NOVA remains open and committed to supporting students through remote learning and services

NOVA remains open and committed to supporting students through remote learning and services

ANNANDALE, Va. (PRWEB)
March 25, 2020

Northern Virginia Community College’s Education Foundation Launches COVID-19 Emergency Student Relief Fund

Northern Virginia Community College (NOVA) Educational Foundation has launched a new emergency student aid fund to assist students struggling with the personal and economic fall-out from the COVID-19 pandemic. More than 60% of NOVA’s 85,000 students work full- or part-time jobs. For many, what little income they have is diminishing rapidly. Financially vulnerable students face furloughs and layoffs as a result of the pandemic, and as child-care options and schools close, student-parents are facing extreme challenges in keeping any employment.

The NOVA COVID-19 Emergency Student Aid Fund will help with the rapid delivery of emergency aid to students who need it most. NOVA’s aim is to meet students’ basic needs to help them stay in school and complete the semester. The goal is to raise $750,000 to provide at least 1,500 grants of $500 each.

The NOVA Foundation has committed $250,000 to kick-off the effort to encourage individual and corporate donors to join the Foundation in helping our future workforce stay strong.

“Ensuring every NOVA student succeeds is our highest priority always,” said Dr. Anne Kress, NOVA’s President. “But especially now, as our students face unprecedented challenges, we have an obligation to ensure they have our support. Our students will help our community rebuild and prosper but they can only do this if we provide the assistance they need. I encourage everyone to consider donating to the Emergency Student Aid Fund.”

Background

With an enrollment of more than 85,000 credit and non-credit students, NOVA is the 14th largest institution of higher learning in the United States. It offers 73 associate degree programs that lead to employment or university transfer opportunities and 61 certificate programs that teach specific skill sets such as healthcare and IT that are in demand across our region. NOVA graduates more than 6,000 students annually, making the College a leading source of talented hires for the region.

However, statistics only tell part of the story. NOVA students attend classes and succeed, often against great odds. More than 20% of NOVA students are the first in their families to attend college, and 76% of first-generation students belong to a racial or ethnic minority. NOVA students hail from more than 160 countries and speak nearly 120 different languages.

In January 2020, The Hope Center for College, Community, and Justice at Temple University (Philadelphia, Penn.) conducted a survey of NOVA students after the college held a ‘Student Needs Symposium’. The survey assessed the basic needs (defined as food or housing insecurity/homelessness) of NOVA students. More than 1,400 students participated and the assessment has become a telling benchmark of the challenges faced by students at two-year colleges across the nation.

The survey results confirmed what many faculty and staff long suspected about our student body – basic needs insecurity is a very real challenge to many students. The survey revealed:

• 
  32% of respondents experienced food insecurity in the prior 30 days
• 39% of respondents experienced housing insecurity in the previous year
• 15% of respondents experienced homelessness in the previous year

49% of students at Northern Virginia Community College experienced at least one of these forms of basic needs insecurity in the past year

Challenge

This information has caused the college to mobilize quickly in the changing public health crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Northern Virginia Community College is dedicated to doing everything in its power to keep students in school to complete the current semester and continue progress toward their degrees.

Please consider making a tax-deductible donation to assist NOVA students during this challenging time. You may donate:

Online: https://nova.cbo.io

By Email: foundation@nvcc.edu

By Phone: 703-323-3023

###

For more information about NOVA and its programs or services, call 703-323-3000 or visit the College’s Web site, http://www.nvcc.edu.

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The thriving urban agriculture study will look at how we can help mitigate environmental degradation in the Bay watershed while providing economic feasibility to farmers. Photo by Edwin Remsburg.

Considering the current pandemic and associated food shortages, research in food systems to determine the options available to city planners is a necessity.

COLLEGE PARK, Md. (PRWEB)
March 24, 2020

University of Maryland College of Agriculture and Natural Resources (AGNR) is collaborating with multiple universities, partners, farmers, and stakeholders from throughout the Chesapeake Bay watershed region in a 5-year sustainable agriculture systems study, led by Penn State College of Agricultural Sciences, and funded by a prestigious $9 million grant awarded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture (USDA NIFA).

