Retrospective evaluation of whole exome and genome mutation calls in 746 cancer samples

Funder: NCI U24CA211006Abstract: The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) and International Cancer Genome Consortium (ICGC) curated consensus somatic mutation calls using whole exome sequencing (WES) and whole genome sequencing (WGS), respectively. Here, as part of the ICGC/TCGA Pan-Cancer Analysis of Whole Genomes (PCAWG) Consortium, which aggregated whole genome sequencing data from 2,658 cancers across 38 tumour types, we compare WES and WGS side-by-side from 746 TCGA samples, finding that ~80% of mutations overlap in covered exonic regions. We estimate that low variant allele fraction (VAF < 15%) and clonal heterogeneity contribute up to 68% of private WGS mutations and 71% of private WES mutations. We observe that ~30% of private WGS mutations trace to mutations identified by a single variant caller in WES consensus efforts. WGS captures both ~50% more variation in exonic regions and un-observed mutations in loci with variable GC-content. Together, our analysis highlights technological divergences between two reproducible somatic variant detection efforts

Insights into the Determinants of Innovation in Energy Efficiency

Given the increasing interest in understanding (and supporting by means of public policy) innovative activity related to energy efficient technology (EET), I attempt to identify firm-level determinants of innovation and research in this field. A novel dataset of Swiss firms has been assembled by means of a survey in 2009, resulting in more than 2300 observations featuring various indicators of innovative activity and success. Applying standard econometric methodology, I find sizeable differences of the explaining factors of energy efficiency related innovation as compared to overall innovation. In particular, market environment related variables important for overall innovative activity seem to have little explanatory power for EET related innovation, raising the question whether such innovation sufficiently responds to current and potential future demand

Factors Determining the Adoption of Energy-saving Technologies in Swiss Firms: An Analysis Based on Micro Data

This study investigates the factors that determine the inter-firm and intra-firm adoption rates of energy-saving technologies. These factors can be on theoretical terms firm-specific rank effects, inducement effects, adoption barriers as well as order, stock and epidemic effects that are related to different kinds of external effects. Data for 2324 Swiss firms for the year 2008 are used that contain information about four categories of energy-saving technology applications (electromechanical and electronic applications; applications in motor vehicle and traffic engineering; in building construction; and in power-generating processes) that are studied separately. The results show that there are significant differences with respect to rank effects and adoption barriers between inter-and intra-firm diffusion. In practically all cases positive epidemic and/or network effects outweigh potential negative stock and order effects. Inducement effects, particularly those traced back to intrinsic motivations for environment-friendly technologies, show clearly positive effects on the adoption rates

The Impact of Energy Prices on Green Innovation: Study on behalf of the Swiss Federal Office of Energy SFOE

Based on patent data and industry specific energy prices for 18 OECD countries over 30 years we investigate on an industry level the impact of energy prices on green Innovation activities. Our econometric models show that energy prices and green innovation activities are positively related and that energy prices have a significantly positive impact on the ratio of green innovations to non-green innovations. More concretely, our main model shows that a 10% increase of the average energy prices of the previous five years results in a 2.7% and 4.5% increase of the number of green patents and the ratio of green patents to non-green patents, respectively. We also find that the impact of energy prices increases with an increasing lag between energy prices and innovation activities. Robustness tests confirm the main results. In der vorliegenden Studie untersuchen wir, gestützt auf Patentdaten und industriespezifischen Energiepreisen für 18 OECD-Länder, den Einfluss von Energiepreisen auf die Innovationstätigkeit in grünen Technologien. Unsere ökonometrischen Schätzungen zeigen eine positive Korrelation zwischen Energiepreisen und grüner Innovationstätigkeit; Energiepreise haben einen signifikant positive Einfluss auf die Quote von grünen im Vergleich zu nicht-grünen Innovationen. So zeigt unser Hauptmodell, dass eine Erhöhung um 10% der durchschnittlichen Energiepreise über fünf Jahre zu einer um 2.7% höheren Anzahl grüner Patente, beziehungsweise einer um 4.5% höheren Quote von grünen Patenten im Vergleich zu anderen Patenten führt. Mit zunehmendem zeitlichen Abstand zwischen Energiepreisen und Innovationstätigkeit lässt sich ein grösserer Effekt der Energiepreise feststellen. Unsere zentralen Resultate werden durch diverse Robustheitstests bestätigt