COVID | Jotup

Parrot fever cases amid a ‘mysterious’ pneumonia outbreak in Argentina – what you need to know about psittacosis

Retrieved on:

화요일, 4월 23, 2024

This is how the yet-to-be-named disease COVID-19 was first described when a cluster of cases was identified in Wuhan, China.

Key Points:

This is how the yet-to-be-named disease COVID-19 was first described when a cluster of cases was identified in Wuhan, China.
This term is being used again to describe a cluster of “atypical” pneumonia cases in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
Some cases of psittacosis, also known as “parrot fever”, have been confirmed within this cluster.
Psittacosis, or parrot fever, is caused by bacteria called Chlamydia psittaci, and is a common infection in birds.
A 2017 systematic review concluded that around 1% of pneumonia cases not acquired in a hospital may be the result of psittacosis.

There are often local respiratory infectious disease outbreaks, potentially causing severe pneumonia, and these do not spread more widely or internationally.
At the time of writing this article, there is very little information available about the Argentina outbreak.
There has been no statement from the public health authorities in Argentina, nor the WHO Pan America Health Organisation.
Among the key pieces of information we really would need to know is the likelihood of human-to-human transmission.

Michael Head has previously received funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the UK Department for International Development, and currently receives funding from the UK Medical Research Foundation.

What if the Reserve Bank itself has been feeding inflation? An economist explains

Retrieved on:

화요일, 4월 23, 2024

Reserve Bank, Electricity, ANZ, COVID, Bank

Here’s something for the board of the Reserve Bank of Australia to ponder as it meets next month to set interest rates.

Key Points:

Here’s something for the board of the Reserve Bank of Australia to ponder as it meets next month to set interest rates.
It helps to know a bit about the relationship between the Reserve Bank and the private banks that bank with it.

Banker to the banks

Each of the private banks has an exchange settlement account at the Reserve Bank.
The banks use these accounts to make payments to one another.
Every day some of the customers of each bank want to transfer money to the customers of other banks, usually to pay for services or goods.
The Reserve Bank pays interest to banks that have excess cash in their settlement accounts and it charges interest to banks that need to borrow cash from it to settle their payments.

From just enough cash to an abundance of cash

If there was too little, it bought financial instruments from them, paying cash into their account.
In 2020 it stopped buying bonds from banks, leaving cash to accumulate in their accounts in what it called an “abundant reserves” system.
This was done to ensure the banking system had more than enough cash to deal with whatever was in store.
The last will expire in the middle of this year, winding back the surplus cash in exchange settlement accounts.

Excess cash is set to stay

It’d be open to the Reserve Bank to soak up the excess cash by selling the banks enough financial instruments to return to the system of scarce reserves.
But earlier this month it announced it wasn’t planning to go that far.
It will move instead to a new system it will call “ample reserves”, selling enough bonds to limit excess reserves, but not too harshly.

Matthew Crocker is a PhD student exploring the history of Australia's monetary system and is a recipient of a Commonwealth Research Training Program scholarship.

We’re only using a fraction of health workers’ skills. This needs to change

Retrieved on:

화요일, 4월 23, 2024

That is, before the shift of education of nurses and other health professionals into universities in the 1980s.

Key Points:

That is, before the shift of education of nurses and other health professionals into universities in the 1980s.
But the recently released paper from an independent Commonwealth review on health workers’ “scope of practice” identifies the myriad of barriers preventing Australians from fully benefiting from health professionals’ skills.
But we now have a sensible pathway to improve access to care, using all health professionals appropriately.

A new vision for general practice

To do this, I logged onto my general practice’s website, answered the question about what I wanted, booked an appointment with the practice nurse that afternoon, got jabbed, was bulk-billed, sat down for a while, and then went home.
The Commonwealth government has allowed the practice to be paid by Medicare for the nurse’s work.
The venture capitalist practice owner has done the sums and decided allocating a room to a practice nurse is economically rational.
It would be good if my general practice also had a physiotherapist, who I could see if I had back pain without seeing the GP, but there is no Medicare rebate for this.

How about pharmacists?

Pharmacy owners especially have argued that pharmacists should be able to practise independently of GPs, prescribing a limited range of medications and dispensing them.
This will inevitably reduce continuity of care and potentially create risks if the GP is not aware of what other medications a patient is using.

Paying pharmacists independent prescribing may be part of the next agreement, the details of which are currently being negotiated.
So their organisations highlight the risks of these changes, reopening centuries old turf wars dressed up as concerns about safety and risk.