This comprehensive, multi-institutional project entitled “Thriving Agricultural Systems in Urbanized Landscapes,” and headed by principal investigator David Abler of Penn State, is an interdisciplinary framework developed to conduct practical research into sustainable agriculture practices that will mitigate environmental degradation in the Chesapeake Bay watershed while providing economic feasibility to farmers and farming communities for the long-term.

Considering the current pandemic and associated food shortages, research in food systems to determine the options available to city planners is a necessity. Population growth, as well as sprawl, affects how people access food, and the availability of nutritious food and clean water. The unpredictability of other factors such as climate change and infectious diseases like the COVID-19 crisis, can further exacerbate issues of supply and demand.

“The goal we are envisioning is to predict what agriculture will look like in a rapidly urbanizing Chesapeake Bay watershed in 25 years; can we sustain the agriculture that already exists, and how we can advance our systems to go beyond where agriculture is today?” said Gurpal Toor, professor and extension specialist with the Department of Environmental Science and technology in AGNR, who is the grant team’s expert on nutrient management and water quality.

Toor will be working with a diverse team including researchers from Penn State, Virginia Tech, University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science, The Ohio State University, Nancy Nunn with the Hughes Center for Agro-Ecology, as well as Professor Ray Weil, preeminent soil scientist with AGNR. Recognizing that consumers within these urban communities value the local foods, open space, wildlife habitats, and agritourism associated with urban farm operations, the team of almost 20 scientists will create feasibility studies to maintain those systems in the face of intensifying competition for land, population sprawl, and water pollution.

Toor’s part in this ambitious, multi-faceted project is to determine mass balances of nutrient distribution to farm fields — the inputs and outputs of nitrogen and phosphorus — essential nutrients needed to grow more fruitful yields of crops, but which can be detrimental to the Bay environment when introduced in excess.

Traversing across Maryland, Toor will assess mass balances of nutrients in farm fields for different regions to determine how much runoff occurs. “If we can do that, maybe there are inefficiencies in the production systems, where nutrients runoff because they aren’t applied at the right time the plant needs them, or some other scenario,” Toor said. “So the idea is to do a quantifiable study of mass balances, finding where they’re inefficient and looking at the types of best management practices that could be implemented in those regions to reduce nutrient losses to receiving waters in Maryland and the Chesapeake Bay.”

Ray Weil, a world-renowned soil scientist with AGNR, will lead a separate effort under the umbrella of the grant developing case studies on innovative farms in and around urbanized areas and looking at how management practices can protect soil and groundwater health.

“I’ve been working with a number of small, highly diverse, commercial farms that are doing some innovative things,” said Weil. “This is a forward looking project so we will examine the progressive things those farmers are doing, like composting leaves collected by municipalities and community supported agriculture, to determine how successful those practices are, how those farms interact with the urban environment, and what are the environmental and soil health impacts.”

Weil’s project will also involve a second component using test plots at the Central Maryland Agricultural Research and Education Center. Also focusing on progressive farming techniques and soil health, the experimental plots will look at the impact of advanced cover cropping techniques and how they affect nutrient flows and groundwater quality.

“This is important because most of our studies on cover cropping are short term,” said Weil. “We look and compare different cover crops, or no cover crop, and ask how this affects yields the following year. But this project will look at some of the benefits that carry over four or five years — organic matter, improving the soil — there’s very little data on the long term effects of cover cropping.”

The data derived from the field researchers like Weil and Toor will be compiled by modelers who will extrapolate that information to be effective throughout the Chesapeake Bay watershed region. Armed with these models and visualizations of potential future scenarios, the team will work with stakeholders who have a vested interest in the future of farming, urban agricultural systems, environmental and economic impacts, to make recommendations regarding how to move forward with policies that are acceptable and economically beneficial to communities.

This rigorous project also involves economists, and a human component that will be examined to better understand people’s perceptions, said Toor. “There is a social dimension that comes into play into everything that we do to help ensure that the things we offer though research will be accepted by the larger community,” he said. “We do all of this research, but when it comes to the cost to implement…it’s useful information but can it be practically implemented? No one is willing or should have to take a financial loss.”

While still in the beginning phases of the project, the end goal is to communicate that message to other farmers, says Toor. “We can’t perform nutrient mass balance studies for every single field, but we will find similarities between environmental regions and provide best management practices that will be profitable by reducing unnecessary overfertilization,” Toor said. “When we offer these best management practices to farmers, we’re telling them that not only are you helping the health of the Bay, but it’s also about sustaining agriculture and agricultural communities.”

