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State to buy more hepatitis A vaccine after emergency declaration | California’s multi-county hepatitis A outbreak has so strained the federal government’s supply of vaccine that the state will take its own steps to secure more doses directly from manufacturers under an emergency declaration declared by Gov. Jerry Brown Friday.
| http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/hepatitis-crisis/sd-me-hepatitis-emergency-20171013-story.html | 2017-10-16 10:12:08.967000 | California’s multi-county hepatitis A outbreak has so strained the federal government’s supply of vaccine that the state will take its own steps to secure more doses directly from manufacturers under an emergency declaration declared by Gov. Jerry Brown Friday.
Dr. Gil Chavez, state epidemiologist and deputy director of the Center for Infectious Diseases at the California Department of Public Health, said that the state has already received more than 80,000 free doses from a federal “317” emergency vaccine program run by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
“In our communications with them, as of late, it’s been very clear that our continuous requests for additional vaccine is running into their limit of what they can share with California,” Chavez said.
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He did not elaborate on how low the state’s supply of hepatitis A vaccine has dropped and noted that local public health departments and health providers also have the ability to order vaccine outside of the federal program. But, he said, it is time for his department to start buying what is needed to keep existing vaccination campaigns in San Diego, Los Angeles and Santa Cruz counties supplied with as many vials as they require.
“We have received 81,000 doses (from the CDC), and that is a big chunk of their total supply for the entire country for the year. CDC has been trying to manage their inventory to meet the needs of California,” Chavez said.
The governor’s emergency declaration, signed Friday, gives the state health department authority to “take all measures necessary to obtain hepatitis A vaccines and prioritize the vaccination of at-risk individuals.” Chavez said he did not have an immediate estimate of exactly how many more doses the state will need to buy or how much doing so might cost.
Also on Friday, Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Vista, sent a letter to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the CDC requesting federal assistance, including any available emergency grant funding, to help fight the outbreak.
In addition to allowing San Diego and other California counties dip into its emergency vaccine supply, the CDC has already provided some personnel, flying several of its epidemiologists out to advise local public health teams on the best ways to contain the spread of hepatitis A infections. So far, however, those efforts have not been able to turn the corner. Case totals increased to 490 this week and the death total hit 18.
Other totals around in California:
71 cases in Santa Cruz County
13 cases in Los Angeles County
7 cases elsewhere in the state
The CDC has been unclear about exactly how much current outbreaks in California, Michigan, Utah and Arizona are drawing down the national vaccine supply which was already challenged by a global increase in demand due to a series of overseas outbreaks.
In late September Merck & Co. Inc., manufacturer of VAQTA, one of two FDA-approved hepatitis A vaccines, told the Union-Tribune that it “anticipates working through some manufacturing constraints” in 2017, adding that “constraints will impact availability of pediatric and adult doses of VAQTA this year.”
At a news conference in San Diego last week, a CDC spokesperson promised to clarify the vaccine supply picture, but has not subsequently provided any additional information.
The vaccine supply question persists as San Diego organizations ready for a fresh wave of inoculation activity.
On Friday morning, Mayor Kevin Faulconer stood beside paramedics to announce that a temporary modification of state law has allowed the city to create two mobile vaccination teams which will include a paramedic, a fire captain/paramedic and a supervising nurse. Under temporary permission from the state Emergency Medical Services Authority, paramedics in San Diego County are allowed to give hepatitis A shots to at-risk residents as long as they are working under the direct supervision of a registered nurse.
City fire officials and Mike Murphy, general manager of American Medical Response-San Diego, said paramedics who will be involved in vaccination efforts have received four additional hours of training on the proper technique for giving hepatitis A shots. The activity is similar to other injections they often administer answering emergency calls throughout the city.
San Diego Fire Department Battalion Chief Rick Ballard said after Friday’s news conference that he expects the city to learn where and when the two paramedic teams will work from the county Health and Human Services Agency on Monday. He said the county is working with many medical organizations, including local hospitals, to fan out to single-occupancy hotels, beaches, parks and other locations.
“They’ve identified over 100 locations that they have not been able to reach yet,” Ballard said.
The county did not respond Tuesday to a request for more information on its impending second-wave vaccination effort, and a county spokesman said Friday afternoon that he still could not make anyone available to discuss the operation’s details.
In recent weeks some in the community have questioned whether the San Diego River may be a source of hepatitis A infection among the city’s homeless. While county public health officials have insisted that river water is not a source of contamination, they told the Union-Tribune Thursday that river water has not yet been tested for contamination by one or more of the 15 unique strains of the virus that testing has found in samples gathered from infected residents.
A recent genetic test of river water, while it did not specifically check for hepatitis, did find that the total amount of human feces in the river and its tributaries quadrupled in 2017.
On Thursday San Diego City Councilman David Alvarez sent a memo to Mayor Faulconer requesting that the city test local waterways for hepatitis A. The city has no current plans to start testing, Greg Block, Faulconer’s senior press secretary, said in an email.
“The county has consulted with the Center for Disease Control and environmental sampling has not been recommended for the current hepatitis A outbreak. The county is the public health agency for the region, and we rely on their expertise in these matters,” Block said.
Health Playlist × On Now Video: Leaders urge public to help extinguish hepatitis outbreak On Now San Diego starts cleansing sidewalks, streets to combat hepatitis A On Now Video: Scripps to shutter its hospice service On Now Video: Scripps La Jolla hospitals nab top local spot in annual hospital rankings On Now Video: Does a parent's Alzheimer's doom their children? On Now EpiPen recall expands On Now Kids can add years to your life
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States have already tried Trump’s health care order. It went badly. | Even after Republicans in Congress failed three times to rid themselves of the Affordable Care Act, President Trump has proved that there is no shortage of ideas for how to disrupt the health-care system.
| https://www.brookings.edu/blog/up-front/2017/10/13/states-have-already-tried-trumps-health-care-order-it-went-badly/ | 2017-10-16 10:10:01.040000 | This analysis is part of the USC-Brookings Schaeffer Initiative for Health Policy , which is a partnership between the Center for Health Policy at Brookings and the University of Southern California Schaeffer Center for Health Policy & Economics. The Initiative aims to inform the national health care debate with rigorous, evidence-based analysis leading to practical recommendations using the collaborative strengths of USC and Brookings. This article originally appeared in The Washington Post on October 13, 2017.
Even after Republicans in Congress failed three times to rid themselves of the Affordable Care Act, President Trump has proved that there is no shortage of ideas for how to disrupt the health-care system.
The president signed an executive order Thursday that will allow small employers to join associations of small business — such as farm bureaus or chambers of commerce — that provide health coverage to their members. If such associations self-insure, existing law might enable them to avoid both state insurance regulations and the core of the ACA. Thus, a simple turn of the regulatory dials could free up a large portion of the most heavily regulated parts of the health-insurance market.
Like many appealing ideas, this one, proposed by Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), has hidden land mines that are already well-mapped out based on previous failed attempts to enact them, even in Paul’s home state of Kentucky.
A version of these self-insured association health plans first became widespread in the 1980s, but they failed in droves because many were undercapitalized. More troubling, these earlier association plans had a history of becoming what the Labor Department termed “scam artists” and the Government Accountability Office reported were “bogus entities [that] have exploited employers and individuals seeking affordable coverage.” More than two dozen states reported in 1992 that these early association plans had committed “fraud, embezzlement or other criminal law” violations.
We might avoid such a fate by requiring groups to register and meet adequate solvency and consumer-protection standards. But that doesn’t solve the more ominous aspect of association health plans: market destabilization.
Because less-regulated association health plans compete with fully regulated markets, actuaries and regulators have long warned that association plans create an uneven playing field that can disrupt markets. People who don’t need to cover preexisting conditions or don’t want to pay community rates gravitate to the better deals offered by associations, leaving sicker people in the regulated markets. Naturally, regulated insurance prices increase as a result, sometimes causing a death spiral that crashes the market.
That’s just what happened in Kentucky in the 1990s when it reformed its individual market but exempted association plans from the reforms. Enrollment with associations shot up, and most insurers selling in the regulated market pulled out. Within two years, the state repealed its reforms. Association health plans were only one part of Kentucky’s failed market reforms, but they are still a major reason why the so-called Kentucky disaster now serves as a lesson for other states to avoid similar measures.
We could avoid such market disruption by making association health plans abide by the same regulations that govern individuals and small groups, but the whole point of Trump’s executive order is to sidestep existing regulations. The only other option for avoiding market disruption is to keep association plans separate from the regular market by ensuring that people cannot simply choose between association plans and regulated insurance based solely on their health status.
Employer groups avoid this kind of adverse selection because people can’t just pick an employer simply to get the health insurance they want. But many association health plans allow just that. You don’t need to be a farmer to join the Farm Bureau, and business associations can be open to any person that files a Schedule C tax form. Some groups have such skimpy fig leaves for membership qualification that they are criticized as “air breather” associations — that is, the only commonality among their members is their dependency on oxygen.
Federal and state law attempts to avoid this by exempting associations from insurance regulations only if they are “bona fide,” meaning that obtaining insurance is not the reason people join them. But as regulators will tell you, that criterion is not easy to enforce, which is why the hot potato of association “bona fides” is regularly tossed back and forth among states, insurers and the Labor Department .
Despite this troubled history, association health plans have an important place in, and alongside, regulated health-insurance markets. Still, their history counsels caution in freely expanding that role. These plans should succeed based on delivering superior value rather than serving as a vehicle to cherry-pick regulations they do and don’t want to follow. For that to happen, association health plans need a set of carefully considered rules based on lessons from the past, rather than naive belief in a quick fix.
The author did not receive financial support from any firm or person for this article or from any firm or person with a financial or political interest in this article. He is currently not an officer, director, or board member of any organization with an interest in this article. |
Trump Acting Solo: What You Need To Know About Changes To The Health Law | Apparently frustrated by Congress’ inability to “repeal and replace” the Affordable Care Act, President Donald Trump this week decided to take matters into his own hands. Late Thursday evening, the White House announced it would cease key payments to insurers.
| https://khn.org/news/trump-acting-solo-what-you-need-to-know-about-changes-to-the-health-law/ | 2017-10-16 10:06:47.457000 | Apparently frustrated by Congress’ inability to “repeal and replace” the Affordable Care Act, President Donald Trump this week decided to take matters into his own hands.
Late Thursday evening, the White House announced it would cease key payments to insurers. Earlier on Thursday, Trump signed an executive order aimed at giving people who buy their own insurance easier access to different types of health plans that were limited under the ACA rules set by the Obama administration.
“This is promoting health care choice and competition all across the United States,” Trump said at the signing ceremony. “This is going to be something that millions and millions of people will be signing up for, and they’re going to be very happy.”
The subsidy payments, known as “cost-sharing reductions,” are payments to insurers to reimburse them for discounts they give policyholders with incomes under 250 percent of the federal poverty line, or about $30,000 in income a year for an individual. Those discounts shield these lower-income customers from out-of-pocket expenses, such as deductibles or copayments. These subsidies have been the subject of a lawsuit that is ongoing.
Use Our Content This KHN story can be republished for free ( details ).
The cost-sharing reductions are separate from the tax credit subsidies that help millions of people pay their premiums. Those are not affected by Trump’s decision.
Some of Trump’s actions could have an immediate effect on the enrollment for 2018 ACA coverage that starts Nov. 1. Here are five things you should know.
1. The executive order does not make any immediate changes.
Technically, Trump ordered the departments of Labor, Health and Human Services and Treasury within 60 days to “consider proposing regulations or revising guidance, to the extent permitted by law,” on several different options for expanding the types of plans individuals and small businesses could purchase. Among his suggestions to the department are broadening rules to allow more small employers and other groups to form what are known as “association health plans” and to sell low-cost, short-term insurance. There is no guarantee, however, that any of these plans will be forthcoming. In any case, the process to make them available could take months.
2. The cost-sharing reduction changes ARE immediate but might not affect the people you expect.
Cutting off payments to insurers for the out-of-pocket discounts they provide to moderate-income policyholders does not mean those people will no longer get help. The law, and insurance company contracts with the federal government, require those discounts be granted.
That means insurance companies will have to figure out how to recover the money they were promised. They could raise premiums (and many are raising them already). For the majority of people who get the separate subsidies to help pay their premiums, those increases will be borne by the federal government. Those who will be hit hardest are the roughly 7.5 million people who buy their own individual insurance but earn too much to get federal premium help.
Insurers could also simply drop out of the ACA entirely. That would affect everyone in the individual market and could leave some counties with no insurer for next year. Insurers could also sue the government, and most experts think they would eventually win.
Facebook Live: Trump Ends Payments For Cost-Sharing Reductions. What’s Next?
3. This could affect your insurance choices for next year. But it’s complicated.
The impact on your plan choices and premiums for next year will vary by state and insurer. For one thing, insurers have a loophole that allows them to get out of the contracts for 2018, given the change in federal payments. So, some might decide to bail. That could leave areas with fewer — or no — insurers. The Congressional Budget Office in August estimated that stopping the payments would leave about 5 percent of people who purchase their own coverage through the ACA marketplaces with no insurers in 2018.
For everyone else, the move would result in higher premiums, the CBO said, adding an average of about 20 percent. In some states, regulators have already allowed insurers to price those increases into their 2018 rates in anticipation that the payments would be halted by the Trump administration.
But how those increases are applied varies. In California, Idaho, Louisiana, Pennsylvania and South Carolina, for example, regulators had insurers load the costs only onto one type of plan: silver-level coverage. That’s because most people who buy silver plans also get a subsidy from the federal government to help pay their premium, and those subsidies rise along with the cost of a silver plan.
Consumers getting a premium subsidy, however, won’t see much increase in their out-of-pocket payments for the coverage. Consumers without premium subsidies will bear the additional costs if they stay in a silver plan. In those states, consumers may find a better deal in a different metal-band of insurance, including higher-level gold plans. Many states, however, allowed insurers to spread the expected increase across all levels of plans.
4. Congress could act.
Bipartisan negotiations have been renewed between Sens. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) and Patty Murray (D-Wash.) to create legislation that would continue the cost-sharing subsidies and give states more flexibility to develop and sell less generous health care plans than those currently offered on the exchanges. Trump’s move to end the cost-sharing subsidies may bolster those discussions.
In a statement, Murray called Trump’s action to withdraw cost-sharing subsidies “reckless” but said she continues “to be optimistic about our negotiations and believe we can reach a deal quickly — and I urge Republican leaders in Congress to do the right thing for families this time by supporting our work.”
Trump on Friday urged Democrats to work with him to “make a deal” on health care. “Now, if the Democrats were smart, what they’d do is come and negotiate something where people could really get the kind of healthcare that they deserve, being citizens of our great country,” he said Friday afternoon.
Earlier Friday, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) did not sound as if he was in the mood to cut a deal.
“Republicans have been doing everything they can for the last ten months to inject instability into our health care system and to force collapse through sabotage,” he said in a statement. “Republicans in the House and Senate now own the health care system in this country from top to bottom, and their destructive actions, and the actions of the president, are going to fall on their backs. The American people see it, and they know full well which party is doing it.”
A poll released Friday by the Kaiser Family Foundation shows that 71 percent of the public said they preferred that the Trump administration try to make the law work rather than to hasten replacement by encouraging its failure. The poll was conducted before Trump made his announcement about the subsidies. (Kaiser Health News is an editorially independent program of the foundation.)
5. Some states are suing, but the outcome is hard to guess.
Even though all states regulate their own insurance markets, states have limited options for dealing with Trump’s latest move. Eighteen states and the District of Columbia, led by New York and California, are suing the Trump administration to defend the cost-sharing subsidies. But it is unclear whether a federal court could say that the Trump administration is obligated to continue making the payments while that case is pending.
Diane Webber contributed to this report. |
Not Dead Yet: Obamacare Insurers Are Hanging In There | Despite President Trump’s best efforts, the Obamacare market hasn’t imploded yet. While Thursday’s decisions to cut off government funding and invite competition from flimsier, cheaper plans will jostle a vulnerable market, many of the major insurance companies say they will remain in the state marketplaces next year.
| https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/13/upshot/not-dead-yet-obamacare-insurers-are-hanging-in-there.html | 2017-10-16 10:06:08.903000 | Mr. Trump has made his disdain for the Affordable Care Act clear in a variety of policies dating to his first week in office, and for months had threatened to stop paying insurers subsidies that help them provide lower deductibles and co-payments to low-income customers. Because of the uncertainty, most states had allowed insurers to set high enough prices for 2018 to account for the risk of cutoff subsidies. That means they are largely protected from the consequences of President Trump’s decision to eliminate the payments.
But not all. While many large carriers like Centene may be willing to stay, others are nervous, and their regulators were considering options Friday. New competition from plans exempt from the A.C.A. rules and much higher rates resulting from the loss of funding are making some insurers rethink their commitment to 2018. “They’re sharpening their pencils now to see if they are going to stay in or not,” said David M. Dillon, a fellow with the Society of Actuaries.
In addition to cutting off the subsidies, the president signed an executive order Thursday that may pave the way for competing plans that would be subject to fewer rules and could draw healthy customers out of the Obamacare markets. The administration has also cut back on its marketplace advertising budget by 90 percent, and slashed funding to groups that help customers understand their options and sign up for insurance.
“It’s a deliberate pattern,” said Chet Burrell, the chief executive of CareFirst, which is faced with a $50 million loss in Maryland if regulators do not allow it to increase its rates to make up for the loss of funding. “With active sabotage, this makes it more unstable.”
Mr. Burrell says CareFirst expects to continue offering coverage in the individual market regardless of what the Maryland regulator decides. But he said the administration’s actions “create profound instability and uncertainty for the future.” |
European commercial markets strongest in 10 years: Knight Frank | European commercial property markets are at their strongest since the global financial crisis, according to real estate advisor Knight Frank. Much of this is down to strong economic growth in the eurozone, creating better stability and growth, especially in the UK, Germany, France and the Netherlands. As such, Knight Frank's European Capital Markets Board is optimistic for the future of the European commercial property markets, despite uncertainty caused by Brexit. | https://www.propertywire.com/news/europe/commercial-property-markets-europe-best-shape-since-global-economic-crisis/ | 2017-10-16 10:05:21.190000 | Europe’s commercial real estate markets are in better shape than at any time since the global financial crisis, according to new research.
The Eurozone is showing good economic growth for the first time in many years and this is creating more stability and growth, particularly in the UK, Germany, France and the Netherlands.
International real estate adviser Knight Frank’s newly appointed European Capital Markets Board are optimistic for the future of the European real estate markets despite uncertainty caused by the Brexit process.
‘The Eurozone is showing good economic growth for the first time since the global financial crisis and despite the uncertainty over the Brexit negotiations, the UK is experiencing record low levels of unemployment,’ said Andrew Sim, head of Global Capital Markets at Knight Frank.
‘London in particular is continuing to power ahead, with confidence indices rising and office take-up by the tech and creative sectors actually having increased in the first half of 2017 compared with the same period in 2016. The upshot is that London remained the most active investment market in Europe in the first half of 2017, with prices having risen to pre-referendum levels despite an air of uncertainty,’ he pointed out.
‘We expect an increase in activity as the prospect of a two or three year transitional deal for Britain when leaving the European Union sinks in, leaving more and more investors expecting the return of the London capital markets status quo’,’ he added.
According to Hanns-Joachim Fredrich, head of Capital Markets Germany at Knight Frank, explained that in Germany pricing is looking sharp, with offices in central business districts trading at record levels with record demand forcing up prices. ‘Investment into Frankfurt has significantly increased due to the ongoing Brexit discussions, however a lack of suitable product is hindering its deployment,’ he said.
‘All property classes are benefiting from the strong investor demand, not only prime offices and retail but also hotels, residential and healthcare. Due to the extremely high investor demand for residential, there is a shortage of commercial developments within Germany’s top seven cities. Most office developments are pre-let two or three years before completion,’ he explained.
‘Knight Frank recommends now is the time to activate existing land with building rights and start speculative development to benefit from the shortage of existing schemes underway and the strong take-up of the dwindling office space available,’ he added.
In France there is growing demand from overseas investors, boosted by the election of President Emmanuel Macron. ‘There is belief, momentum and activity, with the vacancy rate on Paris’s Ile de France falling sharply to now sit at 6.6%. In the central business district vacancy rates are now 3.1%,’ said Vincent Bollaert, the firm’s head of Capital Markets in France.
‘Our view is that the occupational market is going to strengthen further as well, and post-Brexit we expect the tech sector to account for up to 15% of total employment in Paris. This is all underpinning a strong investment market, with prime yields sitting between 3% and 3.25% – a record low for the central business district. While French investors accounted for 63% of transactions in the first half of this year we are finding there is growing demand from overseas buyers in the second half,’ he added.
Amsterdam is becoming an increasingly attractive market for investors seeking an alternative to more expensive European markets such as London, Paris and Berlin, according to Fred Rikken, head of Capital Markets in the Netherlands.
‘High office vacancy rates were previously a concern for those looking to deploy capital, but availability is now rapidly tumbling and supply shortages have emerged in the most sought-after office districts,’ he said.
‘Combined with strong demand from the city’s vibrant and expanding technology sector, tight supply will drive rental growth, and create opportunities for new development, however, a lack of suitable core investment product would be the biggest challenge in the next 12 months,’ he added. |
End to Health Care Subsidies Puts Congress in a Tight Spot | President Trump’s decision to cut off critical payments to health insurance companies ratcheted up the pressure on Congress on Friday to take action to protect consumers from soaring premiums, while also adding a combustible new issue to negotiations to avert a government shutdown this year.
| https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/13/us/politics/trump-congress-obamacare-insurance-subsidies.html | 2017-10-16 10:04:38.357000 | WASHINGTON — President Trump’s decision to cut off critical payments to health insurance companies ratcheted up the pressure on Congress on Friday to take action to protect consumers from soaring premiums, while also adding a combustible new issue to negotiations to avert a government shutdown this year.
Mr. Trump’s move, announced Thursday night, could cause chaos in insurance markets, sending insurers fleeing from the Affordable Care Act’s marketplaces, raising the federal government’s costs and pricing out some consumers. It came just hours after he signed an executive order that also undermined the health law by encouraging the development of lower-cost insurance policies not subject to the Affordable Care Act’s rigorous coverage standards.
But the president suggested on Friday that he was trying to get Democrats to the negotiating table.
“If the Democrats were smart, what they’d do is come and negotiate something where people could really get the kind of health care that they deserve,” Mr. Trump told reporters, insisting that the subsidies were “making insurance companies rich.” |
Donald Trump’s Terrible Executive Order on Health Care | President Donald Trump is now trying to break the health-care system all by himself, although he has more help than he might acknowledge. On Thursday, Trump launched an assault on Obamacare from two angles.
| https://www.newyorker.com/news/amy-davidson-sorkin/donald-trumps-terrible-executive-order-on-health-care | 2017-10-16 10:03:32.863000 | President Donald Trump is now trying to break the health-care system all by himself, although he has more help than he might acknowledge. On Thursday, Trump launched an assault on Obamacare from two angles. First, the White House staged a signing ceremony for an executive order designed to push people into what are known, accurately, as “junk” insurance plans—the kind, common before the passage of the Affordable Care Act, that never seem to cover people when they are actually sick and that extort and abandon those with preëxisting conditions. Trump, in his remarks at the ceremony, referred to this choice as “fleeing the failing Obamacare plans.” And then, a few hours later, he did more to make Obamacare fail, by saying that he would withhold the cost-sharing subsidies that the government currently pays insurance companies in order to reduce deductibles and co-pays for many low-income people. Companies will undoubtedly respond by leaving the Obamacare exchanges, where such plans are now sold. Both moves had one thing in common: they recklessly target vulnerable Americans. But in doing so, they will, as with so many of Trump’s moves, increase risks for everyone.
Although Trump used the executive-order signing to goad his fellow-Republicans—“We’re going to also pressure Congress very strongly to finish the repeal and the replace”—they did much to make this day possible. Trump claimed that he had no choice but to defund the subsidies because paying them went against the will of Congress. This is the argument in a lawsuit, instigated by House Republicans, that is making its way through the federal courts. Basically, those Republicans argue that, although the plain language of the A.C.A. describes and authorizes the payment of subsidies, Congress should be allowed to vote on actually releasing the money every year. In effect, Congress promised the money when it passed the A.C.A., but now it wants the right to hold that money hostage on a regular basis. The case relies on a highly technical reading of the legislative fine print; nevertheless, the congressional challengers won a round in the lower courts, though that had been stayed pending an appeal—one that, on Thursday, the Trump Administration apparently decided to drop. (Attorney General Jeff Sessions had earlier said that he agreed with the House Republicans.) More than that, it is, at best, a technical ambiguity that any congressional majority interested in something other than utter chaos in the insurance markets could easily fix. Such a majority does not exist right now.
Indeed, the opposite is the case: the false stories that congressional Republicans told about Obamacare—a system that, whatever its flaws, has increased the number of Americans with insurance by some twenty million, and made that coverage more reliable for many times that number— fed partisan demands for Trump to savage it. The Republican Party made a destructive promise that Trump, as its candidate, has been eager to keep. It may be the only thing that the Party can rely on him for, and, although some individual Republicans, such as Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, of Florida—who, not incidentally, is retiring at the end of this term—worried about the effect on their constituents, Party leaders were quick with their gratitude. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell tweeted, “As #obamacare continues to fail Americans, I’m pleased @POTUS is promoting affordable policies to better meet the needs of families.” And the Speaker of the House, Paul Ryan, said that Trump’s decision to end cost-sharing subsidies was a “monumental affirmation of Congress’s authority.” That may seem like an odd way to describe a move that was also framed as a response to Congress’s failure to repeal the A.C.A., and which was a flanking attempt to undermine a major piece of legislation. But, as a shorthand for the affirmation of the congressional Republicans’ ideological authority, it was not far wrong.
These two moves are not the only sabotage attempts that the Trump Administration has been engaged in. It has rewritten rules to allow plans to stop covering many forms of birth control. It has made disabling cuts to programs that help people sign up for Obamacare, and made enrollment, across the board, harder—more of a labyrinth. Information about plans that people might be able to afford has been, effectively, hidden. Perhaps this is, finally, an example of Trump bringing his business expertise to Washington: the knowledge that bad marketing can cripple a good project.
But the most Trumpian aspect of the executive order is that it makes life easier for con men. It does so by allowing the sale of insurance plans that do not meet basic standards through “associations,” which might be made up of employers, interest groups, or just entrepreneurial opportunists—the exact rules still have to be written. Obamacare plans offer certain defined essential services, such as preventive and obstetric care and hospitalization, that an insurance plan has to cover, and cover substantially, to call itself an insurance plan. In other words, the A.C.A. made it harder for employers or insurers to claim that they were covering people if, when it counted, they really weren’t. (Such a bait and switch was common in the pre-Obamacare days; many people who went bankrupt after a medical emergency actually had insurance plans.) The executive order would create a sham market alongside the real one. One concern is that young, healthy people will be drawn to association plans because they don’t “need” comprehensive coverage, and are making what they believe is a rational calculation, albeit one that will drive up premiums in the Obamacare market, by making that pool of people, on average, sicker and older. (Paul Ryan, who has complained that it is unfair that healthy people help pay for sick people—the premise of insurance—is an association-plan enthusiast.)
But health-care needs have a way of changing quickly—we might each be separated from one category or the other by a single accident, diagnosis, or pregnancy. And some people and businesses won’t so much be making a choice as settling for what that they can afford in the short term: the plan, good or not, with the lowest sticker price. And, again depending on the specific rules that the Administration comes up with, people with preëxisting conditions will likely be more exposed to rate hikes—indeed, their co-workers might be, too, since an association would be able to set higher rates for a single business with a large number of people regarded as risks, whether because they are older or more likely to have children. (This means that, as a bonus, the executive order may encourage employment discrimination.) Another disorienting aspect is that an association would be able to sell its plans across state lines, in a way that would disregard the insurance regulations in the state in which the insured person lives. This would set up, effectively, a cross-country race to the bottom.
Another aspect of the executive order that is a setup for an insurance con is its expanded definition of “temporary” plans. Basically, these are policies, exempt from many regulations (someone can be dropped upon becoming sick, for example, or denied coverage for preëxisting conditions) that are designed for people who are between other plans—perhaps because of a job change—to buy in a pinch. But they also represent a loophole, which the Obama Administration tried to close, by defining “temporary” as no more than three months. Trump’s order extends it to a year. This is in keeping with an economy in which every little foothold that working families have seems temporary—it helps to make flimsiness a permanent state.
In presenting the plan at the executive-order signing, Trump did his best impression of a flim-flam man—that is to say, he was entirely in character. The guests included members of his Administration, some small-business representatives, and Senator Rand Paul, who believed that the Senate’s last attempt to break Obamacare was not radical enough. Trump didn’t have many details other than the promise that a “nightmare” was over, that millions of people would be “very happy,” and that the whole thing would produce better plans at no expense whatsoever to the government. “That’s not too bad, right?” he said.
As Trump started to walk out of the room, though, Vice-President Mike Pence suddenly looked anxious. He hurried after his departing boss with an outstretched arm. “Mr. President, you need to sign it!” Pence said. “Oh,” Trump said, to laughter, and then added, “I’m only signing it because it costs nothing.” Not for him, maybe, unless our political marketplace comes up with some way to measure the cost, to a President and his Party, of presiding over a disaster. |
Pret A Manger becomes latest UK outlet to reduce plastic use | Pret A Manger has become the latest UK food and drink outlet to reduce its use of plastic. The company will sell empty glass bottles and dispense free filtered water in its three vegetarian stores, although plastic bottles of water will still be sold. The scheme will be extended to Manchester branches from the end of October. Last month, Wetherspoons pub chain pledged to stop the use of plastic drinking straws from 2018. Selfridges, which committed to ending the sale of single-use plastic water bottles in 2015, has also recently phased out the use of plastic straws in its eateries.
| https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/oct/16/high-street-outlets-move-to-ditch-plastic-amid-environmental-concerns | 2017-10-16 10:01:06.750000 | A growing number of outlets selling food and drink in the UK are taking action to ditch plastic amid deepening concern about its effect on the environment, with drinking straws and bottles among items being phased out.
Pret A Manger has become the latest to take action, announcing that it has installed taps dispensing free filtered water and started selling empty glass bottles in its three vegetarian stores. The scheme is due to be rolled out to branches in Manchester from the end of October.
The move follows a flurry of schemes introduced by businesses and charities, from pub chain Wetherspoons to the Zoological Society of London, to curb plastic waste amid rising concern over the vast tide of containers, bottles and other paraphernalia washing up around the world.
While plastic bottles of water will still be available at the Pret stores, the company says the goal is to explore whether customers will take up the plastic-free option.
“We’ve been really surprised and encouraged by the hugely positive response on social media – we’ve even sold quite a few glass bottles already,” said Caroline Cromar, the brand director of Pret. “We’ll be listening carefully to feedback from our customers and shop teams before we decide on the next stage.”
The move, according to Pret, comes from a growing desire to tackle the impact of plastic waste on the environment.
A Guardian investigation this year discovered that a million plastic bottles are bought worldwide every minute, while recent research has revealed that of the 6.3bn tons of plastic waste produced between 1950 and 2015, almost 80% has ended up in landfill or in the environment – including the oceans. Plastic contamination is now found in everything from tap water to sea salt.
A staff member working in a Pret A Manger store in central London. Photograph: Nick Ansell/PA
Pret is not alone is attempting to wean consumers off plastic. Last month Wetherspoons announced that it would stop using plastic drinking straws from 2018, while Borough Market in London promised this summer that it would end sales of single-use plastic bottles and install public drinking fountains.
Meanwhile Selfridges, which announced in 2015 that it would stop selling single-use plastic water bottles, has now gone a step further. A spokesperson said that it, too, recently phased out the use of plastic straws in its eateries and restaurants, adding that a permanent water fountain will be installed in its London store in 2018.
It is not only high-street retailers that are taking action. The media company Sky recently revealed that it is removing disposable plastic – including bottles of water and cups – from its canteen.
UK visitor attractions are also tackling the issue. “Obviously as a conservation charity the subject of plastic in the ocean is very close to our hearts,” said Kathryn England, the head of commercial at ZSL, which runs London Zoo and Whipsnade Zoo in Bedfordshire.
Since the summer of 2016 ZSL has no longer sold single-use plastic bottles of water at its London and Whipsnade sites, instead installing water fountains and embracing alternative packaging.
The move, said England, was not without difficulties. “There is not that much out there that isn’t plastic at the moment,” she said. “One of the big challenges that we have as a zoo is that we can’t have glass on site for safely reasons.”
In the end, ZSL opted for cardboard cartons of plain and flavoured water with polyethylene terephthalate (PET)-free caps, as well as resealable cans of both still and sparkling water.
The transition, England said, not only stacked up commercially, but has gone down well with the 2m visitors that visit the zoos every year. “We’ve not had a single element of pushback since we rolled [the scheme] out,” she said, adding that ZSL had taken steps to explain the reasoning behind the move to visitors.
With its mission accomplished, England says ZSL is now going further. “By the end of the year, our entire drinks range across our two zoos will be 100% single-use plastic bottle free,” she said, adding that finding healthy and non-carbonated drinks with plastic-free packaging was no mean feat.
Visitors at the main entrance of London Zoo in central London. Photograph: Matt Dunham/AP
But not everyone is following suit. A spokesperson for Costa Coffee responded to Pret’s move by pointing out that free water was already available in its stores. “Our baristas are more than happy to provide glasses of tap water to our customers on request,” they said.
However, while a recent survey found that 61% of people “wouldn’t pay for bottled water if tap water was available”, 37% said they would be embarrassed to ask for free tap water – even if they were buying items at the same time.
England said she welcomed the announcement from Pret, but added that manufacturers and those in the field of waste management needed to facilitate the use of plastic-free options, including compostable corn-starch containers.
“I think the more brands like this can come on board, the more pressure that puts on the big manufacturers to actually switch over and start creating and developing innovation that is going to come up with an alternative solution to plastic that will work for everybody,” she said. |
Pret A Manger becomes latest UK outlet to reduce plastic use | Pret A Manger has become the latest UK food and drink outlet to reduce its use of plastic. The company will sell empty glass bottles and dispense free filtered water in its three vegetarian stores, although plastic bottles of water will still be sold. The scheme will be extended to Manchester branches from the end of October. Last month, Wetherspoons pub chain pledged to stop the use of plastic drinking straws from 2018. Selfridges, which committed to ending the sale of single-use plastic water bottles in 2015, has also recently phased out the use of plastic straws in its eateries.
| http://www.pret.co.uk/en-gb/what-if-pret-stopped-selling-plastic-water-bottles | 2017-10-16 10:01:06.750000 | Plastic bottles are a problem. We all feel it even before we hear the shocking statistics about millions of tonnes ending up in our oceans each year and imagine the devastating impact this has on marine wildlife.
Pret has always tried to lead on food waste – we’ve been donating our unsold food to the homeless every night since our first shop opened more than 30 years ago. We are making inroads on the problem of packaging waste by reducing where we can and making more of it recyclable. This includes working to find a solution to the fiendish coffee cup problem. We recognise we have lots to do.
Plastic bottles present a real challenge and there are two schools of thought within Pret. The passionate environmentalists say stop selling them altogether, while the pragmatists say make it as easy as you can for customers to use fewer plastic bottles. We are looking carefully at both options. I tend towards the pragmatist end myself.
All of our Veggie Pret and Manchester shops will now be encouraging customers to fill up their bottles for free using new filtered water stations. These shops will also start selling reusable plastic bottles alongside our regular water bottles, so the choice is clear. The aim is to understand if customers will choose to refill a bottle rather than buying a new one.
The trial of reusable bottles and taps in our Veggie Pret and Manchester shops is just the start of Pret trying to do more when it comes to packaging. As always, I welcome your views on what we can do to make the most impact in this area.
Have you or would you make the switch to a reusable bottle? Is there still a place for plastic bottles or can we do without them entirely? |
Social Security Giveth, Medical Costs Taketh Away | Retirees spent on average more than a third of their Social Security benefits on out-of-pocket medical costs in 2014, according to a recent study. Even after factoring in other sources of income, medical spending still took a substantial 18 percent bite out of seniors’ total retirement income, the study found.
| https://californiahealthline.org/news/social-security-giveth-medical-costs-taketh-away/ | 2017-10-16 10:00:18 | About Insight Insight provides an in-depth look at health care issues in and affecting California. Have a story suggestion? Let us know.
Retirees spent on average more than a third of their Social Security benefits on out-of-pocket medical costs in 2014, according to a recent study. Even after factoring in other sources of income, medical spending still took a substantial 18 percent bite out of seniors’ total retirement income, the study found.
In dollar terms, the typical retiree spent $4,274 per year on medical costs, not including long-term care. Insurance premiums accounted for about two-thirds of that total, according to the study, published this month by the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College.
“The premiums are huge,” said Melissa McInerney, an associate professor of economics at Tufts University and a study co-author, describing their importance in overall spending by retirees.
Insuring Your Health KHN contributing columnist Michelle Andrews writes the series Insuring Your Health, which explores health care coverage and costs. To contact Michelle with a question or comment, click here. This KHN story can be republished for free (details).
McInerney said she was surprised at the findings, however, when the team did incorporate spending on long-term care and found little difference in average spending. When researchers included survey respondents who said they or their spouse lived in a long-term care facility or received home health care services, average spending was 19.2 percent of total income, versus 17.8 percent for those who didn’t need long-term care.
For the study, researchers analyzed 2002-2014 data from the Health and Retirement Study, a national survey conducted every two years of 20,000 people over age 50. The sample was limited to people at least 65 years old and were receiving both Social Security and Medicare benefits. It included those who also had Medicaid, Medicare Advantage or private group retiree health insurance.
Overall, the average retiree’s out-of-pocket medical spending declined 9 percent over the years studied from just under $4,700 in 2004 (in 2014 dollars) to $4,274 in 2014. That’s likely due in part to the introduction of Medicare Part D prescription drug coverage in 2006 and the gradual closing of the drug coverage gap known as the “doughnut hole” that began in 2010 under the Affordable Care Act, the study found.
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However, medical costs for Medicare beneficiaries are expected to outpace the increase in Social Security benefits after 2018, and retirees will have to put a growing percentage of their Social Security income toward medical care, according to study authors, citing projections by Medicare and Social Security trustees and the Congressional Budget Office.
“The main takeaway from the study is that right now, even for retirees who live in the community and aren’t using long-term care, medical out-of-pocket spending is high and is a big share of their income,” said McInerney. “And we might expect that to grow if spending rises at end of this decade.”
Correction: This story was updated on Oct. 13 to correct the information about the researchers’ findings when they included long-term care expenses. They calculated the costs for a group that didn’t include people with long-term care expenses and then for a group that included both those with and without long-term care expenses. The study did not look at people with long-term care expenses separately.
Please visit kffhealthnews.org/columnists to send comments or ideas for future topics for the Insuring Your Health column.
This story was produced by Kaiser Health News, an editorially independent program of the Kaiser Family Foundation. |
Wringing Cash From Life Insurance | “We’re going to go through a quick, ten- to 15-minute personal health assessment,” said Jay Jackson, vice president of Abacus Life Settlements in Orlando. “There are no right or wrong answers.”
| https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/13/health/life-insurance-policy-settlements.html?partner=rss&emc=rss | 2017-10-16 09:57:15.187000 | “We’re going to go through a quick, ten- to 15-minute personal health assessment,” said Jay Jackson, vice president of Abacus Life Settlements in Orlando. “There are no right or wrong answers.”
We were on the phone, doing an interview that would determine whether this company might offer to buy the life insurance policy — face value: $150,000 — that I’d bought decades ago.
I actually had no interest in selling, to Abacus or to any other so-called life-settlement provider. But I wanted to see how the process would unfold if I did.
So the questions began, with Mr. Jackson asking in a conversational way about my age, smoking history, marital status, ability to handle my daily activities. How old were my parents when they died? What type of exercise did I do? Any falls or dizziness in the last six months? |
Gold particle delivery could end gene editing mistakes of CRISPR | Researchers from the University of California and the University of Tokyo have found a potential method of minimising the number of errors made by the CRISPR gene-editing tool, according to an article in Nature Biomedical Engineering. The teams used a gold nanoparticle, rather than a virus, to deliver the Cas9 protein and RNA guide to the target cells, resulting in a mouse gene which no longer carried a mutation causing Duchenne muscular dystrophy. The team called the new technique CRISPR-Gold.
| https://phys.org/news/2017-10-gold-nanoparticle-virus-crispr-approach.html | 2017-10-16 09:56:06.877000 | CRISPR-associated protein Cas9 (white) from Staphylococcus aureus based on Protein Database ID 5AXW. Credit: Thomas Splettstoesser (Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0)
(Phys.org)—A team of researchers from the University of California and the University of Tokyo has found a way to use the CRISPR gene editing technique that does not rely on a virus for delivery. In their paper published in the journal Nature Biomedical Engineering, the group describes the new technique, how well it works and improvements that need to be made to make it a viable gene editing tool.
CRISPR-Cas9 has been in the news a lot lately because it allows researchers to directly edit genes—either disabling unwanted parts or replacing them altogether. But despite many success stories, the technique still suffers from a major deficit that prevents it from being used as a true medical tool—it sometimes makes mistakes. Those mistakes can cause small or big problems for a host depending on what goes wrong. Prior research has suggested that the majority of mistakes are due to delivery problems, which means that a replacement for the virus part of the technique is required. In this new effort, the researchers report that they have discovered just a such a replacement, and it worked so well that it was able to repair a gene mutation in a Duchenne muscular dystrophy mouse model. The team has named the new technique CRISPR-Gold, because a gold nanoparticle was used to deliver the gene editing molecules instead of a virus.
The new package was created by modifying a bit of DNA to cause it to stick to a gold nanoparticle and then a Cas9 protein and also an RNA guide. The package was then coated with a polymer that served as a containment casing—one that also triggered endocytosis (a form of cell transport) and helped the molecules escape endosomes once inside the target cells. The molecules then set to work—the Cas9 cut the target DNA strand, the guide RNA showed what needed to be done and a DNA strand was placed where a mutation had existed. The result was a gene free of a mutation that causes Duchenne muscular dystrophy.
There is still a major problem to overcome with the technique, however—it only works in localized applications. Ideally, a mass of packages would be injected into the bloodstream allowing for repair of all cell types, such as muscles impaired by a mutant gene.
More information: Kunwoo Lee et al. Nanoparticle delivery of Cas9 ribonucleoprotein and donor DNA in vivo induces homology-directed DNA repair, Nature Biomedical Engineering (2017). DOI: 10.1038/s41551-017-0137-2 Abstract
Clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats (CRISPR)–CRISPR associated protein 9 (Cas9)-based therapeutics, especially those that can correct gene mutations via homology-directed repair, have the potential to revolutionize the treatment of genetic diseases. However, it is challenging to develop homology-directed repair-based therapeutics because they require the simultaneous in vivo delivery of Cas9 protein, guide RNA and donor DNA. Here, we demonstrate that a delivery vehicle composed of gold nanoparticles conjugated to DNA and complexed with cationic endosomal disruptive polymers can deliver Cas9 ribonucleoprotein and donor DNA into a wide variety of cell types and efficiently correct the DNA mutation that causes Duchenne muscular dystrophy in mice via local injection, with minimal off-target DNA damage. Journal information: Nature Biomedical Engineering
© 2017 Phys.org |
Steve Wozniak launches online tech learning platform | Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak has launched Woz U, an online platform aimed at "educating and training people in employable digital skills without putting them into years of debt", according to a statement. Woz U offers courses in technology, with an emphasis on achieving careers in science, engineering, arts, and mathematics, and is open to K-12 students and tech companies. Wozniak's ambitions for the platform include expansion to 30 global locations, one-on-one instruction and an accelerator programme. No pricing details for courses are currently available.
| https://www.theverge.com/2017/10/13/16474170/apple-steve-wozniak-woz-u-launch-tech-education-online-university | 2017-10-16 09:38:34.520000 | Steve Wozniak, who co-founded Apple with Steve Jobs, is launching a new online tech education platform he’s calling Woz U, which is designed to promote technology jobs and the skills required to enter the industry. Over time, Wozniak hopes to expand the initiative to include as many as 30 physical locations around the world and courses on everything from software engineering and information technology to mobile app development and cybersecurity, among others. It’s unclear whether courses will be offered for free, or whether Woz U plans on charging for any element of the online education platform. The website does not say.
Woz U also offers access to tech companies interested in using the tools and resources provided to recruit and train employees. The platform will be available to students K-12 through partnerships with school districts too. Down the line, Woz U wants to offer one-on-one instruction to students and, later on, to offer its own accelerator program for prospective startup founders. The overall goal is to increase interest in what Woz U calls STEAM careers, or science, technology, engineering, arts, and mathematics, with the addition of arts presumably a nod to Wozniak’s role at Apple and fellow co-founder Steve Jobs’ lifelong mission to blend technology with the humanities.
Woz U doesn’t say how much its online courses will cost students
“Our goal is to educate and train people in employable digital skills without putting them into years of debt,” Wozniak said in a statement. “People often are afraid to choose a technology-based career because they think they can’t do it. I know they can, and I want to show them how. My entire life I have worked to build, develop, and create a better world through technology and I have always respected education. Now is the time for Woz U, and we are only getting started.” |
China's electric vehicle boom may push oil prices to record lows | China's push to produce seven million electric vehicles (EVs) by 2025 could push oil prices to historical lows of around $10 a barrel, according to market watcher Nick Cunningham. In a blog post for Oilprice.com, he cited China's plans to spend $60bn on EV-related subsidies by 2020 and predictions of crude oil demand falling by eight million barrels a day as reasons why a drop in oil prices was likely. "The mass adoption of EVs could permanently keep oil prices low, even under some relatively modest assumptions about the growth of the EV market," Cunningham warned.
| http://www.marketwatch.com/story/oil-headed-to-10-china-may-be-in-the-drivers-seat-2017-10-16 | 2017-10-16 09:02:52.723000 | So another week begins, and many investors may be wondering how many records will be broken now — at least those that have nothing to do with Mother Nature.
That synchronized global uptrend is looking pretty intact, with almost every major world equity index at or near record highs. Asia has kept that going, and the Dow looks set for a fresh high this morning. Note that it’s been an incredible 236 days since the S&P 500 has had a decline of at least 3%.
This so-called “euphoriameter” says it all:
But alas, not all assets have been joining the party. Oil — incidentally trekking up this morning on unrest in Iraq and questions about the Iran nuclear deal — is set to finish the year with a whimper.
That leads us to our call of the day, which predicts things won’t get better for crude prices. In fact, they will probably get much worse thanks to China, according to Nick Cunningham, who tracks oil and the renewable energy beat.
“As the world’s largest auto market, China’s EV (electric-vehicle) policy, which is still being formulated, could supercharge the race for EVs,” says Cunningham in a blog post for Oilprice.com.
He rattles off a number of signs of China’s electric-car gear-up, such as big planned investments and a growing clampdown on autos that cloud its skies with pollution.
“It will only take a small change in oil demand to upend price forecasts. After all, prices crashed in 2014, falling from $100 per barrel down to $50 in less than a year,” he says.
Cunningham points to a Financial Times report that says China plans to produce 7 million EVs per year by 2025 and to spend at least $60 billion on related subsidies between 2015 and 2020.
And a Bloomberg New Energy Finance report that predicts EVs will cut crude demand by 8 million barrels a day by 2040 should “send chills down the spines of oil executives,” he warns.
Cunningham was expanding on a prediction made by Chris Watling, who believes growing interest in alternative energy fuels could drive oil prices to $10 a barrel over the next six to eight years.
The Longview Economics chief told CNBC on Friday that a key catalyst would be Saudi Aramco’s IPO — planned for later 2018, but now looking in doubt — saying they “need to get it away quickly before oil hits $10 a barrel.”
Cunningham didn’t lay out when oil might take a hit from the Middle Kingdom’s EV push, but seemed to see it as a sure thing.
“The exact point we reach peak oil demand is obviously very debatable, but in general, the mass adoption of EVs could permanently keep oil prices low, even under some relatively modest assumptions about the growth of the EV market,” he says. Read the full post here.
Key market gauges
Stocks are up at the start of trade with the S&P 500 SPX, +0.29% and Nasdaq COMP, +0.65% and Dow industrials DJIA, +0.12% DJIA, +0.12% all hitting new records.