Who pays for all this?

Clearly the government must increase its support for comprehensive general practice.
This should be the principal direction of primary care reform, and the final report of the scope of practice review should make that clear.
In parallel, governments – state and federal – must ensure all health professionals are used to their best of their abilities.
Read more:
Pharmacists should be able to work with GPs to prescribe medicines for long-term conditions

Stephen Duckett was a member of the Strengthening Medicare Taskforce and is a member of the Commonwealth Department of Health's Expert Advisory Panel for the Review of General Practice Incentives

Decomposing systemic risk: the roles of contagion and common exposures

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화요일, 4월 23, 2024

Tao, CIBC, Tax, RWA, Risk, European Systemic Risk Board, Research Papers in Economics, Contagion, RT, The Big Six, NBC, International, Shock, Observation, Bank of Canada, HTC, European Economic Association, The Washington Post, Great, JPMorgan Chase, Paper, GM, Environment, Political economy, Journal of Financial Economics, COVID-19, Perception, BNS, Website, Silicon, IAT, Cifuentes, Probability, Balance sheet, RAN, Medical classification, Algorithm, Information technology, Quarterly Journal of Economics, LN, Nature, European Journal, Royal Bank of Canada, Technical report, Journal of Political Economy, Equitable Bank, Bankruptcy, RAI, PDF, Private, ECB, Policy, CHS, Supercapacitor, Social science, Journal of Financial Stability, Intelligence (journal), Elsevier, Home, Cambridge University Press, Journal, Springer Science+Business Media, Research, Classification, Regulation, News, EQB, Credit, Literature, AIK, European Central Bank, COVID, SVAR, Section 5, Management science, DRA, M4, VL, National bank, Government, ISSN, BMO, Panel, International Financial Reporting Standards, BIS, FIS, Basel III, Commerce, Scotiabank, C32, Econometric Society, Interbank, Fraud, Section 4, Bank, Schedule, VAR, Section 3, The Journal of Finance, RBC, Volcanic explosivity index, Fire, Wassily Leontief, Financial economics, Metric, Section 2, L14, Central bank, Superintendent, Bank of Montreal, Kronecker, BOC, Lithium, BCBS, Sale, Macroeconomic Dynamics, Christophe, CWB, LBC, NHA, Imperial Bank, Private equity, Quarterly Journal, National Bank of Canada, C51, Canadian Western Bank, Currency crisis, JEL classification codes, Victor Drai, L.1, MFC, Silicon Valley Bank, EB, Laurentian Bank of Canada, Federal, RA1, Series, W0, FEVD, Journal of Econometrics, Aggregate, University, FRB, MB, Financial institution, Element, Health, Book, Angels & Airwaves, Common, OSFI, GFC, Reproduction, K L, Systematic, Housing, G21, Home Capital Group, Communications satellite

Abstract

Key Points:

Abstract
We evaluate the effects of contagion and common exposure on banks? capital through
a regression design inspired by the structural VAR literature and derived from the balance
sheet identity.
Contagion can occur through direct exposures, fire sales, and market-based
sentiment, while common exposures result from portfolio overlaps.
First, we document that contagion varies in time, with the highest levels
around the Great Financial Crisis and lowest levels during the pandemic.
Our new framework complements
traditional stress-tests focused on single institutions by providing a holistic view of systemic risk.
While existing literature presents various contagion narratives, empirical findings on
distress propagation - a precursor to defaults - remain scarce.
We decompose systemic risk into three elements: contagion, common exposures, and idiosyncratic risk, all derived from banks? balance sheet identities.
The contagion factor encompasses both sentiment- and contractual-based elements, common exposures consider systemic
aspects, while idiosyncratic risk encapsulates unique bank-specific risk sources.
Our empirical analysis of the Canadian banking system reveals the dynamic nature of contagion, with elevated levels observed during the Global Financial Crisis.
In conclusion, our model offers a comprehensive lens for policy intervention analysis and
scenario evaluations on contagion and systemic risk in banking.
This
notion of systemic risk implies two key components: first, systematic risks (e.g., risks related
to common exposures) and second, contagion (i.e., an initially idiosyncratic problem becoming
more widespread throughout the financial system) (see Caruana, 2010).
In this paper, we decompose systemic risk into three components: contagion, common exposures, and idiosyncratic risk.
First, we include contagion in three forms: sentiment-based contagion, contractual-based
contagion, and price-mediated contagion.
In this context,
portfolio overlaps create common exposures, implying that bigger overlaps make systematic
shocks more systemic.
With the COVID-19 pandemic starting
in 2020, contagion drops to all time lows, potentially related to strong fiscal and monetary
supports.
That is, our
structural model provides a framework for analyzing the impact of policy interventions and
scenarios on different levels of contagion and systemic risk in the banking system.
This provides a complementary approach to
seminal papers that took a structural approach to contagion, such as DebtRank Battiston et al.
More generally, the literature on networks and systemic risk started with Allen and Gale
(2001) and Eisenberg and Noe (2001).
The matrix is structured as follows:
1
In our model, we do not distinguish between interbank liabilities and other types of liabilities.
In other words, we can and aim to estimate different degrees
of contagion per asset class, i.e., potentially distinct parameters ?Ga .
For that, we build three major
metrics to check: average contagion, average common exposure, and average idiosyncratic risk.
N i j
et ,
Further, we define the (N ?K) common exposure matrix as Commt = [A

