Alberta UCP leaders mum as COVID-19 fourth wave surges, 749 new cases today

Despite the continued rise in cases and hospitalizations, neither Dr. Deena Hinshaw nor Premier Jason Kenney took to the podium this week to address the upswing

Author of the article: Jason Herring
Publishing date: Aug 20, 2021 

A masked pedestrian is seen walking along Stephen Ave. SW. Thursday, August 19, 2021. Brendan Miller/Postmedia Brendan Miller/Postmedia
Article content

The fourth wave of COVID-19 in Alberta continued to surge Friday, with the province reporting another 749 new cases of the virus.

It’s the second-largest daily case count of this most recent wave, topped only by Thursday’s 817 new infections. The new cases come from about 9,000 tests, representing an 8.5 per cent positivity rate.

Despite the continued rise in cases and hospitalizations, neither chief medical officer of health Dr. Deena Hinshaw nor Premier Jason Kenney took to the podium this week to address the upswing.

Hinshaw last spoke publicly Aug. 13, when she walked back the province’s plans to lift testing, tracing and isolation containment measures against COVID-19. Meanwhile, Kenney’s last public appearance was Aug. 9, when he spoke at a news conference marking an expansion to Edmonton’s Labatt Breweries facility.

The premier’s office said Kenney is currently taking a two-week vacation but continues some work while away from the office.

“Many Albertans are taking holidays this summer, especially as society returns to normal following widespread vaccinations. This includes the premier, who is taking two weeks of holidays in August at the end of summer,” said Jerrica Goodwin, Kenney’s press secretary.

“While the premier is on holidays, he is, of course, still able to fully communicate with his cabinet and senior officials as required. In fact, he has participated in numerous briefings despite being ‘on holidays.'”

Goodwin added Hinshaw and Alberta Health officials also continue their work. An Alberta Health spokesperson said Friday there are currently no scheduled media availabilities for Hinshaw, who has stepped back from the spotlight over the past two months.

The NDP Opposition called Friday for Kenney or another senior government official to return to the lectern and field questions about the province’s pandemic handling.

“It is undeniable at this point that Alberta is entering a fourth wave of COVID-19, and this government’s response will determine how large and severe this wave is going to be,” said NDP health critic David Shepherd.

“I don’t begrudge anyone their vacation. I took some time off myself this summer. I think the last 18 months have been gruelling for everybody and I certainly can respect the premier has a lot of work and a lot of stress.

“If the premier is on vacation himself now, then let’s hear from another member of the UCP government because Albertans deserve to hear from them.”

As case counts increase amid the second wave, driven by the ultra-contagious Delta variant, hospitalizations are also spiking.

There are now 221 Albertans in hospital with COVID-19, up from 198 the previous day — a 12 per cent jump. Among those patients, 48 are in intensive-care units.

Rates of hospital admissions due to the novel coronavirus are on the rise, only one month after Kenney celebrated hospitalization numbers dropping below 100 for the first time since October.

When asked in mid-June if his government had a contingency plan if hospitalizations rise alongside Alberta’s reopening, Kenney said, “We just don’t see that scenario.” He said he expected an increase in cases, but that vaccine rates would keep hospitalizations down.

Since July 1, the day Alberta lifted nearly all public-health restrictions, the province has reported 42 deaths from the virus. The rate of deaths from COVID-19 has slowed drastically since the devastating second and third waves but is now slowly increasing.

Staff prepare vaccine at the pop-up COVID-19 vaccination clinic at the Village Square Leisure Centre in northeast Calgary on Sunday, June 6, 2021. 

PHOTO BY GAVIN YOUNG/POSTMEDIA

Since the start of 2021, 86 per cent of all deaths attributed to the virus in Alberta were in people either not immunized against COVID-19 or diagnosed within two weeks of getting their first shot.

The demographics of those dying from COVID-19 are trending lower, but young Albertans still aren’t facing significant mortality from the virus.

Of the 42 Albertans to die from COVID-19 since July 1, 27 per cent were 80 or above, a shift from the pandemic as a whole, where this age group comprises nearly 60 per cent of all virus deaths during the pandemic.

Since July 1, COVID-19 deaths are most common among those in their 60s. In the time span, only one person younger than 50 died of the virus in Alberta; a person in their 30s.

The toll from the pandemic in Alberta now sits at 2,343, after one additional death was reported Friday.

jherring@postmedia.com

Twitter: @jasonfherring

Henri upgraded to hurricane as it threatens US coast

Issued on: 21/08/2021 -

In this handout satellite image courtesy of NASA Earth Observatory taken at 11:45 am US Eastern Time (15:45 UT) on Friday, August 20, 2021, Henri is seen moving toward the northeast US Coast - NASA Earth Observatory/AFP/File

New York (AFP)

A swath of the US East Coast, including New York City, was under alert Saturday, as storm Henri was upgraded to what could be the first hurricane in 30 years to hit New England.