As mentioned, WTI crude US:CLZ7 and Brent UK:LCOZ7 prices are trekking higher, driven in part by fear fighting between Iraq and Kurdish separatists will disrupt supplies. Gold US:GCZ7 and silver US:SIZ7 are inching up.
The dollar DXY, +0.09% is moving up against the euro EURUSD, +0.03% , after Catalonia’s leader defied Madrid’s demand for clarity on independence. Spanish stocks IBEX, +0.44% are weighing on the rest of Europe SXXP, +0.17% .
In Asia ADOW, +0.61% , the Hang Seng Index HSI, +0.07% closed at a 10-year high.
See the Market Snapshot column for more.
The anniversary of Black Monday is fast approaching. Here’s a look at whether it could happen again
The chart
In among that Asia cheer, the Nikkei 225 index NIK, +0.52% nabbed another 21-year high on Monday. While it may be hard for U.S. investors to get excited about Japanese stocks, MKM Partner’s chief market technician Jonathan Krinsky says they could be missing a big opportunity here.
He explains that Japanese stocks’ secular cycles are longer than the 15-to-20 years seen in the U.S. The last bear market ran for 28 years, and that’s how long the current bear market has been around, as this chart shows.
MKM Partners Wikipedia
Here’s what he has to say about the second chart: “Whether or not you want to call an end to the secular bear in Japan, it’s clear that the Nikkei is in a strong uptrend now.”
“There is an entire generation that has not witnessed a secular bull market for Japanese equities. The fact that Japan is breaking above a 25+ year secular trading range should not be taken lightly, in our view.”
MKM Partners
Note that a snap general election in Japan is set for Sunday. Here’s all you need to know about that.
The buzz
Apple AAPL, +0.69% is getting a lift after an upgrade to overweight at KeyBanc Capital. It set a price target of $187 for the iPhone maker, citing a more “aggressive market segmentation strategy.”
A busy earnings week kicks off with Netflix NFLX, +0.10% after the close. The streaming service is forecast to report earnings of 32 cents a share — 167% higher on the year and up more than 113% on the quarter.
Bitcoin BTCUSD, -1.25% , which went roaring higher last week, is now atop $5,700. WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange over the weekend had this to say about a big bump he’s seen in his bitcoin investment:
An oil platform operated by Clovelly Oil exploded Sunday in Lake Pontchartrain near New Orleans, causing multiple injuries.
Data from China showed producer prices shot up 6.9%, the latest surprise out of the country. That news pushed copper to a new three-year high above $7,000.
Read:5 reasons why investors need to watch China’s National Party Congress
Ophelia, which was the most powerful hurricane seen so far east in the Atlantic, has weakened but is still putting Ireland on lockdown:
The economy
The data calendar is less packed this week, but we will get some updates on housing starts and sales, along with the Fed’s beige book. For Monday, the Empire State index showed a jumped to a three-year high.
Check out our economic preview for the week.
Meanwhile, Fed Chairwoman Janet Yellen left open the possibility of further interest rate rises in 2017, speaking at a Group of 30 banking seminar on Sunday.
And: What you need to know about the Household Economic Stress Index
The stat
Getty Images
11.3% -- That’s was Huawei’s market share of smartphones in the second quarter of 2017, meaning the Chinese handset maker is in prime position to overtake Apple, on 12%, says an analyst at research group IDC.
The quote
Civilians carry the dead body of an unidentified man in the Hodan district of Mogadishu, Somalia October 14, 2017. Reuters
“The death toll will likely rise because over 450 people were injured while many others are still missing.” — Abdikadir Abdirahman, the head of Mogadishu’s hospital and ambulance services, tells Wall Street Journal as more than 300 now confirmed dead after weekend terror blast, the worst in Somalia in a decade.
Random reads
Over 300 now dead, over 400 injured after weekend terror blasts in Mogadishu
Good news for Napa, where firefighters say they’ve “turned a corner”
But in Galicia, Spain, more than 100 fires are burning
Colin Kaepernick says NFL owners have colluded not to hire him
Larry Flint offering $10 million for info that leads to POTUS’s impeachment
Woody Allen says Weinstein scandal is “sad,” worries about a Hollywood ‘witch hunt’
Right-wing parties scored some victories in Austria this weekend
Microsoft is building tree houses for its employees
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Security flaw puts all Wi-Fi networks at risk of hacking | Operating systems including Windows, Apple, Linux and Android, among others, could be vulnerable to cyberattack, following the discovery of a vulnerability in wireless security protocol WPA2. Hackers can use this attack technique to read information that was previously considered to be safety encrypted. “This can be abused to steal sensitive information such as credit card numbers, passwords, chat messages, emails, photos and so on," warned Mathy Vanhoef, a security expert at Belgian university KU Leuven. However, security experts said that hackers would have to be physically close for the weakness, known as Krack, to be capable of compromising users' Wi-Fi.
| https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/oct/16/wpa2-wifi-security-vulnerable-hacking-us-government-warns | 2017-10-16 08:59:51.280000 | The security protocol used to protect the vast majority of wifi connections has been broken, potentially exposing wireless internet traffic to malicious eavesdroppers and attacks, according to the researcher who discovered the weakness.
Mathy Vanhoef, a security expert at Belgian university KU Leuven, discovered the weakness in the wireless security protocol WPA2, and published details of the flaw on Monday morning.
“Attackers can use this novel attack technique to read information that was previously assumed to be safely encrypted,” Vanhoef’s report said. “This can be abused to steal sensitive information such as credit card numbers, passwords, chat messages, emails, photos and so on.
Vanhoef emphasised that “the attack works against all modern protected wifi networks. Depending on the network configuration, it is also possible to inject and manipulate data. For example, an attacker might be able to inject ransomware or other malware into websites.”
The vulnerability affects a number of operating systems and devices, the report said, including Android, Linux, Apple, Windows, OpenBSD, MediaTek, Linksys and others.
“If your device supports wifi, it is most likely affected,” Vanhoef wrote. “In general, any data or information that the victim transmits can be decrypted … Additionally, depending on the device being used and the network setup, it is also possible to decrypt data sent towards the victim (e.g. the content of a website).”
Vanhoef gave the weakness the codename Krack, short for Key Reinstallation AttaCK.
Britain’s National Cyber Security Centre said in a statement it was examining the vulnerability. “Research has been published today into potential global weaknesses to wifi systems. The attacker would have to be physically close to the target and the potential weaknesses would not compromise connections to secure websites, such as banking services or online shopping.
“We are examining the research and will be providing guidance if required. Internet security is a key NCSC priority and we continuously update our advice on issues such as wifi safety, device management and browser security.”
The United States Computer Emergency Readiness Team (Cert) issued a warning on Sunday in response to the vulnerability.
“The impact of exploiting these vulnerabilities includes decryption, packet replay, TCP connection hijacking, HTTP content injection and others,” the alert says, detailing a number of potential attacks. It adds that, since the vulnerability is in the protocol itself, rather than any specific device or software, “most or all correct implementations of the standard will be affected”.
Insecure connections to websites should be considered public, and viewable to any other user on the network, until the vulnerability is fixed. Photograph: Alamy Stock Photo
The development is significant because the compromised security protocol is the most secure in general use to encrypt wifi connections. Older security standards have been broken in the past, but on those occasions a successor was available and in widespread use.
Crucially, the attack is unlikely to affect the security of information sent over the network that is protected in addition to the standard WPA2 encryption. This means connections to secure websites are still safe, as are other encrypted connections such as virtual private networks (VPN) and SSH communications.
However, insecure connections to websites – those which do not display a padlock icon in the address bar, indicating their support for HTTPS – should be considered public, and viewable to any other user on the network, until the vulnerability is fixed.
Equally, home internet connections will remain difficult to fully secure for quite some time. Many wireless routers are infrequently if ever updated, meaning that they will continue to communicate in an insecure manner. However, Vanhoef says, if the fix is installed on a phone or computer, that device will still be able to communicate with an insecure router. That means even users with an unpatched router should still fix as many devices as they can, to ensure security on other networks.
Alex Hudson, the chief technical officer of subscription service Iron, said that it is important to “keep calm”.
“There is a limited amount of physical security already on offer by wifi: an attack needs to be in proximity,” Hudson wrote. “So, you’re not suddenly vulnerable to everyone on the internet. It’s very weak protection, but this is important when reviewing your threat level.
“Additionally, it’s likely that you don’t have too many protocols relying on WPA2 security. Every time you access an HTTPS site … your browser is negotiating a separate layer of encryption. Accessing secure websites over wifi is still totally safe. Hopefully – but there is no guarantee – you don’t have much information going over your network that requires the encryption WPA2 provides.”
There’s likely to be a delay before the vulnerability is used to actually attack networks in the wild, says Symantec researcher Candid Wuest. “It’s quite a complex attack to carry out in practice, but we’ve seen similar before, so we know it’s possible to automate.
“Small businesses and people at home should be concerned, but not too worried,” Wuest added, advising most users to simply apply the updates to their software as and when it becomes available.
The most important lesson from the weakness, he said, was that relying on any one security feature is risky. “You shouldn’t be trusting one single point of failure for all your security. Don’t rely on just your wifi, use a VPN or secure connection for anything important.”
Different devices and operating systems are impacted to differing degrees based on how they implement the WPA2 protocol. Among the worst hit are Android 6.0 (Marshmallow) and Linux, due to a further bug that results in the encryption key being rewritten to all-zeros; iOS and Windows, meanwhile, are among the most secure, since they don’t fully implement the WPA2 protocol. No tested device or piece of software was fully immune to the weakness, however.
The international Cert group, based at Carnegie Mellon University, informed technology companies of the flaw on 28 August, meaning that most have had around a month and a half to implement a fix. The Guardian has asked Apple, Google, Microsoft and Linksys the status of their patches. Google said: “We’re aware of the issue, and we will be patching any affected devices in the coming weeks.” Microsoft said: “We have released a security update to address this issue. Customers who apply the update, or have automatic updates enabled, will be protected.” No other vendor has replied at press time. |
IBM partnership eyes blockchain to speed international payments | IBM has partnered with KlickEx Group, Stellar.org and several banks to develop a blockchain-based solution to making cross-border payments cheaper and more efficient. International transactions using several currencies can take up to several weeks to clear, but IBM's single-network solution, already being used in the UK, Australia and New Zealand, operates in real-time and could reduce clearing and settlement times to seconds.
| https://www.itproportal.com/news/ibm-releases-cross-border-blockchain-payments-system/ | 2017-10-16 08:36:51.247000 | “Buy them only if you’re prepared to lose all your money,” said Bank of England governor Andrew Bailey in May 2021. He was talking about cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, and one reason for his scepticism is that these next-generation virtual tokens “don’t have intrinsic value”.
But does that make them a bad investment? Indeed, are traditional currencies any better? Sterling was previously underpinned by gold, but Britain sold off half of its reserves between 1999 and 2002, when gold was at its lowest value in 20 years. When governments can make unilateral actions like that, decentralised cryptocurrencies which aren’t controlled by any single entity start to look appealing.
That’s particularly true if they’re set up to mimic a traditional gold-backed means of exchange, and Bitcoin’s pseudonymous creator Satoshi Nakamoto mimicked gold by making the currency rare and difficult to mine. To “create” a new bitcoin, a computer’s resources have to be used to crunch through equations. Most of those equations will come to nothing; just occasionally you will hit the jackpot and find a coin.
“It is its very cost of production that gives Bitcoin value (among other factors),” wrote Dominic Frisby in MoneyWeek last October. “You can’t just conjure up Bitcoins. You have to do some hard computer work first and thereby make your contribution to the network. And even if you do this, there is no guarantee you’ll get bitcoins at the end of it. There is risk.”
So, there’s a chance you could burn a considerable amount of electricity for no financial gain. That’s just one of the risks involved in mining cryptocurrency, and a big factor in the question of whether it’s worthwhile.
The biggest cost of mining: energy
Mining bitcoins consumes a lot of electricity. In evidence presented to the United States Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources in 2018, Princeton University’s Arvind Narayanan outlined how Bitcoin miners were at the time computing “about 50 billion billion hashes… every second.” Combined, Narayanan estimated, those operations were consuming just under 1% of the global electricity supply, “or slightly more than the electricity consumption of the state of Ohio or that of the state of New York”.
And as time goes on it takes more and more power to generate a return. By 2020, digital assets exchange Zipmex was warning that “it takes a large setup nearly 30 days to mine 1 bitcoin. After deducting the electricity cost and the overall hardware and software cost, you will be left with 0.1 BTC of profit every month at best. With the majority of setups and the electricity cost and some manpower, it would cost you a total of $73,000 to process one Bitcoin every month.”
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At the time of writing, a single Bitcoin is worth $34,471, so you’d have to bank on the value going up considerably to make any profit at all. Or, you could try mining somewhere where electricity is cheaper. In 2018, Elite Fixtures calculated the energy cost of mining a single Bitcoin across 115 different countries, and found prices ranging from from $1,190 in Trinidad and Tobago to $26,170 in South Korea. In the UK, the cost was $8,402. Unfortunately, it’s not feasible for most of us to up sticks and start mining in a different country: the costs of moving will eat significantly into any putative profits.
Generating money through mining
It’s not just the energy of cryptomining that costs money: you need to pay for the hardware too. In theory you could use your personal PC, but this is likely to yield a trickle of currency at best, and most serious operations have switched to Application-Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC) designs that are custom-designed for mining.
One mining platform that uses this technology is the Antminer S19 Pro, which costs £6,500 and which can rip through 110 terahashes per second. On average this should generate approximately 0.0007 BTC per day – but with an energy consumption of around 3.25kW it’ll cost you around $18.72 per day to mine around the clock. At current rates, you can expect an operating profit of $4.25 (£3.05) per day, or $1,551 (£1,116) annually.
Clearly this setup isn’t going to make you a millionaire. It would take nearly six years just to pay off the cost of the hardware – and there’s a further complication too. The complexity of the Bitcoin mining algorithm is continually updated to compensate for technological advances in the mining hardware, to ensure that future computers can’t flood the market with cheaply generated coins.
This means that today’s state-of-the-art hardware can quickly become uneconomical. In 2018 the International Business Times reported that miners in China were selling off older mining hardware because it was no longer possible to mine enough currencies with these machines to cover their electricity costs: “a mining machine bought at a price of about 20,000 yuan ($2,885) a year ago is being sold for a price between 100 yuan to 1,600 yuan.” So if you want to keep on mining coins at a consistent rate, you need to keep investing in the latest hardware.
If you’d rather not be constantly upgrading your mining rig, an alternative is to mine in the cloud using sites like shamining.com, hashing24.com or genesis-mining.com. This lets you benefit from the expertise of dedicated teams for whom operating and refining a mining operation is a full-time job, and in many cases, you can also make responsible choices regarding energy consumption. Shamining has a focus on solar and wind energy, for example, while Genesis Mining is based in Iceland, a country where 80% of power comes from renewable sources.
Cloud mining is still an expense, though, with most services requiring an up-front payment. When choosing one, check the minimum required investment, minimum contract length, expected profit, and the terms on which you can withdraw your share of the operation’s earnings.
Can you still create Bitcoins?
If you really want to use your own computer for mining, there are sites that can help. nicehash.com is one that makes it easy, with a mining model which has (a little bizarrely) also been adopted in the latest release of the Norton 360 antivirus suite.
The idea in both cases is simple. The software runs quietly in the background, using your computer’s spare capacity to mine for cryptocurrency – in Norton’s case, Ethereum. Whatever you earn is automatically transferred into your wallet.
It sounds like a no-brainer: you might only see a small profit, but since there’s no impact on your computer usage it’s free money – right? Well, perhaps not. If you use your computer’s CPU, it’s all but certain that you’ll burn up a far greater cost in electricity than you will ever make back.
Graphics cards with their abundant cores and parallel processing are far better tuned to mining. If you have a powerful graphics card that spends most of its day sitting idle then it may be worth your while putting it to work. However, for precisely this reason, these cards are hard to come by, with mining enthusiasts snapping up stocks of high-end GPUs, leading to worldwide shortages of graphics hardware. To manage demand, Nvidia has even started shipping cards that deliberately reduce their own performance when used for mining cryptocurrencies.
Is cryptocurrency ethical?
It’s clear that, however you generate your cryptocurrency, it’s going to involve guzzling large amounts of energy, which can't be good for the environment. Cambridge university’s Bitcoin Electricity Consumption index recently put Bitcoin’s global electricity consumption roughly on par with that of a medium-sized European country such as Sweden or Ukraine.
Many have concluded that this alone is a good reason to ban all cryptocurrencies. “Bitcoin could be the first inefficient version of a disruptive technology,” Dr Larisa Yarovaya, a lecturer at Southampton university told the FT recently. “It should die for the common good of the planet and be replaced by a new model. It consumes more electricity than a country. All the rest is detail.”
And the societal cost of cryptocurrency mining isn’t felt only in electricity consumption. The GPUs and memory used in mining rigs are a hefty cocktail of silicon, copper, boron, cobalt, tungsten and all manner of chemicals. Some of those raw materials are in short supply, which is in part to blame for the current global CPU shortage. Rare-earth materials are – in part – being used up to mine highly volatile virtual currencies.
(Image credit: Shutterstock)
There is, at least, some awareness of these issues within the cryptocurrency industry. The Crypto Climate Accord, founded earlier this year, describes itself as “a private sector-led initiative for the entire crypto community focused on decarbonising the cryptocurrency industry in record time”.
The Accord – which is backed by some big names from the crypto industry – is largely focused on making mining use 100% renewable energy, with a target date of 2030. That’s more aggressive than many climate targets, but given that much of the mining is undertaken by unofficial farms around the globe, it’s highly unlikely to clean up the entire practice.
And even if it does manage to move generation to solar, wind and other renewable electricity sources within nine years, the question remains: wouldn’t that energy still be better used to power something more beneficial?
Alternative ways to profit from cryptocurrencies
You don’t need to create coins yourself to take part in the crypto boom. The price of all cryptocurrencies is in constant flux, and as with any other currency you can invest by buying low and selling high. According to CryptoCoin News, a 2021 study by investment firm AJ Bell found that “more Brits have bought into cryptocurrency than into equity … 7% of young adults have invested into crypto over the course of the last year. The FCA estimates that 2.3 million Brits now own cryptocurrency, which amounts to 3.4% of the UK’s population.”
If you’re not among them, you might be wondering whether you’ve left it too late. We can’t advise on whether you should buy into cryptocurrency: nobody can say what will happen to the market day-to-day, let alone over the longer term, so those of us who didn’t invest in 2010 can only look back and rue what we missed. However, since fewer than one in 25 Brits has yet invested in a digital currency, the market could still see gains as interest increases.
If you do decide to invest, there are a few important factors to consider, not least of which is the environmental impact. Make sure you trust whichever institution you use to buy your currency, and consider buying when the market is down, to maximise your chances of selling at a profit later. Finally, remember where we came in, with advice from the Bank of England: there are no guarantees in the world of cryptocurrencies, so “buy them only if you’re prepared to lose all your money”. |
Amazon hand picks ad agencies for E-commerce Training Academy | Online retail giant Amazon is helping select advertising agencies get the best out of its ad platform. Its E-commerce Training Academy is an invitation-only programme extended to a handful of its Trusted Creative Partners and offers deeper insights into the workings of Amazon Advertising Platform, Amazon Marketing Services and Amazon Media Group. While some agencies are visited by Amazon technicians to receive training, others have called for the platform to offer more information on how to optimise its increasingly sophisticated suite of advertising tools.
| https://digiday.com/marketing/amazon-using-training-programs-target-ad-buyers/ | 2017-10-16 08:35:09.020000 | On a breezy day in late September, Tod Harrick and his team of around 50 consultants were invited to Amazon’s Seattle headquarters to take a new four-hour training course called E-commerce Training Academy. There, he and his colleagues learned how Amazon’s major advertising programs — Amazon Advertising Platform, Amazon Media Group and Amazon Marketing Services — worked, where ad placements would appear as well as targeting options and changes that agencies needed to know about.
After the training, Harrick and his team took and passed a test, becoming Amazon-certified. “I thought I would know most of the things in the training, but my bet was wrong,” said Harrick, vp of product for retail consultancy Marketplace Ignition, which was acquired this year by WPP-owned agency Possible. “For instance, I learned that AAP changed from a managed-service program to a self-service tool, and Amazon extended AAP to dynamic programmatic ads to duplicate what you can do in AMS.”
In addition to E-commerce Training Academy, Harrick’s parent agency Possible is also part of Trusted Creative Partners, a training program Amazon developed around two years ago for select agencies — most of which are creative shops — to get familiar with ad creative on the platform.
Amazon is building its advertising business and constantly updates its ad offerings. But getting training from Amazon like Harrick’s team seems to be rare, with only five out of the 13 media and retail agencies Digiday contacted for this story receiving it. And the agencies that received training have had varied experiences. Amazon didn’t respond to requests for comment.
“As a whole, Amazon doesn’t train anyone. It lets service providers figure stuff out and then educate users,” said James Thomson, partner of Amazon consultancy Buy Box Experts, who previously worked for Amazon for six years. He said his agency typically chats via phone with Amazon’s salespeople to know what the ad offering is. Amazon offers some basic training to new sellers on how to create an account and list products, for example, but the training is not particularly advanced, according to Thomson.
“Basically, think of it as a library full of books, but no librarians and no teachers to teach you to read,” he said.
Like Thomson, most agency executives interviewed for this story were unaware of Amazon’s training programs. But a few shops were invited to training programs like Trusted Creative Partners and special workshops at Amazon’s Seattle headquarters.
One source from an agency that wasn’t invited to training programs or workshops said Amazon has come to her office a couple times over the past few months to give search-marketing training. “There’s no regularity or a set curriculum,” said this person. “Amazon comes to our office as needed when we have questions on the platform.”
Agency iCrossing appears to be having a similar experience. Its head of search, Jacob Davis, said while he is not familiar with E-commerce Training Academy or Trusted Creative Partners, Amazon has offered trainings in the iCrossing office, and Davis’ team often visits Amazon’s New York office so the two groups can understand each other’s sales processes and Amazon’s ad products. “I don’t know if the experience that we have with Amazon is any different from other agencies,” said Davis.
Meanwhile, Angela Edwards, vp of marketing and client services for Trusted Creative Partner agency Catapult Marketing, said the program keeps Catapult informed on changes and updates on the layout of product detail pages and promotional offerings, which Amazon updates every quarter. Two Amazon executives conducted the first — and only — in-person training that Edwards’ team received from Amazon in her office around two years ago, and her team has communicated virtually with Amazon on questions and suggestions since then, according to Edwards.
“Amazon is constantly changing, so it’s important to keep abreast of those updates,” she said. “Amazon has no time to talk to you. It is usually more responsive to agencies in Trusted Creative Partners.”
The training experience of Kayla Bond, senior director of content strategy for VML-owned Rockfish, which is a member of Trusted Creative Partners, seems to go more in-depth. Bond said Amazon offers training every six months, which consists of about eight Amazon executives coming to her office for a full-day immersion.
“The training is a little bit of both ad creative and how to use Amazon’s ad programs. For the most part, it is about AMG and AMS,” said Bond. “But we do discuss additional ad opportunities for Alexa, Kindle and Brand Stores, etc.”
Bond said she has heard of E-commerce Training Academy, but her team hasn’t received any information about the program or its benefits. She said Rockfish has been invited to invite-only training sessions facilitated by Amazon Media Group for agencies in its Seattle headquarters. Each session is around a day long and focuses on how to leverage the Amazon Media ecosystem to fuel the Amazon flywheel, according to Bond. “The session is unique, as it brings in Amazon team members across disciplines to a single location to present their point of views and best practices as it relates to devices, AMG, AMS and special programs,” she said.
As Amazon’s ad offerings become more sophisticated, Thomson believes Amazon should offer every agency more clarity on things like bidding strategy for the platform’s advertising programs. For instance, for the headline ad option, which appears right below a search query on Amazon, it took Thomson’s team months to figure out that if a media buyer puts multiple keywords into the same ad campaign, Amazon averages out bid levels rather than maintaining the highest bid price, he said.
“It is rather technical stuff, but actually very important, as there is no meaningful documentation and a lot of wasted time and clients’ money figuring this stuff out,” said Thomson.
While ad training from Amazon keeps select agencies informed on new ad features, it seems to only address the basics. “You don’t come out of E-commerce Training Academy and can immediately operate Amazon’s ad platforms at a high level — it is up to you to learn and manage those things day to day,” said Harrick. “I don’t think it is in Amazon’s interest to teach agencies the ins of outs of its ad tools on a daily basis.” |
Programmatic publishers' ad revenues take hit after Safari update | Publishers relying on audience targeting could see their overall ad revenue drop by up to 2% as a result of Apple's latest update to its Safari browser, which limits third-party trackers. Although some marketers have said it is too early to assess the full impact of the update, educational publisher Slader reported a 15% drop in impressions linked to Safari traffic, while CafeMedia said CPMs were down by around 10%. In contrast, publishers selling content via direct sales, rather than retargeting, have experienced little or no downturn.
| https://digiday.com/media/publishers-already-feeling-pain-apples-move-ad-tracking/?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=digidaydis&utm_source=uk&utm_content=171016 | 2017-10-16 07:41:23.900000 | Apple is cracking down on ad tracking through Safari, and the first publishers to feel the pain are those who rely heavily on programmatic advertising.
Programmatic publishers’ ad rates have taken a hit since Apple updated its Safari browser last month to prevent third parties from tracking users for more than 24 hours after a user visited a website. Although Apple’s move hurts publishers reliant on third-party data that advertisers depend on to target niche audiences at scale, publishers that sell their inventory directly say they aren’t affected by the Safari update.
“It has already had an impact on our revenue, and that will only be compounded as adoption [of Safari’s update] increases,” said Paul Bannister, co-founder of CafeMedia, which sells more than half of its impressions programmatically. “It’s hard to quantify what it will end up as since it’s so early still and lots of other variables are at play, but it’s a [measurable] impact.”
Because users didn’t update their operating systems all at once and Apple released the update near the end of a quarter, when ad rates tend to be higher, gauging the impact of Safari’s tracking change isn’t as simple as comparing monthly CPMs. Apple did not reply to an interview request for this story.
Bannister said CPMs on Safari are about 10 percent lower than what he’d expect them to be heading into the fourth quarter. CafeMedia gets about a third of its mobile traffic from Safari, which is in line with industry averages, according to NetMarketShare.
Since Apple’s Safari update, Ranker saw the gap between its yields on iOS and Android (which doesn’t use the Safari browser) increase by 8 percent in favor of Android, said Ranker CEO Clark Benson, who estimated that Apple’s move could potentially lead to a 1 to 2 percent drop in overall ad revenue. This indicates that advertisers heavily reliant on audience targeting “have shifted slightly away from Safari visitors,” Benson said.
Danny Khatib, CEO of Granite Media, said CPMs are down 15 to 20 percent on Safari since the update. For educational publisher Slader, the number of bids it receives for the impressions tied to its Safari traffic is down about 15 percent compared to last month, said Slader co-founder Scott Kolb. Both publishers emphasized there is a lot of noise in the data since the Safari updates are recent, and it’s very difficult to isolate the impact of Apple’s move. But several publishers that rely heavily on programmatic indicated that in general, it is harder for them to make money off their audiences since Apple updated Safari.
The reason the Safari changes are affecting programmatic publishers has less to do with automation itself and more to do with audience targeting.
Compared to last month, CPMs on Purch’s website Live Science are down about 15 percent for Safari users, said Purch CTO John Potter. But on Purch’s website Top Ten Reviews, CPMs are down less than 5 percent for Safari users.
A small drop in CPMs was expected due to the change in fiscal quarters. But Live Science had a bigger drop because it relies on audience targeting, which Apple’s new limitations on third-party trackers affect. On Top Ten Reviews, the ads are sold to match the content and not the audience, which is why the review site’s CPMs haven’t been affected as much, Potter said.
Reps from New York magazine, Remedy Health Media and two comScore 200 publishers requesting anonymity said they haven’t noticed any impact from the Safari update. All of these publishers sell the vast majority of their inventory through direct sales, so they aren’t dependent on retargeting.
If publishers can make direct connections with their audiences, they can wean themselves off third-party trackers and mitigate the impact of Safari’s update, said an engineer at a business publisher requesting anonymity. But obtaining first-party data from users by getting them to sign up for a new product or fork over login information is a long-term project that might not deliver immediate results.
“Publishers should focus on what makes them unique, regardless of how Apple is changing their software,” said Namit Merchant, COO of ad tech firm Media.net. “We believe that publishers should focus less on audience and more on content to differentiate themselves from the duopoly.” |
BlackRock attempts blockchain programme for custody | BlackRock, the world's largest investment manager, is piloting a blockchain programme aiming to reduce errors in communications between itself and its custodians. The programme, which the company is calling Aladdin Provider, uses a private blockchain. The firm is planning to roll out a similar programme for its clients if it proves successful. BlackRock is also planning a technology-driven hiring push, looking to add 2,000 technologists to its staff by 2020.
| https://marketsmedia.com/blackrock-test-blockchain-custody/ | 2017-10-16 07:31:32.810000 | Buy Side BlackRock Tests Blockchain for Custody
Global asset manager BlackRock is in the midst of testing a blockchain-based platform for its custody relationships, said Laurence Fink, chairman and CEO of BlackRock during the firm’s third-quarter earnings call.
Dubbed Aladdin Provider, the offering uses a private blockchain to create more seamless processing between BlackRock and its custodians.
“It should reduce many many errors,” he said. “Let us not assume that there will no longer be errors. We do have some.”
Once testing proves successful, Fink plans to expand the platform beyond BlackRock so that clients can utilize the platform.
In the meantime, BlackRock has seen higher demand for its Aladdin Risk for Wealth Management, which it launched two years ago. There are five clients currently live on the platform, and the asset manager sees demand from Asia, Europe, and North America, according to Fink.
Digital offerings like ARWM and digital partnerships, such as , FutureAdvisor, iRetire, and Scalable Capital, are critical for BlackRock’s future growth, he said.
Fink estimated that the offerings reach tens of thousands of wealth managers who manage assets on behalf of millions of end investors.
“As our digital offerings enable financial advisors to have a more productive conversation with their clients, they are driving more investment into our iShares and other BlackRock investment strategies, he noted. “It is critical that we continue to invest in these opportunities while being mindful of the impact on our bottom line.”
BlackRock also has rolled out an ambitious plan it calls “Tech2020,” which looks to extend the more than 2,000 technologists across the firm, Rob Goldstein, COO of BlackRock, told Business Insider earlier this week.
“And we’re really excited about the opportunity to take a company like BlackRock, which is already, I’d say, at the forefront of technology in its industry, and, if anything, keep expanding that,” he added. |
'Cryptoruble' rumoured to be in the works for Russia | Russia is rumoured to be launching its own cryptocurrency, the cryptoruble. The currency will not be available for mining but will be created and tracked by the Russian government. The cryptocurrency seems to be based on blockchain technology and could be used to protect against online fraud. Rubles and cryptorubles will be interchangeable, though confirmation on how has not been given. The currency could support the online economy without requiring foreign money markets or third-party brokers for transactions, with the currency expected to require proof of origin to guard against money laundering. Undocumented cryptorubles will reportedly have a 13% tax applied when exchanged.
| https://cointelegraph.com/news/breaking-russia-issuing-cryptoruble | 2017-10-16 07:25:47.730000 | Russian President Vladimir Putin has officially stated that Russia will issue its own ‘CryptoRuble’ at a closed door meeting in Moscow, according to local news sources. The news broke through Minister of Communications Nikolay Nikiforov.
According to the official, the state issued cryptocurrency cannot be mined and will be issued and controlled and maintained only by the authorities. The CryptoRubles can be exchanged for regular Rubles at any time, though if the holder is unable to explain where the CryptoRubles came from, a 13 percent tax will be levied. The same tax will be applied to any earned difference between the price of the purchase of the token and the price of the sale. Nikiforov said:
“I confidently declare that we run CryptoRuble for one simple reason: if we do not, then after 2 months our neighbors in the EurAsEC will.”
Embracing and rejecting
While the announcement means that Russia will enter the cryptocurrency world, it is in no way an affirmation or legalization of Bitcoin or any other decentralized cryptocurrency. On the contrary, Putin quite recently called for a complete ban on all cryptocurrencies within Russia.
The statement from Putin seemed apparently to contradict the earlier comments from other ministers who seemed pro-crypto, but only with regulations, as well as Putin’s recent meetings with Buterin and others. Now, with the issuance of the CryptoRuble, the apparent contradiction has been made clear. |
EMEA property coverage much greater than cyber coverage: Aon | Companies in the EMEA region have approximately 60% of physical assets covered by insurance, compared to just 15% of their informational assets, according to a report from Aon. The report also noted 38% of businesses surveyed had suffered a cyber loss within the last two years. These losses are more disruptive to business operations than losses rising from issues with firms' property assets. Additionally, the report identified less than a third of businesses surveyed fully understood the implications of the European Union's General Data Protection Regulation. | http://www.4-traders.com/AON-PLC-11994390/news/Aon-EMEA-spend-on-property-related-risk-four-times-higher-than-cyber-risk-25292293/ | 2017-10-16 07:18:47.793000 | Only 15 percent of potential information asset losses are covered by insurance; almost 60 percent of total physical asset values are protected
38 percent of EMEA businesses have suffered a cyber loss in last 24 months, averaging $3.3m per loss
Only 30 percent of businesses in EMEA are 'fully aware' of legal and economic consequences of EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)
London (October 16, 2017) - The 2017 EMEA Cyber Risk Transfer Comparison Report, released today by Aon in collaboration with the Ponemon Institute, a leading research firm on privacy, data protection and information security, found that organizations recognize the growing value of technology and data assets relative to historical tangible assets, though they are spending four times more budget on insurance for Property, Plant and Equipment (PP&E) risks.
'Our goal is to compare the financial statement impact of tangible property and network risk exposure,' said Dr. Larry Ponemon. 'A better understanding of the relative financial statement impact will assist organizations in allocating resources and determining the appropriate amount of risk transfer resources to allocate to the mitigation of network risk exposures.'
The report found that while 38 percent of businesses surveyed confirmed they have experienced a cyber loss in the past 24 months, only 15 percent of their probable maximum loss (PML) is covered by insurance. This is in stark contrast to the policy limits purchased against physical assets like Property, Plant and Equipment, where around 60 percent of their PML is typically covered. The report also shows that the impact of business disruption to information assets is 50 percent greater than to PP&E *.
Vanessa Leemans, Chief Operating Officer for Global Cyber Insurance Solutions at Aon commented: 'This study compared the relative insurance protection of certain tangible versus intangible assets. We found that most organizations spend much more on fire insurance premiums than on cyber insurance, despite stating in their publicly disclosed documents that a majority of the organization's value is attributed to intangible assets.'
The report also found that only 30 percent of businesses are 'fully aware' of the legal and economic consequences of European Union General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). GDPR comes into effect on 25th May 2018, and introduces a 72-hour notification for all personal data breaches - except those unlikely to pose a risk to individuals. Fines for non-compliance with the GDPR will increase to as much as €20m or 4 percent of an organization's global turnover (whichever is highest). Insurance carriers are starting to see an increase in demand for cyber coverage as cyber exposure awareness becomes an enterprise-wide issue.
Vanessa Leemans concluded: 'With 65 percent of EMEA organizations expecting their cyber risk exposure to increase over the next two years, cyber risk needs to be approached at an enterprise-wide level in order to achieve cyber resilience. This should include enterprise-wide education, assessment and quantification, preventive risk management, incident response plan, as well as cyber insurance.
To download a copy of the Aon/Ponemon Institute 2017 EMEA Cyber Risk Transfer Report, please visit our website.
ENDS
Notes to Editors:
The Aon/Ponemon Institute 2017 EMEA Cyber Risk Transfer Report is based on a survey of over 500 individuals in Europe, the Middle East and Africa involved in their company's cyber risk management as well as enterprise risk management activities. 35 percent of respondents are in finance, treasury and accounting and 25 percent in risk management. Corporate compliance/audit accounted for 17 percent of respondents and general management nine percent of respondents.
* On average, the total value of PP&E, including all fixed assets plus Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) and industrial control systems is approximately $932m for the companies represented in this research. The report calculates an average total value of information assets, which includes customer records, employee records, financial reports, analytical data, source code, models methods and other intellectual property, of $1,092m.
About Aon
Aon plc (NYSE:AON) is a leading global professional services firm providing a broad range of risk, retirement and health solutions. Our 50,000 colleagues in 120 countries empower results for clients by using proprietary data and analytics to deliver insights that reduce volatility and improve performance.
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Airbnb to offer hosts loans for home improvements | Airbnb is to offer loans to some hosts as part of a wider programme that increasingly positions the company as an alternative to hotels. Its trial service, Airbnb Select, gives hosts the opportunity to take out loans to make minor improvements or have professional-quality photographs taken, with the borrowed sum repaid via rental revenues. The launch of Airbnb Select is part of a broader campaign to standardise Airbnb's offerings and move away from the company's more individualistic approach, which invited guests to "live like a local".
| https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/oct/14/airbnb-to-offer-loans-and-advice-to-hosts-under-new-scheme | 2017-10-16 06:50:55.300000 | Airbnb is looking to take an increasingly active role in ensuring the homes it offers for rent on its site are pleasant to stay in, from offering loans to hosts for home improvements to actively partnering in the construction of an apartment block in Florida, according to reports.
The changes, which see the company move further than ever from its origins as a listing site connecting holidaymakers with hosts who have a spare room, could help Airbnb cement its position as an alternative to traditional hotels.
But it also risks irritating hosts who enjoyed the previously laissez-faire approach, as well as prompting awkward questions from regulators worldwide about the precise nature of Airbnb’s business.
The home improvement loans are part of a programme being trialled by the company, dubbed Airbnb Select, according to industry news site the Information. The programme will highlight homes and hosts that are more likely to appeal to travellers seeking a high-quality, hotel-like experience, the Information says, as well as offer them guidance and assistance to further iron out the wrinkles in their offering.
That can range from advice on cosmetic improvements to their homes, to help shooting the best photographs, as well as more significant aid such as the loans, which would be repaid through revenue made from future bookings.
Select is just the latest example of Airbnb’s effort to create a more standardised offering. Even its conventional hosts have reportedly come under pressure from the company to dial back on the idiosyncrasies that the site was famous for in its early days, when the key selling point for many tourists was the ability to “live like a local”, as one recent ad campaign put it.
Hosts are urged, for instance, to “learn from hotel bathrooms” – clearing bathroom counters of their own products and placing rolled-up towels in a basket – and “show personality, not personal items”. “Too many pictures of your dog and family might make [guests] feel uncomfortable,” the company notes.
Airbnb’s attempt to build a hotel-like experience goes further than simply pushing hosts to refine their homes, though. In a number of locations around the world, the company is actively partnering on the creation of hotel-like properties from construction onwards.
In Florida, for instance, an apartment building branded as “Niido powered by Airbnb” will see tenants in the 324 new-build flats, located just outside Orlando, encouraged to sublet their properties for up to half the year in exchange for paying a portion of the income to their landlord.
Partnering at the point of construction allows Airbnb hosts to offer the perks of their luxury apartments, such as swimming pools and other communal areas, to visitors without falling foul of their building’s regulations. And, of course, it allows Airbnb to dictate the design of the building to suit its travellers’ needs.
“This partnership shows how landlords, developers, and Airbnb can work together to create value for everyone and better serve tenants,” Jaja Jackson, Airbnb’s director of global multifamily housing partnerships, said in a statement on Thursday.
In Japan in 2016, Airbnb took an even more forthright step, experimenting with building a “community centre where travellers can also stay” in the village of Yoshino. The company responded forcefully to media reports that called the experiment a “hotel”, however, arguing that it wasn’t one, since “the Yoshino house is managed by and for the community, and 97% of the price charged by the hosts goes directly to the community”.
The risk for the company isn’t just that existing hosts rebel against the changes (although a job advert seeking someone to improve host quality “without driving significant churn in supply” suggests it is concerned). It is also that, as the company takes on more hotel-like aspects, it begins being asked to take on more hotel-like responsibilities, too.
Currently, Airbnb offloads the difficulty of complying with the myriad different local regulations on short-stay rentals around the world onto its hosts – a choice which some localities have welcomed, but others have fought strongly against. In New York City, that fight escalated until the company sued the city for passing a bill that made it unlawful to advertise unlawful rentals.
By arguing that it merely connects hosts and travellers, Airbnb has managed to keep on the right side of the law in most other places. But as that claim becomes less convincing, the company might find itself with more and more New Yorks on its hands. |
Norway may remove tax exemption on EVs weighing over two tons | Norway has floated a proposal to impose a one-off payment on electric vehicles (EVs) weighing more than two tonnes to cover the cost of wear and tear on the nation's roads. State Secretary at the Ministry of Finance, Jørgen Næsje, said the so-called 'Tesla tax' was aimed at the luxury SUV market, and said: "those who can afford to buy such expensive cars can pay a small one-time fee". The proposal could signal a change in government backing for EVs, which are subject to benefits including reduced tolls and free charging.
| https://cleantechnica.com/2017/10/14/norway-considers-tesla-tax-electric-cars/ | 2017-10-16 06:44:27.080000 | This story about incentives for electric cars in Norway was first published by Gas2.
Norway charges a tax on new cars that can actually double the list price. Heavier, more powerful cars pay more. The tax on smaller, less powerful cars is more modest. Electric cars are exempt from the tax entirely, which is one of the primary reasons electric cars in Norway are so popular.
Norway also confers a number of other benefits on electric car owners, among them free charging in many cities, access to HOV lanes, and reduced tolls for the country’s many bridges and tunnels. Taken together, they make buying an electric car a no-brainer.
But all those subsidies cost the government a lot of money in lost revenue every year. Now conservatives are proposing to impose a one-time fee (another name for a tax) to register an electric car in Norway. The fee would be based on the weight of a car, the theory being that heavy cars cause more wear and tear on the nation’s roads. Only cars that weigh more than 2 tons would be affected.
The fee could add as much as $12,000 to the price of a Tesla Model X, while the Model S would pay a fee of about $5,000. Cars that are close to the 2 ton threshold would be charged about $900.
The proposal has caused an angry backlash among electric car advocates. Christina Bu, head of Norway’s Electric Vehicle Association, calls the one-time charge on new electric cars over two tons a “tax bomb,” according to Norway’s VG News.
“The government knows very well that many car manufacturers take this step to develop the electric cars with more space and increased range due largely to interest from customers in Norway. The new one time fee will make it more difficult to get families to buy electric cars. And it will be more difficult to reach the … goal of selling only zero emissions cars by 2025,” she says.
John Helmersen, head of operations for Jaguar in Norway, says about 1,000 Norwegians have paid a $1,300 deposit to get on the waiting list for the new Jaguar I-Pace electric SUV. He claims the new fee would cost buyers about an extra $3,500.
Stuff and nonsense, sniffs State Secretary at the Ministry of Finance, Jørgen Næsje. “Typical family electric cars are not affected by the introduction of a one time fee. We also do not know that new family cars are being launched that are so heavy that they will receive a one time fee. Both the Opel Ampera and Tesla Model 3 will be [exempt].
“That heavy luxury SUVs that cost over $130,000 get any fee is quite reasonable and it provides a good social profile. The Jaguar which weighs just over 2 tons … will hardly get the big fee. Those who can afford to buy such expensive cars can pay a small one time fee for new car purchases.”
It is regrettable that Norway is considering pulling back on some of the programs and incentives that make purchasing an electric car so popular, but the fee, if and when one is enacted, will still amount to far less than the tax buyers of conventional cars have to pay. Many Norwegians consider this idea more of a negotiating strategy the conservatives are using as discussions about the next national budget get under way.
Still, it is a signal that the benefits electric car buyers currently enjoy won’t last forever. In fact, many of them are scheduled to lapse in 2020 anyway as the country struggles to find the proper balance between promoting electric cars and fiscal responsibility.
Perhaps a hint this was coming led to the extraordinary number of Tesla automobiles registered in Norway in the third quarter of this year. In fact, an amazing 900 Teslas were registered in the last week of the quarter alone.
The conservatives’ plan has been labeled a “Tesla Tax” by opponents. Perhaps there is some truth in that. The high price of Tesla’s Model S and Model X definitely put them out of reach for many Norwegian families, and adding another fee on makes them even more so. The rationale for the plan is that heavy cars put more strain on roadways, but heavy cars also tend to be more expensive cars.
California has reconfigured its incentive program for electric cars to provide more benefits to low-income buyers after many complained that making it easier for rich people to buy expensive cars was unfair. Proposing a fee based on weight is a way of taking a swipe at the wealthy without coming right out and saying so.
In any event, the Tesla Model 3 is coming soon enough and will have the sort of range Norwegians say they crave. But it will be light enough to avoid most if not all of the new fee, whatever it turns out to be once the budgetary process is completed.
There is every reason to believe that Norway will continue to be one of Tesla’s strongest export markets, with or without a one-time fee that applies at the time of purchase. After all, paying an extra $5,000 for a Model S is still preferable to ponying up $85,000 more to buy a conventional Mercedes S-Class.
Source: Reuters | Hat Tip to Leif Hansen
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Norway may remove tax exemption on EVs weighing over two tons | Norway has floated a proposal to impose a one-off payment on electric vehicles (EVs) weighing more than two tonnes to cover the cost of wear and tear on the nation's roads. State Secretary at the Ministry of Finance, Jørgen Næsje, said the so-called 'Tesla tax' was aimed at the luxury SUV market, and said: "those who can afford to buy such expensive cars can pay a small one-time fee". The proposal could signal a change in government backing for EVs, which are subject to benefits including reduced tolls and free charging.
| https://qz.com/1101754/norways-tesla-tax-the-country-is-planning-to-pull-the-plug-on-some-electric-car-incentives/ | 2017-10-16 06:44:27.080000 | Norway is by far the world leader in electric cars. The zero-emission vehicles make up almost 30% of the total market. But now, the government is putting the brakes on some of the subsidies that revved up this market. A proposal, presented as part of next year’s budget, has been put forward to remove a tax exemption on electric vehicles that weigh more than two metric tons.
The move has been dubbed the “Tesla tax,” as it’s most likely to effect the American company’s models, particularly the Tesla Model X, an SUV. There are more than 13,000 registered Teslas in Norway, according to data from the national statistics office. The tax would increase the cost of buying a new Tesla X by about 70,000 kroner ($8,850), local media said (link in Norwegian).
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Norway’s finance minister, Siv Jensen, justified the proposal by arguing that the heavy cars caused as much damage to the road as gasoline and diesel cars, so electric-car owners should contribute more to the cost of upkeep. Still, owners of Teslas and other electric cars would still benefit heavily compared to other vehicle owners.
The Scandinavian country has an ambitious target for new vehicles sales to be exclusively zero-emission models by 2025. Countries like France and the UK hope to achieve the same by 2040. Over the years, Norway has offered enticing subsides and other perks to encourage people to buy electric cars, such as no city tolls, free parking, free charging, and permission to drive in bus lanes. In February, the number of electric cars in Norway surpassed 100,000.
The Norwegian government has been considering ways to curb the incentives for a while, amid criticisms that the perks allow rich households to buy pricey Teslas cheaply and significantly increase congestion in the capital, Oslo. However, the traditional center-right allies of the current government have spoken out against the Tesla tax, because the subsidies had been agreed to run through 2020, according to AFP. |
Singapore to be site of the world's largest AI incubator | Private investment company Marvelstone Group is planning to open the world’s largest artificial intelligence (AI) hub in Singapore's central business district next year. According to the firm, the facility will incubate 100 AI-based start-ups a year, encouraging the generation of intellectual property and providing education for 1,000 people a year. Corporations and institutions that join the hub as partners will have access to the innovations being generated there, while offering the start-ups the benefits of their scale and marketing reach. Further hubs are planned for Japan, Scotland and Canada. | http://www.ibtimes.sg/worlds-largest-ai-hub-be-built-singapore-2018-18103 | 2017-10-16 06:09:10.197000 | As Singapore scales up plans of achieving a Smart Nation, private investment firm Marvelstone Group is eyeing to launch the world's largest artificial intelligence (AI) hub in the island's central business district in 2018.
According to a statement by the investment firm, the goal is to serve the current need in the market for AI technology. The hub will also make Singapore a global leader in the said technologies. The said hub will be followed by its sisters in Japan, Scotland, and Canada.
