It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Monday, January 17, 2022
Among care organisations, day centres were hit the hardest by corona crisis
The crisis sociology research group of the University of Tartu Institute of Social Studies and European researchers studied how the care organisations of nine European countries coped during the coronavirus crisis, showing their resilience in providing support to people who had fallen into economic difficulties during the crisis or were already in a vulnerable situation.
The organisations reviewed largely had the same adaptation patterns in all countries. The impact of the pandemic was the most drastic for day centres, which had to suspend their services to homeless people, those in economic difficulties or with special needs. Soup kitchens and night shelters were able to continue their work but had to reorganise it a lot. Rehabilitation or resocialisation facilities were the least affected by the pandemic.
Mentally vulnerable clients and, in most European countries, migrants, as well as clients needing social assistance for the first time were the most affected by the pandemic. This caused a surge in the demand for food assistance, accommodation and counselling. Assistance, however, often remained unavailable because the volunteer staff was overburdened in most countries, organisations lacked crisis strategies and national information was scarce.
The study also showed that care organisations coped better in countries where their relationship with the national social welfare system was stronger. Estonia was one of these countries.
Researchers highlighted three recommendations to improve the organisations’ coping with crisis. First, care organisations should have crisis support funds, extra rooms for providing shelter and, psychological counselling for staff to cope with the increased need for assistance during the crisis.
Secondly, care organisations should be involved in the process of the planning of crisis strategies and mitigation measures so these would better meet their clients’ needs.
Thirdly, the employees of care organisations deserve recognition for acting as key intermediaries of official risk and crisis information and creators of an environment promoting safe behaviour, and as organisers of the vaccination of clients.
The study is based on 32 qualitative interviews and three workshops with the managers and staff of the organisations.
BuildERS (Building European Communities’ Resilience and Social Capital) is an international research and development project. Its partners in Estonia are the University of Tartu, Estonian Rescue Board and OÜ Positium. The project focuses on vulnerable groups as well as communities and their capacity to help their members. Its main goal is to increase citizens’ social capital and thereby their resilience. The project is funded by the EU programme Horizon 2020.
Further information:
Kati Orru, Associate Professor of Sociology of Sustainability, University of Tartu, +372 515 8545, kati.orru@ut.ee
Kristi Nero, doctoral student in Sociology, University of Tartu, +372 566 5864, kristi.nero@ut.ee
K. Orru, K. Nero, T.-O. Nævestad, A. Schieffelers, A. Olson, M. Airola, A.Kazemekaityte, G. Lovasz, G. Scurci, J. Ludvigsen, D. A. de los Rios Pérez (2021). Resilience in care organisations: challenges in maintaining support for vulnerable people in Europe during the Covid-19 pandemic. Disasters, https://doi.org/10.1111/disa.12526
IMAGE: UTILITY AND COMMISSION DECISIONS ARE KEY TO ADDRESSING ENERGY EQUITY.view more
CREDIT: CRISTEN FARLEY/BERKELEY LAB
By Kiran Julin
Poring over the line items on your monthly electricity bill may not sound like an enticing way to spend an afternoon, but the way electricity bills are structured has a significant impact on equitable energy access and distribution. For example, fixed fees can have a disproportionate impact on low-income households. And combined with other factors, low-income households and households of color are far more likely to report losing home heating service, according to recent federal data.
Advancing Equity in Utility Regulation, a new report published by the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab), makes a unifying case that utilities, regulators, and stakeholders need to prioritize energy equity in the deployment of clean energy technologies and resources. Equity in this context is the fair distribution of the benefits and burdens of energy production and consumption. The report outlines systemic changes needed to advance equity in electric utility regulation by providing perspectives from four organizations – Portland General Electric, a utility company; the National Consumer Law Center, a consumer advocacy organization; and the Partnership for Southern Equity and the Center for Biological Diversity, social justice and environmental organizations.
“While government and ratepayer-funded energy efficiency programs have made strides towards equity by enabling low-income households to access energy-efficiency measures, that has not yet extended in a major way to other clean-energy technologies,” said Lisa Schwartz, a manager and strategic advisor at Berkeley Lab and technical editor of the report. “States and utilities can take the lead to make sure the clean-energy transition does not leave behind low-income households and communities of color. Decarbonization and energy equity goals are not mutually exclusive, and in fact, they need to go hand-in-hand.”
