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
Load up the hydrogen but hold the carbon
KyotoU-led collaboration yields clean hydrogen from solar power and wood chips
Kyoto, Japan -- In the global race to curb climate change and reduce carbon emissions, hydrogen is considered a serious contender to replace fossil fuels. Although hydrogen 'burns' cleanly, with only water as a by-product, the current way of making hydrogen a reliable fuel alternative is energy- and carbon-intensive. Whether water is split with electricity or hydrogen is released from fossil fuels or other hydrocarbon sources, every step forward in making hydrogen is accompanied by at least two steps back in terms of associated CO2 emissions. In some processes, every kilogram of hydrogen is accompanied by almost 30 kilograms of CO2 output. Now, a Kyoto University-led team of international researchers has developed a novel hydrogen plant design that draws on fully renewable resources to produce the lowest amount of associated CO2 reported to date. They have published their proposal in the International Journal of Hydrogen Energy. "Solar energy is the obvious candidate for driving any hydrogen production, but the problem has often been that sunlight is too intermittent," says author Shutaro Takeda. The team's novel approach of using solar heating to gasify biomass looks to be the most effective and practical way of making hydrogen with a low carbon footprint. They are working on combining two different systems to create a new type of hydrogen facility called the solar-driven advanced biomass indirect-gasification hydrogen production plant, or SABI-Hydrogen plant. First, to effectively capture sunlight, they chose an arrangement of special mirrors, called heliostats, that focus light onto a receiver at the top of a tower structure. Under these conditions, a heat-transfer material in the receiver can reach temperatures up to 1,000 degrees Celsius. Next, this heat is transferred from the receiver to the gasifier part of the system, where a vessel containing wood chips as biomass is intensely heated in the absence of oxygen. Rather than burning by combustion, the wood chips are converted to a mixture of gases containing a large proportion of hydrogen. Alternatively, in the absence of solar heating, this gasifier could also be heated conventionally by burning fuel to deliver heat to the system. Finally, the team assessed the overall environmental impact of the design, based on an international standard impact assessment method, ReCiPe2016. The result showed that the SABI-Hydrogen system would only emit 1.04 kg of CO2 per kg of hydrogen produced: the smallest value among all existing hydrogen production methods. Takeda sees nature as our greatest resource and gives us everything we need to combat global warming. "Our modeling shows that using solar power and biomass resources from managed forests could allow us to make hydrogen sustainably and with a low environmental impact," he concludes.
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The paper "Low-carbon energy transition with the sun and forest: Solar-driven hydrogen production from biomass" appeared 22 December 2021 in the International Journal of Hydrogen Energy, with doi: 10.1016/j.ijhydene.2021.11.203
About Kyoto University Kyoto University is one of Japan and Asia's premier research institutions, founded in 1897 and responsible for producing numerous Nobel laureates and winners of other prestigious international prizes. A broad curriculum across the arts and sciences at both undergraduate and graduate levels is complemented by numerous research centers, as well as facilities and offices around Japan and the world. For more information please see: http://www.kyoto-u.ac.jp/en
As the number of electric cars on the road grows, so does the need for their electric vehicle (EV) charging stations and the Internet-based managing systems within those stations. However, these managing systems face their own issues: cybersecurity attacks.
Elias Bou-Harb, director of the UTSA Cyber Center for Security and Analytics, and his colleagues—Claud Fachkha of the University of Dubai and Tony Nasr, Sadegh Torabi and Chadi Assim of Concordia University in Montreal—are shedding light on the vulnerabilities of these cyber systems. The researchers are also recommending measures that would protect them from harm.
The systems built into electric cars perform critical duties over the Internet, including remote monitoring and customer billing, as do a growing number of internet-enabled EV charging stations.
Bou-Harb and his fellow researchers wanted to explore the real-life implications of cyber-attacks against EV charging systems and how to utilize cybersecurity countermeasures to mitigate them. His team also assessed how exploited systems can attack critical infrastructure such as the power grid.
“Electrical vehicles are the norm nowadays. However, their management stations are susceptible to security exploitations,” said Bou-Harb, who is an associate professor in the Carlos Alvarez College of Business’ Department of Information Systems and Cyber Security. “In this work, we endeavored to uncover their related security weaknesses and understand their consequences on electrical vehicles and the smart grid while providing recommendations and sharing our findings with relevant industry for proactive security remediation.”
The team identified 16 electrical vehicle charging managing systems, which they divided into separate categories such as firmware, mobile, and web apps. They performed an in-depth security analysis on each one.
“We devised a system lookup and collection approach to identify a large number of electrical vehicle charging systems, then leveraged reverse engineering and white-/black-box web application penetration testing techniques to perform a thorough vulnerability analysis,” Bou-Harb said.
The team discovered a range of vulnerabilities amongst the 16 systems and highlighted the 13 most severe vulnerabilities such as missing authentication and cross-site scripting. By exploiting these vulnerabilities, attackers can cause several issues, including manipulating the firmware or disguising themselves as actual users and accessing user data.
According to a recent white paper by the researchers, “While it is possible to conduct different attacks on various entities within the electrical vehicle ecosystem, in this work, we focus on investigating large-scale attacks that have severe impact on the compromised charging station, its user and the connected power grid.”
