LGBTQ+ Americans experience widespread discrimination that impacts their physical and mental health—of the over 8% of U.S. adults who are members of the LGBTQ+ community, one in three report experiencing discrimination in the past year. Individuals who identify as transgender and nonbinary are exposed to more discrimination than their sexual minority counterparts, which is associated with worse health outcomes.

Minnesota and many other states have enacted policies meant to better protect LGBTQ+ people from discriminatory behavior. A new study from the University of Minnesota School of Public Health (SPH), published in Population Research and Policy Review, examines the efficacy of these policies.

Using survey data from the National Couples’ Health and Time Study, the research team explored whether protective, state-level, LGBTQ+ policies reduce interpersonal discrimination, particularly among transgender and nonbinary individuals.

The study found:

• Over 90% of transgender and nonbinary individuals have experienced discrimination, compared to 74% of cisgender sexual minorities and 73.2% of cisgender heterosexual individuals.
• Protective state-level LGBTQ+ policies significantly reduced instances of discrimination. States with more protections saw rates drop from 98% to 69.8% among transgender and nonbinary people.
• Cisgender sexual minorities and heterosexual individuals saw only minor reductions in discrimination in states with protective policies, indicating transgender and nonbinary individuals benefit most from these policies.

“The magnitude of discrimination faced by transgender and nonbinary individuals was both expected and alarming,” said Alex Bates, SPH researcher and lead author.

“What surprised us most was the significant impact that state-level protections have in reducing these harmful experiences. Our findings suggest that strengthening these policies—and resisting the push for anti-LGBTQ+ legislation—will be key to improving the well-being of this vulnerable population.”

Future research could explore the impact of these state-level policies on experiences of health care discrimination, mental health outcomes and how these stressors can lead to inflammation and negative health outcomes. The researchers also recommend more studies to consider the different experiences within the LGBTQ+ community to better understand how overlapping identities, such as race and gender, impact discrimination.

Over the last couple of years, e-scooters have become a staple throughout Melbourne’s central business district, with the rent-and-ride model offering many Victorians a convenient, accessible and environmentally friendly alternative to cars or other modes of transport.

But their rise in popularity has also sparked concerns about their safety and misuse, leading to Melbourne City Council’s recent decision to scrap shared e-scooters from the city altogether.

Melbourne’s ban is an important reminder that in order for emerging circular business models to be successful and sustainable, fundamental needs of customers and the community—like, in this case, safety—must be prioritized.

So what does the ban tell us about the viability of circular business models in Australia, and could it ultimately hinder the country’s transition to a circular economy?

The state of the circular economy in Victoria

In 2020, the Victorian State Government launched a circular economy plan to transform its waste and recycling system, improving how we use and reuse resources as well as how we manage the waste that can’t be recycled.

The plan also reinforces the central role of Victorian businesses in this transition, encouraging business owners to adopt PSS models where consumers pay to use a product, while businesses take responsibility for maintenance and end-of-life management.

The City of Melbourne is pioneering work in this area, launching the Kensington Circular Economy Precinct earlier this year to incentivize businesses willing to implement circular economy solutions.

Despite these developments, Melbourne’s ban on e-scooter hire could set a precedent that extends beyond the transportation sector, potentially impacting the adoption of circular business models more broadly.

A popular part of Victoria’s transport mix

E-scooter hire was first introduced in Victoria in 2022, when the state partnered with Lime and Neuron Mobility. Following a two-year trial, the Victorian government permanently legalized shared e-scooter hire across the state.

Neuron Mobility became Australia’s leading provider of rental e-scooters, and later announced a range of new safety features including helmet locks, data sharing and geofencing technology (which creates a virtual geographical boundary) to help councils control where e-scooters can be ridden.

Lime e-scooters were rolled out in major cities across Australia and New Zealand, providing more than 15 million trips to date across the two countries.

Interestingly, Lime’s e-scooters and e-bikes have traveled more than 25 million kilometers across both countries—that’s like riding the distance from Melbourne to London almost 1,500 times.

Although the Victorian Government initially extended its shared e-scooter trial by six months, the City of Melbourne opted to terminate contracts with shared e-scooter providers early, citing ongoing safety concerns.

There’s a similar story in Queensland. The Sunshine Coast Council also recently cancelled its trial, following the examples of Melbourne, Paris and a number of other cities around the world.

That said, several councils in Victoria’s inner north are pushing to roll out their own rental schemes, despite the Melbourne ban.

Moving away from ‘take-make-dispose’

Access to shared e-scooters promotes more efficient use of resources by reducing the amount of time a product would otherwise spend idle—a common issue in private ownership.

It also significantly reduces the demand for individual e-scooters, in turn reducing the consumption and extraction of virgin (unprocessed) materials, which moves us away from the traditional “take-make-dispose” cycle of production.

Product pooling, where products are shared by multiple users, can reduce environmental impacts by up to 50%.

But despite its ambitions and advantages, PSS models don’t always achieve the desired environmental benefits.

Research suggests that the lack of ownership in PSS models may lead users to handle products with less care and increase the likelihood of vandalism. This can lead to the product having a shorter lifespan, meaning higher material and manufacturing demands.

