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BMGF Malaria 2-10-14 (Public)
A conversation with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation malaria team on December 9, 2013 Participants • Alan Magill — Director, Malaria program, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation • David Brandling-Bennett — Senior Advisor, Malaria program, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation • Bruno Moonen - Deputy Director, Malaria program, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation • Alexandra Farnum — Program Officer, Global Program Advocacy, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation • Meg Halverson — Consultant, Global Program Advocacy, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation • Adrienne DiCasparro — Associate Program Officer, Giving Partnerships, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation • Cari Tuna — Co-Founder, Good Ventures • Holden Karnofsky — Co-Founder, GiveWell Note: This set of conversation notes was compiled by GiveWell and gives an overview of the major points made by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation malaria team. Summary GiveWell and Good Ventures spoke with members of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) malaria team about gaps in global malaria funding, BMGF’s strategy and projected timeline for malaria eradication, and other BMGF malaria activities. Gaps in global malaria funding GiveWell and Good Ventures asked the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) malaria team whether there is a need for funding of better data on bed net durability and bed net usage. There is not as much knowledge and data about bed net usage and bed net durability as there should be. A potential source of variability in bed net durability is that, currently, there are no globally established criteria for measuring the durability of bed nets, so it is possible that net durability standards differ between producers. The Results for Development Institute (R4D) is doing very good work on studying bed net durability. -
Non-Paywalled
Wringing the Most Good Out of a FACEBOOK FORTUNE SAN FRANCISCO itting behind a laptop affixed with a decal of a child reaching for an GIVING apple, an illustration from Shel Silverstein’s The Giving Tree, Cari Tuna quips about endowing a Tuna Room in the Bass Library at Yale Univer- sity, her alma mater. But it’s unlikely any of the fortune that she and her husband, Face- By MEGAN O’NEIL Sbook co-founder Dustin Moskovitz, command — estimated by Forbes at more than $9 billion — will ever be used to name a building. Five years after they signed the Giving Pledge, the youngest on the list of billionaires promising to donate half of their wealth, the couple is embarking on what will start at double-digit millions of dollars in giving to an eclectic range of causes, from overhauling the criminal-justice system to minimizing the potential risks from advanced artificial intelligence. To figure out where to give, they created the Open Philanthropy Project, which uses academic research, among other things, to identify high-poten- tial, overlooked funding opportunities. Ms. Tuna, a former Wall Street Journal reporter, hopes the approach will influence other wealthy donors in Silicon The youngest Valley and beyond who, like her, seek the biggest possible returns for their philanthropic dollars. Already, a co-founder of Instagram and his spouse have made a $750,000 signers of the commitment to support the project. What’s more, Ms. Tuna and those working alongside her at the Open Philanthropy Project are documenting every step online — sometimes in Giving Pledge are eyebrow-raising detail — for the world to follow along. -
Questions & Answers on Influenza