During this project, the team developed several security measures, guidelines and best practices for developers to mitigate cyber-attacks. They also created countermeasures to patch each individual vulnerability they found.
To prevent a mass attack on the power grid, the researchers are recommending that the developers patch existing vulnerabilities but also incorporate initial security measures during the manufacturing of the charging stations.
“Many industry members have already acknowledged the vulnerabilities that we uncovered,” Bou-Harb said. “This information will help immunize these charging stations to protect the public and provide recommendations for future security solutions in the context of EVs and the smart grid.”
The researchers plan to continue analyzing more charging stations to further understand their security posture. They are also working with several industry partners to help shape new security products from the design phase and to develop security resiliency measures that protect vulnerable charging stations from exploitation.
IMAGE: COLOR CONTRASTS THAT MAY BE VISIBLE TO THE MALE JUMPING SPIDER SAITIS BARBIPES, LEFT, COMPARED TO BIRDS AND PEOPLE, RIGHT. INSTEAD OF THE VIVID RED WE SEE ON ITS FACE AND LEGS, THE JUMPING SPIDER SEES A BRILLIANT "SPIDER GREEN."view more
CREDIT: MATEUSZ GLENSZCZYK AND CYNTHIA TEDORE
Jumping spiders, the flamboyant dandies of the eight-legged set, have names inspired by peacocks, cardinals and other colorful icons.
But University of Cincinnati associate professor Nathan Morehouse and an international team of researchers led by Cynthia Tedore at the University of Hamburg found that one jumping spider might have little appreciation for its own vivid splendor.
Morehouse examined Saitis barbipes, a common jumping spider found in Europe and North Africa. Males have a furry red crown and legs. Their coloration seems to complement their elaborate courtship dances to woo discerning females.
“We assumed they were using color for communication. But we didn’t know if their visual system even allowed them to see those colors,” said David Outomuro, a UC postdoctoral researcher now at the University of Pittsburgh.
Outomuro was first co-author of the study with Mateusz Glenszczyk, a researcher from the University of Hamburg.
Biologists collected spiders in Slovenia for lab study in Germany and used microspectrophotometry at UC to identify photoreceptors sensitive to various light wavelengths or colors. Unexpectedly, they found no evidence of a red photoreceptor. Likewise, they looked for colored filters within the eye that might shift green sensitivity to red, but found none.
Instead, they identified patches on the spider that strongly absorb ultraviolet wavelengths to appear as bright “spider green” to other jumping spiders. The red colors that are so vivid to us likely appear no different than black markings to jumping spiders.
“It’s a bit of a head-scratcher what’s going on here,” professor Morehouse said. “We haven’t solved the mystery of what the red is doing.”
University of Cincinnati associate professor Nathan Morehouse and postdoctoral researcher David Outomuro used microspectrophotometry to examine the color vision of jumping spiders.
CREDIT
ay Yocis/UC Creative
Animals use color in all sorts of ways, including camouflage, warning potential predators of their toxicity, showing off to potential mates or intimidating rivals. But it’s not always apparent what bright colors might signify, Morehouse said.
“We spent a lot of time talking about it as a group. What else could it be? I feel there’s an interesting story behind the mystery,” he said.
The results were surprising, said senior author Tedore, a research associate at the University of Hamburg.
“Males have bold red and black coloration on their forward-facing body surfaces which they display during their courtship dances; whereas, females lack red coloration altogether,” she said. “This initially suggested to us that the red color must play some role in mate attraction.
“Instead, we found that red and black are perceived equivalently, or nearly so, by these spiders and that if red is perceived as different from black, it is perceived as a dark ‘spider green’ rather than red,” Tedore said.
The spider’s red and black colors might improve defensive camouflage, the study suggested.
“For predators with red vision, at natural viewing distances, the spider's red and black color patches should blur together to become an intermediate orangish-brownish color, which would help the spider blend in with its leaf litter habitat better than all-black coloration would,” Tedore said.
Many colorful jumping spiders see red perfectly well. And paradoxically, some drab-colored spiders also have excellent color vision.
“We thought it would be a tidy project. Colorful spiders can see many colors,” researcher Outomuro said.
CAPTION
University of Cincinnati associate professor Nathan Morehouse worked with a team of international partners to examine the color vision of a jumping spider.
CREDIT
Jay Yocis/UC Creative
But this discovery, Morehouse said, is a reminder of how animals can sometimes perceive the world in ways far different from us. For example, sunscreen absorbs ultraviolet light extremely well, but we never notice because we can’t see that spectrum.
“If aliens were to study us, they might ask, ‘Why did they paint their bodies with strongly UV absorbing colors when they went on the beach?’ We have no perception of ultraviolet light, so we have no idea we’re creating these strong ultraviolet colors when we put sunscreen on,” Morehouse said.
Morehouse is director of UC’s new Institute for Research in Sensing, which examines the way we and other animals perceive the world.
“What does a wind turbine or a car window or a high-rise look like to a bird that might run into it?” he asked.
“We need to consider their perceptual worlds to coexist. But I also think it’s inherently fascinating to imagine our ways into the lives of animals that experience the world in a way that is completely alien to us.”
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.
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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.
