On the Economics of Climate Change and its Effects

This thesis consists of three separate papers; two examining the costs of climate change policy in developing economies and one studying the economic impacts of flooding. In Chapter 2, I use a 2-sector non-balanced growth model to study the impact of structural change (the transition from industry to services) on carbon intensity. I calibrate the model to China and find that structural change plays an important role in reducing carbon intensity and lowering the economic cost of a carbon tax on GDP. For a 65% reduction target over 30 years, a $28/t carbon tax is needed and the output loss is 5.3$45/t tax is needed and 9.1% of GDP is lost. Rough calibrations to other developing countries show that structural composition matters as those with smaller service sectors can make emissions intensity reductions at lower cost. In Chapter 3, we use a computable general equilibrium (CGE) model to study how a local economy responds to a flood and the subsequent recovery/reconstruction. Initial damage is modelled as a shock to the capital stock and recovery requires rebuilding that stock. We apply the model to Metro Vancouver by considering a flood scenario causing total capital damage of $14.6 billion spread across five municipalities. Transportation and Warehousing are most severely impacted, followed by Manufacturing and Wholesale Trade. Construction and Manufacturing play significant roles in the recovery. We find that the GDP loss relative to a scenario with no flood is 1.9$2.07B) in the first year after the flood, 1.7% ($1.97B) in the second year, 1.5$1.70B) in the fifth year and 1.1% ($1.42B) in the twentieth year. In Chapter 4, I study how the composition of the energy sector and energy efficiency affect the cost of reducing carbon emissions. I show in the data that developing countries tend to be less energy efficient and have dirtier fuel mixes. I use an energy-economy model to study how GDP is affected by lowering emissions via a carbon tax. I find that developing countries face a larger decline in GDP from a carbon tax for an equivalent reduction in emissions, especially countries with a high dependence on coal. For example, China\u27s level of GDP is reduced by 6.7% in the long-run compared to less than 1% for all developed countries (for a 50% reduction in emissions). This is compounded by larger decreases in the growth rate in the short run for developing countries. Developing countries that have relatively low energy intensities and clean fuel mixes, like Brazil and Mexico, face considerably lower losses

An iconic programming language for sensor-based robots

In this paper we describe an iconic programming language called Onika for sensor-based robotic systems. Onika is both modular and reconfigurable and can be used with any system architecture and real-time operating system. Onika is also a multi-level programming environment wherein tasks are built by connecting a series of icons which, in turn, can be defined in terms of other icons at the lower levels. Expert users are also allowed to use control block form to define servo tasks. The icons in Onika are both shape and color coded, like the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, thus providing a form of error control in the development of high level applications

2015-2 A CGE Framework for Modelling the Economics of Flooding and Recovery in a Major Urban Area

Coastal cities around the world have experienced large costs from major flooding events in recent years. Climate change is predicted to bring an increased likelihood of flooding due to sea level rise and a higher frequency of severe storms. In order to plan future development and adaptation, cities must know the magnitude of losses associated with these events, and how they can be reduced. Often losses are calculated by adding up insurance claims or surveying flood victims. However, this largely neglects the loss due to the interruption of economic activity caused by a flood. There have been some attempts to account for the output losses using input-output techniques, but these do not account for the mitigation achieved through flexible prices, changes in output composition, and factor substitution. Here, we use a computable general equilibrium (CGE) model to study how a local economy responds to a flood, focusing on the subsequent recovery/reconstruction. Initial damage is modelled as a shock to the capital stock and recovery requires rebuilding that stock. We apply the model to Metro Vancouver by considering a flood scenario causing total capital damage of $14.6 billion spread across five municipalities. Transportation and Warehousing are most severely impacted, followed by Manufacturing and Wholesale Trade. We find that the GDP loss relative to a scenario with no flood is 1.9$2.07B) in the first year after the flood, 1.7% ($1.97B) in the second year, 1.5$1.70B) in the fifth year and 1.1% ($1.42B) in the twentieth year. We also find that the losses tend to scale approximately linearly with the damage rate

Pioneering the Field of Deaf Women’s Studies

This article is written by three Deaf women-scholars who pioneered Deaf Women’s Studies (DWS) about thirty plus years ago: the discipline arose from the need to explore the Deaf female experience (Kelly, 2016). Then, the 1990’s was when the DWS coursework was first developed and offered in American academia. To gain a greater understanding for DWS, the article begins by reviewing the emergence of both Black Studies and Women’s Studies as academic fields and how these were the impetus for DWS. A discussion about the Deaf women’s experiences during different periods of American history is given in detail. A brief coverage of the history of Deaf Studies as a discipline shows how it inspired the pioneers to establish the DWS field. Gaps in curricula, resources, and corpus as they appeared at the time that DWS began are described. Finally, the article devotes substantial space to the experiences that the authors had in developing courses, its syllabi, and teaching about Deaf women. A number of current challenges and achievements point to a continued pressing strong need for DWS to gain strength through research and scholarship