Energy bills and electricity rates are governed by state laws and utility regulators, whose mission is to ensure that utility services are reliable, safe, and fairly priced. Public utility commissions also are increasingly recognizing equity as an important goal, tool, and metric. While states can use existing authorities to advance equity in their decision-making, several, including Illinois, Maine, Oregon, and Washington, have enacted legislation over the last couple of years to more explicitly require utility regulators to consider equity.
“The infrastructure investments that utility companies make today, and regulator decisions about what goes into electricity bills, will have significant impacts for decades to come,” Schwartz said.
Solutions recommended in the report include considering energy justice goals when determining the "public interest" in regulatory decisions, allocating funding for energy justice organizations to participate in utility proceedings, supporting utility programs that increase deployment of energy efficiency and solar for low-income households, and accounting for energy inequities and access in designing electricity rates.
The report is part of the Future of Electric Utility Regulation series that started in 2015, led by Berkeley Lab and funded by DOE, to encourage informed discussion and debate on tackling the toughest issues related to state electric utility regulation. An advisory group of utilities, public utility commissioners, consumer advocates, environmental and social justice organizations, and other experts provides guidance.
CAPTION
Based on the most recent data (2015) from the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), households with income less than $20,000 reported losing home heating service at a rate more than five times higher than households with income over $80,000. Households of color were far more likely than those with a white householder to report loss of heating service.
CREDIT
John Howat/National Consumer Law Center, using EIA data
Taking stock of past and current energy inequities
One focus of the report is electricity bills. In addition to charges based on usage, electricity bills usually also have a fixed basic customer charge, which is the minimum amount a household has to pay every month to access electricity. The fixed charge varies widely, from $5 to more than $20. In recent years, utility companies have sought sizable increases in this charge to cover more costs.
This fixed charge means that no matter what a household does to use energy more efficiently or to conserve energy, there is always a minimum cost. Moreover, low-income households often live in older, poorly insulated housing. Current levels of public and utility funding for energy-efficiency programs fall far short of the need. The combined result is that the energy burden – or percent of income needed to keep the lights on and their homes at a healthy temperature – is far greater for lower-income households.
“While all households require basic lighting, heating, cooling, and refrigeration, low-income households must devote a greater proportion of income to maintain basic service,” explained John Howat and Jenifer Bosco from the National Consumer Law Center and co-authors of Berkeley Lab’s report. Their analysis of data from the most recent U.S. Energy Information Administration’s Residential Energy Consumption Survey shows households with income less than $20,000 reported losing home heating service at a pace more than five times higher than households with income over $80,000. Households of color were far more likely than those with a white householder to report loss of heating service. In addition, low-income households and households of color are more likely to have to choose between paying their energy bill or paying for other necessities, such as healthcare or food.
Moreover, while many of the infrastructure investment decisions that utilities make, such as whether and where to build a new power plant, often have long-term environmental and health consequences, impacted communities often are not at the table. “Despite bearing an inequitable proportion of the negative impacts of environmental injustices related to fossil fuel-based energy production and climate change, marginalized communities remain virtually unrepresented in the energy planning and decision-making processes that drive energy production, distribution, and regulation,” wrote Chandra Farley, CEO of ReSolve and a co-author of the report.
Engaging impacted communities
Each of the perspectives in the report identify a need for meaningful engagement of underrepresented and disadvantaged communities in energy planning and utility decision-making. “Connecting the dots between energy, racial injustice, economic disinvestment, health disparities, and other associated equity challenges becomes a clarion call for communities that are being completely left out of the clean energy economy,” wrote Farley, who previously served as the Just Energy Director at Partnership for Southern Equity. “We must prioritize the voices and lived experiences of residents if we are to have more equity in utility regulation and equitably transform the energy sector.”
In another essay in the report, Nidhi Thaker and Jake Wise from Portland General Electric identify the importance of collaborating directly with the communities they serve. In 2021, the Oregon Legislature passed Oregon HB 2475, which allows the Oregon Public Utility Commission to allocate ratepayer funding for organizations representing people most affected by a high energy burden, enabling them to participate in utility regulatory processes.
