Podcasts about Analysis Group

We are seeing some swirling changes to the marketplace and international trade that affect prices of goods and services in our daily lives. How can economics help us cope and understand underlying concepts such as cost pass-through? Anne Catherine Faye, Vice President at Analysis Group, speaks to James Hunsberger and Anora Wang about inflation, tariffs, and junk fees, as well as her experience as the first economist to serve as Counsel to the Chair of the ABA Antitrust Section. Listen to this episode to see key antitrust issues on the horizon through an economic lens. With special guest: Anne Catherine Faye, Vice President, Analysis Group, Inc. Related Links: Robert A Ritz, Does competition increase pass-through? The RAND Journal of Economics, 55: 140-165 (2024) Jason Douglas et al., How Much Do Tariffs Raise Prices? The Wall Street Journal (Mar. 2, 2025) Hosted by: Anora Wang, Arnold & Porter Kaye Scholer LLP and James Hunsberger, Axinn, Veltrop & Harkrider LLP

The Robinson-Patman Act (RPA) has a long, controversial history within U.S. antitrust law and economics. In this episode, Mark Poe, an attorney who specializes in RPA litigation, discusses the RPA with hosts Puja Patel and Aaron Yeater. Mark and the hosts explore Mark's view that traditional critics of RPA are incorrect, which he first presented in a recent article in Antitrust Magazine. With special guest: Mark Poe, Partner, Gaw Poe LLP Related Links: Mark Poe The Critics Are Wrong: How the Robinson-Patman Act Has Been Misunderstood by Detractors Hosted by: Puja Patel, A&O Shearman US LLP and Aaron Yeater, Analysis Group, Inc.

There are thousands of Golf Swing Analysis Groups on FaceBook, Reddit, YouTube and countless other media channels. Some are private where you need to enter your information and be "Approved" so that they can send you all sorts of golf related stuff others are public where anyone can post.You know the deal, golfers post videos of theirs swings and ask the group for analysis. Just when I write and/or you read that you know it can't be good for you!Listen as Daniel takes you thru why this practice of asking people you don't even know is bad for your game!

Immigration policy has been called “the third rail” of American politics, with intense feelings on both sides of the issue. In this charged environment, it is important to know the facts about immigration, especially as they relate to economic outcomes. Consultants at Analysis Group, an economic consulting firm headquartered in Boston, published an extensive study of the economic impact of immigration in the United States in September 2024. Two of the co-authors of that report, Jee-Yeon K. Lehmann and Yao Lu, join EconoFact Chats to discuss their findings, highlighting the effects of immigration on wages, jobs, housing, innovation, and productivity. Jee-Yeon K. Lehmann is a Managing Principal, and Yao Lu is a Vice President at The Analysis Group.

Immigration policy has been called “the third rail” of American politics, with intense feelings on both sides of the issue. In this charged environment, it is important to know the facts about immigration, especially as they relate to economic outcomes. Consultants at Analysis Group, an economic consulting firm headquartered in Boston, published an extensive study of the economic impact of immigration in the United States in September 2024. Two of the co-authors of that report, Jee-Yeon K. Lehmann and Yao Lu, join EconoFact Chats to discuss their findings, highlighting the effects of immigration on wages, jobs, housing, innovation, and productivity. Jee-Yeon K. Lehmann is a Managing Principal, and Yao Lu is a Vice President at The Analysis Group.

One of the biggest challenges in collecting cybersecurity metrics is scoping down objectives and determining what kinds of data to gather. In this podcast from the Carnegie Mellon University Software Engineering Institute (SEI), Bill Nichols, who leads the SEI's Software Engineering Measurements and Analysis Group, discusses the importance of cybersecurity measurement, what kinds of measurements are used in cybersecurity, and what those metrics can tell us about cyber systems.

By now in our popular "Mergernomics" series you've learned how to calculate the potential harm from a horizontal merger; but how do you measure the risk from a vertical merger? In this episode, Cornerstone Research's Dr. Craig Malam tells you everything you need to know about "Vertical Math" analysis in merger review - how to calculate it, what it tells you, and when to use it. Hosts Anant Raut and Analysis Group's Emily Cotton use Microsoft's controversial acquisition of video game maker Activision to discuss with Dr. Malam how to assess the risks of total or partial foreclosure from a vertical merger and how to use this analytical tool in relation to other economic tests in this series. With special guests: Dr. Craig Malam, Principal, Cornerstone Research and Emily Cotton, Managing Principal, Analysis Group Hosted by: Anant Raut

The powerful El Nino weather phenomenon, a big contributor to last year's record-breaking global temperatures, has faded. Its opposite, La Nina, is expected to emerge in the next few months. In this week's edition of Being Green, Glynis Crook asks Dr Christopher Jack, deputy director of UCT's Climate System Analysis Group, what impact it is likely to have.

Maryland is the last great hope for igaming regulation in 2024, and the World Series of Politics brings in The Analysis Group to put the question of cannibalisation to bed once and for all. Mickey Ferri and Laura O'Laughlin join Brendan Bussmann and Brandt Iden to discuss the recent study showing online casino actually expands the market, rather than eating away at the land-based share.

In this week's episode, host Daniel Raimi talks with Susan F. Tierney, a senior advisor at Analysis Group and chair of the board of directors at Resources for the Future, about the future of fossil fuels in the United States. Tierney discusses the challenges of meeting climate goals while maintaining energy security, the importance of making energy accessible to citizens, and how to support communities and states that historically have depended on the coal and oil and gas industries for jobs and public revenue. References and recommendations: “Accelerating Decarbonization in the United States: Technology, Policy, and Societal Dimensions” by Stephen W. Pacala, Danielle Deane-Ryan, Alexandra Fazeli, Julia H. Haggerty, Chris T. Hendrickson, Roxanne Johnson, Timothy C. Lieuwen, Vivian E. Loftness, Carlos E. Martín, Michael A. Méndez, Clark A. Miller, Jonathan A. Patz, Keith Paustian, William Pizer, Ed Rightor, Patricia Romero-Lankao, Devashree Saha, Kelly Sims Gallagher, Susan F. Tierney, and William Walker; https://nap.nationalacademies.org/resource/25931/interactive/ “Community Engagement for an Equitable Energy Transition, with Julia Haggerty” from “Resources Radio”; https://www.resources.org/resources-radio/community-engagement-for-an-equitable-energy-transition-with-julia-haggerty/ “Our Homes and Our Climate, with Carlos Martín” from “Resources Radio”; https://www.resources.org/resources-radio/our-homes-and-our-climate-with-carlos-martin/ “The Covenant of Water” by Abraham Verghese; https://www.abrahamverghese.org/the-covenant-of-water/

Elizabeth Stone is the chief technology officer of Netflix. She previously served as vice president of product data science and engineering, and as vice president of data and insights, at Netflix. Before Netflix, Elizabeth was vice president of science at Lyft, chief operating officer at Nuna, a trader at Merrill Lynch, and an economist at Analysis Group. In our conversation, we discuss:• Elizabeth's advice for career advancement• Netflix's unique high-performance culture• How, and why, Netflix maintains a high bar for excellence• Intentional leadership practices• How to foster an “open door” culture within your team• The Keeper Test and how it contributes to maintaining a high bar for excellence• The power of transparent communication• Much more—Brought to you by:• Vanta—Automate compliance. Simplify security.• Sendbird—The (all-in-one) communications API platform for mobile apps• Explo—Embed customer-facing analytics in your product—Find the full transcript at: https://www.lennyspodcast.com/how-netflix-builds-a-culture-of-excellence-elizabeth-stone-cto/—Where to find Elizabeth Stone:• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/elizabeth-stone-608a754/—Where to find Lenny:• Newsletter: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com• X: https://twitter.com/lennysan• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lennyrachitsky/—In this episode, we cover:(00:00) Elizabeth's background(04:36) Life as CTO vs. VP of Data(05:57) The role of economists in tech companies(08:32) Using economics to understand incentives(10:07) Success and career growth(20:15) Setting expectations(25:02) Advice for how to avoid burnout(27:44) Netflix culture: high talent density(30:31) Netflix culture: candor and directness(31:45) The Keeper Test(39:01) Maintaining a high bar for excellence(43:54) Netflix culture: freedom and responsibility(46:18) Unconventional processes at Netflix(47:55) Examples of candor(51:44) Data and insights team structure(01:00:12) Staying close to teams(01:02:31) Advice on being present(01:07:40) Lightning round—Referenced:• What to Know About the Netflix Cup, Today's First-Ever Live Sports Event: https://www.netflix.com/tudum/articles/netflix-cup-live-event-date-news• Ann Miura Ko interview | The Tim Ferriss Show (Podcast): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h2GO0Ks_VGg• Netflix culture: https://jobs.netflix.com/culture• No Rules Rules: Netflix and the Culture of Reinvention: https://www.amazon.com/No-Rules-Netflix-Culture-Reinvention/dp/1984877860• Reed Hastings on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/reedhastings/• Netflix's “Keeper Test” and Why You Need It | Lorne Rubis: https://www.highlights.lornerubis.com/2015/08/the-netflix-keeper-test-and-the-courage-to-take-it/• The Hunger Games: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hunger_Games• Nan Yu on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/thenanyu/• Work Life Philosophy: https://jobs.netflix.com/work-life-philosophy• The Scoop: Netflix's historic introduction of levels for software engineers: https://blog.pragmaticengineer.com/netflix-levels/• Chaos Monkey: https://www.techtarget.com/whatis/definition/Chaos-Monkey• Ali Rauh on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ali-rauh/• Keith Henwood on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/keith-henwood/• Jeff Bezos' Morning Routine of Puttering Around—How It Works: https://medium.com/illumination/jeff-bezos-morning-routine-of-puttering-around-how-it-works-9d73f359ac8d• What I Talk About When I Talk About Running: A Memoir: https://www.amazon.com/What-Talk-About-When-Running/dp/0307389839• A Fine Balance: https://www.amazon.com/Fine-Balance-Rohinton-Mistry/dp/140003065X• Triangle of Sadness on Hulu: https://www.hulu.com/movie/triangle-of-sadness-f60937bd-45f4-469a-938f-db95026953a1• Beef on Netflix: https://www.netflix.com/title/81447461• Fellow pour-over coffee set: https://fellowproducts.com/products/stagg-xf-pour-over-set• Peloton bikes: https://www.onepeloton.com/shop/bike—Production and marketing by https://penname.co/. For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email podcast@lennyrachitsky.com.—Lenny may be an investor in the companies discussed. Get full access to Lenny's Newsletter at www.lennysnewsletter.com/subscribe

Large amounts of information are collected during merger control and behavioural competition law investigations. What are the personal data protection issues raised? Dan Rupprecht, Director for Europe of iDiscovery Solutions, joins Aaron Yeater and Matthew Hall to discuss the differences between these two types of investigations, why and how the EU/UK and U.S. approaches differ in this area, the technology that is used and the future. Listen to this episode to learn more about protection of personal data when working in these areas. With special guest: Dan Rupprecht, Director for Europe, iDiscovery Solutions Related Links: European Commission data protection (GDPR) UK GDPR Hosted by: Aaron Yeater, Analysis Group, Inc. and Matthew Hall, McGuireWoods London LLP

Season 4 of Electrify This!  kicks off the new year to unpack a big question: “What's really needed to cut U.S. emissions faster this decade?” Guests Ed Rightor and Sue Tierney are co-authors of a new report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine titled Accelerating Decarbonization in the United States: Technology, Policy, and Societal Dimensions, which evaluates how we can successfully implement current decarbonization policies and what else is  needed to reach U.S. emission targets in 2030. Tune in to learn more about the critical role that electrification will play in achieving these goals and what policymakers should consider in the transition to an equitable, climate safe future.  Guest Bios Ed Rightor is the Principal of Rightor Consulting. As an independent consultant, Ed supports his clients in the areas of industrial decarbonization, identification of unmet market needs, and sustainability.  Previously, he served as the Director of the Center for Clean Energy Innovation at the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation and the Director of the Industrial Program for the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE).  Ed also held several leadership roles at Dow Chemical during his 31-year career. He earned a PhD in chemistry from Michigan State University and a BS in chemistry from Marietta College. Susan Tierney is a Senior Advisor at Analysis Group and an expert on energy and environmental economics, regulation, and policy, particularly in the electric and gas industries. She has consulted to businesses, federal and state governments, regional grid operators, tribes, environmental groups, foundations, and other organizations on energy markets, economic and environmental regulation and strategy, and energy projects.  She has testified before Congress, state and federal regulatory agencies, and federal and state courts.  Previously, she served as the Assistant Secretary for Policy at the U.S. Department of Energy, and the Secretary of Environmental Affairs in Massachusetts, a Commissioner at the MA Department of Public Utilities, Chairman of the Board of the Massachusetts Water Resources Authority, and Executive Director of the Energy Facilities Siting Council. She earned her Ph.D. and M.A. in regional planning at Cornell University. To dig in deeper, check out these must-read resources: Analysis GroupRightor Consulting National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (Report) – Accelerating Decarbonization in the United States: Technology, Policy, and Societal Dimensions National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine Innovation Amplifiers: Getting More Bang for the Buck on GHG Reductions (Information Technology & Innovation Fund) ** We want to hear from you! Please take our brief survey and give us your ideas, thoughts, and suggestions for the podcast! Be a part of shaping this show.  **Contact us at electrifythis@energyinnovation.org. 

The hype around cryptocurrency is at an all-time high, as the industry makes a major push to go mainstream. But is it all a giant pump-and-dump scheme? Software engineer and celebrated crypto critic Molly White and the SEC's Associate Director of Enforcement Carolyn Welshhans join Anant Raut and Aaron Yeater for a braintwister of a discussion on such topics as what is money; if blockchain is so secure how does so much crypto keep getting stolen; and is crypto a giant scam. Listen to this episode to learn more about whether ordinary investors will be left holding the bag when the crypto bros cash out. With special guests: Molly White, Software Engineer and Founder, Web3 is Going Just Great and Carolyn Welshhans, Associate Director of the Division of Enforcement, Securities and Exchange Commission Related Links: Web 3 is Going Just Great Hosted by: Anant Raut and Aaron Yeater, Analysis Group, Inc.

