US to Simplify Offshore Wind Regulations to Meet Climate Goals

 The U.S. Department of the Interior will reform its regulations for the development of wind energy facilities on the country's outer continental shelf to help meet crucial climate goals, it said in a statement on Thursday.

The proposed rule changes would save developers a projected $1 billion over a 20-year period by streamlining burdensome processes, clarifying ambiguous provisions, and lowering compliance costs, , the statement said.

"Updating these regulations will facilitate the safe and efficient development of offshore wind energy resources, provide certainty to developers and help ensure a fair return to the U.S. taxpayers," U.S. Interior Secretary Deb Haaland said in the release.

The reforms come days after the department named Elizabeth Klein, a lawyer who worked in the Obama and Clinton administrations, to head its Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM), overseeing offshore oil, gas and wind development.

As part of its offshore clean energy program, the BOEM has over the past two years approved the first two commercial scale offshore wind projects in the United States, held three lease auctions including the first-ever sale off the coast of California, and explored extending offshore wind to other areas like the Gulf of Mexico.

The department expects to hold as many as four more auctions and review at least 16 new commercial facilities by 2025, adding more than 22 gigawatts (GW) of renewable energy.

In September last year, President Joe Biden's administration set a goal of having 15 GW of floating offshore wind capacity by 2035 to accelerate development of next-generation floating wind farms in line with its target of permitting 30 GW of offshore wind by 2030.

https://www.voanews.com/a/us-to-simplify-offshore-wind-regulations-to-meet-climate-goals/6917059.html

Meme stocks start 2023 on high note, though ride is bumpy

 Resurgent risk appetite among some investors is fueling rallies in the shares of so-called meme stocks this month after a crushing year for equities, though many analysts are skeptical the most recent moves will last.

The volatility often associated with meme stocks has been on display this week. Shares of Bed Bath & Beyond, which had soared earlier in the week, fell more than 30% on Friday. The New York Times reported that the company is in talks with private equity firm Sycamore Partners for the sale of its assets as part of a possible bankruptcy process.

The company's shares are still up 45% this month, after hitting a three-decade low last week when the retailer warned it could seek bankruptcy protection.

Carvana Co shares, meanwhile, are up nearly 50% this month amid heavy short interest, despite reversing some of those gains on Friday. Shares of older meme stocks have joined in the rally, with GameStop Corp up 11% and AMC Entertainment Holdings Inc up around 24%.

A 1,600% rise in shares of GameStop in early 2021 first put the spotlight on meme stocks and the retail investors that helped drive many of their rallies as they coordinated in forums such as Reddit’s WallStreetBets. Though many of those initial rallies have since sputtered, meme stocks have seen a number of short-lived rebounds since then, often coinciding with resurging risk appetite in broader markets.

Signs of easing inflation that some investors believe may push the Federal Reserve to end its rate increases sooner than projected appear to be contributing to the latest moves in meme stocks while also helping push up the S&P 500, which is up 3.5% this year. The index fell more than 19% in 2022.

"When we get a little bit of easing in inflation expectations … risk appetite comes back on and retail investors tend to pile into [meme stocks] in hopes of this lottery-like payoff," said Garrett DeSimone, head of quantitative research at OptionMetrics.

Meanwhile, the Cboe Volatility Index, known as Wall Street’s fear gauge because it reflects demand for downside protection, was recently at 18.3, near its lowest level since Jan '22.

"The rally in risk assets has carried meme stocks in its wake," said Jason Benowitz, senior portfolio manager at CI Roosevelt.

Also, “investors who sold for tax reasons in late 2022 might be reinvesting in early 2023," he said.

Analysts at Vanda Research noted that January and February tend to be among the strongest months for retail inflows.

“Moreover, retail investors tend to rev up their purchases heading into the earnings reporting season, as heightened volatility presents more opportunities for attractive returns,” Vanda’s analysts wrote.

Market participants are quick to warn that similar rallies in meme stocks - as well as broader markets - have crumbled in the last year. GameStop shares are down more than 75% from their peak, while Bed Bath & Beyond shares, which surged to above $20 last year, quickly reversed those gains. A number of bounces in the S&P 500 last year also crumbled.

Despite the renewed buying from retail investors, "the hurdle to reach previous net-flow highs looks difficult, and any meme stock mania is poised to be short-lived, in our view," Vanda analysts wrote.

https://www.yahoo.com/now/1-meme-stocks-start-2023-185603827.html

CDC Says Stroke Concerns Over Pfizer Jab Warrant Investigation

 The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) says that data collected on the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine merits an investigation into potential stroke risks for people aged 65 and older.