Forecasters warned of violent winds, the risk of flash floods and surging seas as the storm churned in the Atlantic, packing maximum sustained winds near 75 miles (120 kilometers) per hour.

"Although some weakening is expected prior to landfall on Sunday, Henri is forecast to be at or near hurricane strength when it reaches the coasts of Long Island and southern New England," the US National Hurricane Center said in its latest bulletin.

Henri is expected to produce three to six inches of rain (7.5 to 15 centimeters) across the region, with isolated maximum totals near 10 inches, the NHC warned.

The heavy rainfall "may result in considerable flash, urban, and small stream flooding," it added.

Officials in New England -- which includes Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Vermont -- have warned people to get ready.

"All residents are advised to begin storm preparations today, and to pay close attention to local weather," the office of Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker said Friday.

His state, which will close parks and beaches from Saturday to Monday, was bracing for the high winds to knock out electricity for up to 300,000 locals, the governor's office said.

If Henri stays on its current course and maintains strength, it would be the first hurricane to directly hit New England in 30 years.

"The last hurricane to make landfall onto New England was Hurricane Bob in 1991," Dennis Feltgen, an NHC spokesman, told AFP. That storm killed at least 17 people.

It has been almost a decade since such severe weather was expected in part of the region.

"The last time we had hurricane watches issued for the area was for Hurricane Irene, back in late August of 2011," tweeted the National Weather Service in New York City.

New York beaches were ordered closed for swimming Sunday and Monday as officials warned of high winds and possible storm surges, as well as flash flooding on roads.

The last hurricane to make landfall in Long Island, home to the plush Hamptons villages where wealthy New Yorkers retreat to in summer, was Gloria in 1985.

The warnings have reignited memories of Hurricane Sandy, a more powerful storm that knocked out power for much of Manhattan and flooded subways in 2012.

© 2021 AFP

Update: Tropical Storm Henri is now a Category 1 hurricane, expected to make landfall on Long Island


By Karen Graham


Published August 21, 2021

Strengthening is forecast through tonight, and Henri is expected to become a hurricane later today and be at or near hurricane strength when it makes landfall in Long Island or southern New England. Source - National Hurricane Center

Hurricane warnings and watches are up across the Northeast affecting millions of people for what is expected to be the first hurricane to directly strike Long Island or New England in several decades.

In an update from the NHC at 11:00 a.m., Henri is now a Category 1 hurricane with winds of 75 mph.

At the 8:00 a.m. advisory from the National Hurricane Center, Henri was swirling around 200 miles southeast of Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, and moving toward the north-northeast near 12 mph (19 kph).

Maximum sustained winds are near 70 mph (110 kph), with higher gusts. Strengthening is expected through tonight and Tropical Storm Henri is expected to become a hurricane later today and be at or near hurricane strength when it makes landfall Sunday in Long Island or southern New England.

Tropical-storm-force winds extend outward from the center up to 115 miles (185 kilometers), and it is anticipated the storm will veer northward to north-northeastward on Saturday with a turn to the north-northwest overnight.

Hurricane Warnings are up for New Haven, Connecticut to the west of Watch Hill, Rhode Island, the South Shore of Long Island from Fire Island Inlet to Montauk Point, and the North Shore of Long Island from Port Jefferson Harbor to Montauk Point.

The Hurricane Watch area includes Block Island and Watch Hill, Rhode Island to Westport, Massachusetts.

National Hurricane Center graphic

Long Island has not had a hurricane landfall since Gloria in 1985. The last time a hurricane made landfall in New England was Hurricane Bob in 1991. New York has not had a direct hit from a major hurricane season storm since Superstorm Sandy in 2012.

Storm surges will be a major concern. Surges between 3 and 5 feet are possible Sunday in areas including parts of Long Island to Chatham, Massachusetts, the hurricane center said. The surges will be accompanied by large, dangerous waves.

People living in areas under storm surge warnings “should take all necessary actions to protect life and property from rising water and the potential for other dangerous conditions,” the NHC says.

The storm is projected to produce rainfall amounts of 3 to 6 inches with isolated maximum totals of nearly 10 inches over parts of Long Island, New England, southeast New York, and northern New Jersey from Sunday into Monday.

Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker urged people to avoid unnecessary travel and to delay weekend getaways to Cape Cod. The governor activated the Massachusetts National Guard on Friday in preparation for rescues, debris clearing, and other support.

