Bits Blog: Facebook's Other Big Disruption

Facebook just made a potentially game-changing announcement. It got less fanfare than Tuesday’s announcement that it is going into the social search business, but this other announcement may have bigger long-term implications for the technology industry.

Put simply, some of the world’s biggest computing systems just got a little cheaper, and a lot easier to configure. As a consequence, the companies that supply the hardware to these systems may have to scramble to remain as profitable. The reason is a Facebook-led open source project.

In 2011 Facebook began the Open Compute Project, an effort among technology companies to use open-source computer hardware. Tech companies similarly shared intellectual property with Linux software, which lowered costs and spurred innovation. Facebook’s project has attracted many significant participants, including Goldman Sachs, Arista Networks, Rackspace, Hewlett-Packard and Dell.

At a user summit on Wednesday Intel, another key member of the Open Compute Project, announced it would release to the group a silicon-based optical system that enables the data and computing elements in a rack of computer servers to communicate at 100 gigabits a second. That is significantly faster than conventional wire-based methods, and uses about half the power.

More important, it means that elements of memory and processing that now must be fixed closely together can be separated within a rack, and used as needed for different kinds of tasks. There is a lot of waste in data centers today simply because, when there is an upgrade in servers, lots of other associated data-processing hardware has to be changed, too.

There were other announcements, like a computer motherboard called Grouphug that allows different manufacturers’ chips to be interchanged without altering other parts of the machine. Before, they were custom made. Put together, such innovations potentially lower the cost and complexity of running big and small data centers to an extent that works for a lot of companies.

“Who wouldn’t want a cheaper, more efficient server?” said Frank Frankovsky, vice president of hardware design at Facebook, and the chairman of Open Compute. “The problem we’re solving is much larger than Facebook’s own challenges. There is a massive amount of data in the world that people expect to have processed quickly.”

To be sure, it’s in Facebook’s interest to attack expensive hardware. The company makes money from a service that requires hundreds of thousands of computer servers distributed in big centers around the world. Google and Amazon.com, which are not members of the project, maintain proprietary systems which they apparently felt gave them a competitive edge.

For Facebook, the difference seems to be more in the software. To the extent hardware costs drop, that’s great for them. Mr. Frankovsky argued that, while “this puts challenges on the incumbents” in hardware, “it also helps them. They have a finite number of engineering resources, and this way they hear from a community about whether there is an interest for a product.” Intel may hope to benefit from its open-source release, since it could see an overall rise in demand for its chips with the move toward cheaper computing.

The real test is whether Facebook can increase the number of potential buyers for Open Compute equipment. “The question is, can they extend this beyond a few Web businesses like Facebook and Rackspace, or a few financial exercises at Goldman, and bring this to industries like oil or aerospace?” said Matt Eastwood, an analyst with IDC, a technology research firm. “That will take it from 20 or 30 companies to hundreds of companies.”

The issue isn’t so much a technical one, he argues, as it is one of getting corporate information technology professionals interested in radical design changes. Mr. Frankovsky is aware of the problem. Recently he and his colleagues led a seminar in Texas for BP, Shell and other oil giants on how they could use Open Compute hardware in their data centers.

This will not change things dramatically this year, and possibly even next, but over the long haul it could remake a lot of businesses. Linux, remember, was around for several years as a minor player, but eventually undid Sun Microsystems and others.

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The New Old Age Blog: Officials Say Checks Won't Be in the Mail

The jig is up.

Two years ago, the Treasury Department initiated its Go Direct campaign to persuade people still receiving paper checks for their Social Security, Veterans Affairs, S.S.I. and other federal benefits to switch to direct deposit.

“At that point, we were issuing approximately 11 million checks each month,” or about 15 percent of the total, Walt Henderson, director of the campaign, told me.

After putting notices in every monthly check envelope, circulating public service announcements and putting the word out through banks, senior centers, the Red Cross, AARP and other organizations, the Treasury Department has since shrunk that number to five million monthly checks.

That means 93 percent of those getting federal benefits are using direct deposit or, if they prefer or lack a bank account, a Direct Express debit card that gets refilled each month and can be used anywhere that accepts MasterCard.

“So people have been getting the word and making the switch,” Mr. Henderson said. Now, federal officials are pushing the last holdouts to convert to direct deposit by March 1.

Although officials say the change is not optional, the jig isn’t entirely up. If you or your older relative does not respond to their pleading, “we’re not going to interrupt their payments,” Mr. Henderson said. But the department will start sending letters urging people to switch.

The major motive is financial: shifting the last paper checks to direct deposit or a debit card (only 2 percent of recipients go that route) will save $1 billion over the next decade, the department estimates.