The European Commission's recent decision to block Booking's proposed acquisition of eTraveli is unprecedented and even controversial to some. How should we understand the EC's concerns? Eliana Garces, Senior Advisor with Analysis Group, joins Matthew Hall and Jaclyn Phillips to discuss the EC's theories of harm. Listen to this episode for an economist's take on the EC's analysis and how we should think about it more generally. With special guest: Eliana Garces, Senior Advisor, Analysis Group Hosted by: Matthew Hall and Jaclyn Phillips

Ten years ago, the U.S. Supreme Court issued its 5-3 decision in FTC v. Actavis, which held that the rule of reason should govern so-called "pay-for-delay" patent litigation settlement agreements between brand name and generic pharmaceutical manufacturers. In this episode, hosts Aaron Yeater and Alicia Downey talk to Kristen O'Shaughnessy and Dan Grossbaum about how the decision has shaped litigation in the years since and its implications for antitrust challenges in other industries. Listen to this episode to learn about the impact of the Actavis decision in the past ten years and in the future. With special guests: Kristen O'Shaughnessy, Partner, White & Case and Daniel Grossbaum, Associate, White & Case Related Links: FTC v. Actavis: Opinions and Oral Arguments Hosted by: Alicia Downey, Principal, Downey Law LLC and Aaron Yeater, Managing Principal, Analysis Group

Massachusetts is actively considering Gov. Maura Healey's longstanding demand to end competitive retail energy sales to residential customers. As part of this debate in Massachusetts and elsewhere, the Retail Energy Advancement League commissioned the Analysis Group's Paul Hibbard, a former Massachusetts utility regulator,  to provide a comprehensive examination of retail energy choice. We talk with the report's author as well as Chris Ercoli, REAL's president and CEO.Support the show

Apple's App Store ecosystem facilitated $1.1 trillion in developer billings and sales in 2022, building on a track record of strong and resilient growth, according to an independent study by economists from Analysis Group. The App Store's global distribution platform allowed developers to reach users across borders, with 54% of downloads occurring in storefronts outside of developers' home countries.

This is the Weight and Healthcare newsletter! If you like what you are reading, please consider subscribing and/or sharing!In part 1 we talked about a request that has been submitted for the World Health Organization (WHO) to add diet drugs (specifically GLP1 agonists like Novo Nordisk's Saxenda and Wegovy) to their list of “essential medicines.” We discussed who was making this request and the justification that they were using. In part 2 we took a deeper dive into the research that they used to try to support this request, and in this final installment, we will look at the research around efficacy, harm, and cost-effectiveness.First I'll offer a summary for each issue and then I'll give a breakdowns of the research that they cite.  Just a quick reminder that this request is asking the World Health Organization (WHO) to add these drugs to their list of “essential medications” globally.Before we get into the sections, I want to mention two overarching issues that are found throughout the entirety of this request and the studies that are used to support it.First, in general, a belief has been fomented (predominantly by those in the weight loss industry) that being higher-weight is so terrible then it's worth “throwing anything at the problem.” This leads to acceptance of poor, short-term, and/or incomplete data as “good enough” to foist recommendations onto higher-weight people, which means that part of weight stigma in healthcare is that higher-weight people are afforded less right to ethical, evidence-based medicine than thinner people.Second, is clinging to correlation (without any mechanism of causation) when it comes to weight, health, and health outcomes, including the abject failure to consider confounding variables. So throughout these studies “being higher-weight is associated with [health issue(s)]” stated uncritically in support of weight loss interventions. There is an utter failure to explore the idea that the reason for the outcome differences is not weight itself but, instead, exposure to weight stigma, weight cycling (which these medications actually perpetuate by their own admission,) and healthcare inequalities.  Issues with research supporting effectiveness, harms, and benefitsStudy Duration:This is the main issue. While there was one study that went up to 106 weeks, the vast majority of the studies are between 14 and 56 weeks. We know that these drugs can have significant, even life-threatening side effects (earning them the FDA's strongest warning.) 14-56 weeks is not not nearly enough time to capture the danger of long-term effects, or to capture long-term trends around weight loss/weight regain.Study PopulationMany of the studies included have small samples. Many have study populations are overwhelmingly white, which is a huge issue when making a global recommendations.Small effect and overlapMany of the studies show only a bit of weight loss (often 15lbs or less) and often there was overlap in weight lost between the treatment group and the placebo group. Even using the “ob*sity” construct that this request is based on, for many people, this amount of weight loss wouldn't even change their “class” of “ob*sity.”Failure to capture adverse eventsMuch of the research they use to support their claims of safety didn't actually capture individual adverse events or serious adverse events. Often they only captured subjects who reported leaving treatment due to side effects.Issues with research supporting cost effectivenessThe cost-effectiveness analyses they cite are based on Quality Adjusted Life Years (QALYs). This is a measurement of the effectiveness of a medical intervention to lengthen and/or improve patients' lives.The calculation for this is [Years of Life * Utility Value = #QALY]So if a treatment gives someone 3 extra years of life with a Health-Related Quality of Life (HRQL) score of 0.7, then the treatment is said to generate 2.1 [3 x 0.7] QALYs.This is a complicated and problematic concept that deserves its own post sometime in the future, but looking just at this request I think it's important to note that they are working on two main unproven assumptions:1. That being higher weight causes lower health-related quality of life and/or shorter life span (rather than any lower HRQL being related to experiences that higher-weight people have including weight stigma, weight cycling, healthcare inequalities et al.) 2. That this treatment induces weight loss and/or health benefits that increase the life span and/or health-related quality of life of those who take it.I don't believe either of these assumptions are proven by the material cited in the request to the WHO. Specifically, it's very possible that it's not living in a higher-weight body, but rather the experiences that higher-weight people are more likely to have (weight stigma, weight cycling, healthcare inequalities) that impact their HRQL.Further, the short-term efficacy data available (and Novo Nordisk's own admission about high rates of regain) fall far short of proving any assumptions about these drugs ability to actually improve or extend life. Further, the failure of the literature to adequately capture negative side effects of the drugs, both short and long-term, means that this calculation cannot be properly made.Incremental Cost-Effectiveness Ratio (ICER)ICER is how QALYs are turned into a monetary value. It is calculated by dividing the difference in total costs by the difference in the chosen measure of health outcome or effect.[(Cost of intervention A -Cost of Intervention B) / (Effectiveness of Intervention A – Effectiveness of Intervention B)]The result is a ratio of extra cost per extra unit of health effect of a more vs less expensive treatment which can then be measured in QALYs.Again, this is worthy of its own post because there are all kinds of ethical issues around things like how we value life, how we define “healthy” and the ethics of determining whether or not prolonging someone's life is “cost effective.” I'm not going to do a deep dive into that today, but I do want to note that it is a serious issue in these kinds of calculations.In this specific case, even if one was to get past the ethical issues, an accurate calculation is impossible to make on both of the measures of the equation.Cost of these drugs varies wildly between countries and sometimes within countries because, for example, Novo Nordisk is a for-profit corporation whose goal is to create as much profit as possible.  Per the WHO request letter, the monthly cost of liraglutide is $126 in Norway and $709 in the US. Semaglutide is $95 per 30 days in Turkey, but $804 per 30 days in US.When it comes to effectiveness of the treatment, again, there is virtually no long-term data. We do know that in Novo Nordisk's own studies, weight is regained rapidly and cardiometabolic benefits are lost when the drugs are discontinued and even when people stay on the drugs, weight loss levels off after about a year, at 68 weeks weight cycling begins, and at 104 weeks (when follow-up ended) weight was trending up. It's possible that these drugs are utterly ineffective over the long-term and/or that the prevalence of long-term side effects renders any treatment effects moot. We simply do not know.I do not think that this is a remotely appropriate basis from which to request that these drugs be declared globally essential by the WHO.Here are the citation breakdowns. These are not deep dives since there are enough issues with the research on a simple surface analysis.Breakdowns of evidence of comparative effectivenessEffects of liraglutide in the treatment of ob*sity: a randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled study, Astrup et al.)This is a 20-week study funded by Novo Nordisk. It included 564 people on various doses of liraglutide and a placebo group who didn't get the drug and a group on orlistat. There were no more than 90-98 people in each group.The study explains “Participants on liraglutide lost significantly more weight than did those on placebo” by which they meant that those on the highest dose of liraglutide lose about 9.7lbs more than those on the placebo over the 20 weeks.III LEAD studiesThese are four studies that look at liraglutide in combination with other drugs for the treatment of Type 2 Diabetes that also included some information on weight changes. One was 52 weeks, the others were  26, the maximum amount of weight lost was only about 5lbs.   The first [Liraglutide, a once-daily human GLP-1 analogue, added to a sulphonylurea over 26 weeks produces greater improvements in glycaemic and weight control compared with adding rosiglitazone or placebo in subjects with Type 2 diabetes (LEAD-1 SU), Marre et al] was a study that looked at the efficacy of adding liraglutide or rosiglitazone 4 to glimiperide in subjects with Type 2 Diabetes to test effects on blood sugar and body size.The study followed 1041 adults for 26 weeks. The study found that those on .6mg of liraglutide gained 0.7kg, those on 1.2mg gained 0.3kg, and those on 1.8mg of liraglutide lost 0.2kg, while those on placebo lost 0.1kg.The second [Efficacy and safety comparison of liraglutide, glimepiride, and placebo, all in combination with metformin, in type 2 diabetes: the LEAD (liraglutide effect and action in diabetes)-2 study. Diabetes Care, 2009. 32(1): p. 84-90. Nauck, M., et al.,]looked at the efficacy of adding liraglutide to metformin therapy for those with Type 2 Diabetes. They found that over the 26-week study those on liraglutide lost 1.8 ± 0.2, 2.6 ± 0.2, and 2.8 ± 0.2 kg for 0.6, 1.2, and 1.8 mg doses. Those on placebo lost 1.5 ± 0.3kg.The third [Liraglutide versus glimepiride monotherapy for type 2 diabetes (LEAD-3 Mono): a randomised, 52-week, phase III, double-blind, parallel-treatment trial. Lancet, 2009. 373(9662): p. 473-81. Garber, A., et al.,] This was a study of the comparative effectiveness of Liraglutide versus glimepiride for type 2 diabetes, with small weight loss as an ancillary finding. Those in the liraglutide group lost an average of 2kg.The final study [Efficacy and safety of the human glucagon-like peptide-1 analog liraglutide in combination with metformin and thiazolidinedione in patients with type 2 diabetes (LEAD-4 Met+TZD), Zinman et al.]  was a 26-week study with 533 total subjects. The goal was to study the efficacy of liraglutide when added to metformin and rosiglitazone for people with type 2 diabetes. They found that those on liraglutide lost between 0.7 and 2.3kg (1.5lbs to 5.1lbs) in 26 weeks.Meta-Analyses and Systematic Review FindingsEfficacy of Liraglutide in Non-Diabetic Ob*se Adults: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Randomized Controlled Trials. Barboza, J.J., et al., None of the included studies were more than 56 weeks and one was only 14 weeks. One had as many as 3731 subjects, but one had only 40. Some had body weight loss as a primary outcome, but some did not. Maximum doses ranged from 1.8 to 3.0mg. The mean body weight reduction was  3.35 kg (7.4lbs) but in one study there was no difference in weight loss. The maximum difference was 6.3kg (13.9lbs)They also refer to Iqbal et al which we discussed in part 2.Effects of glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonists on weight loss: systematic review and meta-analyses of randomised controlled trials. Vilsbøll, T., et al.The included studies are between 20 and 53 weeks long, and include some of the studies they already cited individually above. Of the 25 included studies only 3 had “ob*sity” as the main inclusion criteria, the rest were Type 2 Diabetes.The mean weight loss for those on the highest dose of the drug was between 0.2kg and 7.2kg. For those in the control group it was 2.9 kg, so there was actually overlap between the treatment and placebo groups.Summary of evidence of safety and harmsThey begin with the claim “The safety profile of GLP-1 receptor agonists is also well studied”To support this they cite: Efficacy and Safety of Liraglutide 3.0 mg in Patients with Overweight and Ob*se with or without Diabetes: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis, Konwar, M., et al.,This included 14 total studies, many of which the authors of the WHO request had cited individually and were included in other systematic reviews and meta-analyses above. The smallest study included 19 people, the largest included 2,487. The total number of subjects was 4,142.Their conclusion was “Liraglutide in 3.0 mg subcutaneous dose demonstrated significant weight reduction with a reasonable safety profile for patients with overweight or ob*sity regardless of diabetic status compared to placebo.”Their methodology says that they omitted studies from analysis due to “short duration.” They included studies that had a minimum of 12 weeks and a maximum of 56 weeks of follow-up.While they included 14 studies, only 11 of them actually included information about adverse events.In terms of adverse effects (AEs,) they found that the pooled estimate of nine studies in nondiabetic patients and two studies in diabetic patients revealed a significant proportion of patients experiencing the adverse events in liraglutide 3.0 mg group when compared with placebo., and the pooled estimate of the eleven studies showed that liraglutide 3.0 mg had higher risk of AEs compared to placebo.When it came to “serious adverse events” they found that there was a similar risk level between the drug and placebo groups, but remember that's for only 12 to 56 weeks, and Novo Nordisk is recommending that people take these drugs for the rest of their lives. A few months to a little over a year is not enough time to capture long-term serious adverse events.The efficacy and safety of liraglutide in the ob*se, non-diabetic individuals: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Zhang, P., et al.,This included five RCTs (which were included in various of the above systemic reviews and meta-analyses) ranging in follow-up from 14 to 56 weeks.The only adverse event information captured was the number of people who withdrew from treatment due to adverse events (which they found was similar between drug and placebo) and nausea (which was experienced more by people on the drug.)So, in addition to being short in duration, this was far from a comprehensive list of side effects. They made no attempt to capture serious adverse side effects and their short-term nature would have made this difficult anyway.Association of Pharmacological Treatments for Ob*sity With Weight Loss and Adverse Events: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis. Khera, R., et al.This looked at weight loss and adverse events with a number of different weight loss drugs. Interestingly liraglutide did not show the highest amount of weight loss but was associated with the highest odds of adverse event–related treatment discontinuation. It should also be noted that high drop-out rates of 30-45% plagued all of the trials which the study authors admit means that “studies were considered to be at high risk of bias.“Given that those who drafted the WHO request are asking that these drugs be considered essential globally, it is disappointing that they included this study and didn't bother to mention this issue in their written request.This included 28 RCTs (most of which were included in other citations above) and only 3 that included liraglutide. They didn't capture individual adverse events, but only “Discontinuation of Therapy Due to Adverse Events.” They only evaluated a year of data so, again, while it is likely that these studies would have captured common adverse events had they bothered to try, there isn't long enough follow-up to have any information about serious (possibly life-threatening) long-term adverse events.Association of Glucagon-like Peptide 1 Analogs and Agonists Administered for Ob*sity with Weight Loss and Adverse Events: A Systematic Review and Network Meta-analysis. Vosoughi, K., et al.,This study included 64 RCTs with durations from 12 to 160 weeks, with a median of 26 weeks. As is common in these studies, the majority of the sample (74.9%) was white.Like those above, they only looked at treatment discontinuation from adverse events, they did not capture specific adverse events (common or serious.) Of the seven GLP-1 drugs they tested, liraglutide was tied with taspoglutide for the highest discontinuation of treatment due to adverse events.The study authors also note that “Risk of bias was high or unclear for random sequence generation (29.7%), allocation concealment (26.6%), and incomplete outcome data (26.6%).”Breakdowns for Comparative Cost-effectiveness StudiesFirst, the WHO request authors themselves admit that when it comes to cost-effectiveness, “the analyses have generally been performed only for high-income countries.” This is significant since they are asking the WHO to consider these drugs essential for the entire world.It's also important to understand that none of the data looks at a comparison of cost effectiveness for weight-neutral health interventions to these drugs. Without that information there is no way to calculate actual “cost effectiveness” since it's possible that weight-neutral health interventions would have greater benefits with less risk and dramatically lower cost.  NICE's guidance:  Liraglutide for managing overweight and ob*sity Technology appraisal guidance [TA664]Published: 09 December 2020.Do recall that NICE is involved in the current scandal with Novo Nordisk for influence peddling.These guidelines are created based on a submission of evidence by Novo Nordisk. The committee's understanding of “clinical need” was based on the testimony of a single “patient expert” who “explained that living with ob*sity is challenging and restrictive. There is stigma associated with being ob*se.”Once again we see a rush to blame body size for any “challenges” and “restrictions” of living in a higher-weight body, accompanied by the immediate decision that those bodies should be subjected to healthcare interventions that risk their lives and quality of life in order to be made (temporarily, by Novo and NICE's own admission) thinner.  There did not seem to be a patient expert to discuss the weight-neutral options.It was not immediately apparent if the patient expert was provided/paid by Novo Nordisk, but they certainly forwarded their narrative that simply living in a higher-weight body is a disease requiring treatment.It should be noted that while the trial Novo Nordisk submitted covered a wider range of people, they specifically submitted for this recommendation only the subgroup of that population who were diagnosed with “ob*sity,”  pre-diabetes, and a “high risk of cardiovascular disease based on risk factors such as hypertension and dyslipidaemia.”So, even if we accept this guidance as true, the WHO Essential Medicines request applies to a population much wider than this and so this fails to justify the cost-effectiveness for that population.This guidance is also based on the costs associated with obtaining the drugs through a “specialist weight management service” since an agreement is in place for Novo Nordisk to give a discount to these services.In calculating the ICER per QALY gained, the recommendations note that “Because of the uncertainties in the modelling assumptions, particularly what happens after stopping liraglutide and the calculation of long-term benefits, the committee agreed that an acceptable ICER would not be higher than £20,000 per QALY gained”Again, this recommendation is based on a trial submitted by Novo Nordisk that included 3,721 people and lasted for three years, but only 800 met the criteria for this cost-effectiveness recommendation. The trial failed to show a significant reduction in cardiovascular events. Novo's calculation of risk reduction was based on surrogate outcomes, which NICE points out “introduces uncertainty because causal inference requires direct evidence that liraglutide reduces cardiovascular events. This was not provided in the company submission because of lack of long-term evidence.”The NICE committee admits “relying on surrogates is uncertain but accepted that surrogate outcomes were the only available evidence to estimate cardiovascular benefits.”I just want to point out that another option would be to refuse to experiment on higher-weight people without appropriate evidence.These cost-effectiveness calculations are based on someone using the drug for two years, with no actual data on reduction in cardiovascular events, and with the admitted assumption that “any weight loss returned to the base weight 3 years after treatment discontinuation.” Said another way, this committee decided that it was cost effective to spend up to £20,000 per QALY for people to take a weight loss drug with significant side effects for two years, with no direct evidence of reduced cardiovascular events, and with the acknowledgment that people will be gaining all of their weight back when they stop taking it.Those who wrote the request for WHO to consider these drugs “essential” chose to characterize this as “At the chosen threshold of £20,000 per quality-adjusted life year (QALY) gained, the report concluded that liraglutide is cost-effective for the management of ob*sity.” I do not think that is an accurate characterization of the findings.The request cites “A report by the Canadian Agency for Drugs and Technologies in Health (CADTH) found that compared to standard care, the ICER for liraglutide was $196,876 per QALY gained”For the US, they cite a study that found that to achieve ICERs between $100,000 and $150,000 perQALY or evLY gained, the health-benefit price benchmark range for semaglutide was estimated as $7500 - $9800 per year, which would require a discount of 28-45% from the current US net price.They also cite “Cost-effectiveness analysis of semaglutide 2.4 mg for the treatment of adult patients with overweight and ob*sity in the United States, Kim et al.Let's take a look at their conflict of interest disclosure (emphasis mine)“Financial support for this research was provided by Novo Nordisk Inc. The study sponsor [that means Novo Nordisk] was involved in several aspects of the research, including the study design, the interpretation of data, the writing of the manuscript, and the decision to submit the manuscript for publication.Dr Kim and Ms Ramasamy are employees of Novo Nordisk Inc. Ms Kumar and Dr Burudpakdee were employees of Novo Nordisk Inc at the time this study was conducted. Dr Sullivan received research support from Novo Nordisk Inc for this study. Drs Wang, Song, Wu, Ms Xie, and Ms Sun are employees of Analysis Group, Inc, who received consultancy fees from Novo Nordisk Inc in connection with this study.”Given that, you probably won't be shocked to learn that this concluded that Novo Nordisk's drug, semaglutide, was cost-effective. The reason I bolded the text above is that this study is based on modeling – they are taking what is, by their own admission, a “new drug” and making predictions for 30 years. Everything was simulated based on trial data (you know, those trials that we've been discussing that often have horrendous methodology…) and “other relevant literature.” The construction of the modeling and the interpretation of the results was directed by the company who stands to benefit financially from the findings, and carried out by that company's employees and consultants.  Also, and I'll just quote again here since I don't think I can improve on their text “Cost-effectiveness was examined with a willingness-to-pay (WTP) threshold of $150,000 per QALY gained” I do not think that this WTP is based on a global assessment.In their (and by their I mean Novo Nordisk's) modeling they find that semaglutide was estimated to improve QALYs by 0.138 to 0.925 and incur higher costs by $3,254 to $25,086 over the 30-year time horizon vs comparators.And, again, this is without any kind of actual long-term data. I think that the best way to characterize this information is “back of the envelope calculations” at best.To sum up, I do not think that the research they cite comes anywhere close to proving that these drugs have levels of efficacy, safety, or cost-effectiveness that warrant their addition to the WHO list of essential medicines. I believe that if the WHO grants this request I think it will be an affront to medical science, it will cheapen the concept of “essential medicines,” and it will harm untold numbers of higher-weight people all over the world.Did you find this post helpful? You can subscribe for free to get future posts delivered direct to your inbox, or choose a paid subscription to support the newsletter and get special benefits! Click the Subscribe button below for details:Liked this piece? Share this piece:More research and resources:https://haeshealthsheets.com/resources/*Note on language: I use “fat” as a neutral descriptor as used by the fat activist community, I use “ob*se” and “overw*ight” to acknowledge that these are terms that were created to medicalize and pathologize fat bodies, with roots in racism and specifically anti-Blackness. Please read Sabrina Strings' Fearing the Black Body – the Racial Origins of Fat Phobia and Da'Shaun Harrison's Belly of the Beast: The Politics of Anti-Fatness as Anti-Blackness for more on this. Get full access to Weight and Healthcare at weightandhealthcare.substack.com/subscribe

