claims were potentially misleading and 10% were false. Claims for prescription drug ads came out a bit better than those for nonprescription drug ads.

Graphs were one type of data the Cornell study showed could add the right touch of science to a sales pitch. Alas, graphs can also be used to mislead. For example, even if the graph’s axes are labeled correctly, not scaling to zero can cause the data to appear oh so different. Of course adding a biased title will help.  

The massive increase in home prices in the top
graph doesn’t appear very massive when the prices
are scaled to zero euros in the bottom graph. (from
www.mathcaptain.com/algebra/misleading-graphs.html)

Dr. Phil’s Shape Up! was removed
after a Federal Trade Commission
investigation. (multiple websites)

Probably the worst purveyors of bad ads nowadays are those pitching weight loss. One such product, Shape Up!, was promoted by TV’s Dr. Phil as having “scientifically researched levels of ingredients.” Production of Shape Up! ended after a Federal Trade Commission investigation. More recently, the FTC and a Congressional subcommittee were after TV’s Dr. Oz for his weight loss promotions.

The tobacco industry’s advertising heyday has passed, yet it would be hard to top old cigarette ads for covering the bases. 

They had weight loss ads:

This ad suggested cigarettes instead of sweets to keep your weight down. (ad on multiple websites)

They had medical testing ads, such as this one, which stated: “A medical specialist is making regular bi-monthly examinations of a group of people” nearly half of whom have “smoked Chesterfield for an average of 10 years.” After 10 months, the specialist observed “no adverse effects on the nose, throat and sinuses of the group from smoking Chesterfield.”  

Arthur Godfrey, the spokesman in this cigarette ad, died of lung cancer after coming out strongly against smoking. (ad on multiple websites)

The ads had physicians:

Family doctors smoked; why shouldn’t you? (ad on multiple websites)

And for the epitome of scientific data, cigarette ads had scientists and educators. (Yes, most of us looked and dressed like the man in the ad.) 

Scientists and educators who smoked Kent weren’t thrilled to learn that the Micronite Filter contained asbestos. (ad on multiple websites)

P.S.

Ivory Soap:
www.straightdope.com/columns/read/870/ivory-soap-is-99-and-44-100-pure-what
www.nytimes.com/1994/05/22/magazine/sunday-may-22-1994-99.44-percent-pure-what.html
Dartmouth-Univ. of Wisconsin study in Journal of General Internal Medicine and article on Science Daily website:
link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs11606-013-2604-0#page-1
www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/09/130916140455.htm
Dr. Phil's Shape Up!:
newswire.uark.edu/articles/9371/claims-that-are-too-good-to-be-true-watching-for-the-red-flags-in-advertising
usatoday30.usatoday.com/life/people/2006-09-26-dr-phil-diet_x.htm
Vintage tobacco ads: www.vintageadbrowser.com/tobacco-ads
Physicians and cigarettes: www.healio.com/hematology-oncology/news/print/hemonc-today/%7B241d62a7-fe6e-4c5b-9fed-a33cc6e4bd7c%7D/cigarettes-were-once-physician-tested-approved
Arthur Godfrey: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Godfrey
Micronite filter: www.asbestos.com/products/general/cigarette-filters.php

Filtered Photo Photo Addendum

Enough about smoking and cigarette filters (Cigarette-Filter Capacitors). There are so many other kinds of filters we could talk about. In academia, I dealt a lot with photographic filters and much less with digital image processing filters. 

In an early blog post (Time to Scan Photographs), I wrote about scanning and tweaking photos with what was then my new junior Photoshop. I still use that package and still haven’t touched most of its tools, including those labeled “Filters." 

Preparing today’s addendum, I finally took time to play…research the filters. For some, the filter’s name left no doubt what to expect (e.g., blur). Some others I recognized from image processing (e.g., equalize, high-pass). 