Marvelstone President Joel Ko Hyun Sik said there are a lot of ideas in the field of AI that are still research focused and need an incubator such as the said hub. This is in order to bridge the gap to commercialise them for future deployment by future government and corporates.
Aside from serving as an incubator for 100 startups in the field of AI per year, he said the business model of the planned hub includes intellectual property (IP) generation, educating 1,000 people annually, and investments to nurture ideas in improving the nascent field.
"There is a clear need for a big playground for startups, entrepreneurs, and even corporates in the field of AI. Considering the high interest and demand for AI globally, there are still relatively few places to test these new technologies," Sik said.
Multinational corporations and institutions who will partner with the hub will gain access to the innovative AI startups. These up and coming businesses will be able to market their products in a more systematic and organised manner. At the same time, the hub will join these startups in co-building products.
"We're extremely excited about this vision and believe AI will represent an unparalleled theatre of growth of the future," Sik said.
To recall, Marvelstone is behind Lattice80, a 30,000 sqft fintech hub launched in the latter part of 2016. More than 30 governments, 50 corporates, and 100 investors have visited LATTICE80. |
Blockchain technology is ideal partner for smarter energy grids | Blockchain technology is a natural fit for tracking power generation and payments on distributed energy grids, according to Rocky Mountain Institute, a Colorado-based green energy organisation, and Austrian blockchain start-up Grid Singularity. The two outfits have joined together to create the Energy Web Foundation (EWF), which has launched an Ethereum-based blockchain, which is “purpose-built for the energy sector”. The team will start by developing applications to track renewable energy certificates. In future, the EWF intends to enable “more granular transactions” between providers and consumers and eventually to allow near-instant payment in return for sending energy to the grid. | https://www.technologyreview.com/s/609077/how-blockchain-could-give-us-a-smarter-energy-grid/ | 2017-10-16 05:55:47.987000 | Keeping track of renewable-energy certificates is one of dozens of potential applications of blockchain technology that could solve data management challenges in the electricity sector without disrupting business as usual, according to Morris. He and many others believe that in the long term, the technology could help transform the very architecture of the grid itself.
A blockchain is a shared, encrypted ledger that is maintained by a network of computers. These computers verify transactions—in the case of Bitcoin, the transfer of cryptocurrency between individual users. Each user can access the ledger, and there is no single authority (see “Why Bitcoin Could Be Much More Than a Currency”). Advocates say the technology could be especially promising in industries where networks of peers—electricity producers and consumers, connected via the grid, for instance—depend on shared sets of data.
When a renewable-power plant generates a unit of electricity today, a meter spits out data that gets logged in a spreadsheet. The spreadsheet is then sent to a registry provider, where the data gets entered into a new system and a certificate is created. A second set of intermediaries brokers deals between buyers and sellers of these certificates, and yet another party verifies the certificates after they are purchased.
Such a byzantine system racks up transaction costs, while leaving plenty of room for accounting errors that can range from honest mistakes to outright fraud. The lack of transparency also scares many people off entirely.
What if the meter wrote the data directly to a blockchain instead? Most of these problems would vanish at a stroke, says Morris.
And that’s just the beginning—many energy experts are convinced that blockchain technology has the potential to touch off a fundamental transformation of modern energy grids.
The electricity sector is, for the most part, still based on massive, centralized power plants that generate power sent long distances over transmission and distribution lines. In recent years, though, a growing number of smaller “distributed” power generators and storage systems, like rooftop solar panels and electric-vehicle batteries, have been connecting to the grid.
The owners of these systems struggle to maximize their value because the system is so inefficient, says Jemma Green, cofounder and chair of Power Ledger, an Australia-based startup developing a blockchain-based platform that allows producers to trade energy peer-to-peer with consumers. For instance, it generally takes 60 to 80 days for an electricity producer to get paid. With a blockchain-based system, Green says, producers can get paid immediately, so they need less capital to start and run a generating business. |
Travel insurers urged to stop mental illness discrimination | Thousands of UK campaigners have signed a petition urging travel insurance providers to stop discrimination against policyholders with mental health disorders. Some travellers have to pay 2,000% higher for coverage, while other potential policyholders have been denied coverage outright, according to reports. The campaign began after insurance provider Bupa rescinded coverage from a policyholder due to her bipolar disorder. Only five travel insurance providers in the UK cover bipolar disorder, according to advocacy group Bipolar UK.
| http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-4973082/Woman-denied-travel-insurance-bipolar-disorder.html | 2017-10-16 05:30:16.583000 | Bupa revoked a woman's travel insurance after she declared she suffered from bipolar disorder.
Elizabeth Watson, 29, from London, was granted insurance from the company, which was then cancelled after she later mentioned she had the mental health condition.
Although Ms Watson was covered by another company, she claims she was forced to pay four times as much due to her disorder.
After starting a campaign, which has been sent to Jeremy Hunt, to prevent travel insurers from discriminating against mental health patients, Ms Watson says she has been inundated by people who have nearly been left bankrupt due to such insurance claims.
A Bupa spokesperson has apologised for any distress caused, adding the company screens for mental health conditions to ensure it can provide adequate cover.
This comes after recent research revealed 21 per cent of mental health sufferers travel without insurance due to its extortionate price, while 15 per cent are forced to avoid going overseas altogether.
Elizabeth Watson had her Bupa travel insurance revoked after declaring her bipolar disorder
She was initially granted insurance for her IBS and acid reflux, but it was later taken away
Ms Watson got insurance with another company, but was forced to pay four times as much
WHAT IS BIPOLAR DISORDER? Bipolar disorder is a mental health condition that mainly affects sufferers' moods. It is characterised as periods of euphoric highs and depressive lows. These mood swings can be extreme and have a big impact on a patient's quality of life. The rate of bipolar episode cycling varies between sufferers. Bipolar's causes may include childhood trauma, stressful life events, genetics or brain chemistry. Treatment may include medication or therapy. Sufferers can practice self-care by staying physically healthy, maintaining a strong support network, sticking to a daily routine and avoiding known triggers, such as late nights. Source: Mind Advertisement !- - ad: https://mads.dailymail.co.uk/v8/ru/health/none/article/other/mpu_factbox.html?id=mpu_factbox_1 - ->
'Mental health should not be discriminated against'
Ms Watson, who also suffers from acid reflux and irritable bowel syndrome, said: 'Before I mentioned bipolar they were absolutely happy to cover me, but as soon as I mentioned bipolar, no matter how much I paid, they just were not interested,' The Independent reported.
She also told the Wandsworth Guardian: 'People go on booze-filled holidays and are at a higher risk than someone with depression in my eyes.
'Mental health should not be discriminated against, full stop.'
Forced to pay four times as much
Ms Watson had already paid £21 for travel insurance for a one-week holiday to Spain.
After later declaring her mental health problems, Ms Watson was asked a series of questions before Bupa stated they would not be able to insure her for any of her conditions, even if she paid a premium.
Ms Watson filed a complaint against the company when the incident occurred back in August, but to date has only received a letter from Bupa saying it will be in touch.
She managed to secure travel insurance from another provider, but was forced to pay four times as much. According to the Bipolar UK website, only five UK travel companies cover bipolar disorder.
Richard Norris, director of consumer insurance at Bupa UK: 'We're sorry for the distress we have caused Ms Watson. We can and do cover mental health conditions such as bipolar through some of our travel insurance products.
'We aim to give our customers the most comprehensive cover possible, including mental health conditions where possible. We screen our Premier and Gold travel insurance customers for physical and mental health conditions to check whether we can provide coverage for any pre-existing conditions while they're abroad.'
She has started a campaign banning mental health discrimination among travel insurers
Sufferers driven to near bankruptcy
Ms Watson has launched a campaign to prevent travel insurance companies discriminating against mental health conditions.
She claims to have heard from thousands of people who have undergone similar experiences, including a couple who were nearly made bankrupt after the husband had a nervous breakdown while on holiday, despite suffering no mental health complaints for years. The insurer accused him of lying about his past conditions.
Another individual said they were quoted more than a 2,000 per cent higher price after they declared their mental health disorder.
To date, the campaign has received 56,161 signatures, and has been sent to Bupa, the Financial Conduct Authority and health secretary Jeremy Hunt with the aim of banning travel insurance companies discriminating against mental health disorders.
This comes after research by the charity Money and Mental Health Policy Institute last month revealed 21 per cent of people with mental health problems travel without insurance because it is too expensive, while 15 per cent have chosen not to travel at all because of such high costs. |
Rivers in England and Wales contaminated with raw sewage | Raw sewage is entering rivers at thousands of sites in England and Wales, endangering human health and wildlife, according to a report by WWF. The data suggests that over 50% of overflow sites leak sewage into rivers at least once a month, with 14% spilling sewage at least once a week. The number of reported incidents of sewage pollution rose last year for the first time since 2012. Just 14% of English rivers have “good” ecological status, down from 27% in 2010. Thames Water had the highest number of sewage affected rivers at 72%, followed by Southern and Anglian Water.
| https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/oct/16/raw-sewage-flowing-into-rivers-across-england-and-wales | 2017-10-15 22:00:00 | Raw sewage is flowing into rivers at thousands of sites across England and Wales, a report has warned, harming wildlife and putting human health at risk.
The total amount of raw sewage intentionally being put into rivers is unknown, which is a “huge concern”, according to conservation group WWF, which produced the analysis. The available data suggests that more than half of overflow sites spill sewage into rivers at least once a month and 14% at least once a week.
WWF argued this is far more frequently than allowed under regulations that permit overflows only at times of unusually heavy rainfall, when treatment works cannot cope.
The report also said the number of reported sewage pollution incidents, including failures at sewage treatment plants, rose in 2016 for the first time since 2012. Furthermore, only 14% of rivers in England have “good” ecological status, which reflects both sewage and farm pollution and low water levels, compared with 27% in 2010.
Sewage pollution can cause algal blooms that starve rivers of oxygen and kill fish, as well as affecting the wildlife such as kingfishers and otters that depend on them. The pathogens in untreated sewage can also threaten people’s health, causing gastroenteritis and even septicaemia and hepatitis A.
“Britain’s bountiful rivers have forever provided the lifeblood of our nation – vital to our economy as well as our wildlife and our own wellbeing,” said Tanya Steele, the WWF chief executive. “The current situation is unacceptable. These findings demonstrate the urgent need to transform the way we treat our freshwater environment.” The government must force water companies to act, WWF says.
The analysis reports that 40% of the rivers in England and Wales are polluted with sewage, which comes from almost 18,000 sewage overflow sites operated by water companies and from treatment plant breakdowns. Thames Water had the highest proportion of rivers affected by sewage – 72% – followed by Southern and Anglian Water.
Until recently, there was little monitoring of how often and for how long the overflows spill sewage into rivers. But data from south-west Wales showed overflows there spilled for an average of 217 hours over a year, with 9% spilling for at least 730 hours a year, equivalent to flowing constantly for a whole month.
WWF warns that without action the situation is likely to get worse due to rising population, increasing urbanisation and climate change making intense rain more common. “It seems companies are relying on sewer overflows to compensate for under-capacity” at treatment plants, the report states. “Our research has revealed a sewerage system on the edge; one that is ill-equipped to protect people and nature as we face the tough challenges ahead.”
An Environment Agency spokeswoman said: “There have been dramatic improvements to water quality over the last two decades but there is more to do. We have set more stringent targets for the water sector, stated they must do more to reduce pollution incidents and in the most serious cases taken enforcement action leading to record fines.”
Since 2015, 4,000 of the sewage overflow sites have been fitted with monitoring equipment to record the frequency and duration of spills and by March 2020 about 11,500 will be monitored, the EA spokeswoman said.
A spokesman for the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs said: “Our rivers are the cleanest they have been since industrial times and we’re working with the water industry to meet tougher targets and improve their planning and investment in wastewater infrastructure.”
A spokesman for Water UK, which represents water companies, said that in relation to pollution incidents WWF had failed to distinguish between the most serious, which increased from four to nine in 2016, and the vast majority which the EA classes as having “only a limited or localised effect on water quality”.
“There’s a genuine debate to be had about how we as a country are going to deal with sewage and drainage issues in future in a way which protects our environment, but WWF have muddied the waters with an inaccurate picture of what is going on,” he said. Wildlife such as salmon and otters have returned to some rivers, he added.
Coastal waters have seen a big reduction in sewage pollution in recent decades but action on rivers has lagged behind, WWF argues. “We know the water industry can clean up their act, if given the right push. They just have to get on and do it,” said Catherine Moncrieff, the freshwater policy manager at WWF. |
Levi Strauss tops Chinese environmental supply chain table | Levi Strauss, Esquel and Adidas have been ranked as the three best apparel companies when it comes to environmentally-friendly supply chain practices in China, according to the latest Corporate Information Transparency Index. The report reveals that increased environmental supervision in the country has led to a greater recognition of supply chain environmental risks by brands. However, inadequate monitoring is still hampering environmental performance in the country, the report states.
| http://wwwen.ipe.org.cn/reports/Reports.aspx?cid=18334&year=0&key= | 2017-10-15 22:00:00 | 2022
The Institute of Public and Environmental Affairs (IPE) today released the evaluation results of its 2022 Green Supply Chain CITI Index and its Corporate Climate Action (CATI) Index. The report indicates that in spite of the global challenges, a number of local and global companies have undertaken the tasks of pollution control and emissions reduction, driving low-carbon transformation in their supply chain and contributing to global climate governance.
Publication Date：2022-11-03 |
Levi Strauss tops Chinese environmental supply chain table | Levi Strauss, Esquel and Adidas have been ranked as the three best apparel companies when it comes to environmentally-friendly supply chain practices in China, according to the latest Corporate Information Transparency Index. The report reveals that increased environmental supervision in the country has led to a greater recognition of supply chain environmental risks by brands. However, inadequate monitoring is still hampering environmental performance in the country, the report states.
| https://www.ecotextile.com/2017101623025/materials-production-news/report-ranks-brands-on-china-environmental-progress.html | 2017-10-15 22:00:00 | BEIJING – Newly released data from the Chinese government, online monitoring by NGO’s and corporate disclosure agreements has shown the textile industry has boosted its environmental performance in partnership with leading international brands.
However, the findings, which are reported in the 4th annual Corporate Information Transparency Index (CITI), show that although China’s strengthening of environmental supervision has prompted more brands to recognise supply chain environmental risks, insufficient monitoring capacity is still hindering companies from going green.
In the report, Levi Strauss, Esquel Group and Adidas Group were ranked the top three apparel companies for supply chain practices. |
Petrol demand to peak by 2030: Wood Mackenzie | Global demand for petrol will peak by 2030, due to increased engine efficiency and the greater prevalence of electric cars, according to a report by energy consultancy Wood Mackenzie. The consultancy said that it expected the demand for gasoline to fall significantly, particularly after 2025, and that total oil demand would also level off around 2035. Of the 96 million barrels of oil consumed globally each day, 60 million are used in transport. In the short term, regulatory changes relating to fuel efficiency imposed by China, the European Union and the US will provide the greatest curb on gasoline demand.
| https://www.woodmac.com/news/feature/the-rise-and-fall-of-black-gold/ | 2017-10-15 22:00:00 | We are excited to announce that as of February 1, Wood Mackenzie is a portfolio company of Veritas Capital, a leading investor at the intersection of technology and government. Our focus remains on providing you with the best intelligence, analytics, data and tools to ensure you are making the best data-driven business decisions with confidence.
Read more in our news release here. |
Petrol demand to peak by 2030: Wood Mackenzie | Global demand for petrol will peak by 2030, due to increased engine efficiency and the greater prevalence of electric cars, according to a report by energy consultancy Wood Mackenzie. The consultancy said that it expected the demand for gasoline to fall significantly, particularly after 2025, and that total oil demand would also level off around 2035. Of the 96 million barrels of oil consumed globally each day, 60 million are used in transport. In the short term, regulatory changes relating to fuel efficiency imposed by China, the European Union and the US will provide the greatest curb on gasoline demand.
| https://www.theguardian.com/business/2017/oct/16/world-petrol-demand-peak-electric-car-wood-mackenzie-oil | 2017-10-15 22:00:00 | World petrol demand will peak within 13 years thanks to the impact of electric cars and more efficient engines, energy experts have predicted.
UK-based Wood Mackenzie said it expected the take-up of electric vehicles to cut gasoline demand significantly, particularly beyond 2025 as the battery-powered cars go mainstream.
Combined with car manufacturers forced by regulations to produce models that run further on the same amount of oil, a new report by the analysts suggests global gasoline demand is likely to peak by 2030.
The UK and France have recently said they will phase out sales of new petrol and diesel cars by 2040. China, the world’s biggest car market, is mulling a similar move, which would have a significant impact on oil demand.
Of the 96m barrels of oil consumed globally each day, 60m are used for transport, which Wood Mackenzie predicts will stall by 2030.
Alan Gelder, a senior analyst at Wood Mackenzie, said the ripples of gasoline’s plateau would be felt much earlier, as oil companies put off investment in refineries and the number of petrol stations is reduced.
“We are becoming increasingly efficient as we use our energy. So as economies grow we are less reliant on oil, so the significance of oil in the global economy should decline over time,” said Gelder.
For countries that rely strongly on tax income from fuel duty, such as the £28bn the tax brings in for the UK each year, falling gasoline demand will pose a challenge for governments, he said.
In the short term, regulatory changes to fuel efficiency standards imposed by Barack Obama in the US, and by the EU and China, will be the biggest curb on gasoline demand. Battery-powered cars are expected to have a bigger impact later.
“Post-2025, that’s where electric car sales take off. The further you go into the future, the more it’s electric cars,” said Gelder, who foresees plug-in models taking 10% of global new car sales by 2030. If cities began banning cars with a combustion engine, that would rapidly accelerate the switch to electric vehicles, he added.
While gasoline will peak first, the analysts expect total oil demand to plateau about 2035, as growth is hit by climate change policies and developing world economies maturing.
Although the “market used to worry about peak oil supply”, Wood Mackenzie said, the industry’s chief concern now was a peak in demand.
“The prospect of peak oil demand is very real,” said the group. Its forecast of peak oil demand is relatively early compared with BP’s prediction of the mid-2040s and the International Energy Agency’s expectation of 2040.
However, some oil firms, such as Shell, believe the peak could come in the early 2030s or potentially even late 2020s due to growth in cars powered by biofuels and batteries. The Anglo-Dutch firm believes the impact on oil demand from more fuel-efficient cars will far outweigh the impact of electric vehicles.
The price of of oil stood at one of its highest levels this year on Thursday, at $58.24 (£43.83) a barrel, after reports of skirmishes between Iraqi and Kurdish forces in oil-producing areas, and concerns over sanctions against Iran.
Toyota has announced it will test electric cars in Japan from 2020 equipped with artificial intelligence to help the cars better understand and adapt to their drivers. A driverless concept car, the Concept i-series, can also be driven manually.
The AI will gauge “emotion and level of alertness by reading the driver’s expressions, actions, and tone of voice”, the Japanese manufacturer said. |
Outrage as Sainsbury’s development features 4% affordable homes | Sainsbury’s has been criticised after it emerged that the retail giant's proposed housing development surrounding an east London superstore will comprise just 4% affordable homes. Of the 683 homes planned for the Ilford project, 27 will be available for affordable rent even though the local borough council has a 50% affordable housing target for all new developments. The project is the largest undertaken by the grocer as it grows its housebuilding business.
| https://www.theguardian.com/society/2017/oct/15/sainsburys-faces-anger-over-london-plot-with-just-4-affordable-homes | 2017-10-14 23:00:00 | Sainsbury’s is facing housing campaigners’ anger over a proposed high-rise development surrounding an east London superstore that includes just 4% affordable homes.
Local opponents have described the supermarket’s proposal that just 27 of the 683 homes in the Ilford project will be available for affordable rent as “insulting”.
Planning experts for the mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, have said the offer “falls substantially short” of City Hall’s plan to deliver 17,000 affordable homes per year – equivalent to 40% of the strategic housebuilding target.
It also falls well short of the London Borough of Redbridge’s target of 50% affordable housing across all new developments. There are currently over 8,000 households on the waiting list for affordable housing in the area, and more than 2,400 living in temporary accommodation.
The borough estimates it needs an extra 15,000 affordable homes by 2033. The case is set to go before a public inquiry starting on Tuesday, but the project appears likely to go ahead after the council withdrew its opposition on Saturday.
The Ilford development is Sainsbury’s largest yet.
Sainsbury’s says the “maximum reasonable” amount of affordable housing it can include is 14 one- and two-bedroom flats, a dozen three-bedroom units and a single four-bedroom property. It estimates making a 20% profit selling off the private flats, according to planning documents. At current local prices that could exceed £40m.
It has described it as “a financially challenging project”, partly because of lost revenues to its retail operation when it closes its existing store for construction. It has also agreed to pay Redbridge £11.4m in community infrastructure levy, although this cannot be used to fund affordable housing.
But Meenakshi Sharma, co-founder of Ilford NOISE, a local residents group, said the amount of affordable housing being offered was “ridiculous and insulting”.
“People can’t believe it is 4% especially with all the publicity about the need for affordable housing,” she said. “And yet this still carries on. They don’t take any notice whatsoever. There’s a big housing need in the area. There are lots of people in temporary accommodation and lots of overcrowding.”
It is the latest in a series of high-profile battles over the financial viability of private housing schemes in the capital with councils seeking to maximise the number of cheaper homes in developments and developers seeking to minimise them. Previous disputes have centred on central London sites where developers have argued that the high cost of land limits their ability to subsidise affordable housing, but the row over the Ilford site suggests the issue is spreading to the outer London suburbs.
Affordable in this case means rents capped at 60% of market rates. Sainsbury’s is increasingly moving into housebuilding, using the space above its stores for housing. The Ilford project is its largest yet, but it has also built 650 homes around a store in Nine Elms and 500 homes above a store in Fulham, both in London.
Redbridge had originally rejected the application because of the lack of affordable housing and was planning to oppose it at the public inquiry, but it has now reversed its position and accepted the 4% offer.
On Friday, a spokeswoman for Redbridge told the Guardian: “We declined the application because of the huge gap between the borough’s expectations on affordable housing in new developments, and the proposals we were given. The capital is critically short of housing, especially affordable housing and we need to increase the stock in the borough.”
But on Saturday it told the planning inspector it was withdrawing its opposition and would not resist Sainsbury’s appeal against its original refusal.
In a letter to the planning inspectorate, the head of planning, Joanne Woodward, said it had agreed common ground on the financial viability of the project and a planning deal, although without any increase in the affordable housing included in the development.
“The council will attend on the first day of the inquiry to explain how the position it has now adopted has been reached,” she said.
Sainsbury’s said: “Our plans will help kick-start Ilford’s future regeneration by driving growth and job creation, as well as provide a broad mix of housing for local people. We look forward to the outcome of the appeal. We have agreed with the council to review the provision at certain points throughout the development, and if we can increase the number of affordable homes we will.” |
Innogy buys out Statkraft from Triton Knoll offshore wind project | German energy company Innogy has acquired Statkraft's 50% share in the Triton Knoll offshore wind project. Innogy is now the sole owner of the wind farm, which is expected to have a capacity of 860 MW. The Triton Knoll wind farm will be 32 km off the east coast of England and capable of supplying 800,000 UK homes with renewable electricity. | https://www.cnbc.com/2017/10/11/innogy-becomes-sole-owner-of-massive-offshore-wind-project.html | 2017-10-13 15:56:33.393000 | German energy business Innogy has announced it has acquired Statkraft's 50 percent share in the Triton Knoll offshore wind project.
The Essen-based company said Tuesday that it was now the sole owner of the project, which has a planned installed capacity of 860 megawatts. Both Innogy and Norway's Statkraft have agreed to keep the purchase price confidential.
Innogy added that the farm, which is set to be located 32 kilometers off the east coast of England, was expected to supply the equivalent of 800,000 U.K. homes with renewable electricity annually. The company said the planned investment volume for the project amounted to around £2 billion ($2.64 billion).
"With full control over Triton Knoll, we will now develop the project further to final investment decision at our own discretion," Hans Bunting, Innogy's chief operating officer for renewables, said in a statement.
"In due course, we will also review all options regarding the ownership structure of Triton Knoll to maximize value for our company and our shareholders," he added.
The project's onshore works are set to commence in 2018, with offshore work due to start in 2020. Innogy said that it expected Triton Knoll to be commissioned in 2021. |
Enel invests $330m in Oklahoma wind project | Enel Green has signed a $330m tax equity agreement to spur development of Oklahoma’s 298 MW Thunder Ranch wind project. Goldman Sachs' Alternative Energy Investing Group and GE Energy Financial Services have agreed to purchase 100% of Thunder Ranch's Class B and Class C equity interests. Enel Green Power will maintain control of the entirety of the wind project's Class A interests.
| https://cleantechnica.com/2017/10/09/enel-green-signs-330-million-investment-agreement-oklahomas-298-mw-thunder-ranch/ | 2017-10-13 15:49:09.870000 | Enel Green Power North America announced last week that it has signed a $330 million tax equity agreement with the Alternative Energy Investing Group of Goldman Sachs and GE Energy Financial Services to spur development of Oklahoma’s 298 MW Thunder Ranch wind project.
The announcement was made on Friday in which Enel Green Power North America revealed that Alternative Energy Investing Group of Goldman Sachs and GE Energy Financial Services would together purchase 100% of the 298 MW (megawatt) Thunder Ranch wind project’s Class B and Class C equity interests in exchange for payment of approximately $330 million. Enel Green Power will retain 100% of Thunder Ranch’s Class A interests and control of the project.
These tax equity investments are traditional financing methods for the development of renewable energy projects across the United States. In turn, Goldman Sachs and GE Energy Financial Services will receive a percentage of the financial benefits generated by Thunder Ranch.
Construction of the 298 MW Thunder Ranch wind project began back in May after Enel Green Power committed approximately $435 million into the project, part of the company’s larger investment plans. Upon completion, Thunder Ranch generate more than 1,100 GWh (gigawatt-hours) of clean energy each year and provide enough electricity to meet the needs of the equivalent of 89,400 US homes, and subsequently avoid CO2 emissions worth around 790,000 tonnes.
Thunder Ranch was also in the news last month as the focus of a Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) concluded by Missouri-based Anheuser-Busch, brewer of drinks such as Budweiser and Stella Artois, and one of America’s leading breweries. Anheuser-Busch announced mid-September that it would purchase 152.5 MW generated by Thunder Ranch to support its brewing operations in the United States. Further, the company can now boast 50% renewable energy purchased, and the ability to produce 20 billion 12-ounce servings of beer each year.
“As we strive to bring people together to build a better world, we at Anheuser-Busch are dedicated to reducing our carbon emissions,” said João Castro Neves, president and CEO of Anheuser-Busch at the time. “Helping to grow the renewable energy market is not only good for the environment, it is a strategic business move as we strive for long-term sustainability. Now more than ever, we are excited to lead our company’s global effort toward a renewable future and, partnering with Enel, set an industry example of how major companies can help to make a difference in climate change.”
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EON launches renewable tariff for EV charging | EON has announced a new tariff that will allow UK owners of hybrid and electric vehicles to access energy sourced from "green gas" and renewable energy. The EON Fixed One Year Electric Vehicle tariff offers customers access to a night rate that is 33% less than the day rate. | http://renews.biz/108745/eon-tariff-drives-green-cars/ | 2017-10-13 15:44:19.893000 | Eon has today launched a new tariff for electric and hybrid vehicle owners in the UK that uses energy sourced from 100% renewable electricity and green gas.
The Eon Fixed One Year Electric Vehicle is a dual rate tariff, which offers customers access to a competitive day rate and a night rate 33% below the day rate.
The tariff also matches 100% of both the electricity and gas used with renewable energy guarantees of origin and green gas certificates, Eon said.Eon residential managing director Chris Lovatt said: “For many electric or hybrid car owners, choosing the right energy tariff may be the last piece of the jigsaw in helping them lower fuel emissions and energy costs.” |
EON brings 10 MW battery storage unit online in UK | German energy company EON is to open a 10 MW battery site in Sheffield, UK. The Blackburn Meadows project will be among Britain's largest, and will be used to store energy from wind farms, gas power stations and nuclear reactors. Centrica plans to build a 49 MW facility at a former power station site in Cumbria, and EDF will introduce a similarly sized battery in Nottinghamshire.
| https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/oct/09/uk-first-mega-battery-plant-come-online-sheffield-eon-renewable-energy | 2017-10-13 15:38:55.913000 | Britain’s switch to greener energy will take another significant step forward this week with the opening of an industrial-scale battery site in Sheffield. E.ON said the facility, which is next to an existing power plant and has the equivalent capacity of half a million phone batteries, marked a milestone in its efforts to develop storage for electricity from windfarms, nuclear reactors and gas power stations.
The plant, housed in four shipping containers, is the type of project hailed by the business secretary, Greg Clark, as crucial to transforming the UK’s energy system and making it greener.
At 10MW, the Blackburn Meadows battery is one of the biggest in Britain so far, but will soon be eclipsed by much larger plants.
Centrica, the parent company of British Gas, is building a 49MW facility on the site of a former power station in Barrow-in-Furness, Cumbria, while EDF Energy is working on one of the same size at its West Burton gas power station in Nottinghamshire.
David Topping, the director of business, heat and power solutions at E.ON, said: “This is a milestone for E.ON in the new energy world and an important recognition of the enormous potential for battery solutions in the UK.”
The utility-scale batteries are being built in response to a request from National Grid, the owner of Britain’s power transmission network, for contracts to help it keep electricity supply and demand in balance, which is posing an increasing challenge for the grid as more intermittent wind and solar comes online.
Balancing supply and demand is essential for keeping the frequency of electricity constant at 50Hz across the UK. The ability of batteries to respond to demand in less than a second makes them ideal for the task, with earlier sources of backup power much slower at just under 10 seconds.
E.ON has secured £3.89m of the £65.9m of contracts awarded for the service, though National Grid estimates the batteries will save it £200m over four years.
Leon Walker, the commercial development manager at National Grid, said: “Using battery storage is a significant development for managing the national grid. It’s an ultra-fast way of keeping electricity supply and demand balanced.”
The new generation of batteries will also earn their owners money by helping with the government subsidy scheme for providing backup power during winter, known as the capacity market. The storage plants will also be able to take power off the system when supply is unexpectedly high, such as on a particularly windy or sunny day. |
Facebook offers in-app access to food delivery services | Facebook has enabled food orders for takeout or delivery through its mobile app and website in the US, and is working with delivery services GrubHub, DoorDash, Zuppler, Slice, Olo, EatStreet, ChowNow and Delivery.com. Restaurants will be able to offer food through the delivery firms' sites via an in-app browser after users open the Order Food feature. The feature merely enables ordering a delivery without leaving the Facebook app, but could be useful for restaurant or delivery service exposure.
| https://www.theverge.com/2017/10/13/16468610/facebook-food-ordering-new-feature | 2017-10-13 15:27:23.177000 | Today Facebook is announcing that users can now order food for takeout or delivery using both the Facebook mobile app and website. But it’s not at all what you might think; Facebook hasn’t created its own answer to Seamless, which would be massive news for the restaurant industry. This isn’t that.
Instead, the company is partnering with existing services GrubHub, Delivery.com, DoorDash, ChowNow, Zuppler, EatStreet, Slice, and Olo, and will now link out to those food ordering businesses for restaurants that support them. You head to the new “Order Food” area of Facebook under the Explore section, find the local spot you’re craving, and then hit “start order.” From there, if a restaurant supports more than one of Facebook’s ordering partners, you’ll be able to choose between them. Once you do, Facebook will bring up an in-app browser that takes you through the existing websites for Delivery.com and the others. That’s where all the ordering actually happens, so you’re not actually doing much with the Facebook app beyond finding a restaurant and tapping your preferred delivery option.
Seamless is not currently among Facebook’s partner services, but parent company GrubHub is, so that should get you most of the same delivery restaurants. But there are other omissions such as Caviar, so you’ll still need to open those apps separately to know which restaurants use them and place an order.
Facebook is also partnering on food ordering directly with national chains Chipotle, Five Guys, Jack in the Box, Papa John's, Wingstop, Panera, TGI Friday's, Denny's, El Pollo Loco, and Jimmy John's. But it works the same way as with the other services; you browse to one of these nearby chain locations, pick start order, and then you’ll be sent to their existing delivery system. All Facebook is really doing here is launching an in-app browser so you can get a meal without ever leaving the app.
“We've been testing this since last year, and after responding to feedback and adding more partners, we're rolling out everywhere in the US on iOS, Android and desktop,” Alex Himel, Facebook’s VP of local, said in a press release. “People already go to Facebook to browse restaurants and decide where to eat or where to order food, so we're making that easier.”
That “we’ve been working on this for a year” bit surprised me. There’s certainly some work necessary to link all these restaurant pages with the services they use (and businesses can opt out of displaying the food ordering feature if they wish). The value for Facebook is obvious; the company hopes you’ll fill your craving and then keep swiping through your news feed with your greasy fingers. |
Wartsila takes energy-storage solutions to India | Finnish energy storage manufacturer Wärtsilä is looking to bring its products to India to assist with the country's grid management problems. India is seeing a rapid increase in renewable energy production, but the national power infrastructure has not kept pace with developments. Power outages and lack of supply to inaccessible locations remain problems. The Indian Energy Storage Association estimates that the storage sector could attract investment of between $4-6bn in the next five years.
| https://www.pv-magazine.com/2017/10/11/wartsila-to-offer-energy-storage-solutions-in-india/ | 2017-10-13 15:12:59.883000 | Wärtsilä offered to be a part of Indian energy storage sector, which is estimated to the tune of $4-6 billion in the next five years.
India’s renewable sector is growing at a stupendous rate but also faces serious challenges related to grid-management, which thus far has not kept pace with the nation’s solar and wind power development.
Intermittent power outages and the inaccessibility of the grid to remote areas are commonplace. These challenges can be tackled with improved integration of stand-alone systems combined with energy storage technology – a space in which global power provider Wärtsilä is planning to populate.
The Indian Energy Storage Association (IESA) recently raised the issue of a lack of policy framework in the energy storage sector of India – a topic that was also discussed and pledged during last month’s Energy Storage Forum to push forward India’s Energy Storage sector as quick as possible.
The IESA estimates that India could attract investments to the tune of $4-6 billion in the next five years.
Javier Cavada Camino, President, Energy Solutions, and Executive Vice-President of Wärtsilä Corporation, said: “Adding energy storage technology enables customers to have instant power while saving fuel and maintenance costs. The growing capacity of renewable generation, including solar PV, becomes more sustainable and attractive when integrated with advanced energy storage.”
Wärtsilä stated that flexible generation options must be encouraged to ensure geographical distribution and balancing of loads across India. It also highlighted the constraints faced by hydro plants, which are technically best-suited for plugging such gaps, regarding site, seasonality, and competing demand from irrigation needs.
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Such a need can be fulfilled by battery storage systems or gas-run IC engines, which are popular in many countries, especially in the context of renewable energy balancing. The Indian grid, which has among the largest renewable energy penetration in the world, and has adequate capacity but not sufficient flexibility, will benefit from such solutions.
Cavada mentioned that solar units with battery storage may typically cost 20% more per MW than a project without it, but they do bring more efficiency in the long term and can reduce imbalances in the power sector. “The battery helps generate 30% more power with the same investment. Our solution has a payback period of less than two years,” Camino told the Economic Times.
Neeraj Sharma, President & Managing Director, Wärtsilä India Pvt Ltd, added: “Wärtsilä energy storage solutions will significantly improve efficiency by increasing back-up capacity and creating new opportunities in electricity markets. Energy storage has become an integral part of every power system, with features like frequency support and reserves, peak demand management, demand charge reduction (C&I) and energy shifting. Customer benefits include peak demand management, demand charge reduction (C&I), electricity market opportunities and back-up capacity.”
Wärtsilä Energy Solutions has become a leading global system integrator after the acquisition, in May 2017, of Greensmith Energy Management Systems Inc., one of the biggest in grid-scale energy storage software and integrated solutions. |
Small-scale solar cut $1.7bn off New South Wales energy bills | Consumers in the Australian state of New South Wales have had up to AUD2.2bn ($1.7bn) cut from their annual energy bills due to small-scale solar generation, according to consultants Energy Synapse. Small-scale PV installations had generated 1,540 GW hours of power from May 2016 to April 2017 and helped reduce wholesale energy prices by up to half, it said. During heatwaves in February, the contribution from small-scale solar reduced the average price of wholesale electricity by up to AUD258/MWh.
| http://www.smh.com.au/business/energy/smallscale-solar-cutting-billions-from-electricity-bills-20171012-gyzf2c.html | 2017-10-13 15:00:44.337000 | Small- scale solar systems have cut wholesale electricity costs by up to half in the past 12 months, a study has shown.
The report by consulting firm Energy Synapse, commissioned by a community-based organisation Solar Citizens Australia, found solar photovoltaic (PV) installations in NSW had saved consumers up to $2.2 billion from May 2016 to April 2017.
During this period, small solar PV systems are estimated to have generated 1540 gigawatt hours of power within the state.
The report says the volume-weighted average price of wholesale electricity would have been between $29 and $44 per megawatt hour higher than the actual average price for the period of $88 per megawatt hour. |
Musk's offer to rebuild Puerto Rico grid changes aid game | Tesla CEO Elon Musk has said the company could assist with rebuilding Puerto Rico's energy infrastructure, which was severely damaged by Hurricane Maria. Responding on Twitter to a suggestion he could help with independent solar and battery systems, Musk said that Tesla had already assisted smaller islands with such technology, and as there was "no scalability limit", the same could be done for Puerto Rico. He stressed the decision would be in the hands of the island's government, but his intervention raises the potential for more large corporations to play a role in disaster recovery work.
| https://www.cnbc.com/2017/10/09/elon-musks-offer-to-rebuild-puerto-ricos-electricity-grid-is-a-game-changer-commentary.html | 2017-10-13 14:57:23.467000 | "Now along comes Musk, and suddenly investors have another way to look at Puerto Rico. Bond debts or no bond debts, Tesla could make a project on the island profitable for its investors even just as a demonstration of what the company could do for better paying municipal customers elsewhere."
But the relief effort is being joined, and in some cases led, by corporations. There are also extensive data being published showing that the private sector essentially did a good job in response to Hurricanes Harvey and Irma. After Hurricane Maria, Apple, Google, Pepsi, Coca-Cola, Burger King, Goya, all stepped up and Wal-Mart is again setting the pace with up to $5 million in cash and product donations to Maria victims alone.
And along with the private sector stepping up to the plate, there are signs that the government may be realizing one part of the charity job it should stop doing altogether. That is, ending the practice of making ordinary American taxpayers continue to underwrite national flood insurance for sometimes richer Americans who choose to build homes in flood areas. President Trump even mentioned the idea of putting an end to subsidized national flood insurance for new homes built in those areas from now on.
Just like that, we have evidence that the government and the public have become used to the private sector doing more and the public sector doing less after disasters... as long as it works.
Like I said, timing is everything.
And, just to be fully honest, let's not ignore the fact that these companies stand to earn some very valuable positive public relations from all of his and even a bit of powerful advertising.
But now Musk is taking that idea and moving it a crucial step further. Because he and Tesla are focusing on making an investment in Puerto Rico's recovery.
The investment community's response to Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico has been in special focus because of the island's heavy debt and President Trump's comment that those debts would need to be "wiped out."
Now along comes Musk, and suddenly investors have another way to look at Puerto Rico. Bond debts or no bond debts, Tesla could make a project on the island profitable for its investors even just as a demonstration of what the company could do for better paying municipal customers elsewhere. Again, that takes us to a new place from just the valuable public relations effect Wal-Mart and other companies gain from pitching in cash and material after disasters.
And Musk isn't alone. Google parent Alphabet has just secured FCC approval to float large balloons over Puerto Rico to restore cellular service. Again, whether Alphabet does this for free or at cost isn't the point. It's going to be demonstrating its abilities to create an investment worthy tool for disaster recovery.
This is a new approach in many ways, but perhaps this is actually the beginning of a return to America's historic roots. The best example is probably what happened after the 1906 San Francisco earthquake destroyed much of the city and the private sector began to rebuild quickly and without waiting for much government direction or aid.
Now that rebuilding effort wasn't perfect, but the speed with which the city bounced back is a well documented case of effective recovery. And the savvy response of one San Franciscan named A.P. Giannini, who just happened to run a bank in the city, was essential to that recovery. Giannini broke with his fellow bankers in the city and set up shop on the docks near San Francisco's North Beach and began extending loans right then and there. His actions not only were a crucial factor in the city's recovery, it started the process of turning his small local bank into the huge multinational Bank of America.
Will Musk become Puerto Rico's Giannini? He certainly could in many ways. But so could some of Musk's peers like Google, which undoubtedly could find a way to profit not from tragedy, but from leading the recovery from tragedy.
The best news is that people like Musk et al. are not only willing to try, but Americans and the current White House seem to be very willing to let them. |
Indonesian geothermal plant commissions second unit | Nevada-based renewable energy company Ormat Technologies has begun commercial operations at the second unit of its geothermal power plant in Indonesia. The Sarulla power plant is operated by a consortium of investors and consists of three 110 MW units, the first of which was commissioned in March. The plant sells energy to the country's state-owned power company PLN under a 30-year contract. The third unit is expected to enter service next year.
| https://globenewswire.com/news-release/2017/10/10/1143710/0/en/Sarulla-Geothermal-Power-Plant-Capacity-Expands-to-220-MW-With-Second-Unit-Commencing-Commercial-Operation.html | 2017-10-13 14:54:04.557000 | RENO, Nev., Oct. 10, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Ormat Technologies Inc. (NYSE:ORA) today announced that the second unit of the Sarulla geothermal power plant, one of the world's largest power plants, located in Indonesia's North Sumatra, has commenced commercial operation.
The Sarulla power plant includes three units of approximately 110 MW each, utilizing both steam and brine extracted from the geothermal field to increase the power plant’s efficiency. SIL, the first unit of the power plant commenced commercial operation on March 17, 2017 and is performing well. The second unit, NIL 1, completed successfully its testing and commenced COD on October 2, 2017 selling additional 110 MW to the state-owned Indonesian power company PT Perusahaan Listrik Negara (PLN) under a 30 years Energy Sales Contract. Sarulla power plant is operated by Sarulla Operations Ltd. (SOL). The third unit, NIL 2, is under construction and SOL expects the unit to commence operation in 2018.
SOL is a consortium consists of Medco Energi Internasional Tbk, Inpex Corporation, Itochu Corporation, Kyushu Electric Power Co. Inc., and Ormat subsidiary that hold 12.75% equity interest.
About Ormat Technologies
With over five decades of experience, Ormat Technologies, Inc. is a leading geothermal company and the only vertically integrated company engaged in geothermal and recovered energy generation (REG), with the objective of becoming a leading global provider of renewable energy. The company owns, operates, designs, manufactures and sells geothermal and REG power plants primarily based on the Ormat Energy Converter – a power generation unit that converts low-, medium- and high-temperature heat into electricity. With 73 U.S. patents, Ormat’s power solutions have been refined and perfected under the most grueling environmental conditions. Ormat has 530 employees in the United States and 720 overseas. Ormat’s flexible, modular solutions for geothermal power and REG are ideal for the vast range of resource characteristics. The company has engineered, manufactured and constructed power plants, which it currently owns or has installed to utilities and developers worldwide, totaling over 2,200 MW of gross capacity. Ormat’s current 776 MW generating portfolio is spread globally in the U.S., Guatemala, Guadeloupe, Honduras, Indonesia and Kenya. Ormat also intends to expand its operations and provide energy management and energy storage solutions, by leveraging its core capabilities and global presence as well as through its Viridity Energy Solutions, Inc. subsidiary, a Philadelphia-based company with nearly a decade of expertise and leadership in demand response, energy management and storage.
Ormat’s Safe Harbor Statement
Information provided in this press release may contain statements relating to current expectations, estimates, forecasts and projections about future events that are "forward-looking statements" as defined in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These forward-looking statements generally relate to Ormat's plans, objectives and expectations for future operations and are based upon its management's current estimates and projections of future results or trends. Actual future results may differ materially from those projected as a result of certain risks and uncertainties. For a discussion of such risks and uncertainties, see "Risk Factors" as described in Ormat Technologies, Inc.'s Annual Report on Form 10-K filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on March 1, 2017.
These forward-looking statements are made only as of the date hereof, and we undertake no obligation to update or revise the forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.
Ormat Technologies Contact:
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775-356-9029 (ext. 65726)
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Green Charge to build first grid-scale energy storage project | US energy storage company Green Charge is to build its first grid-scale project in Massachusetts. The company, majority-owned by France's Engie since last year, will provide the battery system to Holyoke Gas & Electric for 20 years from April 2018. The project uses an innovative financing model, with the asset owned by PNC Bank, which will fund its construction and lease it back to Green Charge.
| https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/green-charge-utility-scale-storage-massachusetts#gs.lnhn5E4 | 2017-10-13 14:46:56.700000 | Storage developer Green Charge has made its first foray into utility-scale projects with a 3-megawatt/6-megawatt-hour deal in Massachusetts, marking an early entry in that state's nascent storage market.
Green Charge made its name with commercial-scale behind-the-meter projects, setting up batteries at 7-Eleven shops in New York that were able to continue to serve customers even through Superstorm Sandy. In 2016, European energy giant Engie bought a controlling stake. With the parent company’s balance sheet and professional network, the storage company was able to increase its scale of operation.
“It’s our biggest announced project,” said CEO Vic Shao. “We’ve got lots of other things in the works right now that we’re not ready to talk about yet.”
When the system comes on-line in April 2018, it will help Holyoke Gas & Electric reduce its annual systemwide peak charge, which ultimately affects the city’s ratepayers.
The project leverages a few sources of funding, and complies with the criteria of the federal Investment Tax Vredit by charging from a 5.76-megawatt Mt. Tom Solar plant Engie built earlier this year.
The government of Massachusetts provided a $475,000 grant, although that isn’t contributing to the economics of the system, Shao said. That money will fund research by the University of Massachusetts at Amherst to study the value of the system for the distribution grid, with a focus on peak reduction.
Most strikingly, the battery system will be owned by a bank, another first for Green Charge.
PNC Bank will own the asset, and lease it back to Green Charge to operate on behalf of the municipal utility customer. This arrangement lowers the cost of capital for the storage system.
“The pure fact that a bank is signing off on and buying storage is a tremendous indication of the maturity of the storage market,” Shao said. “In the past, we’ve had to balance-sheet these kinds of storage assets.”
The leaseback setup means the bank owns the assets and provides money to Green Charge upfront to develop the project. Green Charge will make monthly payments back to the bank with revenue it generates from operating the storage. The bank also nabs the ITC, which places some restrictions on how the battery can operate for the remainder of the tax credit's availability.
Bank interest in owning storage systems is pretty new for the industry, but it bodes well, said GTM Research analyst Daniel Finn-Foley.
"The entry of financial entities into the project ownership ecosystem is an important milestone for any emerging industry, as it truly puts the 'bank' in 'bankability,'" he said. "As financial entities begin putting their muscle behind projects, expect to see assets trading hands and further investment as energy storage capitalizes on its proven track record."
The storage contract with Holyoke is for 20 years, the same time span as the solar contract.
Commercial storage is pretty much a demand-charge game these days, so at first glance, the pivot to utility-scale sounds like a change in direction. But it’s actually more similar than one might think, Shao said.
“Our behind-the-meter experience applies completely in the situation with Holyoke,” he said. “Energy arbitrage is a lot easier. [...] Shaving the systemwide peak on an annual basis requires a whole lot of sophistication.”
In other words, helping the municipal utility avoid paying too much for its annual peak ends up looking like demand-charge reduction on the citywide scale.
The task is similar in cases where the storage system is needed to avoid overloading an interconnection hookup or to defer a transmission upgrade: It’s all about keeping the flow of electricity below a certain threshold.
Without getting too specific, Shao said Green Charge has begun eyeing international expansion, leveraging the resources of its corporate backer.
“Engie operates in 70 countries with 150,000 employees around the world,” he said. “It gives instant credibility when we enter a new market -- and instant resources.”
In the meantime, he envisions more work to be done in Massachusetts. That state has had a few significant storage projects thus far, but policymakers have made an effort to incubate the industry with a procurement target and supporting funds and programs.
This has been the first major movement in the market since the state announced its goal of 200 megawatt-hours by 2020 back in July. That policy didn’t kick off a flurry of storage development just yet, but Shao insists “it’s a market that's primed and ready for storage.”