European competition regulators are increasingly focused on sustainability agreements and have published guidance. What are these documents saying and are they consistent? Jay Modrall, Brussels-based competition lawyer, joins Matthew Hall and Aaron Yeater to discuss the current position in the EU and UK. Listen to this episode to learn more about the application of EU and UK competition law to sustainability agreements between companies, including those intended to assist with the fight against climate change. With special guest: Jay Modrall, Senior Counsel, Norton Rose Fulbright LLP Related Links: Netherlands ACM draft Guidelines on Sustainability Agreements January 2021 UK CMA draft Guidelines on Environmental Sustainability Agreements March 2023 European Commission draft Guidelines on Horizontal Cooperation Agreements Hosted by: Matthew Hall, Partner, McGuireWoods London LLP and Aaron Yeater, Managing Principal, Analysis Group, Inc.

Plaintiffs in consumer data privacy class action lawsuits may demand money damages for the loss of the value of their personal information. But how much money is that personal information really worth? And what was lost? In this episode, hosts Alicia Downey and Aaron Yeater talk to economist Mike Kheyfets of Edgeworth Economics about these and other questions to which there are no simple answers, whether from an economic or legal perspective. Listen to this episode to learn about approaches to valuing personal information in data privacy lawsuits. With special guest: Michael Kheyfets, Edgeworth Economics Related Links: Michael Kheyfets, "Value of Personal Information Theories in Data Privacy Class Actions," Bloomberg Law (Sept. 19, 2022) Hosted by: Alicia Downey, Downey Law LLC and Aaron Yeater, Analysis Group

JOSEPH FRAY - An Achievable Solution Of Our Energy Problems - Joseph Fray is a chartered electrical engineer and physicist in the UK. After graduation he entered the electrical power industry. During this period he served as a part-time lecturer at the Blackpool Technical College. From the power industry the he joined the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA) as the Works Electrical Engineer at the Chapelcross nuclear power station. During this assignment he developed an interest in the reactor side of the operation and began a study of reactor physics. He then moved to the Industrial Power Branch of the UKAEA and was engaged in the review of commercial nuclear power plants. While in this position he participated in the startup testing of the Advanced Gas Cooled Reactor at the Widscale site. He also gave lectures on reactor control at the Calder Hall Reactor Operations School. The Author next took a position with the Test Design and Analysis Group of the General Electric (GE) Nuclear Section in San Jose, California. He was assigned as the team leader of the team conducting all the startup testing on the Dresden 2 nuclear reactor located south of Chicago.Illinois. At completion of the Dresden startup, he continued with GE to support the licensing of nuclear plants. He formally retired in 1988, but worked as a private consultant for GE until 2001. - www.bbotw.com*** AND NOW ***The ‘X' Zone TV Channel on SimulTV - www.simultv.comThe ‘X' Zone TV Channel Radio Feed (Free - No Subscription Required) - https://www.spreaker.com/show/xztv-the-x-zone-tv-show-audio The ‘X' Chronicles Newspaper - www.xchroniclesnewspaper.com (Free)To contact Rob McConnell - misterx@xzoneradiotv.com

While analysts in other fields face an ocean of data, those in social justice often face a desert. After all, those who abuse their power take care to conceal their crimes. How can data scientists hold the guilty accountable? Today's guest has used data to uncover hidden human rights violations and uphold social justice. Tarak Shah is a Data Scientist at the Human Rights Data Analysis Group (HRDAG), a RAFTO award-winning non-profit. In this episode, he reveals how his work has exposed the crimes of violent dictators and police – delivering justice to the violated and a chance to heal the communities affected. --------“In human rights, the question when we're talking about accountability is about what actually happened, not just what was documented.” — Tarak Shah--------Time Stamps* (0:00) Navigating a lack of data* (2:46) Analyzing human rights violations in Guatemala * (11:45) How data solved a murder mystery* (14:02) Data's insights into gender-based violence in Chicago* (34:33) How you can help preserve human rights with data--------SponsorThis podcast is presented by Alation.Hear more radical perspectives on leading data culture at Alation.com/podcast--------LinksConnect with Tarak on LinkedInCheck Out HRDAG

The bases for the enhanced antitrust enforcement programs at the Antitrust Division have been discussed often but understood rarely. What are the key assumptions that are being challenged as part of the new antitrust regime? David Lawrence, Policy Director at the Department of Justice Antitrust Division, joins John Roberti, Anant Raut and Aaron Yeater to discuss four key assumptions that new enforcers view with skepticism. Listen to this episode to understand better what is animating enforcement at the Antitrust Division. With special guest: David Lawrence, Policy Director, U.S. Department of Justice Antitrust Division Related Link: https://www.justice.gov/opa/speech/antitrust-division-policy-director-david-lawrence-delivers-keynote-hal-white-antitrust Hosted by: John Roberti, Cohen & Gresser LLP, Aaron Yeater, Analysis Group, and Anant Raut