101 Questions & Answers on Influenza101 101 Questions & Answers Prof. Dr. A.D.M.E. (Ab) Osterhaus is David De Pooter is working at Link Inc on professor of virology at Erasmus Medical since 2003, the Antwerp (Belgium) based Centre Rotterdam, and professor of communication consultancy agency, Environmental Virology at the Utrecht specialised in strategic communication University. Fascinated by the ingenious and social marketing. Link Inc is working ways viruses circumvent the immune with the European Scientific working Influenza system of their hosts to multiply and Group on Influenza (ESWI) since 1998 and spread, Osterhaus started his quest at the is taking care of the positioning of the interface of virology and immunology. He group, the strategy and the implementa Ab Osterhaus quickly translated new insights in this tion of the strategy by developing complex field to applications in animal and targeted communication tools. In this human vaccinology. In addition, he started capacity, David De Pooter is a professional David De Pooter his work on virus discovery, not only writer on medical topics and a communi focussing on the identification of a series cation manager of ESWI. As such he has of animal viruses, but also of new human established a fruitful and long standing viruses. collaboration with Prof Ab Osterhaus. (www.linkinc.be) 101 Questions & Answers on Influenza 101 101 Questions & Answers on Influenza Ab Osterhaus David De Pooter Elsevier, Maarssen © Elsevier, Maarssen 2009 Design: Studio Bassa, Culemborg Elsevier is an imprint of Reed Business bv, PO Box 1110, 3600 BC Maarssen, The Netherlands. To order: Elsevier Gezondheidszorg, Marketing dept., Antwoordnummer 2594 (freepost), 3600 VB Maarssen, The Netherlands. -
"Pandemieën Bij Mens En Dier: Zijn We Er Op Voorbereid?" Prof. Ab Osterhaus DVM
"Pandemieën bij mens en dier: zijn we er op voorbereid?" Prof. Ab Osterhaus DVM PhD Director Research Center for Emerging Infections and Zoonoses (RIZ) University of Veterinary Medicine Hannover, Germany MSD Webinar, januari 22 2021 Rinderpest 1745: The Netherlands 2003: Last case in Mauretania 2011: Eradicated 1980 1990 2000 2010 2020 Past decades: zoonoses at the origin of major human disease outbreaks pandemics Adapted from: Reperant LA, Cornaglia G, Osterhaus AD Curr Top Microbiol Immunol.2013 The importance of understanding the human-animal interface: from early hominins to global citizens Most recent outbreaks of avian influenza as reported to the OIE in the last 6 months. African swine fever African swine fever Crucial elements for pandemic preparedness to be established in ‘peacetime’ • Early warning systems • Pathogen discovery and characterization platforms • Diagnostic platforms • Mathematical models • Animal models in BSL3 facilities • Clinical trial platforms • Non-pharmaceutical intervention and treatment strategies • Pharmaceutical intervention strategies •antiviral platforms •vaccine platforms •BRM platforms • Communication 8 25.01.2021 Last four influenza pandemics Credit: US National Museum of Health and Medicine 1918 1957 1968 2009 “Spanish Flu” “Asian Flu” “Hong Kong Flu” “Mexican flu” >40 million deaths 1-4 million deaths 1-4million deaths 0.2-0.6 million deaths A(H1N1) A(H2N2) A(H3N2) A(H1N1) Within a few weeks, the 2009 H1N1 pandemic spread around the world affecting all countries April 2009 May 2009 START June 2009 March 2009 July 6 2009 Cumulative cases 1–10 11–50 51–500 500–5000 Air traffic from Mexico >5000 De Jong et al., Nature 1997 Claas & Osterhaus, Nat.Med 1998 Fouchier et al., J Virol., 2005 Munster et al., EID., 2005 Aquatic wild birds Olsen et al., Science., 2006 Influenza A virus reservoir BF Koel et al, Science. -
GPI's Research Agenda
A RESEARCH AGENDA FOR THE GLOBAL PRIORITIES INSTITUTE Hilary Greaves, William MacAskill, Rossa O’Keeffe-O’Donovan and Philip Trammell February 2019 (minor changes July 2019) We acknowledge Pablo Stafforini, Aron Vallinder, James Aung, the Global Priorities Institute Advisory Board, and numerous colleagues at the Future of Humanity Institute, the Centre for Effective Altruism, and elsewhere for their invaluable assistance in composing this agenda. 1 Table of Contents Introduction 3 GPI’s vision and mission 3 GPI’s research agenda 4 1. The longtermism paradigm 6 1.1 Articulation and evaluation of longtermism 6 1.2 Sign of the value of the continued existence of humanity 8 1.3 Mitigating catastrophic risk 10 1.4 Other ways of leveraging the size of the future 12 1.5 Intergenerational governance 14 1.6 Economic indices for longtermists 16 1.7 Moral uncertainty for longtermists 18 1.8 Longtermist status of interventions that score highly on short-term metrics 19 2. General issues in global prioritisation 21 2.1 Decision-theoretic issues 21 2.2 Epistemological issues 23 2.3 Discounting 24 2.4 Diversification and hedging 28 2.5 Distributions of cost-effectiveness 30 2.6 Modelling altruism 32 2.7 Altruistic coordination 33 2.8 Individual vs institutional actors 35 Bibliography 38 Appendix A. Research areas for future engagement 46 A.1 Animal welfare 46 A.2 The scope of welfare maximisation 48 Appendix B. Closely related areas of existing academic research 51 B.1 Methodology of cost-benefit analysis and cost-effectiveness analysis 51 B.2 Multidimensional economic indices 51 B.3 Infinite ethics and intergenerational equity 53 B.4 Epistemology of disagreement 53 B.5 Demandingness 54 B.6 Forecasting 54 B.7 Population ethics 55 B.8 Risk aversion and ambiguity aversion 55 B.9 Moral uncertainty 57 1 B.10 Value of information 58 B.11 Harnessing and combining evidence 59 B.12 The psychology of altruistic decision-making 60 Appendix C. -
