Financing Off-Grid Solar Energy Access: Hypotheses on COVID-19 Long Term Impacts

Off-grid solar energy (OGS) is instrumental to achieve access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all (Sustainable Development Goal 7, SDG7). More than half of the progress made in the last decade towards SDG7 was owed to path-breaking OGS start-ups. The global crisis brought by the coronavirus disease of 2019 (COVID-19) can reduce OGS customers’ ability to pay, disrupt OGS value chains, and freeze capital flows into the sector. This study proposes a set of hypotheses on the long-term changes that COVID-19 will bring to the OGS sector. These hypotheses were discussed throughout 20 in-depth interviews with senior level representatives of key investors and OGS companies. The interview results reported in this paper are aimed at documenting the collective intelligence of these stakeholders, which may be instrumental in guiding the OGS sector to weather the COVID-19 crisis

Evaluation Criteria for Chromosome Instability Detection by FISH to Predict Malignant Progression in Premalignant Glottic Laryngeal Lesions

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Evaluation Criteria for Chromosome Instability Detection by FISH to Predict Malignant Progression in Premalignant Glottic Laryngeal Lesions

BACKGROUND: The definition of objective, clinically applicable evaluation criteria for FISH 1c/7c in laryngeal precursor lesions for the detection of chromosome instability (CI). Copy Number Variations (CNV) for chromosomes 1 and 7 reflect the general ploidy status of premalignant head and neck lesions and can therefore be used as a marker for CI. METHODS: We performed dual-target FISH for chromosomes 1 and 7 centromeres on 4 µm formalin-fixed, paraffin-embedded tissue sections of 87 laryngeal premalignancies to detect CNVs. Thirty-five normal head and neck squamous cell samples were used as a control. First, the chromosome 7:1 ratio (CR) was evaluated per lesion. The normal range of CRs (≥0.84 ≤ 1.16) was based on the mean CR +/- 3 x SD found in the normal population. Second, the percentage of aberrant nuclei, harboring > 2 chromosomes of chromosome 1 and/or 7 (PAN), was established (cut-off value for abnormal PAN ≥ 10%). RESULTS: PAN showed a stronger correlation with malignant progression than CR (resp. OR 5.6, p = 0.001 and OR 3.8, p = 0.009). PAN combined with histopathology resulted in a prognostic model with an area under the ROC curve (AUC) of 0.75 (s.e. 0.061, sensitivity 71%, specificity 70%). CONCLUSIONS: evaluation criteria for FISH 1c/7c based on PAN ≥ 10% provide the best prognostic information on the risk of malignant progression of premalignant laryngeal lesions as compared with criteria based on the CR. FISH 1c/7c detection can be applied in combination with histopathological assessment