Show Notes(01:48) Mike recalled his undergraduate experience studying Economics at Arizona State University and doing research on statistics/econometrics.(04:59) Mike reflected on his three years working as an analyst in the Boston office of the Analysis Group.(09:08) Mike discussed how he leveled up his programming skills at work.(11:05) Mike shared his learnings about building effective data-driven products while working as a data scientist at Case Commons.(17:20) Mike revisited his transition to a new role as the Director of Analytics at Harry's, the men's grooming brand — starting a new data team from scratch.(23:04) Mike unpacked analytics and infrastructure challenges during his time at Harry's — developing the data warehouse, an internal marketing attribution tool, and a fleet of systems for automated decision-making to improve efficiency.(27:21) Mike reasoned his move to Mexico City — spending time practicing Spanish, among other things.(32:22) Mike talked about his journey of starting a new consulting practice to help companies get more value out of their data, which was primarily shaped by his network.(36:30) Mike shared the founding story behind Recast, whose mission is to help modern brands improve the effectiveness of their marketing dollars.(42:09) Mike dissected the core technical problem that Recast is addressing: performing media mix modeling in the context of “programmatic” channels.(46:14) Mike shared the story behind the inception and evolution of Locally Optimistic, a community for current and aspiring data analytics leaders.(49:29) Mike walked through his 3-part blog series on Agile Analytics — discussing the good aspects, the bad aspects, and the adjustments needed for analytics teams to adopt the Scrum methodology.(53:25) Mike unpacked his post “A Culture of Partnership,” — which discusses the three key activities that can help an analytics team identify the most important opportunities in the business and work effectively with key stakeholders and partner teams to drive value.(57:25) Mike examined his seminal piece called “The Analytics Engineer,” which generated much attention from the analytics community — which argues that the analytics engineer can provide a multiplier effect on the output of an analytics team.(01:03:24) Mike shared the motivation and pedagogical philosophy behind the Analytics Engineers Club (co-founded with Claire Carroll), which provides a training course for data analysts looking to improve their engineering skills.(01:07:57) Mike anticipated the evolution of the quickly evolving modern data stack (read his Fivetran article “The Modern Data Science Stack”).(01:09:22) Mike unpacked how organizations can build, start, and maintain the data quality flywheel (read his Datafold article “The Data Quality Flywheel”).(01:11:40) Mike shared his thoughts regarding the challenge of sharing complex analyses.(01:13:15) Closing segment.Mike's Contact InfoTwitterWebsiteLinkedInGitHubFurther ResourcesRecastLocally OptimisticAnalytics Engineers ClubMentioned ContentArticles“Learning a language is hard” (Personal Blog, Jan 2020)“Modern Media Mix Modeling” (Recast Blog)“Agile Analytics, Part 1: The Good Stuff” (Locally Optimistic Blog, May 2018)“Agile Analytics, Part 2: The Bad Stuff” (Locally Optimistic Blog, June 2018)“Agile Analytics, Part 3: The Adjustments” (Locally Optimistic Blog, July 2018)“A Culture of Partnership” (Locally Optimistic Blog, March 2019)“The Analytics Engineer” (Locally Optimistic Blog, Jan 2019)“Data Education Is Broken” (Analytics Engineering Club, June 2021)“Teaching The Real Tools” (Analytics Engineering Club, Aug 2021)“The Modern Data Science Stack” (Fivetran Blog, Oct 2020)“The Data Quality Flywheel” (Datafold Blog, Nov 2020)“Knowledge Sharing” (Personal Blog, Sep 2020)“TDD for ELT” (Personal Blog, Sep 2020)“Are Data Catalogs Curing the Symptom or the Disease?” (Personal Blog, Dec 2020)PeopleClaire Carroll (Co-Instructor of Analytics Engineering Club, Product Manager of Hex, previous Community Manager of dbt Labs)Drew Banin (Head of Product at dbt Labs)Barry McCardel (Co-Founder and CEO of Hex)NotesMy conversation with Michael was recorded back in October 2021. Since then, Michael has been active in his work projects. I'd recommend:Following the Analytics Engineering Club for upcoming sessions (They are currently teaching their second summer cohort)Reading his collaboration blog post with Reforge on the attribution stackConsuming his Recast content explaining why marketing-mix modeling is hard and laying out the checklist for evaluating an MMM vendorAbout the showDatacast features long-form, in-depth conversations with practitioners and researchers in the data community to walk through their professional journeys and unpack the lessons learned along the way. I invite guests coming from a wide range of career paths — from scientists and analysts to founders and investors — to analyze the case for using data in the real world and extract their mental models (“the WHY and the HOW”) behind their pursuits. Hopefully, these conversations can serve as valuable tools for early-stage data professionals as they navigate their own careers in the exciting data universe.Datacast is produced and edited by James Le. Get in touch with feedback or guest suggestions by emailing khanhle.1013@gmail.com.Subscribe by searching for Datacast wherever you get podcasts or click one of the links below:Listen on SpotifyListen on Apple PodcastsListen on Google PodcastsIf you're new, see the podcast homepage for the most recent episodes to listen to, or browse the full guest list.

Enjoy this exclusive fireside chat with Shane Huntley, head of Google's TAG (Threat Analysis Group). In this session from SecurityWeek's Threat Intelligence Summit, we have a frank discussion on the science of threat intelligence, the cloudy nature of the APT landscape, the surge in big-game ransomware and nation-state malware activity worth tracking.

In this episode, Jeff Shinder and Grant Petrosyan discuss the intersection of blockchain technology and antitrust with guests Almudena Arcelus and Mihran Yenikomshian, Principal and Managing Principal with the economists and technology consulting firm Analysis Group.  This episode explores the potential benefits of blockchain as well as the potential antitrust concerns, and how blockchain could impact antitrust enforcement.

Professor, Attorney and Expert in Cybersecurity Policy & Governance, Kevin Powers joins Jerich Beason & Whitney McCollum to discuss where the law stands on “Hacking Back”. Everyone at some point wants to be Batman. During this Cyberside Chat they will answer questions such as: Is it ok to do whatever it takes to protect data or is it like breaking back into a thief's house to steal your items back? What could go wrong? How does the Computer Fraud & Abuse Act apply? What are the civil and criminal ramifications to the company executives and board of directors? How do you advise as internal counsel or outside counsel on corporate vigilantism? Where should law and regulation go in regard to the ever-changing landscape of cyber threats? Kevin Powers also speaks about the need for legal professionals to learn cybersecurity law, the programs available, and how you can add CLE's on the subject.Articles & Links for Reference:https://www.justice.gov/jm/jm-9-48000-computer-fraudhttps://blog.malwarebytes.com/ransomware/2022/03/nvidia-the-ransomware-breach-with-some-plot-twists/https://www.wired.com/story/north-korea-hacker-internet-outage/Note: “The statements of the guest speakers and hosts in this podcast should not be construed as legal advice.  They represent their views only and not those of Epiq or their respective employers.”BIOGRAPHYProfessor Kevin R. Powers, J.D., Founder and Director, Master of Science in Cybersecurity Policy and Governance Programs, Boston College  Kevin is the founder and director of the Master of Science in Cybersecurity Policy and Governance Programs at Boston College, and an Assistant Professor of the Practice at Boston College Law School and in Boston College's Carroll School of Management's Business Law and Society Department. Along with his teaching at Boston College, Kevin is a Cybersecurity Research Affiliate at the MIT Sloan School of Management, and he has taught courses at the U.S. Naval Academy, where he was also the Deputy General Counsel to the Superintendent.   With over 20 years of combined cybersecurity, data privacy, business, law enforcement, military, national security, higher education, and teaching experience, he has worked as an analyst and an attorney for the U.S. Department of Justice, U.S. Navy, U.S. Department of Defense, law firms in Boston and Washington, D.C., and as the general counsel for an international software company based in Seattle, Washington. Kevin also is an expert witness and consultant with the Analysis Group and serves as a Director for the Board of Reading Cooperative Bank, a Trustee for the Board of Boston College High School, an Advisory Board Member for HYCU, Inc. (Backed by Bain Capital Ventures) and CyberSaint Security, and as a Member of the Boston College Law School Business Advisory Council. From 2016-2017, he was the Panel Lead for the Collegiate Working Group for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security's National Initiative for Cybersecurity Education (NICE). Kevin, a Navy Veteran, regularly provides expert commentary regarding cybersecurity and national security concerns for varying local, national, and international media outlets.Find us on LinkedIn or email us at cyberside@epiqglobal.com.

Latest news from 28 March 2022, as reported in the Ukrainian media. Contact us at: highlightsfromukraine@gmail.com. Support Ukraine at: https://help.gov.ua/en.

