Daily Business Report: May 25, 2021
Nation’s first Civility Research Center
at UC San Diego to address juvenile justice reform
The new Applied Research Center for Civility at UC San Diego will be the nation’s first and serve as an outlet for the pioneering work on society’s most distressing social issues.
The National Conflict Resolution Center (NCRC) has announced that disrupting the school-to-prison pipeline is the center’s first project. The ambitious undertaking will study, evaluate and refine a national model of best practices to promote national criminal justice reform and reduce mass incarceration.
“We wanted to start by addressing one of the most crippling national injustices of our time—youth incarceration that is disenfranchising a huge population when they are most vulnerable and have their greatest potential,” says Steven Dinkin, president of the San Diego-based NCRC. “The prison pipeline study combines the collective strengths of NCRC and UC San Diego, and we know we have the potential to propose crucial changes and insightful improvements.”
There’s a long list of proposed initiatives because by many measures civility is under attack. “Hatred and intolerance are at the heart of many societal issues, from racial injustice to mass incarceration,” said UC San Diego Chancellor Pradeep K. Khosla. “But NCRC and UC San Diego are here to help. As one of the nation’s top 15 research universities, we consider it our responsibility to partner with the top conflict resolution practitioner in the nation to create a more just, humane future for America.”
PHOTO: Aerial View of UC San Diego. (Photo by Erik Jepsen/UC San Diego) Communications.
General Dynamics NASSCO begins construction
on fourth ship in T-AO fleet oiler program
General Dynamics NASSCO started construction of the future USNS Robert F. Kennedy on May 21, the fourth of six vessels for the U.S. Navy’s John Lewis-class fleet oiler program.
Francisco Medina, a long-time NASSCO employee and the Start of Construction honoree, initiated the first cut of steel that will be used to construct the vessel.
“Today, we celebrate a time-honored tradition that marks the beginning of production for the ship and to celebrate the life and service of the ship’s namesake Robert F. Kennedy,” said Dave Carver, president of General Dynamics NASSCO. “This ship represents the thousands of men and women who have worked hard to make this ship class a success.”
Designed to transfer fuel to U.S. Navy carrier strike group ships operating at sea, the 742-feet vessels have a full load displacement of 49,850 tons, with the capacity to carry 157,000 barrels of oil, a significant dry cargo capacity, aviation capability and up to a speed of 20 knots.
San Diego business owner David Malcolm
named to NSBA Leadership Council
David Malcolm, president of Cal West Apartments Inc., was recently named to the National Small Business Association (NSBA) Leadership Council. NSBA is the nation’s oldest small-business advocacy organization and operates on a staunchly nonpartisan basis.
Malcolm, a recognized leader in the small-business community, joins the Leadership Council alongside other small-business advocates from across the country as they work to promote the interests of small business to policymakers in Washington, D.C.
“As a small-business owner, I constantly see the importance of being involved and active when it comes to laws and regulations,” said Malcolm. “Joining NSBA’s Leadership Council will enable me to take our collective small-business message to people in Congress who need to hear it most.”
Malcolm joined the NSBA Leadership Council as part of his efforts to tackle the many critical issues facing small business, including tax reform, regulatory restraint, health care costs and impacts of the Affordable Care Act. The Leadership Council is focused on providing valuable networking between small-business advocates from across the country while ensuring small business a seat at the table as Congress and regulators take up key small-business proposals.
A new replication crisis: Research that is
less likely to be true is cited more
Papers in leading psychology, economic and science journals that fail to replicate and therefore are less likely to be true are often the most cited papers in academic research, according to a new study by the University of California San Diego’s Rady School of Management.
Published in Science Advances, the paper explores the ongoing “replication crisis” in which researchers have discovered that many findings in the fields of social sciences and medicine don’t hold up when other researchers try to repeat the experiments.
The paper reveals that findings from studies that cannot be verified when the experiments are repeated have a bigger influence over time. The unreliable research tends to be cited as if the results were true long after the publication failed to replicate.