(20)

et ]diag (?C
?L

such that average common exposure reads,
average common exposure =

1 XX
Commik,t .
N i j
(22)

20

? c ),

The three metrics?average contagion, average common exposure, and average idiosyncratic risk?provide a comprehensive framework for understanding banking dynamics.
Figure 4 depicts the average level of risks per systemic risk channel: contagion risk, common exposure, and idiosyncratic risk.
Figure 4: Average levels of contagion (Equation (20)), common exposure (Equation (21)), and idiosyncratic risk
(Equation (22)).
The market-based contagion is the contagion due to
investors? sentiment, and the network is an estimate FEVD on volatility data.
For most of
the sample, we find that contagion had a bigger impact on the variance than common exposures.

Many prisoners go years without touching a smartphone. It means they struggle to navigate life on the outside

Retrieved on:

금요일, 4월 19, 2024

Interview, Health, Crime, COVID, Face, Learning, Survival, Digital, NSW, Unemployment, Risk, Prison, Education, Ageing, Prisoner, Mortality, Recidivism, Social isolation, Literacy, Anxiety, Food, Male, Rehabilitation, MyGov, Nursing

You’d be hard pressed to find any aspect of daily life that doesn’t require some form of digital literacy.

Key Points:

You’d be hard pressed to find any aspect of daily life that doesn’t require some form of digital literacy.
We need only to look back ten years to realise how quickly things have changed.
In 2013, we were still predominantly buying paper bus tickets and using Facebook on a desktop computer.

Unfamiliar tech damaging confidence

Prison populations are getting older worldwide for a few reasons, including general population ageing, trends towards people entering prison at an older age, or staying in for longer. At the same time, Australian prisons remain highly technologically restricted environments, mostly for security reasons. We interviewed 15 Australians (aged 47–69 years) about their experiences of reintegration following release from prison.

They described feeling like a stranger thrown into a world where survival depended on their ability to use technology.
Regardless of their experiences before imprisonment, the rapid digitisation of daily functions that were once familiar to them rendered their skills and confidence irrelevant.
One former inmate said:
There’s a significant gap […] for anybody who’s done, I’m gonna say, probably more than five to seven years [in prison].
There’s a significant gap […] for anybody who’s done, I’m gonna say, probably more than five to seven years [in prison].

Exacerbating recidivism

There’s concerning evidence around recidivism, risk of post-release mortality, social isolation, unemployment and homelessness.
Digital exclusion creates an additional barrier for those who are older, who already face a high risk of medical and social marginalisation.
A former prisoner said:
Think about it, after being in ten years, well you think, okay, where do I start?

What can be done?

The interviewees provided suggestions for how such programs could be delivered and a keenness to engage with them.
They tended to focus on learning in environments free from stigma and judgement of their literacy level or histories, with hands-on experience and face to face support.
Interviewees favoured learning while in prison, with additional support available on the outside.
Based on the evidence, we can be certain this will encourage positive change for the 95% of Australian prisoners who will eventually be released.

Ye In (Jane) Hwang has received funding from the National Health and Medical Research Council of Australia, the Australian Association of Gerontology, and the University of New South Wales Ageing Futures Institute for this work.

Hard work and happy accidents: why do so many of us prefer ‘difficult’ analogue technology?

Retrieved on:

목요일, 4월 18, 2024

Up two flights of stairs, the music machinery on offer includes brands such as Moog and Buchla, as well as modern euro-racks.