The report explains why energy equity requires correcting inequities resulting from past and present failures as well as rethinking how we achieve future energy and decarbonization goals. "Equity in energy requires adopting an expansive definition of the ‘public interest’ that encompasses energy, climate, and environmental justice. Energy equity also means prioritizing the deployment of distributed energy resources and clean energy technologies in areas that have been hit first and worst by the existing fossil fuel economy,” wrote Jean Su, energy justice director and senior attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity.
This report was supported by DOE’s Grid Modernization Laboratory Consortium, with funding from the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy and the Office of Electricity.
# # #
Founded in 1931 on the belief that the biggest scientific challenges are best addressed by teams,Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and its scientists have been recognized with 14 Nobel Prizes. Today, Berkeley Lab researchers develop sustainable energy and environmental solutions, create useful new materials, advance the frontiers of computing, and probe the mysteries of life, matter, and the universe. Scientists from around the world rely on the Lab’s facilities for their own discovery science. Berkeley Lab is a multiprogram national laboratory, managed by the University of California for the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Science.
DOE’s Office of Science 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, please visitenergy.gov/science.
How Covid-19 pandemic impacted global trust in government
In a week when the UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson has admitted to breaking Covid-19 lockdown rules, a new study has found that impartial, transparent and truthful government communications are fundamental for achieving and maintaining government trust during public health emergencies.
The research, led by the University of Portsmouth, found that in public health emergencies, governments must be accountable, act quickly, and establish frank and timely dialogue with the public to encourage trust and cooperation, and alleviate fear.
The study, published by the British Journal of Management, analysed global data from the International Coronavirus Survey made up of 111,196 respondents across 178 countries between 20 March and 8 April 2020. This research provides the first global evidence that integrated government response policies in conjunction with containment health measures and economic relief are crucial to winning public trust and support.
The researchers found that the effectiveness of these measures and restrictions depended on cooperation from individuals, founded in public trust.
Professor Jia Liu said: “Trust has been researched extensively, in different settings from diverse perspectives, however government measures and how they impact public trust have not been studied on a global scale, nor in the context of a public health emergency.
“We investigated what factors determined public trust when governments undertook counteractive measures at the outset of the Covid-19 pandemic, providing vital insights for managing the crisis and its aftermath.
“We found that individuals are positively influenced by the fairness, effectiveness and accountability of government agencies, plus public information campaigns. Honest communications keep citizens informed, help them to understand the pandemic, prevent scepticism and strengthen trust in government.”
Policies introduced to contain outbreaks including restrictions, testing, and contact tracing, mitigated the perceived threat of the virus and reduced the public’s sense of vulnerability and uncertainty. Economic support for employees and businesses also increased public trust, relieving fears that individuals would be unable to survive financially during the pandemic. These measures demonstrated a commitment from governments to meet citizens’ expectations to safeguard their health and economic wellbeing.
Researchers found that containment of the disease was hugely impactful on public trust in government. Countries that enforced strict restrictions, including China, were found to have an increased sense of public trust, as they enabled effective containment of the virus from the outset. However in places that did not strictly enforce lockdowns and restrictions, such as Sweden, public trust was seen to decrease. The government's hands off approach, suspension of contact tracing and delays in government responses all contributed to this shared distrust.
While restrictions initially increased public trust, the more they went on the further they impacted people’s social freedoms causing stress, anxiety and even resentment, provoking rebellious behaviour, and sparking a distrust in the government.
Countries who have experienced previous public health emergencies including SARS and Swine Flu, were found to be far more compliant in the effort to prevent the spread of Covid-19. Government and the public had learnt from previous crises, reconfigured their welfare systems, and become more equipped to counter pandemics, including making citizens aware of the need to have severe restrictions placed upon them in times of crisis.
Professor Jia Liu said: “To overcome the global nature of the crisis and stimulate economic recovery, nations must work together openly and honestly with politicians, indicating unprecedented levels of mutual trust.
“The ‘we are all in this together’ mantra must never be forgotten and the spirit of communitarianism this invokes must become the coordinated international responses to pandemic.