Taking Organs-On-A-Chip to the Next Level
#1 Volume 11 October 2020 Medicines is the news magazine of Figon Regenerative pharmacology Taking organs-on-a-chip to the next level In this issue Clémence Ross-van Dorp Towards humans-on-a-chip The FIGON Dutch Medicines Days This former Dutch State Secretary, and Regenerative pharmacology allows an (DMD) are held online this year, throughout keynote speaker at the DMD, was entirely new perspective on human the fall of 2020. Check out the webinars at appointed Ambassador for the Dutch life physiology, health and disease. ‘These figondmd.nl. Keynote speakers are sciences and health sector. She is new methods are more closely related to presenting their topics in this issue. strengthening national networks. the intact human body.’ XXPage 10-27 XXPage 10 XXPage 20 Register via single-use.nu/ event/register Single-Use Event 2020 CORPUS | Leiden | November 10 On November 10th at location CORPUS in Leiden suppliers and users will meet at the ultimate networking event in the world of bioprocessing, biotechnology and (bio)pharmaceutical manufacturing. You are welcome to view and test new products, network with key suppliers in the single-use industry, and attend presentations about the latest developments in single-use. Editorial It takes an entire team he battle against COVID-19 is like the Olympics: a gargantuan international ef- fort with high personal, economic and emotional stakes. In fact, since the Olym- Tpics were cancelled this year, COVID-19 seems to have taken their place. It keeps us addicted to our news sour- ces. It is the talk of the day. And it brings together science, policy, business and societal organisations. -
CJR Job Description.Doc.Docx
PLEASE NOTE: THIS POSITION HAS BEEN FILLED We're keeping this PDF online so that links we've previously posted to it do not break, but we are no longer accepting applications for the role described below. Program Officer, Criminal Justice Reform The Open Philanthropy Project is looking for a founding Program Officer to lead our criminal justice reform work. We hope to contribute to a future in which the U.S. massively reduces incarceration while maintaining or improving public safety. We’re open to doing so by supporting strong advocacy and research institutions for the long run, capitalizing on political windows of opportunity, or pursuing other high-risk high-reward approaches, such as exploring how to change prosecutors’ incentives. The Program Officer will be responsible for developing our strategy and making grants, starting in the range of $5 million per year, with significant room to grow. About the Open Philanthropy Project The Open Philanthropy Project is a collaboration between Good Ventures and GiveWell in which we identify outstanding giving opportunities, make grants, follow the results, and publish our findings. Good Ventures is a philanthropic foundation whose mission is to help humanity thrive. Good Ventures was created by Dustin Moskovitz (co-founder of Facebook and Asana) and Cari Tuna, who have pledged to give the majority of their wealth to charity. GiveWell is a nonprofit that finds outstanding giving opportunities and publishes the full details of its analysis to help donors decide where to give. Criminal Justice Reform Program The United States incarcerates a larger proportion of its residents than almost any other country in the world and still has the highest level of criminal homicide in the developed world. -
Curriculum Vitae Ralph S. Baric