But safety enters the picture, too. One reason some beneficiaries resist direct deposit, Mr. Henderson said, is that they fear their electronic deposits can be hacked or diverted. Having grown up in a predigital age, perhaps they feel safer with a check in their hands.

But they probably aren’t. In 2011, the Treasury Department received 440,000 reports of lost or stolen benefits checks. With direct deposit, “there’s no check lingering unattended in a mailbox,” Mr. Henderson noted.

The greater reason for sticking with paper is probably simple inertia. “It’s human nature to procrastinate,” he said.

But unless you or your relatives want a series of letters from the Treasury Department, it is probably time for the last fence-sitters to get with the program.

They don’t need to use a computer. People can switch to direct deposit, or get the debit card, at their banks or the local Social Security office. More simply, they can call a toll-free number, (800) 333-1795, and have agents walk them through the change. Or they can sign up online at www.GoDirect.org.

They will need:

1. Their Social Security number.
2. The 12-digit federal benefit number found on their checks.
3. The amount of the most recent check.
4. And, for direct deposit, a bank or credit union routing number, usually found on the front of a check. They can have direct deposit to a savings account, too.

A caution for New Old Age readers: If you think your relative has not switched because he or she is cognitively impaired and can no longer handle his finances, you can be designated a representative payee and receive monthly Social Security or S.S.I. payments on your relative’s behalf. This generally requires a visit to your local Social Security office, documentation in hand.

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Paula Span is the author of “When the Time Comes: Families With Aging Parents Share Their Struggles and Solutions.”

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The New Old Age Blog: Officials Say Checks Won't Be in the Mail

The jig is up.

Two years ago, the Treasury Department initiated its Go Direct campaign to persuade people still receiving paper checks for their Social Security, Veterans Affairs, S.S.I. and other federal benefits to switch to direct deposit.

“At that point, we were issuing approximately 11 million checks each month,” or about 15 percent of the total, Walt Henderson, director of the campaign, told me.

After putting notices in every monthly check envelope, circulating public service announcements and putting the word out through banks, senior centers, the Red Cross, AARP and other organizations, the Treasury Department has since shrunk that number to five million monthly checks.

That means 93 percent of those getting federal benefits are using direct deposit or, if they prefer or lack a bank account, a Direct Express debit card that gets refilled each month and can be used anywhere that accepts MasterCard.

“So people have been getting the word and making the switch,” Mr. Henderson said. Now, federal officials are pushing the last holdouts to convert to direct deposit by March 1.

Although officials say the change is not optional, the jig isn’t entirely up. If you or your older relative does not respond to their pleading, “we’re not going to interrupt their payments,” Mr. Henderson said. But the department will start sending letters urging people to switch.

The major motive is financial: shifting the last paper checks to direct deposit or a debit card (only 2 percent of recipients go that route) will save $1 billion over the next decade, the department estimates.

But safety enters the picture, too. One reason some beneficiaries resist direct deposit, Mr. Henderson said, is that they fear their electronic deposits can be hacked or diverted. Having grown up in a predigital age, perhaps they feel safer with a check in their hands.

But they probably aren’t. In 2011, the Treasury Department received 440,000 reports of lost or stolen benefits checks. With direct deposit, “there’s no check lingering unattended in a mailbox,” Mr. Henderson noted.

The greater reason for sticking with paper is probably simple inertia. “It’s human nature to procrastinate,” he said.

But unless you or your relatives want a series of letters from the Treasury Department, it is probably time for the last fence-sitters to get with the program.

They don’t need to use a computer. People can switch to direct deposit, or get the debit card, at their banks or the local Social Security office. More simply, they can call a toll-free number, (800) 333-1795, and have agents walk them through the change. Or they can sign up online at www.GoDirect.org.

They will need:

1. Their Social Security number.
2. The 12-digit federal benefit number found on their checks.
3. The amount of the most recent check.
4. And, for direct deposit, a bank or credit union routing number, usually found on the front of a check. They can have direct deposit to a savings account, too.

A caution for New Old Age readers: If you think your relative has not switched because he or she is cognitively impaired and can no longer handle his finances, you can be designated a representative payee and receive monthly Social Security or S.S.I. payments on your relative’s behalf. This generally requires a visit to your local Social Security office, documentation in hand.

---

Paula Span is the author of “When the Time Comes: Families With Aging Parents Share Their Struggles and Solutions.”

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DealBook: H.P. Said to Have Suitors for Two Units

Hewlett-Packard has received a number of inquiries from would-be buyers for its Autonomy and Electronic Data Systems units in recent weeks, though the technology company is not interested in selling at the moment, a person briefed on the matter said on Wednesday.