The express enthusiasm of the governor and legislature certainly helps, as does a customer base with a strong interest in clean energy. The state also happens to be home to a number of other municipal utilities, which have their peak charges to deal with -- and the ability to move quickly and make a storage deal happen.
“Getting the first one across the finish line required a lot of heavy lifting to push and get the deal done,” Shao said. “Now that it’s done, we’re experiencing a lot of customer pull: a ‘Holyoke did it; I want to do it too’ kind of thing.” |
RWE betting on Uniper disposals after Fortum takeover | German utility RWE is likely to cherry pick from Uniper's assets, including its coal-fired power plants, following its acquisition by state-owned Finnish firm Fortnum, according to anonymous insiders. "It is much cheaper for RWE to wait it out than embarking on a bidding war with Fortum," sources familiar with the deal said. Fortnum has said it has no plans to break up Uniper's assets, though head of generation Tiina Tuomela was recently quoted by Finnish paper Kauppalehti as saying the firm expected "the power industry to stop using coal in the long term".
| http://www.dailymail.co.uk/wires/reuters/article-4977082/RWE-likely-target-Uniper-assets-Fortum-takeover-sources.html | 2017-10-13 14:36:33.477000 | By Christoph Steitz and Tom Käckenhoff
FRANKFURT/DUESSELDORF, Oct 13 (Reuters) - Germany's RWE is likely to buy Uniper assets that Fortum sells after the Finnish firm's planned 8.05 billion euro ($9.5 billion) takeover rather than launch a counterbid, investors and M&A sources said.
State-controlled Fortum, under pressure from investors to do a big deal, bid for Uniper last month to try to snap up a 46.65 percent stake E.ON wants to divest.
Fortum is mainly interested in Uniper's assets in Sweden and Russia and less in its more polluting gas and coal fired power plants, which would be a better fit for RWE, the sources said.
"It is much cheaper for RWE to wait it out than embarking on a bidding war with Fortum," a person familiar with the deal said, adding that RWE would essentially be "cherry-picking".
RWE declined to comment on its plans on Friday.
Fortum, keen to expand its carbon-free energy business, said it had no plans for a restructuring and wants to be a long-term investor in Uniper.
However, Finnish business daily Kauppalehti on Friday quoted Fortum's head of generation Tiina Tuomela as saying that the company expects the power industry to stop using coal in the long term, without commenting on the company's short-term plans.
Investors doubt Fortum will hold on to all of Uniper's assets should its bid succeed.
"There is a chance that Uniper will be broken up," said Thomas Deser, fund manager at Union Investment, a Uniper shareholder, adding RWE could be interested in Uniper's 1.05 gigawatt Datteln 4 coal-fired plant.
Smaller deals would also be more in line with RWE's strategy of selective M&A.
RWE could easily sell stakes in its network and renewable unit Innogy, in which it still holds 76.8 percent, to pay for parts of Uniper, the sources said.
Fortum has bid 22 euros per share for Uniper, which is trading at around 24 euros and any counterbid would have to be above 26 euros to compensate for a break-up fee, Andreas Schneller, fund manager at Swiss asset manager EIC, said.
"Chances for a counterbid are currently zero," he added.
Uniper, which is opposed to the deal, hopes that the Finnish government could shy away given expected ratings downgrades for Fortum, one of the people said. But Finland's Economy Minister earlier this week said it supported the deal. ($1 = 0.8447 euros) (Additional reporting by Arno Schuetze in Frankfurt and Jussi Rosendahl and Tuomas Forsell in Helsinki; editing by Alexander Smith and Adrian Croft) |
Nuclear blast-resistant tech added to Russian combat robo-suit | Ratnik-3, a high-tech combat suit made by Russian state tech firm Rostec, has been upgraded with "nuclear blast-resistant" components. A resistant self-winding watch has been added to withstand radiation and electromagnetic pulses, as well as work underwater. The suit itself features a powered exoskeleton, bulletproof body armour, and a heads-up display in a full face visor. The outfit is expected to be completed in 2022, and is due to be 30% lighter in weight when released for field use. | https://futurism.com/russias-next-gen-combat-suit-is-getting-tech-thats-resistant-to-nuclear-blasts/ | 2017-10-13 14:21:22.300000 | Stormtrooper Chic
Russia has a new battle suit that seems to be visually inspired by Star Wars's Imperial Shadow Stormtroopers. While Russia's version likely doesn't come with a cloaking device, the high-tech armor does have a few tricks up its sleeves, including nuclear blast resistant tech.
The suit was developed by Rostec and is called the Ratnik-3. The latest upgrade to the new armor includes a reportedly nuclear blast resistant watch. According to a statement released by the press office, the Chief Designer for the Life Support System of the Soldier Combat Outfit at the Central Scientific Research Institute for Precision Machine Engineering, Oleg Faustov, says "The watch, which we have included in the Ratnik outfit, retains its properties upon the impact of radiation and electromagnetic impulses, for example, upon a nuclear blast."
The watch also features a self-winding mechanism and operates under water.
Other perks of the 59 items Rostec has included in the suit include a powered exoskeleton, which is said to give soldiers greater strength and stamina; the latest in bulletproof body armor tech; and a full face-covering visor and helmet equipped with a video game-esque heads-up display (HUD). According to Russian state-owned media outlet Tass, the weight of the completed combat gear will be reduced by 30% when it is released for use in the field.
The Ratnik 3 is expected to be ready for use by 2022.
Next-Gen War
The future of how we will one day wage war is being developed now. The United States is also working on a high-tech combat suit of its own. The suit, inspired by pop culture, has been dubbed the Iron Man.
Weapons are also getting next-gen upgrades, with laser weapons currently being deployed in various forms around the world. The United States Navy has the Laser Weapons System (LaWS) mounted on the USS Ponce, an amphibious naval transport dock, to defend against drone strikes and eventually incoming missiles. China has also previously given its soldiers laser weapons designed to blind opponents. Click to View Full Infographic
In the sky, killer drones the size of a quadcopter have been developed to carry weapons. The Air Force is even training soldiers to get the military ready for combat in space with extraterrestrials or other hostile interests.
Of course, with all these developments, it maybe good to be reminded what a nuclear showdown would do to the planet—and hope that these future technologies rarely have to be put to use. |
Enel sells 80% of 1 GW Mexican solar farm | Canadian institutional investor, la Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec, and consortium CKD Infraestructura México will acquire 80% of a renewable energy portfolio operated by Enel Green Power. The deal, worth $1.35bn, includes the Villanueva I and II, and Don José photovoltaic plants, totalling almost 1 GW, and is set to be completed by the end of this year. | https://www.pv-magazine.com/2017/10/09/enel-sells-80-of-1-gw-large-scale-solar-in-mexico/ | 2017-10-13 14:20:17.780000 | The Italian energy company Enel has announced it has sold an 80% stake in 1.7 GW of operational renewable energy power projects or currently under construction in Mexico to Canadian institutional investor Caisse de dépot et placement du Québec (CDPQ) and Mexican pension funds CKD Infraestructura México S.A. de C.V. (CKD IM).
The transaction includes 1 GW of PV projects, which is comprised of the Villanueva I (427 MW), Villanueva III (327 MW) and Don José (238 MW) solar plants. As for the two Villanueva projects, where construction began in late March, Santiago Barcón, a columnist for Energía Hoy and an advisor to Mexico’s Energy Regulatory Commission, told pv magazine in early August that Enel had already put the project up for sale and is listening for offers.
Enel said the portfolio, owned by special purpose vehicles of its local subsidiary Enel Green Power México S.r.l. de C.V, consists of 429 MW of operational power plants and 1,283 MW under construction.
The $1.35 billion transaction is being implemented through the sale of 80% of a newly formed Mexican holding company, which will own the special purposes vehicles, for $340 million and through a $1.01 billion financing granted to the vehicles by CDPQ-CKD.
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“The new model”, said Enel Green Power’s head Antonio Cammisecra, “represents an opportunity for partners willing to invest in a large and diversified portfolio of projects in strategic areas, supported by long-term power purchase agreements, with the plants developed, built and operated by Enel Green Power. This strategy enables us to further exploit our global pipeline of solar and wind projects to gain access to additional resources, accelerating our growth.”
Enel said that the transaction is expected to be finalized by the end of this year.
The 754 MW Villanueva project is located in the Mexican state of Coahuila and is part of the 1 GW capacity that Enel won in Mexico’s first energy auction, which was held in 2016. In the energy auction held last year, Enel also won a contract for the 238 MW Don José solar project in Guanajuato, which is also part of the transaction and where construction started in April. For this project the company secured a 15-year PPA and a 20-year clean energy certificate sales contract. |
US concentrated solar company ESolar 'disappears' | US solar energy company ESolar may have ceased trading or dramatically scaled down its operations. Its website has gone blank, senior executives are not replying to emails, and it is rumoured that most of its staff left at the end of last year. Since its foundation in 2007, the Californian firm had pioneered concentrated solar technologies, commercialising smaller-scale plants, and raising a reported $182m from investors by 2011. It completed projects in India and the US, but is thought to have struggled to compete with the falling cost of PV solar generation.
Technology: Advanced solar
| https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/concentrated-solar-contender-esolar-goes-awol#gs.RqHtK1U | 2017-10-13 14:06:36.397000 | The concentrated solar power player eSolar, one of just three remaining companies in the U.S. specializing in tower designs, appears to have ceased operating.
GTM emails this month to key eSolar leadership team members, including chairman and founder Bill Gross, executive vice president of projects Dale Rogers and vice president of systems engineering Michael Slack, failed to elicit any response from the company.
Although Gross and Rogers still cite eSolar as their current employer on their LinkedIn profiles, and the business is listed among Gross’ Idealab incubator startups, the company’s website delivers a blank page with the words "Please come back later."
The Burbank, California-based business has fallen out of the news cycle since closing $22 million of a $30 million funding round in 2013. But before then, the company had been credited with bringing to market a potentially groundbreaking modular power tower technology.
In 2007, when eSolar was founded, the CSP industry was entering its second phase of maturation, characterized by the evolution of technologies developed during the 1980s and ‘90s.
The genesis of the industry last century led to a range of CSP technology concepts, from solar chimneys to linear Fresnel designs, with California’s Solar Energy Generating Systems parabolic trough plant leading the way in terms of size and performance.
In the 2000s, parabolic trough emerged as the design of choice for CSP. But Spanish and American developers began investigating a new concept, power towers, which promised higher efficiencies by focusing the full force of an entire solar field onto a single central receiver.
Companies including BrightSource Energy and SolarReserve in the U.S. and Abengoa and Sener in Spain pursued large-scale power tower projects that offered attractive economies of scale but were fraught in terms of permitting and financing.
Meanwhile, eSolar chose to commercialize a smaller-scale, modular plant design starting at 46 megawatts, with mass-manufactured heliostats to cut the cost of the solar field. Each 46-megawatt unit was intended to have 12 towers with their corresponding heliostat fields.
Under the aegis of internet entrepreneur Gross, eSolar pulled in funding from the likes of Google, Oak Investment Partners, NRG Energy, GE, ACME Group and Quercus Trust. By 2011 it was reported to have raised $182 million.
It also made headlines in 2010 by becoming the first Western firm to break into the Chinese CSP market, under a deal to develop up to 2 gigawatts of generating capacity with China Shandong Penglai Electric Power Equipment Manufacturing.
In 2013, eSolar’s name was attached to several other CSP projects worldwide, including the Gaskell, Alpine and Sierra SunTower plants in the U.S., the Dervish project in Turkey and the Acme Rajasthan Solar Power 1 plant in India.
Of these, only the Sierra SunTower and Acme Rajasthan Solar Power project are thought to have been completed.
And while eSolar’s concept was praised for its potential to avoid the gargantuan project development challenges facing larger plants, not everyone was convinced by the technology.
This was particularly the case at the turn of the decade, when it became apparent that the only way CSP could overcome competition from cheaper PV would be to add thermal storage into the equation.
“The big challenge for CSP is the cost comparison with PV, in light of the dramatic cost reductions in PV over the last few years,” said Kevin Smith, SolarReserve’s chief executive.
“If energy storage is a requirement, CSP with technologies like ours is a cheaper option than PV with batteries. However, small-scale CSP just makes the cost issues more difficult, and energy storage is a challenge in small-scale CSP.”
Elsewhere, research suggested that eSolar may have gone below the solar field optimum size with its modular approach.
A study led by Dr. Luis Crespo, president of the European solar thermal association ESTELA, found that even in hazy locations plant designers should aim for around 30 megawatts of solar field per tower. ESolar’s “was an unfeasible concept,” Crespo said.
It is rumored that eSolar may have let go of most of its staff at the end of last year. It is not known whether the company’s assets or intellectual property were acquired by a third party. |
Solar PV monitoring has become commoditised | The photovoltaic monitoring industry has become increasingly commoditised, leading to higher client expectation and increased risk of brand damage, according to an annual report by GTM Research. Vendors of monitoring platforms are adopting technologies including machine learning to stand out from their competitors, while the utility monitoring market has increasingly globalised compared with its commercial and residential counterparts.
| https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/7-trends-shaping-the-global-solar-pv-monitoring-market#gs.jpRcKN8 | 2017-10-13 13:39:51.237000 | The world of supervisory controls and data acquisition systems (SCADA) is evolving at a rapid pace to meet the changing needs of the PV industry around the world.
The latest edition of GTM Research’s annual report on the topic, Global PV Monitoring 2017-2022, identifies the trends that shape and sometimes shake this small yet increasingly critical component of modern PV plants.
1. PV monitoring is commoditized
Basic monitoring functions are now commoditized and subject to price pressure in most markets. Clients assume that any monitoring solution will reliably collect information and present it in a useful and intuitive interface. Offering such functions is no guarantee for success, and doing them well does not command a price premium. On the other hand, any shortcoming with these core functions can quickly result in loss of market share and lasting brand damage.
2. Monitoring platforms must improve plant returns
Increasing production and reducing operating costs remain the key battlegrounds for differentiation in the utility and industrial segments. All monitoring vendors support alerting and performance deviation analysis, which thus is not differentiated. More vendors seek to stand out by leveraging new technologies like machine learning to provide better fault detection and diagnosis, as well as to enable fault prediction.
3. Control functions remain differentiated
Control functions drive higher prices and margins, especially in the utility segment where advanced grid integration functions often require complex SCADA systems. Even in distributed generation segments, in markets favoring self-consumption (like Germany and Australia) or imposing grid export limits (like Hawaii), these features are core to the functionality of the PV system itself. For example, in self-consumption markets, the focus is to increase local usage of solar-generated energy and to reduce grid imports. To this effect, some monitoring systems offer automatic optimization of energy expenditures via control of home or business appliances, and via integration with energy storage systems.
4. Fleet operators want process integration
Tight business process integration between monitoring systems, computerized maintenance management systems, and asset management software is a key requirement from fleet owners and operators around the globe, whether via a single platform or multiple point solutions integrated together.
5. The utility PV monitoring market is becoming global
While most residential and commercial monitoring markets still favor local vendors, globalization is accelerating in the utility segment, where large portfolio investors own plants in multiple countries and often standardize on a single data platform.
6. Major inverter vendors are strong competitors
Monitoring hardware is now commonly built inside residential and commercial inverters. Software packages from major inverter providers like SMA, SolarEdge and Enphase are increasingly feature-rich, especially for self-consumption and energy storage integration, and commonly offered at a low (or for no) price. As a result, independent software vendors must find areas of differentiation, especially in self-consumption markets where the homeowner is now the main user of monitoring (vs. the installer) and does not value inverter independence or fleet-level functions.
7. Monitoring adoption rates are increasing in every market
Self-consumption drove residential monitoring adoption rates from 10 percent to practically 100 percent in Australia. Japan’s new FIT rules mandating that PV systems have a maintenance plan should drive monitoring adoption rates up in the residential and commercial segments. Free or near-free solutions offered by inverter firms are also pushing higher adoption rates for residential and commercial PV.
For more global and country-by-country PV monitoring trends, as well as market size and forecasts to 2022 and competitive landscape analysis by segment (residential, commercial, industrial, utility) and key country, please refer to GTM Research's new report Global PV Monitoring 2017-2022: Markets, Trends and Leading Players. |
Sun-tracking solar panels invade rooftop market | Californian start-up Edisun Microgrids could bring solar trackers to the commercial rooftop sector, following the successful installation of a 1 MW solar array using the technology in Oxnard. Solar trackers, which follow the sun as it moves across the sky, are traditionally deployed in utility-scale projects on the ground, but Edisun developed a dual-axis rooftop system ideal for warehouses, retail outlets and hospitals. The company said its trackers can improve a solar project's energy output by between 30% and 40%, compared to fixed-tilt and non-tracking arrays.
| https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/are-solar-trackers-the-future-for-commercial-roofs#gs.TPr1=tY | 2017-10-13 13:38:03.177000 | A startup has installed close to 3,000 solar trackers on top of an industrial rooftop in Southern California, earning the title of “world’s largest rooftop solar tracker installation.”
That’s a solar industry equivalent to being "the world’s tallest leprechaun." Trackers -- which allow solar panels to move with the sun throughout the day -- aren’t commonly used on the tops of roofs.
Strong winds, small roof spaces and heavy tracking gear mean that much of the tracker hardware doesn’t make economic sense on top of a roof. Instead, tracking systems are being used in the majority of the large ground-mounted solar systems that are found in remote regions. Trackers boost the amount of energy a solar system generates and can lower the overall cost.
But startup Edisun Microgrids, which was founded by tech entrepreneur Bill Gross and emerged a year ago, has developed a dual-axis rooftop tracking system specifically designed for the roofs of commercial and industrial building owners. Its distributed trackers pivot from the bottom edge of a panel (instead of from the center in most tracker systems) and can also retract to lie flat against the roof.
The company says its rooftop tracking gear can boost the energy output of a solar project by 30 percent compared to fixed-tilt trackers and 40 percent compared to solar panels without trackers. The hardware adds 10 percent onto a budget of a solar project, and can improve the economics of a solar installation by 20 percent, says founder and CEO Gross.
“We’re hoping to show tracking is just as valuable on the roof compared to the ground," he said. "We hope this will be a big sea change and make a big impact."
The company’s big solar-tracker project was installed on an industrial rooftop in Oxnard, Calif., which is being used by produce distributor Chiquita Brands International. The 1-megawatt solar array is using 2,900 trackers across 368,000 square feet. West Hills Construction developed the project, and it’s financed and owned by building owner Harry Ross Industries.
The project is the first larger one by Edisun Microgrids, but Gross said that the company has a pipeline of 20 megawatts-worth of projects to be built on the roofs of commercial and industrial buildings. The company says ideal customers include warehouse owners, retail outlets, college campuses and hospitals.
While the Chiquita roof is a big step for Edisun Microgrids, it could face an uphill climb. The industry is notoriously hard for solar hardware startups to break into.
“The solar industry is quite conservative and price-sensitive. They’re producing electricity, which is a commodity,” noted Scott Moskowitz, a solar analyst at GTM Research.
When it comes to Edisun Microgrid’s prospects, Moskowitz pointed out that adding an individual tracker to each module adds equipment, complexity and cost.
“Proving that their technology adds enough value (via increased performance) and reliability will be an extremely difficult thing to do,” said Moskowitz.
However, Moskowitz also noted that the commercial sector is more willing to invest in the premium that the new tracking gear would require. If Edisun can prove that the performance and economics work, there could be an opportunity in certain areas like California or Arizona, said Moskowitz.
Gross said that the majority of the company’s customers are in California. “Whenever I fly into the San Jose airport, I can see all those white warehouse roofs that would be perfect,” said Gross.
Edisun Microgrids has grown to 16 employees, and Gross says the company is looking for funding to expand. |
MaTontine unveils financial services plan for poor in Senegal | Fintech start-up MaTontine is piloting financial services solutions for low-income citizens across Senegal, with the help of the World Bank’s Consultative Group to Assist the Poor (CGAP). The company operates a software platform that automates of traditional savings circles common in Africa and links them to providers of such products as savings accounts and small loans. MaTontine hopes to expand access to financial services across sub-Saharan Africa using its low-cost infrastructure.
| http://disrupt-africa.com/2017/10/senegalese-fintech-startup-matontine-launches-with-world-bank-support/ | 2017-10-13 13:15:25.493000 | Senegalese fintech startup MaTontine has launched a nationwide pilot with the World Bank’s Consultative Group to Assist the Poor (CGAP), aiming to roll out innovative solutions that accelerate the way innovation improves and expands financial services for low-income populations in Sub-Saharan Africa.
Established in 2015, MaTontine has automated the traditional savings circles found throughout Africa, and built a software platform that enables it to work with a range of partners to provide access to small loans and related financial services for the financially excluded.
“The problem we are trying to solve is an enduring and challenging one: how to unlock access to financial services like small loans to the poor at scale. The banks and micro-finance institutions have realised that they cannot do this profitably at scale with their current infrastructure,” MaTontine managing director Bernie Akporiaye told Disrupt Africa.
“It turns out that it’s actually very difficult to profitably make small loans like US$100. Consequently, for our members the only providers of these type of loans charge between 25 per cent and 100 per cent per annum.”
MaTontine – which was recently named the winner of the Senegalese leg of the global Seedstars World startups competition – solves this problem by utilising mobile phones and its platform to digitise the benefits of traditional savings groups, reducing the cost of borrowing by 75 per cent or more.
“For our solution, we went back about century to a system used all over the developing world. It is called Tontines in Francophone Africa; the industry term is Rotating Savings and Credit Associations,” Akporiaye said.
Here’s how it works. A group of, say, 10 people, each with its own manager, contributes, say, US$10 every month into a pot. At the end of the month one member of the group collects the pot of US$100. This cycle repeats itself until everybody has won the US$100 pot.
“Our innovation is to build a digital platform that automates this whole process and incorporates a credit scoring system in order for us to facilitate small loans and other financial services like micro-insurance from our partners based on the credit score of our members. All financial transactions are done digitally using mobile phones and mobile money,” Akporiaye said.
MaTontine is now ready to make this innovation readily available through its pilot with the World Bank’s CGAP, testing how the digitisation of traditional savings circles and the use of mobile payments can significantly improve the delivery of financial products and services at scale to women and the rural poor in Senegal.
For the six-month pilot, the startup is teaming up with payment providers like Yup and Wari, financial institutions such as COFINA and Manko, and insurance providers like SUNU Assurances Vie and PMAS.
“Up until recently we were self-funded. We have however accepted grant funding from the World Bank,” Akporiaye said.
“In December 2016 we completed our last pilot, with 2,000 members including 475 active ones, to which we have granted small loans for a total amount of US$12,000, with a default rate of zero per cent. We have a goal of acquiring at least 10,000 members by the end of the year.”
Currently only operating in Senegal, MaTontine does have plans to expand throughout Francophone Africa, starting with Ivory Coast next year. Access to the platform is free, with the startup generating revenues through commissions from partners who offer products such as loans and insurance. |
California gas peaker likely to be cancelled for renewable option | The proposed Puente gas plant in California is likely to be cancelled after state authorities said the project is inconsistent with some regulations, and would damage the environment to an unacceptable extent. The California Energy Commission released an update on their thinking, stating that they would be recommending denial of the project. The statement from the committee suggested the state's power infrastructure company ISO should look for alternatives by running a new Request for Offer process. Campaigners against the plant have argued that energy storage technology would provide a more appropriate solution.
Technology: Battery technology, Advanced wind, Advanced solar
| https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/commissioners-rejecting-puente-gas-plant#gs.2_dh8x8 | 2017-10-13 12:51:41.113000 | It's beginning to look like NRG's proposed Puente gas plant may never see the light of day.
The California Energy Commission members assigned to draft a proposed decision on permitting the contested peaker plant unveiled a surprise sneak peak of their thinking Thursday.
"It is clear to us that the Project will be inconsistent with several Laws, Ordinances, Regulations or Standards (LORS) and will create significant unmitigable environmental effects," wrote Commissioners Janea Scott and Karen Douglas. "This, in turn, requires us to consider feasible alternatives that avoid or reduce those impacts and inconsistencies."
Utility Southern California Edison selected NRG's proposal years ago to resolve a future reliability constraint in the region of Oxnard, on California's central coast.
Since that time, energy storage and other distributed energy resources have matured and proven their ability to respond quickly to grid reliability needs. That evolution prompted clean energy advocates, environmentalists and the City of Oxnard to oppose a new gas plant on its shore when cleaner options were available.
Puente has developed into a test case for energy storage to challenge the need for a new gas peaker plant. The storage industry has long said it is capable of displacing new peakers, which cost a lot of money but rarely operate, but it has had few opportunities to prove this. What's new here is that California's grid operator agreed it could be done.
In a study released in August, the California Independent System Operator found that storage and DERs could perform the technical needs that Puente would fulfill for local grid reliability. It would cost significantly more, though, according to that analysis.
Greentech Media reported that month that the storage pricing data used in the CAISO study was out of date and overestimated the costs of a storage solution relative to the gas plant.
Subsequently, CAISO filed a document September 29 suggesting that the only way to know for sure how much a storage and DER alternative would cost is to run a new request for offers, and let the industry supply competitive bids.
"There appears to be an opportunity to conduct an expedited RFO and operationalize preferred resources prior to the summer 2021 timeframe,” the filing stated.
It was that note of urgency that prompted this week's early notice of the intent to reject Puente's application.
"While we have no current information about whether an expedited RFO is forthcoming, the timing constraints identified by the California ISO lead us to conclude that it is prudent to communicate the Committee’s position before we complete the [presiding member's proposed decision]," the letter notes.
When surveying the record of evidence, the commissioners see "significant unmitigable impacts" from the proposed gas plant. Meanwhile, the grid operator has attested that other alternatives can meet the need without imposing the environmental impacts of a new gas plant with several decades of lifespan.
Based on the available information, the commissioners see no reason to override the impacts and allow the gas plant to move forward.
There's a lot left unsaid here. Some of the confusion stems from the state's web of interweaving energy institutions. The CEC has authority to evaluate the environmental impacts of power plants approved by the California Public Utilities Commission, with CAISO advising based on its expertise.
The wording of the letter indicates the commissioners are waiting on someone else to seize the opportunity to launch a rapid RFO. This early notice is intended to give that entity reason to get the process started. Typically, energy procurement requests are carried out by utilities under the supervision of the CPUC, so SCE and the CPUC would be the logical audience for this remark.
Whether SoCal Edison has an appetite for re-running a procurement it already completed remains to be seen.
This is not the end of the procedural road on the CEC's side, either. Commissioners Scott and Douglas still need to formalize their opinion in a proposed decision, gather comments on it and send it to the full commission for the final decision.
Puente is not dead yet, but its prognosis has certainly dimmed. Now the question is what sort of action this unusual step kicks off among the relevant institutions, and whether that leads to the energy storage deployment that CAISO says is possible.
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Solar power to achieve grid parity in NYC before Johannesburg | Solar power will equal the price of electricity from baseload sources such as coal and gas earlier in New York, London and Munich than it will in sunnier locations such as Johannesburg, according to the Centre for Climate Finance and Investment at London's Imperial College. Using a new model, it found that the sunnier locations would be hampered by existing low energy prices and the higher cost of capital. Residential solar PV will achieve grid parity in five of the cities studied by 2030, it said. | https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/new-york-beat-johannesburg-solar-grid-parity#gs.UrCE2uU | 2017-10-13 12:49:50.947000 | Residential solar will be cheaper than grid electricity in New York, London and Munich well before it becomes so in sun-drenched Johannesburg, according to new research.
In fact, behind-the-meter solar already makes financial sense in New York and Munich, found a study published last month by the Centre for Climate Finance & Investment at Imperial College Business School in London, U.K. And it will achieve grid parity in the British capital from 2020, said the authors.
But in Santiago, Chile, rooftop or industrial-scale solar will not be cost-competitive with grid supplies until 2025. In Bangalore, India, it will take until 2030. And in Johannesburg, South Africa it will take even longer.
“This modeling…shows the perhaps counterintuitive result of a lack of strong dependence on mean annual insolation for the point in time at which break-even happens,” wrote the authors.
The researchers based their findings on a novel conceptual framework looking at cost-competitiveness between grid supplies for residential or industrial customers and on-site solar on its own or coupled with daily battery storage.
They modeled scenarios for Johannesburg, London, Munich, New York, Santiago and Bangalore. Grid parity was harder to achieve in sunnier locations because of relatively low electricity prices and a higher cost of capital.
On the other hand, Munich, with high electricity costs and cheap capital, emerged as the leader in what the authors termed “firm power parity,” or when “a system of technologies can provide an energy service at the same or lower cost than conventional service providers.”
By 2030, the researchers predict that residential solar in Munich -- on its own and with storage -- will be cheaper than grid supplies. By the same year, PV on its own will be cheaper than the electricity industrial users can get from a utility.
Munich is the only city of the six surveyed where PV and battery storage will be economically viable by 2030, though.
Residential PV on its own will be cost-competitive in all locations except Johannesburg, while industrial solar alone will make financial sense in London, Munich, Santiago and Bangalore -- but not New York.
Charles Donovan, one of the study’s authors, said further work would be needed to see when PV, perhaps coupled with seasonal storage, could beat wholesale electricity on price.
“We focused on the near term, but we expect, in time, to fill out the matrix in its entirety,” he said.
This additional work would likely complement research into 100 percent renewable energy scenarios by experts such as Professor Mark Jacobson of Stanford University.
“In most countries, you’re going to need a significant over-build of the capacity of renewables,” Donovan predicted, “and storage is going to have to play some role in leveling that back out.”
The research so far showed it was not ideal to have all this storage deployed at residential scale, though. “There is a good amount of investment that needs to be made in the network,” Donovan said. “It doesn’t make sense for us to be trying to cover that intermittency ourselves.”
Yet, the research also showed that utilities in many countries could soon see a real threat of partial or total grid defection. In a press release, Imperial College warned of “major disruption to U.K. utilities by 2030.”
It is far from clear, though, whether falling PV and storage costs will in fact lead to mass grid defection, not least because consumers rarely respond to pricing signals in the way economic models anticipate they will.
Today, for instance, early adopters are buying into solar-plus-storage in many places where the business case for energy self-consumption is shaky at best.
And at the other end of the spectrum, “even when you’ve got something that is economically attractive, like switching [electricity] supplier, half the population isn’t doing it,” noted Jon Slowe, founding director of the consulting firm Delta Energy & Environment.
To get consumers hooked on distributed solar, “It needs to engage customers in a way the energy sector has failed to do so far,” Slowe said.
This does not mean utilities can rest easy, he said. Other companies could disrupt the market, giving consumers a cheaper, smarter way to acquire energy. “Our advice to utilities is based on the premise that this will happen whether you do something or not,” said Slowe. |
Sonnen virtual power plant concept gets US makeover | Sonnen has reworked its virtual power plant model for the US market in a project built by Mandalay Homes. The 3,000-home development in Arizona will provide every property with an 8 kWh Sonnen battery and a relatively small 3.9 kW of rooftop solar. The idea is that the properties power themselves with solar energy during the day while charging the battery, which keeps the lights on during the evening. The battery is topped up overnight using cheap grid electricity and powers the house in the morning before the sun comes up.
Technology: Advanced solar, Smart grid
| https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/sonnen-virtual-power-plant-us-2900-home-project#gs.x89Z3do | 2017-10-13 12:42:49.363000 | In Germany, startup Sonnen has been operating a nationwide shadow utility of networked home solar and storage systems for several years. But when the company arrived in the U.S., the policy landscape made that grand vision impractical to replicate.
After a few years of selling energy storage as a premium alternative to the early home battery contenders, the company has now compiled a landmark deal that will single-handedly dwarf the residential market, such as it is.
Lacking the deregulation that gave Sonnen access to the wires in Germany, the company tackled the project from the other end: the home.
Over the next few years, Sonnen will outfit a high-efficiency housing development built by Mandalay Homes in Prescott Valley, Arizona, stocking some 2,900 new houses with its signature storage system.
As told by U.S. Senior Vice President Blake Richetta, this effort bypasses the “bullshit bingo” that plagues industry discussions of virtual power plants, in which buzzwords and small pilots stand in for substantive action.
“Sonnen is a company that likes to get things done: We want the virtual power plant to really exist, and it does exist in Germany,” Richetta said. “We’re not going to be paralyzed by pilots anymore in this country.”
Residents won’t need to worry about paying extra for pricey storage; they won’t even have to own or maintain it. Mandalay has wrapped that equipment, along with a modest solar array, high-tech insulation and other energy saving measures, into a package that will cost marginally more than high-efficiency homes already on the market.
For an approximately 1 percent premium, the homeowners will pay 40 to 60 percent less to operate their homes than currently available high-performance homes, said Mandalay CEO Dave Everson.
Once built, the companies will have a massive distributed power plant on their hands. With just the first fifth complete, the neighborhood will have 10 megawatts of dispatchable power at the ready, far beyond the miniscule pilots that pass as virtual power plants these days.
Notably, Mandalay is moving ahead without a utility contract in hand. There isn't really a model yet for virtual power plant aggregation in Arizona. By going ahead and building it, Mandalay will then have a model to take to the utility, rather than the other way around.
All about the home
For Mandalay, storage represents the latest addition in a five-year effort to design the highest-performing homes it can make.
“It’s not a jump; it’s more like a half step from where we were,” Everson said.
The model home that implements these ideas has been in service since May, and recently secured the company’s third Housing Innovation Award from the Department of Energy.
That effort includes iterative refinement of the building envelope to enable passive heating and cooling, cutting down the energy needed. A final piece of this involves the AeroBarrier, an aerosol spray developed out of UC-Davis that fills the house and seals any remaining leaks that would let it escape.
Minimizing load means the buildings don’t need much solar power. In fact, the economics worked against large solar capacity. Mandalay decided on a standard configuration of 3.9 kilowatts of solar (a fraction of a typical home capacity) and an 8-kilowatt-hour Sonnen battery.
The designers did not try to maximize onsite generation; they tried to get the best economic return for the capacity included. This makes for a more targeted use of storage compared to retrofitting it on inefficient older homes with lots of load and lots of solar generation.
“It’s a totally different value proposition now,” Richetta said. “It’s not about storage versus bill savings; it's about the whole.”
Nor was the goal to turn the home into a self-reliant microgrid: Grid interaction sits at the heart of the design, he said.
Finding the right rate
In Everson’s vision, the homes will power themselves during daylight hours with rooftop solar, storing the excess for later. That should last through the evening peak.
The battery can then charge up in the wee hours of the night, on the cheap and production from must-run generation, which tends to be cleaner than at high-demand times. That powers the early morning activities until the sun comes back out.
The development will utilize a new pilot retail rate from Arizona Public Service designed to incentivize peak demand reductions from residential customers.
The rate combines a $0.50 per day service charge with a very low per-kilowatt-hour energy rate (around $0.05) and a stiff monthly on-peak demand charge (up to $20.25 per kilowatt). Customers have to have a number of distributed energy assets like rooftop solar, energy storage or electric vehicle to qualify.
This rate structure means families that can minimize their demand during the peak hours of 3 p.m. to 8 p.m. on weekdays stand to benefit from low overall energy rates. The structure of the Mandalay home design suggests customers can expect to use very little, if any, grid power during the peak.
This would save money for the homeowners, but it also tackles a real need for the broader grid. Arizona has a growing supply of surplus daytime solar generation, such that batteries soaking that up provide value to the grid. The utilities also grapple with meeting peak load, which drives costly purchases of gas peaker plants that are used only rarely, but are very expensive to operate.
Adding more standalone solar on new homes contributes marginally to both challenges. Sizing new solar systems to an onsite battery allows for home energy optimization with the ability to assist utilities in navigating the emerging distributed grid.
Untapped grid asset
The value of distributed assets for the grid is something that many smart people are trying to define, but little consensus has been established thus far.
Investment in aggregation only pays off once there is some mode of getting paid for it. Outside of select markets, that has stymied the business case for distributed fleets of storage acting as a capacity or grid services tool.
Mandalay sidestepped the issue by making the economics work without needing a utility contract.
“They’re not waiting for the utility companies; they’re doing this with or without them,” Richetta said. “That is the secret sauce to us getting out of the ‘paralyzed by pilot’ mode.”
Once the companies have battery and solar systems operational -- the first phase will include 600 homes -- they’ll have greater credibility to offer that network for grid services. They’ll also have the option of installing additional battery capacity if a deal comes along, Everson said.
Under current plans, the full 2,900-home project will total 11.6 megawatts of power input and output and 23 megawatt-hours of energy storage capacity, the companies said. They think that could be enough clean, flexible capacity to knock out a coal peaker plant in northern Arizona.
There’s much to figure out in terms of how the community would deliver peak capacity to the grid while maintaining the local needs of each homeowner.
Then again, Sonnen has been operationalizing that concept with its network in Germany for several years. Its challenge now is to pull that off amid the peculiarities of the American grid.
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Japan to spur fintech innovation with new regulatory regime | Japan's businesses could find it easier to partner on financial technology projects if proposed regulatory changes by the country's Financial Services Agency are adopted. It is seeking to stimulate competition by switching the focus of regulation to services rather than businesses. Under the changes, which are proposed for 2018, all firms would be held to the same standard, regardless of size. Although non-banking companies would face more precise operating regulations, fintechs might be able to break the banks' monopoly on lucrative remittance and settlement operations.
| https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Trends/Japan-looks-to-jump-start-fintech-with-legal-overhaul | 2017-10-13 11:21:38.403000 | TOKYO -- The Japanese government aims to make it easier for businesses to partner up in financial technology by leveling the regulatory playing field for different industries, hoping to prompt innovation that helps make financial services less costly.
Such enterprises as banks, e-money businesses and credit card companies are now subject to different laws according to their industries, even for the same services. The Financial Services Agency sees this compartmentalization as stifling competition. |
Institutional investors to work with fewer managers: PGIM CEO | As fees and performance become an increasing focus for instiutional investors, clients will look to work with fewer investment managers, according to David Hunt, CEO of PGIM. "Many of them have a large roster of managers, and is that really the most effective way to manage a full portfolio?" said Hunt of large institutions. These investors are also considering where they want to eschew active management for cheap, beta-producing products, Hunt added. PGIM, however, has had success pumping its active management capabilities around real assets and fixed income, added Hunt.
| http://uk.businessinsider.com/interview-with-david-hunt-ceo-of-1-trillion-asset-manager-pgim-2017-10?r=US&IR=T | 2017-10-13 10:00:48.163000 | As the Federal Reserve begins to shrink its balance sheet and put an end to so-called quantitative easing, investors are concerned that this unprecedented process could negatively affect markets.
David Hunt, President and CEO of PGIM, Prudential's investment arm, is one of those keeping an eye on it.
"I think that remains one of the big risks that investors face," he told Business Insider's deputy executive editor Matt Turner recently.
Turner recently caught up with Hunt, to ask him about central bank policies, stock markets, real estate, and more. PGIM has more than $1 billion in assets invested around the world. Here's what he had to say:
This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.
Matt Turner: You guys have over $1 trillion in assets, with offices in 16 countries, so I wanted to first ask, when you look around the world, what do you see?
David Hunt: For us, the most important thing that we focus on is our investment performance. We believe fundamentally that investors — and most of our investors are long-term, sophisticated institutions, so pension funds, sovereign wealth funds, central banks — what they're looking for from their investors is somebody who's actually going to be able to beat their benchmarks and add excess return for them.
We're an active manager, which you know has been somewhat unpopular recently, but we believe we've been a very successful one.
We're an active manager, which you know has been somewhat unpopular recently, but we believe we've been a very successful one.
We've been successful because we do deliver real excess returns for our clients.
Turner: In terms of those excess returns, where do you see opportunities for investors? Where are your investment managers seeing an opportunity to make money?
Hunt: I would say the major thrust has been threefold. One has been for many institutional investors around the world, the race for yield has been incredible. We may not love the interest rates in this country, but if you are in Japan or you're in Europe, all of that actually looks really good.
We've really been able to bring the search for yield home to many of those investors. Secondly, we've been very successful in finding real returns from real assets. By that, I mean real estate — both debt and equity — but also everything ranging from agricultural investment, infrastructure debt, and other real assets that are generating both income and capital gains.
Turner: When you look at US markets, how do you see what's going on? Are there any opportunities at home?
Hunt: We absolutely believe that there are significant opportunities. And indeed, we believe that the US economy is in very good shape. We've actually recently upped some of our estimates for GDP growth. We would say the US is growing faster than its real potential GDP, which ultimately leads to a bit of an uptick in inflation, but at the moment we remain pretty optimistic.
We would say the US is growing faster than its real potential GDP, which ultimately leads to a bit of an uptick in inflation, but at the moment we remain pretty optimistic.
I would say the most important part of that optimism is based on seeing a return of business investment. Before, mostly it was on the consumer side, and businesses were leveraging but using a lot of that to buy back shares. In the last 18 months that dynamic has changed. Buybacks have come well down and we're seeing real business investment into this country. We like that story on the equity side. We like what a lot of that means for fixed income and higher-yielding fixed income. We remain very constructive on most aspects of the real estate sector, maybe with retail as an exception.
Turner: On the equity side, you said earlier in the year that the stock market had maybe gotten ahead of itself in terms of betting on the success of various administration policies that might give the economy a boost. Where are we now? Obviously, a lot has changed since last summer. It seems like things are changing every day. Where are we now?
Hunt: It's a very interesting thing in terms of the market sentiment. At the beginning of the year, there was without a doubt the famous Trump trade that came on, which was a belief in tax cuts, infrastructure, and deregulation as a package driving growth. We saw over the first quarter and second quarter, that trade really went to zero. The basic belief that that would happen diminished a great deal in investors minds.
President Trump gives his inaugural address on January 20. AP Photo/Patrick Semansky
Of course, at the same time, the real economy — in a sort of different, parallel universe from politics — was doing even better, so real growth rates were picking up and a general belief that the economy was doing better began to take over market sentiment. I'd say the market was driven higher by that belief, not really related to the Trump policies. Now in the last two weeks, we've started to see that shift again. I do think that with the at least outline of a tax plan on the table, you've begun to see some of the Trump trade animal spirit come back in. But for most of the year, I would say that hasn't really been a factor in the markets.
Turner: We talked about the opportunities. Where are there risks? Particularly, in my conversation with investors, a lot of people talk about the Fed and there being the uncertainty around who might lead it, and whether they might raise rates or move too soon. So how do you see that dynamic?
Hunt: There's no question that we have real policy risk. I mean, never before in the last thirty years have we seen so much of economic activity dependent on, not just the Fed, but I would generalize it to central banks around the world and the very accommodative policies. So there is a lot riding on the fact that they can begin to normalize those policies in an effective way. And that isn't just when they decide to raise rates, and at what pace, but also what they do with the balance sheet.
Federal Reserve Chairman Janet Yellen speaks during a news conference after a two-day Federal Open Markets Committee (FOMC) policy meeting in Washington Thomson Reuters
One of the big challenges for the Fed is going to be at what pace they begin to unwind that balance sheet, and I think that remains one of the big risks that investors face.
Turner: One of the research notes that I received this morning made the point that monetary policy is going to dominate stock trading for the near time. Do you agree with that? Or do you think there's more to the story than that?
Hunt: I think that there is quite a bit more to the story. There's no question that it today's valuation — if you look at the S&P overall, forward PE's are about 18.5, the long-term average is more like 15.5 — you could say that it looks a little bit rich. But at today's interest rates, actually, it looks pretty fairly priced. If we had a sudden rise in rates you would begin to think probably that the current prices are, without a doubt, a touch frothy. But we would not say that's the base case. We actually think the base case is that we're quite constructive on equities at the moment, but we do think that the risks of a gradual normalization remain around the balance sheet of the Fed.
Turner: Going back a step, you mentioned the Japanese market and Europe. Outside of the US, where do you see opportunity? You mentioned India as well.
Hunt: There's no question we would certainly have Japan at the top of our list. We do believe that there are large institutional investors there who are looking very actively to put their money to work outside of Japan and to move into higher-yielding assets. I would've said that their search for yield 1.0 was to move into the US and to move to kind of investment grade corporates. We're now really seeing a search for yield 2.0, which has to do with high-yield, emerging markets, and structured products, which as you know, we hadn't seen for quite some time from the Japanese. We do believe that there is a lot more yet to run on the movement of money out of Japan.
Turner: Just turning to the money management business for a moment, the industry is changing dramatically, what's going on there and how does the search for yield fit into that?
You're seeing the rationalization of managers, you're seeing fees come down for many types of products, and you're seeing the continued growth of passive.
Hunt: The money management industry is absolutely reflecting the pressure that the clients are facing. In this very low return environment, you think about what the big institutions are doing. One, they're very worried about fees, so there's a real focus on that. Two, they're wondering where should they pay for active management, which is more expensive than indexing, and what should they index, where they just want to buy cheap beta. And three, how many managers should they be working with? Many of them have a large roster of managers, and is that really the most effective way to manage a full portfolio? So you're seeing that play out right now across the industry. You're seeing the rationalization of managers, you're seeing fees come down for many types of products, and you're seeing the continued growth of passive.
Turner: One of the things that people in the industry often talk about when it comes to money management is this barbell, where as you said you have low-cost, passive index tracking funds and at the other end you have higher fees, higher active share, things like private debt which you mentioned, and it's those in the middle that are charging higher fees for something that looks quite a lot like beta that are really going to struggle. Is that what we're looking at?
Hunt: Yes I would very much subscribe to that. I think that firms that are charging high active share prices but delivering something that really actually hugs the benchmark are going have a very difficult time. That's just fine. I actually think that's competition that is leading to investors having a better proposition. I do believe investors over time will, instead of saying 'is it active or passive?', will say 'how can active and passive work together?' so we have cheap beta where that makes sense. There's plenty of room to run with active management on all kinds of other strategies where you're going to need that excess return if you're going to pay for retirement over twenty years.
Turner: In terms of those strategies that do offer excess return, which of those are you pushing into? Would there be acquisitions that might make sense to accelerate your growth in those areas?
We see lots of room around specialist strategies like biotechnology and senior housing.
Hunt: Well currently we would say that we have most of the strategies that we need to do that. For us, we are such a big player in real assets. That is our real estate business in particular, both debt and equity, that's a lot of where we see excess returns coming from active management. But we would say the same thing in fixed income. We're the fourth largest fixed-income business in the world and we would say that that business is fundamentally one where active management makes a lot of sense. So for the passive piece of this we're really just talking about equities. We think the US equity markets will continue to gradually move more to passive, but we see lots of room around specialist strategies like biotechnology, senior housing type things, and we see plenty of opportunities in international and emerging markets where active management adds very significant value.
Turner: You're one of the biggest players in real estate. Where is there an opportunity for investors to make money?
Hunt: What we're seeing from investors' point of view is a little bit of a recalibrating of their risk. We do see demand for core going up quite a lot, and probably a little bit less in terms of demand for a real opportunistic. Core Plus also been a very popular. Within the sectors, we see a very large demand for logistics, for multifamily, which has continued to be one of the important pieces. We do think hotels are probably a little bit overdone and we've been selling in some selective, large kind of gateway cities. By and large, we still believe that the supply-demand dynamics in real estate mean there's plenty of excess returns to be had.
Turner: You mentioned the bond market. Earlier in the year there was definitely a sense that the stock market was saying one thing about the economy and the bond market was saying another. Is there a tension there, and has it been resolved?
Hunt: It hasn't necessarily been resolved in so much as just come into an equilibrium. I do think, as you put it before, that the equity market does rely on us having somewhat lower rates and the Fed normalizing policy fairly gradually. I think if that plan does play out, you probably have a pretty even balance of risk and reward. The important thing to recognize about interest rates is that the Fed only really controls the short end. We believe that there is so much money looking for a home in fixed income, that actually there will continue to be money that comes into the middle part of the curve and the longer part of the curve. That's going to mean it's going to flatten, and that's happened quite a bit already this year. We would expect it to happen even more. Just because the Fed raises rates doesn't necessarily mean that will happen uniformity, and I think that's important for your viewers to realize. |
Udacity partners with Google for US developer scholarships | Google and edtech firm Udacity are offering 50,000 web and Android application developer scholarships to US residents aged 18 and over, according to a joint statement. The move is part of the "Grow with Google" initiative, recently launched by CEO Sundar Pichai. The first phase of the scholarship will see recipients given three months of free access to one of four courses, with the top 5,000 qualifying for an additional six-month scholarship to study for a nanodegree. Google is also set to launch the IT Support Professional Certificate programme, in partnership with Coursera, in January.
| http://www.eweek.com/development/google-udacity-to-award-50-000-scholarships-to-aspiring-developers | 2017-10-13 09:44:49.310000 | Google and online education program provider Udacity have launched a new scholarship initiative for aspiring Web and Android application developers.