See what you think about the effects of the filters I applied to the same photograph, one I took at the 2014 AirVenture (The Fly-in). I used Photoshop’s default filter settings unless otherwise noted. Unfortunately the effects of many of the other filters were too subtle to be seen with the low resolution photos used for the blog post.

One of the light sport aircraft I saw at EAA’s AirVenture. Dubbed “Fifi,” the plane was filling in for its namesake, the Boeing B-29A Superfortress, which was on display at last year’s AirVenture.

Georges-Pierre Seurat, the Post-Impressionist, could have saved so much time if he had the pixelate--pointillize filter.

The brush strokes--accented edge filter was one of several that produced a paint-by-the-number effect.

Compare this photo--the result of applying the default setting of the artistic--cutout filter--with the next photo.

For this photo, I applied the artistic--cutout filter with a higher edge simplicity.

I had to lighten the photo produced with the default setting of the artistic--water color filter.

I can’t judge how well the artistic--underpainting filter substitutes for a base layer.

The artistic--palette knife filter produced an interesting effect, though unlike any art palette I’ve ever seen.

I thought the distort--polar coordinates filter produced a great time-warp effect.

The distort--glass filter effect was that of looking through a frosted glass or an icy window.

Vertigo? Imbibed a bit too much? Oh yeah, it all comes back with the distort--twirl filter.

Cigarette-Filter Capacitors

Welcome back. How can you not love research? A team of investigators at Seoul National University, South Korea, discovered that used cigarette filters--yes, cigarette butts--can provide the material needed for the next supercapacitors. If it all pans out, the research may produce an improved energy storage device and reduce litter in one fell swoop.
 
Filters to Supercapacitors

Cigarette filters before and
after the cigarette is smoked.
(photo from multiple websites)

Cigarette filters are composed primarily of cellulose acetate fibers. The researchers came up with a one-step process for transforming used filters into a porous carbon material whose structure includes pores smaller than 2 nanometers (“micropores”) as well as pores between 2 and 50 nanometers (“mesopores”).

This unique combination of pores allows increased permeation and contact by the electrolyte ions, and thus opens the way for extended rate capabilities--higher maximum charge and discharge—that’s required for a supercapacitor.

Their one-step conversion process prepared nitrogen-doped, meso-/microporous hybrid carbon material through heat treatment of used filters under a nitrogen atmosphere. The transformed cigarette filter material stored more power, charged quicker and lasted longer than presently available energy storage alternatives (carbon, graphene and carbon nanotubes).

Wrap Up

Should I be giving the tobacco industry credit for cigarette filters? I’ve disparaged the industry in the past (Research Sponsor Bias). That’s ok. Its advertising might have dissuaded my concerns when I started smoking in college, even though it’s my fault that I continued smoking long after the findings of the Surgeon General’s Advisory Committee Report on Smoking and Health were announced in 1964.

Cigarette butts--new energy
 storage devices? (photo
 from multiple websites)

Well, I might consider a kudo for filters if the trillions of used and discarded cigarette filters weren’t non-biodegradable, toxic and one of the most common forms of litter that’s estimated to weigh a cumulative 845,000 tons. So instead, let’s all applaud the latest research and hope something comes of it.

Thanks for stopping by.

P.S.

Research paper in the journal Nanotechnology:
iopscience.iop.org/0957-4484/25/34/345601/
Articles on the research on Reuters and IEEE Spectrum websites:
www.reuters.com/article/2014/08/06/us-cigarette-butts-energy-idUSKBN0G61RP20140806
spectrum.ieee.org/nanoclast/semiconductors/nanotechnology/used-cigarette-filters-could-enable-next-generation-of-supercapacitors?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+IeeeSpectrum+%28IEEE+Spectrum%29
Background on supercapacitors:
batteryuniversity.com/learn/article/whats_the_role_of_the_supercapacitor
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supercapacitor
Surgeon General’s Reports on Smoking and Health:
www.cdc.gov/tobacco/Data_statistics/sgr/history/index.htm
profiles.nlm.nih.gov/ps/retrieve/Narrative/NN/p-nid/60