"Following the availability and use of the updated (bivalent) COVID-19 vaccines, CDC’s Vaccine Safety Datalink (VSD), a near real-time surveillance system, met the statistical criteria to prompt additional investigation into whether there was a safety concern for ischemic stroke in people ages 65 and older who received the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 Vaccine, Bivalent," reads a Friday statement.

"Rapid-response investigation of the signal in the VSD raised a question of whether people 65 and older who have received the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 Vaccine, Bivalent were more likely to have an ischemic stroke in the 21 days following vaccination compared with days 22-44 following vaccination," the release continues.

The bivalent vaccine includes "a component of the original virus strain to provide broad protection against COVID-19 and a component of the omicron variant to provide better protection against COVID-19 caused by the omicron variant," according to the FDA.

The agency notably did not see the same "preliminary signal" that prompted the investigation in the Moderna vaccine.

The agency added that it's "very unlikely that the signal in VSD represents a true clinical risk," and doesn't recommend any changes to vaccine protocols at this time.

According to Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA), who chairs the House Commmerce Committee, has called on the CDC to "rapidly investigate" the matter.

"The lack of transparency over the past three years has broken Americans’ trust in our public health agencies," said McMorris in a Friday statement. "CDC and FDA have systems in place to monitor vaccine safety that have identified this preliminary signal."

"Now these agencies must rapidly investigate, in an open and transparent manner, whether or not the vaccine may have contributed to the reported strokes."

https://www.zerohedge.com/medical/cdc-says-stroke-concerns-over-pfizer-jab-warrant-investigation

NYC’s Housing Works sells weed while helping clients quit smoking tobacco

 Legal pot peddler Housing Works boasts that it “loves” drug users — but puts it’s foot down when it comes to addicts puffing tobacco, a review of city documents shows.

The organization, which assists New Yorkers with HIV and AIDS — and pushes controversial “harm reduction” for junkies — has received $80 million in taxpayer funding since 2018 to run housing programs and provide services that include substance abuse treatment.

But the group, which has signs in its thrift shops saying it loves “people who use drugs” is required under its city agreements to help its clients quit cigarettes.

The group’s city contracts to run a 12-unit supportive housing program in Bedford-Stuyvesant and a two-unit building in Harlem say Housing Works must help tenants “in accessing and navigating services to address use of nicotine products.”

“Staff will conduct smoking cessation assessments on an annual basis, incorporate smoking cessation goals into service plans, and make referrals for the appropriate service needs for the tenant,” according to a copies of the contracts reviewed by The Post.

Meanwhile, offshoot Housing Works Cannabis Co., became the first state licensed shop to sell recreational weed when it opened in Greenwich Village on Dec. 29. The storefront sells edible gummies as well as “flower” and pre-rolled joints with names such as “La Bomba” and “Wedding Cake” for easy smoking.

Buyers line up to buy at Housing Works Cannabis Co.

Helayne Seidman

Products for sale at the Housing Works Cannabis Co.

Corbis via Getty Images

This is even as the marijuana sold today is considered stronger than in years past. A recent study found a 1,808% increase in cannabis-related emergency room visits by California seniors.

“It seems like that they’re trying to pass the dutchie in both directions,” said City Councilman Joe Borelli (R-Staten Island).

Housing Works is one of three nonprofits that won state cannabis licenses and also offers drug treatment or requires sobriety for its clients, a move one lawmaker called “mind blowing.”

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Employees preparing for the opening of Housing Works Cannabis Co. dispensary.

Helayne Seidman

A sign inside of the dispensary calling for the end of the “drug war.”

Helayne Seidman

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A sign calling for the end of the “stigma” around using drugs.

Helayne Seidman

A vape pen and pre-roll joints available at Housing Works.

Helayne Seidman

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At the Bed-Stuy site, Housing Works is also required by the city to provide substance abuse services by employing a counselor to use a “harm reduction” approach to treatment. That controversial approach, which includes safe drug injections, has led critics to say it does little to reduce drug addiction.

The city also requires Housing Works to offer support groups for residents at the housing site to aid in their recovery, with Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous given as examples. Both groups focus on abstinence.

Housing Works, in addressing the irony of a drug treatment provider selling pot, has said “we respect the rights of people who use drugs.”

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Customers showing their purchases at Housing Works Cannabis Co. on January 4, 2023.

Helayne Seidman

A customer outside of the Manhattan dispensary.

Helayne Seidman

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The city’s contracts with Housing Works have ballooned since the pandemic started, according to data obtained from the city comptroller’s office.