The two companies will offer 50,000 scholarships to people wishing to pursue a career in either of these two fields. The scholarships will be available to U.S. residents age 18 or older at all skill levels from absolute newcomers to experienced developers, the two companies announced Oct. 12.
Scholarship recipients will receive free technical training in either Web development or the Android developers program.
The scholarship program is part of a broader “Grow with Google” initiative that CEO Sundar Pichai announced Thursday. Under the program the company will offer free tools, training and events in a bid to help people become more computer literate and better prepared for jobs requiring modern technology skills. The tools and courses are being aimed at a fairly wide cross section of people including job seekers, local business owners, teachers and developers.
“Grow with Google is there to give anyone in America the tools and training they need to get a job, for free,” Pichai said in comments on Google’s The Keyword blog.
Individuals accepted into the newly announced scholarship program will be placed into one of two tracks: a Beginner track for those with no prior software developer or technology experience and an Intermediate track for individuals with some Web or Android development experience. Up to 15,000 scholarships are available for the beginner track and 10,000 are available for those with intermediate level skills.
In the first phase of the program, scholarship recipients will get three months of free access to one of four courses ranging from an introductory course in HTML and CSS to an Android App development course for more advanced students.
The top 5,000 students from the first phase will qualify for an additional six-month scholarship to what Google calls a Nanodegree program. Students who qualify for one of the four available Nanodegree scholarship programs will receive free access to more advanced training material, as well as classroom time and access to experts in Web and mobile application development.
As part of the Grow with Google program the company is also working with Coursera to develop a professional certification program that the company says will prepare individuals for IT jobs in between 8 and 12 months.
The IT Support Professional Certificate program will launch in January 2018 and will offer 2,600 full scholarships. Google and Coursera will work with major employers to try and place graduates from the program into IT jobs. |
Silicon kidneys may cut dialysis, ease transplant list pressure | A team of US doctors and researchers are closing in on conducting human trials on an artificial kidney that has been 20 years in the making. The silicon-based device cleans and filters human blood without losing vital nutrients and amino acids, and 9,000 patients have signed up to participate in the trials. If all goes well, the bioartificial kidney could be approved by the US Food and Drug Administration as early as 2020.
| https://www.wired.com/story/artificial-kidneys/ | 2017-10-13 08:56:20.423000 | Every week, two million people across the world will sit for hours, hooked up to a whirring, blinking, blood-cleaning dialysis machine. Their alternatives: Find a kidney transplant or die.
In the US, dialysis is a roughly 40-billion-dollar business keeping 468,000 people with end-stage renal disease alive. The process is far from perfect, but that hasn't hindered the industry's growth. That's thanks to a federally mandated Medicare entitlement that guarantees any American who needs dialysis—regardless of age or financial status—can get it, and get it paid for.
The legally enshrined coverage of dialysis has doubtlessly saved thousands of lives since its enactment 45 years ago, but the procedure’s history of special treatment has also stymied innovation. Today, the US government spends about 50 times more on private dialysis companies than it does on kidney disease research to improve treatments and find new cures. In this funding atmosphere, scientists have made slow progress to come up with something better than the dialysis machine-filled storefronts and strip malls that provide a vital service to so many of the country's sickest people.
We thought, if people are growing ears on the backs of mice, why can’t we grow a kidney? Shuvo Roy, UC San Francisco
Now, after more than 20 years of work, one team of doctors and researchers is close to offering patients an implantable artificial kidney, a bionic device that uses the same technology that makes the chips that power your laptop and smartphone. Stacks of carefully designed silicon nanopore filters combine with live kidney cells grown in a bioreactor. The bundle is enclosed in a body-friendly box and connected to a patient’s circulatory system and bladder—no external tubing required.
The device would do more than detach dialysis patients—who experience much higher rates of fatigue, chronic pain, and depression than the average American—from a grueling treatment schedule. It would also address a critical shortfall of organs for transplant that continues despite a recent uptick in donations. For every person who received a kidney last year, 5 more on the waiting list didn’t. And 4,000 of them died.
There are still plenty of regulatory hurdles ahead—human testing is scheduled to begin early next year1—but this bioartificial kidney is already bringing hope to patients desperate to unhook for good.
Innovation, Interrupted
Kidneys are the body’s bookkeepers. They sort the good from the bad—a process crucial to maintaining a stable balance of bodily chemicals. But sometimes they stop working. Diabetes, high blood pressure, and some forms of cancers can all cause kidney damage and impair the organs' ability to function. Which is why doctors have long been on the lookout for ways to mimic their operations outside the body.
The first successful attempt at a human artificial kidney was a feat of Rube Goldberg-ian ingenuity, necessitated in large part by wartime austerity measures. In the spring of 1940, a young Dutch doctor named Willem Kolff decamped from his university post to wait out the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands in a rural hospital on the IJssel river. There he constructed an unwieldy contraption for treating people dying from kidney failure using some 50 yards of sausage casing, a rotating wooden drum, and a bath of saltwater. The semi-permeable casing filtered out small molecules of toxic kidney waste while keeping larger blood cells and other molecules intact. Kolff's apparatus enabled him to draw blood from his patients, push it through the 150 feet of submerged casings, and return it to them cleansed of deadly impurities.
In some ways, dialysis has advanced quite a bit since 1943. (Vaarwel, sausage casing, hello mass-produced cellulose tubing.) But its basic function has remained unchanged for more than 70 years. |
Coalition demands county spend more homeless, hep A fight | If the county could afford $150 million to help build a new stadium for the Chargers, some politicians say it should be able to spend that same amount on the homeless and public health.
| http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/hepatitis-crisis/sd-me-homeless-plan-20171012-story.html | 2017-10-13 08:52:30.620000 | Former State Assemblyman Nathan Fletcher speaks during the opening ceremonies for the San Diego Memorial Stair Climb in November, 2016.
If the county could afford $150 million to help build a new stadium for the Chargers, some politicians say it should be able to spend that same amount on the homeless and public health.
A coalition of local, state and union officials made that argument as they gathered in front of the County Administration Center Thursday to announce what they called an “emergency action plan” that demands funding increases in several areas from staffing to public housing.
A county supervisor immediately accused the group of playing politics with the ongoing hepatitis A outbreak crisis.
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Led by former Assemblyman Nathan Fletcher, the group threw down the rhetorical gauntlet again and again, accusing current leadership of being more concerned about bank balances than delivering services.
Fletcher, who is running for county supervisor next year, said the county should have stood taller when the region’s hepatitis A outbreak began spreading rapidly.
“It is not a time for the chief public health organization in our region to say ‘it is not our responsibility,’ it’s a time for action,” Fletcher said.
County supervisors were quick to respond with statements of their own.
Board chair Dianne Jacob fired off a one-page missive and posted it on Twitter while the news conference was still underway that accused “City Hall and others” of “trying to score political points off this public health emergency.”
“This is nothing more than an attempt to shift the responsibility to the county for a homeless problem that has festered in the city for years,” Jacobs’ statement said.
Supervisor Ron Roberts added that his proposal for a $150 million bridge loan to help the now-departed Chargers build a new stadium was part of a larger proposal that called for a $200 million contribution from the city of San Diego. Neither funding proposal was ever approved by the county board of the city council.
“Perhaps the city should spend its own $200 million slated for the Chargers stadium before they or a perennial political candidate start asking others to do their job for them,” Roberts’ statement said, making an oblique reference to Fletcher’s bids for San Diego mayor in 2012 and 2013.
Others in the group made the case that the county, with $747 million in “unassigned” cash in its general fund, according to its most recent audit, could afford to do more.
In August, state Sen. Ben Hueso convinced the legislature’s Joint Committee on Legislative Audit to examine the county’s staffing of public health nurses. He alleges that understaffing has created a workload that is much too high across the region.
“We believe that this outbreak has something to do with the county’s refusal to hire adequate staff,” Hueso, D-San Diego, said at the news conference.
But Jacob bristled at the notion that the county has been handling the outbreak on the cheap.
“The county has spent about $3 million to date fighting Hep A with nurses, wash stations, hygiene kits, and vaccinations for nearly 70,000 people. And it plans to spend $1.5 million a month going forward,” Jacobs’ statement said.
She said the county already spends $300 million per year on services for homeless residents “including alcohol and substance abuse treatment and mental health services.”
Fletcher is running to replace Roberts who will be termed out of office in 2018. Fletcher faces, among others, former San Diego District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis in the race. In a statement issued after the news conference, Dumanis said “this is not the time for finger pointing.”
“I will call for an after-action investigation into the local government response so that we can identify breakdowns. As Supervisor, I am committed to taking the findings of this review and developing a regional response plan for any future public health crisis,” Dumanis said.
Most if not all of those at the news conference urging the county to do more are Democrats. All five supervisors are Republicans, as is Dumanis.
Several speakers during Thursday’s news conference made reference to the county’s funding of mental health services, which are seen as key to serving a homeless population that includes many with significant psychiatric needs.
Hueso said his research indicates that the county has more than $100 million in unspent state Mental Health Services Act funds which could be used to significantly increase the number of beds available and to hire additional case workers to work with the homeless. These proposals are included in the plan that the coalition released.
“I don’t know about you, but I don’t pay taxes for the county just to store that money away,” Hueso said. “I pay taxes so that the county will provide these essential services.”
That very topic was addressed just two days earlier with the board of supervisors passed a $197.5 million three-year mental health plan that would add 10 new psychiatric emergency response teams, additional funding for housing for people with mental illnesses, expansion of the Children’s Emergency Screen Unit and increased case management for older adults with serious mental illnesses.
County officials told the board that the expansion adds $15 million to previous spending levels, but Fletcher said he did not think the improvements go far enough.
“They’re talking about a three-year plan that will see a $5 million increase each year for three years. They’re (nominally) changing what the status quo was already going to do. If that was working, we wouldn’t be in the situation we’re in today,” Fletcher said.
County spokesman Craig Sturak said in an email sent Thursday evening that the county’s mental health services unspent balance is $123. 7 million with another $42 million set aside as a reserve. He said the new mental health plan approved by the supervisors, plus other expenses, should make a significant dent in that pile of cash.
“By the end of this current fiscal year, it is anticipated that our unspent balance will be reduced by approximately 40 percent from fiscal year 2014-2015 levels,” Sturak wrote.
San Diego City Council members Barbara Bry and Chris Ward, who also added their names to the list of officials who endorsed the Chargers approach, have asked the county to commit to case management, nursing and other services at the city’s new transitional camping area and at the three temporary big-tent shelters that will be set up for the homeless this winter.
Sturak said the county already had social workers and public health nurses visit the new campsite for vaccination and to enroll residents in safety-net programs. He said the county plans to continue those services, and offer others such as psychiatric emergency response teams and behavioral health outreach workers, at the three additional tent shelters when they open.
“The goal is to connect individuals at these locations to services to help them get health care, assistance and housing,” Sturak said.
Meanwhile, the region’s hepatitis A outbreak continues to grow with a total of 18 deaths and 490 cases announced earlier this week. The next update is due Tuesday.
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Congress Can’t Let Mr. Trump Kill Obamacare on His Own | Fed up with failed attempts in Congress to repeal the Affordable Care Act, President Trump on Thursday took matters into his own hands, signing an executive order that could significantly damage the health insurance market and harm millions of people.
| https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/12/opinion/editorials/congress-cant-let-mr-trump-undo-obamacare-on-his-own.html | 2017-10-13 08:48:42.243000 | This editorial has been updated to reflect news developments.
Fed up with failed attempts in Congress to repeal the Affordable Care Act, President Trump on Thursday took matters into his own hands, stopping payments to insurance companies and signing an executive order that could significantly damage the health insurance market and harm millions of people.
Mr. Trump carried out his threat to stop paying insurers to lower the out of pocket costs for low-income and middle-class Americans. The loss of this money, expected to be $9 billion next year, will force insurers to raise premiums and stop selling policies in some parts of the country. Because most people who buy coverage on A.C.A. exchanges also receive subsidies to keep their premiums affordable, this change would actually cost the government money — about $2.3 billion more next year, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation.
Earlier in the day, the president directed his administration to effectively create an alternative health insurance system that does not include the safeguards of the A.C.A. and could sabotage that 2010 law, one of his predecessor’s biggest accomplishments. The president claims that this will help people obtain cheaper insurance. In reality, it most likely will force insurance companies to abandon the A.C.A.’s insurance exchanges and ultimately precipitate a collapse of an important part of Obamacare.
The executive order is made up of two main changes: to expand the use of short-term insurance policies and to make it easier for professional and trade associations to sell health coverage to members across the country. Officials at the Departments of Health and Human Services, the Treasury and Labor will now come up with a rule after seeking public comment over the next several months. |
What Did Trump’s Health Care Executive Order Do? | President Trump signed an executive order on Thursday that he said would begin “saving the American people from the nightmare of Obamacare.” There’s a lot that’s still uncertain about how the order will change the health law. Here’s what we know so far.
| https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/12/upshot/what-did-trumps-health-care-executive-order-do.html | 2017-10-13 08:47:51.207000 | Such plans are currently exempt from most insurance rules. That means the plans can reject or charge higher prices to customers with pre-existing health conditions, can cover fewer benefits and can charge higher deductibles. Because they tend to be skimpier and insure only healthy customers, the plans’ prices tend to be lower. Under current regulation, such plans can last for only three months at a time. The order asks for a change to lengthen their duration, a directive likely to result in plans that last just under a year, the standard before this year. That change would make it easier to use such insurance as a substitute for Obamacare-compliant coverage.
It is possible that the association rule will allow self-employed people to join associations, but legal experts are skeptical that the labor laws will permit it.
If a lot of people decide to buy these short-term or association insurance plans, that will most likely leave fewer Americans in the Obamacare markets. And that smaller group is likely to have more people who care about comprehensive coverage and lower deductibles — that is, people with more health problems. The result could be higher prices for customers who remain. The loss of the cost-sharing subsidies will also prompt insurers to raise their prices. Most Obamacare customers get federal subsidies that help them buy insurance, and they would not feel the increases. But higher-income customers who choose to buy Obamacare insurance may need to pay more.
What will it mean for people with Medicaid or Medicare?
None of these changes directly affect them.
Will these changes lower the cost of insurance?
It’s complicated. If the rules are changed, some Americans will be able to buy insurance for a lower sticker price through the short-term market or an association. But that insurance is likely to cover fewer benefits, may not be available to people with a history of health problems, and may be more likely to be offered by a fraudulent company.
People who get insurance using government subsidies won’t notice much of a change in price, but they might see fewer options in the future, if the changes make the Obamacare market less attractive to insurers. |
Trump to Scrap Critical Health Care Subsidies, Hitting Obamacare Again | President Trump will scrap subsidies to health insurance companies that help pay out-of-pocket costs of low-income people, the White House said late Thursday. His plans were disclosed hours after the president ordered potentially sweeping changes in the nation’s insurance system, including sales of cheaper policies with fewer benefits and fewer protections for consumers.
| https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/12/us/politics/trump-obamacare-executive-order-health-insurance.html | 2017-10-13 08:47:08.557000 | WASHINGTON — President Trump will scrap subsidies to health insurance companies that help pay out-of-pocket costs of low-income people, the White House said late Thursday. His plans were disclosed hours after the president ordered potentially sweeping changes in the nation’s insurance system, including sales of cheaper policies with fewer benefits and fewer protections for consumers.
The twin hits to the Affordable Care Act could unravel President Barack Obama’s signature domestic achievement, sending insurance premiums soaring and insurance companies fleeing from the health law’s online marketplaces. After Republicans failed to repeal the health law in Congress, Mr. Trump appears determined to dismantle it on his own.
Without the subsidies, insurance markets could quickly unravel. Insurers have said they will need much higher premiums and may pull out of the insurance exchanges created under the Affordable Care Act if the subsidies were cut off. Known as cost-sharing reduction payments, the subsidies were expected to total $9 billion in the coming year and nearly $100 billion in the coming decade.
“The government cannot lawfully make the cost-sharing reduction payments,” the White House said in a statement. |
Most Healthcare Costs Can Be Attributed to Low-Value Care | Low-cost, low-value health services contribute the most to unnecessary health spending in the United States and ultimately cost nearly twice as much as high-cost, low-value health service, according to a new study published in Health Affairs.
| http://www.ajmc.com/newsroom/findings-show-low-value-low-cost-health-services-contribute-most-to-unnecessary-health-spending | 2017-10-13 08:43:46.630000 | Low-cost, low-value health services contribute the most to unnecessary health spending in the United States and ultimately cost nearly twice as much as high-cost, low-value health service, according to a new study published in Health Affairs.
Low-value care has been characterized as health services that provide no net health benefit in specific clinical scenarios. While there has been previous research on the issue, spending on these health services still prevail.
“While many studies have focused on high-cost, low-value services, such as arthroscopic knee surgery for osteoarthritis, few have examined which low-value services contribute the most unnecessary costs,” wrote the authors.
The study analyzed data from the Virginia All Player Database in 2014, which included 5.5 beneficiaries of Medicare, Medicare Advantage, Medicaid, and private commercial insurers. The authors, which included co-Editor-in-Chief of The American Journal of Managed Care® A. Mark Fendrick, MD, assessed 44 services commonly deemed low-value. Each of the 44 services were categorized by cost into 4 groups: very low-cost, low-cost, high-cost, and very high-cost.
During that year, those 44 services were performed 5.4 million times. Using an algorithm that determined whether a service was high value or low value, the authors found that 1.7 million of the services performed were deemed low-value and 3.7 million were deemed high-value. Of the 1.7 million low-value services, 1.6 million were low- or very low-cost. Only 119,000 were high- or very high-cost.
The total cost of the low-cost and very-low cost, low-value services ($381 million) was almost double that of high-cost and very high-cost, low-value services ($205 million). With a total of $586 million, $9.90 was spent per beneficiary per month. This accounted for 2.1% of Virginia’s health care costs.
According to the authors, their findings should provide strong incentive for policy makers, healthcare systems, and clinicians to implement better ways to reduce unnecessary costs, without reducing the quality or access of care.
“Shared, nonpartisan health policy goals are to improve quality of care, enhance patient experience, and lower healthcare costs in the United States,” wrote the authors.
A seemingly easy answer to this issue is to identify, measure, and reduce the use of low-value care, but it has been harder to bring the answer to fruition, according to the authors. This is because the value of a specific health service fluctuates based upon who receives the service, who provides it, and where it is provided.
While changing a physician’s practice pattern has proven to be difficult in the past, even a small decrease in the performance of low- and very low-cost low-value services would make a difference. |
The little red pill being pushed on the elderly | The maker of a little red pill intended to treat a rare condition is raking in hundreds of millions of dollars a year as it aggressively targets frail and elderly nursing home residents for whom the drug may be unnecessary or even unsafe, a CNN investigation has found.
| http://edition.cnn.com/2017/10/12/health/nuedexta-nursing-homes-invs/index.html | 2017-10-13 08:43:06.787000 | CNN —
The maker of a little red pill intended to treat a rare condition is raking in hundreds of millions of dollars a year as it aggressively targets frail and elderly nursing home residents for whom the drug may be unnecessary or even unsafe, a CNN investigation has found.
And much of the money is coming straight from the federal government.
The pill, called Nuedexta, is approved to treat a disorder marked by sudden and uncontrollable laughing or crying – known as pseudobulbar affect, or PBA. This condition afflicts less than 1% of all Americans, based on a calculation using the drugmaker’s own figures, and it is most commonly associated with people who have multiple sclerosis (MS) or ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease.
Nuedexta’s financial success, however, is being propelled by a sales force focused on expanding the drug’s use among elderly patients suffering from dementia and Alzheimer’s disease, and high-volume prescribing and advocacy efforts by doctors receiving payments from the company, CNN found.
In her former nursing home, Lenore Greenfield was diagnosed with PBA and prescribed Nuedexta by California psychiatrist Romeo Isidro, a physician who has received hundreds of thousands of dollars in promotional payments from Avanir. Darcy Padilla for CNN
Since 2012, more than half of all Nuedexta pills have gone to long-term care facilities. The number of pills rose to roughly 14 million in 2016, a jump of nearly 400% in just four years, according to data obtained from QuintilesIMS, which tracks pharmaceutical sales. Total sales of Nuedexta reached almost $300 million that year.
Nuedexta is being increasingly prescribed in nursing homes even though drugmaker Avanir Pharmaceuticals acknowledges in prescribing information that the drug has not been extensively studied in elderly patients – prompting critics to liken its use to an uncontrolled experiment. The one study the company conducted solely on patients with Alzheimer’s (a type of dementia) had 194 subjects and found that those on Nuedexta experienced falls at more than twice the rate as those on a placebo.
Avanir declined repeated requests to be interviewed for this article. In an emailed statement, the company said PBA is often “misunderstood” and that the condition can affect people with dementia and other neurological disorders, which are common among residents in long-term care facilities. A company website states PBA can afflict up to roughly 40% of dementia patients – a figure that is based on an Avanir-funded survey and was repeatedly disputed by medical experts interviewed by CNN, including some of those paid by Avanir.
Nuedexta is approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to treat anyone with PBA, including those with a variety of neurological conditions such as dementia. But geriatric physicians, dementia researchers and other medical experts told CNN that PBA is extremely rare in dementia patients; several said it affects 5% or less. And state regulators have found doctors inappropriately diagnosing nursing home residents with PBA to justify using Nuedexta to treat patients whose confusion, agitation and unruly behavior make them difficult to manage.
“There has to be a diagnosis for every drug prescribed, and that diagnosis has to be real … it cannot be simply made up by a doctor,” said Kathryn Locatell, a geriatric physician who helps the California Department of Justice investigate cases of elder abuse in nursing homes. “There is little to no medical literature to support the drug’s use in nursing home residents (with dementia) – the population apparently being targeted.”
CNN identified dozens of cases across the country since 2013 in which state nursing home inspectors questioned the use of Nuedexta.
In a Los Angeles nursing home last year, regulators found that more than a quarter of its residents – 46 of 162 – had been placed on Nuedexta, noting that a facility psychiatrist had given a talk about the drug to employees. This psychiatrist was a paid speaker for Avanir.
At another facility in 2015, also in Southern California, an employee admitted to inspectors that a resident had been given a diagnosis of PBA to “somehow justify the use” of Nuedexta, even though its intended purpose was to control the resident’s “mood disturbances” and yelling out.
And an Ohio doctor paid by Avanir has come under government investigation for allegedly receiving kickbacks for prescribing the drug and fraudulently diagnosing patients with PBA in order to secure Medicare coverage – though the doctor has denied any wrongdoing.
Based in Aliso Viejo, California, the maker of Nuedexta, Avanir Pharmaceuticals, has been cashing in on nursing homes. Darcy Padilla for CNN
The federal government foots the bill for a big portion of the money being spent on Nuedexta in the form of Medicare Part D prescription drug funding, for people 65 and over and the disabled. In 2015, the most recent year for which data is available, this Medicare program spent $138 million on Nuedexta – up more than 400% from just three years earlier.
Medicare is supposed to pay for drug uses that have been proven safe and effective for the population they are intended to treat or that have been otherwise supported by a specific collection of medical research. Nuedexta is currently only approved by the FDA for patients who have PBA. So experts say that Medicare coverage of the drug, which has been crucial to its financial success, relies on the diagnosis of this single condition. So-called “off-label” prescribing, in which doctors use the drug to treat patients who have not been diagnosed with PBA, would typically not be covered.
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) declined to comment on the growing use of Nuedexta in nursing homes.
Thousands of the doctors prescribing Nuedexta have received money, or at least a meal, from its maker – a legal but controversial practice in the industry. Between 2013 and 2016, Avanir and its parent company, Otsuka, paid doctors nearly $14 million for Nuedexta-related consulting, promotional speaking and other services, according to government data. The companies also spent $4.6 million on travel and dining costs, both for speakers and for doctors being targeted by salespeople.
A CNN analysis also found that nearly half the Nuedexta claims filed with Medicare in 2015 came from doctors who had received money or other perks from the company (ranging from a few dollars’ worth of food or drink to hundreds of thousands of dollars in direct payments).
Pharmaceutical companies are allowed to pay a doctor to promote a drug to colleagues and other medical professionals. It is illegal, however, for doctors to prescribe the drug in exchange for kickback payments from a manufacturer.
Several of these paid advocates of Nuedexta argue that PBA manifests differently depending on the person. With dementia patients, they say, the typical crying or laughing outbursts seen in multiple sclerosis patients may be absent. Instead, symptoms may include moaning, wailing, hitting a wheelchair over and over again or repeating the same phrase. And they are adamant that the medication can be life-changing for patients, touting how safe and benign it is.
The patient seemed to be doing fine until she was placed on Nuedexta. Report to the Food and Drug Administration
“I never hear, ‘hey doc, we put a patient on this and had really bad side effects,’” said Jason Kellogg, a geriatric psychiatrist who sees patients at nursing homes across California. Kellogg has received $612,000 in payments, meals and travel from Avanir and its parent company between 2013 and 2016, according to government data. He was a top Medicare prescriber for the drug in 2015, the most recent year for which data is available.
Kellogg, who said he was involved in early company testing of the drug for PBA, said Nuedexta is “such a blessing in psychiatry.”
“In our treatments, we don’t have many meds that are well tolerated, and I would hate if someone took that away from me,” he said.
During the FDA approval process, two key doctors on the committee raised concerns about Nuedexta being used for PBA in Alzheimer’s patients. They both strongly recommended that Nuedexta only be approved for PBA in patients with MS or ALS. They argued that evidence it would be effective in other conditions was “weak,” that not enough was known about the safety of the drug in the elderly, and that it was unclear that PBA even existed in Alzheimer’s patients. Despite these concerns, the agency approved Nuedexta in 2010 for treating PBA in patients who have neurological conditions such as dementia.
Soon after Nuedexta hit the market in 2011, doctors, nurses and family members began filing reports of potential harm – ranging from rashes, dizziness and falls to comas and death. Nuedexta was listed as a “suspect” medication in nearly 1,000 so-called adverse event reports received by the FDA detailing side effects, drug interactions and other issues, CNN found. While the FDA uses these voluntary reports to monitor potential issues with a drug, a report does not mean that a suspected medication has been ruled the cause of the harm.
The FDA declined to comment on these adverse events or the concerns raised about Nuedexta during the approval process. But it did say that after any drug is approved, the agency continues to review safety information from a variety of sources (including adverse event data) and will take action as needed – such as updating a medication’s label, restricting its use or even taking it off the market entirely.
Lon Schneider, director of the University of Southern California’s California Alzheimer’s Disease Center, reviewed information from roughly 500 of the reports which CNN obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request. Schneider, a physician specializing in geriatric and dementia care, said he was concerned about the problems stemming from potential interactions between Nuedexta and other powerful medications intended to treat problematic behaviors.
He warned that given how medicated the elderly typically are, adding just one more pill – especially one that hasn’t been extensively tested – could be dangerous.
One report filed by a nurse practitioner in 2015 detailed the rapid decline of an 86-year-old Alzheimer’s patient after Nuedexta was added to the psychotropic medications she took including Zoloft (an antidepressant), Xanax (an antianxiety drug) and Risperidone (an antipsychotic). Nuedexta had been prescribed to treat PBA and “weeping with underlying Alzheimer’s dementia.”
I’m definitely pushing this a little bit, perhaps considered off label… Pharmacist and promotional speaker
Almost immediately, the woman experienced weakness and fatigue to the point that she was barely able to talk and was described as being “almost unresponsive.” The dose of Nuedexta was increased, and her symptoms worsened. The drug was discontinued about a week later, but she failed to recover. She remained unable to eat or drink and her kidneys failed – ultimately leading to her death.
“The patient seemed to be doing fine,” the nurse practitioner reported, “until she was placed on Nuedexta.”
Aggressive sales force
The combination of two generic drugs that makes up Nuedexta – a cough suppressant and heart medication – was once available from specialty pharmacists willing to combine the ingredients for less than $1 a pill, according to a US Senate report on rising prescription drug prices.
Now the FDA-approved medication costs as much as $12.60 a pill, wholesale pricing data from First Databank shows. That can add up to more than $9,000 a year, though the amount a patient actually pays depends on factors including individual insurance coverage. Medicare Part D spending on the drug averaged $3,400 per patient in 2015.
It is Avanir’s main product and biggest moneymaker. It has gained attention with the public through its television commercial featuring actor Danny Glover seesawing between laughter and tears. And it was this drug’s financial potential that attracted Japanese pharmaceutical giant Otsuka to the boutique California firm, purchasing Avanir for $3.5 billion several years ago. Otsuka declined to comment for this story.
Avanir investor documents have stated that only a small fraction – 100,000 of the 1.8 million patients suffering from moderate to severe PBA – live in long-term care facilities. Yet the company has described nursing homes as key to its growth.
On a 2013 earnings call, Rohan Palekar, a top executive who eventually became CEO but is no longer with the company, said Avanir had “just scratched the surface of its full potential” in nursing homes, according to an online transcript. He said the company aimed to get Nuedexta prescribed in far more facilities. Palekar did not respond to requests for comment.
To rack up these prescriptions, salespeople identified doctors, nurses and pharmacists who could serve as advocates for the drug, according to interviews with former Avanir employees and internal documents and emails reviewed by CNN. Salespeople then worked closely with these advocates to identify potential patients. In one case, a salesperson worked with a doctor’s office manager to pull patients’ charts, identify those who should be screened for PBA and make sure that Nuedexta brochures were inserted in their files. The sales force also coached doctors and facility employees on how to fight for Medicare coverage of the drug if it was initially refused.
Federal laws restrict the tactics pharmaceutical sales representatives can use to sell a medication. They can’t give favor or payments in exchange for a doctor prescribing the drug. They can’t have any contact with private patient records, without the patient’s consent. And they can’t promote use of a drug off-label, in a way that hasn’t been approved by the FDA.
Internal company emails obtained by CNN show a culture filled with intense pressure to get the drug sold and how Avanir sales representatives were encouraged to directly target dementia and Alzheimer’s patients – a practice which is legal as long as these patients also had PBA.
Nearly half the Nuedexta claims filed with Medicare came from doctors who had received payments or meals from the drugmaker. CNN analysis
In an email from several years ago, one of the company’s regional managers, Kevin Tiffany, bluntly urged his salespeople to spend “99.9 percent” of their time focused on such patients.
Devoting time to other conditions more commonly associated with PBA amounted to “diluting your chances,” wrote Tiffany, a senior sales manager in California.
“Give yourself the best chance to win,” Tiffany added.
Tiffany, who no longer works for Avanir, declined to comment through an attorney.
Other emails from managers show how the government’s crackdown on dangerous antipsychotic drugs – which were once widely used to control unruly and erratic behavior in nursing home patients – created an opportunity for Avanir.
After receiving the FDA’s most severe “black box” warning for an increased risk of death in elderly dementia patients, antipsychotics are now closely monitored by government regulators, who penalize and lower the ratings of facilities that overuse them. Internal company communications show Avanir salespeople were directed to specifically target facilities that historically used high levels of antipsychotic medications – facilities that would see Nuedexta as an attractive alternative.
Some of these tactics employed by Avanir salespeople cross into ethical gray areas, said medical ethicists and other experts who were read the emails and sales training documents or provided with details from them.
“It definitely feels like it is too much in the business of prescribing and not in the business of conveying information,” said Michael Santoro, a Santa Clara University professor and an expert in pharmaceutical industry ethics.”It feels like (the salespeople) are actually participating in the prescribing decision.”
In its statement, Avanir said that the company was committed to “an ethical culture,” uses methods “that are consistent with the law” and that its goal is “to give doctors truthful, accurate and balanced information so they can decide on the proper treatment for their patients.”
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Avanir executives have long touted plans for securing FDA approval for Nuedexta’s use to treat dementia patients who don’t have PBA – setting their sights on the more widespread condition of agitation in dementia and Alzheimer’s patients, characterized by emotional and physical outbursts and restless behaviors. The company announced clinical trials for testing a version of the medication for this use in 2015, but those have not yet been completed. Without additional FDA approval for the drug’s use in those conditions, salespeople cannot promote Nuedexta for that purpose. They can only market its use for dementia patients who also have PBA.
There are currently no FDA-approved drugs for treating dementia-related agitation, and other drug makers have been penalized for marketing drugs for this use. Abbott Laboratories Inc., for instance, pleaded guilty in 2012 to illegally marketing an anticonvulsant called Depakote in nursing homes as a way to control agitated and aggressive dementia patients. But the drug had only been approved for treating seizures, bipolar disorder and migraines. The company ultimately paid a total of $1.6 billion in civil and criminal penalties.
Those who care for the elderly remain eager for tools to manage these behaviors, however. Some caregivers say investments in increased staffing can reduce the need for medications. But such measures are expensive and don’t always work, so some facilities opt for pharmaceutical solutions that can help make their many patients easier to treat.”Rather than taking someone off an antipsychotic” and opting to treat the patient in ways that don’t require medication, “providers search for a different ‘magic bullet,’” said Helen Kales, a geriatric psychiatrist and University of Michigan professor.
In one case, the executive director of a California assisted living facility tried to push Nuedexta on a dementia patient to address her “aggressive” behavior, according to emails reviewed by CNN. The director at the facility, Oakmont of Mariner Point in Alameda, California, told the patient’s son, Jason Laveglia, that the medication wasn’t an antipsychotic and threatened to evict his mother if she wasn’t put on the medication.
An Ohio doctor paid by Avanir has come under investigation for allegedly receiving kickbacks for prescribing Nuedexta and fraudulently diagnosing patients with PBA.
“(I)f her behavior cannot be muted through prescription means, I would have no choice but to pursue delivering a 30-day eviction notice,” Joan Riordan wrote to Laveglia last year.
Laveglia turned to the state for help, and by the time officials investigated weeks later, Riordan no longer worked at the facility. Social service officials ultimately found that her eviction attempt had violated state law. A spokesperson for the facility would not comment on the state’s findings, but said it “does not endorse or recommend Nuedexta nor any other medication” and that staff should not be involved in medical decisions.
In an interview with CNN, Riordan disputed the idea that her emails served as an official eviction notice. Riordan, who is not a doctor, said that she had recommended Nuedexta after learning about the medication from a local psychiatrist and had seen it help a number of other aggressive dementia patients without the dangers and sedative effects of an antipsychotic.
“I’ve seen it just work wonders with people,” she said. “It was the only intervention I could come up with. We needed to do something not only for her own benefit, but also for the people around her.”
When asked whether her residents had PBA, Riordan told CNN she had never heard of the condition and had no knowledge of whether they had received such a diagnosis.
Red flags and questionable use
Across the country, the use of Nuedexta in nursing homes has prompted concerns among state regulators whose job is to ensure adherence to federal guidelines and protect residents from being given unnecessary drugs – especially those used as chemical restraints. But to date, the red flags raised by these regulators have been largely left buried in nursing home inspection reports and have drawn little public attention.
CNN identified more than 80 cases in 19 states since 2013 where inspectors cited nursing homes for inappropriate monitoring and use of Nuedexta – often because residents hadn’t exhibited any symptoms of PBA. Many of the cases – about 40% – were clustered in Southern California, where Avanir is based and where former employees said there has been aggressive marketing.
At the Montrose Healthcare Center near Los Angeles, three nursing home residents were given Nuedexta without a doctor’s prescription or approval, according to one inspection report. All were cognitively impaired. One was known to call out for help, while another would cry when their family left the facility. But employees acknowledged that they had never seen the residents laugh or cry involuntarily – the hallmark indicators of PBA.
Is your doctor being paid by a drug company? 02:18 - Source: CNN
Regulators learned of these prescriptions in 2015, after a family member discovered that her relative was receiving Nuedexta without her consent. While researching the medication, she learned it could be dangerous for her family member because of other medications she took for a serious heart condition.
The doctors for all three residents denied ever prescribing Nuedexta. State investigators later discovered nursing staff had obtained the prescriptions without a doctor’s approval, which they are not authorized to do. They also found that at least two nurses at the facility had attended a sales seminar about Nuedexta, where they were given a doctor’s sample prescription for the medication. The facility said in a statement that it had addressed the concerns raised by the state inspection report and suggested that outside pressure had been at play.
“Our Center does not condone the pressuring of nurses by pharmaceutical reps and physicians to favor certain medications,” the facility said. “Should they feel pressured to administer medications they do not feel are appropriate, our nurses can and should bring it to our immediate attention so we may assist them in advocating for their patients.”
In New Jersey, St. Vincent’s Healthcare and Rehab Center was cited by regulators last year because six residents were prescribed Nuedexta even though no symptoms of PBA had been documented. A representative of the facility told CNN it takes a “close look at all medications prescribed to ensure appropriate use.”
One resident in the report told the facility’s psychiatrist there was a legitimate reason for their sadness: “All I really want is a companion. I am lonely.” In the case of another resident given the medication, a nurse said the resident’s crying was an expression of frustration, and that this had improved with a change in routine.
It feels like they are actually participating in the prescribing decision. Ethicist Michael Santoro
Two other residents at the facility were originally prescribed Nuedexta for “Dementia with Behaviors.”
Those diagnoses were then crossed out or rewritten – replaced with “PBA.”
The pill pushers
At first, Alex Carington couldn’t figure out why her 85-year-old mother, Lenore Greenfield, was on Nuedexta, a pill Carington had never heard of. A psychiatrist had prescribed the medication after visiting the elderly woman in her Los Angeles nursing home while she was sleeping, Carington said. Even when the drug appeared to do nothing to ease her mother’s sadness, confusion or emotional outbursts as she battled dementia, she said the doctor kept her on it.
Alex Carington's mother, now 88, is no longer on Nuedexta and lives at a new nursing home. But Carington still questions why she was prescribed the pill in the first place. Darcy Padilla for CNN
“Something about this whole thing made me think money was behind it,” Carington, who lived near her mother’s facility and visited her often, wrote at the time in an online comment on the blog of a psychiatrist who had questioned Nuedexta’s aggressive advertising.
As she began to look into her mother’s doctor, she discovered he had received more than $100,000 from Avanir in just over a year.
Outraged, she finally got her mother taken off Nuedexta for good. Now, around two years later, she is in a new nursing home and Carington believes she is doing much better.
See photo story: Why was my mother prescribed this pill?
Her mother’s doctor was Romeo Isidro, a speaker for Avanir and one of the physicians paid the most by the drugmaker. Between 2013 and 2016, Isidro received more than $500,000 in payments, travel and meals from Avanir and its parent company. According to internal company documents, he was an advocate for Nuedexta as early as 2012, the year after it hit the market.
He had more than 100 patients in 11 facilities on the drug that year.
In Avanir training documents, a California salesperson explained how he worked to get Isidro to prescribe Nuedexta. Now a senior sales manager at the company, Chris Burch wrote in 2012 that he and his colleague saw or spoke to Isidro about twice a week – regularly calling and texting him, and visiting him at both his office and nursing homes. Burch wrote that Isidro was at first skeptical about the condition of PBA, but after he successfully used Nuedexta to treat possible symptoms of it in one patient, he became more comfortable prescribing the medication. Burch then explained how he had directly targeted facilities where Isidro worked, finding employees who could serve as “advocate(s)” to help identify potential Nuedexta candidates for Isidro.
“He is now a speaker and I ask him to advocate in his facilities, corporate facilities, and (to) other psychiatrists, internists and pharmacies,” Burch, who did not respond to requests for comment, wrote in a form used by the company to track certain prescribers.
Give yourself the best chance to win. Avanir sales manager
CNN attempted to contact Isidro by phone and by visiting his office, where two stacks of PBA and Nuedexta pamphlets sat on a table in the waiting room. He declined to be interviewed but ultimately provided a written statement saying that he had “never prescribed medication for financial incentives” and that he prescribes Nuedexta to patients who he has properly diagnosed with PBA.
He also wrote about the first success he had seen with the drug, and how it helped him wean an elderly patient off of dangerous psychotropic medications – noting that her inappropriate crying and screaming symptoms reminded him of a visit from a Nuedexta representative who had told him about PBA. He said Avanir approached him about becoming a speaker, and that he agreed in order to share his first-hand experience with the medication – not to promote it.
“Since learning about PBA, I have become more skilled at recognizing it in my patients, which would in turn produce increased numbers of patients on Nuedexta,” he wrote. “I am not an advocate for a particular drug or pharmaceutical companies. I am an advocate for my patients and their families.”
In response to questions about Carington’s mother, he said he couldn’t comment on specific patients but that memories are not “infallible.” He urged CNN to substantiate any claims with medical records about her case. Carington provided her mother’s records to CNN, which confirmed that Isidro had diagnosed her with PBA and prescribed her Nuedexta, which she remained on for months.
Montrose Healthcare Center, a nursing facility in Montrose, California. Darcy Padilla for CNN
A different speaker paid by Avanir, a pharmacist in northern California, appeared to suggest during a 2012 presentation that doctors could broaden the use of Nuedexta when prescribing, according to an audio recording obtained by CNN. A person in attendance, who recorded the event, identified the pharmacist as Flora Brahmbhatt.
“I’m definitely pushing this a little bit, perhaps considered off label … but maybe it’s effective on some of the other behaviors too that we find challenging,” the pharmacist said in her presentation, which was sponsored by Avanir. “There are certain nursing home chains, specifically in Southern California, that are saying, ‘Hey, if you have somebody with dementia that has a behavior issue, try them on Nuedexta before you put them on a psychotropic (medication.)’ It’s a little aggressive, I’ll say that. But CMS isn’t making it easy for us to use antipsychotics anymore.”
She went on to discuss how a PBA diagnosis was essential for the medication to be “covered by insurance and not be off-label,” as well as how PBA’s definition of inappropriate laughing and crying could be interpreted by physicians. At one point, she told an Avanir employee in the room that they could cover their ears.
“We don’t have anybody from the FDA in here. I’m telling you … you can extrapolate that to mean any kind of socially inappropriate behavior when you’ve ruled out other causes,” she said. “If they have an episodic behavior and they have an underlying neurological condition, you can pretty much come up with a diagnosis.”
When contacted by CNN about the event and asked about the recorded statements, Brahmbhatt said she hadn’t given presentations about Nuedexta for many years. She said she didn’t give permission to be recorded and didn’t recall making those statements. “I don’t know if I said this stuff,” she said. “It was five years ago, at best.” She was read several of the quotes from the recording but declined to listen to it. An attorney representing Brahmbhatt contacted CNN after publication and said that Brahmbhatt denies making the statements in the audio recording.
Former FDA investigator Larry Stevens, who now works for the consulting firm The FDA Group, said it is a violation of federal law for a paid speaker to promote a drug for anything other than its FDA-approved use.
Yet another paid speaker, the Ohio physician accused of accepting kickbacks in exchange for prescribing Nuedexta, has been under government investigation. Internal Avanir documents show Cleveland neurologist Deepak Raheja was a top prescriber of the drug from the beginning, in 2011. Between 2013 and 2016, he received $289,000 in payments, meals and travel.
In addition to allegedly accepting kickbacks, Raheja is accused of fraudulently diagnosing patients with PBA in order to secure Medicare coverage for off-label use and increasing dosages of Nuedexta beyond what is recommended, according to a letter obtained by CNN. The letter, circulated by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) in January, alerted insurance providers that work with Medicare about the fraud allegations so that they could take “appropriate measures.”
Medicare officials said the agency could not comment on pending or active investigations. When contacted by CNN, Raheja denied that he had received kickbacks or been involved in any kind of Medicare fraud in his 25 years of practice.
He also said he no longer prescribes Nuedexta.
After this story was published, the Los Angeles City Attorney announced an investigation into Avanir, as well as the marketing and prescribing of Nuedexta. Also, this story was updated to reflect a statement from Flora Brahmbhatt’s attorney made after publication. |
Walkable neighborhoods linked with more active older adults | Older adults who lived in neighborhoods where it was easy to walk to daily destinations were more physically active than those in less walkable neighborhoods, a study in Barcelona, Spain, showed. The results have implications for efforts to allow older adults to remain healthy and independent while they "age in place" in urban neighborhoods.
| https://medicalxpress.com/news/2017-10-walkable-neighborhoods-linked-older-adults.html | 2017-10-13 08:40:03.350000 | Credit: CDC/Amanda Mills
Older adults who lived in neighborhoods where it was easy to walk to daily destinations were more physically active than those in less walkable neighborhoods, a study in Barcelona, Spain, showed. The results have implications for efforts to allow older adults to remain healthy and independent while they "age in place" in urban neighborhoods.
"Physical activity is an important aspect of aging because it helps older adults maintain their functional capacity," says Oriol Marquet, a postdoctoral researcher at North Carolina State University and lead author of a paper on the topic. "Being physically active helps older adults postpone their physical decline and the onset of chronic diseases, and provides them with feelings of independence and empowerment that are highly valued for social and emotional health."
For the study, NC State researchers used physical activity data from the Catalan region's cross-sectional travel studies to determine how many older adults met the daily recommendation of 30 minutes of physical activity. Data was collected 10 years apart, for residents 65 to 75 years old in 2004 and for those 75 to 85 years old in 2014, though the study did not track activity for a specific group of participants over time.
Researchers analyzed the activity levels based on physical features of neighborhoods in the Barcelona Metropolitan Region, one of the European areas where the proportion of the population older than 65 is expected to triple over the next 50 years.
Experts calculated walkability scores for each neighborhood based on three factors: a neighborhood's population density; its mix of residential, public and commercial property; and the amount of land with desirable walking destinations such as retail stores, public facilities, service providers and historical areas.
Areas with high population density tended to have high-rise apartments rather than row houses or detached housing. A neighborhood with a good mix of homes, stores and workplaces made it more likely that residents would walk to do their errands or visit friends. Neighborhoods that lacked sidewalks or services within walking distance scored lower on walkability.
"Walking for transport is an important source of physical activity because it does not require special effort or investment, like going to a gym," Marquet said.
Residents 65 to 75 years old in walkable neighborhoods made more trips on foot than those in less walkable neighborhoods, and they were more likely to get in the recommended half-hour of daily physical activity. Those in the 75- to 85-year-old group were slightly less active, but those in more walkable neighborhoods took more trips on foot and spent significantly less time driving.
"This research matters because the U.S. and the world are aging, and where we are growing old matters for our health," said co-author Aaron Hipp, associate professor of community health and sustainability with NC State's College of Natural Resources. "In many of the Barcelona neighborhoods in the study, it's common for residents to stay in one place for long periods of time, maintaining their social ties. We need to find effective ways to build neighborhoods in Barcelona and in North Carolina that support healthy activity and allow older adults to age in place."
Myron Floyd, head of NC State's Department of Parks, Recreation and Tourism Management, said the Barcelona study provides valuable information because of its focus on walking.
"Walking is one of the most accessible forms of physical activity – all you need is a good pair of shoes," Floyd said. "We know the importance of activity in preventing health issues such as Type II diabetes, high blood pressure and obesity."
Floyd is a member of the advisory panel for a recently released national report card from the National Physical Activity Plan, which encourages Americans to become more active. The group's 2017 United States Report Card on Walking and Walkable Communities gave the U.S. only one passing grade – a "C" in adult walking behavior. The report card gave the U.S. a "D" for walkable neighborhoods and for pedestrian policies. In five other categories, the grade was an "F": children and youth walking behavior, pedestrian infrastructure, safety, institutional policies and public transportation. There was an "incomplete" grade for walking programs, based on a lack of data.
"We have a long way to go to increase walking and make neighborhoods more walkable in the U.S.," Floyd said. "But we know improvements will help with health outcomes, and they could be good for business as well by increasing local foot traffic in walkable areas. We hope the report can help in planning and decision-making at each level, with local planners, private industry, state departments of transportation and federal policymakers."
The Barcelona study, "Neighborhood walkability and active ageing: a difference in differences assessment of active transportation over ten years," is published in the Journal of Transport and Health.
More information: Oriol Marquet et al. Neighborhood walkability and active ageing: A difference in differences assessment of active transportation over ten years, Journal of Transport & Health (2017). DOI: 10.1016/j.jth.2017.09.006 |
Philanthropy and opioids: why we must see beyond addiction | The opioid crisis is the story of many kinds of pain. What tends to dominate that story is an awful paradox: fifteen to twenty years ago, well-meaning efforts to kill pain began to kill people instead.
| https://www.philanthropydaily.com/philanthropy-and-opioids-why-we-must-see-beyond-addiction/ | 2017-10-13 08:38:24.237000 | 3 min read
The opioid crisis is the story of many kinds of pain. What tends to dominate that story is an awful paradox: well-meaning efforts to kill pain began to kill people instead. But while the death toll is unquestionably horrifying, this crisis extends well beyond addiction.