Curriculum Vitae Ralph S. Baric I. CONTACT INFORMATION: Department of Epidemiology School of Public Health University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill 2105-D McGaveran-Greenberg Hall, CB# 7400 Chapel Hill, North Carolina 27599-7400 Phone: 919-966-3895 II. EDUCATION: A. North Carolina State University, Raleigh, North Carolina, B.S., Zoology, 1977 B. North Carolina State University, Raleigh, North Carolina, Ph.D., Microbiology, 1983 C. University of Southern California, School of Medicine, Department of Microbiology and Neurology, Post-doctoral Fellow, 1982-1986 III. PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE: A. Assistant Professor, Department of Parasitology and Laboratory Practice, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, March 1986-June 1990 B. Assistant Professor, Department of Epidemiology, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, July 1990-June 1993. C. Associate Professor, Department of Epidemiology, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, July 1993-2001. D. Associate Professor, Department of Microbiology and Immunology, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, July 1993-2001 E. Professor, Department of Epidemiology, Department of Microbiology and Immunology, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, July 2002-current IV. HONORS AND AWARDS: A. Full Athletic Scholarship, Swimming, North Carolina State University, 1973-1976 B. Atlantic Coast Conference Champion and record holder: 500 yard Freestyle, 1000 yard Freestyle, 1650 yard Freestyle, 400 yard Individual Medley, 800 yard Freestyle Relay C. Teaching Assistantship, North Carolina State University, 1977-1978 D. Agricultural Foundation Pre-doctoral Research Assistantship, 1978-1981 E. Teaching Assistantship, North Carolina State University, 1981-1982 F. NIH Postdoctoral Fellowship, Neurology Training Grant, 1982-1984 G. Harvey Weaver Scholar, National Multiple Sclerosis Society Fellowship, 1984-86 H. -
A R E S E a R C H Agenda
Cooperation, Conflict, and Transformative Artificial Intelligence — A RESEARCH AGENDA Jesse Clifton — LONGTERMRISK.ORG March 2020 First draft: December 2019 Contents 1 Introduction 2 1.1 Cooperation failure: models and examples . .3 1.2 Outline of the agenda . .5 2 AI strategy and governance 8 2.1 Polarity and transition scenarios . .8 2.2 Commitment and transparency . .8 2.3 AI misalignment scenarios . 10 2.4 Other directions . 10 2.5 Potential downsides of research on cooperation failures . 11 3 Credibility 12 3.1 Commitment capabilities . 13 3.2 Open-source game theory . 13 4 Peaceful bargaining mechanisms 16 4.1 Rational crisis bargaining . 16 4.2 Surrogate goals . 18 5 Contemporary AI architectures 21 5.1 Learning to solve social dilemmas . 21 5.2 Multi-agent training . 24 5.3 Decision theory . 25 6 Humans in the loop 27 6.1 Behavioral game theory . 27 6.2 AI delegates . 28 7 Foundations of rational agency 30 7.1 Bounded decision theory . 30 7.2 Acausal reasoning . 31 8 Acknowledgements 35 1 1 Introduction Transformative artificial intelligence (TAI) may be a key factor in the long-run trajec- tory of civilization. A growing interdisciplinary community has begun to study how the development of TAI can be made safe and beneficial to sentient life (Bostrom, 2014; Russell et al., 2015; OpenAI, 2018; Ortega and Maini, 2018; Dafoe, 2018). We present a research agenda for advancing a critical component of this effort: preventing catastrophic failures of cooperation among TAI systems. By cooperation failures we refer to a broad class of potentially-catastrophic inefficiencies in interactions among TAI-enabled actors. -
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What you get for your dollar January 2019 “Effective Altruism” — What it is, how philanthropic foundations use it and what are its risks and side-effects by Karolin Seitz In parallel to the debate on ‘Aid Effectiveness’ among Ensuring that charitable giving is used for the maximum donor and recipient countries, a new approach, labeled good, is a worthy goal. However, from a human rights “Effective Altruism” (EA) has gained traction in the de- perspective, several concerns arise concerning the un- bate on the impact of development aid. Unlike Aid Ef- derlying assumptions, the methodology and the conse- fectiveness, which involves donor and recipient govern- quences of the practical application of EA. ments, the new approach involves philanthropic institu- tions and their chosen (non-)governmental recipients and This briefing paper provides an overview of the approach explores ways in which funding can be used most effi- underlying EA, how and by whom