The organization took in $37.3 million during the 2022 fiscal year, up from $2.3 million in 2019. It has received $20.5 million in the current fiscal year.

In total, Housing Works has received $79.9 million since July 1, 2018, with most of it — $56.6 million — for pandemic-related work including COVID-19 testing and vaccinations, records show

Housing Works did not return a request for comment.

https://nypost.com/2023/01/14/nycs-housing-works-sells-weed-while-helping-clients-quit-smoking-tobacco/

Sugar-linked discovery has potential for effective new virus and cancer drug treatments

 Scientists have discovered sugar-based molecules can be used to block activity of a receptor in cells that are involved in the development a range of viral infections and cancer.

Researchers from the University of Nottingham’s Schools of Pharmacy and Life Sciences have found a new mechanism to block activity of the Mannose Receptor (also called CD206) that is present in a number of key immune cells. Their findings have been published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society.

Drs Giuseppe Mantovani and Luisa Martinez-Pomares from the University of Nottingham led the study and explain: “Therapies that block or change the immune response are already revolutionising the treatment of many cancers and inflammatory diseases and being investigated for use in some viral and bacterial infections.  CD206 is an important receptor in cells for immunity but can be hijacked by viruses, including Hepatitis B, Dengue Virus and HIV-1, and some cancers. For the first time we have found a family of molecules that specifically target and block the activity of this receptor which could lead to new drug developments.”

The Mannose Receptor is present at the surface of key immune cells such as tissue macrophages – the specialised cells involved in the detection, and destruction of bacteria and other harmful organisms – and works by binding a range of molecules – e.g. specific sugars that decorate pathogens, as well as host molecules that need to be cleared from the circulation such as collagen.

Drs Mantovani and Martinez-Pomares designed synthetic multivalent sugar molecules (glycopolymers) that block the ability of the Mannose Receptor to shuttle between the surface of the cell and internal cellular compartments, literally trapping the receptor within the cell and inhibiting its function. This has exciting implications for potential new treatments as the Mannose Receptor is an important therapeutic target in cancer and infectious diseases. 

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JOURNAL

Journal of the American Chemical Society

DOI

10.1021/jacs.2c10757 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Experimental study

ARTICLE TITLE

Sulfation at Glycopolymer Side Chains Switches Activity at the Macrophage Mannose Receptor (CD206) In Vitro and In Vivo

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

6-Dec-2022

https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/976293

Fixing ‘fundamental flaw,’ improving pandemic prediction model

 Researchers from North Carolina State University identified and addressed a flaw in a commonly used pandemic model that can cause the model to severely underestimate disease spread. By modifying parts of an existing model, the researchers substantially improved its accuracy when compared to real world data on the spread of the COVID-19 Omicron variant.

When public health experts want to predict the spread of infectious diseases such as COVID-19, they use a mathematical model known as a compartmental model. These models segment a population into different groups, or compartments, based on disease status: susceptible, exposed, infected and removed. Each group has an equation associated with it, and each equation contains certain parameters. By filling in the values for each parameter within the equations and solving the compartmental model, health officials create a forecast of disease spread.

One of the most important parameters in a stochastic compartmental model is contact rate, which (roughly speaking) quantifies on average how many people an individual comes into contact with at a particular time. This parameter is also one of the most difficult to measure, due to its uncertainty: no one really knows how many contacts each person in the model might make on a given day. What is more, this number of contacts per day is not constant, but fluctuates over time.

“One of the biggest challenges in modeling is dealing with uncertain parameters,” says Mohammad Farazmand, assistant professor of mathematics at NC State and corresponding author of the research.

“One way that models deal with these uncertainties is to add random fluctuations, or noise, to the model so that the parameter value fluctuates just as it would in the real world. But we found that doing so doesn’t reproduce reality as well as we thought.”

When Farazmand and postdoctoral researcher Konstantinos Mamis compared a standard stochastic compartmental model of the COVID-19 Omicron variant to actual data from the Johns Hopkins University COVID-19 database, they found that the model under-predicted disease spread. More strikingly, the higher the uncertainty, that is, the more noise added to the model, the less severe the pandemic appeared.

So Farazmand and Mamis looked at why this might be the case. They found that the flaw was in the type of noise, or uncertainty, being added to the model.

“Simply put, the old model uses ‘white noise’ which is uncorrelated in time – the fluctuations are completely random,” Farazmand says. “In the real world, the contacts you make today affect the ones you make tomorrow. For example, if you attend a dinner party with your 10 closest friends today, you will likely not do the same tomorrow. So your contact rate changes based upon what you did yesterday.