“The creation of such a global alliance will empower countries in struggles against all future public emergencies, including threats to mankind posed by global warming.”
UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO, ROTMAN SCHOOL OF MANAGEMENT
IMAGE: THE STUDY LOOKED AT THE RESULTS FROM RAPID ANTIGEN TESTS THAT WERE ADMINISTRATED AS AN EXTRA LAYER OF PROTECTION TO CONTROL TRANSMISSION IN WORKPLACES THROUGHOUT CANADA BY THE CREATIVE DESTRUCTION LAB RAPID SCREENING CONSORTIUM (CDL RSC). THE CONSORTIUM IS AN UNPRECEDENTED COLLABORATION AMONG BUSINESSES, RESEARCHERS, AND GOVERNMENT WORKING TOGETHER TO PROMOTE THE LAUNCH OF WORKPLACE RAPID SCREENING ACROSS CANADA TO REOPEN THE ECONOMY IN A SAFE WAY. THE CREATIVE DESTRUCTION LAB (CDL) DELIVERS A SEED-STAGE PROGRAM FOR MASSIVELY SCALABLE, SCIENCE-BASED COMPANIES AND WAS FOUNDED AT THE UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO’S ROTMAN SCHOOL OF MANAGEMENT.view more
CREDIT: CDL RSC
January 14, 2022
Canadian Study Shows Low Incident of False Positive Test Results from Rapid Antigen Tests.
Toronto – A timely new study investigated the incidence of false-positive results in a large sample of rapid antigen tests used to serially screen asymptomatic workers throughout Canada. The study, published in JAMA,an international peer-reviewed general medical journal, showed the overall rate of false-positive results among the total rapid antigen test screens for SARS-CoV-2 was very low.
The study looked at the results from rapid antigen tests that were administrated as an extra layer of protection to control transmission in workplaces throughout Canada by the Creative Destruction Lab Rapid Screening Consortium (CDL RSC). The Consortium is an unprecedented collaboration among businesses, researchers, and government working together to promote the launch of workplace rapid screening across Canada to reopen the economy in a safe way. The Creative Destruction Lab (CDL) delivers a seed-stage program for massively scalable, science-based companies and was founded at the University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management.
Authors of the study were Professor Ajay Agrawal, founder of the CDL and Geoffrey Taber Chair in Entrepreneurship and Innovation at the Rotman School; Professor Joshua Gans, Chief Economist of the CDL and Jeffrey S. Skoll Chair in Technical Innovation and Entrepreneurship at the Rotman School; Professor Avi Goldfarb, Chief Data Scientist at the CDL and the Rotman Chair in Artificial Intelligence and Healthcare at the Rotman School; Sonia Sennik, executive director of CDL and CDL RSC; Professor Janice Stein, vice-president, strategy at CDL RSC and founding director of UofT’s Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy; and Professor Laura Rosella, vice president, health at CDL RSC and Canada Research Chair in Population Health Analytics at UofT’s Dalla Lana School of Public Health.
The study examined rapid antigen tests conducted by employees from January 11 to October 13, 2021, with some workplaces providing at-home screening and others on-site screening programs. Over this period, Canada experienced two significant variant–driven waves from March to June and August to October. The study found only .05% of over 900,000 tests administered had false-positive results.
The study also revealed that a cluster of false-postives at two workplaces was likely the result of manufacturing issues rather than implementation and demonstrate the importance of having a comprehensive data system to quickly identify potential issues. With the ability to identify batch issues within 24 hours, workers could return to work, problematic test batches could be discarded, and the public health authorities and manufacturer could be informed.
Bringing together high-impact faculty research and thought leadership on one searchable platform, the new Rotman Insights Hub offers articles, podcasts, opinions, books and videos representing the latest in management thinking and providing insights into the key issues facing business and society. Visit www.rotman.utoronto.ca/insightshub.
The Rotman School of Management is part of the University of Toronto, a global centre of research and teaching excellence at the heart of Canada’s commercial capital. Rotman is a catalyst for transformative learning, insights and public engagement, bringing together diverse views and initiatives around a defining purpose: to create value for business and society. For more information, visit www.rotman.utoronto.ca.