For more information on the USDA NIFA grant or the University of Maryland’s role in this project, please contact Laura Wormuth, Communications Coordinator, University of Maryland Extension at lwormuth@umd.edu.

OceanTomoBidAsk.com

By combining an immune tolerance agent with shorter bioactive Reg peptides, the potential now exists to address the underlying cause of diabetes, which neither insulin nor any current diabetes therapies on the market address.

CHICAGO (PRWEB)
March 24, 2020

Ocean Tomo Transactions, LLC will auction a portfolio of 10 US patents covering novel therapies for the treatment of diabetes. The patents in lot 108 disclose an invention that increases pancreatic beta cells and protects them through a generalized immune tolerance agent, such as cyclosporine. Even though new therapies are available to treat type 2 patients and numerous insulin preparations are available to treat both type 1 and 2 diabetes, none address the underlying cause of diabetes: too few beta cells. The patents in auction lot 108 disclose the use and efficacy of shorter bioactive Reg peptides to transform progenitor cells within the pancreas into new islets that generate new beta cells that produce insulin.

By combining an immune tolerance agent with shorter bioactive Reg peptides, the potential now exists to address the underlying cause of diabetes, which neither insulin nor any current diabetes therapies on the market address. In the US, the number of people diagnosed with diabetes is projected to increase to nearly 42 million by 2030. Projected diabetes‐related medical costs are likewise expected to increase to $472.0 billion by 2030.

The patents in this lot were issued from 2014 to 2016. They will expire from 2032 to 2034.

You can view the patents in Ocean Tomo Bid-Ask™ Market auction lot 108 here. To request bidder credentials or for further information on this auction or other auctions on the Ocean Tomo Bid-Ask™ Market, contact Layna Guo at Layna@OTI.com or 1-312-327-8179.

About the Ocean Tomo Bid-Ask™ Market

The Ocean Tomo Bid-Ask Market is an open on-line platform to buy and sell patents. This market is an important step forward, both as a simplified solution for patent transactions as well as a source of information on patent pricing. The Ocean Tomo Bid-Ask Market uniquely combines the efficiency of an online platform with an experienced team of brokers fluent in both English and Mandarin. The market uses standard transaction documents and is open, transparent and free to view.

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Our goal is to provide this vital product free of charge to as many organizations in need as we possibly can.

CHICAGO (PRWEB)
March 25, 2020

During these unprecedented times of the COVID-19 pandemic, communities are pulling together to do what they can to help keep healthcare workers and those vulnerable to the virus as safe as possible. KOVAL Distillery, one of the largest independent and woman-owned craft distilleries in the U.S., has partnered with MedSpeed, the market-leader in healthcare intra-company logistics – the movement of the items needed to provide care between all the places where care is delivered – to distribute the hand sanitizer the distillery is now producing. MedSpeed will distribute hand sanitizer to the medical community and other Chicagoland institutions that need it.

KOVAL began production with 150 gallons of hand sanitizer on March 23, 2020 and expects to produce hundreds, or even thousands, of gallons over the next few weeks. MedSpeed will begin delivery to a designated list of healthcare facilities in need on March 27, 2020.

“The demand for alcohol-based sanitizers is great, and our communities are experiencing extreme shortages,” said Dr. Sonat Birnecker Hart, Co-Founder and President, KOVAL Distillery. “Our goal is to provide this vital product free of charge to as many organizations in need as we possibly can. We are grateful to everyone who has come together to donate on our GoFundMe page to help us and to MedSpeed for helping out as well.”

“MedSpeed’s mission is to deliver health to the communities we serve,” said Bonni Kaplan DeWoskin, Vice President, Marketing and Strategic Partnerships, MedSpeed. “While we are laser-focused on keeping our MedSpeeders safe and protected and serving our healthcare customers during this challenging time, we are thrilled to be able to partner with KOVAL to get this much needed product out to healthcare organizations in need.”

KOVAL has noted that the company will not have hand sanitizer available for the general public at this time.