Guest host, Dr. Neeraj Agarwal, ASCO Daily News editor-in-chief and director of the Genitourinary Cancers Program at the University of Utah's Huntsman Cancer Institute, discusses the practice-changing KEYNOTE-564 and SWOG 1500 trials with Drs. Toni Choueiri and Sumanta "Monty" Pal. Dr. Choueiri is director of the Lank Center for Genitourinary Oncology at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Dr. Pal is co-director of City of Hope's Kidney Cancer Program and associate editor of Cancer.Net. (This episode was recorded on 11/18/2021) Transcript Dr. Neeraj Agarwal: Hello, and welcome to the ASCO Daily News podcast. I am Dr. Neeraj Agarwal, the director of the Genitourinary Oncology Program, and the professor of Medicine at the University of Utah Huntsman Cancer Institute, and editor-in-chief of the ASCO Daily News. I'm delighted to welcome two internationally recognized leaders in the field, Dr. Toni Choueiri and Dr. Sumanta (Monty) Pal, for a discussion about two practice-changing studies in kidney cancer published this year-- KEYNOTE-564 and SWOG 1500. As a quick introduction, Dr. Choueiri is the director of Lank Center of Genitourinary Oncology at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. He's also the Jerome and Nancy Kohlberg Chair, and professor of medicine at the Harvard Medical School. Dr. Sumanta "Monty" Pal is a professor in oncology, and co-director of City of Hope's Kidney Cancer Program, and he is an associate editor of cancer.net of ASCO. Our full disclosures are available in the show notes. And disclosures relating to all episodes of podcasts can be found on our transcripts at ASCO.org/podcast. Toni and Monty, what a day it has been for our patients with kidney cancer. I woke up with the news of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval of the first ever adjuvant immunotherapy for patients with renal cell carcinoma. It is so great to have you both on the podcast today.   Dr. Monty Pal: Glad to be here. Thanks, Neeraj.   Dr. Toni Choueiri: Thank you, Neeraj. So glad to be here.   Dr. Neeraj Agarwal: So, let me start by asking questions to you first, Toni. So, you recently published the primary results of the phase 3 KEYNOTE-564 study, showing the efficacy of adjuvant therapy with pembrolizumab and immune checkpoint inhibitor in patients with renal cell carcinoma. And this study led to the approval of pembrolizumab this morning. So, please tell us more about the study design and why did you do this study.   Dr. Toni Choueiri: Thank you, Neeraj. And thank you, really, ASCO for this wonderful podcast series. And a big hit, I always listen to them when I'm driving or jogging. And really, thanks for this opportunity because kidney cancer adjuvant therapy has been something like a holy grail we're trying to find for a long, long time. The first adjuvant trial, a randomized trial, in renal cell cancer was in 1973 with radiation therapy. And since that time, all the trials except for one have been a complete failure in a way. And the first adjuvant immunotherapy trial was with old immunotherapy cytokine that we don't use much anymore and was in 1992. I was not done with medical school. I was not actually done with high school at that time, let alone medical school. And now that we have, as we all know, a revolution in the oncology field through these immune checkpoint inhibitors that reinvented immunotherapy in cancer, and now that pembrolizumab has shown activity in patients with more advanced disease, we thought about taking this into the adjuvant setting, a setting of patients where they were subjected to surgery. But on the pathology report, we knew that their risk of this cancer coming back, of recurrence, is somewhat intermediate high or high. These are patients that have stage 2 but grade 4, stage 3, D3, D4. These are patients that had node-positive resected. And we took even patients where the kidney is out, but, also, they had a removal of a metastatic site--let's say a lung metastasis--within a year of removing the kidney. And we know these patients we refer to as M1NED are at quite high risk of recurrence. And we randomly assigned 994 patients to receive pembrolizumab for a year versus placebo. And after a median follow-up of only 2 years--so I want to insist here that this is short for any trial in general--we saw a decrease in the risk of recurrence or death. The hazard ratio for disease-free survival was 0.68. So, a 32% decrease in the risk of recurrence or death. We looked at safety, and we already are familiar in the field of GU oncology with pembrolizumab. And we didn't see when we looked at the safety profile any surprises, any enhanced toxicity. Of course, immune-related adverse events are the number one concern with pembrolizumab. There were no deaths on trial related to pembrolizumab. We saw around 7% of patients needing high dose steroid to medicate these immune-related adverse event, and some patients had to come off therapy for that. We also took a look, Neeraj, an early look, at overall survival. We only had 25% of events, 51 deaths. And we did not meet the very rigorous statistical significance that is needed to say that study is positive for overall survival. But the hazard ratio was 0.54, a 46% decrease in the risk of death, which is kind of encouraging. And after a year, the curve starts to separate. Before a year, they're not separating. And that is consistent with prior studies in general.   Dr. Neeraj Agarwal: This is a very interesting point you just raised, that DFS, disease-free survival, is strongly positive. And even overall survival is trending in the right direction, right?   Dr. Toni Choueiri: Correct.   Dr. Neeraj Agarwal: That's great. So obviously, I would like to raise another point here. When we talk about adjuvant study, we usually think about a localized kidney cancer, which is removed by the surgeon, and then [the] patient is coming to see us for treatment in adjuvant setting. But this study, I would like to highlight, as you said, also included patients who had oligometastatic disease, had successful surgical removal of the oligometastatic disease, and they were also eligible for this trial.   Dr. Toni Choueiri: Yes, absolutely. And I think this is somewhat on the recent side in clinical trials in kidney cancer. The reason for that is that, in practice, we see those patients. And we even had two small trials in the TKI era with sorafenib and pazopanib, small studies, were also completely negative. So, we thought here that we should not exclude these patients. They end up being 6%, 7% of all participants, but this remains an area of unmet medical need.   Dr. Neeraj Agarwal: So, how is the hazard ratio in those patients who had metastatic disease removed and then treated with pembrolizumab?   Dr. Toni Choueiri: Yeah, it was very low. It was 0.2, so 0.29. And this was great to see. I don't want to go into really over-interpreting these results. All the hazard ratio--when you look at subgroup analysis or in the forest plot, all the hazard ratio are less than 1. We didn't see something--let's say 1.5--in favor of pembrolizumab. Now you go into a smaller subgroup, then your confidence intervals are very large and hard to interpret, except that to say, look, on average there could be a significant benefit here, but we can't tell.   Dr. Neeraj Agarwal: Sure, absolutely. I agree with you. So, how this is going to affect the current treatment paradigm, which is for patients with newly diagnosed metastatic RCC, where combination of VEGF-TKI plus immunotherapies (IOs) or IO/IO combinations have become standard of care or treatment paradigm?   Dr. Toni Choueiri: I do believe it will be a standard of care currently in the right population. There are a lot of unanswered questions, but that will be answered hopefully with more follow up. We have already, beside these results, reported--so these results were reported in the plenary session at the 2021 ASCO [Annual Meeting]. But later on, another analysis dealing with patient-reported outcome and quality of life was reported at ESMO and also showed no detriment in quality of life--that's the voice of the patient--no detriment with pembrolizumab (pembro). There is a lot still to do and a lot of unanswered questions, such as the non-clear cell histology, those patients who had surgery of their metastatic disease more than a year. But most important, I think, two questions. One, how can you know from the get-go who are the patients that need adjuvant pembrolizumab? We do not have any valid ctDNA. And I know Dr. Pal was involved with a lot of these type of research. We don't have any ctDNA test that is really that faithful and sensitive in the MRD space in renal cell. Many of us are working, so we don't know. We may end up over-treating patients that need surgery only. And actually, we may end up under-treating patients that need, perhaps, pembro, and another drug. And the second thing in those patients--and I hope it does not happen, but unfortunately, it will to some extent--whose tumor progress on adjuvant pembrolizumab, what do you do? What's the treatment paradigm? And actually, there is no data. This is a data-free zone. And I would think somebody whose tumor progressed, tumor continued to grow or grows, while they're actively on pembrolizumab, on IO, is way different than someone whose tumor comes back after 2 or 3 years from stopping the drug. Should we treat them with the same drug? Should we treat them with the TKI plus IO? Luckily, there are trials that are ongoing in patients whose tumor progressed after PD-1/PD-L1 inhibitor to give them a TKI as a control arm, or a TKI plus an immune checkpoint inhibitor. And I know Dr. Pal is very heavily involved with such trials. So, hopefully, we will answer this question, but not anytime soon.   Dr. Neeraj Agarwal: Very interesting, and definitely new results are posing new challenges in how we practice medicine here in the coming future. So, Monty, you are leading a trial with a very similar trial with atezolizumab. And I'm really hoping, we are all really hoping, that we see the other trial being positive, so we have more treatment options for our patients.   Dr. Monty Pal: I couldn't agree with you more. I mean, I definitely think that Toni's study really adds a lot of fuel to the fire suggesting that this strategy of adjuvant immunotherapy may be successful in localized renal cell.   Dr. Neeraj Agarwal: And I'm not going to really delve into the side effects of pembrolizumab and atezolizumab because these drugs are used quite often. They are in widespread use for different types of cancer. But just a quick question, any safety signal, Toni? Did you see any safety signal with pembrolizumab in this patient population?   Dr. Toni Choueiri: Yeah, this is an excellent question. So, nothing that would be different than using pembrolizumab overall knowing in other diseases as a single agent. So, this drug not first in human, as you know, and it's been approved in combination or as a single agent in many diseases. A tumor that the three of us treat is bladder cancer, and we know from another study how to use pembrolizumab. I think that the use of corticosteroid is somewhat of an objective way, at least to me, in looking at immune-related adverse event. And it has been between 5% to 10%, so we're not way off here. But there is no doubt that there are patients that we had no death on trial attributed to drug that may have, with pembrolizumab, some serious toxicities. We had patients that had autoimmune diabetes, hypophysitis, pneumonitis--quite uncommon, but not impossible.   Dr. Neeraj Agarwal: We'll still need to keep an eye for that, basically.   Dr. Toni Choueiri: No doubt.   Dr. Neeraj Agarwal: Yes. So, changing gears, let's talk to you, Monty. You recently presented the primary results of the SWOG 1500 trial in patients with metastatic non-clear cell renal cell carcinoma. Could you please tell us why you did this study and how this study's design was unique compared to similar studies in this setting?   Dr. Monty Pal: Yeah. No, absolutely. Toni did a great job of outlining areas that are sort of free of data in the adjuvant space, particularly with immunotherapy. I think that data-free area for us in kidney cancer for a long time has been non-clear cell histology. We just don't really know how to treat them. And I actually got advice from Toni when I was devising SWOG 1500. We planned it out as a very simple study comparing sunitinib and cabozantinib. And Toni will remember this history well. It sort of went through several iterations. The study blossomed into a six-arm trial. Ultimately, it turned into a four-arm study, looking at sunitinib versus cabozantinib versus two other MET inhibitors--savolitinib and crizotinib. And ultimately, the study was boiled down to essentially what we'd originally proposed. Two of the MET inhibitors--savolitinib and crizotinib--failed to surpass that initial analysis for PFS. So, ultimately, we demonstrated a superiority with cabozantinib over sunitinib for progression-free survival.   Dr. Neeraj Agarwal: So, what is the current treatment paradigm for patients who have newly diagnosed metastatic papillary RCC now?   Dr. Monty Pal: I think for patients who don't have genomic selection, I think that cabozantinib remains the standard. I really want to champion- and maybe Toni can talk a little bit more about this--a study that Toni is leading called the SAMETA trial, which I think has a really innovative design. And it's going to be genomically characterizing patients and randomizing to savolitinib with durvalumab or sunitinib. Tell me, Toni, if I have the design right there.   Dr. Toni Choueiri: Yes. Actually, this is a specific study in a specific population. It's not in papillary RCC as much as in those 30%, 40% of papillary RCC that have MET-driven tumors, so MET alteration, whether through chromosome 7 duplication, through chromosome 7 trisomy, through mutation or amplification. These patients will get either control arm or they will get savolitinib, which is a pure MET inhibitor that is devoid of VEGF-related toxicities, savolitinib plus durvalumab, or durvalumab alone. So, two experimental arms and one control. And the reason for this is we saw activity and quite a good toxicity profile with savolitinib, a pure MET inhibitor, over sunitinib in an earlier trial that was sunitinib against savolitinib in selected patient populations. The study had to close early. So, despite the numerical difference, this was not statistically significant. And then in another study led by Dr. Powles and colleagues, there was also some interesting activity how durvalumab could augment that activity. So, we're launching a phase 3 trial with three arms that you described very well.   Dr. Neeraj Agarwal: That's wonderful. So, what are the next steps, Monty? I mean, this is amazing to see you designing an investigator-initiated trial. This was your concept. You designed it. You built this to be a huge multicenter trial, which was open across the country, funded by the National Cancer Institute. And congratulations for making that happen. It's rare for us to see these trials going from a concept stage to a national trial, and then changing the standard of care. So, what are the next steps now for you and your team in SWOG for papillary RCC or metastatic papillary RCC? How do you build out further with the backbone of cabozantinib?   Dr. Monty Pal: I really appreciate the question, Neeraj. It's so critical to understand that we're just not quite done yet. Toni's study, as I've mentioned, is incredibly innovative. I'm also really thrilled to be working with someone who you've mentored so well, Ben Maughan, at the Huntsman Cancer Institute in Utah. And he's actually designed a brilliant study, which we're going to be leading together, which looks at cabozantinib with or without atezolizumab. Recently, in a study that you and I and Toni were a part of that we just published in JCO, we actually saw quite impressive response rates with the combination of cabozantinib and atezolizumab in patients with papillary RCC, around 47%. Those response rates were actually replicated in a separate study run by Joe Lee at Memorial Sloan Kettering. In the context of papillary disease response rates were again above a threshold of around 40%. So, I think there's something to it. But until we really subject this to randomization, I think we're not going to know whether or not cabo plus IO is standard. So, I encourage everyone to consider Toni's study. I encourage everyone to look out for our trial of cabo plus or minus atezo, which should be rolling out next year.   Dr. Neeraj Agarwal: What is the name of the trial, or the number, for our audience?   Dr. Monty Pal: Yeah, we lucked out with another great number. We got 1500 for the first trial. This is going to be SWOG 2200. So SWOG 2200, and I think it's due to open maybe in the first quarter of 2022.   Dr. Neeraj Agarwal: That's fantastic news. Any new signal? We know cabozantinib is already approved for our patients with metastatic RCC, courtesy METEOR trial led by Dr. Choueiri. Toni, it's amazing to see how many times you have changed standard of care for our patients with metastatic RCC. So, any new safety signal of cabozantinib in this patient population with metastatic papillary RCC?   Dr. Monty Pal: Nothing that appreciated. The toxicity profile was pretty much on par with what you'd anticipate for cabozantinib in the setting. Major side effects were hypertension, hand-foot syndrome, [and] diarrhea. Nothing that really sort of stood out relative to what we would expect in a clear cell population of patients.   Dr. Neeraj Agarwal: That's great. Any final messages for our patients, for our audience, for our listeners?   Dr. Toni Choueiri: Well, let me start, and maybe Monty can add. It's been, and it hopefully will continue to be, this humbling experience, where median survival from metastatic RCC in mid-2000--not long time ago during our training--has been 1 year. And now in metastatic disease, it's 4 to 5 years. And that is only going to get better. And then it's even more humbling to be in a time where you can talk about adjuvant treatment in this disease, renal cell cancer, that continues every year to kill, unfortunately, 14,000 Americans. That's just in the U.S. alone. So, we have to continue in getting more targets, more drugs, more reasonable combination, and the right patient, whether through specific biomarker that are tissue or blood-based or specific liquid biopsies that can tell you who has and who doesn't have cancer at the microscopic levels.   Dr. Neeraj Agarwal: Thank you. How about you, Monty? Any final message for our audience?   Dr. Monty Pal: I couldn't have summarized it better than Toni, just such a wonderful statement around optimism for what we've achieved so far and what's yet to come. And if I could emphasize to anyone in the audience today the need to keep progressing the field further with clinical trials, I think that would be my underlying message.   Dr. Neeraj Agarwal: Thank you again, Toni, Monty, for your valuable insights and thoughts. Thank you for all the inspiration. This is indeed so inspiring to see your work, which is changing the lives of our patients on a daily basis. Our listeners will find links to your studies in the transcript of this episode. I wish you all the best.   Dr. Toni Choueiri: Thank you.   Dr. Neeraj Agarwal: And thank you to our listeners for your time today. If you enjoyed this episode, please take a moment to rate, review, and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. Thank you so much.   Disclosures: Dr. Neeraj Agarwal: Consulting or Advisory Role: Pfizer, Medivation/Astellas, Bristol-Myers Squibb, AstraZeneca, Nektar, Lilly, Bayer, Pharmacyclics, Foundation Medicine, Astellas Pharma, Exelixis, Pfizer, Merck    , Novartis, Eisai, Seattle Genetics, EMD Serono, Janssen Oncology, AVEO, Calithera Biosciences, MEI Pharma, Genentech, Foundation Medicine, Gilead Sciences Research Funding (inst.): Bayer, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Takeda, Pfizer, Exelixis, Amgen, AstraZeneca, Calithera Biosciences, Celldex, Eisai, Genentech, Immunomedics, Janssen, Merck, Lilly, Nektar, ORIC Pharmaceuticals, ORIC Pharmaceuticals, crispr therapeutics, and Arvinas   Dr. Sumanta (Monty) Pal: Consulting or Advisory Role: F. Hoffmann LaRoche, F. Hoffman Research Funding (inst.): Eisai, Genentech, Roche, Exelixis, Pfizer Travel, Accommodations, Expenses: Genentech, Seattle Genetics   Dr. Toni Choueiri: Employment: Dana Farber Cancer Hospital Leadership: Dana Farber Cancer Hospital, NCCN, KidneyCan, ASCO, ESMO Stock and Other Ownership Interests: Pionyr, TEMPEST Honoraria: NCCN, UpToDate, Michael J. Hennessy Associates, ASCO, Harborside Press, Analysis Group,                AstraZeneca, Alexion Pharmaceuticals, Sanofi/Aventis, Bayer, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Genentech/Roche, GlaxoSmithKline, Merck          , Novartis, Peloton Therapeutics , Pfizer, Corvus Pharmaceuticals, Ipsen,                 Foundation Medicine, Eisai, PlatformQ Health, Clinical Care Options, Navinata Healthcare, Kidney Cancer Journal, Exelixis, Prometheus, Lpath, NEJM, Lancet Oncology, Cerulean Pharma, alligent, EMD Serono, HERON, Lilly, Janssen Oncology, IQvia, Aveo, and NCI. Consulting or Advisory Role: Pfizer, Bayer, Novartis, GlaxoSmithKline, Merck, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Roche/Genentech, Eisai, Foundation Medicine, Cerulean Pharma, AstraZeneca, Exelixis, Prometheus Laboratories, alligent, Ipsen, Corvus Pharmaceuticals, Lpath, Alexion Pharmaceuticals, Sanofi/Aventis, Peloton Therapeutics, UpToDate, NCCN, Michael J. Hennessy Associates, Analysis Group, Kidney Cancer Journal, Clinical Care Options, Paltform Q, Navinata Healthcare, Harborside Press, ASCO, NEJM, Lancet Oncology, EMD Serono, HERON, Lilly, ESMO, NiKang Therapeutics, Kanaph Therapeutics, Infinity Pharmaceuticals, and Aravive Research Funding (inst.): Pfizer, Novartis, Merck, Exelixis               , TRACON Pharma, GlaxoSmithKline, Bristol-Myers Squibb, AstraZeneca, Peloton Therapeutics, Roche/Genentech, Celldex, Agensys, Eisai, Takeda, Prometheus, Ipsen, Corvus Pharmaceuticals, Cerulean Pharma, Seattle Genetics/Astellas, Bayer, Foundation Medicine, Roche, Calithera Biosciences, Analysis Group, NCI, GATEWAY for Cancer Research, and Congressionally Directed Medical Research Programs (DOD) Patents, Royalties, Other Intellectual Property (inst.): International Patent Application No. PCT/US2018/058430, entitled “Biomarkers of Clinical Response and Benefit to Immune Checkpoint Inhibitor Therapy, International Patent Application No. PCT/US2018/12209, entitled “PBRM1 Biomarkers Predictive of Anti-Immune Checkpoint Response Patents, Royalties, Other Intellectual Property: ctDNA technologies Travel, Accommodations, Expenses: Pfizer, Bayer, Novartis, GlaxoSmithKline, Merck, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Roche/Genentech, Eisai, Foundation Medicine, Cerulean Pharma, AstraZeneca, Exelixis, Prometheus, alligent, Ipsen, Corvus Pharmaceuticals, Lpath, Alexion Pharmaceuticals, Sanofi/Aventis, UpToDate, Peloton Therapeutics, NCCN, Michael J. Hennessy Associates, Analysis Group, Kidney Cancer Journal, Clinical Care Options, PlatformQ Health, Harborside Press, Navinata Healthcare, NEJM, Lancet Oncology, EMD Serono, HERON, Lilly, and ESMO Other Relationship: Medical writing and editorial assistance support may have been funded by Communications companies funded by pharmaceutical companies such as ClinicalThinking, Health Interactions, Envision Pharma Group, Fishawack Group of Companies, Parexel   Disclaimer: The purpose of this podcast is to educate and to inform. This is not a substitute for professional medical care and is not intended for use in the diagnosis or treatment of individual conditions. Guests on this podcast express their own opinions, experience, and conclusions. The mention of any product, service, organization, activity, or therapy should not be construed as an ASCO endorsement.    