“If instead you make reasonable assumptions about an individual’s contacts, and model your uncertainty on that, the noise you add to the model is correlated in time and the results map better to reality.”

Fortunately, a correlated process that does just that already exists – the Ornstein-Uhlenbeck process. When Farazmand applied the Ornstein-Uhlenbeck process to the model, the model’s forecast mapped much more closely to actual data around the Omicron variant’s spread.

In a head-to-head comparison of the two models with 60% uncertainty, the flawed (old) model underestimated the number of cases by 20%. The revised model, which incorporates the Ornstein-Uhlenbeck process, had only a 4% error rate.

“In situations where a disease is spreading rapidly, a 20% underestimation could result in health care providers being underprepared and overwhelmed,” Farazmand says. “But adding correlated noise gives you more reasonable forecasts that map well to data. Our work shows the need for temporal correlations when modeling uncertainty with stochastic compartmental models. This also indicates the need for further empirical studies that quantify the correlations in the contacts of individuals.”

The research appears in Proceedings of the Royal Society A. Mamis, former postdoctoral researcher at NC State who is currently at the University of Washington, is first author.

-peake-

Note to editors: An abstract follows.

“Stochastic compartmental models of COVID-19 pandemic must have temporally correlated uncertainties”

DOI: 10.1098/rspa.2022.0568

Authors: Konstantinos Mamis, Mohammad Farazmand, North Carolina State University
Published: Jan. 11, 2023 in Proceedings of the Royal Society A

Abstract:
Compartmental models are an important quantitative tool in epidemiology, enabling us to forecast the course of a communicable disease. However, the model parameters, such as the infectivity rate of the disease, are riddled with uncertainties, which has motivated the development and use of stochastic compartmental models. Here, we first show that a common stochastic model, which treats the uncertainties as white noise, is fundamentally flawed since it erroneously implies that greater parameter uncertainties will lead to the eradication of the disease. Then, we present a principled modeling of the uncertainties based on reasonable assumptions on the contacts of each individual. Using the central limit theorem and Doob’s theorem on Gaussian Markov processes, we prove that the correlated Ornstein–Uhlenbeck process is the appropriate tool for modeling uncertainties in the infectivity rate. We demonstrate our results using a compartmental model of the COVID-19 pandemic and the available US data from the Johns Hopkins University COVID-19 database. In particular, we show that the white noise stochastic model systematically underestimates the severity of the Omicron variant of COVID-19, whereas the Ornstein–Uhlenbeck model correctly forecasts the course of this variant. Moreover, using an SIS model of sexually transmitted disease, we derive an exact closed-form solution for the final distribution of infected individuals. This analytical result shows that the white noise model underestimates the severity of the pandemic because of unrealistic noise-induced transitions. Our results strongly support the need for temporal correlations in modeling of uncertainties in compartmental models of infectious disease.

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JOURNAL

Proceedings of the Royal Society A Mathematical Physical and Engineering Sciences

DOI

10.1098/rspa.2022.0568 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Computational simulation/modeling

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Not applicable

ARTICLE TITLE

Stochastic compartmental models of COVID-19 pandemic must have temporally correlated uncertainties

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

11-Jan-2023

COI STATEMENT

We declare we have no competing interests.

https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/976358

Support from others in stressful times can ease impact of genetic depression risk

 Reaching out to support a person when they're under stress is always a good idea. But a new study suggests that support could be especially important for someone whose genetic makeup makes them more likely to develop depression.

The study shows the importance of social support in buffering the risk of developing depression symptoms in general, using data from two very different groups of people under stress: new doctors in the most intense year of training, and older adults whose spouses recently died.

But the largest effect was seen in those who had the most genetic variation that raised the risk of depression.

The paper uses a measure of genetic risk called a polygenic risk score, which is based on decades of research about what tiny variations in specific genes are linked to depression risk.

Compared to individuals in the study who had low depression polygenic risk scores, the doctors and widows with higher risk scores had higher rates of depression after they lost social support, but also had lower rates of depression when they gained social support during stressful times.

The study, published in the American Journal of Psychiatry by a University of Michigan team, suggests that more could be done to target social support to those who can most benefit.

Genes, stress and social connection

"Our data show wide variability in the level of social support individuals received during these stressful times, and how it changed over time," said first author Jennifer Cleary, M.S., a psychology doctoral student at U-M who is doing her research with senior author Srijan Sen, M.D., Ph.D., of the U-M Medical School. "We hope these findings, which incorporate genetic risk scores as well as measures of social support and depressive symptoms, illuminate the gene-environment interactions and specifically the importance of social connection in depression risk."