The calls from potential suitors and bankers picked up after H.P. filed its annual report with regulators on Dec. 28, said the person, who did not want to be identified because management deliberations were confidential.

In the securities filing, the company said, “We also continue to evaluate the potential disposition of assets and businesses that may no longer help us meet our objectives.”

That is standard legal boilerplate. But H.P. has been struggling with poor performance at both Autonomy and E.D.S., having significantly written down the value of those acquisitions.

The company has also claimed to have found accounting and disclosure issues at Autonomy, and has forwarded findings from an internal inquiry to securities regulators in the United States and the division’s home in Britain.

Shares of H.P. rose 4 percent on Wednesday after The Wall Street Journal reported news of the expressions of interest. Over the last 12 months, the shares have fallen 35 percent.

But H.P.’s management team, led by Meg Whitman, is not interested in selling what it considers to be core businesses. Instead, the company intends to focus on developing its enterprise operations, the person said.

The inquiries may also have been stoked by the sudden flurry of news coverage surrounding a potential leveraged buyout of Dell. That company still appears to be closing in on a potential deal to sell itself to a consortium that includes its founder, Michael S. Dell, and the investment firm Silver Lake, in the biggest leveraged buyout in more than five years.

Advisers to Dell and Silver Lake are still negotiating a number of elements in what is proving to be a complicated deal, though they have made advancements, according to a person briefed on the matter who did not want to be identified because the talks were private. A potential takeover may be priced around $14 a share, valuing the company at more than $24 billion.

Mr. Dell is expected to contribute his roughly 16 percent stake to a leveraged buyout. And Silver Lake has been in talks with potential partners, including sovereign wealth funds like Temasek of Singapore, about contributing additional capital, this person said.

Banks are also working on lining up the financing necessary for a deal, which could reach $15 billion. While an enormous amount of money, bankers are betting that debt investors will clamor for the financing package, hoping to reap yields that are higher than those for Treasury bonds.

Still, this person cautioned that the discussions could fall apart.

Confronting H.P. and Dell is the grinding pressure on both companies’ personal computer businesses, where profit margins have declined in the last few years as competition toughened.

The two tech companies are trying to decrease their dependence on making PCs.

That move had prompted H.P. to buy both E.D.S. and Autonomy, paying more than $20 billion for the pair.

A version of this article appeared in print on 01/17/2013, on page B4 of the NewYork edition with the headline: Two Units Of Hewlett Reportedly Draw Suitors.

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Berlusconi Stirs Up Elections in Italy

ROME — The dark, double-breasted suits have long been a mainstay, but now former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi has taken to wearing the occasional fedora. It lends him a rakish, retro air as he embarks on what many Italians, foreign investors and no doubt Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany hoped would never happen: another election campaign.

In recent weeks, Mr. Berlusconi, a center-right candidate, has blitzed the airwaves with a theatrical blend of anti-establishment populism, this from someone who governed Italy for the better part of the last decade. His prime targets are Prime Minister Mario Monti, a well-behaved technocrat now vying to retain his post, and Ms. Merkel, cast as the taskmaster of the austerity that is suffocating southern Europe.

With every hour that he appears on television, the medium he knows best and that made him rich, Mr. Berlusconi rises in opinion polls. His People of Liberty party is now in second place, after the center-left Democratic Party and before Mr. Monti’s nascent and still incoherent centrist bloc. They are trailed by the grass-roots Five Star Movement of Beppe Grillo, a comedian, which has tapped into a groundswell of antipolitical sentiment.

Analysts widely agree that there is little chance Mr. Berlusconi will govern Italy again after elections scheduled for February. But they say he is likely to win enough seats in Parliament to achieve his goals: protecting his interests on issues like justice reform, digital television rights and wiretap laws — and weakening the center-left Democratic Party and Mr. Monti, whose popularity has dropped since the economist became a candidate.

“It’s a very confusing time,” said Giuliano Ferrara, the editor of the conservative daily Il Foglio and a sometime Berlusconi adviser. “People don’t want the insider,” he said of Mr. Berlusconi, “and they don’t want the outsider,” he added of Mr. Monti.

Mr. Berlusconi, a skilled campaigner, has cast himself as an outsider while making an “insider” of Mr. Monti, who was lionized when he first took office in November 2011 precisely because he was seen as apolitical.

Despite his many legal tangles and the dire performance of Italy’s economy under his leadership, Mr. Berlusconi maintains a residual popularity through charm, mastery of the media and a lack of strong competing parties.

Last week, Mr. Berlusconi appeared for two hours on a television program hosted by one of his old enemies. Questioned about the number of politicians with criminal records elected on his party’s slate over the years, Mr. Berlusconi said he had not sought them out. “You take 100 priests and you don’t find 100 saints,” he said.