About KOVAL

KOVAL Distillery is known for creating a line of organic & kosher certified whiskey, gin, and specialty spirits using unique grains, a signature “heart cut” technique, and only the absolute best quality ingredients. As one of the largest independent and woman-owned craft distilleries in the US, KOVAL is frequently awarded internationally for its bright flavors and eye for design. As of March 2020, KOVAL has shifted 100% of its operations to help provide alcohol-based sanitizer to those on the front lines in the fight against COVID-19. For more information about KOVAL’s hand sanitizer production or to donate to help KOVAL continue to be able to offer hand sanitizer to health systems in need for free, visit bit.ly/kovalsanitizer. Please send requests for hand sanitizer to sanitizer@kovaldistillery.com.

About MedSpeed

With 140+ locations in 29 states, MedSpeed is the market-leading organization in healthcare intra-company logistics. Since 2000, MedSpeed has partnered with healthcare organizations to transform same-day transportation (courier) from a cost center into a strategic intra-company logistics asset that delivers long-term returns. Using transportation to drive economic value in areas well beyond transportation itself, enables MedSpeed’s customers to share equipment between facilities, reduce capital expenses and disintermediate the use of third-party shipping for the delivery of medical supplies to physician offices and clinics. Creating a strong, fully connected logistics network supports the centralization or outsourcing of other functions including redundant laboratories and fill pharmacies, print shop, mail, linen and more.

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These are the conditions of real people, so people trying to cope with the consequences of the coronavirus from an investment perspective must have the support to build a financial plan that is human-centered—not one that replicates an institutional method

FAIRFIELD, Conn. (PRWEB)
March 24, 2020

In just one day, the S&P 500 dropped 9.5% and entered a bear market for the first time since the financial crisis when the Dow endured its biggest one-day percentage drop during the 1987 crash. The bigger story is that this economic fallout driven by coronavirus fears is likely the tip of the iceberg to what may impact average consumer finances systemically. According to disruptive financial advisor trainer and CEO of Real Intelligence, LLC, Jeff Mount, the fear of recession and a host of other investment challenges have everyone understandably worried. “People have a lot of scary investment questions they need answered in the wake of COVID-19, but there are sound ways to navigate investments in financial storms,” says Mount.

Navigating Investments in Financial Storms

Every consumer is facing uncharted waters as COVID-19 unfolds in real time. On March 11, The World Health Organization (WHO) deemed COVID-19 a pandemic and the president soon after declared the coronavirus a national emergency, which momentarily sent the Dow soaring upward from its historic drop.(2)(3) But bad news keeps coming in the form of estimates showing projected Q1 and Q2 GDP growth cut in half.(4)

The Fed seems to be moving forward on a $1.5-trillion stimulus package to provide temporary paid sick and family medical leave; health, food, and unemployment security; and free coronavirus testing.(5) Just days later, the stock futures dropped 1,000 points.(6) It is clear from such volatility that finding the best approach to money management will hinge on financial planning tactics designed for the average person rather than institutions.

Financial Planning for Real People

Financial markets are waking up to the new reality—but average consumers with 401(k)s, retirement accounts, and investments for everything from homeownership to college tuition aren’t finding solace in passive investment management.(7) According to Mount, people should not invest like institutions nor should they judge their investment strategies based on how they performed versus a stock index. “These are the conditions of real people, so people trying to cope with the consequences of the coronavirus from an investment perspective must have the support to build a financial plan that is human-centered—not one that replicates an institutional method,” explains Mount.

While a COVID-19-induced recession is a strong possibility, its severity and length still remain in question. (8) There are a number of sound approaches for consumers in terms of financial strategies regarding their investments in the event of a COVID-19 fallout. The uncertainty of when and how the market will bottom out is not the challenge—it is avoiding emotional mistakes as the market swings.

401(k) investors may have COVID-19 financial market fallout fears that spur them to seek out safer assets, but sound actions depend on several factors. The rush to judgement can be noticed in net trading activity in 401(k) saving plans becoming higher during the last week of February than compared to all the combined activity in the fourth quarter of 2019. (9)

In response to COVID-19, the Fed dropped interest rates to near zero. But financial advisors and average investors will need different options geared towards the average person whose concerns and trajectories are worlds away from those of big investors and institutions. (10)

Better Financial Planning Requires Better Tools

Although experienced advisors will be looking at providing solutions that match the needs of different investors based on age and circumstances, it’s not always a straightforward or obvious choice. According to Mount, advisors and investors have the capability to make more reliable decisions with the right financial planning tools. If they have an ability to match each asset to its corresponding future liability, they have a better context for advisement, investing, and strategic thinking.