“For those that have already traveled to the Cape or Islands for the weekend, they are advised to consider leaving on Saturday or extend their travel plans through early next week,” the governor’s office said in a news release.

Read more: https://www.digitaljournal.com/world/northeast-braces-for-tropical-storm-henri-expected-to-make-landfall-as-a-hurricane/article#ixzz74E8NkB2s

HAITI UPDATE

Workens Alexandre orthopedic surgeon released !
Kidnapped this Wednesday August 18, 2021, https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-34534-haiti-flash-kidnapping-of-one-of-the-rare-orthopedic-surgeons-in-haiti.html Orthopedist Workens Alexandre was released by his captors on Friday evening, according to his colleagues. We do not know under what condition.

The West is hoarding the vaccine at its own peril

By withholding vaccines from developing nations, the West is creating fertile ground for the virus to mutate more

By CHARLOTTE KILPATRICK
PUBLISHED AUGUST 21, 2021 

Box of vaccine vials (Getty images/Iryna Veklich)

This week, US health officials recommended offering booster shots to all Americans who received either the Pfizer or Moderna vaccines. As of September 20th, Americans will be urged to get a third vaccine eight months after their second, with priority given to health care workers and the vulnerable.

On its surface, this seems like good news and sound medical advice. Studies have shown that antibody levels from the vaccines begin to wane after a few months, and headlines tell of crowded hospitals in areas of low vaccination rates. Beyond that, many of those who have had their shots have become increasingly frustrated at the unvaccinated for prolonging the pandemic. Under these circumstances, booster shots provide a feeling of security in an insecure world.

But while the frustration with the unvaccinated and fear for one's safety are understandable, administering booster shots to every American adult will deepen what global health officials are referring to as the rising "vaccine apartheid" between rich and poor countries. It is predicted that by the end of 2021 rich countries will have an estimated one billion unused doses while the 50 least developed countries in the world, home to 20% of the global population, have so far received just 2% of all vaccines. The inequality in vaccine distribution is not just a moral failure on the part of Western nations – it is also bad health policy that risks prolonging the pandemic by giving the virus fertile ground to spread and mutate.

One of the most dangerous variants in the pandemic so far is the delta mutation which was first identified in India in December of 2020. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), delta is twice as contagious as previous strains of the virus, and early data suggests that it causes more severe symptoms in unvaccinated people. Data from Reuters shows it took over a year for the world to record its first 100 million cases of COVID-19; but with the rise of the delta variant, it only took six months to record another 100 million.

As bad as delta is in the US, mortality rates are skyrocketing in other parts of the world with low vaccination rates. In the first two weeks of August, Southeast Asia recorded nearly twice as many deaths as North America. On the week ending August 1st, the World Health Organization announced Africa recorded its highest official death toll from COVID-19 with cases rising 20% in a single week. It would be impossible to get an accurate figure of the official death toll because the continent has very limited testing capacity and not every death is recorded. The real numbers are expected to be much higher.

Also — and this point is key — only 4% of those living in Africa have received any vaccines at all. Nigeria, a country with high population density, has fully vaccinated just 0.65% of its population. For comparison, the US has fully vaccinated 70% of its adult population and the UK 76% of those 16 and older. At current rates, people in developing countries will have to wait until 2023 before they can get vaccinated.

The reason the disparity exists between rich and poor countries is because a handful of rich nations gobbled up all the doses of the vaccines through advanced purchasing agreements (APAs). In May, Pfizer announced it had reached an agreement with the European Union to supply 1.8 billion doses on top of the 600 million doses that had already been procured in earlier agreements. On July 23rd, the Biden administration announced it bought an additional 200 million doses of the Pfizer vaccine on top of the 300 million already secured from the company. Between potential and current negotiations the US has procured 8 vaccines per American citizen, and the EU almost 10 vaccines per person.

Drug companies are adamant that they have done all they can to ensure equitable distribution of vaccines. The CEO of Pfizer, Albert Bourla, said in an open letter to his colleagues that equal access has been the company's "North Star since day one", and that in the early days of the pandemic the company reached out to all countries with vaccine contracts, but for some reason only the rich ones took them up on their offer. It was later revealed that the pharma giant had demanded that some Latin American countries put up sovereign assets such as embassies and military bases as a guarantee against the cost of any future legal challenges.