False-Positive Results in Rapid Antigen Tests for SARS-CoV-2
ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE
7-Jan-2022
COI STATEMENT
All authors are members of the Steering Committee of the Creative Destruction Lab Rapid Screening Consortium (CDL RSC; a nonprofit organization in Canada). Dr Agrawal reported serving on the boards of Genpact and Sanctuary.
Repeated exposure to major disasters has long-term mental health impacts
Repeated exposure to major disasters does not make people mentally stronger, a recent study from the Texas A&M University School of Public Health found: individuals who have been repeatedly exposed to major disasters show a reduction in mental health scores.
Additionally, the research team found that the more experience the individuals had with such events, the lower their mental health was.
Sansom and a team of Texas A&M researchers studied individuals from the Houston area, which is susceptible to hurricanes and flooding as well as industrial emergencies. The results of the study were published recently in the journal Natural Hazards.
From 2000 to 2020, Texas — one of the states most prone to natural disasters — experienced 33 Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) declared major disasters. Many of these — hurricanes, winter weather, drought and flooding — impacted the Houston area. The area has also been impacted by emergencies such as explosions and chemical releases at nearby industrial facilities.
According to the research team, the combination of natural disasters and emergencies from industrial facilities presents a unique opportunity to observe the impacts.
“There is an unfortunate truth that many communities that reside along the Gulf Coast are at the nexus of exposures from natural and anthropogenic, or human-caused, hazards,” Sansom said.
The team used a 12-item short form health survey to gather information. The survey assessed cumulative impacts from exposure to evaluate changes over time, producing a composite score for both mental (MCS) and physical (PCS) health.
The majority of the respondents reported that they experienced many hazardous events over the past five years. Hurricanes and flooding (96.35 percent) were the events experienced the most, followed by industrial fires (96.08), chemical spills (86.84) and tornados (79.82).
The team found that when individuals experienced two or more events over the past five years, their MCS averages fell below the expected national levels.
“Mental health is often overlooked in responding to and preparing for hazard exposures,” Sansom said. “However, in order to reach community resilience efforts, mental conditions need to be accounted for.”
The results of the study help to reveal the long-term mental impact hazards can have. More importantly, they underscore the need for public health interventions targeted toward these individuals as well as the communities where they reside.
The 4,500-year-old iconography and texts from Mesopotamia show that the elite used equids for travel and warfare; however, the nature of these animals remained mysterious. In Science Advances (January 14, 2022) a team from the Institut Jacques Monod (CNRS/Université de Paris) used ancient DNA to show that these animals were the result of crossing domestic donkeys with wild asses. This makes them the oldest known example of animal hybrids, which were produced by Syro-Mesopotamian societies 500 years before the arrival of domestic horses in the region.
Equids have played a key role in the evolution of warfare throughout history. Although domesticated horses did not appear in the Fertile Crescent until about 4,000 years ago1, the Sumerians had already been using equid-drawn four-wheeled war wagons on the battlefield for centuries, as evidenced by the famous "Standard of Ur", a 4,500-year-old Sumerian mosaic (see photo). Cuneiform clay tablets from this period also mention prestigious equids with a high market value called "kunga"; however, the precise nature of this animal has been the subject of controversy for decades.
A team of palaeogeneticists from the Institut Jacques Monod (CNRS/Université de Paris) has addressed this question by studying the equid genomes from the 4,500-year-old princely burial complex of Umm el-Marra (northern Syria). On the basis of morphological and archaeological criteria, these animals, buried in separate installations, have been proposed to be the prestigious "kungas" by an archaeozoologist from the United States.
CAPTION
Enclosure D with T-shaped pillars at Göbekli Tepe, south-east of present-day Turkey. This archaeological site includes the world's oldest known temple.
Although degraded, the genome of these animals could be compared to those of other equids: horses, domestic donkeys and wild asses of the hemione family, specially sequenced for this study. The latter includes the remains of an 11,000-year-old equid from the oldest known temple, Göbekli Tepe (south-east of present-day Turkey), and the last representatives of Syrian wild asses that disappeared in the early 20th century. According to the analyses, the equids of Umm el-Marra are first generation hybrids resulting from the cross of a domestic donkey and a male hemione. As kungas were sterile and the hemiones were wild, it was necessary each time to cross a domestic female with a previously captured hemione (capture represented on an Assyrian bas-relief from Nineveh).