“This country is ungovernable!” he said with glee at one point, only to be reminded that his governments had the largest majority in postwar Italian history. At another moment, Mr. Berlusconi stood up in outrage, threatened to leave but eventually calmed down, deftly taking out a white handkerchief to brush off his chair before sitting back down.

The show drew nine million viewers, a quarter of the Italian audience share.

“He’s an ex-prime minister who is doing showmen’s gags on television,” said Marco Damilano, a political correspondent for L’Espresso, a left-wing weekly magazine, whom Mr. Berlusconi cheerfully pretended to hit on the head with a poster on a television program on Tuesday.

Always a savvy populist, Mr. Berlusconi now rails against the fiscal consolidation policies advocated by Germany, sounding not unlike the leftist Syriza party in Greece, which leads in opinion polls there. He has also taken to quoting the New York Times columnist Paul Krugman, a critic of austerity.

His message has struck a nerve in Italy and has helped put Mr. Monti, the darling of Europe and the United States, who calmed financial speculation and put Italy back on the world stage, on the defensive on television, a medium that Mr. Berlusconi dominates the way Fred Astaire did the dance floor.

Appearing on Italy’s most widely watched interview program on Monday evening, Mr. Monti, who routinely treats his predecessor with understated irony, compared Mr. Berlusconi to “the Pied Piper” who entranced Italy but ultimately led it to its death.

Gaia Pianigiani contributed reporting.

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News Analysis: Momentum Seems to Build for Gargantuan Buyout of Dell

Dell is advancing toward a goal many thought was all but unattainable since the financial crisis: a leveraged buyout worth more than $20 billion.

The company is in talks with investment firms and its founder, Michael S. Dell, over a deal that would take the technology company off the public markets, people briefed on the matter said on Tuesday.

One potential transaction that appears to be gaining steam is one that would be led by Silver Lake, a private equity firm that focuses on technology deals, one of these people said. The investment shop has already tasked a number of banks — Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Barclays, Credit Suisse and Royal Bank of Canada — with lining up the enormous amount of financing that would be needed, perhaps as much as $16 billion.

Silver Lake is also sounding out potential partners that could help contribute equity financing for the deal, a group that may include wealthy Asian investors, this person said.

Dell is contemplating using some of its enormous store of cash, totaling about $11.3 billion as of Nov. 2, to help defray the deal’s cost. It may do so even though more than 80 percent of its cash is held overseas, and bringing it home could generate a big tax penalty.

Mr. Dell is expected to contribute his roughly 16 percent stake in the company to the deal, helping to lower the ultimate price tag. His shares as of Tuesday’s market close were worth about $3.6 billion. It is unclear whether he would invest additional money as part of a buyout.

Nonetheless, the deal talks appear to have momentum, although one of the people briefed on the matter cautioned that they could still fall apart.

Representatives for Dell, Silver Lake and the banks declined to comment.

Should a deal come together, it would be the most radical step yet to revive a company once so profitable that it gave rise to a class of “Dellionaires” during the Internet boom.

Mr. Dell, who founded the computer maker in his dorm room in 1984, has long cast about for a solution to a world where revenue from personal computer sales has consistently fallen in recent years.

Behind any move to take Dell private is the hope that, freed from the tough scrutiny of public shareholders, the company can continue moving into the more lucrative and stable market of providing hardware and software services for corporations.

The company’s stock had fallen nearly 48 percent in the five years through last Friday, the day before Bloomberg News reported Dell’s talks with private equity firms. Since then, the stock price has climbed 21 percent.

A leveraged buyout of Dell would be one of the biggest private equity transactions since the Blackstone Group acquired Hilton Hotels for $25 billion more than five years ago. To date, no leveraged buyout announced since the financial crisis has surpassed the $7.2 billion that Kohlberg Kravis Roberts and others paid for the Samson Investment Company, an oil and gas driller, in fall 2011.

In part, that has been a matter of logistics. Leveraged buyouts require private equity firms to put money down, much as borrowers do for a mortgage. On average, that amount has been around 30 percent of the overall deal price, meaning that the equity required for a Dell takeover could be significant.

That is why Silver Lake is seeking to bring in at least one partner to help buoy a bid, one of the people briefed on the matter said.

But private equity firms have also taken pains to avoid club deals, in which two or more of them partner together to buy a company. Investors in these firms have complained that the practice essentially multiplies their exposure to a particular transaction.

Private equity firms aren’t fond of them because they essentially erase the distinctions between competitors, potentially making it harder to raise money for new funds.