If the global community wants to reduce the risk of mutations it will have to vaccinate more people in all corners of the world. This would create a wider shield against the virus and prevent the risk of more mutations that could be potentially vaccine resistant. The poorest countries in the world receive most of their doses through the COVAX scheme, which was set up last year as a means for rich countries to donate vaccines and money to poor ones. The initial goal was to supply two billion doses by the end of 2021, and an additional 1.8 billion by early 2022. As of writing, UNICEF reports COVAX has only shipped 209 million doses to 138 countries. To put that number into perspective, that is enough doses to fully vaccinate only half the population of Nigeria.
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An obvious way that the US and other developed countries can help reduce the risk of another mutation is by donating more vaccines instead of inoculating its populations with a third round of doses. Rich countries can also step up to the plate by forcing pharma companies to share their patents and trade secrets so that other countries can manufacture vaccines for themselves instead of relying on hand out donations from COVAX. In October of last year, India and South Africa proposed an intellectual property waiver at the World Trade Organization for all COVID vaccines and therapies. In May, Joe Biden announced his support of the waiver (only for vaccines). The proposal has been held back in committee meetings and no decision is expected until the fall. Even if the waiver is approved it will not be enough on its own to increase global supply of doses unless pharma companies are compelled to give up the trade secrets to the vaccines.

Scientists discover a 'break' in one of Milky Way's arms

NASA says it's "like a splinter poking out from a plank of wood."


Amanda Kooser
Aug. 20, 2021 


This illustration shows what we think the Milky Way looks like,

 with two large spiral arms.

NASA/JPL-Caltech

Astronomers have done impressive work figuring out what our home Milky Way galaxy looks like. We know it's a spiral galaxy with two major arms. A new study reveals one of the galaxy's minor arms has a "break" in it, a set of stars and gas clouds that are sticking out.

NASA described the break on Tuesday as being like a splinter sticking out from wood. "Stretching some 3,000 light-years, this is the first major structure identified with an orientation so dramatically different than the arm's," the space agency said in a press release

The structure that's sticking out includes young stars and a group of nebulae, including the Lagoon Nebula and the Eagle Nebula, home to Hubble's famous Pillars of Creation image. Instead of holding tight to the spiral of the galaxy's Sagittarius Arm, the structure protrudes at a notable angle.
Stars and star-forming gas clouds make up the "break" that's sticking out of the

 Milky Way's Sagittarius Arm. The star shapes represent star-forming regions.

NASA/JPL-Caltech

Caltech astrophysicist Michael Kuhn is the lead author of the study, published last month in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics.

The research team used data from NASA's now-retired Spitzer Space Telescope and the European Space Agency's Gaia space observatory to locate newborn stars and measure distances to them to create a 3D look at the arm segment.

"When we put the Gaia and Spitzer data together and finally see this detailed, three-dimensional map, we can see that there's quite a bit of complexity in this region that just hasn't been apparent before," said Kuhn. Scientists have spotted similar structures in spiral galaxies seen by our telescopes. These structures have been called spurs or feathers.

NASA says goodbye to Spitzer: See the telescope's most astounding images See all photos

+18 More

"The stars in the newly discovered structure likely formed around the same time, in the same general area, and were uniquely influenced by the forces acting within the galaxy, including gravity and shear due to the galaxy's rotation," said NASA.

The Milky Way is our home (Earth resides in the small Orion arm), and it will continue to be a challenge to work out the details of its structure. As NASA said, it's like standing in the middle of Times Square and trying to draw a map of the entire island of Manhattan.

The "splinter" find gives scientists a fresh perspective on the galaxy. It may have distinctive spiral arms, but not every star and nebula is coloring within the lines.

First published on Aug. 17, 2021 at 1:18 p.m. PT.

Efficient buildings could save thousands of lives in US every year.

A new study lays out two building efficiency improvement scenarios alongside estimates for how many premature deaths in the U.S. would be prevented in each case

Peer-Reviewed Publication

YALE UNIVERSITY

Buildings in the U.S. are responsible for 40% of the country’s total energy consumption. By improving the energy efficiency of new and existing buildings, the emissions generated from heating and cooling them could be reduced – preventing thousands of premature deaths every year.
 
A new paper, published in Science Advances, authored by Yale School of the Environment Economics Professor Kenneth Gillingham and colleagues at Yale’s SEARCH Center and the School of Engineering and Applied Science, lays out two building efficiency improvement scenarios alongside estimates for how many premature deaths in the U.S. would be prevented in each case. 
 
The burning of fossil fuels, in addition to greenhouse gasses, releases large amounts of harmful airborne particulate matter called PM2.5 (particles with diameters of less than 2.5 micrometers), which can cause heart and lung disease and aggravate conditions like asthma. The reduction in premature deaths is primarily due to the reduction in PM2.5. 
 