Rather than domesticating the wild horses that populated the region, the Sumerians produced and used hybrids, combining the qualities of the two parents to produce offspring that were stronger and faster than donkeys (and much faster than horses) but more controllable than hemiones. These kungas were eventually supplanted by the arrival of the domestic horse, which was easier to reproduce, when it was imported to the region from the Pontic Steppe.
CAPTION
Umm el-Marra (northern Syria) is a 4,500-year-old princely burial complex. Several equids have been found on the site, buried in their own installations.
IMAGE: ADDRESSING ONE OF THE MOST PROFOUNDLY UNANSWERED QUESTIONS IN BIOLOGY, A RUTGERS-LED TEAM HAS DISCOVERED THE STRUCTURES OF PROTEINS THAT MAY BE RESPONSIBLE FOR THE ORIGINS OF LIFE IN THE PRIMORDIAL SOUP OF ANCIENT EARTH.view more
CREDIT: RUTGERS
New Brunswick, N.J. (Jan. 14, 2022) – Addressing one of the most profoundly unanswered questions in biology, a Rutgers-led team has discovered the structures of proteins that may be responsible for the origins of life in the primordial soup of ancient Earth.
The study appears in the journal Science Advances.
The researchers explored how primitive life may have originated on our planet from simple, non-living materials. They asked what properties define life as we know it and concluded that anything alive would have needed to collect and use energy, from sources such as the Sun or hydrothermal vents.
In molecular terms, this would mean that the ability to shuffle electrons was paramount to life. Since the best elements for electron transfer are metals (think standard electrical wires) and most biological activities are carried out by proteins, the researchers decided to explore the combination of the two — that is, proteins that bind metals.
They compared all existing protein structures that bind metals to establish any common features, based on the premise that these shared features were present in ancestral proteins and were diversified and passed down to create the range of proteins we see today.
Evolution of protein structures entails understanding how new folds arose from previously existing ones, so the researchers designed a computational method that found the vast majority of currently existing metal-binding proteins are somewhat similar regardless of the type of metal they bind to, the organism they come from or the functionality assigned to the protein as a whole.
“We saw that the metal-binding cores of existing proteins are indeed similar even though the proteins themselves may not be,” said the study’s lead author Yana Bromberg, a professor in the Department of Biochemistry and Microbiology at Rutgers University-New Brunswick. “We also saw that these metal-binding cores are often made up of repeated substructures, kind of like LEGO blocks. Curiously, these blocks were also found in other regions of the proteins, not just metal-binding cores, and in many other proteins that were not considered in our study. Our observation suggests that rearrangements of these little building blocks may have had a single or a small number of common ancestors and given rise to the whole range of proteins and their functions that are currently available -- that is, to life as we know it.”
“We have very little information about how life arose on this planet, and our work contributes a previously unavailable explanation,” said Bromberg, whose research focuses on deciphering the DNA blueprints of life’s molecular machinery. “This explanation could also potentially contribute to our search for life on other planets and planetary bodies. Our finding of the specific structural building blocks is also possibly relevant for synthetic biology efforts, where scientists aim to construct specifically active proteins anew.”
The study, funded by NASA, also included researchers from the University of Buenos Aires.
###
Broadcast interviews: Rutgers University has broadcast-quality TV and radio studios available for remote live or taped interviews with Rutgers experts. For more information, contact John Cramer at john.cramer@rutgers.edu
ABOUT RUTGERS—NEW BRUNSWICK Rutgers University–New Brunswick is where Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey, began more than 250 years ago. Ranked among the world’s top 60 universities, Rutgers’s flagship is a leading public research institution and a member of the prestigious Association of American Universities. It has an internationally acclaimed faculty, 12 degree-granting schools and the Big Ten Conference’s most diverse student body.
JOURNAL
Science Advances
ARTICLE TITLE
Quantifying structural relationships of metal-binding sites suggests origins of biological electron transfer