The goal is to lower risk closest to the distribution date for each account depending on its purpose (college tuition funding, wedding planning, retirement planning, etc.) and “aging” the portfolio. This “aging” versus a risk profile-based allocation strategy ensures an investor’s required short-term assets are never in jeopardy. In this age of uncertainty with the coronavirus, every consumer and advisor will need financial planning methods that are adaptable to specific needs while adjusting to volatile financial times.

About Real Intelligence, LLC

Real Intelligence, LLC is the brainchild of entrepreneurs and industry experts Jeffrey Mount and Mike Helgesen. With 55 combined years of industry expertise and the alliance of their strategic financial planning methods: Dynamic Mapping and the Essential Family Office—Real Intelligence, LLC is poised to offer a complete essential tool kit to the next generation of elite financial advisors. With strategic, industry-proven training, patented technology, and the ability to introduce middle-class millionaires to exceptional financial advisors, the paradigm of financial services is shifting from status-quo. This human-centered approach to financial planning is a consultant’s greatest tool in combatting the competitive threat of free programs through robo-advisers and the dangers of irrelevancy. To learn more, visit http://www.realintelligence360.com

1.    Jessica Menton, Nathan Bomey. “Dow endures worst day since ‘Black Monday’; S&P 500 enters bear market as coronavirus spreads economic gloom.” USA Today, March 12, 2020, usatoday.com/story/money/2020/03/12/dow-plunges-trump-speech-fails-quell-coronavirus-fears/5029964002/

2.    “WHO characterizes COVID-19 as a pandemic,” WHO 11 March 2020, who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019/events-as-they-happen

3.    Derek Hawkins, Miriam Berger, Marisa Iati, Meryl Kornfield, Brittany Shammas. “Trump declares coronavirus outbreak a national emergency.” Washington Post, March 13, 2020, washingtonpost.com/world/2020/03/13/coronavirus-latest-news/

4.    “COVID-19’s Potential Effects In U.S. Public Finance Vary By Sector,” S&P Global, March 5, 2020, spglobal.com/ratings/en/research/articles/200305-covid-19-s-potential-effects-in-u-s-public-finance-vary-by-sector-11378013

5.    Nick Timiraos, Julia-Ambra Verlaine. “Fed to Inject $1.5 Trillion in Bid to Prevent ‘Unusual Disruptions’ in Markets,” WSJ, March 12, 2020, wsj.com/articles/fed-to-inject-1-5-trillion-in-bid-to-prevent-unusual-disruptions-in-markets-11584033537

6.    Fred Imbert. “Stock futures drop — hit ‘limit down’ — even as Fed slashes rates; Dow futures off 1,000 points.” CNBC, March 15, 2020, cnbc.com/2020/03/15/traders-await-futures-open-after-fed-cuts-rates-launches-easing-program.html

7.    Neil Irwin. “Wall Street Is (Finally) Waking Up to the Damage Coronavirus Could Do.”

New York Times, Feb. 25, 2020, nytimes.com/2020/02/25/upshot/coronavirus-wall-street-analysis.html

8.    Philipp Carlsson-Szlezak, Martin Reeves, Paul Swartz. “What Coronavirus Could Mean for the Global Economy,” Harvard Business Review, March 03, 2020, hbr.org/2020/03/what-coronavirus-could-mean-for-the-global-economy?ab=hero-main-text

9.    Lorie Konish. “You might be tempted to move to safer 401(k) assets amid coronavirus market swings. What to know before you shift your money.” CNBC, March 6, 2020, cnbc.com/2020/03/05/investors-move-to-safer-401k-assets-amid-coronavirus-market-swings.html

10.    Heather Long. “Federal Reserve slashes interest rates to zero as part of wide-ranging emergency intervention.” The Washington Post, March 15, 2020, Washingtonpost.com/business/2020/03/15/federal-reserve-slashes-interest-rates-zero-part-wide-ranging-emergency-intervention/