The “optimistic” scenario envisions a 50% increase in appliance efficiency (everything from refrigerators to boilers) and a 60 to 90% increase in the efficiency of buildings’ outer shells by 2050.  The researchers estimate that up to 5,100 yearly premature deaths would be prevented if those conditions were met. The “intermediate” scenario – still “a big step up” from what is being undertaken today, says Gillingham – could still save up to an estimated 2,900 lives every year.
 
These estimates of lives saved, however, are focused on changes in outdoor air pollution. 
 
“It is important to also consider the impacts on indoor air quality that may accompany changes in building ventilation,” says study co-author Drew Gentner, associate professor of chemical and environmental engineering and the environment at the Yale School of Engineering & Applied Science. 
 
The potential drawback of the increased energy efficiency of buildings, says Gillingham, is that when buildings are more tightly sealed to prevent leakage of heated or cooled air, the total amount of circulation between indoor and outdoor air also decreases.
 
“While tighter buildings can partially isolate you from outdoor pollution, it requires greater attention to indoor pollutant emissions,” Gentner says.
 
For example, inside a home, emissions from cooking or appliances can impact indoor air quality. 
 
“If you close the building shell and don't accompany it with recirculation and filtration upgrades, then you can actually face some health impacts,” Gillingham says. 
 
But even without additional indoor air filtration upgrades, the researchers found that improved building efficiency would still save about 3,600 per year under the “optimistic” scenario, and 1,800 under the “intermediate” scenario.
 
The researchers also note that some outdoor air pollution factors – like ozone and wildfire smoke – would be reduced indoors if buildings were made more efficient and there was less circulation between outdoor and indoor air. While average outdoor PM2.5 levels have been continually decreasing over time in the U.S., wildfires can sometimes drastically increase outdoor air pollution. And as recent years have shown, wildfire smoke can spread across large swaths of the country, causing harmful levels of air quality from coast to coast.

“These results, including effects on outdoor and indoor air pollutants, are quite interesting because no one's modeled both before. People have examined similar questions narrowly in small regions, but no one's done it broadly over the entire country,” says Gillingham.
 
Another factor that Gillingham and his colleagues modeled was the possible effect of a carbon tax. They found that a carbon tax, combined with building efficiency improvements, would save even more lives.
 
The study helps make clear to people, Gillingham says, that forgoing opportunities to reduce emissions can truly harm people’s health.

###

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JOURNAL

Science Advances

DOI

10.1126/sciadv.abg0947 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Data/statistical analysis

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Not applicable

ARTICLE TITLE

The climate and health benefits from intensive building energy efficiency improvements

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

20-Aug-2021

Dispelling false claims of cannibalistic caribs—again

Peer-Reviewed Publication

SIMON FRASER UNIVERSITY

 

IMAGE: GIOVAS AT THE HISTORIC RUINS IN THE CARIBBEAN. view more 

CREDIT: PHOTOGRAPHED BY LAURA TERMES.

SFU archaeologist Christina Giovas and colleagues are formally denouncing what they call unsubstantiated and harmful claims of cannibalistic Caribs migrating to the Caribbean, in a paper published today in Nature’s Scientific Reports.

The story of Christopher Columbus and the colonization of Indigenous Peoples is a part of human history that is often told and retold with contradicting or false claims. According to the researchers, a paper published earlier in Scientific Reports (January 2020) is an example of these falsehoods. 

The 2020 paper, which concluded Indigenous cannibals migrated into the Caribbean circa AD 800, was met with widespread concern from archaeologists, anthropologists and historians. 

The problematic nature of the paper led the group of scholars to author a formal response, or rejoinder—published in the very same online, peer-reviewed journal.

Giovas and nine colleagues joined forces to challenge the paper’s findings, including Florida State University’s Tom Leppard, and University of Oregon’s Scott Fitzpatrick, a professor and associate director of research at the Museum of Natural and Cultural History. 

Fitzpatrick says they were “disconcerted about the revitalization of the cannibalistic narrative, which is disingenuous and hurtful to Indigenous groups.”

The “cannibalistic narrative” is one that scholars have had to actively work to debunk, seemingly putting it to rest as the theory held no merit. “This dangerous trope was initially used to provide the moral justification Spanish colonizers sought to enslave Indigenous islanders and seize their land," says Giovas. The original paper brings the controversial discussion back to the forefront with what the group of scholars saw as flawed methods and data and a faulty conclusion. 

"The idea that ancient Caribbeans were cannibals still persists in popular imagination, but there has never been any scientific evidence showing they practiced cannibalism, despite the fact that we have really good archaeological techniques to detect this,” says Giovas. 