JOSEPH FRAY - An Achievable Solution Of Our Energy Problems - Joseph Fray is a chartered electrical engineer and physicist in the UK. After graduation he entered the electrical power industry. During this period he served as a part-time lecturer at the Blackpool Technical College. From the power industry the he joined the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA) as the Works Electrical Engineer at the Chapelcross nuclear power station. During this assignment he developed an interest in the reactor side of the operation and began a study of reactor physics. He then moved to the Industrial Power Branch of the UKAEA and was engaged in the review of commercial nuclear power plants. While in this position he participated in the startup testing of the Advanced Gas Cooled Reactor at the Widscale site. He also gave lectures on reactor control at the Calder Hall Reactor Operations School. The Author next took a position with the Test Design and Analysis Group of the General Electric (GE) Nuclear Section in San Jose, California. He was assigned as the team leader of the team conducting all the startup testing on the Dresden 2 nuclear reactor located south of Chicago.Illinois. At completion of the Dresden startup, he continued with GE to support the licensing of nuclear plants. He formally retired in 1988, but worked as a private consultant for GE until 2001. - www.bbotw.com*** AND NOW ***The ‘X' Zone TV Channel on SimulTV - www.simultv.comThe ‘X' Zone TV Channel Radio Feed (Free - No Subscription Required) - https://www.spreaker.com/show/xztv-the-x-zone-tv-show-audio The ‘X' Chronicles Newspaper - www.xchroniclesnewspaper.com (Free)To contact Rob McConnell - misterx@xzoneradiotv.com

JOSEPH FRAY - An Achievable Solution Of Our Energy Problems - Joseph Fray is a chartered electrical engineer and physicist in the UK. After graduation he entered the electrical power industry. During this period he served as a part-time lecturer at the Blackpool Technical College. From the power industry the he joined the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA) as the Works Electrical Engineer at the Chapelcross nuclear power station. During this assignment he developed an interest in the reactor side of the operation and began a study of reactor physics. He then moved to the Industrial Power Branch of the UKAEA and was engaged in the review of commercial nuclear power plants. While in this position he participated in the startup testing of the Advanced Gas Cooled Reactor at the Widscale site. He also gave lectures on reactor control at the Calder Hall Reactor Operations School. The Author next took a position with the Test Design and Analysis Group of the General Electric (GE) Nuclear Section in San Jose, California. He was assigned as the team leader of the team conducting all the startup testing on the Dresden 2 nuclear reactor located south of Chicago.Illinois. At completion of the Dresden startup, he continued with GE to support the licensing of nuclear plants. He formally retired in 1988, but worked as a private consultant for GE until 2001. - www.bbotw.com*** AND NOW ***The ‘X' Zone TV Channel on SimulTV - www.simultv.comThe ‘X' Zone TV Channel Radio Feed (Free - No Subscription Required) - https://www.spreaker.com/show/xztv-the-x-zone-tv-show-audio The ‘X' Chronicles Newspaper - www.xchroniclesnewspaper.com (Free)To contact Rob McConnell - misterx@xzoneradiotv.com

Brian Miloscia, Vice President, Investigation & Analysis Group at a global investment bank, discusses how jobs in fraud and investigation are librarian jobs.

In today's episode, Rusty and Robyn talk with Harin de Silva, Portfolio Manager for the Analytics Investors Group at Wells Fargo Asset Management. Harin's focus as a portfolio manager is on equities and factor-based asset allocation strategies. He is also regarded as one of the top quantitative managers in the US and has received the prestigious Graham and Dodd Award of Excellence for his research. Before joining Wells Fargo, Harin also provided economic research services to investors through the Analysis Group, Inc. Harin talks with Rusty and Robyn about factor-based investing, long/short funds, perspectives on risk analysis, and incorporating big data in investing. "Our role as quantitative investors is to take what people are doing from a fundamental standpoint and then apply that systematically across a wide range of stocks. And technology is what allows us to do that." ~ Harin de Silva Main Takeaways  In factor-based investing, investors can easily understand performance and the common themes in structuring portfolios. Quantitative investing is systematic investing. Quantitative investors don't just acquire the relevant data; they decide and assign the weight of the factors that affect the structure of the portfolio. Coming up with an idea is just the first step. Using technology to transform big data into useful information is also critical, especially in improving investment strategies. In analyzing the performance, volatilities, and drawdowns of funds, consider looking at risk adjustment metrics like the Sortino ratio and the VIX index. Lower volatility stocks tend to outperform higher volatility stocks because of two key things: human behavior and volatility drag. Links Harindra (Harin) de Silva on LinkedIn Tubular Bells by Michael Oldfield Wells Fargo Asset Management 361 Global Long/Short Equity Fund A.W. Jones Security Analysis by Benjamin Graham and David Dodd Twitter Facebook Myron Scholes Cboe VIX Index Sortino Ratio Robinhood Warren Buffett Noise: A Flaw in Human Judgment by Daniel Kahneman Think Again by Adam Grant Connect with our hosts Rusty Vanneman Robyn Murray Subscribe and stay in touch Apple Podcasts Spotify Google Podcasts 2041-OAS-7/19/2021

Luis Miguel Echegaray welcomes two former USMNT players Jimmy Conrad and Heath Pearce to preview the CONCACAF Gold Cup. The former internationals break down each group, discuss the USMNT's roster and give their picks and betting tips. Heath and Jimmy will be with us the entire tournament to preview matches, give postgame recaps and provide crucial USMNT analysis. If you're a fan of the Qué Golazo pod and all of our soccer coverage, we'd appreciate it if you'd take 60 seconds to nominate Qué Golazo for the 2020 Podcast Awards! All it takes is 60 seconds. Check us out in the 'Sports' category: http://podcastawards.com/app/signup/ Qué Golazo' is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Google Podcasts, Castbox and wherever else you listen to podcasts.  Follow the Qué Golazo team on Twitter: @quegolazopod, @lmechegaray, @JimmyConrad, @FabrizioRomano, @Jon_LeGossip, @jamesbenge, @heathpearce, @LRoman32 Watch Qué Golazo on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/QueGolazo For more soccer coverage from CBS Sports, visit https://www.cbssports.com/soccer/ To hear more from the CBS Sports Podcast Network, visit https://www.cbssports.com/podcasts/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

An Achievable Solution Of Our Energy Problems : Joseph Fray is a chartered electrical engineer and physicist in the UK. After graduation he entered the electrical power industry. During this period he served as a part-time lecturer at the Blackpool Technical College. From the power industry the he joined the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA) as the Works Electrical Engineer at the Chapelcross nuclear power station. During this assignment he developed an interest in the reactor side of the operation and began a study of reactor physics. He then moved to the Industrial Power Branch of the UKAEA and was engaged in the review of commercial nuclear power plants. While in this position he participated in the startup testing of the Advanced Gas Cooled Reactor at the Widscale site. He also gave lectures on reactor control at the Calder Hall Reactor Operations School. The Author next took a position with the Test Design and Analysis Group of the General Electric (GE) Nuclear Section in San Jose, California. He was assigned as the team leader of the team conducting all the startup testing on the Dresden 2 nuclear reactor located south of Chicago.Illinois. At completion of the Dresden startup, he continued with GE to support the licensing of nuclear plants. He formally retired in 1988, but worked as a private consultant for GE until 2001. - www.bbotw.comFor Your Listening Pleasure for these Lockdown / Stay-At-Home COVID and Variants Times - For all the radio shows available on The 'X' Zone Broadcast Network visit - https://www.spreaker.com/user/xzoneradiotv.Our radio shows archives and programming include: A Different Perspective with Kevin Randle; Alien Cosmic Expo Lecture Series; Alien Worlds Radio Show; America's Soul Doctor with Ken Unger; Back in Control Radio Show with Dr. David Hanscom, MD; Connecting with Coincidence with Dr. Bernard Beitman, MD; Dick Tracy; Dimension X; Exploring Tomorrow Radio Show; Flash Gordon; Imagine More Success Radio Show with Syndee Hendricks and Thomas Hydes; Jet Jungle Radio Show; Journey Into Space; Know the Name with Sharon Lynn Wyeth; Lux Radio Theatre - Classic Old Time Radio; Mission Evolution with Gwilda Wiyaka; Paranormal StakeOut with Larry Lawson; Ray Bradbury - Tales Of The Bizarre; Sci Fi Radio Show; Seek Reality with Roberta Grimes; Space Patrol; Stairway to Heaven with Gwilda Wiyaka; The 'X' Zone Radio Show with Rob McConnell; Two Good To Be True with Justina Marsh and Peter Marsh; and many other!That's The ‘X' Zone Broadcast Network Shows and Archives - https://www.spreaker.com/user/xzoneradiotv

You know back in the olden days when a foot of measurement was actually the measure of your own foot? So, I might measure something and it’s, like, 19 feet. And then you measure the same exact thing and it’s 38 feet because you have tiny feet. This is the analogy that kept running through my mind as I was talking with Anna Kaltenboeck in this health care podcast about QALYs to measure the value of drugs. In this metaphor, QALYs are the ruler so that 1 foot of drug value is the same for everybody and all drugs. It’s very civilized as a concept if you think about it. QALY stands for quality-adjusted life year. The goal of a QALY is to figure out how much any given drug is worth to a society so that we, as a society, have a benchmark to evaluate the price of pharmaceutical products. QALYs are an apples to apples or a foot to foot way to compare the value of drugs for we the people. I mean, is this drug amazing and we should all pay a lot for it? Or is the drug more expensive than the current standard of treatment and it doesn’t confer any added benefit to patients? It’d be good to know that as a patient and as a payer and, frankly, as a pharma company. QALYs offer a framework for levelheaded discussions. It’s complicated. I’m gonna take the risk of oversimplifying, but here’s how I’d explain the three parts in a QALY measurement, which combines measure pharmaceutical value. The first part is, if relevant, how much additional survival can be expected with this drug? So, if it’s an oncology drug, for example, how much longer will the patient live? The second part of a QALY is, how does the drug make the patient feel? So, in an ideal world, survival is long and the patient feels super great. So, some economists and scientists get together and they do some math and they come up with the sum of these first two factors. Then the third part of a QALY calculation is the cold hard cash. How much is society willing to pay for this improvement in survival, in quality of life? This last part will depend based on the society (ie, the country) and also the condition. We’re willing to pay a lot for a drug that helps blind people see. We might be not so willing to pay a whole lot for a drug that lowers blood pressure marginally, for example. My guest in this health care podcast is Anna Kaltenboeck. She is a health economist and program director for the Drug Pricing Lab at Memorial Sloan Kettering. She knows a lot about QALYs. One last thing: ICER is the Institute for Clinical and Economic Review. It is an independent and nonprofit organization who creates a lot of these QALY assessments. Whether they succeed or not is something that is sometimes questioned, but the team over at ICER prides themselves in not working for Pharma and not working for payers in an effort to be as impartial as possible.   You can learn more at drugpricinglab.org.   Anna Kaltenboeck is the senior health economist and program director for the Center for Health Policy and Outcomes and the Drug Pricing Lab at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSKCC). She focuses on the development and application of reimbursement methods for prescription drugs that reduce distortionary incentives in the supply chain and encourage pricing of treatments based on their value. Her work centers on developing an unbiased evidence base that characterizes the effect of federal policies on coverage and reimbursement decisions for branded specialty drugs and cell and gene therapies and identifying opportunities for policy changes that encourage affordability and access while maintaining incentives for innovation. Her current research interests include global comparisons of reimbursement policy and supply chain regulation, game theory in innovation decisions, and the effect of market concentration on pricing decisions. Ms. Kaltenboeck’s research and policy work is informed by her experience as a consultant for pharmaceutical clients. Prior to joining MSKCC, Ms. Kaltenboeck spent 10 years working for Analysis Group and IMS Consulting Group, where she conducted health economics and outcomes research and developed pricing and market access strategies for pharmaceutical and diagnostic products. She has published numerous articles in peer-reviewed journals and other press, including JAMA and Morning Consult, and speaks frequently on the topics of value-based pricing, economics of the supply chain, and reimbursement models. Ms. Kaltenboeck holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in economics from Tufts University. 3:56 What is a QALY? 05:28 “You don’t get marks; it’s the treatment that gets the marks.” 09:13 What is willingness to pay? 10:52 “What we pay for drugs should be reflected in societal preference.” 12:29 Does Pharma fear the QALY? 15:38 “At the end of the day, the ideal here is simply to be able to quantify ‘This is what we’re going to pay for this additional benefit that we’re going to provide for patients.’” 17:09 “When you meet that price, patients should be getting access to that product.” 19:27 What are the significant advances being seen with QALYs and drug development? 21:23 “The challenge is when the price is so much higher than those benchmarks.” 22:27 How do we use the QALY as a tool? 25:56 Where does value-based pricing fall in the world of QALYs? You can learn more at drugpricinglab.org.   @a_kaltenboeck discusses #drugpricing and #patientadvocacy in this week’s #healthcarepodcast. #healthcare #podcast #digitalhealth #healthtech #healthvalue #drugvalue What is a #QALY? @a_kaltenboeck discusses #drugpricing and #patientadvocacy in this week’s #healthcarepodcast. #healthcare #podcast #digitalhealth #healthtech #healthvalue #drugvalue “You don’t get marks; it’s the treatment that gets the marks.” @a_kaltenboeck discusses #drugpricing and #patientadvocacy in this week’s #healthcarepodcast. #healthcare #podcast #digitalhealth #healthtech #healthvalue #drugvalue What is willingness to pay? @a_kaltenboeck discusses #drugpricing and #patientadvocacy in this week’s #healthcarepodcast. #healthcare #podcast #digitalhealth #healthtech #healthvalue #drugvalue “What we pay for drugs should be reflected in societal preference.” @a_kaltenboeck discusses #drugpricing and #patientadvocacy in this week’s #healthcarepodcast. #healthcare #podcast #digitalhealth #healthtech #healthvalue #drugvalue Does Pharma fear the QALY? @a_kaltenboeck discusses #drugpricing and #patientadvocacy in this week’s #healthcarepodcast. #healthcare #podcast #digitalhealth #healthtech #healthvalue #drugvalue “At the end of the day, the ideal here is simply to be able to quantify ‘This is what we’re going to pay for this additional benefit that we’re going to provide for patients.’” @a_kaltenboeck discusses #drugpricing and #patientadvocacy in this week’s #healthcarepodcast. #healthcare #podcast #digitalhealth #healthtech #healthvalue #drugvalue “When you meet that price, patients should be getting access to that product.” @a_kaltenboeck discusses #drugpricing and #patientadvocacy in this week’s #healthcarepodcast. #healthcare #podcast #digitalhealth #healthtech #healthvalue #drugvalue How do we use the QALY as a tool? @a_kaltenboeck discusses #drugpricing and #patientadvocacy in this week’s #healthcarepodcast. #healthcare #podcast #digitalhealth #healthtech #healthvalue #drugvalue Where does value-based pricing fall in the world of QALYs? @a_kaltenboeck discusses #drugpricing and #patientadvocacy in this week’s #healthcarepodcast. #healthcare #podcast #digitalhealth #healthtech #healthvalue #drugvalue