Key Points:

Up two flights of stairs, the music machinery on offer includes brands such as Moog and Buchla, as well as modern euro-racks.
(From Michael’s fieldnotes)
I finally locate the legendary Schneiders Buero, a shop selling analogue synthesizers in Berlin’s Kotti neighbourhood.
Up two flights of stairs, the music machinery on offer includes brands such as Moog and Buchla, as well as modern euro-racks.
(From Michael’s fieldnotes) As academics who rarely go a day without playing or making music, we have spent the past decade examining the extraordinary revival of analogue technology.
This means there are now more analogue options available than at any time since the 1970s, the heyday of the modular format.

The appeal of the slow

So we dived in.
Eventually, these forays became our formal research project, which has included visiting record fairs and conventions around the world, going on photowalks and attending listening evenings, and meeting an array of diehard analogue communities both on and off line.

The team is working with academics from different backgrounds who have been engaged in projects aimed at tackling societal and scientific challenges.
And we expect interest in such experiences to rise exponentially in coming years.
Recognising our existential need to occasionally slow down can be the basis for winning consumer strategies.
Recognising our existential need to occasionally slow down can be the basis for winning consumer strategies.

Saved from demolition

Rather than nostalgia, they are turning to film because of its aesthetic values and a greater sense of creative control over their photos.
In response, venerable brands including Kodak, Polaroid and Leica have re-emerged – in some cases, almost from the dead.
We literally saved it from demolition at the very last second in 2008.
We literally saved it from demolition at the very last second in 2008.
He said luxury brands such as Gucci are particularly keen on using film photography as this gives their promotional material a different look.

Work, effort, meaning

When it was conceded that digital probably was better for wildlife photography, James cut in:
That’s to miss the point!
The sound might be better but you miss seeing the work that went into the performance, the effort of the players and their crew.
Work, effort, meaning – these ideas are all interconnected for users and consumers of analogue technology.
However, when asked to compare the two, they talk about the greater weight and meaning they give to their analogue experiences.
I think it is the quality of the human voice; it does feel more like someone’s speaking to me.

And part of what makes this possible is the process of analogue recording, in which all the sounds being made, including the unscripted noise of the recording process itself, are captured in the final track.
To facilitate this sound, some musicians have even started setting up their own pressing plants, such as Jack White’s Third Man Pressing in Detroit.

The joy of happy accidents

Half of what you do trying to make music is like a happy accident that ends up sounding better than what you intended.
When we started, we didn’t have that technology, so we made mistakes and some of them were happy accidents, resulting in iconic tracks.
When we started, we didn’t have that technology, so we made mistakes and some of them were happy accidents, resulting in iconic tracks.
It’s these happy accidents that we love.
It’s these happy accidents that we love.
For example, the opening bass part of Cannonball, the 1993 song by US Indie band the Breeders, accidentally starts in a different key.
Bass player Josephine Wiggs began playing the riff one step down, then fixed it when the drums came in.

Digital technology is de-skilling us

Over the decade or so of our research, explanations for the analogue revival have shifted from nostalgia, to the desire for something physical in a digital age, to the sense that analogue technology is creatively preferable.
Is digital technology de-skilling consumers, leading to a sense of alienation?
Using analogue technology is another way consumers can feed this desire to re-skill.
Rob told us how his love of music had turned sour with the “sheer ease” of digital, starting with CDs and the MP3 player – and how vinyl had reinvigorated him.
For him, the problem came when listening on digital devices without the “sides” of vinyl albums, and then on music streaming platforms whose digital algorithms preference popular tracks.

‘This song sucks’

These are the people who want to stretch and break the rules and trigger the happy accidents that create something altogether new.
For example, photographers who seek more creative expressions by pre-soaking or “souping” their camera film in lemon juice, coffee, beer, or even burning it.
And among this group, connecting digital and analogue technology is also common – combining two completely different systems to generate even more possibilities.
Film director Denis Villeneuve’s first instalment of Dune (2021) was initially shot on digital, then transferred to film, before being re-digitised.
By combining the two, Villeneuve got a film that, in his words, has a “more timeless, painterly feel”.