it is applied and its ciently to have the greatest impact. Its proponents, in- problems and consequences. It concludes that policy cluding new philanthropic entities and so-called ‘venture makers, rather than be guided by its assumptions and philanthropies’ such as the Bill & Melinda Gates Founda- conclusions, must instead concentrate on understand- tion, claim that their funding decisions are based on evi- ing the confounding structural causes of interdependent dence-based results. However, such decisions are primar- global challenges and aim at their long-term solution, ily grounded in cost-benefit considerations, neglecting within an overarching human rights framework. social and cultural considerations and looking at prob- lems in isolation from the wider context. -
Beneficial AI 2017
Beneficial AI 2017 Participants & Attendees 1 Anthony Aguirre is a Professor of Physics at the University of California, Santa Cruz. He has worked on a wide variety of topics in theoretical cosmology and fundamental physics, including inflation, black holes, quantum theory, and information theory. He also has strong interest in science outreach, and has appeared in numerous science documentaries. He is a co-founder of the Future of Life Institute, the Foundational Questions Institute, and Metaculus (http://www.metaculus.com/). Sam Altman is president of Y Combinator and was the cofounder of Loopt, a location-based social networking app. He also co-founded OpenAI with Elon Musk. Sam has invested in over 1,000 companies. Dario Amodei is the co-author of the recent paper Concrete Problems in AI Safety, which outlines a pragmatic and empirical approach to making AI systems safe. Dario is currently a research scientist at OpenAI, and prior to that worked at Google and Baidu. Dario also helped to lead the project that developed Deep Speech 2, which was named one of 10 “Breakthrough Technologies of 2016” by MIT Technology Review. Dario holds a PhD in physics from Princeton University, where he was awarded the Hertz Foundation doctoral thesis prize. Amara Angelica is Research Director for Ray Kurzweil, responsible for books, charts, and special projects. Amara’s background is in aerospace engineering, in electronic warfare, electronic intelligence, human factors, and computer systems analysis areas. A co-founder and initial Academic Model/Curriculum Lead for Singularity University, she was formerly on the board of directors of the National Space Society, is a member of the Space Development Steering Committee, and is a professional member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE). -
Corman-Drosten Review Report
Healthy Gallatin From: Owen Giddings <[email protected]> Sent: Wednesday, February 3, 2021 3:30 PM To: BOHPublicComment Subject: Vaccination rates Categories: NonAgendaPC Could the Health Board please speak in concrete terms to why Gallatin County is lagging significantly behind all of Montana's other large cities in vaccination rates, per the Montana Covid dashboard? First shots administered: as of 2/3: Missoula Count (Missoula): 12.9% vaccinated Lewis and Clark County (Helena): 14.4% vaccinated Yellowstone County (Billings): 14.6% vaccinated Cascade County (Great falls): 12.8% vaccinated Gallatin County: 8.1% vaccinated Silver Bow County (Butte): 17.7% vaccinated 1 Healthy Gallatin From: Administrator <[email protected]> Sent: Wednesday, February 3, 2021 1:29 PM To: BOHPublicComment Subject: mask mandate Categories: NonAgendaPC BOH members and staff, I continue to be dismayed at the lack of enforcement of the mask order in commercial establishment in Bozeman. The BOH inclusion of an exemption for medical reasons provides an illogical loophole big enough for the Queen Mary. Nobody with an actual respiratory health issue is going to be maskless out in public and run the risk of encountering some asymptomatic anti‐masker. Responsible businesses include an option for curbside service for those who don’t want to comply with the mask requirement. The choice to enter a business includes the responsibility to adhere to the safety policies of that business. Smoking or going naked are not tolerated by businesses, going maskless shouldn’t be either. Employees maybe exposed to scores or hundreds of customers each day. Gallatin County’s positivity rate all but insures that the typical service industry employee will encounter people who are infected.