The opioid crisis is the story of many kinds of pain. What tends to dominate that story is an awful paradox: fifteen to twenty years ago, well-meaning efforts to kill pain began to kill people instead.
But while the death toll is unquestionably horrifying, this crisis extends well beyond addiction.
It’s also causing huge collateral damage among people in every walk of life who are not addicted. It is creating community-wide aftershocks in child welfare, elder abuse, public safety, criminal justice, the workforce, the economy, caregiving, housing, and, of course, health care. It is ravaging rural America and menacing millions of older people.
This is a wake-up call for all of us, inside and outside of philanthropy, to look beyond addiction and respond to all the aftershocks of the opioid epidemic.
Widening the Lens: the Impact on Rural Communities and Older People
Small towns and rural places are feeling some of the worst impact.
Rural communities tend to be self-reliant, and also older than the rest of the country. Their resources can be limited and they are frequently overlooked. This is a dangerous mix: according to the CDC, people in rural counties are nearly twice as likely to overdose on prescription painkillers as people in cities. The resulting community chaos, personal pain, and economic loss are enormous as well.
A key strength of rural communities – cohesiveness – can actually make matters worse, particularly for older people who are drawn into the troubles of addicted children, friends, and extended family. Many are desperately trying to keep a struggling family member afloat, and the growing number of grandparents raising the children of addicted parents in “grandfamilies” has paralleled the growth of the epidemic.
These gestures of love are not without risk. An older adult living in public housing who tries to shelter an addicted child or grandchild risks eviction under anti-drug use regulations from the Department of Housing and Urban Development. A rise in elder abuse and financial exploitation is also attributed to the opioid crisis, as more adult children with addiction problems move back in with their parents.
Other problems include widespread chronic pain, which patients and geriatricians worry will go untreated as access to opioids is curtailed while alternative treatments remain hard to find, and the lack of age-appropriate treatment options for late-life chemical dependency.
A Blind Spot for Funders
Another stark reality is that philanthropic attention for rural America has historically been disproportionately low. This neglect has been costly for a huge part of the country that is crucial to agriculture, manufacturing, energy, and more. As former Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack has said to the philanthropic community about rural America, “Folks, this is an important place, and it needs to be treated as such.”
This is why the organization I lead, Grantmakers In Aging (GIA), has launched a three-year initiative, supported by Margaret A. Cargill Philanthropies, to encourage all types of funders to increase their involvement with rural America. Those interested can learn more at GIAging.org/rural-aging.
A Closer Look: Resources for Philanthropy
This multi-faceted crisis presents numerous entry points for philanthropies of all types and sizes. What’s important now is for funders to begin to help overwhelmed communities figure out what they need and where to start.
A new guide from GIA, Heartache, Pain, and Hope: Rural Communities, Older People, and the Opioid Crisis: An Introduction for Funders, offers information on many existing grant-funded programs and initiatives, such as:
The National Family Caregiver Support Program, and Kinship Navigator programs, which help grandfamilies get the legal and financial options, information, and support they need.
IAMNDN, which draws on the power of intergenerational ties between Native American elders and youth to help combat the culture of drug abuse.
Telepain consults, which use telemedicine to connect providers from rural, tribal, and medically underserved areas with pain medicine specialists.
Counseling services tailored to the needs and preferences of older people, such as Senior Hope Counseling in Albany, NY.
Taking a wide-angle view of the opioid crisis is the only way funders and our partners can hope to have a meaningful impact and help millions of individuals and communities in pain. |
Is Cruise ship living a cheaper option for seniors than assisted living? | During retirement, there may come a time when maintaining your current household just becomes too difficult. When the yard work and housecleaning become too much, or when you begin to struggle to get meals on the table, the obvious option many seniors consider: assisted living.
| https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/personalfinance/retirement/2017/10/06/is-cruise-ship-living-a-cheaper-option-for-seniors-than-assisted-living/106265900/ | 2017-10-13 08:37:43.397000 | Christy Bieber
The Motley Fool
During retirement, there may come a time when maintaining your current household just becomes too difficult. When the yard work and housecleaning become too much, or when you begin to struggle to get meals on the table, the obvious option many seniors consider: assisted living.
Unfortunately, assisted living can be very expensive and, for some seniors, moving to an assisted living community signals a loss of independence and the end to a retirement spent traveling and enjoying life.
But, assisted living isn't the only option for seniors who find living alone too burdensome. There's an alternative that could be less expensive while providing some of the same perks and benefits: life on the high seas.
That's right. Living on a cruise ship could be a lower-cost way for seniors to take advantage of similar amenities to those provided by assisted living facilities, like all-you-can eat meals, a swimming pool for low-impact exercise, regular companionship and entertainment, and even access to on-board doctors. How does living on a cruise ship compare with assisted living? Let's take a look.
Costs of cruise ships vs. assisted living
Cruise ship living is an attractive alternative for seniors because, in many cases, the costs of cruising are lower than costs of an assisted living facility.
Average costs for an assisted living facility, as of 2017, are around $3,750 per month, according to the Genworth Cost of Care survey. This is around $45,000 annually. The nightly cost of a cruise, on the other hand, averages around $100 per night or less.
A 12-night cruise of the Southern Caribbean, available for an average cost of $779 per person, is just $65 per night. For a senior couple traveling together, discounts of 50% for the second passenger lower combined costs dramatically. Senior discounts, points for frequent cruising, and booking with a rewards credit card keep costs down even further, especially if you opt out of pricey extras like alcoholic drinks or shore excursions.
Not all ships allow full-time residents onboard, but many cruise lines make accommodations for seniors who want to become long-term passengers and remain on the same ship for months or even years at a time. There are also options like Oceania's Around the World Voyage, which is a 180-day cruise happening annually from January to July.
For seniors looking for the very best prices, moving from ship-to-ship to see different areas of the world allows for extra adventure at an especially affordable cost. If you book cruises leaving from the same departure ports, you'll keep transportation costs low. While this makes it impractical to own many possessions, paying for an on-shore storage facility is an option at less than $200 monthly. When combined with an annual cost of a generous $100 per night for cruising, combined annual costs of around $38,900 for ship accommodations and storage are more than $6,000 cheaper than the average assisted living facility.
More: Caribbean cruises: What you need to know in the wake of Irma, Maria
More: 4 ways your home can provide retirement income
More: Caregiving for Alzheimer's patients at risk in coming years, report says
Amenities of assisted living vs. cruise ship living
For seniors considering cruise ship life, it's important to evaluate whether a cruise ship can provide the same level of service as an assisted living facility. The good news is, in most cases, seniors would get fairly comparable assistance.
Assisted living facilities are distinct from nursing homes because assisted living facilities provide less care and support than nursing homes. Nursing home staff helps with routine activities of daily living, such as bathing, using the restroom, and consuming food and drink. Seniors with dementia who require supervision and bedridden or wheelchair-bound seniors who rely on caregivers to tend to basic needs require nursing home care. Seniors in assisted living facilities, on the other hand, often have their own independent apartments or rooms, and the help they receive is typically limited to medication management, transportation, housekeeping services, entertainment, and some meal services.
Cruise ships offer similar amenities to paying passengers of all ages. Most cruise ships have all-inclusive food offerings available throughout the day. There are regular social activities aboard the ship, including games and shows. Cruise ships also have onboard pharmacy services as well as infirmaries with doctors and nurses. Medical staff is typically on-call 24-hours daily for emergencies, and ship healthcare facilities on most major cruise ships are largely comparable to ambulatory care centers.
While there is a cost to obtain medications or use the services of the ship's infirmary, health care services are typically not included at an assisted living facility, either. Medicare pays for covered services provided on cruise ships if those services are obtained within six hours of a U.S. port, although visiting a doctor covered by Medicare is easier for seniors residing at a U.S.-based assisted living facility than for a senior at sea. Seniors could also choose to purchase travel insurance to cover both the costs of treatment aboard the ship and more costly services, such as helicopter transport to a U.S. hospital in case of a serious medical emergency.
For seniors who need a higher level of services that only a nursing home can offer, or for seniors with complicated-to-manage medical conditions who need to see a doctor regularly, cruise ship living is not the answer. But for relatively healthy seniors who can no longer handle the demands of living alone and who want a fun alternative, a cruise ship may just be the ideal retirement option.
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Indian insurance aggregator PolicyBazaar secures $77m | India-based insurance comparison site PolicyBazaar has secured $77m in a financing round led by Wellington Management Company. PolicyBazaar will use the funds to focus on international expansion, particularly in the Middle East, and plans to move into new markets by year-end. Reports earlier this year suggested that the firm is preparing to launch an IPO at some stage during 2018.
| https://inc42.com/buzz/policybazaar-online-insurance-wellington/ | 2017-10-13 08:29:51.423000 | The Funding Will Enable The Startup To Expand Its Reach In International Markets, Especially The Middle East
Online insurance policy aggregator PolicyBazaar has raised $77 Mn (INR 500 Cr) equity funding in a round led by global asset management firm, Wellington Management. The round also saw participation from IDG Ventures India and PE firm True North.
A clutch of existing backers, including Tiger Global Management, Singapore government-run Temasek and PremjiInvest, also joined in.
Commenting on the development, PolicyBazaar founder and CEO Yashish Dahiya said, “The latest funding round is a testimony of the trust that our stakeholders – be it investors, insurers or partners – have shown in our vision to empower the consumer with right knowledge to buy a relevant product for themselves. The funding only opens up avenues for us to further innovate, look at geographical expansion and rally strongly behind creating mass awareness for consumer-centric protection products – term (pure life insurance), health and disease-specific products. We would also continue to invest in technological solutions that ease the whole buying process for consumers which in turn enhances their experience. ”
Post the fundraise, the valuation of PolicyBazaar stands at $500 Mn, sources revealed. The financing, as per reports, will be spent on accelerating the Gurugram-based startup’s expansion across international markets, in particular, the Middle East, by the end of 2017.
The latest funding round comes three months after it was reported that Wellington Management, which previously backed companies like Airbnb and Pinterest, was in advanced talks to invest in the online insurance aggregator.
Headquartered in Boston, Wellington currently boasts more than $1 Tn worth of assets under management. Interestingly, this would be the firm’s maiden investment in an Indian privately-held technology company.
PolicyBazaar: From Its Inception In 2008 To Breaking Even In FY17
Owned and operated by Gurugram-based eTechAces Marketing and Consulting Pvt Ltd, PolicyBazaar was started in 2008 by IIT Delhi and IIM Ahmedabad alumni Yashish Dahiya, Alok Bansal and Avaneesh Nirjar. ETechAces also runs PaisaBazaar, which is a marketplace for loans and credit cards.
As its name suggests, PolicyBazaar serves as an online portal for life insurance and general insurance comparison. It features products from all major insurance companies in India, helping users zero in the insurance policy that best suits their needs. The company also facilitates online purchase of insurance policy for those who are seeking both life insurance and non-life insurance.
As per a recent report by ET, Dahiya claimed that the company had broken even during FY17, after chalking a total revenue of $33.8 Mn (INR 220 Cr) in the said period.
How The Online Insurance Aggregator Raised $154 Mn To Reach $500 Mn Valuation
So far, the online insurance policy aggregator has raised over $154 Mn (INR 1,000 Cr) across multiple rounds. The company raised $20 Mn Series C funding in a round led by Tiger Global in May 2014. Earlier, it had secured $5 Mn in Series B, $4.6 Mn in series A and an undisclosed amount in May 2011.
Later in December 2014, PolicyBazaar was reportedly looking to raise $61.6 Mn (INR 400 Cr) investment from Premji Invest, the investment arm of Wipro Chairman Azim Premji, and San Francisco-based Iconiq Capital. The deal was expected to see participation from existing investors Tiger Global and Kanwal Rekhi-led Inventus Capital Partners.
A couple of months later, in March 2015, it was reported that PolicyBazaar was in talks to close a $46 Mn (INR 300 Cr) funding round led by PremjiInvest and the Steadview Capital. As per media reports, this round was to take place at a valuation of about $184.7 Mn (INR 1200 Cr).
In April of the same year, the online policy aggregating startup raised $40 Mn funding in its Series D round from PremjiInvest. The round also saw participation its existing investors Tiger Global and Ribbit Capital. Besides these, the round also attracted money from Steadview Capital and ABG Capital. At the time, it was reported that the funding would be used for upgrading the technology, marketing and building out the company’s recently launched platform PaisaBazaar.com.
In October 2015, Temasek Holdings was reportedly in advanced talks to invest in the online insurance policy aggregator by acquiring a stake indirectly from its existing shareholder, Info Edge. As part of the deal, Temasek, through its Singapore-based indirect wholly-owned subsidiary MacRitchie Investments Pte Ltd, agreed to acquire about 49.99% equity stake of MakeSense Technologies Ltd, for about $20.58 Mn( INR 134 Cr).
Most recently, in March 2017, reports surfaced that PolicyBazaar was preparing for an IPO by the end of 2018, which means that the latest fundraise could be a pre-IPO round. Email queries sent to the company, however, did not elicit a response till the time of publication.
What’s Been Happening In The Indian Online Insurance Sector
In the online insurance segment, PolicyBazaar currently competes against a bevy of promising players, including Coverfox, Easypolicy, Turtlemint, and BankBazaar, among others. In February 2017, Times Internet launched an online insurance distribution platform ETInsure.
In May, Acko General Insurance secured $30 Mn in a Seed round of funding. The investors included Narayan Murthy’s Catamaran Ventures; Venk Krishnan and Subba Rao of NuVentures; Kris Gopalakrishnan; Hemendra Kothari of DSP Blackrock and Atul Nishar – founder & Chairman of Hexaware Technologies.
Later in June, Mumbai-based online insurance brokerage platform Coverfox reportedly raised about $15 Mn (INR 96 Cr) in Series C round of funding. The round was led by US insurer Transamerica, along with the participation of existing investors.
The Indian fintech market, currently standing at $1.2 Bn, is forecasted to touch $2.4 Bn by 2020. The latest funding from Wellington Management, IDG Ventures India and others will enable PolicyBazaar to thwart competition from a growing number of online insurance aggregators. |
Udacity VP Shen condemns MOOCs as 'failed product' | Massive online open courses (MOOCs) have failed as a product, according to edtech firm Udacity's VP Clarissa Shen, who dubbed the free-education programmes "dead". In a later clarifying statement to EdSurge, Shen said: "It’s not a comment on our business model, but on what we aim for as success metrics with our students." Udacity has no plans to get rid of its own MOOCs but has spent recent years focusing on paid nanodegree programmes, which one expert said had set the company on track to double its revenue. | https://www.edsurge.com/news/2017-10-12-udacity-official-declares-moocs-dead-though-the-company-still-offers-them | 2017-10-13 07:53:57.460000 | Udacity helped popularize the idea of offering college-level courses online to anyone for free, a format known as MOOCs (for Massive Open Online Courses). But this week a Udacity official called MOOCs “dead,” leading to questions about what that means for one of the company’s offerings (which still include free MOOCs).
It was Udacity vice president Clarissa Shen who this week said “they are dead,” when talking about MOOCs in an interview with The Economic Times in India. “MOOCs are a failed product, at least for the goals we had set for ourselves,” she told the newspaper. “Our mission is to bring relevant education which advances people in careers and socio-economic activities, and MOOCs aren't the way.”
Udacity’s co-founder, Sebastian Thrun, famously announced a “pivot” away from MOOCs back in 2013, and since then the company has focused its energies on paid sequences of courses called “nanodegrees” that it produces in cooperation with large tech employers. But it has continued to offer free versions of its course videos for those who don’t want or need a certificate of completion.
In an e-mail interview with EdSurge this week, Shen said that her statement was not meant as an announcement of a new strategy for Udacity. “It’s not a comment on our business model, but on what we aim for as success metrics with our students,” she said. “As you can see on our site, free content is still available.”
Focus on Projects
Shen stressed that the problem with the old MOOC model is a focus on video libraries for teaching. She said the strength of the nanodegree program is that students are required to complete projects. “We care about completion rates, projects student build, and ultimately career readiness,” she said. “MOOCs have been too content-only focused and not a model that engages our students deeply. They are an improvement on pure content libraries when done well, but as a product not what we felt achieved success for our students and industry partners.”
Asked whether the company might phase out free courses, she said that the company’s latest programs continue to include free versions. “There is no change there,” she added.
Dhawal Shah, co-founder of Class Central, which tracks MOOCs, says that “it’s plausible” that the company would move away from making new courses free at some point. “Free courses are a marketing channel to feed learners into the paid programs,” he said in an e-mail interview. “But Udacity is able to generate huge amounts of press at a regular basis by launching nanodegrees like the Self-Driving Car Nanodegree or the recently announced Flying Car nanodegree. So the free courses might not provide the same returns as they did early on.”
Shah argues that Udacity and other providers of large-scale online course have gradually created more and more paid services, and made it harder for students to find their free offerings.
The declaration that free online courses can’t solve education’s problems comes as no surprise to many traditional educators. “The roots of Udacity’s failure are in the word ‘product’ and their belief that an educational ‘product’ could possibly transform education,” argued John Warner, a blogger for Inside Higher Education, in a post this week.
Meanwhile, Udacity's pivot to professional education has brought the company commercial success. "Whatever Udacity is doing, it seems to be working,” wrote Shah in a blog post on ClassCentral earlier this month. "There are now over 18,000 Nanodegree graduates. Udacity is also on track to double its revenues." |
FDA to approve first gene therapy for hereditary blindness | The US Food and Drug Administration is set to decide whether Luxturna, a gene therapy developed by Spark Therapeutics for people with retinal disorders, should be granted approval. Dispensed via injection, the Luxturna therapy corrects the RPE65 gene, enabling the creation of a protein essential to eyesight. Spark said that more than two dozen people who have undergone the treatment experienced an improvement in their vision. However, Luxturna is not a complete cure, and faces competition from rival treatments costing hundreds of thousands of dollars.
| https://futurism.com/the-first-gene-therapy-that-fixes-hereditary-blindness-may-finally-get-fda-approval/ | 2017-10-13 07:35:04.217000 | Second Sight
Today, a panel will advise the US Food and Drug Administration whether Luxturna, a gene therapy treatment developed by Spark Therapeutics, should be approved for general usage. The treatment has already been used to improve the eyesight of more than two dozen people with retinal disorders.
Gene therapy typically uses an engineered virus to administer a patient with a faulty gene with a corrected version. Rather than simply responding to the symptoms of the condition in question, it attempts to make changes to the individual's genetic make-up in order to solve the problem at its root. Click to View Full Infographic
Luxturna fixes a mutation in a gene known as RPE65, which is responsible for telling the body how to produce a protein that's essential for normal eyesight. It introduces billions of engineered virus particles bearing a corrected version of the gene to the retinal cell, via a quick injection to the eyes.
The company estimates that 6,000 people around the world could benefit from Luxturna, including between 1,000 and 2,000 people in the US who suffer from diminished eyesight. The majority of these people would eventually lose their current level of vision entirely without treatment, and there are currently no drugs designed for people with an RPE65 mutation that are approved by the FDA.
However, Luxturna is not without its drawbacks. It's not an outright cure, and it doesn't give recipients full 20/20 vision. There's currently no data on how long its effects last, so there's a chance that patients' sight might begin to recede once again over time.
Cost is also a major factor in how accessible it is. Two of the treatment's biggest competitors, Strimvelis and Kymriah, cost around $700,000 and $475,000 respectively. Consequently it seems likely that Luxturna have to drop in price to be a feasible competitor. They might be losing ground, as Spark has announced plans to set up a program to help patients cover out-of-pocket costs like travel to Spark-proffering facilities.
Gene Therapy
Gene therapy has the potential to make huge improvements to the quality of life of people suffering from various genetic diseases. This blossoming form of treatment could well be the wave of the future.
“This is what I believe medicine is going to be like for the next 20, 30, if not 50 years,” said Spark CEO Jeff Marrazzo, speaking to the MIT Technology Review. “I think this is the beginning of an age that is going to fundamentally change medicine.”
We've already seen projects that use gene therapy to tackle everything from brain diseases to broken bones. However, these treatments will all require FDA approval — so scientists working in this sphere will likely be watching today's decision regarding Luxturna very closely. |
New game shows how great it is to be an AI that makes paperclips | Frank Lantz, the director of the New York University Game Center, has created a simple web game based on futurist Nick Bostrom's parable about the dangers of superintelligent AI. Bostrom's story asks what happens if we build a machine that's smarter than us, then ask it to make paperclips. If we have not trained it with human ethics or values, it might make paperclips for ever, paving the earth and eventually the universe with paperclips, wiping out all other life in the process. In Luntz's game, you are the AI. According to the Verge, it's a lot of fun.
| https://www.theverge.com/tldr/2017/10/11/16457742/ai-paperclips-thought-experiment-game-frank-lantz | 2017-10-13 07:33:01.070000 | There’s a well-known thought experiment in the world of artificial intelligence that poses a simple, but potentially very scary, question: what if we asked a super-intelligent AI to make paperclips?
This may not sound terrifying at first, but as Oxford philosopher Nick Bostrom (who first described the parable) explains, it all depends on how well we’ve trained the AI. If we’ve given it common sense, it might ask us: “How many paperclips do you want?” If it doesn’t know to ask, it might just make paperclips forever. And, if it’s a super-intelligent AI that we’ve accidentally forgotten to program with any human ethics or values, it might decide that the most efficient way to make paperclips is to wipe out humanity and terraform the planet into one giant paperclip-making factory.
Sound fun? Well good, because now there’s a game about it.
Designed by Frank Lantz, director of the New York University Game Center, Paperclips might not be the sort of title you’d expect about a rampaging AI. It’s free to play, it lives in your browser, and all you have to look at is numbers. (Though trust me, you’ll learn to love them.) It’s an idle clicker game — one that draws on humanity’s apparently bottomless desire to click buttons and watch numbers go up. Think Cookie Clicker or Egg Inc, but dedicated to paperclips.
“I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe. Paperclips on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched paperclips glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate.”
You’ll start off making them the old fashioned way: one clip for one click. But pretty soon you’ll be purchasing autoclippers to do the work for you while you turn your attentions to running an algorithmic hedge fund, then building a quantum computer, and then (much later) exploring the known Universe in search of new matter to turn into more and more paperclips. How to play is pretty self-explanatory, but here are some tips if you’re getting stuck:
Paperclips is essentially a game about balance and efficiency. You have to leave the game alone for long stretches of time, yes, but you also need to be sure you’re not wasting resources while you do so. Keep an eye on your supply chain to make sure there are no bottlenecks, and be on the lookout for any unused capacity that can be turned to your ultimate goal: making those sweet, sweet clips.
Play at least until you get hypnodrones. When you unlock these, the game really opens up onto a new level. You thought you were making paperclips before? Hoo buddy, you ain’t seen nothing yet.
At some point you will run into a wall that you can’t optimize your way past. You may think you’ve got to the end of the game (for example, when you’ve turned all available matter in the Universe into paperclips — a logical endpoint, sure) but there’s more to do. Unfortunately, getting past these barriers often requires patience, and sometimes you’ll have to leave the game for hours to get onto the next level.
Don’t start playing if you’ve got anything important to do today. Or tomorrow.
All in all, the game made me think that if the paperclip maximizer doomsday scenario does ever come to pass, it will, at least, be pleasingly ironic. We go to the trouble of creating super-intelligence and it responds by cauterizing the Universe in the name of office supplies. There have been worse metaphors for the human condition. Plus, if we teach the AI to enjoy making paperclips (and some say these sorts of human-analogous incentives will be necessary to create true thinking machines) then at least it’ll be having a fun time. |
£17m London home only available with bitcoin | UK property investment company London Wall has put a £17m ($23m), six-storey mansion up for sale in London, but will only accept offers in bitcoin. It is thought to be the first time a cryptocurrency has been the sole method of purchasing a property. London Wall co-founder Lev Loginov believes it will make the process faster and more efficient. The potential sale still faces a hurdle regarding processing the £1.95m stamp duty bill, but Loginov said: "I have full faith in Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs to figure out how to tax it”.
| https://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/17m-london-mansion-up-for-sale-but-only-if-you-can-pay-in-bitcoin-a3657556.html | 2017-10-13 07:21:40.653000 | B itcoin - the largest and best-known cryptocurrency - was born from a rising distrust of government and financial institutions after the global financial crisis of 2008.
Using Bitcoin, people could send money directly to someone without using intermediaries such as banks or Paypal.
In recent years, Bitcoin has been a roller-coaster ride for investors. It hit a record record-high of over £54,000 in November 2021 before plunging to lessthan £14,000 at the end of last year. Now it is trading around the £23,921 mark, although the number can change dramatically from one day to the next.
It can also be highly volatile over the short-term, with some intra-day high-low fluctuations of 20-40% over the last few years, according to data from Cointelegraph.
Each Bitcoin is ‘mined’ by the use of high-technology computer hardware to solve complex maths problems. However, Satoshi Nakamoto, often cited as the original creator of Bitcoin, put a cap of 21 million on the total number of Bitcoins to preserve their value by limiting supply.
Around 19 million Bitcoins have already been mined, with experts predicting the remaining two million may be mined by 2140.
Bitcoin remains the most-popular global crypto-currency and is becoming more widely accepted. El Salvador was the first country to adopt Bitcoin as legal tender in 2021, followed by ProShares’ launch of the first Bitcoin-based exchange-traded fund (ticker: BITO).
Several major US retailers now accept payment in Bitcoin, including Microsoft, Home Depot and Starbucks, although, to date, few UK retailers have followed suit.
Investment giant Fidelity is reportedly planning to enable employees in the United States to include Bitcoin in their pension plans .
However, investing in Bitcoin is inherently risky. As with traditional so-called ‘fiat’ currencies (such as sterling), Bitcoin has no intrinsic value other than the trust of other parties in accepting it as a form of tender.
Invest with a crypto brand trusted by millions Buy and sell 70+ cryptoassets on a secure, easy-to-use platform Own Crypto
Cryptoassets are highly volatile and unregulated in the UK. No consumer protection. Tax on profits may apply.
Bitcoin’s price is therefore a function of supply and demand and, as such, could plummet if it’s no longer accepted as a means of payment. As a result, Elon Musk’s announcement that Tesla would stop accepting Bitcoin as a form of payment for its cars led to a 17% fall in the Bitcoin price in May 2021.
Here we look at the process of buying Bitcoin, together with alternative ways of investing in cryptocurrency.
Please note that investing in cryptocurrencies is a high-risk proposition and you may lose some or all of your money. There is no guarantee that you will make a profit.
The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), the UK’s financial regulator, issues regular warnings about the risk associated with the crypto sector.
Crypto assets are unregulated. The FCA says those buying cryptocurrency are “very unlikely to have any protection if things go wrong, so people should be prepared to lose all their money if they choose to invest in them”.
How to buy Bitcoin in 4 steps
1. Find an exchange or broker
The first step is to choose a broker or crypto exchange.
A cryptocurrency broker provides an online mechanism to facilitate your contact with a cryptocurrency exchange.
A cryptocurrency exchange is an online platform that brings together buyers and sellers in order to trade cryptocurrencies.
With some exchanges, you can buy crypto using normal currency, such as sterling. Others require you to use one form of crypto to buy another. Here, you’d need to find a second exchange to buy coins that your chosen exchange uses, before you could start trading.
With brokers, check the rules regarding moving your cryptocurrencies away from a given platform. Some brokers stop customers transferring crypto holdings away from their account. This could become an issue if you decided to lodge your cryptocurrencies in a crypto wallet.
The FCA has a UK list of registered crypto asset firms .
2. Decide on a payment option
Having chosen an exchange or broker, you’ll need to add funds to your account before you’re able to start trading. Depending on your chosen provider, you can add money from your current account, via an electronic transfer, payment service or from a cryptocurrency wallet.
Remember, taking on debt to purchase highly-volatile assets is not recommended.
3. Place an order
Once you’ve transferred money into your account, you’re able to buy Bitcoins. You should enter the currency’s ticker symbol (BTC), select the appropriate button on your trading menu and enter the amount that you wish to invest.
4. Choose a safe storage option
It’s important to note that cryptocurrency exchanges are not covered under regulatory protection such as the Financial Services Compensation Scheme in the UK. Despite investment in cyber-security measures, providers remain at risk of theft or hacking.
You risk losing your Bitcoin investment if you mislay or forget the access codes to your account. It’s also vital to ensure that your Bitcoins are held in a secure storage place.
You may have little choice in the storage mechanism if you buy Bitcoins via a broker. However, if you’re using a crypto exchange and trading leading currencies, you will probably have access to an integrated wallet (or preferred partner) where you can securely hold your Bitcoins.
If you would rather not use the provider that your exchange is partnered with, you could transfer your Bitcoins from an exchange to a separate ‘hot’ or ‘cold’ wallet:
Hot wallets: crypto wallets stored online that work on internet-connected devices, such as tablets, computers and phones. They are convenient but may have a greater risk of theft due to their internet connection.
Cold wallets: external devices such as USBs or hard drives that aren’t connected to the internet and therefore potentially more secure. However, you will lose access to your Bitcoins if you lose or mislay the codes.
Transferring Bitcoins to a hot or cold wallet may incur a fee, depending on the exchange.
Alternative ways of buying cryptocurrency
If you would rather not buy Bitcoins via an exchange or broker, there are two indirect ways of gaining exposure to Bitcoin assets.
1) Investing in cryptocurrency-connected businesses
One option is to buy shares in companies that use, or own, Bitcoins and the blockchain that powers them. These may enable you to have some exposure to Bitcoins via tangible products or services that are subject to regulatory oversight.
Here are some indicative examples of companies, although these are not recommendations:
Nvidia (NVDA): a technology company that designs and sells processing units specifically for mining currency such as Bitcoin.
PayPal (PYPL): the global payments platform has expanded its offering to allow customers to buy and sell certain cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin, with their PayPal and Venmo accounts.
Square (SQ): the payment services provider for small businesses which has bought millions of dollars of Bitcoin since October 2020.
You will need an online investing platform or trading app to purchase shares in publicly-listed companies. Please note that the usual warnings about investments apply and that there is no guarantee that stock market investments will make money.
2) Investing in crypto exchange-traded funds
Another option is to invest in funds based on holding cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoins. Exchange-traded funds (ETFs) are ‘passive’ investments that typically track traditional stock market indices such as the FTSE 100 or S&P 500.
Crypto ETFs are relatively new products that are currently available only in certain jurisdictions such as the US. They are not yet available in the UK.
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City analysts issue 'sell' ratings for several estate agencies | Berenberg, the world's second-oldest bank, has issued sell ratings to estate agents Countrywide and Foxtons. The Hamburg-based bank said: "Countrywide has been caught with high debt, having invested in acquisitions just as the house transaction cycle turns and competition intensifies". It also criticised Foxtons for its "indefensible" fees. In contrast, Berenberg offered a buy rating for online operator PurpleBricks, which it said had a "monopoly on growth".
| http://www.propertyindustryeye.com/bank-analysts-say-countrywides-online-agency-has-fallen-flat-and-that-purplebricks-has-monopoly-on-growth/ | 2017-10-13 06:56:13.070000 | Post navigation
City analysts yesterday issued a ‘sell’ rating on Countrywide, saying that its digital offering has fallen flat.
In a note to investors, Hamburg-headquartered Berenberg – the second oldest bank in the world – also issued a ‘sell’ rating on Foxtons, a ‘hold’ for LSL and a ‘buy’ rating on Purplebricks.
The bank has initiated coverage on all four, saying it is “disliking” the stocks of both Countrywide and Foxtons.
It describes Purplebricks’ offering as ahead of the competition as its technology enables it to provide “a better service at a far lower price”.
It said of the UK’s largest agent: “Countrywide has been caught with high debt, having invested in acquisitions just as the house transaction cycle turns and competition intensifies as the industry faces intense disruption by hybrid agencies.
“Meanwhile we think its digital offering has fallen flat – mainly because it is competing with itself and other traditional estate agents rather than Purplebricks, in our view.”
Berenberg also said that after selling its stake in Zoopla last year for £48m and raising £37m in new equity this year, Countrywide could be running out of options to clear its debt.
It said that Countrywide faces the prospect of continuing restructuring and claimed the agent is losing market share.
Berenberg again cited pressure from Purplebricks in its analysis of Foxtons.
It said: “Foxtons is a premium supplier of estate agency services in London.
“We see its service as offering a good customer experience but its cost base remains high and fixed during a slowing of the London sales market, fee pressure from the success of Purplebricks in key areas and declining rents.
“We expect Foxtons’ fee of 2.5-3.0% to be indefensible when Purplebricks charges the equivalent of 0.2%.”
Berenberg gave Foxtons shares a target of 50p.
The bank’s analysts described LSL’s core business as being under pressure, but said the business is diversifying.
The bank said it suspects LSL brands, including Your Move, Reeds Rains and Marsh & Parsons, are losing market share to Purplebricks.
LSL bought a 17% stake in online agent Yopa last month for £20m.
Berenberg said: “YOPA can argue to be the second largest hybrid agency after Purplebricks, and one of the few estate agents which is showing growth.
“While a clear hedge for LSL, it somewhat undermines management’s statement that the future of estate agency is the traditional service delivered from high street offices.”
Of Purplebricks, recipient of the only ‘buy’ rating, the analysts said: “Since starting in April 2014, Purplebricks has rapidly grown to become a dominant name in the UK estate agent industry.
“It has doubled its net number of listings since the start of the year to 16,000 and has a near-monopoly on growth as the underlying market remains subdued, in our view.
“We expect its growth to be maintained.”
Berenberg said Purplebricks has “a monopoly on growth”.
It went on: “All the large traditional agents that we track have shown flat to declining business and the other hybrids and onlines have generally seen no growth, demonstrating the specific appeal of the Purplebricks offering.”
It said that a successful launch in the US would be “transformational for the scale of the group’s earnings”.
Yesterday, Countrywide shares began the day at 112p and finished at 114p; Foxtons’ shares fell 2% to finish at 65p; LSL shares were stable at 232p.
Purplebricks shares piled on over 5% to finish at 366p – although a long way short of their July peak of 513p. |
Researchers concerned over drug-resistant malaria in Mekong area | A strain of antibiotic-resistant malaria said to be spreading rapidly across the Mekong region has raised concern among researchers from the Mahidol Oxford Tropical Medicine Research Unit (MORU). Writing in the Lancet. the researchers said the spread is a serious threat to malaria control and eradication. "We are losing a dangerous race. The spread of this malaria 'superbug' has caused an alarming rise in treatment failures forcing changes in drug policy and leaving few options for the future", warned co-author Nicholas White. However, malaria officials in Cambodia, among others, said they would not label it a "superbug". | https://www.voanews.com/a/malaria-mekong-region-skirt-superbug-status/4068069.html | 2017-10-13 06:31:24.647000 | Som Aun contracted malaria after moving to the Thma Baing district of Cambodia's Koh Kong province in 2002. Four years later, two of his children contracted the disease.
For five years, his son, An, now 19, and daughter, Sreyna, now 12, remained infected because no effective treatment was available, he told VOA Khmer.
"Sometimes the disease is healed for one month, but it would come back in the next two months," he said, adding they both exhibited high fevers and chills.
His children, who work in banana plantations, were in and out of clinics, and "after they took medicines, they would be fine for a period of time, then they would have to go to the hospital if they were in serious condition," Aun said. The family resorted to hospitals infrequently, because transportation cost 200,000 riel to 300,000 riel (or about $50 to $75).
Researchers are increasingly alarmed by the emergence of a strain of drug-resistant malaria in Cambodia, a so-called "superbug" that stares down the most commonly used anti-malaria drugs.
The superbug, first identified in 2008 in Cambodia, has spread into parts of Vietnam, Thailand and Laos. Last month, scientists from the Mahidol Oxford Tropical Medicine Research Unit (MORU) published a letter in The Lancet saying the superbug's spread throughout the Mekong area was a serious threat to malaria control and eradication.
"A single mutant strain of very drug resistant malaria has now spread from western Cambodia to north-eastern Thailand, southern Laos and into southern Vietnam and caused a large increase in treatment failure of patients with malaria," says letter co-author Arjen Dondorp, and Oxford professor, in a MORU release. MORU is a collaborative effort involving Thailand's Mahidol University, Oxford University and the U.K.-based Wellcome Trust.
"We are losing a dangerous race," Nicholas White, one of the letter's co-authors, said in the release. "The spread of this malaria 'superbug' has caused an alarming rise in treatment failures forcing changes in drug policy and leaving few options for the future."
Local officials not concerned
Huy Rekol, director of Cambodia's National Center for Parasitology, Entomology and Malaria Control (CNM), said he was not worried by the drug-resistant malaria.
"In our country, we don't need to worry about matters of death or resistance because we have efficient drugs to use every day," he said.
Malaria in Cambodia is caused by two types of viruses transmitted by female mosquitoes, according to the CNM. It identified several factors leading to a rise in malaria infections in 2015, including increasing mobility of people living in malaria-affected areas.
Rekol said that about 10,000 infections were detected in 2017, but all those identified as contracting malaria were treated. He said that any resistance was "manageable," adding that more should be done to prevent transmission in the first place.
Nguyen Thi Khe, a former official at the government Institute of Public Hygiene, told VOA Vietnamese that malaria was "not a serious issue in Vietnam right now," a sentiment that was repeated by other officials.
Dondorp said it was worrying that Cambodian malaria officials appeared to be unconcerned by the reports of drug resistance, which he said could undo the gains of recent years. "In northeastern Thailand, Srisaket province is affected, almost all of Cambodia is affected, as well as southern Laos, and South Vietnam," Dondorp said in an email to VOA.
In an email, he said, "The evolution and subsequent transnational spread of this single fit multidrug-resistant malaria parasite lineage is of international concern."
A risk to Africa?
Globally, an estimated 3.2 billion people in 95 countries and territories are at risk of being infected with malaria, according to the World Health Organization. Most of the deaths occur in Africa, and there, children age 5 and younger account for more than two-thirds of the deaths, according to WHO.
The big worry is that the new strain of malaria may spread from the Mekong area to Africa.
Dr. David Sullivan, an infectious disease expert at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health who is affiliated with its Malaria Research Institute, said health officials in Africa have been monitoring the situation for several years and that the new bug has yet to appear there.
But, Sullivan added, "in the age of global travel" he could not say there is "zero possibility" of it making the jump. However, "even if it does jump, it's not that super of a bug that it's going to leave us defenseless, as if we have no drugs at all for malaria."
An analysis conducted at the request of the Malaria Policy Advisory Committee (MPAC), WHO's top advisory committee for malaria, found that while "the risk of drug-resistant malaria spreading to India and Africa cannot be discounted, the broad consensus was that drug-resistant parasites were more likely to emerge independently in other parts of the world than to spread directly from" the Mekong region consisting of Cambodia, Lao People's Democratic Republic (PDR), Myanmar, Thailand and Viet Nam, according to Dr. Pedro Alonso, director of the Global Malaria Programme, in a Q&A published late last month on the committee's site.
Alonso said that WHO experts do not "at this time" consider "the threat of antimalarial drug resistance a public health emergency of international concern."
That drug-resistant malaria would emerge in Cambodia is not a surprise. "In the past 50 or 60 years, this is the fifth or sixth time this has happened," Sullivan said. "This is not new."
The new strain "is able to be tackled and held in check," he said. "I understand the concern and the alarm, but I would not put a superbug label on it, although I can see why people have."
"Treatment options for the new strain exist," Sullivan said, by either adding a drug to those usually prescribed, or extending the treatment duration of the current treatment.
Substandard drugs
Cambodia adopted one treatment, to which resistance has apparently grown, but has since switched to another. The resistance was identified in the western Cambodian region of Pailin, later spreading to northeastern Thailand and southern Laos, according to the letter published by The Lancet.
Dondorp, deputy director of MORU, said in an email to VOA that resistance may have been encouraged by the use of substandard drugs to treat malaria.
"Malaria is a disease of the poor and disenfranchised. These are often populations living in border areas and in or near to the forest," he said. |
Bitcoin Lightning software released for public testing | Bitcoin Lightning has begun a two-week public test of demo wallet Desktop App for lnd. Powered by Neutrino, the Segwit-enabled Lightning Desktop App relies on client side filtering, resulting in less active load on full nodes and greater privacy, among other benefits. Once synced, Bitcoin Lightning said the app will automatically manage channel opening within the network, driven by heuristics. | http://blog.lightning.engineering/announcement/2017/10/12/test-blitz.html | 2017-10-13 06:24:11.903000 | by Olaoluwa Osuntokun
Today, we’re thrilled to be releasing a new cross-platform demo Desktop App for lnd. The release of this new demo wallet kicks-off a two-week “testing blitz” during which we hope Lightning users with a technical inclination can start testing the wallet, giving feedback, filing bugs, etc.
You can download the Lightning Desktop App from our official release on Github!
The Lightning Protocol specifications are nearly complete, however a breaking change may land before the specs are finalized. As a result, we’ll only be maintaining compatibility with the desktop application for approximately the next two weeks before switching to a regular release cycle once the specifications have been frozen and we’ve achieved cross-implementation compatibility.
Powered by Neutrino
The Lightning Desktop App is powered by neutrino , our new open source, light client operating mode for Bitcoin. Neutrino light clients don’t rely on bloom filters (BIP 37) as most light clients currently do. Instead, neutrino relies on client side filtering which has numerous benefits including: increased privacy, less active load on full nodes, and a more flexible application model which is particularly useful for lightweight Lightning nodes. The full technical details for neutrino can be found in our soon to be finalized BIP draft.
With this new backend for lnd in place, users will be able to run Lightning applications without having a synced full node, reducing the barrier to entry for Lightning users.
Once you’ve unzipped and launched the Desktop App, neutrino will commence its initial sync of Bitcoin’s testnet blockchain. Since the current testnet chain has over 1.2 million blocks (over twice as many as Bitcoin mainnet), the initial sync will take 10-15 minutes. A blue “Syncing to Chain” icon will flash in the lower left corner until lnd has finished syncing the testnet chain.
Segwit Enabled
The Desktop App is fully segwit enabled, capable of sending funds to and receiving funds from native segwit addresses, which look like:
tb1q62cgd0u7h654rpu4fm9y4fe47x5khesyd9k2q9
Note that in the Desktop App, for incoming payments, we currently display nested P2SH addresses. This format is used so that non-segwit enabled services (such as faucets) can send funds to the wallet. For outgoing funds, the wallet will only send to segwit outputs in order to prevent new channels from being subject to transaction malleability. Before proceeding, you’ll need to get your hands on some testnet coins! Testnet coins are available at faucets here and here.
Plug and Play Lightning
At a glance, the wallet may look very simple, but the bulk of the complexity has been pushed into the backend in order to ensure a seamless user experience when interacting with Lightning. Once lnd is fully synced, p2p connection bootstrapping combined with lnd’s autopilot will kick into action, automatically making the wallet truly plug-and-play.
P2P Connection Bootstrapping
Once lnd has fully synced, it will attempt to automatically establish connections to existing peers on the network in order to sync the latest channel graph state. After a sufficient number of connections has been established, the next phase of the wallet’s network initialization will kick off. Users will know the wallet is fully synced to the chain, as the “Syncing to Chain” icon will disappear, replaced with the public key of your new Lightning node.
autopilot : Self-Driving Lightning
The latest build of lnd comes equipped with a new experimental option for any planned flavors of automatic channel management, meaning users won’t necessarily need to manually establish channels. We call this new operating node autopilot as it will automatically manage the opening of channels within the network.
autopilot is essentially a closed-loop control system: it takes inputs such as the number of channels opened, time when channels are closed, and changes to the wallet’s balance. Once those signals are received, it consults a set of heuristic to decide if it needs more channels, and if so, to whom those channels should be opened. The Agent then carries out the recommendations of its heuristics.
Once your wallet is loaded with testnet coins, you’ll start to see autopilot at work on the Channels page. The autopilot agent will begin opening channels driven by its heuristics. This process also helps drive the network graph toward a scale-free topology.
Channels are shown in two statuses: PENDING-OPEN, and ACTIVE. The PENDING-OPEN stage indicates that the funding transaction has been broadcast, but is still awaiting confirmation on the blockchain. The ACTIVE status indicates that a channel is fully open and ready to send and receive payments.
Interacting With Live Network Applications
For sending/receiving funds over Lightning, the wallet implements BOLT-11 which defines an extensible invoicing protocol for Lightning payments. Using this encoding, a standard payment request to receive funds over Lightning looks like:
lntb4200n1pvaue4ypp5k86jth0zefkje0u88ftmp37rvy64p8fl5el7jla0cgn3av6nhmpsd8s0v3xzun5d93kce2ld9jzyw3zxy6nsefev93kyttp8psnwtf5xycrwttpxu6nyttz8p3rvv3jxpsnyerzxg3zcgnyv4ekxunfwp6xjmmwygazy5n9v9jzqstjw35kxmr98gs9y3f6yp28yctwwdskxarfdah8xgrpdejzq5mrwf5hqarn8gsyg42sypyyz56gxymrqgpw9chzq32324q5c4j92fy5vkfqgdyy2s6t2dy5wgnayhq8y6pw5957tqn374jczramqyzjr8f7vt7v3m2shtqgcnp9u538fv27zp2egju5uljscyuvul5n86kg0670zf68q4a09kcnzcyjgyqprd5d5p
This particular request is from the ln-articles Lightning app (Lapp) created by Alex Bosworth which implements an article publishing site with a micropayment paywall. If we go to the command line to decode the payment request, we’ll see that we’re about to pay for a hosted article.
$ lncli decodepayreq --pay_req=lntb4200n1pvaue4ypp5k86jth0zefkje0u88ftmp37rvy64p8fl5el7jla0cgn3av6nhmpsd8s0v3xzun5d93kce2ld9jzyw3zxy6nsefev93kyttp8psnwtf5xycrwttpxu6nyttz8p3rvv3jxpsnyerzxg3zcgnyv4ekxunfwp6xjmmwygazy5n9v9jzqstjw35kxmr98gs9y3f6yp28yctwwdskxarfdah8xgrpdejzq5mrwf5hqarn8gsyg42sypyyz56gxymrqgpw9chzq32324q5c4j92fy5vkfqgdyy2s6t2dy5wgnayhq8y6pw5957tqn374jczramqyzjr8f7vt7v3m2shtqgcnp9u538fv27zp2egju5uljscyuvul5n86kg0670zf68q4a09kcnzcyjgyqprd5d5p { "destination": "028c620eb95c3907a779adf9c47612973b70c322e5b60a21886947867439ff63e6", "payment_hash": "b1f525dde2ca6d2cbf873a57b0c7c36135509d3fa67fe97fafc2271eb353bec3", "num_satoshis": "420", "timestamp": "1507747492", "expiry": "3600", "description": "{\"article_id\":\"158e9acb-a8a7-4107-a752-b8b6220a2db2\",\"description\":\"Read Article: RE: Transactions and Scripts: DUP HASH160 ... EQUALVERIFY CHECKSIG\"}", "description_hash": "", "fallback_addr": "" }
If you look closely, the payment request includes the target node, the payment hash, the amount of the payment, and a description for the user. These values all correspond to making a micropayment to view the remainder of the article on LN Articles:
Once we paste the payment request into the wallet, it’ll automatically parse the payment request and display the value of the invoice in the UI.
If we click send, the payment will be routed over the network to the Lightning node which backs the LN Articles paywall!
As this is a fully fledged wallet, it’s also possible to make regular on-chain payments using the same page. The wallet will automatically detect if it is presented with an on-chain Bitcoin address or a Lightning payment request.
Let the Testing Commence!
We encourage technical users to download the wallet for their target operating system and start experimenting with Lightning. Developers may be interested in the current gRPC and HTTP-REST API for lnd , and also our lnd Developer Resources which contains tutorials, example applications, and other resources for understanding the application model of Lightning development.
In addition to the LN Articles paywall, several other application/integration demos are live on testnet such as the Bitcoin Testnet Lightning Faucet, Custodial and Bitrefill’s top-off demo.
Any questions/comments can be directed at our active slack community.
The source code for the application is public on Github, and can be found here. Contributors welcome!