Any deal would also require a seemingly daunting amount of debt financing, raised from bank loans and junk-bond sales. Several deal makers have expressed confidence in their ability to raise that money, given a hunger among investors for bonds that yield even a few percentage points more than Treasury bonds.

The co-head of JPMorgan Chase‘s global debt capital markets, Jim Casey, told CNBC in October that his firm could raise $15 billion to $25 billion in noninvestment-grade debt for a single transaction.

Some of the other obstacles to a Dell takeover lie specifically with the company. It already bears $4.9 billion in long-term debt — and that is before it assumes the enormous amount that would come from a private equity deal.

While Dell still reports a healthy amount of cash from operations, totaling $3.7 billion for the year ended Nov. 2, much of that could be consumed with paying down debt. A. M. Sacconaghi, an analyst with Sanford C. Bernstein, estimated on Tuesday that the company could pay about $820 million in interest payments each year.

Analysts have questioned whether a private Dell would have the capital to pay for acquisitions, which has been an important vehicle for expanding into new markets. Last year alone, the company struck 10 deals, including the $2.4 billion purchase of Quest Software.

“With a large debt load, we believe Dell would have a more difficult time acquiring smaller enterprise companies — making it harder to diversify away from PCs,” analysts with Barclays wrote in a research note on Tuesday.

“We would be quite surprised if a transaction would take place.”

Ben Protess contributed reporting.

A version of this article appeared in print on 01/16/2013, on page B7 of the NewYork edition with the headline: Signs of Gathering Momentum for a Hefty Buyout of Dell.

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Phys Ed: Exercise Can Boost Flu Shot's Potency

Phys Ed

Gretchen Reynolds on the science of fitness.

As this year’s influenza season continues to take its toll, those procrastinators now hurrying to get a flu shot might wish to know that exercise may amplify the flu vaccine’s effect. And for maximal potency, the exercise should be undertaken at the right time and involve the right dosage of sweat, according to several recent reports.

Flu shots are one of the best ways to lessen the risk of catching the disease. But they are not foolproof. By most estimates, the yearly flu vaccine blocks infection 50 to 70 percent of the time, meaning that some of those being inoculated gain little protection. The more antibodies someone develops, the better their protection against the flu, generally speaking. But for some reason, some people’s immune systems produce fewer antibodies to the influenza virus than others’ do.

Being physically fit has been found in many studies to improve immunity in general and vaccine response in particular. In one notable 2009 experiment, sedentary, elderly adults, a group whose immune systems typically respond weakly to the flu vaccine, began programs of either brisk walking or a balance and stretching routine. After 10 months, the walkers had significantly improved their aerobic fitness and, after receiving flu shots, displayed higher average influenza antibody counts 20 weeks after a flu vaccine than the group who had stretched.

But that experiment involved almost a year of dedicated exercise training, a prospect that is daunting to some people and, in practical terms, not helpful for those who have entered this flu season unfit.

So scientists have begun to wonder whether a single, well-calibrated bout of exercise might similarly strengthen the vaccine’s potency.

To find out, researchers at Iowa State University in Ames recently had young, healthy volunteers, most of them college students, head out for a moderately paced 90-minute jog or bike ride 15 minutes after receiving their flu shot. Other volunteers sat quietly for 90 minutes after their shot. Then the researchers checked for blood levels of influenza antibodies a month later.

Those volunteers who had exercised after being inoculated, it turned out, exhibited “nearly double the antibody response” of the sedentary group, said Marian Kohut, a professor of kinesiology at Iowa State who oversaw the study, which is being prepared for publication. They also had higher blood levels of certain immune system cells that help the body fight off infection.

To test how much exercise really is required, Dr. Kohut and Justus Hallam, a graduate student in her lab, subsequently repeated the study with lab mice. Some of the mice exercised for 90 minutes on a running wheel, while others ran for either half as much time (45 minutes) or twice as much (3 hours) after receiving a flu shot.

Four weeks later, those animals that, like the students, had exercised moderately for 90 minutes displayed the most robust antibody response. The animals that had run for three hours had fewer antibodies; presumably, exercising for too long can dampen the immune response. Interestingly, those that had run for 45 minutes also had a less robust response. “The 90-minute time point appears to be optimal,” Dr. Kohut says.

Unless, that is, you work out before you are inoculated, another set of studies intimates, and use a dumbbell. In those studies, undertaken at the University of Birmingham in England, healthy, adult volunteers lifted weights for 20 minutes several hours before they were scheduled to receive a flu shot, focusing on the arm that would be injected. Specifically, they completed multiple sets of biceps curls and side arm raises, employing a weight that was 85 percent of the maximum they could lift once. Another group did not exercise before their shot.