Sanford Burnham Prebys and other top U.S. cancer
centers call for urgent action to get
cancer-prevention HPV vaccination back on track
Sanford Burnham Prebyshas joined doctors and scientists across America at National Cancer Institute (NCI)-designated cancer centers and other organizations to issue a joint statement urging the nation’s physicians, parents and young adults to get the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccination back on track.
Dramatic drops in annual well visits and immunizations during the COVID-19 pandemic have caused a significant vaccination gap and lag in vital preventive services among U.S. children and adolescents—especially for the HPV vaccine.
Nearly 80 million Americans – 1 out of every 4 people – are infected with HPV, a virus that causes several types of cancers. Of those millions, more than 36,000 will be diagnosed with an HPV-related cancer this year. Despite those staggering figures and the availability of a vaccine to prevent HPV infections, HPV vaccination rates remain significantly lower than other recommended adolescent vaccines in the U.S. Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, HPV vaccination rates lagged far behind other vaccines and other countries’ HPV vaccination rates.
Evofem Biosciences announces closing
of $50 million public offering
Evofem Biosciences Inc. announced the closing of its previously announced underwritten public offering of 50 million shares of its common stock and accompanying two-year warrants to purchase an aggregate of up to 50 million shares of common stock. At closing, Evofem received net proceeds from the offering of approximately $46.6 million, after deducting underwriting discounts and commissions and estimated offering expenses. All of the securities in the offering were sold by Evofem.
Evofem intends to use the net proceeds from this offering for the continuation of full commercialization activities related to Phexxi (lactic acid, citric acid and potassium bitartrate).
USS Bunker Hill returns to San Diego
The Ticonderoga-class guided-missile cruiser USS Bunker Hill returned to San Diego, marking the successful completion of its deployment to U.S. 3rd Fleet and 7th Fleet areas of operations, May 22. Bunker Hill, part of the Theodore Roosevelt Carrier Strike Group (TRCSG), departed on deployment to the Indo-Pacific, Dec. 23, 2020.
“The Bunker Hill crew should feel very proud of what they’ve accomplished over the last six months,” said Rear Adm. Doug Verissimo, commander, Carrier Strike Group Nine. “The ship, her CO, and the sailors provided forward-operating presence throughout 7th Fleet as a key component of our strike group. As the air defense commander, they answered the call every step of the way even during a challenging double-pump deployment under COVID conditions. I could not be more pleased with their performance and resilience.”
Cabrillo National Monument open
until sunset during summer weekends
Cabrillo National Monument will be open until sunset on Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays starting Friday, May 28 for Memorial Day weekend through Sunday, Sept. 5 of Labor Day weekend. The tidepool area will be open until 30 minutes before sunset. Normal operating hours are 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., with the tidepools closing at 4:30 p.m. These exclusive extended hours on weekends will provide increased access for visitors to enjoy spectacular views of the Pacific Ocean and San Diego during sunset.
Park facilities are open, including trails, restrooms, exhibits, visitor center, park store and the Old Point Loma Lighthouse. The theater is temporarily closed for renovations.
Junior Ranger books and badges, maps, and visitor information are available at an outdoor station located next to the Cabrillo Visitor Center. The park store is operated by Cabrillo National Monument Foundation (CNMF), an official nonprofit partner of the National Park Service dedicated to supporting the educational mission of Cabrillo National Monument.
La Jolla Institute for Immunology opens
Center for Clinical Investigation
The La Jolla Institute for Immunology (LJI) celebrated the opening of the John and Susan Major Center for Clinical Investigation on May 18. Thanks to a generous gift from local philanthropists, John and Susan Major, the new space will greatly expand the Institute’s capacity to collect human blood samples, which are vital to study allergies, vaccines as well as infectious, autoimmune and neurodegenerative diseases.
Over the past eight years, the demand for the services of such a clinical center has grown from just one research lab to include almost every lab at the Institute. In 2020, the importance of human blood samples in immunology research was more apparent than ever, according to Alessandro Sette, a professor in LJI’s Center for Infectious Disease and Vaccine Research. Sette co-authored several seminal studies that helped scientists understand and gauge the body’s immune response to SARS-CoV-2, newly emerging virus variants as well as COVID-19 vaccines.