‘Fine-tuning’ needed for future circular business models

The success of circular business models, including shared e-scooters, relies on understanding the value proposition they provide to the public, as well as how the model will work in practice.

For shared e-scooter businesses, their value proposition lies in offering an innovative transport alternative that’s low cost, low emissions and that’s accessible to people living in cities.

The decision to ban them results from a critical misalignment between their value proposition and essential customer needs—in this case, the safety of users and the general public.

In major cities like Melbourne, shared e-scooter services offer enormous potential to promote the sharing of resources and improve urban mobility.

But their journey to successful implementation requires collaboration and careful consideration of the interests and needs of customers and councils alike.

As an alternative to banning, city councils could take practical steps to help regulate e-scooter use, like creating designated parking zones and setting stricter geofencing limits in high-traffic areas.

Cities could also look to improve their micro-mobility infrastructure with dedicated e-scooter lanes, allowing users to ride safely without being in the way of pedestrian and vehicle traffic.

Only with continuous “fine-tuning” and support from city councils will circular business models—like shared e-scooters—have the potential to operate in a safe and sustainable way.

Optimizing an investment portfolio to maximize returns while minimizing risk is the ultimate goal for investors and their advisers. However, there is no set path and challenges always arise. One such limitation is the high-dimensional, small-sample problem (HDSS). HDSS refers to a portfolio with a large number of assets but little historical data, leading to unreliable portfolio optimization and resulting in weak investment performance.

In research recently published, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute’s Chanaka Edirisinghe, Ph.D., Kay and Jackson Tai ’72 Senior Professor of Quantitative Finance, together with Jaehwan Jeong, Ph.D., associate professor at Radford University, has developed a data-driven method to improve portfolio selection in the context of HDSS. This work appears in an issue of The Journal of Portfolio Management, in honor of the “father of modern portfolio theory” and Nobel laureate Harry Markowitz.

Many portfolios use mean-variance (MV) optimization, which often results in excessive risk and portfolio fragmentation. To get around this, Edirisinghe and Jeong used cardinality control to restrict the number of assets, as well as a leverage constraint to control the amount of borrowing or short selling to help minimize risk. They also used norm constraints to help manage asset positions effectively. Finally, they used cross-validation to improve portfolio performance when applied to new, previously unseen data. Then, they tested their approach.

“We conducted a case study using large sets of stocks from the S&P 500 Index,” said Edirisinghe. “Our leverage-controlled sparse portfolio selection methodology significantly improved portfolio performance. The result is more manageability and decreased risk.”

“Professor Edirisinghe’s approach advances portfolio optimization,” said Liad Wagman, Ph.D., dean of Rensselaer’s Lally School of Management. “The integration of sparsity and leverage controls within a data-driven framework leads to better-performing portfolios.”

As the use of artificial intelligence is expands, more small firms say they’re harnessing AI to help their businesses.

In a survey by The U.S. Chamber of Commerce and Teneo, nearly every small business—98%—said they are utilizing a tool that is enabled by AI. Forty percent said they’re using generative AI tools like chatbots and image creation, nearly double from last year’s survey.

Small business owners say finding the right AI tools helps them save on personnel costs and frees up time. But they also stress that human oversight is still a necessity.

“AI allows small businesses—who many times do not have the staff or resources of their competitors—to punch above their weight,” said Jordan Crenshaw, senior vice president of the U.S. Chamber’s Technology Engagement Center. “It’s encouraging to see small businesses embrace technology and express optimism for the future as these platforms serve as a catalyst for innovation and resilience.”

Randy Speckman, who owns San Diego-based web design agency Randy Speckman Design with seven staffers, found the right AI tool for his business by trial and error. He tried a few tools that didn’t provide high enough quality copy before settling on tools including Conversion.ai and Copy.ai to generate blog posts, email newsletters and social media content.

The tools save Speckman’s staff a lot of time while allowing for a consistent volume of higher quality content. The improvement in production means he hasn’t had to hire more writers.

“The only downside is needing to review and tweak the AI’s initial drafts,” Speckman said.

The survey also found that 91% of small businesses using AI say it will help their business grow in the future. Seventy-seven percent of small business owners said they plan to adopt emerging technologies, including AI and metaverse.

Amanda Reineke owns Notice Ninja, a digital compliance company that helps tax professionals automate their incoming tax notices in Phoenix, Arizona, with 15 employees. Her company built an AI-powered platform that scans and captures data from tax notices, then automatically routes each notice to the right department and person to handle it.

“When implemented thoughtfully by domain experts, (AI) can drive major efficiencies,” she said. “AI won’t replace human work, but will augment and lift it.”

The survey found more businesses are using technology platforms in general. Forty-seven percent of business owners surveyed said they use four or more technology platforms—up from 39% last year—and more than a quarter said they use six or more technology platforms.

Jan Watermann, owner of marketing agency Waterman Consulting in St. Petersburg, Florida, uses AI tools such as Jasper AI and SurferSEO.

“Jasper helps us quickly generate blog posts, ad copy, and other written content, while SurferSEO ensures it’s optimized for search engines,” Watermann said.

Watermann says that for all its promise, AI still needs human oversight. “It’s great for efficiency but still requires human creativity and strategy to get the best results,” he said.

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