While rigorous give-and-take is not uncommon in the academic world, scholars rarely take the opportunity to publish a rejoinder to refute academic work. In this case, the researchers felt the consequences of the misinformation were too severe to ignore. Giovas explains that "how we reconstruct the past has real world implications in the present. We look to history to inform policy and decision-making today, so our understanding of history should ideally be backed by good science and multiple lines of evidence." 

###

To view the rejoinder, visit http://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-021-95558-7
 

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JOURNAL

Scientific Reports

DOI

10.1038/s41598-021-95558-7 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Data/statistical analysis

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

People

ARTICLE TITLE

Craniofacial morphology does not support a pre-contact Carib “invasion” of the northern Caribbean

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

20-Aug-2021

 

UC Davis C-STEM Center receives $2.4M grant to introduce African American girls to engineering and robotics

Grant and Award Announcement

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA - DAVIS

 

IMAGE: GIRLS TAKING PART IN THE 2019 ROBOPLAY COMPETITION ORGANIZED BY THE UC DAVIS C-STEM CENTER. WITH A GRANT FROM NSF, THE CENTER IS LAUNCHING A NEW SUMMER PROGRAM TO ENGAGE BLACK GIRLS IN ENGINEERING AND ROBOTICS. view more 

CREDIT: HARRY CHENG/C-STEM CENTER

With a $2.4 million grant from the National Science Foundation, the UC Davis Center for Integrated Computing and STEM Education, or C-STEM, will establish a new initiative to introduce Black/African American girls to engineering and robotics and provide them with resources to lead in science, technology, engineering and mathematics, or STEM, in their schools, communities and careers.

The Ujima Girls in Robotics Leadership Project is a free, hands-on engineering and robotics program that teaches girls in middle and high school engineering and leadership in a culturally relevant environment. The project is led by C-STEM Director and Professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Harry Cheng, Faheemah Mustafaa, assistant professor in the UC Davis School of Education, and Teresa Aldredge, former board president of the Umoja Community Education Foundation and a senior advisor to the C-STEM Center. 

“This is an exciting opportunity to further encourage the creativity, leadership and scientific genius of Black girls and young women in ways that many don’t have access to in their day-to-day schooling,” Mustafaa said. “I am hopeful about the mutually empowering benefit of this project for the participants, our research team, and everyone else involved.”

Introducing girls to STEM applications and leadership in middle school and nurturing that interest through high school increases the likelihood that they will stay in the field. Supporting Black girls’ STEM skills in identity-affirming, fun and supportive environments lowers access barriers and further increases their odds of pursuing STEM careers.

“This grant will illuminate the talent that our Black girls already have inside them and provide a safe and nurturing environment for growth and development,” said Aldredge. “I’m honored to be a part of this important endeavor for our community.”

Building a community

The Ujima GIRL Camp takes the C-STEM Center’s already successful GIRL/GIRL+ camps — which have been serving middle and high school girls respectively across California since 2013 and 2018 — and adds the cultural piece for African American students. The “Ujima” name is a Swahili word for “collective work and responsibility,” an important principle in many Black/African American spaces. It also symbolizes the program’s emphasis on community.

Together with California Community Colleges and the Umoja Community Education Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to enhancing the educational experience of African American students, the team will recruit African American college students to lead each Ujima GIRL or GIRL+ Camp, develop curriculum and serve as mentors.

Cheng’s vision is to build a “mentoring pipeline” that keeps participants involved from their first Ujima GIRL Camp through college. Ujima GIRL Camp alumni can return as assistant coaches when they reach high school and also participate in the GIRL+ Camp. GIRL/GIRL+ alumni in college can return as coaches. In addition, Cheng also wants to encourage participants to create their own Ujima GIRL clubs at their local schools, where they can share their experiences with other girls. 

“We want to give students a life-changing experience and inspire them to go into college, post-secondary studies and careers in STEM,” said Cheng. “This program will help them make a real-world connection with math, because we want to give them the tools to be successful in their academic programs and learn in the years ahead.”

In the first three years, the program will host 48 Ujima GIRL and 48 GIRL+ camps statewide and nurture about 2,000 students. If successful, the team hopes to increase that number and expand the program nationwide.

“I hope that we can increase the number of partners and sponsors so we can effectively expand and inspire more girls with the resources they need,” said Cheng. “There are so many who want to contribute to the cause, and we stand ready to provide the opportunity to join forces and work together.”

###

UC Davis C-STEM Center is currently recruiting a program manager for the project. The organizers hope to hold the first camps in summer 2022.