After four weeks, the researchers checked for influenza antibodies. They found that those who had exercised before the shot generally displayed higher antibody levels, although the effect was muted among the men, who, as a group, had responded to that year’s flu vaccine more robustly than the women had.

Over all, “we think that exercise can help vaccine response by activating parts of the immune system,” said Kate Edwards, now a lecturer at the University of Sydney, and co-author of the weight-training study.

With the biceps curls, she continued, the exercises probably induced inflammation in the arm muscles, which may have primed the immune response there.

As for 90 minutes of jogging or cycling after the shot, it probably sped blood circulation and pumped the vaccine away from the injection site and to other parts of the body, Dr. Kohut said. The exercise probably also goosed the body’s overall immune system, she said, which, in turn, helped exaggerate the vaccine’s effect.

But, she cautions, data about exercise and flu vaccines is incomplete. It is not clear, for instance, whether there is any advantage to exercising before the shot instead of afterward, or vice versa; or whether doing both might provoke the greatest response – or, alternatively, be too much and weaken response.

So for now, she says, the best course of action is to get a flu shot, since any degree of protection is better than none, and, if you can, also schedule a visit to the gym that same day. If nothing else, spending 90 minutes on a stationary bike will make any small twinges in your arm from the shot itself seem pretty insignificant.

Read More..

Phys Ed: Exercise Can Boost Flu Shot's Potency

Phys Ed

Gretchen Reynolds on the science of fitness.

As this year’s influenza season continues to take its toll, those procrastinators now hurrying to get a flu shot might wish to know that exercise may amplify the flu vaccine’s effect. And for maximal potency, the exercise should be undertaken at the right time and involve the right dosage of sweat, according to several recent reports.

Flu shots are one of the best ways to lessen the risk of catching the disease. But they are not foolproof. By most estimates, the yearly flu vaccine blocks infection 50 to 70 percent of the time, meaning that some of those being inoculated gain little protection. The more antibodies someone develops, the better their protection against the flu, generally speaking. But for some reason, some people’s immune systems produce fewer antibodies to the influenza virus than others’ do.

Being physically fit has been found in many studies to improve immunity in general and vaccine response in particular. In one notable 2009 experiment, sedentary, elderly adults, a group whose immune systems typically respond weakly to the flu vaccine, began programs of either brisk walking or a balance and stretching routine. After 10 months, the walkers had significantly improved their aerobic fitness and, after receiving flu shots, displayed higher average influenza antibody counts 20 weeks after a flu vaccine than the group who had stretched.

But that experiment involved almost a year of dedicated exercise training, a prospect that is daunting to some people and, in practical terms, not helpful for those who have entered this flu season unfit.

So scientists have begun to wonder whether a single, well-calibrated bout of exercise might similarly strengthen the vaccine’s potency.

To find out, researchers at Iowa State University in Ames recently had young, healthy volunteers, most of them college students, head out for a moderately paced 90-minute jog or bike ride 15 minutes after receiving their flu shot. Other volunteers sat quietly for 90 minutes after their shot. Then the researchers checked for blood levels of influenza antibodies a month later.

Those volunteers who had exercised after being inoculated, it turned out, exhibited “nearly double the antibody response” of the sedentary group, said Marian Kohut, a professor of kinesiology at Iowa State who oversaw the study, which is being prepared for publication. They also had higher blood levels of certain immune system cells that help the body fight off infection.

To test how much exercise really is required, Dr. Kohut and Justus Hallam, a graduate student in her lab, subsequently repeated the study with lab mice. Some of the mice exercised for 90 minutes on a running wheel, while others ran for either half as much time (45 minutes) or twice as much (3 hours) after receiving a flu shot.

Four weeks later, those animals that, like the students, had exercised moderately for 90 minutes displayed the most robust antibody response. The animals that had run for three hours had fewer antibodies; presumably, exercising for too long can dampen the immune response. Interestingly, those that had run for 45 minutes also had a less robust response. “The 90-minute time point appears to be optimal,” Dr. Kohut says.

Unless, that is, you work out before you are inoculated, another set of studies intimates, and use a dumbbell. In those studies, undertaken at the University of Birmingham in England, healthy, adult volunteers lifted weights for 20 minutes several hours before they were scheduled to receive a flu shot, focusing on the arm that would be injected. Specifically, they completed multiple sets of biceps curls and side arm raises, employing a weight that was 85 percent of the maximum they could lift once. Another group did not exercise before their shot.

After four weeks, the researchers checked for influenza antibodies. They found that those who had exercised before the shot generally displayed higher antibody levels, although the effect was muted among the men, who, as a group, had responded to that year’s flu vaccine more robustly than the women had.