For you: more from our Insights series:
How music heals us, even when it’s sad – by a neuroscientist leading a new study of musical therapy

The artist formerly known as Camille – Prince’s lost album ‘comes out’

Beatrix Potter’s famous tales are rooted in stories told by enslaved Africans – but she was very quiet about their origins

To hear about new Insights articles, join the hundreds of thousands of people who value The Conversation’s evidence-based news. Subscribe to our newsletter.
The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

EQS-News: Berlin Cures Expands Research Capabilities and Scientific Expertise with New Advisory Board

Retrieved on:

수요일, 4월 10, 2024

Research, Glaucoma, COVID, ME/CFS, Diabetes, Patient, Biomarker, OBE, University, Long, Heart failure, Chronic kidney disease, Maastricht University, Cardiomyopathy, Pharmaceutical industry

Berlin, Germany, 3 April 2024 – Berlin Cures, a biotechnology company in Phase II clinical trial for a treatment against Long COVID, appoints six distinguished scientists to a new advisory board.

Key Points:

Berlin, Germany, 3 April 2024 – Berlin Cures, a biotechnology company in Phase II clinical trial for a treatment against Long COVID, appoints six distinguished scientists to a new advisory board.
The aim of the board is to advise on industry developments and new growth potentials, as well as to support research and development that will further strengthen the portfolio of Berlin Cures and thus the successful market launch of new therapies.
“We are very pleased to now work with six renowned scientists who have achieved great success in their respective fields of research.
Berlin Cures has been known for innovative and effective research for years.

EQS-News: SYNLAB delivers robust performance in FY 2023

Retrieved on:

수요일, 4월 10, 2024

Synnovis, the South East London hospital outsourcing contract grew 12.2% in 2023 and contributed 0.6pts to the overall 2023 underlying organic growth.

Key Points:

Synnovis, the South East London hospital outsourcing contract grew 12.2% in 2023 and contributed 0.6pts to the overall 2023 underlying organic growth.
FY 2023 adjusted EBITDA (AEBITDA) was €438 million (FY 2022: €753 million) while adjusted operating profit (AOP) was €194 million (FY 2022: €508 million) with margins of 16.6% (FY 2022: 23.2%) and 7.4% (FY 2022: 15.6%), respectively.
In FY 2023, adjusted net profit (Group share) was €44 million (FY 2022: €342 million), mainly due to lower COVID-19 testing volumes and higher net finance costs.
FY 2023 unlevered free cash flow (uFCF) was €74 million (FY 2022: €312 million).

EQS-News: REPLY: The Board of Directors approved the draft financial statements for the year 2023

Retrieved on:

수요일, 4월 10, 2024

Automation, EXM, EUR, COVID, Paragraph, Growth, Intelligence, Internet, Artificial intelligence, STAR, AI, MTA, Insurance, Reply, Cloud computing, Cryptocurrency

Today the Board of Directors of Reply S.p.A. [MTA, STAR: REY] approved the draft financial statement for the year 2023, which will be submitted for approval to the Shareholders’ Meeting to be held on first call in Turin on 23 April 2024.

Key Points:

Today the Board of Directors of Reply S.p.A. [MTA, STAR: REY] approved the draft financial statement for the year 2023, which will be submitted for approval to the Shareholders’ Meeting to be held on first call in Turin on 23 April 2024.
The Reply Group closed 2023 with a consolidated turnover of €2,118.0 million, an increase of 12.0% compared to €1.891.1 million in 2022.
As at 31 December 2023, the Group’s net financial position has been positive at €204.9 million (€70.6 million at 31 December 2022).
As at 30 September 2023, the net financial position was positive at €189.7 million.

Halcon Marketing Solutions Launches New Service Offerings Amidst a Post-Pandemic Economic Boon

Retrieved on:

화요일, 4월 2, 2024

MTV, Certification, COVID, Social media, DNA, Neuroscience, Psychology, Marketing, Fox Entertainment Group, Cognitive science, Paramount Network, Asset management

St. Louis, Missouri--(Newsfile Corp. - April 2, 2024) - HALCON Marketing Solutions , founded by Nicole Powell , has achieved certification in Neuromarketing, an innovative discipline merging neuroscience and cognitive science with marketing strategies.

Key Points:

St. Louis, Missouri--(Newsfile Corp. - April 2, 2024) - HALCON Marketing Solutions , founded by Nicole Powell , has achieved certification in Neuromarketing, an innovative discipline merging neuroscience and cognitive science with marketing strategies.
This certification allows the company to unveil new services tailored to navigating the complexities of post-COVID sales.
This comprehensive approach empowers clients to develop finely tuned marketing strategies that effectively adapt to consumers' evolving preferences.
In addition, HALCON provides a suite of marketing services that span brand strategy, social media management, email marketing, design, content creation, web development, and strategic branding.