Media Resources

More about the project and how to participate

UC Davis C-STEM Center

Study proposes new ways to estimate climate change impacts on agriculture

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS COLLEGE OF AGRICULTURAL, CONSUMER AND ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES

 

IMAGE: UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS RESEARCHERS SANDY DALL’ERBA AND CHANG CAI LOOKED AT HOW STUDIES ESTIMATE CLIMATE CHANGE EFFECTS ON AGRICULTURE, AND SUGGEST A NEW APPROACH TO OBTAIN MORE ACCURATE AND LOCATION-SPECIFIC RESULTS. view more 

CREDIT: UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS

URBANA, Ill. ­– Most scientists agree climate change has a profound impact on U.S. agricultural production. But estimates vary widely, making it hard to develop mitigation strategies. Two agricultural economists at the University of Illinois take a closer look at how choice of statistical methodology influences climate study results. They also propose a more accurate and place-specific approach to data analysis.

“If you pay attention to forecasts of how the climate will affect U.S. agriculture, the results are completely different. Some scientists predict it's going to have a positive impact for the nation in the long run, some report it's going to have a negative impact,” says study co-author Sandy Dall’Erba, professor in the Department of Agricultural and Consumer Economics (ACE) and director of the Center for Climate, Regional, Environmental and Trade Economics (CREATE) at U of I.

Dall’Erba and Chang Cai, doctoral student in ACE and the paper’s lead author, take stock of all the academic literature that estimates the impact of climate change on U.S. farmland values and revenues, focusing on every U.S. county. The county-level scale is not only more accurate, the researchers say, but also important for regional policy makers, because they can make county-specific decisions in areas where climate change is anticipated to pose a serious challenge.

“There is not a single commodity that is produced all over the U.S. The only way we can really understand the relationship between climate and agriculture is that rather than focusing on a particular crop or livestock, we look at economic impacts,” Dall’Erba notes. “Looking at aggregated agricultural outcomes allows us to compare the situation across every county in the U.S.”

The researchers look at how studies group locations for analysis, and how such groupings affect the results.

“Early studies would assume one additional degree of Celsius or Fahrenheit in Arizona will have the exact same marginal effect on agriculture as one additional degree in Illinois, which makes very little sense because you're looking on the one hand at a place that is quite used to high temperature and low precipitation, versus a place which is used to moderate temperature and much more precipitation,” Dall’Erba says.

Recently, studies have tried to differentiate results and estimate effects based on local conditions. A popular approach is to divide the U.S. into irrigated versus rainfed areas, roughly across a west/east partition along the 100th meridian. While Illinois and Arizona would thus belong to different groups, Arizona and Montana would still be expected to experience similar marginal effects of weather.

Another method, which Dall’Erba has used in his own research, compares low- versus high-elevation areas, while a third approach is to group locations along state lines. Dall’Erba says researchers use the latter approach because it is straightforward to estimate and relevant for policy measures, but it does not produce very accurate results, since state lines rarely conform to atmospheric characteristics.

While all these approaches have some merit, they also have shortcomings.

“We discovered that results really do differ in terms of what the future impact of climate change will be if you choose one grouping versus another, especially in primary agricultural areas,” Cai explains. “We also found out that none of those groupings is better than any other in predicting what the future outcome will be.”

Cai and Dall’Erba recommend using one of three new statistical approaches that offer county-specific climate-impact estimates. All of these methods are driven by data and start without any assumptions on what the groups will look like. Instead, these methods analyze data to determine both the number of groups and who belongs to what group. These scientific techniques, called C-Lasso, causal forest algorithm, and geographically weighted regressions, have been used for analysis in other fields, such as the labor market and energy conservation, but they have not been used in climate change research before. 

“You really let the data speak for themselves; you do not impose anything on your model. As soon as you start making choices on how one should group the observations, you've already guided your results in one direction. And then you’ll want to defend your choice. We’re hoping future researchers will be more cautious about a priori choices,” Dall’Erba explains.

Dall’Erba and Cai are already working on applying these new approaches to a comprehensive analysis of climate change and U.S. agricultural production. They expect to present their results in a forthcoming paper, and to guide the implementation of place-tailored climate change adaptation strategies.

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The Department of Agricultural and Consumer Economics  and the Center for Climate, Regional, Environmental and Trade Economics (CREATE) are in the College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences, University of Illinois.

The paper, “On the Evaluation of Heterogenous Climate Change Impacts on U.S. Agriculture: Does Group Membership Matter?” is published in Climatic Change. [https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-021-03154-5]. Authors are Chang Cai and Sandy Dall’Erba.

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JOURNAL

Climatic Change

DOI

10.1007/s10584-021-03154-5 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Data/statistical analysis

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Not applicable

ARTICLE TITLE

On the Evaluation of Heterogenous Climate Change Impacts on U.S. Agriculture: Does Group Membership Matter?