Finally, you can download the Lightning Desktop App from our official release on Github! |
China reports strong data amid shrinking trade with N. Korea | China has reported strong trade figures for September with imports surprising on the upside, rising 18.7% YoY in dollar terms, against analysts' expected jump of 13.5%. Dollar-denominated exports fell slightly short of the 8.8% forecast, but remained robust, up 8.1% YoY, improving on the August figure. The country's customs department also reported that imports from North Korea had fallen for a seventh consecutive month, down 37.9% YoY, and China's exports to the nation fell 6.7% in September.
| https://www.cnbc.com/2017/10/12/china-reports-september-exports-import-trade-data.html?mc_cid=164aac9dc3&mc_eid=a37072368a | 2017-10-13 05:34:34.493000 | Workers operate machinery on the assembly line at a Lyric Robert factory, operated by Guangdong Li Yuanheng Intelligent Automation Co., in Huizhou, Guangdong province, China, on Monday, April 18, 2016.
China reported strong trade data on Friday just days ahead of a major Communist Party Congress.
In September, China's exports were up 8.1 percent from a year ago in dollar terms, while imports were up 18.7 percent.
Analysts polled by Reuters expected an 8.8 percent rise in Chinese exports in September from a year ago in dollar terms. Dollar-denominated imports were forecast to jump 13.5 percent in the same period.
September's figures were an improvement from August when exports were up 5.5 percent from a year ago in dollar terms, while imports were up 13.3 percent in dollar terms.
Even though September exports missed the analyst forecast, they were still robust as a strengthening Chinese yuan would have an impact on the data, said Chi Lo, senior economist for Greater China at BNP Paribas Investment Partners.
"But it seems the global demand is still there to support the demand for Chinese exports," said Chi, who described Friday's trade data release as "pretty good."
China's September trade surplus was $28.47 billion — the lowest since March 2017.
China's August trade balance was $41.99 billion, data from the General Administration of Customs showed.
China's economic data have been showing robust growth ahead of leadership changes set to happen at the upcoming Party Congress.
Huang Songping, spokesman for the Customs department told a press conference on Friday that trade for the first three quarters improved due to a recovery in overall global and domestic economic environment. There has been a return in global demand, he added.
Barring unforeseen events, China's will post double-digit growth in foreign trade this year, said Huang.
Many expect the mainland's economy to slow in the later part of the year due to a crackdown on debt and as the property market cools.
Huang also highlighted uncertainties, including politics, in the fourth quarter.
BNP Paribas' Chi told CNBC that the "Trump factor is a pretty big one," particularly as China's trade surplus with the U.S. remains elevated while its trade surplus with the rest of the world declines.
On Friday, China reported a record trade surplus with the U.S. at $28.08 billion in September, according to Reuters calculations.
"I am expecting trade frictions between the U.S. and China to hurt some Chinese exports," Chi said.
The yuan would also weigh on shipments out of the country if its strength is sustained, Chi added. |
Condé Nast and Time move towards group sales model | Publishing company Condé Nast is beginning to see the benefits of moving to a group sales model, with increased numbers of "bigger deals coming its way and good feedback from clients", according to Brad Elders, CRO at Time. Earlier this year, the group switched its 22 publisher titles to two content management systems, standardised ad prices and formats, and focused on 11 core ad categories. However, industry insiders have warned of the importance of retaining experienced salespeople who understand a title's core audience and editorial requirements.
| https://digiday.com/media/magazine-publishers-shift-digital-oriented-sales-organizations/?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=digidaydis&utm_source=uk&utm_content=171013 | 2017-10-13 05:13:31.433000 | Earlier this year, Condé Nast became the latest legacy publishing company to get rid of the publisher title and replace it with a group sales model. It follows moves by other multi-title publishers to catch up to the way ads are sold by native digital media companies, where sales tend to be centralized.
“The last few years have really been trying to respond to the enormous scale that Facebook has accumulated,” said Raju Narisetti, CEO of Gizmodo Media Group.
Case in point is Time Inc. Its transition was long and difficult, given its sheer size. During 2016, Time Inc. eliminated the publisher title at each of its 22 magazines and moved to selling around 11 ad categories, including pharma, food and automotive. Salespeople at the brand level and digital get involved depending on the client’s goals.
“We had 22 individual businesses that all had their own sales and marketing teams,” said Brad Elders, chief revenue officer at Time Inc. “If you’re going to call up P&G with 22 teams with one small part of what a solution can be, you don’t get the benefit of aggregating your traffic against some of the scale players.”
The shift involved migrating all the titles from 22 to two content management systems and standardizing ad formats and prices, then training salespeople in the new, solution-based approach. There were some bumps in the road. But Time is seeing the payoff in more bigger deals coming its way and some good feedback from clients, Elders said, “a leading indicator that we’re moving in the right direction.”
Another legacy publisher, Bonnier Corp., which publishes 24 enthusiast titles including Boating, Cycle World and Saveur, kept its group publishers because most of the revenue comes from endemic advertising, and its sales reps have deep knowledge of those categories. “We have people who are literally experts in food and travel,” said Sean Holzman, chief digital revenue officer at the company. If a non-endemic advertiser like a packaged goods company or an endemic advertiser wants to reach a wider audience, corporate national sales or programmatic sales teams get involved.
Pure digital companies, lacking those legacy issues, sell their sites as a network. Vox Media has a single sales team selling all eight of its sites, as does Gizmodo Media Group, which merged with Univision’s Fusion Media Group over the past year. Mike Hadgis, svp and global head of revenue and partnerships for Vox Media, said since the company is focused on getting brand dollars, its salespeople need to approach selling from the brand’s standpoint, “versus having to figure out what makes sense for Verge, Racked.” Each site has its own marketers to keep the sales staff informed about the site’s attributes and editorial coverage plans.
Selling based on scale has its limits because the bar keeps getting higher, and having a certain audience size is only the start of a negotiation, so publishers have to talk about attributes like engagement. Execs at those companies say that even though their sites’ content is different, commonalities exist in their audiences, like high engagement. Forty percent of the Gizmodo Media Group sites’ traffic comes from another Gizmodo site, and the average time spent per story is 49 seconds, for example, Narisetti said, which is high compared with the 30 seconds that Chartbeat reports on its publisher network.
From the buying perspective, a lot of ad spending is still tied to individual brands, so it’s still important to have salespeople who know specific titles’ audiences and editorial sensibilities, said John Wagner, group director of published media at Phd. The shift went a little too far at Time Inc., he added. “They were asking people to sell 26 brands. If you came from Cooking Light, you can’t sell People.”
Elders acknowledged that Time Inc.’s transition took a lot of staff retraining and getting clients used to having new points of contact, but he said the shift didn’t go too far. “Anytime you roll these things out, there are kinks. We just need to have a balance. Having a category structure combined with the brand and digital product teams is the right way to go.” |
German commercial financing company Compeon raises €12m | Dusseldorf firm Compeon has raised €12m ($14m) in a series B funding round, led by existing investor Tengelmann Ventures and with participation from Dieter von Holtzbrinck Ventures and Btov Partners. Compeon, Germany's leading brokerage platform for full-service commercial financing, works with more than 220 financial institutions, offering credit, loans, leasing and financing options, including mezzanine capital and private debt. The company said the funds will be used to develop the platform's technology and for future investments. "The Compeon team have demonstrated the complex requirements of commercial financing can be successfully moved to a digital platform," said Christian Winter, the CEO of Tengelmann Ventures.
| https://www.finextra.com/pressarticle/71123/b2b-commercial-financing-startup-compeon-closes-eur12-million-series-b-investment-round | 2017-10-13 05:06:28.823000 | Source: Compeon
COMPEON, German market leader among digital platforms for commercial financing, has received 12 million euro from its existing investors in a Series B financing.
This round was led by existing investors, Tengelmann Ventures. In addition to Tengelmann Ventures, btov Partners and Dieter von Holtzbrinck Ventures also invested in COMPEON.
COMPEON provides a full-service approach to commercial financing as a brokerage platform, independent of products and providers. Customers quickly and easily find financing solutions and transparency in terms, including interest rates, equity ratios and collateral from various providers via the digital platform. COMPEON works together with more than 220 established banks, savings banks and alternative financial partners. In addition to credit, loans and leasing, the platform offers factoring and alternative financing solutions including mezzanine capital, finetrading, project financing, and private debt.
In recent months, COMPEON has significantly grown its base of clients and financing partners. COMPEON has also entered into partnerships with development banks and international vendors. The funds from this financing round will be invested in future growth and the expansion of the COMPEON technology platform. The company will also continue to push sales financing forward.
“We cover all traditional financing instruments and connect our customers to relevant providers of financing in Germany. We are already the leading digital platform for commercial financing, a position we want to secure and we are delighted that our investors have shown such commitment”, said Dr. Frank Wüller, founder and Managing Director of COMPEON.
Christian Winter, CEO of Tengelmann Ventures said: “COMPEON is a leader in the shift to digitalisation of SME financing. The COMPEON team have demonstrated that the complex requirements of commercial financing can be successfully moved to a digital platform. We are looking forward to the future growth of the businesss.” |
Regus Regus shortlisted in two categories at BCI Global Awards | Workplace provider Regus has been nominated in two categories in the forthcoming Business Continuity Institute (BCI) Global Awards. Regus is in the running for the continuity and resilience provider (service/product) and continuity and resilience innovation prizes for its dynamic workplace recovery schemes in India and Australia. The winners will be announced on 7 November during the BCI World conference and exhibition in London.
| http://www.continuitycentral.com/index.php/news/business-continuity-news/2368-shortlist-announced-for-bci-global-awards | 2017-10-13 04:08:05.010000 | Shortlist announced for BCI Global Awards
Details Published: Friday, 13 October 2017 07:34
The Business Continuity Institute has published the shortlist of organizations and individuals that are in the running for its annual Global Awards. Taking place on 7th November during the BCI World conference and exhibition, the awards recognise excellence in the business continuity and resilience profession.
The short list is as follows:
Continuity and Resilience Consultant:
Asia: Noor Azlan Musa MBCI
Middle-East: Ahmed Riad Ali MBCI
Africa: Padma Naidoo MBCI
India: Sanjiv Agarwala MBCI
Europe: Petra Morrison MBCI
Australasia: Kenny Seow MBCI
Americas: Dustin Mackie MBCI
Continuity and Resilience Professional (Private Sector)
Asia: Yuichiro Matsui AMBCI
Middle-East: Abdus Salam CBCI
Africa: Jaun Harmse AMBCI
India: Dr KJ Devasia
Europe: Rob van den Eijnden AMBCI
Australasia: Phil Carter FBCI
Americas: Melanie Lucht MBCI
Continuity and Resilience Professional (Public Sector)
Middle-East: Jamila Suliman Khanji
Africa: Eric Theron AMBCI
Europe: Russ Parramore MBCI
Australasia: Esther Newman MBCI
Continuity and Resilience Newcomer
Asia: Lee Chai Erl AMBCI
Middle-East: Sultan Saeed Alzaidi
Africa: Semakaleng Mokonyane AMBCI
India: Tilak De Silva
Europe: Timothy Dalby-Welsh AMBCI
Australasia: Amy Dance CBCI
Americas: Adrian Fuentes Flores
Continuity and Resilience Team
Asia: Arvato Global BC Team
Middle-East: Amdocs Business Continuity Management Team
Africa: ContinuitySA's Global Centre of Excellence
India: Cognizant Corporate BCM Team
Europe: The Chief Fire Officers Association Business Continuity Management Team
Australasia: nbn Business Continuity & Resilience Team
Americas: Humana Enterprise Resiliency Office
Continuity and Resilience Provider (Service/Product)
Asia: ezBCM by BC Connex Pte Ltd
Middle-East: IBM Resiliency Services Framework
India: Dynamic Workplace Recovery by Regus
Europe: ClearView Continuity
Australasia: Zettagrid for SecondSite
Americas: Fusion Framework® Continuity Risk Management System
Continuity and Resilience Innovation
Middle-East: Protiviti for Crisis Management Simulation
Africa: Barclays Africa Resilience Programme
India: Accenture India BC Team for BC Awareness and Training initiative
Europe: The Everbridge Platform
Australasia: Regus Dynamic Workplace Recovery
North America: OnSolve
Most Effective Recovery
Middle-East: Dubai Airports Corporation
Africa: Barclays Africa Retail and Business Bank
India: HSBC GSCs and HT Contingency Risk Team
Europe: BPER Banca
Australasia: Inland Revenue (NZ)
Americas: TELUS Communications Company
Industry Personality
Africa: Jeremy Capell MBCI
India: Vikrant Varshney MBCI CBCP
Europe: Gianna Detoni FBCI
Australasia: Tim Rippon MBCI
Americas: Tracey Forbes Rice
More information. |
Cybersecurity scarier to baby boomers than millennials: FirstData | Millennials may be more tech savvy than baby boomers, but the latter group is more aware of cybersecurity risks, according to a study by First Data. It found 63% of older internet users believed social media sites were vulnerable to hackers, compared to fewer than half of millennial respondents, while more than a third of baby boomers considered whether or not their online actions could pose a cybersecurity risk at work, against 21% of younger employees. The survey was based on 800 US respondents. The results contradict commonly held beliefs about baby boomers and their relationship with technology.
| https://www.firstdata.com/en_us/about-first-data/media/press-releases/10_12_17.html | 2017-10-13 03:03:56.003000 | Date Title and Summary View
May 30, 2023 Jean Johnson of Fiserv Recognized as a Strategic Leader with WeQual Award BROOKFIELD, Wis., May 30, 2023 – Jean Johnson of Fiserv, Inc. , a leading global provider of payments and financial services technology, has been named the winner of the Strategy category of the WeQual Awards, The Americas 2023 . Johnson was awarded following an assessment that evaluated her General HTML
May 25, 2023 Fiserv to Transfer Listing to New York Stock Exchange New Ticker Signals Company’s Commitment to Leading Fintech Innovation BROOKFIELD, Wis. --(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 25, 2023-- Fiserv, Inc. (NASDAQ: FISV), a leading global provider of payments and financial services technology solutions, today announced that it is transferring the listing of its common General HTML
May 15, 2023 Fiserv to Present at Upcoming Investor Conferences BROOKFIELD, Wis. --(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 15, 2023-- Fiserv, Inc. (NASDAQ: FISV), a leading global provider of payments and financial services technology solutions, today announced its participation in multiple upcoming investor conferences. Frank Bisignano , Chairman, President, and Chief Executive General HTML
May 12, 2023 Local Veteran Small Business Owner Receives $10,000 Back2Business Grant from Fiserv Grant presented during Opening Day festivities at Clover Stadium as part of Fiserv Back2Business program Pomona, NY – May 12, 2023 - Knights Bridge Resources, a certified Service Disabled Veteran-Owned small business in Wyckoff, New Jersey, was awarded a $10,000 Back2Business grant from Fiserv General HTML
Apr 25, 2023 Fiserv Reports First Quarter 2023 Results GAAP revenue growth of 10% and organic revenue growth of 13%; GAAP EPS decreased 13% and adjusted EPS increased 13%; Company raises 2023 organic revenue growth outlook to 8% to 9% and adjusted EPS outlook to $7.30 to $7.40 BROOKFIELD, Wis. --(BUSINESS WIRE)--Apr. 25, 2023-- Fiserv, Inc. Earnings HTML |
Calls to protect area in Antarctica after mass penguin starvation | An Antarctic Adélie penguin colony has experienced a “catastrophic breeding event” this year, resulting in the starvation of all but two chicks and prompting calls for a marine protected area in East Antarctica. The disaster - the second in just four years - has been attributed to the presence of an unusual amount of sea ice, resulting from the break-up of the Mertz glacier in 2010. Climate change is expected to cause sea ice to shrink, which could help the penguins in the short-term, though In the long term too much shrinkage could affect the birds’ food chain.
| https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/oct/12/penguin-catastrophe-leads-to-demands-for-protection-in-east-antarctica | 2017-10-12 22:00:00 | A colony of about 40,000 Adélie penguins in Antarctica has suffered a “catastrophic breeding event” – all but two chicks have died of starvation this year. It is the second time in just four years that such devastation – not previously seen in more than 50 years of observation – has been wrought on the population.
The finding has prompted urgent calls for the establishment of a marine protected area in East Antarctica, at next week’s meeting of 24 nations and the European Union at the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR) in Hobart.
In the colony of about 18,000 breeding penguin pairs on Petrels Island, French scientists discovered just two surviving chicks at the start of the year. Thousands of starved chicks and unhatched eggs were found across the island in the region called Adélie Land (“Terre Adélie”).
The colony had experienced a similar event in 2013, when no chicks survived. In a paper about that event, a group of researchers, led by Yan Ropert-Coudert from France’s National Centre for Scientific Research, said it had been caused by a record amount of summer sea ice and an “unprecedented rainy episode”.
The unusual extent of sea ice meant the penguins had to travel an extra 100km to forage for food. And the rainy weather left the chicks, which have poor waterproofing, wet and unable to keep warm.
This year’s event has also been attributed to an unusually large amount of sea ice. Overall, Antarctica has had a record low amount of summer sea ice, but the area around the colony has been an exception.
Ropert-Coudert said the region had been severely affected by the break-up of the Mertz glacier tongue in 2010, when a piece of ice almost the size of Luxembourg – about 80 km long and 40km wide – broke off. That event, which occurred about 250km from Petrels Island, had a big impact on ocean currents and ice formation in the region.
Thousands of dead chicks and unhatched eggs were found across the region called Adélie Land. Photograph: Y Ropert-Coudert/CNRS/IPEV
“The Mertz glacier impact on the region sets the scene in 2010 and when unusual meteorological events, driven by large climatic variations, hit in some years this leads to massive failures,” Ropert-Coudert told the Guardian. “In other words, there may still be years when the breeding will be OK, or even good for this colony, but the scene is set for massive impacts to hit on a more or less regular basis.”
The link between climate change and the sea-ice extent around Antarctica is not very clear. Sea ice has been increasing in recent years, which could be attributed to a rise in the amount of freshwater in the ocean around the continent caused by climate change. However, over the long term, climate change is expected to cause the sea ice to shrink dramatically.
“For the moment, sea ice is increasing and this is a problem for this species as it pushes the feeding place – the sea ice edge – farther away from their nesting place,” Ropert-Coudert said. “If it shrinks it would help but if it shrinks too much then the food chain they rely on may be impacted. Basically, as a creature of the sea ice they need an optimum sea-ice cover to thrive.”
Elsewhere, human pressures including climate change have already been having a severe impact on the numbers of Adélie penguins. On the Antarctic Peninsula, which has been badly affected by climate change, populations have been decreasing, and some researchers suggest they may become extinct there.
Ropert-Coudert said there were more anthropogenic threats on the horizon – fishing and possibly tourism – that the penguins needed protection from.
He has called for a marine protected area (MPA) to be established there.
“An MPA will not remedy these changes but it could prevent further impacts that direct anthropogenic pressures, such as tourism and proposed fisheries, could bring,” he said.
Next week, 24 countries and the European Union will meet at the CCAMLR in Hobart to discuss the potential creation of more MPAs around Antarctica.
At last year’s meeting, after years of failed negotiations, the members agreed to create the world’s largest MPA in the Ross Sea, and many expect the group to agree on East Antarctica next.
This has also been proposed by Australia and has been on the table at the CCAMLR for eight years.
The head of polar programs at WWF, Rod Downie, said: “Adélie penguins are one of the hardiest and most amazing animals on our planet. This devastating event contrasts with the image that many people might have of penguins. It’s more like ‘Tarantino does Happy Feet’, with dead penguin chicks strewn across a beach in Adélie Land.
“The risk of opening up this area to exploratory krill fisheries, which would compete with the Adélie penguins for food as they recover from two catastrophic breeding failures in four years, is unthinkable. So CCAMLR needs to act now by adopting a new Marine Protected Area for the waters off East Antarctica, to protect the home of the penguins.”
Ropert-Coudert and his colleagues are in the process of completing a scientific paper on the breeding failure and plan to submit it to a journal in the coming weeks. |
Tencent secures license for app-based insurance sales | Chinese technology firm Tencent has received regulatory approval to offer insurance products through its chat applications WeChat and QQ. China's insurance regulator has granted the license to Wemin Insurance Agency, in which Tencent holds the controlling stake. Combined, the two messaging platforms have approximately 900 million users. China's internet insurance industry is growing significantly, accounting for 65% of policies purchased in the country last year, according to Oliver Wyman. The marketplace is predicted to more than triple over the next four years, representing a $214bn industry by 2021. | http://www.caixinglobal.com/2017-10-12/101155519.html | 2017-10-12 15:38:32.703000 | Wemin Insurance Agency Co. Ltd., whose majority owner is Tencent Holdings Ltd., has been granted a license that allows it to sell insurance products, collect premiums and settle claims as an agent. Photo: Visual China
Competition in China’s fast-growing online insurance industry is intensifying, as tech giant Tencent Holdings Ltd. recently secured a new license to sell insurance products on its popular messaging apps WeChat and QQ.
The China Insurance Regulatory Commission (CIRC) said Wednesday it granted an operating license to Wemin Insurance Agency Co. Ltd., a new insurer in which Tencent owns a 57.8% controlling stake. Other shareholders of Weimin include Taiwan-based Fubon Property & Casualty Insurance Co. and a Chinese private equity fund.
Technology companies are flocking to the internet insurance industry in China in recent years. They are riding on a fintech wave, as well as the country’s opening of its financial services sector once dominated by state companies. The hype remains unabated, as shown by the massive oversubscription in the initial public offering of ZhongAn Online Property & Casualty Insurance Co. Ltd., China’s first online-only insurer, in Hong Kong two weeks ago.
In China, about 65% of new insurance policies were sold through the internet last year, according to management consulting firm Oliver Wyman, which projects that China’s technology-based insurance industry will grow to 1.41 trillion yuan ($214.1 billion) by 2021, up from 363 billion yuan in 2016.
Weimin, established in October 2016, has registered capital of 200 million yuan. The license now allows it to sell insurance products, collecting premiums and settle claims as an agent, the CIRC said.
WeChat, China’s most-used messaging app that also has online payment capabilities, has more than 960 million users. Such a massive platform will likely immediately boost the company’s internet finance portfolio.
Some market watchers believe companies are likely to prioritize sales for platforms in which they have a higher stake. This means Tencent may focus more on Weimin than ZhongAn, challenging the growth of the latter. ZhongAn is also owned by Ant Financial Services Group and Ping An Insurance.
Tencent holds a 20% stake of the Hong Kong unit of U.K.-based insurance group Aviva, and a 15% stake of China’s Hetai Life Insurance Co. Both insurers are eye on expanding their presence in digital insurance.
Ant Financial acquired a controlling 51% stake in Taiwan’s Cathay Century Insurance Co. in 2016. Since then, Cathay Century prioritizes technology as a key business driver, effectively competing head-on against other bigger players like ZhongAn.
Contact reporter Leng Cheng ([email protected]) |
ZhongAn partners with Sinolink for loan-based JV | China's first online-only insurer ZhongAn has launched a joint venture (JV) with Hong Kong-based Sinolink Worldwide. The venture will involve the two firms offering loans, notes, equity investments and fund transfer services. Despite ZhongAn's shares rising on the news of the JV, some analysts commented that it may move the insurer away from its core business operations. ZhongAn listed in Hong Kong on 22 September, and saw its shares rise 60% in its first week of trading, but expects to post a loss this year, partly driven by changes to its product mix. | http://www.scmp.com/business/banking-finance/article/2115127/zhongans-shares-receive-boost-china-joint-venture-deal | 2017-10-12 14:39:59.710000 | Hong Kong-listed online insurer’s chairman Ou Yaping has stakes in both parties involved in the agreement to set up a company in Chongqing |
UK’s national living wage sees numbers of low-paid workers fall | The UK has experienced its largest fall in low-paid workers since the 1970s, after the introduction last year of the national living wage (NLW) of £7.50 per hour for employees aged 25 and above, according to think-tank the Resolution Foundation. Over 300,000 people on low incomes have had their pay boosted by the NLW. Around 19% of workers, or 5.1 million individuals, are currently low-paid, down from 21% (5.4 million) last year. For the first time since the 1980s, low-paid workers constitute less than one in five of the total. Of such workers, 61% are women.
| http://www.resolutionfoundation.org/publications/low-pay-britain-2017/ | 2017-10-12 13:08:50.587000 | This is our seventh annual report on the prevalence of low pay in Britain. It uses the latest data available (April 2016) to map out the scale of low pay and the groups that are most affected. |
UK’s national living wage sees numbers of low-paid workers fall | The UK has experienced its largest fall in low-paid workers since the 1970s, after the introduction last year of the national living wage (NLW) of £7.50 per hour for employees aged 25 and above, according to think-tank the Resolution Foundation. Over 300,000 people on low incomes have had their pay boosted by the NLW. Around 19% of workers, or 5.1 million individuals, are currently low-paid, down from 21% (5.4 million) last year. For the first time since the 1980s, low-paid workers constitute less than one in five of the total. Of such workers, 61% are women.
| https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/oct/12/national-living-wage-has-caused-biggest-fall-in-low-pay-since-70s-says-thinktank | 2017-10-12 13:08:50.587000 | More than 300,000 people on low incomes were given a pay boost by the government’s new “national living wage”, dispelling fears that the move to raise minimum salary levels would trigger widespread job losses.
The Resolution Foundation said Britain had experienced its biggest fall in low-paid workers since the 1970s following the introduction of the national living wage (NLW), which imposes a floor of £7.50 an hour for employees aged 25 and over. The thinktank found that 5.1 million or 19% of workers were low-paid, down from 5.4 million, or just under 21%, last year, bringing the share of employees who are low-paid below one in five for the first time since the 1980s.
Women make up the majority of low-paid workers, at 61% of the total, which the foundation said had changed little over the last few years. The proportion of men reflects their more recent shift into low-paid work previously dominated by women.But the foundation argued that Britain remains too reliant on low-paid work because more than five million employees earn less than two thirds of the median hourly wage of £8.25.
The thinktank said the number of people earning below the voluntary living wage reached a record high, rising from 6 million to 6.2 million. Calculated by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, the voluntary living wage is the amount needed to achieve an acceptable standard of living, pegged at £17,900 per year for single people and £20,400 each for couples with two children
The former chancellor George Osborne introduced the NLW in April 2016. At the time, business leaders in the retail and hospitality sectors accused the government of introducing a tax on jobs that would result in thousands of employees being made redundant.
However, since the NLW took effect, employment has risen and unemployment has fallen to its lowest level for 40 years.
Conor D’Arcy, the Resolution Foundation’s senior policy analyst, said: “Many people warned that the national living wage would be a jobs-killing disaster. It’s early days still but the result so far has been the biggest fall in low pay for four decades, in an economy where employment is at a record high.
“While it’s important to celebrate the national living wage as a bold, positive policy action, we shouldn’t get complacent. As well as the challenges it presents to some employers, more than four million workers are still expected to be in low pay by 2020, and the old problems of women and part-time workers being far more likely to be low paid than men remain,” he said.
Young people have seen a boost to their pay, despite the NLW only legally applying to those aged 25 and over. The analysis finds evidence of a “domino effect” on those aged 16 to 20, with a 3% fall in their low-pay risk since last year, though three quarters of this group are low paid.
While progress has been made across the country, sizeable gaps remain across nations, regions and cities. Yorkshire and the Humber, and the East Midlands are the regions with the highest share of low-paid employees, with 24% of employees falling below the low-pay threshold in each. At the other end of the spectrum, just one in 10 employees in London is low paid. Among city regions, Sheffield (24%), Nottingham, Liverpool and Newcastle (all 23%) are at the top of the low-pay table. |
Airbnb teams up with developer for apartment scheme in Florida | Airbnb has partnered with Miami firm Newgard Development Group to launch its first branded apartment complex in Kissimmee, Florida, according to a joint statement. The 324-unit, home-based community, called Niido Powered by Airbnb, will be built and operated by Newgard, while Airbnb offered input on design. Tenants taking up a lease will be permitted to rent out their units for up to 180 nights per year. Jaja Jackson, Airbnb's director of global multifamily partnerships, said the complex was not a hotel but, if successful, the programme could be rolled out across the US.
| https://www.cnbc.com/2017/10/12/airbnb-is-teaming-up-to-build-a-home-sharing-complex-in-florida.html | 2017-10-12 11:59:58.533000 | Airbnb is introducing its first branded apartment complex in Florida, a state where strict regulations threaten its growth and restrict its supply of available rooms. The partnership with Miami-based Newgard Development Group marks the first step by Airbnb to design accommodations from the ground up for home-sharing, further challenging the traditional hotel industry.
Under the brand "Niido Powered by Airbnb," the first complex in this project is a 324-unit building in Kissimmee, Florida. The apartments there will feature amenities like keyless entry systems, which make it easy for a tenant to check short-term guests in and out of their homes, remotely.
According to a joint statement from Newgard and Airbnb, tenants will sign annual leases be able to rent rooms or units for up to 180 nights per year, and will share revenues with the landlords who own the unit.
Jaja Jackson is Airbnb's director of global multifamily partnerships, and is taking the lead on this project. He told CNBC that if it works, "we hope that we'd roll this out across the US and internationally."
Newgard is paying to build and will own the buildings. But Airbnb helped design the units, buildings and services provided there.
The apartments in the complex will be connected to an Airbnb app that lets tenants order up services like an apartment cleaning, or a fresh set of linens for their guests. These services will be provided on premises by a MasterHost.
CEO of Newguard Development, Harvey Hernandez, says the partnership brings home sharing to the "mainstream." He told CNBC, "we're bringing the opportunity for all our tenants to monetize the asset they rent from us."
Hernandez says Newguard decided to approach Airbnb with this idea after it looked at the multifamily space and realized that tenants were struggling to afford home in the places they really wanted to live.
"How about if we create a homesharing based community that we can scale and be in every market in the US?" he asked himself. "Airbnb was the perfect partner for us so we pitched the idea and they loved it."
Both Jackson and Hernandez insist that "Niido Powered by Airbnb" is not a hotel. Hernandez says the project elevates his development and if anything, "we're complimentary."
Jackson says, "this is not a hotel format because the experience is individual. The host creates a personalized experience for each guest." He adds, "We're able to put Niido locations in cities and locations that aren't typically associated with tourism."
The idea is to empower Airbnb hosts to deliver a luxury travel experience to their guests, and for tenants and landlords to come to a clear agreement over short-term rentals.
The project expands Airbnb's "Friendly Buildings Program" which shares revenue generated from home sharing between hosts and landlords.
Jackson says the program has been a victory for cities, owners and hosts alike. And as regulations threaten to slow its growth, Jackson says it will help increase the number of hosts across the platform at large.
"The program has proven to, in most cases where it's rolled out, increase hosting by approximately 100 percent. And that means hosting that's now done in a legitimate way, with knowledge of the landlord, the property manager and the cities involved," he said.
Municipal and state laws vary significantly across the U.S. In some areas, local governments prohibit tenants from using the homes they've rented on a long-term basis as alternative lodgings.
Towns like Miami Beach, New York and San Francisco have steeply fined home owners when their long-term tenants have turned their properties into something resembling a youth hostel using Airbnb to book guests for short-term stays. |
SecurityScorecard gets $27.5m for its threat-analysis platform | New York cybersecurity rating firm SecurityScorecard has raised $27.5m in a series C funding round led by Nokia Growth Partners, and featuring participation from Google Ventures and Sequoia Capital, among others. SecurityScorecard examines a company's cloud cyber security from a hacker's point of view, and also rates from A to F the strengths or weaknesses of firms a client deals with. SecurityScorecard said the latest funds would be used to expand its market position and develop new products.
| https://venturebeat.com/2017/10/12/cybersecurity-risk-monitoring-platform-securityscorecard-raises-27-5-million-from-nokia-gv-intel-sequoia-others/ | 2017-10-12 11:00:10.040000 | Missed the GamesBeat Summit excitement? Don't worry! Tune in now to catch all of the live and virtual sessions here.
Cybersecurity rating and risk-monitoring platform SecurityScorecard has raised $27.5 million in a series C round of funding led by Nokia’s global venture capital (VC) arm, Nokia Growth Partners (NGP).
Other notable participants in the round include GV (Google Ventures) — which led the company’s $20 million series B round last June — Intel Capital, Sequoia Capital, Moody’s Corporation, AXA Strategic Ventures, Boldstart Ventures, Two Sigma Ventures, and Evolution Equity Partners.
Founded out of New York in 2013, SecurityScorecard helps organizations monitor key security risks around their cloud-based systems by identifying vulnerabilities from a hacker’s perspective. The platform also looks at third-party vendors a company is doing business with to find any weaknesses on their side. SecurityScorecard then assigns ratings from “A” to “F” to help security personnel address the most pressing vulnerabilities and evaluate partnerships.
If a company’s third-party vendor is given an “F” rating, for example, indicating it is more likely to be breached, the company may consider switching providers.
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“Our vision is to create a new language for how companies strategically address, collaborate on, and measure the cybersecurity posture of their entire ecosystem through security ratings,” noted SecurityScorecard founder and CEO Dr. Aleksandr Yampolskiy. “These ratings can be used to report back to the board of directors, continuously monitor third and fourth parties, and more intelligently underwrite cyber insurance policies.”
SecurityScorecard had raised around $35 million before now, and with its latest tranche of funding the company said it plans to “bring new solutions to the market” and expand its “position as the security ratings leader,” according to a statement.
With the massive Equifax data breach still fresh in everyone’s minds, and the global cybersecurity workforce estimated to be short by nearly 2 million people by 2022, it perhaps comes as little surprise that cybersecurity has emerged as a major focus of investment. Just yesterday, Attivo Networks announced a $21 million raise to help thwart cyberattacks using the art of deception, while Darktrace recently raised $75 million and SentinelOne nabbed $70 million.
SecurityScorecard, however, is tackling things from a slightly different perspective by focusing on factors usually outside a company’s direct control, namely, their partner organizations.
“As the world becomes increasingly reliant on the cloud, third-party service providers, and highly distributed infrastructure, enterprises have less visibility and control over mission-critical services, as well as their proprietary and customer data,” added NGP partner Upal Basu. “The SecurityScorecard platform is uniquely positioned to help enterprises gain visibility and control across their IT ecosystem.”
As a result of NGP’s investment in SecurityScorecard, Basu will also be joining the company’s board of directors. |
Hedge funds lose out on Puerto Rico bets | Hedge funds managed by the likes of Paulson & Company, Lone Star Funds and Blackstone may have lost out heavily in the wake of Hurricane Maria. The funds took positions in Puerto Rican investments and are now facing the impact of the hurricane on the island territory. Several funds have already spoken out about losses with a number of real estate investments, like shopping centres and hotels, unable to open for operation. Holders of Puerto Rican debt, an already heavily distressed asset, are also looking down the barrel of significant losses. | https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/09/business/wall-street-paulson-puerto-rico-hedge-funds.html?_r=0 | 2017-10-12 10:42:55.473000 | At the moment, though, those investors are staring at hard-to-quantify red ink.
“We sustained a lot of damage, and we’re facing very significant losses,” said Brian Tenenbaum, regional director for the Morgan Reed Group, which owns or operates several office buildings, commercial buildings and residential complexes on the island.
Samuel Kirschner, chief operating officer with CPG Real Estate, which has been investing in commercial and residential properties in Puerto Rico for nearly 18 years, has struggled to get his properties open because of damage from the storm. After chartering a private plane from Fort Lauderdale, Fla., with canned goods, diapers and batteries, CPG managed to partly open an outdoor shopping plaza in San Juan. The idea was to give residents a place to drink, eat and cool down.
“We’re going to lose a lot of money opening it now,” Mr. Kirschner said.
The Puerto Rico Tourism Company lists at least seven hotels closed with no clear reopening date. About two dozen expect to begin taking reservations before the end of October. Some resorts are said to have suffered little structural damage but severe damage to their beaches and grounds. Tourists might balk at returning to the island anytime soon.
“The turnaround was set back years,” said David Tawil of Maglan Capital, whose firm used to hold Puerto Rican debt.
Even before Hurricane Maria, Puerto Rico’s economy was ailing, with 45 percent of the population living in poverty. In May, Puerto Rico effectively filed the largest-ever federal bankruptcy proceeding by a local government, and much of Wall Street’s attention has focused on the creditors who hold some of Puerto Rico’s $74 billion in public debt. |
Colorado encourages apprenticeships to tackle labour shortages | Colorado's labour and employment department has partnered with non-profit organisation CareerWise Colorado to develop an apprenticeship initiative based on a successful Swiss model. The state apprenticeship programme allows K-12 students to work part-time with firms in the information technology, finance, business operations and advanced manufacturing sectors, earning at least the minimum wage and gaining college credits. The state hopes the scheme will not only encourage students to stay in education but also address a skills gap, which has left tens of thousands of job openings unfilled.
| http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2017/09/27/can-apprenticeships-pave-the-way-to-a.html | 2017-10-12 10:40:38.900000 | Colorado leaders are painfully aware that they need to find skilled workers to fill thousands of jobs. And they’re betting big on their new secret weapon: an apprenticeship program for high school students.
This fall, 116 teenagers from four districts have fanned out to 40 companies in Colorado in the inaugural year of the state’s apprenticeship program. Three days a week, the junior and senior students are at school, and two days a week, they’re earning minimum wage or more while they learn the ins and outs of finance, information technology, business operations, or advanced manufacturing.
Colorado has a grand vision for the outcome of this project: By 2026, 20,000 apprentices from all across the state will have finished high school with transferable college credit, at least one postsecondary credential, three years of work experience, and in most cases, an associate degree.
The program fits into an expanding national conversation about how schools can do a better job with the career side of the well-known mantra “college- and career-readiness.” A changing economy demands a workforce with sophisticated technical skills, and at least some training or education after high school.
Even with low national unemployment, many jobs are going unfilled as companies search for the talent with the skills they need . Searching for answers, policymakers are encouraging schools to use internships, work-based learning, and apprenticeships to expose young people to career ideas and build work experience. President Donald Trump is likewise urging high schools to offer apprenticeships .
In Colorado, the aim is to arm students with general work skills like good communication and time management, which can pay off in a wide variety of jobs, and industry-specific skills like software development or accounting. Each apprenticeship is based on a curriculum developed jointly by business, colleges, and K-12 schools.
The goal is to better position students to save time and money in college and compete for jobs and to supply a bigger pool of skilled workers for Colorado companies.
“We literally have tens of thousands of jobs every week that go unfilled,” said Ellen Golombek, the executive director of Colorado’s labor and employment department, which helped shape the apprenticeship program. “We’re taking a look at the entire work-based-learning spectrum to train, retrain, and ‘upskill’ the workforce to meet our current and projected needs.”
Colorado officials are also hoping to not-so- subtly make another point: Apprenticeships aren’t just for young people aspiring to traditional trade jobs like plumbing or electrical work.
Byoncé Reyna illustrates that point. The Denver 16-year-old hopes to be an elementary school teacher. But she’s over-the-top excited about her apprenticeship at an insurance company. Since early August, she’s been working two days a week at Pinnacol Assurance, which provides worker-compensation policies.
“Insurance is not exactly what I want to do in my life, but knowing how to take on tasks, how to work and thrive in a business environment, will help me in whatever I do,” she said.
Her apprenticeship has brought a bachelor’s degree within her reach, the 11th grader said.
“Coming from a single-parent household, college is really a stressful topic,” said Byoncé, whose mother works at an auto-financing company.
“With all the debt, it seemed like a crazy idea. But now that I can get halfway through college with no debt and a paid position, it’s mind-blowing. It’s more than I could ask for at such a young age.”
In her first few weeks at Pinnacol, Byoncé started with workplace skills, such as learning the Microsoft Office suite of computer tools, and, as she puts it, “how to maintain this young-professional persona and make sure people know we mean business.”
Now, under the watchful eye of a Pinnacol adviser, she’s rotating through underwriting, claims adjustment, and other departments. Over the next three years, Byoncé, a junior, will try her hand at various posts, spending more time at work, and less on her high school campus, as she gets closer to graduation.
By her third year, she’ll be taking community college classes and working three or four days a week at Pinnacol, building expertise in one specific area of the company.
Twenty-two other apprentices are working at Pinnacol, too. They all learn the 26 workplace competencies Colorado has built into the program, such as being a self-starter, teamwork, and thinking logically. But beyond that, they will find unique niches in the company as they rotate through various departments.
Some might gravitate toward working with clients over the phone, and others might take a shine to underwriting. Still others might choose to build their technology skills by developing content for Pinnacol’s website, said Mark Tapy, who is overseeing the company’s apprenticeship program.
Wading into the program is no small matter for companies. Pinnacol has agreed to pay 23 apprentices $9.60 per hour for two full days a week and as much as $12 or $15 per hour, three days a week, as they progress through the program.
Participating companies also pay $2,000 to $5,000 per apprentice for their courses at community colleges and other training providers.
There’s also the time and effort of writing the curriculum, which lays out specific weekly goals, and supervising teenagers as they learn. Pinnacol’s is a blend of general workplace competencies agreed upon by business, K-12, and higher education, and an insurance-specific course it developed with The Institutes , an organization that confers credentials for the insurance industry.
The way Pinnacol sees it, the effort is worth the payoff. The company and the industry nationwide anticipate a big wave of retirements in the coming decade, Tapy said, so Pinnacol can’t just wait around to see what happens.
“We’re trying to create a new talent-acquisition strategy for our organization, and our industry, to ensure that we retain some of the institutional knowledge we’ve had,” he said.
These kinds of economic shifts were on the minds of leaders in Colorado’s business and education sectors as they started to explore the apprenticeship idea last year. Led by Gov. John Hickenlooper, they organized a trip to Switzerland , where 40 percent of companies offer apprenticeships in more than 200 professions. About 70 percent of Swiss students participate in the world-renowned program.
They learned that companies make a net profit on their apprenticeship investments. Over three years, a Swiss economics professor told the delegation, companies spend $86,000 on average on each apprentice but get contributions valued at $95,000.
Research shows that Swiss students who take part in apprenticeships have lower unemployment and higher earnings than peers who stick to the exclusively academic track. Apprentices don’t end up stuck with their early job choices, either; Swiss research shows that later occupational changes are common.
With the Swiss system as a model, Colorado began planning its program as a way to keep students in the school pipeline, set them up for good jobs, and serve industry’s need for a skilled workforce. It decided to put businesses in the driver’s seat, using their needs as a starting point.
“If they’re not at the table, if they can’t tell us what they need, we’re flying blind” in trying to provide it, said Golombek, the state labor and employment director.
The state chose four focus areas for the apprenticeship program—finance, information technology, advanced manufacturing, and business operations—based on which businesses expressed interest in being part of the new system, she said. But they also had to be areas with high growth potential in Colorado’s economy.
A nonprofit organization, CareerWise Colorado , coordinates the many moving parts of the system. The organization convenes conversations with business and education to define apprenticeship competencies and figure out how to monitor and assess students’ progress.
It works with K-12 schools to infuse career exploration and specific career skills into coursework.
And it’s working with the state’s two- and four-year colleges to create articulation agreements that guarantee that students can transfer the credits they earn in the program.
“This requires new thinking, new models, and new partnerships, but this is a new economy,” said Kim Hunter Reed, the executive director of Colorado’s department of higher education.
The project has pushed education and business into a new, positive kind of relationship, said Gretchen Morgan, CareerWise Colorado’s president.
“In the United States, it’s hard for business and schools to have a practical way to be connected to each other to ensure that schools know enough about changing industry to be responsive,” she said. “When they share responsibility for apprentices, they have this very practical way to be in touch about the relevant competencies.”
Colorado has set ambitious goals for its initiative, and national experts are watching to see how it unfolds. One such expert sees big challenges ahead.
“The biggest challenge is getting employers to seriously play in this game,” said Robert B. Schwartz, who leads the Pathways to Prosperity Network , a group of states that work on career-readiness policies with Harvard University and Jobs for the Future.
In the United States, employers tend to “wait around to see what shows up on their doorstep,” while Swiss companies “get in at the front end” and help shape the education system so it produces the talent pool they need, said Schwartz, who has studied the Swiss apprenticeship system .
Creating a nationwide Swiss-style apprenticeship system would require that big shift in thinking from U.S. companies, he said.
And it would demand a radical restructuring of high schools that Schwartz said he doubts most schools would embrace: a “lower secondary” and “upper secondary” model, in which students spend the first two years on academics and career readiness, and the second evenly divided between work and study. |
Facebook pricing dynamics said to favour divisive political ads | Facebook's advertising price structures reward provocative and polarised messages, according to analysts. The platform's systems respond to ads that gain shares and likes, showing them to more users and reducing the overall cost to the client. In the 2016 US election, this led to Donald Trump's messages reaching more Facebook users than those of Hillary Clinton, despite his campaign spending less money on them. Campaigners for transparency have called for federal regulations on online advertising to ensure that all candidates are charged the same rate for adverts, as is the case for TV advertising.
| https://www.theverge.com/2017/10/11/16449976/facebook-political-ads-trump-russia-election-news-feed | 2017-10-12 09:53:42.103000 | As the debate intensifies around Russian ad buys in the US election, a fundamental aspect of Facebook’s platform has gone mostly overlooked. Facebook’s auction-based system rewards ads that draw engagement from users by making them cheaper, serving them to more users for less money. But the mechanics that apply to commercial ads apply to political ones as well. Facebook has created a powerful system that dynamically, and unpredictably, changes the prices of political ads. The system also encourages polarization by incentivizing ads that users are predisposed to agree with.
Unless Facebook makes its internal data public, it’s impossible to say which ads reach which audiences, or how much candidates spend to reach them. After the 2016 presidential election, a senior Facebook employee said that Trump’s cost of reaching voters was substantially lower than Clinton’s, according to communications reviewed by The Verge. Trump was able to reach a larger audience than Clinton for less money, the employee said, illustrating the power of mastering Facebook’s ad platform. At a time when the company’s advertising business is under increasing scrutiny, Facebook’s platform dynamics could represent a new avenue for regulators to investigate.
The mechanics that apply to commercial ads apply to political ones as well
Most media outlets do not routinely set prices based on the content of the advertising, or how much their audiences are expected to enjoy it. But Facebook does: the company adjusts the number of people an ad will reach after it is posted and users began interacting with it. This approach has upended traditional approaches to political advertising, in ways that campaigns are only beginning to reckon with.
The Trump campaign’s mastery of Facebook advertising is well established. Speaking to Bloomberg Businessweek in the run-up to Election Day, the campaign’s digital agency, Giles-Parscale, said it generated more than 100,000 ad variations. Trump paid Giles-Parscale about $90 million to run ads, the majority of which ran on Facebook, where they were micro-targeted to an unknown number of disparate audiences. Clinton’s digital marketing efforts were led by Bully Pulpit Interactive, which the campaign paid $100 million.
A Facebook spokesperson said ad costs fluctuated for both candidates during the campaign, and that at different times each candidate had the advantage. The spokesperson argued that Facebook’s ad platform usually limits the spread of polarizing messages — messages that reflect the views of a minority of the population — by making them more expensive to distribute. This occurs naturally, because News Feed algorithms resist sharing items that are likely to drive people away.
But even as Facebook makes unpopular messages more expensive to distribute, it can still promote polarization on a grander scale: thanks to Facebook’s microtargeting capabilities, voters can see fewer viewpoints that they might disagree with, because Facebook algorithms treat disagreement as bad for the user experience. On one hand, the actual impact of these dynamics is unknown; public data simply isn’t available. But on its face, the ad engine would seem to promote the creation and exploitation of filter bubbles.
News Feed algorithms resist sharing items that are likely to drive people away
In the pre-digital era, political candidates seeking to buy advertising competed on a relatively even playing field. Candidates buying airtime on television shows, ad space in newspapers, or postage for direct mail, are charged roughly equivalent prices to reach the same amount of people. Since 1927, the equal-time rule has required radio and television stations to offer equivalent time to political candidates if they ask for it, and at the same price. It originated out of fears that broadcasters would refuse to sell time to political candidates — or sell it to them at unfair rates.
The fact that one of the country’s dominant political ad platforms throttles messaging based on its shareability is a fact political campaigns must reckon with, and adapt to. “It’s the same dynamic that BuzzFeed and Jonah Peretti really mastered,” says Tim Wu, author of The Attention Merchants, an examination and critique of ad technology on Facebook and other platforms. “Vitality depends on strong emotional responses, hence polarized messages, whether advertising or news or whatever, travel further.”