Genome-wide changes in protein translation efficiency are associated with autism

We previously proposed that changes in the efficiency of protein translation are associated with autism spectrum disorders (ASDs). This hypothesis connects environmental factors and genetic factors because each can alter translation efficiency. For genetic factors, we previously tested our hypothesis using a small set of ASD-associated genes, a small set of ASD-associated variants, and a statistic to quantify by how much a single nucleotide variant (SNV) in a protein coding region changes translation speed. In this study, we confirm and extend our hypothesis using a published set of 1,800 autism quartets (parents, one affected child and one unaffected child) and genome-wide variants. Then, we extend the test statistic to combine translation efficiency with other possibly relevant variables: ribosome profiling data, presence/absence of CpG dinucleotides, and phylogenetic conservation. The inclusion of ribosome profiling abundances strengthens our results for male–male sibling pairs. The inclusion of CpG information strengthens our results for female–female pairs, giving an insight into the significant gender differences in autism incidence. By combining the single-variant test statistic for all variants in a gene, we obtain a single gene score to evaluate how well a gene distinguishes between affected and unaffected siblings. Using statistical methods, we compute gene sets that have some power to distinguish between affected and unaffected siblings by translation efficiency of gene variants. Pathway and enrichment analysis of those gene sets suggest the importance of Wnt signaling pathways, some other pathways related to cancer, ATP binding, and ATP-ase pathways in the etiology of ASDs

Create a translational medicine knowledge repository - Research downsizing, mergers and increased outsourcing have reduced the depth of in-house translational medicine expertise and institutional memory at many pharmaceutical and biotech companies: how will they avoid relearning old lessons?

Pharmaceutical industry consolidation and overall research downsizing threatens the ability of companies to benefit from their previous investments in translational research as key leaders with the most knowledge of the successful use of biomarkers and translational pharmacology models are laid off or accept their severance packages. Two recently published books may help to preserve this type of knowledge but much of this type of information is not in the public domain. Here we propose the creation of a translational medicine knowledge repository where companies can submit their translational research data and access similar data from other companies in a precompetitive environment. This searchable repository would become an invaluable resource for translational scientists and drug developers that could speed and reduce the cost of new drug development

Low-Level Radioactive Waste (LLW) Management at the Nevada Test Site (NTS)

In 1978, the Department of Energy, Nevada Operations Office (DOE/NV), established a managed LLW disposal project at the Nevada Test Site (NTS). Two, sites which were already accepting limited amounts of on-site generated waste for disposal and off-site generated Transuranic Waste for interim storage, were selected to house the disposal facilities. In those early days, these sites, located about 15 miles apart, afforded the DOE/NV the opportunity to use at least two technologies to manage its waste cost effectively. The Area 5 Radioactive Waste Management Site (RWMS) uses engineered shallow-land burial cells to dispose packaged waste while the Area 3 RWMS uses subsidence craters formed from underground testing of nuclear weapons for the disposal of packaged and unpackaged bulk waste. The paper describes the technical attributes of both Area 5 and Area 3 facilities, the acceptance process, the disposal processes, and present and future capacities of both sites

Inotersen for the treatment of adults with polyneuropathy caused by hereditary transthyretin-mediated amyloidosis

Introduction: Hereditary transthyretin-mediated amyloidosis (ATTRv; v for variant) is an underdiagnosed, progressive, and fatal multisystemic disease with a heterogenous clinical phenotype that is caused by TTR gene mutations that destabilize the TTR protein, resulting in its misfolding, aggregation, and deposition in tissues throughout the body. Areas covered: Inotersen, an antisense oligonucleotide inhibitor, was recently approved in the United States and Europe for the treatment of the polyneuropathy of ATTRv based on the positive results obtained in the pivotal phase 3 trial, NEURO-TTR. This review will discuss the mechanism of action of inotersen and its pharmacology, clinical efficacy, and safety and tolerability. A PubMed search using the terms 'inotersen,' 'AG10,' 'antisense oligonucleotide,' 'hereditary transthyretin amyloidosis,' 'familial amyloid polyneuropathy,' and 'familial amyloid cardiomyopathy' was performed, and the results were screened for the most relevant English language publications. The bibliographies of all retrieved articles were manually searched to identify additional studies of relevance. Expert opinion: Inotersen targets the disease-forming protein, TTR, and has been shown to improve quality of life and neuropathy progression in patients with stage 1 or 2 ATTRv with polyneuropathy. Inotersen is well tolerated, with a manageable safety profile through regular monitoring for the development of glomerulonephritis or thrombocytopenia

Trimethylamine N-Oxide Response to a Mixed Macronutrient Tolerance Test in a Cohort of Healthy United States Adults.

Plasma trimethylamine n-oxide (TMAO) concentration increases in responses to feeding TMAO, choline, phosphatidylcholine, L-carnitine, and betaine but it is unknown whether concentrations change following a mixed macronutrient tolerance test (MMTT) with limited amounts of TMAO precursors. In this proof-of-concept study, we provided healthy female and male adults (n = 97) ranging in age (18-65 years) and BMI (18-44 kg/m2) a MMTT (60% fat, 25% sucrose; 42% of a standard 2000 kilo calorie diet) and recorded their metabolic response at fasting and at 30 min, 3 h, and 6 h postprandially. We quantified total exposure to TMAO (AUC-TMAO) and classified individuals by the blood draw at which they experienced their maximal TMAO concentration (TMAO-response groups). We related AUC-TMAO to the 16S rRNA microbiome, to two SNPs in the exons of the FMO3 gene (rs2266782, G>A, p.Glu158Lys; and rs2266780, A>G, p.Glu308Gly), and to a priori plasma metabolites. We observed varying TMAO responses (timing and magnitude) and identified a sex by age interaction such that AUC-TMAO increased with age in females but not in males (p-value = 0.0112). Few relationships between AUC-TMAO and the fecal microbiome and FMO3 genotype were identified. We observed a strong correlation between AUC-TMAO and TNF-α that depended on TMAO-response group. These findings promote precision nutrition and have important ramifications for the eating behavior of adults who could benefit from reducing TMAO exposure, and for understanding factors that generate plasma TMAO