Over all, “we think that exercise can help vaccine response by activating parts of the immune system,” said Kate Edwards, now a lecturer at the University of Sydney, and co-author of the weight-training study.

With the biceps curls, she continued, the exercises probably induced inflammation in the arm muscles, which may have primed the immune response there.

As for 90 minutes of jogging or cycling after the shot, it probably sped blood circulation and pumped the vaccine away from the injection site and to other parts of the body, Dr. Kohut said. The exercise probably also goosed the body’s overall immune system, she said, which, in turn, helped exaggerate the vaccine’s effect.

But, she cautions, data about exercise and flu vaccines is incomplete. It is not clear, for instance, whether there is any advantage to exercising before the shot instead of afterward, or vice versa; or whether doing both might provoke the greatest response – or, alternatively, be too much and weaken response.

So for now, she says, the best course of action is to get a flu shot, since any degree of protection is better than none, and, if you can, also schedule a visit to the gym that same day. If nothing else, spending 90 minutes on a stationary bike will make any small twinges in your arm from the shot itself seem pretty insignificant.

Read More..

DealBook: Goldman Sachs Earnings Soar

9:46 a.m. | Updated

Goldman Sachs on Wednesday reported a fourth-quarter profit of $2.89 billion, or $5.60 a share, a significant jump from the period a year earlier.

The per-share figure is after the company paid preferred dividends, and comes in well ahead of analysts’ expectations of $3.78 a share, according to Thomson Reuters.

Analysts had been anticipating a fairly decent quarter for Goldman, and its results were buoyed by strong trading and investment banking results and lower compensation costs. In the fourth quarter of 2011, the bank earned $1.01 billion, or $1.84 a share.

The bank’s most recent results reflect a continued focus on cutting expenses as well as a number of investing gains, including $485 million from debt and security loans, the company said.

“While economic conditions remained challenging for much of last year, the strengths of our business model and client franchise, coupled with our focus on disciplined management, delivered solid performance for our shareholders,” Goldman’s chairman and chief executive, Lloyd C. Blankfein, said in a news release.

The results had an immediate effect on the firm’s stock, sending it up 2.7 percent in early morning trading.

Over all, the firm produced $9.24 billion in revenue in the quarter ended Dec. 31, up 53 percent from the same quarter in 2011. That also beat analysts’ estimates of quarterly revenue of $7.91 billion.

Goldman also revealed how much it had set aside for compensation, paying out $12.9 billion in 2012, an average of $399,506 to each of its 32,400 employees. This represented 37.9 percent of Goldman’s revenue for the year.

Over the last year, Goldman has reduced its payroll by 900 people. In 2011, the bank set aside $12.22 billion, or 42.4 percent, of its 2011 net revenue to pay compensation and benefits for its employees.

Goldman partners, a small group of top managers at the firm, will learn their 2012 compensation packages on Wednesday. The vast majority of employees, however, will be told what their bonuses will be on Thursday in what is known at Goldman as compensation communication day. These bonuses are on top of annual salaries, which can range from roughly $100,000 to $2 million for executives like Mr. Blankfein.

Bonuses on Wall Street — both the size of them and how they are paid — always draw scrutiny. Goldman Sachs decided this week not to delay the payment of bonuses to its staff members in Britain, a move that would have helped investment bankers and other highly paid employees benefit from a lower income tax rate.

Goldman Sachs was already drawing attention in the United States after it distributed $65 million in stock to 10 senior executives in December instead of January, when the firm typically makes such awards. That move helped the executives avoid the higher tax rates that will now be imposed on income of $450,000 or more.

The firm’s annual return on equity was 10.7 percent, up from 2011, when it was 5.8 percent. While this is far below its performance in boom years like 2006, when its return on equity was 41.5 percent, it is an achievement that it has broken above 10 percent.

Banks continue to fight difficult economic conditions at home and abroad, and Goldman’s results are still well below what it was producing before the financial crisis. Those outsize profits, however, were fueled by borrowing on credit and selling mortgage-linked products, and they have dwindled. New regulations aimed at reining in risk-taking have also reduced the profitability of certain businesses.

Revenue from investment banking came in at $1.41 billion, up 64 percent from the year-ago period.

Net revenue in Goldman’s powerful division that trades bonds, currencies and commodities was $2.04 billion, up 50 percent from levels in the quarter a year earlier. The firm said those results reflected an increase in mortgage revenues, which were “significantly higher” when compared with 2011.