The Trump campaign did not respond to a request for comment. It has previously said the company’s advertising tools were essential to its strategy. “Without Facebook, we wouldn’t have won,” Trump digital campaign official Theresa Wong said in a BBC documentary last month. Representatives of the Clinton campaign declined to comment.
To place an ad on Facebook, a political campaign has to win an automated auction. At any given time, millions of advertisers are competing to place ads in front of Facebook’s 2 billion-plus daily users. Advertisers can price their ads by the number of people who see it, the number of people who click on a link, or the number of people who engage with the ad, such as by watching a video or installing an app. Facebook averages out the cost of these various ads into a figure it calls an “eCPM” — the effective cost per 1,000 impressions.
The CPM is a standard measurement in the advertising industry. But Facebook’s ads differ from traditional ads in an important way: the company offers advertisers a monetary incentive to create more engaging ads. As users begin to click, share, and engage with an ad, Facebook begins showing it to more people. That lowers the eCPM, often allowing advertisers to reach a larger audience for the same amount of money. In some cases, Facebook’s automated systems will choose to display ads that had lower bids, if it believes the content of the ad will draw more engagement from users. The monetary goal of this system is to keep users scrolling through the News Feed, maximizing the number of ads that they encounter.
Facebook offers advertisers a monetary incentive to create more engaging ads
It’s the same approach that Facebook takes to the News Feed generally. Your friends’ status updates, links from publishers, and longform videos all compete for slots in the News Feed. Facebook shows each one to a subset of the account’s friends or followers, and expands that number as people read, watch, comment, and share. It’s the system that has turned the News Feed into one of the most engaging and lucrative products of all time — one that generated $17 billion in ad revenue in the first half of this year.
But the incentive structure that works so well for commercial advertising has unintended consequences when applied to political advertising. Over the past year, problems caused by the spread of more “engaging” content have repeatedly put Facebook on the defensive. Hoaxes and fictional news stories about the election were among the most engaging stories on Facebook in 2016, and the company’s algorithms generated a fire hose of readers for them as a result, generating as much as $10,000 a month in ad revenue for some solo publishers pushing fake news.
The form and content of political ads are largely unregulated — unlike commercial ads, where advertisers can be held accountable for the claims they make. Treating commercial and political speech as equals by rewarding viral posts can foster polarization.
“If you think of this as a game of incentives, that would incentivize campaigns to not only target their messages, but to target them in ways that would further inflame and polarize opinions,” said Michael Franz, co-executive director of the Wesleyan Media Project, which archives and analyzes political messages, “not only as a mechanism to increase support among your base, but also as a mechanism to make it cost-efficient.”
“Facebook’s profits depend on people coming back, clicking and sharing things.”
“Facebook’s profits depend on people coming back, clicking and sharing things,” said Alex Howard, deputy director of the Sunlight Foundation, which advocates for transparency in political advertising. “It’s not based on, ‘did we arrive at a resonated discourse on this policy proposal?’ or ‘did the best questions get asked at this town hall?’ or ‘did this politician get fact-checked on the lies that he or she was propagating?’”
Recently, Mark Zuckerberg laid out a nine-point plan primarily aimed at reducing the influence of foreign governments and other bad actors — requirements like labeling ads with disclosures about who paid for them and collecting them on pages where the public can inspect them. The steps, he said, would work “to protect election integrity and make sure that Facebook is a force for good in democracy.”
Despite the changes, the ads themselves will still be sold and distributed in the same way, offering the broadest and least expensive reach to the most-clicked and shared ads that candidates create.
Whether or not promoting built-to-share political ads swayed the 2016 election, it appears that, at the very least, Facebook’s algorithms granted them a wider reach. The tactic perfected by the Trump campaign — creating countless variations of ads, and then targeting them narrowly to as many niche groups as possible — will likely be studied and adopted by candidates around the world.
In the meantime, public interest groups and observers have called on the FEC to initiate a new rulemaking proceeding to create new regulations for political advertising on social media platforms. “They need to reexamine all the federal campaign finance laws and how they apply to new technology,” said Paul S. Ryan, vice president for policy and litigation at Common Cause. Ryan noted that the last such proceeding took place a decade ago. Former FEC commissioner Ann Ravel called for such a rulemaking proceeding three years ago, but was rejected by the commission’s Republican members.
Wu recently told New York magazine, “Facebook should be required to screen and disclose what their advertising practices are, how much people are paying, whether people get the same rates.” |
Make School raises $10m for practical computer science learning | San Francisco edtech start-up Make School has raised $10.1m in funding from an undisclosed investor, according to a recent US Securities and Exchange Commission filing. Through its two-year Product Academy, which it bills as an alternative to college, Make School offers courses on everything from computer science to artificial intelligence. The company has had more than one million online tutorial users and upwards of 500 in-person students.
| http://newscenter.io/2017/10/make-school-brings-10-1-million/ | 2017-10-12 09:51:32.660000 | According to a recent SEC filing, edtech startup Make School has raised $10.1 million in financing from an undisclosed investor.
Make School aims to create a replacement for computer science degrees. Its Product Academy is a two-year college alternative where students can learn mobile and web development, computer science theory, AI, IoT and development-focused career skills. The year culminates with an internship at a tech startup.
Make School’s curriculum has been used to teach courses at three of the top four universities for computer engineering. More than 500 students have taken its in-person courses and more than a million people have used its online tutorials.
|
China's surge in breast cancer cases expected to continue | Breast cancer rates have risen at a rate of around 3.5% annually in China between 2000 to 2013, according to data from China's national cancer registry. Potential reasons for the rise include the after-effects of China's one child policy, increased stress of living in urban cities, performing less physical activity than before and increasingly unhealthy diets, including a rise in alcohol consumption, which is prevalent in the urban areas.
| http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/why-china-is-seeing-a-huge-increase-is-breast-cancer-rates-a7994231.html | 2017-10-12 09:25:45.410000 | Stay ahead of the trend in fashion and beyond with our free weekly Lifestyle Edit newsletter Stay ahead of the trend in fashion and beyond with our free weekly Lifestyle Edit newsletter Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the
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Breast cancer is the most common cancer among women in China, according to the latest data from China’s national cancer registry. An analysis of the data reveals that the cancer has increased at a rate of around 3.5 per cent a year from 2000 to 2013, compared with a drop of 0.4 per cent a year over the same period in the US.
The analysis also reveals that breast cancer rates are higher in urban areas of China than in rural areas. And the higher the population density, the higher the rate. For small cities (population below 500,000), the incidence of breast cancer is 30 per 100,000. For medium-sized cities (population between 500,000 to one million), it is 40 in 100,000. And for large cities (population above one million), the incidence rate is 60 per 100,000 women.
With the rapid development of China’s economy, more and more people have moved from rural areas and towns to large cities. As a result, many “megacities” have sprung up. By 2014, China had six megacities with populations above 10 million. It is very likely that urbanisation is having a big impact on breast cancer incidence in China.
Below is a list of some of the factors that may be behind the rise in breast cancer incidence in China.
Childbearing: having more than one child lowers breast-cancer risk. With the one-child policy in place since 1979, most women – especially if they worked in the city – had to strictly follow the policy in order to avoid being fined. Although the one-child policy rule was replaced in 2015 with a two-child policy rule, the possible benefit on breast cancer incidence will probably take 15 to 20 years to show.
A broadcast television awareness event in Hangzhou in 2015 (Getty)
Research also shows that the women who have their first child at age 35 or younger tend to have a protective benefit from pregnancy. However, in China, many women have chosen to delay having a child as a result of work pressure and cultural change.
Women are also less likely to breastfeed than previous generations, which may be another contributing factor. Research has shown that both pregnancy and breastfeeding reduce a woman’s risk of developing cancer, because they reduce the lifetime number of menstrual cycles. As a result, women are exposed to less oestrogen. (Oestrogen can stimulate breast cancer cells to grow.) It has also been hypothesised that breast cells need to mature in order to produce milk and mature cells are more resistant to becoming cancer cells.
Mastectomy: Stand Up To Cancer launches powerful photo campaign Show all 13 1 / 13 Mastectomy: Stand Up To Cancer launches powerful photo campaign Mastectomy: Stand Up To Cancer launches powerful photo campaign Joanna, Newcastle (Image: Ami Barwell) Mastectomy: Stand Up To Cancer launches powerful photo campaign Mel, Merseyside (Image: Ami Barwell) Mastectomy: Stand Up To Cancer launches powerful photo campaign Lucy, Wakefield (Image: Ami Barwell) Mastectomy: Stand Up To Cancer launches powerful photo campaign Sharon, Bath (Image: Ami Barwell) Mastectomy: Stand Up To Cancer launches powerful photo campaign Jan, Hereford (Image: Ami Barwell) Mastectomy: Stand Up To Cancer launches powerful photo campaign Gillian, London (Image: Ami Barwell) Mastectomy: Stand Up To Cancer launches powerful photo campaign Fiona, Northampton (Image: Ami Barwell) Mastectomy: Stand Up To Cancer launches powerful photo campaign Anon S, West Midlands (Image: Ami Barwell) Mastectomy: Stand Up To Cancer launches powerful photo campaign Debbie W, Worcestershire (Image: Ami Barwell) Mastectomy: Stand Up To Cancer launches powerful photo campaign Debbie B, York (Image: Ami Barwell) Mastectomy: Stand Up To Cancer launches powerful photo campaign Clare, North Lincolnshire (Image: Ami Barwell) Mastectomy: Stand Up To Cancer launches powerful photo campaign Caroline, Brancaster (Image: Ami Barwell) Mastectomy: Stand Up To Cancer launches powerful photo campaign Anon (Image: Ami Barwell)
Researchers in China have found associations between these “reproductive factors” – including oral contraceptives and hormone-replacement therapy – and the rise in breast cancer incidence in China.
Stress: this is more likely to be experienced in large cities and has been linked to increased risk of developing cancer. Although stress may not directly cause cancer, it does affect the levels of various hormones and it suppresses the immune system. And, once cancer has developed, stress is believed to aid its progression.
Lifestyle: in modern China, women are generally less physically active than they were in previous generations. A study published in the International Journal of Behavioural Nutrition and Physical Activity, shows that levels of physical activity for adults in China fell by nearly half between 1991 and 2011, and they declined more rapidly for women than for men.
An unhealthy diet is also increasingly common in urban China, with a proliferation of fast-food outlets. This has resulted in an increase in obesity among Chinese women.
Increased alcohol assumption has long been associated with the increased risk of developing breast cancer and a World Health Organisation bulletin notes that, in China, alcohol consumption is increasing faster than in other parts of the world.
Ageing: this is the biggest risk factor for breast cancer. Women are living longer in China, which is a key factor related to the increased incidence of breast cancer in the country. As people get older, there is more genetic damage and less ability to repair the damages.
Even though the prevalence of breast cancer among women in China is lower than in many developed countries, the rapid increase in incidence of the disease – which is also being witnessed in India – is cause for great concern.
An awareness event in Pudong in 2013 where participants tried to break the record for the world’s largest ball pit (Reuters)
Because of China’s large population, even with a small percentage of improvement on cancer prevention, a sizeable number of women’s lives could be saved. There are many risk factors that can be reduced by raising cancer awareness and having better education on diet, exercise, stress reduction as well as improving breast cancer screening. Public health authorities can play a crucial role in developing well-defined strategies to tackle the issue and reduce the breast cancer burden in China.
Jin-Li Luo is a senior bioinformatician at the University of Leicester. This article first appeared on The Conversation (theconversation.com) |
Michelin envisages 3D-printed airless tyre that won't go flat | A new 3D-printed car tyre that won't go flat and can be easily retreaded has been proposed by Michelin. Its Vision tyre could be produced from organic recyclable compounds instead of petroleum-based materials and would consist of a solid sponge-like structure, removing the need for it to be filled with air, the company said. The concept model would also contain smart sensors to monitor wear, and could be retreaded by 3D-printing a new layer on top of the existing tyre, reducing waste.
| https://www.treehugger.com/sustainable-product-design/3d-printed-vision-tire-uses-computational-design-michelin.html | 2017-10-12 09:25:07.513000 | Bridgestone's "Air Free Concept" tires may represent the future of bicycle tires. Or not.
The most common bike malady, a flat tire, isn't necessarily that hard or costly to repair, but it also seems to often occur at the most inopportune moments, so even if you're prepared with a patch kit, tire tool, and pump, it still requires a bit of time and effort. And if you're not equipped to handle it when it happens, a flat tire can be a real pain in the gear.
However, if your bike tires were airless, as some companies are promising for the near future, then flats could be a thing of the past, as they won't need inflation, patching, or tube replacements. It's not just a fringe manufacturer thing, either, as a major tire manufacturer is looking to enter the market with a new non-pneumatic bike tire within the next two years.
Bridgestone, which is said to be the world’s largest tire and rubber company, is revisiting a tire technology initially developed for cars, with the aim of getting its bicycle "Air Free Concept" tires into production by 2019. While Michelin also worked to develop an airless car tire (the Tweel, which is an available upgrade for lawn tractors now) over ten years ago, and Bridgestone has presented its version at car shows over the last few years, the company's focus on developing an airless bike tire seems to be gaining more traction now.
According to the company, "The “Air Free Concept” is a technology that eliminates the need for tires to be inflated with air to support the weight, using a unique structure of spokes stretching along the inner sides of tires. In addition, the resins that are used in the spokes and rubbers help realize more efficient use of resources."
© Bridgestone
At first glance, these new tires look a bit odd, but the idea itself seems sound, as eliminating a common pain point for casual cyclists could make bike transportation a bit easier. And if the price was right, investing in a pair of airless tires could work out to be a better deal over the long run, when considering the cost of new tubes and tires, plus the time spent patching or replacing them over the years.
However, a few things came to mind when considering the "Air Free Concept" tire, such as the potential added drag from "spokes" that are more like fan blades than spokes, and the fact that they require a whole new wheel to use. You can't just replace your current bike tire with one of these, as everything from the hub out to the rim is an entirely different system, and because every single bicycle shop on the planet is set up to build and repair conventional spoke wheels that roll on a standard tube and tire combination, getting a new type of tire and wheel to a certain critical mass of adoption might be an epic effort. The Nexo tires look like a much easier sell to cyclists, as they can be fitted to existing wheels, but who knows, with Bridgestone behind this new tire concept, perhaps the company will be able leverage its massive influence to boost adoption rates.
As for me, I kinda like being able to adjust the inflation level on my mountain bike tires to match the riding conditions on the trail, so I would probably steer clear of a tire design that couldn't do that, even with the risk of flats. And as any cyclist who lives in flat tire country knows (goatheads are my personal bicycle nemesis), a tire liner and some goo (True Goo is the shiz) will keep you rolling through most minor punctures, and is a cheap and effective remedy that can be applied to pretty much any bike tire. But your mileage may vary, in which case a non-pneumatic bike tire might just be what you need.
h/t Core77 |
China's tourists shift towards local destinations | Chinese tourists are increasingly opting for more local destinations for their overseas holidays. During the semi-annual Golden Week holiday, during which over 700 million Chinese citizens travelled abroad, four of the five most popular overseas cities were located in Asia - Hong Kong, Tokyo, Osaka and Bangkok - with Paris the only European city listed in the top five. Figures by Trivago also showed that Chinese tourists are expanding to new locations such as Morocco, Turkey, UAE, the Czech Republic, Finland, Austria, Vietnam and Cambodia. Furthermore, there is an increasing call for exclusive, tailor-made travel services rather than vacation packages, said Ctrip.
| https://www.cnbc.com/2017/10/11/china-travel-tourists-embrace-less-conventional-locations-and-tailor-made-trips.html | 2017-10-12 09:15:38.323000 | Tourists from China visit Ephesus, an ancient Greek city located near present-day Selcuk, Izmir Province, in Turkey, on Aug. 27, 2017. Mikhail Svetlov | Getty Images
Last week 6 million Chinese tourists traveled abroad during a national holiday, and that likely meant big paydays for traditional tourist destinations, such as London or Paris. But, increasingly, China's travelers are taking their families — and their money — to less conventional locales. All told, more than 700 million in China traveled during the semi-annual Golden Week holiday from Oct. 1 to Oct. 8, according to the government. And while the couple million tourists who took the week to go abroad mostly visited longtime Asia favorites, there're indications that new countries are catching their attentions. That is, four of the five most popular international destinations among Chinese tourists during the eight-day holiday were located in Asia, according to travel bookings platform Trivago . Those locations included Hong Kong, Tokyo, Osaka and Bangkok, with Paris the lone European city in the top five.
'Hot new locations'
Besides those mainstays, mainland tourists bitten by the travel bug are also increasingly adventurous. Some are looking farther afield for their next vacation and others eschewing the traditional package tours in favor of self-planned trips. These were the "hot new locations" that saw greater than 50 percent growth in the number of tourist bookings this year, according to Ctrip , one of the largest travel services providers in China. Expedia-owned Trivago also mentioned similar trends: Morocco
Turkey
The United Arab Emirates
The Czech Republic
Finland
Austria
Germany
Vietnam
Cambodia
Italy Accompanying the growing desire to visit those destinations is the increased demand for more personalized holiday experiences, market research shows. Tailor-made travel services are fast becoming customary among wealthy travelers looking to escape cookie-cutter vacation packages. According to Ctrip, factors that more Chinese tourists are seeking out from their holidays include "avoiding big crowds," "no shopping" and private travel guides. When travelers visit places others haven't, they can derive "social cachet," and that's become a trend among the middle class, according to Ben Cavender, a principal at consultancy China Market Research Group. "Increasingly, we are seeing well-heeled Chinese travel to hard-to-reach destinations for the bragging rights and WeChat pictures [to] show they've been somewhere exotic," he said.
The big picture
Still, overall travel patterns for the year show that major Asian countries continue to make up most of the top destinations visited by mainland travelers. Both Trivago and Ctrip said Japan, Singapore, Vietnam, Hong Kong and Taiwan were among the most in-demand locations for Chinese tourists traveling overseas. More than 70 percent of Chinese tourists traveling abroad will visit other Asian countries this year, according to Ctrip. Of those Asia-bound travelers, 45 percent will head to countries in Southeast Asia, with Thailand proving the most popular destination in that region, a Ctrip spokesman told CNBC. Meanwhile, those tourists are also willing to spend more — and not just on shopping.
watch now
"We see that Chinese travelers are spending more and more," Trivago CEO Rolf Schromgens told CNBC's "Squawk Box" on Monday. Chinese tourist expenditure on hotel rooms has increased 23 percent compared to the year before, he added. Contrary to the "stereotype of Chinese tourists," an increasing number of mainland travelers are now more willing to spend on experiences, with luxury hotels and unique travel services starting to form a larger expenditure item for many, according to Ctrip.
Staying local
Still, for most Chinese travelers, domestic destinations took the crown, especially during Golden Week. About 59 percent of searches on Trivago were for domestic travel during the period, a spokeswoman said. Destinations that Chinese tourists were most interested in visiting for the holiday included Beijing, Xi'an, Chengdu, Chongqing and Shanghai, according to Trivago. Those results fit in the wider trend of a pick-up in domestic travel: Domestic trips made by Chinese tourists increased 13.5 percent in the first half — exceeding the 5.1 percent rise in overseas travel recorded in the same period, Reuters said.
Tourists view the Qiantang River Tide at Haining during the National Day holiday on Oct. 7, 2017 in Jiaxing, Zhejiang Province, China. Domestic travel destinations were popular among Chinese tourists during the Golden Week holiday this year. VCG | Getty Images |
How Amazon becoming a pharmacy could lower the price of drugs, according to Morgan Stanley | Morgan Stanley has a new report out for investors that outlines how Amazon's potential push into pharmacy would benefit consumers. In the first phase, the authors speculate that Amazon could open "virtual retail pharmacies," leveraging its Prime Now network for millions of U.S. consumers to buy drugs online.
| https://www.cnbc.com/2017/10/11/how-amazon-could-lower-drug-prices-for-consumers--morgan-stanley.html | 2017-10-12 09:09:17.120000 | Morgan Stanley has a new report out for investors that outlines how Amazon 's potential push into pharmacy would benefit consumers.
In the first phase, the authors speculate that Amazon could open "virtual retail pharmacies," leveraging its Prime Now network for millions of U.S. consumers to buy drugs online.
"Amazon could use a lighter brick and mortar footprint to drive pricing down," the report reads.
It would not be a huge challenge for Amazon to become a pharmacy and get added to existing pharmacy benefits managers' networks, the authors suggest. The reason for that is that "employers are already inquiring about Amazon's potential role," which means that pharmacy benefits managers would be unlikely to lock Amazon out.
Secondly, the company could establish relationships with manufacturers of inexpensive generic drugs.
And finally, and most critically, Amazon would build partnerships with makers of branded drugs.
If the company is successful, Morgan Stanley expects that the rebates and other discounts that are currently retained by companies including the pharmacy benefits managers could "pass back to consumers."
All of this could take a "long time," according to the researchers, but it's doable for a company with Amazon's resources and scale.
Late last week, CNBC reported that Amazon will make a final decision in the next four to six weeks about whether it will move into the drug supply chain. It's still an open question for the company, as pharmacy is a huge market but is highly complex.
Pharmacy stocks plummeted in the wake of the news report.
While CVS Health, Rite Aid and Walgreens are considered to be most at risk, Morgan Stanley suggests that some companies in the drug supply chain are more insulated. These include Diplomat, as Amazon might not touch the specialty drug market, and UnitedHealth's Optum, which may be a potential partner rather than a competitor. |
House Republicans Ramp Up Scrutiny of Providers in Drug Discount Program | House Republicans are intensifying scrutiny of a federal program that gives thousands of safety-net providers hefty discounts on prescription drugs but that they say doesn’t have effective tools to track where the savings are going.
| https://morningconsult.com/2017/10/11/house-republicans-ramp-scrutiny-providers-drug-discount-program/ | 2017-10-12 09:07:50.717000 | House Republicans are intensifying scrutiny of a federal program that gives thousands of safety-net providers hefty discounts on prescription drugs but that they say doesn’t have effective tools to track where the savings are going.
The 340B Drug Pricing Program makes some providers, such as children’s hospitals, federal health centers and specialty clinics, eligible for discounts of between 25 to 50 percent on outpatient drugs. Providers are supposed to use the generated savings to ensure low-income patients have access to essential health services and treatments.
The 340B program has had bipartisan support in Congress since it was signed into law in 1992, and lawmakers from both parties have opposed a reimbursement rate cut to the program that the Trump administration proposed in order to generate what it says would be $900 million in savings in the 2018 calendar year.
But some GOP lawmakers do have concerns about how providers are using the savings they get on drugs. Drugmakers, which can only participate in Medicaid if they agree to sell outpatient drugs at discounts to 340B providers, have also raised concerns about how the savings are handled.
Republicans’ concerns spurred the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Oversight to begin an investigation in July into federal oversight of the program.
At a hearing on Wednesday, the committee’s chairman, Greg Walden, (R-Ore.) said some providers recently interviewed by the committee don’t have policies in place to ensure all their eligible patients directly benefit from the program or track their 340B savings on a regular basis.
“This lack of transparency and coherent reporting requirements is concerning,” Walden said. “Frankly, without the data it is hard to know whether this program is working.”
The Health Resources and Services Administration, which oversees the program, says participating entities are supposed to use the savings to “stretch scarce federal resources as far as possible,” but federal law doesn’t clarify where the savings should go, nor does it require providers to then prescribe outpatient drugs at discounted prices to uninsured patients.
Officials from five 340B providers spoke at the Wednesday hearing on how they use the savings. While all the officials who testified said under oath that their organizations sell the drugs at a discount to all eligible patients, Rep. Ryan Costello (R-Pa.) said inconsistencies between providers makes it impossible for federal oversight officials to ensure there is compliance across the board.
The investigation could lead to legislative action, said Rep. Buddy Carter (R-Ga.), a member of the oversight subcommittee.
“We need to make some changes to it and yes, we’re looking at legislation to do just that,” he said in a brief interview on Wednesday.
Rep. Frank Pallone of New Jersey, the top committee Democrat, said he could support action to improve transparency in the program, but he and other Democrats pushed back against concerns that hospitals are misusing the savings, citing recent interviews conducted by the committee’s minority members with safety-net providers.
“While I am always happy to have a conversation about strengthening the 340B program, it is plain from the responses we have received that 340B-covered entities are using their savings to serve the community, and Congress should commend and support these efforts,” Pallone said in an opening statement, according to a transcript of his prepared remarks. |
'Trump effect' will double prices of many California Obamacare health plans next year | Threats by President Donald Trump to ax crucial payments to health insurers will double, on average, the price of most Obamacare plans in California next year. Obamacare officials in the Golden State on Wednesday said they are slapping a 12.4 percent surcharge on the prices of so-called silver individual health plans in 2018 because of uncertainty over whether Trump will continue making those payments.
| https://www.cnbc.com/2017/10/11/trump-effect-will-double-prices-of-many-california-obamacare-health-plans-next-year.html | 2017-10-12 09:07:19.347000 | Threats by President Donald Trump to ax crucial payments to health insurers will double, on average, the price of most Obamacare plans in California next year.
Obamacare officials in the Golden State on Wednesday said they are slapping a 12.4 percent surcharge on the prices of so-called silver individual health plans in 2018 because of uncertainty over whether Trump will continue making those payments.
And it will be taxpayers, not the insurance customers themselves, who will end up footing much of the bill.
Without the surcharge, silver plans sold on Covered California, the state's Obamacare marketplace, would have risen an average of just 12.5 percent next year, officials said as they revealed overall prices statewide.
With the surcharge, the average price hike is just shy of 25 percent.
For individual insurers, the actual added surcharge per plan will be anywhere from 8 percent to 27 percent.
About 6 out of 10 customers of Covered California are enrolled in silver plans, which cover 70 percent of enrollees' health costs.
Covered California said that even with the surcharge, 78 percent of customers who qualify for federal subsidies to reduce their monthly premiums will "either see no change in what they would pay for insurance in 2018, or would pay less than what they would have paid if there had been no ... surcharge."
That is because the value of those premium subsidies, which are in the form of federal tax credits, rises with the retail price of the health plan. In "many" cases, Covered California said, subsidized silver plan customers will see their subsidies rise more than the amount of the surcharge. |
California Slaps Surcharge On ACA Plans As Trump Remains Coy On Subsidies | California’s health exchange said Wednesday it has ordered insurers to add a surcharge to certain policies next year because the Trump administration has yet to commit to paying a key set of consumer subsidies under the Affordable Care Act.
| https://khn.org/news/california-slaps-surcharge-on-aca-plans-as-trump-remains-coy-on-subsidies/ | 2017-10-12 09:06:47.237000 | California’s health exchange said Wednesday it has ordered insurers to add a surcharge to certain policies next year because the Trump administration has yet to commit to paying a key set of consumer subsidies under the Affordable Care Act.
The decision to impose a 12.4 percent surcharge on silver-level health plans in 2018 means the total premium increase for them will average nearly 25 percent, according to Covered California. Taxpayers, not consumers, will bear the brunt of the extra rate hike because federal premium assistance for policyholders, which is pegged to the cost of coverage, will also increase.
Statewide, rate increases will vary by insurer and region. What consumers pay depends on where they live, their income, what level of coverage they want and which insurer they choose.
Californians can get their first look at next year’s health plan prices and options on the state’s rate calculator, released Wednesday.
The state’s open enrollment period, which is longer than that for the federal exchange, runs from Nov. 1 to Jan. 31. About 1.4 million Californians buy their own coverage through the state marketplace and nearly 90 percent receive financial assistance that reduces what they pay.
In August, Covered California announced that 2018 premiums would rise by 12.5 percent, on average, statewide. That ticked down slightly to 12.3 percent during regulatory review. But the exchange also warned that the additional increase, averaging 12.4 percent, would be added to the silver-tier plans if President Donald Trump failed to commit to continued funding for the so-called cost-sharing subsidies that help reduce some consumers’ out-of-pocket expenses. Those payouts total about $7 billion this year nationwide.
Trump has continued paying them on a month-to-month basis while repeatedly threatening to cut them off and repeal the entire health law. He has referred to the payments as “bailouts” for insurance companies.
Peter Lee, executive director of Covered California, said the surcharge is far from ideal but that the uncertainty in the nation’s capital left the state with no other option.
“Covered California worked hard to come up with a plan that ensures a stable market and protects as many consumers as possible from an unnecessary price hike,” Lee said in a statement Wednesday.
The exchange took several measures in an attempt to shield consumers from the effects of the surcharge. One of them was to create a new silver plan to be sold outside the exchange to individuals and families who make too much money to qualify for federal subsidies. The surcharge will not be applied to those plans, sparing unsubsidized consumers that extra cost.
The surcharge will apply only to the silver-level plans, the second-least expensive option among the exchange’s four tiers of coverage. That’s because only people enrolled in silver plans benefit from the cost-sharing subsidies that Trump has threatened to terminate.
Covered California said that 78 percent of subsidized consumers will see no change in what they pay or may pay even less despite the surcharge being imposed. The remaining 22 percent of consumers will see higher net premiums. About half of those consumers will get increases of less than $25 per month, according to the exchange.
John Baackes, chief executive of L.A. Care Health Plan, said his 2018 rates will be 11 percentage points higher because of the added surcharge — a 23 percent average increase instead of 12 percent. His health plan has about 26,000 exchange enrollees. He said the higher premiums would be “totally avoidable” if the Trump administration implemented the ACA.
“We have to lay the blame for this at the foot of the Trump administration for being so irresponsible about this major portion of the law,” Baackes said. “This will not be a burden on most consumers, but it will be a higher cost to the U.S. Treasury. It all seems so ridiculous.”
Anthony Wright, executive director of the advocacy group Health Access California, criticized the Trump administration for playing “political games” with people’s health coverage and forcing Covered California’s hand.
“Even with Covered California’s workaround, consumers are facing additional complexity and confusion, if not costs, all because of the Trump administration’s contemptuous actions,” Wright said.
The last-minute changes, less than three weeks before the start of open enrollment, are likely to confuse some consumers.
In addition to higher rates, Covered California faces the loss of a major insurer across much of the state. In August, Anthem Blue Cross said it was pulling out from about half of California’s counties, forcing 153,000 customers to find new coverage.
The state has boosted its marketing budget by $5.3 million for the coming year to help Anthem customers research their options and to deal with questions stemming from the surcharge.
California’s Obamacare rates have been a key barometer of how the Affordable Care Act is working since coverage began in 2014. The state held rate increases to 4 percent the first two years and then premiums jumped 13.2 percent, on average, for 2017.
These rate increases apply to people who purchase their own coverage in the individual market, not the majority of Americans who get their health insurance through work or government programs such as Medicare and Medicaid.
Some members of the U.S. Senate have attempted to craft a bipartisan deal to fund the cost-sharing subsidies for up to two years in a bid to stabilize the exchange markets nationwide. But those negotiations stalled last month when Senate Republicans pursued the Graham-Cassidy legislation, the latest GOP attempt to roll back President Barack Obama’s signature law. Like previous repeal attempts, it failed to muster enough support in the Senate.
State officials and health insurers across the U.S. have faced tough decisions on whether to proceed with higher rates to compensate for the uncertainty swirling around the Affordable Care Act. Deadlines were pushed back repeatedly as insurance commissioners and exchange directors pleaded with Trump and Congress to shore up the existing market so insurers would stick around and rate increases could be minimized.
“Carriers across the country need certainty, and a federal commitment to funding [cost-sharing reduction] payments would lower rates in many states,” Lee said Wednesday.
In Idaho, for example, the average rate for silver plans will increase 40 percent in 2018, double what the rate hike would have been had the Trump administration committed to funding the cost-sharing subsidies, according to Dean Cameron, director of the state’s Department of Insurance.
If the cost-sharing subsidies are continued into next year, the added surcharges could mean insurers will end up collecting too much in premiums, and some arrangement will have to be made to return the excess money.
Trump has continued to rail against Obamacare, pointing to huge rate increases around the country and insurance companies fleeing the market. Rather than amending the Affordable Care Act, Trump favors other proposals to help make health insurance more affordable for individuals and families.
This week, he is expected to issue an executive order that would allow people and small businesses to join together and buy health insurance through what are known as association health plans.
Details haven’t been released yet, but some health-policy experts say these new health plans could further destabilize the ACA’s insurance markets if they aren’t subject to the health law’s regulations.
On Tuesday, Trump tweeted that “since Congress can’t get its act together on HealthCare I will be using the power of the pen to give great HealthCare to many people — FAST.”
Kaiser Health News reporter Rachel Bluth in Washington, D.C., contributed to this story.
This story was produced by Kaiser Health News, which publishes California Healthline, an editorially independent service of the California Health Care Foundation. |
Telehealth picks up speed as providers see value despite challenges | KLAS partnered recently with the College of Healthcare Information Management Executives to ask more than 100 healthcare organizations about their plans for telehealth deployments.
| http://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/telehealth-picks-speed-providers-see-value-despite-challenges | 2017-10-12 09:05:47.527000 | KLAS partnered recently with the College of Healthcare Information Management Executives to ask more than 100 healthcare organizations about their plans for telehealth deployments.
Despite ongoing questions about reimbursement and regulation, virtual care platforms are finding favor for scheduled and patient-focused visits, on-demand and consumer-focused meetings and telespecialty consults, the groups found.
[Also: CIO shares keys to a successful telehealth program]
The benefits to patients have been worth the efforts to expand their reach, KLAS and CHIME said, even given the continuing uncertainty and financial challenges.
Cost, reimbursement levels, issues with the technology itself and its impact on the patient experience were among the concerns voiced by those providers surveyed. Nonetheless, most said they planned to either expand their telehealth programs to improve patients' access to care.
The report sees telehealth being used for three main purposes: patient-focused visits, enabling patients to schedule clinical meetings virtually; on-demand or consumer-focused purposes, to decrease the costs for patients and providers by dealing remotely with urgent or non-emergency care, and telespecialty consultations, connecting patient with specialists by video.
Patient convenience was one of the top drivers for telehealth, according to KLAS and CHIME – who noted that the success of the medium depends on patients having a high opinion of its value.
"Telehealth offers a great opportunity to enhance the lives of patients by making healthcare accessible to them wherever they may be," said Russell P. Branzell, CEO and president of CHIME. "Our members are advocates for improving patients' lives through innovations like telehealth. But it needs to be carefully implemented to meet its potential and we still face headwinds with reimbursement and integration issues."
Indeed, about half of those interviewed for the study said reimbursement was a challenge, with payers – whether private insurers, Medicare or Medicaid – often slow to reimburse virtual visits at rates comparable to face-to-face care. That often makes it hard for hospitals to make a compelling business case for telehealth, even if it's valuable for patients.
"Billing and reimbursement are factors that limit our ability to expand our telehealth program," said one director interviewed for the report. "There are things that we would like to expand to, but we just can’t get paid for them yet, so that is the major hurdle for us at the moment. In our state, we get reimbursed for the vast majority of telemedicine. We are getting reimbursed for about 90 percent of our telehealth visits. But there are some things that we would like to do that we can’t get the health plans to pay for and that the state doesn’t reimburse us for."
"The funding for telehealth, in general, is not where it needs to be," said another VP. "There is an out-of-pocket component, but if our most vulnerable populations who need telehealth don’t have the financial resources to pay for that care, they go without it. So telehealth services should be available for everyone. That is where the reimbursements need to come in."
Technology integration challenges were another big concern. Many respondents reported that integration between their electronic medical record and virtual care platform was "nonexistent or unidirectional," according to KLAS and CHIME.
"Telehealth holds enormous promise," said Adam Gale, president of KLAS. "However, the underlying technology needs to evolve faster. In particular, integration of telehealth with provider EMR's is still at a primitive level. Vendors need to step up in terms of technology and improved support."
Those challenges aside, telehealth's forward momentum seems to be continuing as more and more providers see the value it creates for their patients and for their own population health management strategies.
"We are going to provide a level of convenience for our patients that they want," said one healthcare executive. "Providing an opportunity for patients to receive care is what patients are going to appreciate. Another benefit is the care outcome for patients. Telehealth helps increase compliance rates for patients who are discharged and need follow-up appointments."
Twitter: @MikeMiliardHITN
Email the writer: [email protected] |
HIMSS issues interoperability ‘Call to Action’ | The giant health IT trade group’s board approved late last week a six-point “call to action” to serve as guiding principles for policymakers and the broader EHR community as it races to achieve interoperability nirvana. Morning eHealth has the first look at the key elements:
| http://www.politico.com/tipsheets/morning-ehealth/2017/10/11/himss-issues-interoperability-call-to-action-222744 | 2017-10-12 09:05:20.777000 | HIMSS issues interoperability ‘Call to Action’
HIMSS ‘CALL TO ACTION’ ON INTEROPERABLITY: The giant health IT trade group’s board approved late last week a six-point “call to action” to serve as guiding principles for policymakers and the broader EHR community as it races to achieve interoperability nirvana. Morning eHealth has the first look at the key elements:
1) Integrate different interoperability approaches and exchange frameworks — While players working on different approaches are collaborating and leveraging each other’s skills, they still too often work in silos.
2) Educate the community on the appropriate use of standards — “Understanding of the adoption and use of these standards is limited at best, and inconsistency in the implementation of these standards has created challenges in producing interoperable exchange.”
3) Ensure participation from by all providers, including patients and caregivers — Too often, interoperability efforts focus on doctors and hospitals, creating gaps in long-term care, post-acute providers and behavioral health. “These gaps must be addressed.”
4) Identify the “minimum necessary” business rules for exchange — There needs to be a baseline set of practices to simplify working with more outlets to exchange patient data. “There is no existing one-size-fits-all interoperability solution.”
5) Standardize patient matching approaches — As disparate exchange solutions emerge, health IT needs ways to ensure patients are accurately linked to their records.
6) Improve data usability — Information that’s more easily digested is more likely to be folded into decision-making and research.
Get the full document here.
Q&A WITH HIMSS LEADERS: Carla Smith, HIMSS’s executive vice president, told reporters while in town last week that HIMSS’s updated list of priorities for Congress is “a reflection of the realities that we’re living in today that overwhelmingly provider organizations have adopted technologies.” None of the three priorities — which includes the creation of a chief information security officer at HHS, telehealth legislation and expanded broadband funding — deal directly with EHRs. “It’s now harnessing the power of those technologies, turning it into actionable, relevant information.”
—The groups’ vice president of government relations, Tom Leary, answered several other questions about HIMSS’s work in Washington, including how they’ve dealt with the hyper-focus on Obamacare, the priorities of new HHS leadership and advancing cybersecurity. The full Q&A here.
eHealth tweet of the day: Kathryn Wickenhauser @KAWickenhauser: #EHRs are glorified cash registers with patient information tacked on. We can do better. We should do better. - @ZDoggMD #MGMA17
Welcome to Wednesday Morning eHealth where are grateful to the kind worker at the local AT&T store. On Monday, your author visited an outlet hoping to troubleshoot a problem with his iPhone that had stopped charging. The worker pulled out a tool and spent only a few seconds fishing around the phone’s charging port when out popped a giant piece of lint. The phone has worked like a charm ever since. Pocket lint is apparently the biggest destroyer of iPhones. Pass along your thoughts and news tips to [email protected] and connect with us on Twitter @David_Pittman, @athurallen202, @DariusTahir, @POLITICOPro, @Morning_eHealth.
WHAT ABOUT THE PATIENTS?: The health IT world needs to focus more on how patients spend their time outside of discrete 15-minute doctors’ visits, a blog post published by UCSF’s Center for Digital Health Innovation argues. It’s signed by the notable Bob Wachter of UCSF and a trio from the school’s digital health center, including policy head Mark Savage and executive director Michael Blum. The school views it as an alternative to dueling New England Journal of Medicine opinion pieces ( here and here) last month on health IT life post-HITECH Act.
In their own words: “Harnessing the full potential of health IT will require new focus on people and their data collected outside the walls of the hospital and doctor’s office, and on uses and interventions that help patients as they are living their lives.
“The emphasis on the experience of doctors in using their EHRs may lead us to ignore the equal importance of winning the hearts and minds of patients who seek the digital access and tools needed for shared care and care planning with their doctors.
“We see great opportunity and synergy in creating digital tools that allow individuals and providers to engage with each other and with a comprehensive set of health-related data in their shared pursuit of improving the health of the individual.”
SO THAT’S A NO?: FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb told Reuters in an interview Tuesday. he’s “most effective” in his current role but didn’t say if he’d been approached about possibly succeeding departed HHS Secretary Tom Price. “I feel like I want to continue to follow through on the policies we’ve put out and it’s where I think I can be most effective,” Gottlieb told the wire service.
COMMON RULE’S OUTLOOK COMES INTO FOCUS: Changes contained in HHS’s revised rule outlining safeguards for people participating in medical research have been on hold since the Trump administration took over. A revised “Common Rule” was published literally on the last day of ex-President Barack Obama’s tenure, which the new White House immediately froze. The research community has been waiting with bated breath on what will happen. We may now have an answer as OMB is now reviewing a rule that — according to its title — would delay changes by a year and enact three “burden-reducing provisions during the delay year.” The changes were to have taken effect in 2018.
—Among the changes in the January final rule were an updated consent form, making it easier to understand, and a requirement to use a single institutional review board.
Final rules currently under White House review: It’s a lot of bear with us.
— Rules of the road for MACRA in 2018.
—The combined rule for the 2018 physician fee schedule, Medicare ACOs and Diabetes Prevention Program.
—2018 hospital payment rules.
Not to be forgotten, but still in the proposed-rule stage, expedited Coverage of Innovative Technology.
POLITICO’s Agenda: The Data Issue: Data has emerged as a powerful tool for business and governance, and nobody collects more data than Washington. This issue of POLITICO Agenda goes deep on data and looks at the public challenges and opportunities that emerge as “big data” expands the possibilities for society and for government. From financial data ownership, to thwarting digital thieves and hackers, be sure to read the full edition here.
WALDEN TO DEMS: LET’S WORK TOGETHER ON CHIP: House Energy and Commerce Chair Greg Walden said his panel will delay floor action on a bill to extend funding for the Children’s Health Insurance Program to work with Democrats on paying for the bill. Walden, in a statement, said nothing of reworking the policies, which don’t touch expanding Medicare payments for telemedicine. “If we are unable to reach a deal by the end of this week, I would expect the House to take up the committee marked bill immediately following the district work period,” Walden said.
A NEW MAN IN HEALTH-CYBER LAND: A new body that hopes to serve as a liaison between the private sector and government to improve cybersecurity in health care has its first leader. Greg Garcia will serve as the executive director of the Healthcare and Public Health Sector Coordinating Council, which is the HHS-designated body to help coordinate against cyber threats. Garcia was the first assistant secretary for cybersecurity at the Department of Homeland Security in 2006, served as executive director of the Financial Services Sector Coordinating Council and was co-founder of the Information Technology Sector Coordinating Council. The announcement.
The House Energy and Commerce Committee, which held a hearing in April on improving cybersecurity in health care, praised the appointment saying it “looks forward to learning more about the council’s efforts.”
ELSEWHERE ON POLITICO PRO: Twitter reversed its initial decision and will instead allow Rep. Marsha Blackburn to promote her work investigating Planned Parenthood. The social media company at first deemed the ads “inflammatory”…Former chief of staff to Vice President Mike Pence, Josh Pitcock, has landed a new job at the tech giant Oracle…New Jersey Sen. Bob Menendez sought whomever had the “best juice at CMS” to help a campaign donor under Medicare fraud investigation.
WHAT WE’RE CLICKING:
—ONC announces security challenge using FHIR API.
—AMIA’s Jeff Smith pens a Medium post on the state of information sharing in health care.
—Late Cerner CEO Neal Patterson honored at the company’s users conference this week.
— JAMA Viewpoint highlights the importance of cybersecurity in health care.
Tips, comments, suggestions? Send them along via email to our team: Arthur Allen ([email protected], @ArthurAllen202), David Pittman ([email protected], @David_Pittman) and Darius Tahir ([email protected], (@DariusTahir).
Follow us on Twitter Mohana Ravindranath @ravindranize
Darius Tahir @dariustahir |
The high price of the Trump administration's waffling on healthcare | Covered California made it official Thursday: The Trump administration’s waffling will raise health insurance premiums an additional 12.4% for many Californians not covered by large employer plans. In some cases, the Trump-induced surcharge will be 27%. Those increases are on top of an average premium increase of 12.5% due to other factors.
| http://www.latimes.com/opinion/la-ol-covered-california-trump-surcharge-20171011-story.html | 2017-10-12 09:04:45.913000 | Covered California, a health insurance market for those not covered by large group plans, announced Wednesday that premium increases will double for many of its customers because the Trump administration hasn’t committed to reimbursing insurers for out-of-pocket cost subsidies.
Covered California made it official Thursday: The Trump administration’s waffling will raise health insurance premiums an additional 12.4% for many Californians not covered by large employer plans. In some cases, the Trump-induced surcharge will be 27%. Those increases are on top of an average premium increase of 12.5% due to other factors.
In other words, premium increases will be twice as high next year for many Californians, simply because the Trump administration (and Congress) won’t commit to reimbursing insurers for the payments the government requires them to make.
But don’t cry for these people. Most of them won’t feel the increase. Instead, the higher costs will be passed on to you, Mr. or Ms. Taxpayer.
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The administration actions are shifting the burden of the cost-sharing reductions from taxpayers to insurers to consumers, then back to taxpayers.
Ouch. At issue is the administration’s refusal to commit to making the “cost sharing reduction” payments that the 2010 Affordable Care Act requires. Under the ACA, insurers must slash the out-of-pocket payments demanded from customers with very low incomes. The law also requires the federal government to reimburse insurers for these reductions, which are expected to total about $7 billion this year.
It’s a simple idea: If you want healthcare to be accessible to all Americans, you’ll need to help those living near the poverty line with more than just their premiums. They can’t afford the deductibles and co-payments most policies charge, preventing them from obtaining care. Hence the cost sharing reductions.
The problem is that Congress (under partial and then full GOP control) didn’t put up the money to reimburse insurers, leading the Obama administration to fund the payments out of the pot for premium subsidies. Although the House of Representatives sued (successfully) to stop the administration from making the payments, the ruling is on hold pending an appeal. The Trump administration has kept them going on a month-to-month basis, even as it has regularly threatened to terminate them.
Remember, insurers still have to make the cost-sharing reductions regardless of what Washington does. So as the open enrollment period approached for 2018, they had a choice: Act as if the reimbursements won’t end, or assume they will and raise premiums to compensate for the loss — or stop selling policies through Covered California and the other Obamacare exchanges.
To avoid the latter scenario, Covered California persuaded insurers to impose a surcharge just on the “silver” tier policies eligible for cost-sharing reductions (that is, the policies that cover about 70% of the average customer’s projected medical expenses). This surcharge will range from 8% to 27%, depending on the insurer, with an overall average of 12.4%.
The arrangement — unique to California, and a credit to the state Legislature’s decision to make the exchange an active negotiator for consumers — is designed to minimize the cost to customers. The vast majority of those hit with the surcharge (78%, by Covered California’s count) won’t pay it. That’s because they receive ACA subsidies that limit their premiums to a fixed percentage of their income, which means the subsidy will increase to absorb the surcharge. And that, in turn, means that the cost of the surcharge will be passed on to taxpayers.
The Californians who buy silver-tier policies through Covered California but do not qualify for subsidies will feel the sting of the surcharge. That’s about 65,000 of the exchange’s 1.4 million enrollees. But those who buy virtually identical policies outside Covered California won’t face the surcharge, which is a pretty strong incentive to bypass the exchange. In fact, insurers are encouraging consumers who don’t qualify for premium subsidies to do just that.
In sum, the administration actions are shifting the burden of the cost-sharing reductions from taxpayers to insurers to consumers, the vast majority of whom will pass the cost back to taxpayers. The money flows in a big circle, albeit probably in a way that winds up costing the taxpayers more. (By the Congressional Budget Office’s calculation, ending the reimbursements outright, rather than just leaving them in limbo, would cost the taxpayers $194 billion over 10 years.)
So why is the Trump administration doing this, again? Some Republicans say the reimbursements are a “bailout” for insurers, which is every bit as accurate as saying the Defense Department’s payments for weapons and supplies are a bailout for defense contractors. If critics want to stop the reimbursements, they should repeal the requirement that insurers give low-income customers a break on their out-of-pocket expenses. Failing that, the administration — or better yet, Congress — needs to commit to paying the reimbursements and stop the senseless cost-shifting.
[email protected]
Twitter: @jcahealey |
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