Selecting Cooking Stove and Fuel Technology Using Pairwise Comparison Method

The focus of this project was to apply the Pair-Wise Comparison Method to the topic of cooking stove and fuel technologies in developing world communities. The issue of cooking stoves is a significant one since the most commonly used stove and fuel type has serious health, environmental and economic downsides. As a result, there is increasing attention and resources being given to the idea of providing communities and households with stove and fuel types that are more efficient, produce less pollution, and are more easily maintained. There were 24 technologies stove and fuel combinations considered in the project. These technologies were evaluated against four criteria – efficiency, emissions, cost, and job creation. The source of information was ratings by experts specifically chosen based on their area of expertise. Although the surveys were sent to 15 experts, only five returned them in time for inclusion in the results of this paper. Due to the low number of returned surveys, each technology was only rated by one expert, instead of multiple expert rating per technology as was originally intended in the design of the model

How Can Small and Medium Enterprises Maintain a Balance of Research and Development?

The objective of this project is to gain a better understanding of how small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) balance research and development (R&D) activities. We explore modern R&D tools and methodologies through literature research. These tools and methodologies are then aligned with “External Variables and Internal Conditions” as identified by Keizer et al. and a framework is created. [10] This framework is applied to two case studies. The first case study examines HECO, the Hawaiian Electric company, representing a small enterprise. The second case study examines Logitech Inc, a consumer electronics company, representing a medium enterprise. The results of this analysis show that the proposed framework for understanding SME R&D programs is viable. Both case studies provided examples of the variables, challenges and opportunities faced by small and medium sized R&D programs. Areas for future research include a stronger understanding of the impact of education, motivation and experience on the output of an R&D organization and the flaws in the current funding system for energy research

Cohesin controls X chromosome structure remodeling and X-reactivation during mouse iPSC-reprogramming

Reactivation of the inactive X chromosome is a hallmark epigenetic event during reprogramming of mouse female somatic cells to induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs). This involves global structural remodeling from a condensed, heterochromatic into an open, euchromatic state, thereby changing a transcriptionally inactive into an active chromosome. Despite recent advances, very little is currently known about the molecular players mediating this process and how this relates to iPSC-reprogramming in general. To gain more insight, here we perform a RNAi-based knockdown screen during iPSC-reprogramming of mouse fibroblasts. We discover factors important for X chromosome reactivation (XCR) and iPSC-reprogramming. Among those, we identify the cohesin complex member SMC1a as a key molecule with a specific function in XCR, as its knockdown greatly affects XCR without interfering with iPSC-reprogramming. Using super-resolution microscopy, we find SMC1a to be preferentially enriched on the active compared with the inactive X chromosome and that SMC1a is critical for the decompacted state of the active X. Specifically, depletion of SMC1a leads to contraction of the active X both in differentiated and in pluripotent cells, where it normally is in its most open state. In summary, we reveal cohesin as a key factor for remodeling of the X chromosome from an inactive to an active structure and that this is a critical step for XCR during iPSC-reprogramming.This work was supported by the Spanish Agencia Estatal de Investigación (AEI) of the Ministry of Science and Innovation (PID2020-114080GB-I00 and BFU2017-86760-P (AEI/FEDER, UE) to M.P.C.; and BFU2014-55275-P, BFU2017-88407-P, EUR2019-103817, PID2021-123383NB-I00 to B.P.), the AXA Research Fund (to B.P.) and the Agencia de Gestio d’Ajuts Universitaris i de Recerca (AGAUR, 2017 SGR 689 to M.P.C. and 2017 SGR 346 to B.P.). M.P.C. is supported by ICREA (Institucio Catalana de Recerca i Estudis Avançats). We would like to thank the Spanish Ministry of Economy, Industry and Competitiveness (MEIC) to the EMBL partnership and to the “Centro de Excelencia Severo Ochoa”. We also acknowledge support of the CERCA Programme of the Generalitat de Catalunya. M.V.N. has been supported by the People Program (Marie Curie Actions) FP7/2007–2013 under REA grant [608959] from the European Union and a Juan de la Cierva-Incorporación 2017 from the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation. P.A. has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement No 747488. M.B. has been supported by an EMBO postdoctoral fellowship (ALTF682–2021). J.T.L. is supported by the U.S. NIH grant, R01-MH118351. Portions of this work have appeared as part of the PhD dissertation “Screen for novel factors involved in pluripotency and X chromosome reactivation.“ by S.F.G. (Universitat Pompeu Fabra, 2019)

JBrowse 2: a modular genome browser with views of synteny and structural variation

We present JBrowse 2, a general-purpose genome annotation browser offering enhanced visualization of complex structural variation and evolutionary relationships. It retains core features of JBrowse while adding new views for synteny, dotplots, breakpoints, gene fusions, and whole-genome overviews. It allows users to share sessions, open multiple genomes, and navigate between views. It can be embedded in a web page, used as a standalone application, or run from Jupyter notebooks or R sessions. These improvements are enabled by a ground-up redesign using modern web technology. We describe application functionality, use cases, performance benchmarks, and implementation notes for web administrators and developers

The functional impact of rare variation across the regulatory cascade

Each human genome has tens of thousands of rare genetic variants; however, identifying impactful rare variants remains a major challenge. We demonstrate how use of personal multi-omics can enable identification of impactful rare variants by using the Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis, which included several hundred individuals, with whole-genome sequencing, transcriptomes, methylomes, and proteomes collected across two time points, 10 years apart. We evaluated each multi-omics phenotype's ability to separately and jointly inform functional rare variation. By combining expression and protein data, we observed rare stop variants 62 times and rare frameshift variants 216 times as frequently as controls, compared to 13-27 times as frequently for expression or protein effects alone. We extended a Bayesian hierarchical model, "Watershed," to prioritize specific rare variants underlying multi-omics signals across the regulatory cascade. With this approach, we identified rare variants that exhibited large effect sizes on multiple complex traits including height, schizophrenia, and Alzheimer's disease

‘I Made Mistakes’: Robert McNamara's Vietnam War Policy, 1960–1968

Speaking to an advisor in 1966 about America's escalation of forces in Vietnam, Secretary of Defence Robert S. McNamara confessed: 'We've made mistakes in Vietnam … I've made mistakes. But the mistakes I made are not the ones they say I made'. In 'I Made Mistakes', Aurélie Basha i Novosejt provides a fresh and controversial examination of Secretary of Defence Robert S. McNamara's decisions during the Vietnam War. Although McNamara is remembered as the architect of the Vietnam War, Novosejt draws on new sources - including the diaries of his advisor and confidant John T. McNaughton - to reveal a man who resisted the war more than most. As Secretary of Defence, he did not want the costs of the war associated with a new international commitment in Vietnam, but he sacrificed these misgivings to instead become the public face of the war out of a sense of loyalty to the President