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

20-Jul-2021

 

Cross-pollinating physicists use novel technique to improve the design of facilities that aim to harvest fusion energy

Peer-Reviewed Publication

DOE/PRINCETON PLASMA PHYSICS LABORATORY

 

IMAGE: PHYSICIST NIK LOGAN NEXT TO COMPUTER-GENERATED IMAGES OF FUSION PLASMA view more 

CREDIT: ELLE STARKMAN / PPPL OFFICE OF COMMUNICATIONS

Physicists are like bees — they can cross-pollinate, taking ideas from one area and using them to develop breakthroughs in other areas. Scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) have transferred a technique from one realm of plasma physics to another to enable the more efficient design of powerful magnets for doughnut-shaped fusion facilities known as tokamaks. Such magnets confine and control plasma, the fourth state of matter that makes up 99 percent of the visible universe and fuels fusion reactions.

Designing these magnets is not simple, especially when they must be precisely shaped to create complex, three-dimensional magnetic fields to control plasma instabilities. So it is appropriate that the new technique comes from scientists who design stellarators, cruller-shaped fusion devices that require such carefully constructed magnets. In other words, the PPPL scientists are using a stellarator computer code to envision the shape and strength of twisted tokamak magnets that can stabilize tokamak plasmas and survive the extreme conditions expected in a fusion reactor.

This insight could ease the construction of tokamak fusion facilities that bring the power of the sun and stars to Earth. “In the past, it was a journey of discovery,” said Nik Logan, a physicist at the DOE’s Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory who led the research while at PPPL. “You had to build something, test it , and use the data to learn how to design the next experiment. Now we can use these new computational tools to design these magnets more easily, using principles gleaned from years of scientific research.” The results have been reported in a paper published in Nuclear Fusion.

Fusion, the power that drives the sun and stars, combines light elements in the form of plasma — the hot, charged state of matter composed of free electrons and atomic nuclei — that generates massive amounts of energy. Scientists are seeking to replicate fusion on Earth for a virtually inexhaustible supply of power to generate electricity.

The findings could aid the construction of tokamaks by compensating for imprecision that occurs when a machine is translated from a theoretical design to a real-life object, or by applying precisely controlled 3D magnetic fields to suppress plasma instabilities. “The reality of building anything is that it isn’t perfect,” Logan said. “It has small irregularities. The magnets we are designing using this stellarator technique can both correct some of the irregularities that occur in the magnetic fields and control instabilities.” Doing so helps the magnetic field stabilize the plasma so potentially damaging bursts of heat and particles do not occur.

Logan and colleagues also learned that these magnets could act on the plasma even when placed at a relatively large distance of up to several meters from the tokamak’s walls. “That’s good news because the closer the magnets are to the plasma, the more difficult it is to design them to meet the harsh conditions near fusion reactors,” Logan said. “The more equipment we can place at a distance from the tokamak, the better.”

The technique relies on FOCUS, a computer code created mainly by PPPL physicist Caoxiang Zhu, a stellarator optimization scientist, to design complicated magnets for stellarator facilities. “When I was first building FOCUS as a postdoctoral fellow at PPPL, Nik Logan stopped by my poster presentation at an American Physical Society conference,” Zhu said. “Later we had a conversation and realized that there was an opportunity to apply the FOCUS code to tokamak projects.”

The collaboration between different subfields is exciting. “I’m happy to see that my code can be extended to a broader range of experiments,” Zhu noted. “I think this is a beautiful connection between the tokamak and stellarator worlds.”

Though long the number-two fusion facility behind tokamaks, stellarators are now becoming more widely used because they tend to create stable plasmas. Tokamaks are currently the first choice for a fusion reactor design, but their plasmas can develop instabilities that could damage a reactor’s internal components.

Presently, PPPL researchers are using this new technique to design and update magnets for several tokamaks around the world. The roster includes COMPASS-U, a tokamak operated by the Czech Academy of Sciences; and the Korea Superconducting Tokamak Advanced Research (KSTAR) facility.

“It’s a very practical paper that has practical applications, and sure enough we have some takers,” Logan said. “I think the results will be helpful for the future of tokamak design.”

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This research was supported by the DOE (Fusion Energy Sciences).

PPPL, on Princeton University's Forrestal Campus in Plainsboro, N.J., is devoted to creating new knowledge about the physics of plasmas — ultra-hot, charged gases — and to developing practical solutions for the creation of fusion energy. The Laboratory is managed by the University for the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Science, which is the single largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the United States and is working to address some of the most pressing challenges of our time. For more information, visit https://energy.gov/science

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JOURNAL

Nuclear Fusion

DOI

10.1088/1741-4326/abff05