In this week's episode, guest hosts Richard Newell and Sue Tierney talk with each other about the difference it makes for policymakers to have access to sound economic and policy analysis, economic and climate policy in the near-and longer term, the best ways to deploy resources to achieve ambitious policy outcomes, and highlights from prior episodes in the "Big Decisions" series they've spearheaded on the Resources Radio podcast. Newell is president and CEO of Resources for the Future (RFF). Tierney serves as the chair of RFF's Board of Directors and is a senior advisor at Analysis Group. This is the final episode of our month-long spin-off series, “Big Decisions: The Future of US Environmental and Energy Policy.” For this series, which has aired in our same Resources Radio time slot every Tuesday in October, RFF Board of Directors Chair Sue Tierney and RFF President Richard G. Newell have shared guest-hosting duties and talked with leading decisionmakers, analysts, researchers, and reporters about the big decisions that will impact US environmental and energy policy in the years to come. References and recommendations: "The New Map" by Daniel Yergin; https://www.danielyergin.com/books/thenewmap "Growth" by Vaclav Smil; https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/growth "Occupied" TV series; https://www.netflix.com/title/80092654 "The Comey Rule" TV miniseries; https://www.sho.com/the-comey-rule "The Trial of the Chicago 7" film; https://www.netflix.com/title/81043755 "The Splendid and the Vile" by Erik Larson; https://eriklarsonbooks.com/book/the-splendid-and-the-vile/ "A Crisis Wasted" by Jeffrey L. Cummings and Reed Hundt; https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/A-Crisis-Wasted/Reed-Hundt/9781948122313

Hello All, In this episode we are going to talk about the Group F, G and H. Group G being the point of interest where Messi and Ronaldo are going to lock heads against each other. Make sure to follow us on Instagram and let us know your thoughts about the episode

On this episode of the TBG Real Estate Podcast we welcome Jan Smidek, a partner at JMA Ventures. We talk about his journey from Slovakia to the Bay Area, what he took away from business school and how he transformed that into his current role at JMA Ventures. It's an episode you do not want to miss.EPISODE NOTES:02:00 - What is JMA Ventures?04:44 - The basic principles06:57 - From 64 to 3 ski days08:00 - The beginning over in Slovakia over to Pennsylvania11:30 - Coming to the Bay Area13:41 - The consultant life15:50 - The main lesson of business school17:09 - Finding a job out of business school19:05 - Arriving at JMA22:17 - Making asset management interesting25:12 - The direction moving forward for JMA27:00 - What makes a good asset?28:50 - Investing in Central Europe vs U.S.33:31 - The Hot Seat presented by KK ResetJan brings a passion for the outdoors to his role in acquisitions and asset management, with a specific expertise in hospitality, leisure, and resort projects.Before joining the JMA team, Jan worked as a Consultant for economic and financial consultancy Analysis Group, where he managed economic analyses and valuations, and advised clients in complex business litigation. When not evaluating potential acquisitions, Jan sits on the Resort Development Council of the Urban Land Institute and as a competitive cyclist, can be found putting endless miles on his bike.

Margaret “Maggy" Nyamumbo is the Founder and CEO of Kahawa 1893, a San Francisco-based coffee company with a goal to address the glaring inequality between the unsustainable prices farmers receive and the value of the coffee they produce as well as closing the industry's gender gap, while using Bitcoin to enhance transparency. Margaret has a BS in Economics and Statistics from Smith College, (she also studied Economics at the London School of Economics and Political Science), and she obtained an MBA from Harvard. Prior to launching Kahawa 1893, Margaret worked on Wall Street, at the World Bank, and at Analysis Group (an economic consulting firm). Margaret has given quite a few interviews so we have included links to some articles below:FORBES: Finally, One Blockchain Solution That Deserves The Buzz; CONWAY CONNECT: Smithie-owned Coffee Company Puts The Power In The Hands Of WomenDEE DEE MENDOZA BLOG: Entrepreneur's Perspective: Margaret Nyamumbo, Founder of Kahawa 1893HARAMBEANS: Breaking the Glass Ceiling of Kenya’s Coffee Supply ChainAFRICAN TECH ROUNDUP: Kahawa 1893's Margaret Nyamumbo on using blockchain tech to disrupt fair trade in the global coffee industry

Dr. Palmer is currently a Senior Fellow and Director of the Future of Power Initiative at Resources for the Future (RFF), one of the oldest and most prestigious environmental think tanks in the country. In Episode 5 of our Power Trends Podcast, Dr. Palmer speaks with our Vice President of External Affairs, Kevin Lanahan about a study recently conducted by RFF on the New York ISO's carbon pricing proposal.Findings of the study project the following outcomes, using the RFF's Engineering, Environmental and Economic Electricity Simulation Tool (E4ST). It demonstrated that our proposal would, by 2025:Reduce CO2 emissions from New York's generators by between 6% and 22%Extend emissions  reductions and health benefits to the large RGGI (Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative) are from Maine to Maryland, including New Jersey and VirginiaProvide an annual net benefit to society at large of between $108M to $651MRegarding the ability to provide market incentives consistent with the state's environmental policy, Palmer quoted colleague, Dr. Susan Tierney of the Analysis Group who said that the New York ISO's carbon pricing proposal would, “get clean energy goals and markets ‘rowing in the same direction.”

This week's episode features a review of the year 2019 in environmental and energy policy, with two amazing guests: Susan Tierney, senior advisor at the Analysis Group and chair of the board at Resources for the Future (RFF); and Sarah Ladislaw, senior vice president, director, and senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, with their Energy and National Security Program. Host Daniel Raimi facilitates a conversation with Tierney and Ladislaw, asking what they consider to be the most interesting environmental and energy policy developments during the past year, at the federal and state level. The discussion touches on everything from vehicles to electricity, to interstate natural gas pipelines, and more. References and recommendations: "Time to move away from old precedents in FERC pipeline reviews" by Susan Tierney; https://www.utilitydive.com/news/time-to-move-away-from-old-precedents-in-ferc-pipeline-reviews/567512/ "FERC’s Certification of New Interstate Natural Gas Facilities" by Susan Tierney; https://www.analysisgroup.com/globalassets/content/insights/publishing/revising_ferc_1999_pipeline_certification.pdf "Blowout" by Rachel Maddow; https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/576330/blowout-by-rachel-maddow/ "The River" by Peter Heller; https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/576820/the-river-by-peter-heller/ "Made in China: 2025 and the Future of American Industry" by Marco Rubio; https://www.rubio.senate.gov/public/_cache/files/d1c6db46-1a68-481a-b96e-356c8100f1b7/3EDECA923DB439A8E884C6229A4C6003.02.12.19-final-sbc-project-mic2025-report.pdf "Perspectives on the Green New Deal" with Leah Stokes and Jerry Taylor; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jMPf9Zf2RSQ Riders in the Sky; https://www.ridersinthesky.com

In this episode, our panel sits down with Edmund Downie to discuss China’s vision for a Global Energy Interconnection, or 全球能源互联网 in Chinese. Downie is an energy analyst with the Analysis Group in Boston, and former Fulbright Scholar at Yunnan University in Southwest China.  In past roles with Yale and the Centre for Policy Research in New Delhi, Downie has written extensively on South and Southeast Asia political and social issues, including for Foreign Policy magazine. While many Western analysts are skeptical about the Global Energy Interconnection plan, and its fantastical map of a world crossed by ultra-high voltage transmission lines stretching from New Zealand to Greenland and everywhere in between, Downie takes a nuanced view: “There are many things that GEI can achieve reflecting the interests driving GEI… The key is to think of [GEIDCO, the Global Energy Interconnection Development and Cooperation Organization] as a planning and research body that’s occupying a niche between global energy governance debates and more on-the-ground work [with countries] to figure out how they want to do their energy planning.” Various versions of the Global Energy Interconnection world map can be found online. Here is one from a 2019 GEIDCO slide showing the 9 horizontal and 9 vertical grids proposed under the plan: https://twitter.com/damienernst1/status/1136574555995148289. Ultra-high voltage (UHV) refers to alternating-current lines over 1,000 kV or over 800 kV for direct-current lines, under a Chinese definition. A summary of UHV development in China can be found here: https://www.caixinglobal.com/2018-11-06/china-to-speed-up-construction-of-ultrahigh-voltage-power-lines-101343605.html. A typical high-voltage transmission line in the U.S. would be 360 kV AC, and the U.S. operates a handful of high-voltage (+/- 500 kV) DC lines such as the Pacific DC Intertie, built in 1982, that connects California to the hydroelectric dams in the Pacific Northwest.  Edmund Downie, “Sparks fly over ultra-high voltage power lines,” China Dialogue, January 29, 2018, at https://www.chinadialogue.net/article/show/single/en/10376-Sparks-fly-over-ultra-high-voltage-power-lines. Edmund Downie, “China’s Vision for a Global Grid: The Politics of Global Energy Interconnection,” Center for Strategic and International Studies, February 3, 2019, at https://reconnectingasia.csis.org/analysis/entries/global-energy-interconnection/. Biography of Liu Zhenya via Wikipedia: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liu_Zhenya Ned references Michael Skelly of Clean Line Energy. Here is a recent article about the company’s recent demise: Ros Davidson, “Ambitious Clean Line Energy ‘wrapping up’,” Windpower Monthly, February 1, 2019, at https://www.windpowermonthly.com/article/1523646/ambitious-clean-line-energy-wrapping-up. The scenario analysis game this time features a report from the Australia’s Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), Australia’s national science research agency. The report is P. Graham et al., “Modelling the Future Grid Forum scenarios,” CSIRO and Roam Consulting, 2013, at https://publications.csiro.au/rpr/download?pid=csiro:EP1311347&dsid=DS3. Note that the scenarios are highly simplified and the summaries we read out are not direct quotations from the CSIRO report.

Is Carbon Pricing the Key to a Clean Energy Future? The New York Independent System Operator (NYISO) has proposed incorporating the social cost of carbon into the wholesale price of electricity. According to an October-released study conducted by the consulting firm Analysis Group, “A carbon price in NYISO's competitive wholesale power markets can help deliver New York's clean-energy transition in faster, cheaper, more reliable, more efficient, and more creative ways.” NYISO President and CEO Rich Dewey was a guest on The POWER Podcast. He seemed to agree that carbon pricing is the best way for New York to achieve its clean energy goals. “We just thought that unleashing the power of competitive markets is really the most cost-effective and the most efficient way to do that,” Dewey said. “So, we designed a mechanism by which New York state as the policy-setter could establish a social cost of carbon. We could embed that cost right into the offers that the generators put in for producing power, and using the competitive forces, we could reward those sources of power that are zero or low-emitters and at the same time institute a payment, if you will, for the emitters of carbon dioxide to essentially pay for the pollution that they're putting into the air. And we thought that by using the competitive market forces and the optimization engine that we have in place that we could more-efficiently and more-effectively achieve those carbon reduction goals from the electric sector.” NYISO is the first ISO/RTO in the U.S. to propose a market-based mechanism for pricing energy-based carbon emissions. It would incorporate a carbon price in the NYISO-administered wholesale energy markets, in dollars per ton of CO2 emissions resulting from power plant operations. The carbon price would be based on the social cost of carbon emissions, which is to be established by the state. Power plant operators would include their expected cost of carbon in their NYISO market offer prices, in dollars per unit of electricity sold. While suppliers of power with zero or low CO2 emissions would benefit from higher net revenues, fossil generators' payments would reflect a deduction for the carbon charges related to their emissions. Retail electricity suppliers (known as “Load Serving Entities” in the NYISO market) would be charged the locational price for power they need for their consumers, with that price reflecting carbon-related costs. They would also receive a credit to substantially offset the impact of carbon pricing, because consumers would see a portion of the carbon charges collected from generators returned to them. The carbon charge would provide incentives to suppliers of power with low or no carbon emissions, including innovative low-carbon technologies that may not yet be developed or are unable to be commercial in wholesale markets that do not include carbon pricing. Imports of power into New York would include a carbon price to discourage leakage of CO2 emissions from neighboring regions. “We're sensing that even some of the participants who were skeptical or opposed to it are now recognizing it is the most cost-effective way to achieve these goals,” Dewey said. The Analysis Group found that carbon pricing could save up to $850 million while achieving New York's aggressive climate targets.