The firm’s investing and lending division also had a stronger-than-expected quarter, posting revenue of $1.97 billion, up 126 percent from year-ago levels. The firm said this unit benefited from an increase in equity prices in Asia and Europe and a number of one-time gains. For instance, it logged a gain of $334 million from its investment in the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, a strategic investment the firm made in 2006. It also had gains from the debt securities and loans it holds.

Goldman is one of a number of banks releasing earnings this week. JPMorgan Chase also Wednesday weighed in with its results, reporting a strong profit of $5.7 billion for the fourth quarter, up 53 percent from the previous year.

These positive results put pressure on Morgan Stanley to post good results when it releases its fourth quarter numbers on Friday. Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters are expecting Morgan Stanley to report earnings of 27 cents a share, up from a loss of 14 cents in the year-ago period.

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Blasts at Aleppo University Cause Casualties

DAMASCUS, Syria (AP) — Two explosions struck the main university in the northern Syrian city of Aleppo on Tuesday, causing an unknown number of casualties, state media and anti-government activists said.

There were conflicting reports as to what caused the blast at Aleppo University, which was in session Tuesday.

State TV said two rockets hit the university, killing students and people who had fled fighting elsewhere in recent months and taken refuge on the campus grounds. It did not say how many people were killed, and blamed rebels for the attack.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which has a network of activists around the country, offered a slightly different account. It said 15 people were killed and "tens" wounded in two explosions near the university's dorms, but said it was not clear whether the blasts were the result of shells or bombs.

Aleppo, a former commercial hub, has been a major front in the country's civil war since July. Since then, the fight in the Syria's largest city has settled into a bloody stalemate between regime troops and rebels, with ferocious street battles, sniper fire and frequent exchanges of rocket and mortar rounds.

The city, along with the capital, Damascus, also has been hit by a wave of explosions in recent that have killed scores of people. Many of the bombings, which have largely targeted government buildings, have been claimed by Islamic extremists fighting on the rebel side.

Violence raged in other parts of Syria as well on Tuesday, with clashes in the suburbs of Damascus, and government air raids and shelling in other regions that killed dozens of people, activists said.

The violence came a day after Syria's deputy foreign minister said President Bashar Assad will not step down before scheduled presidential elections in mid-2014. Faisal Mekdad said Assad will run again for the post next year — a declaration which lowers already diminished expectations that a political settlement can be reached.

Since Syria's crisis began in March 2011, the opposition has said it will not accept anything less than Assad's departure.

Mekdad's comments appear to contradict a plan proposed by international envoy Lakhdar Brahimi. Since starting his job in the summer, Brahimi has sought to advance an international plan that calls for an open-ended cease-fire between rebels and government troops and the formation of a transitional government to run the country until elections can be held.

Brahimi did not mention Assad by name in the plan, but he has said the transitional government would have "full executive powers," meaning "all the authority of the state should be possessed by that government" — a description that would seem to exclude the incumbent Assad from a role.

Asked by a BBC interviewer if the president says he wants to run in 2014, Mekdad answered, "What's wrong with that?"

"The president and many other candidates who may run will go to the people put their programs and to be elected by the people," Mekdad said in English. "The ballot box will be the place where the future of the leadership of Syria will be decided."

"It is a coup d'etat ... if we listen to what the armed groups and those enemies of Syria are proposing," Mekdad said, referring to the opposition and countries that support it.

Earlier this month, Assad dismissed calls from the U.S. and others that he step down and vowed to keep fighting until the country is free of "terrorists" — his government's shorthand for rebels.

Last year, a new constitution drafted in Syria imposed a limit of two seven-year terms on the president, but the limit would not count the nearly 13 years that he has already held office. It means Assad could remain legally in power through 2028.

Assad took office in 2000 after the death of his father, Hafez Assad, who ruled Syria for 30 years.

Mekdad said it would be undemocratic to tell Assad not to run for the post again.

Also Tuesday, Syrian Prime Minister Wael al-Halqi arrived in Iran, Syria's strongest ally in the region, where he will discuss the country's crisis, including Assad's proposal to end the fighting, with Iranian officials.

Iran has tried to mediate in the past but the opposition rejected the offer saying Tehran is taking sides in the conflict.

Meanwhile, activists reported clashes in suburbs south of Damascus. The government is trying to drive rebels from their bases around Damascus from which they can threaten key facilities.

Away from Damascus, the Observatory and the Local Coordination Committees activist groups said troops bombarded the Houla region in the central province of Homs, killing at least 10 people including five women and two children. The LCC said 17 people were killed in Homs, most of them in Houla.

The U.N. says at least 60,000 people have been killed in the war and millions have fled their homes.

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Mroue reported from Beirut. Associated Press writer Ali Akbar Dareini contributed to this report from Tehran, Iran.

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