Sen, who is the director of the Eisenberg Family Depression Center and a professor of psychiatry and neuroscience, adds that even as genetic research reveals more of the DNA variation related to depression vulnerability, learning how that variation leads to depression is crucial.

"Further understanding the different genetic profiles associated with sensitivity to loss of social support, insufficient sleep, excessive work stress and other risk factors could help us develop personalized guidance for depression prevention," he said. "In the meantime, these findings reaffirm how important social connections, social support and individual sensitivity to the social environment are as factors in wellbeing and preventing depression."

Different populations, similar patterns

The new study used data from two long-term studies that both capture genetic, mood, environment and other data from populations of participating individuals.

One is the Intern Health Study, which enrolls first-year medical residents (also called interns) around the United States and beyond, and which Sen directs.

The other is the Health and Retirement Study, based at the U-M Institute for Social Research and funded by the National Institute on Aging.

The data for the new paper came from 1,011 interns training at hospitals across the country, nearly half of whom were female, and from 435 recently widowed individuals, 71% of them women, who had data available from surveys conducted before and after their spouses died.

In the interns, as Sen and his team have shown in previous work, depressive symptoms increased dramatically (126%) during the stressful year of training that includes long and irregular work hours -- often in environments far from friends and family.

In the widows and widowers, depressive symptoms increased 34% over their pre-widowhood scores. This correlates with past research showing loss of a spouse can be one of the biggest stressors in a person's life, Cleary said.

A crossover effect

Then, the researchers factored together the depression symptom findings with each person's polygenic risk score for depression, and their individual responses to questions about connections with friends, family and other social supporters.

Most of the interns lost social support from their pre-internship days -- which fits well with the common experience of leaving the place where they attended medical school and going to a new environment where they may not know anyone.

Interns who had the highest polygenic risk scores and also lost social support had the highest scores on measures of depression symptoms later in the stressful intern year.

Those with the same high level of genetic risk who gained social support, though, had much lower depressive symptoms. In fact, it was lower than even their peers with low genetic risk, no matter what happened to their social support. The researchers call this a "crossover effect."

Unlike the interns, some widowed individuals reported an increase in social support after the loss of their spouse, potentially as friends and family reached out to offer help or just a listening ear.

But the crossover effect was visible in them, too. Widows with high genetic risk for depression who gained social support showed a much smaller increase in depressive symptoms than their peers with similar genetic risk who lost social support after losing a spouse.

There were also some widows who lost social support or didn't experience a change in support, and whose depressive symptoms didn't change. Cleary notes that in future work, it will be important to look at this group's history in light of any caregiving they may have done for a spouse with a long-term illness.

The team also hopes that other researchers will study this same interaction of genetic risk, stress and social support in other populations.

In the meantime, Cleary and Sen say, the message for anyone going through stressful times, or watching a friend or relative go through stressful times, is to reach out and maintain or strengthen social connections.

Doing so can have benefits both for the person under stress, and the person reaching out to them, they note.

Reducing the level of ongoing stress that the person is facing, whether it's at work, school, after a personal loss or in family situations can be critical.

And even though the study did not examine the role of professional mental health help, individual and group therapy is an important option for those who have developed depression or other mental health concerns.

Note: The polygenic risk score used in the study is validated for use on people of mainly European ancestry, which limits the ability to generalize the findings to people of other backgrounds. Sen notes that additional work is being done using data from the Intern Health Study and Health & Retirement Study to develop polygenic risk scores based on depression-related genetic traits in other populations including people of East Asian and African descent.

In addition to Cleary and Sen, the study's authors are Yu Fang, M.S.E., Laura B. Zahodne, Ph.D., Amy S.B. Bohnert, Ph.D., and Margit Burmeister, Ph.D., all of U-M. Zahodne, Bohnert and Burmeister are members of the Eisenberg Family Depression Center; Sen and Burmeister are members of the Michigan Neuroscience Institute; Sen and Bohnert are members of the U-M Institute for Healthcare Policy and Innovation.

The study was funded by the National Institute of Mental Health (MH101459) and the National Institute of Child Health and Development (HD007109).

Journal Reference:

1. Jennifer L. Cleary, Yu Fang, Laura B. Zahodne, Amy S.B. Bohnert, Margit Burmeister, Srijan Sen. Polygenic Risk and Social Support in Predicting Depression Under Stress. American Journal of Psychiatry, 2023; DOI: 10.1176/appi.ajp.21111100

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2023/01/230113112733.htm