Vineet is the founder of Savings Academy, which provides 1:1 coaching to help millennial professionals get their finances on track! Vineet lives in Mountain View, California. He was born in London, England, but grew up all over the USA. Vineet completed his undergraduate degree in Economics and Psychology at USC in 2013. He has since worked in data analytics, finance, and product management at Facebook, KIPP, and Analysis Group. Vineet is now a full-time entrepreneur running Savings Academy. In his spare time, Vineet is an avid board gamer, traveler, technology enthusiast, and personal finance nerd. You'll often find him hanging out with Stephanie (his partner), Nikita (his sister), or his close friends in Mountain View, California. He also loves meeting new people, so feel free to reach out if you think he could help you in any way!

Dr. Susan Tierney, renowned energy expert with the Analysis Group and former head of policy at the U.S. Department of Energy, recently completed a study of our proposal to add a “social cost” of carbon dioxide emissions to New York's wholesale energy markets. In this interview with Kevin Lanahan, Vice President of External Affairs and Corporate Communications at the NYISO, Tierney explains how carbon pricing would make cleaner energy more profitable, and carbon-emitting energy more expensive by incorporating the cost of carbon emissions. It would also help New York achieve its clean energy goals faster and more cost-effectively. Tierney later concludes that since New York is the world's 11th-largest economy, “people will be watching. Not only from the other states and the other markets but around the world for an example of a workable solution.” 

Elisabeth Fosslien is an author, illustrator, and head of content at Humu. She illustrated and co-authored the bestselling Wall Street Journal book “No Hard Feelings: The Secret Power of Embracing Emotions at Work.” The groundbreaking nonfiction is also hailed as a hilarious guide to effectively expressing emotions at the office, finding that seemingly elusive fulfilment, and defining work-life balance on one’s own terms. Her book also takes an affectionate look at how emotions can have a profound impact on key aspects of one’s professional life. It also serves as a meticulously researched guide to un-repressing emotions at work, demystifying digital interactions and co-worker communication styles, and finding constructive channels even for negative emotions like anxiety and jealousy. Aside from “writing and drawing” emotion, Liz also works as a consultant on experience design projects and product design for companies like SYPartners, Ernst & Young, and Salesforce. She also regularly runs scientifically-backed and interactive workshops on creating a culture of belonging, navigating different work styles, helping remote workers avoid burnout, and effectively harnessing emotions as a leader. Elisabeth has also spoken and delivered keynote presentations at numerous organisations and conferences including Google, LinkedIn, SXSW, Viacom, Dropbox, The American Gas Association, First Round Capital, HackMIT, and The Wing. Her work has also been featured by The Economist, TIME, NPR, and the New York Times. She has also led community and product projects at Genius and ran statistical analyses at Analysis Group. The coffee lover starts her day by eating yogurt and reading abstracts. She lives in Berkeley, California and is a fan of ghouls and mathematical art.   This week’s episode talks about her definition of a burnout, the difference between introverts and extroverts, and the importance of communication in the workplace. Elisabeth also shares the top 3 signs of burnout as well as the different levels, one of the biggest things she talked about in her book, and what an ambivert is. On dealing with a bad day at work, Elisabeth offers the following advice, “First is to try and understand what’s driving that negative emotion.”

Writer and illustrator Liz Fosslien shares why we should listen to our emotions instead of suppressing them at work. She also reveals how to be considerate of others’ emotions while protecting our own.   You'll Learn: Why we should inspect instead of suppress our emotions Two ways to protect yourself from emotional contagion How to decode the wisdom your emotions are pointing to   About Liz: Liz is an author and illustrator whose projects have been featured by NPR, Freakonomics, The Economist, and CNN Money. Liz spent the past three years designing and facilitating workshops that empowered executives at LinkedIn, Facebook, Google, BlackRock, and Nike to build cultures of belonging. Previously, she led product and community projects at Genius and ran statistical analyses at the aptly named Analysis Group.   View transcript, show notes, and links at http://AwesomeAtYourJob.com/ep396  

In this episode, Tim has a conversation with Liz Fosslien, author and illustrator of No Hard Feelings: The Secret Power of Embracing Emotion at Work. Liz shares her journey of self-discovery, fulfillment and finding her ‘Forever’work. Fosslien brings a fresh perspective to those of us who want to embrace and feel our feelings. THE CONVERSATION: Meet Liz Dealing with the dream job not working out and how Liz moved beyond the disappointment Going through a period of being upset and down The value of reflection for discovery Being an introvert Her journey to discover her ‘FOREVER’ work + fulfillment The power of little things and living in the present Experiencing moments of delight in everything you do The false dichotomy of emotion being on one side and reason on the other Permission to feel emotions The importance of building in the small habits that lead you to the goal that you want The importance of increasing the chances to wake up great The story of Liz and Mollie and how they started working together The combo of illustration and neuroscience as a great first step Emotions in the workplace Using cookies as a means to have safe conversations About the book,  No Hard Feelings The gross feeling of envy Instead of envy ask to learn and be taught Really good on-boarding and ‘The Enterview’ (Enter + Interview) How small actions send big signals Feel your feelings + Be kind to yourself Three things Liz is optimistic about over the next twelve months RESOURCES: No Hard Feelings by Liz Fosslien Newsletter: Liz + Mollie Blog: Liz + Mollie CONNECT WITH LIZ: Website: www.fosslien.com Instagram: @lizandmollie LinkedIn: in/liz-fosslien Facebook: @lizfosslien Twitter: @fosslien ABOUT LIZ: Liz Fosslien is the author and illustrator of No Hard Feelings: The Secret Power of Embracing Emotion at Work. Her work has been featured by The Economist, The Financial Times, NPR, and CNN. Liz spent the past three years designing and facilitating workshops that empowered executives at LinkedIn, Facebook, Google, BlackRock, and Nike to build cultures of belonging. Previously, she led product and community projects at Genius and ran statistical analyses at the aptly named Analysis Group. She starts each day by eating yogurt and reading abstracts from recently published academic papers. INTRO AND OUTRO MUSIC (Used by permission): Continuation Vibe – Written, arranged and performed by Luke Pecoraro (© 2018 LSP Music) Uphill Conversations is an Uphill Strategies, LLC production © 2016 – 2018...

here we will discuss the Argentinian squad, iceland and nigerias chance of a dream coming true and croatias world class midfield of the " ic"

Today we discuss brazils bounce back from that 7-1 loss to a dream team squad, the Swiss's weaknesses and upsets and serbias chance at world cup glory and finally how costa rica line up. all here and more in SportsGlobal.

Philip Parker, the COO of Coral Health is a data scientist with expertise leveraging diverse data assets to guide operations and marketing strategy. After graduating from Harvard University, Philip consulted  for Fortune 500 for pharmaceutical clients and Analysis Group where he led health economics and effectiveness projects across a range of treatments. Jeremy Mullen is a strategist and a data expert who has spent his entire career advising Fortune 1000 enterprises on data aggregation and strategy. Previous to Coral Health, he served as the director at Research Now, Inc., the global leader in data collection. He is currently the Board of Director for the Toronto chapter of the Marketing Research and Intelligence Association (MRIA) and is a member of the data association. He also leads the Coral Health’s corporate development strategy and partnership development.   Episode Overview: This episode is a powerful listen as it delves into the healthcare issues where we find most patient-doctor situation are not able to access their data in time and benefit from the full healthcare delivery. Coral Health’s blockchain-powered solutions accelerates care delivery, automate multiparty administrative processes, and improve health outcomes by enabling secure, real-time, shared access to validated healthcare information. They drive adoption to their system from the ground up with targeted enterprise applications that provide immediate operational benefits to healthcare providers, payers, pharmaceutical companies and labs.   Tips they shared: Try to keep it simple Start of a business model first Put some thoughts into a business problem and try to develop a solution. Think of a business model that you are actually solving and need? And does blockchain actually need to be involved at all? In blockchain healthcare, ask if it is desirable, viable or feasible then ask if anybody is going to pay Just because someone else is doing it doesn't mean you can't do it better than them Talk to your clients and validate your ideas before putting a ton of time in building it out   Resources Mentioned: Connection Recommendation: Anita McGahan Podcast Recommendation: Decoding Healthcare Productivity tool: Jeremy - Run in the afternoon Hotspots: Burger Priest (Toronto) Website: My Coral Health LinkedIn: Coral Health Research and Discovery Inc. Twitter: myCoralHealth             Philip Parker   Company Background: Coral Health is a healthcare blockchain entity where they build blockchain solution to leverage technology in order to increase primary data exchange within the healthcare industry. The driving empaties behind Coral Health is that they find that patients and doctors spends a lot of time, dealing with frustrations (in terms of getting access to the best care possible), and a lot of it stem from the fact that they can't share their information easily throughout the system. By leveraging healthcare data and medical records, they are able to give the customer a tailored treatment at the point of care rather than a one size-fits-all health care delivery system that currently exist today.

As China prepares to introduce a national emissions trading program this year, what can global leaders learn from other carbon markets? 'Off the Charts' host Jeff McMahon discusses the United States' first mandatory carbon market, the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), with Sue Tierney, who served as assistant secretary for policy at the U.S. Department of Energy during the Clinton administration and is currently a senior advisor at the Analysis Group. RGGI, now almost a decade old, is made up of a collection of Northeast and Mid-Atlantic states that may soon include New Jersey and Virginia. What impacts has RGGI had on emissions and on the local economies of participating states? How does its design compare to other emissions trading programs, such as the California-Quebec-Ontario market and European Union market? And, what lessons can be drawn from its successes and challenges as China and other states and countries launch or contemplate their own market?

One aspect of FERC’s authority that is critical to shaping our energy future is its jurisdiction to consider and approve new interstate natural gas pipelines. Unlike determinations about the need and siting of transmission lines, which generally falls within states’ authority, FERC has the jurisdiction to consider the need for and impacts of interstate natural gas pipelines. FERC’s policy, which has consisted of approving almost all of the pipeline applications that have come its way – no fewer than 400 pipelines since 2000, has been nothing if not controversial. The Center for Public Integrity issued a report in July that FERC has only denied approval of two pipelines in the last 30 years. These pipelines are expensive, environmentally intrusive, and have real life impacts for the communities in which pipelines are planned as well as, to a lesser extent, everyone who pays a monthly electricity or gas heating bill. With steel-in-the-ground lives of 50 years or more, they also contribute to locking in carbon-polluting natural gas as a central component of our country’s electricity supply. So, why is it so easy to get FERC approval for new pipeline development? Montina Cole, senior attorney with Natural Resources Defense Council’s Sustainable FERC Project, joins Grid Geeks to talk about a new Analysis Group report that considers FERC’s pipeline certification policy (which harkens back to 1999) in light of changing industry conditions. She connects the dots on the need for reform necessary to facilitate an affordable and clean energy future.

The U.S. Department of Energy’s proposed rule on grid resilience has existed for two weeks now, and is nothing if not controversial. The rule that DOE would have the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission enact would invent a new “resilience” value based on on-site fuel availability (a 90-day supply, to be specific) that could only (or mostly) be provided by merchant coal and nuclear plants. In the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast, the rule would award these power plants a payment in addition to the clearing price they receive in wholesale energy, capacity and ancillary service markets in order to help them cover their going forward costs and stay in business. This effective bailout for coal and nuclear plants would provide a life line to power plants that are losing in the market place and therefore uneconomic to keep online. The action would undermine the existence of competitive, technology-neutral wholesale energy markets. In addition, the proposal requires a significant leap in logic from determining that the grid needs something called “resilience,” defining that term as on-site fuel security, and then formulating criteria that ensure only merchant coal and nuclear plants qualify to provide the service. Sue Tierney, Senior Advisor at the Analysis Group and former DOE Assistant Secretary, and Doug Smith, partner at Van Ness Feldman and former FERC General Counsel, join me to consider the market and legal aspects of DOE’s proposal.

What are the consequences of the United States backing out of the Paris Climate Agreement? In June, the Trump administration announced the move. In this episode, former Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz says exiting the Agreement is bad for science-based decision making, national and energy security, and innovation. However, he says, there’s one note of optimism: cities, states, and the business community are primed to keep the country on course to the low carbon future that we need. Moniz speaks with Susan Tierney, a senior advisor at Analysis Group.

Today we continue our disability insurance series with a discussion of: How to determine the benefit amount of an individual disability insurance policy The interaction of group disability insurance and individual disability insurance The definition of disability (own occupation, modified own occupation, any occupation) How is disability determined (loss of time, duties, income) Total disability vs. partial disability vs. presumptive total disability. Enjoy! Joshua Support RPF on Patreon! www.radicalpersonalfinance.com/patron Want to consult with me? www.radicalpersonalfinance.com/phonecall 

In April 2016, the Center on Global Energy Policy brought together senior energy and climate leaders to discuss pressing issues at the intersection of energy policy, financial markets, the environment and geopolitics for the 2016 Columbia Global Energy Summit. This panel focused on the changes underway in the power generation sector and how technological innovations may increase access in developing countries. Participants included: Ralph Izzo, CEO, PSEG Incorporated; Dr. Cheryl Martin, former Acting Director, ARPA-E, US Department of Energy; Jim Rogers, former President, Chairman and CEO, Duke Energy; and Cathy Zoi, CEO, Frontier Power. The session was moderated by Sue Tierney, a Senior Advisor at Analysis Group and a member of the Center’s Advisory Board.   Event website: http://energypolicy.columbia.edu/events-calendar/2016-columbia-global-energy-summit  

Host Kevin Willett is joined by Greg Page from the Merrimack Analysis Group. Greg discusses how they work with groups and individuals to help them protect themselves when they are using the internet.  Audio file:  merrimackanalysisgroup.mp3