Housing for the cost burdened: a step toward a just society

Affordable housing is one of Atlanta, Georgia’s most pressing, pervasive, and persistent urban planning crises. Additionally, the advent of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated the preexisting affordable housing issues across housing security, demographics, the supply and demand of affordable housing policy, and the health of low-income housing occupants. This report aims to address these issues, as they currently persist in Atlanta, and offer recommendations and considerations for their solutions. This document consists of four sections: Affordable Housing Finance in the City of Atlanta, Wealth Divide and Housing, Homelessness, Health & Hazards. A case study of Atlanta’s Healthy Hotel Project, and the Nexus of Housing, Transit, and Jobs. This report was created by graduate students in the master’s in City and Regional Planning Program (MCRP) at the Georgia Institute of Technology in collaboration with multiple local stakeholders. Though this report will not solve the affordable housing issue in the city of Atlanta, it will address the current conditions and numerous challenges associated with affordable housing in Atlanta and will offer a pointed recommendation to create a path toward solutions for these wicked problems

Immature embryo: A useful tool for oil palm ( Elaeis guineensis Jacq.) genetic transformation studies

Oil palm ( Elaeis guineensis Jacq.) is the highest yielding oil-bearing crop. However, being a perennial crop, genetic improvement of oil palm is extremely slow. Indeed, compared to other annual oil crops such as soybean and rapeseed, genetic manipulations remained less important. Therefore, to remain competitive, oil palm growers and breeders need new and novel approaches. In this report, the potential of immature embryos (IE) as a useful tool for oil palm genetic transformation studies was evaluated. It was evident that IEs were amenable to both direct and Agrobacterium-mediated gene transfer. Due to the abundant supply of IE, optimization of biolistic and Agrobacterium-mediated gene transfer into IEs were easily carried out. Transient transformation frequencies were comparable to other plant systems reported, with as high as 97.4% recorded for biolistic and 64.4% for Agrobacterium-mediated gene transfer. Like most moncots, oil palm tissues were less sensitive to kanamycin, geneticin and chloramphenicol. Instead, both hygromycin and phosphinotrycin were toxic 20 mg/l, making both suitable candidates for selecting putative transformants. IEs were also more responsive to in vitro manipulations as compared to other explants such as leaf and root tissues. Rapid in vitro response to callusing and embryogenesis or rapid and highly efficient direct germination resulted in a shorter culture period. This would minimize the production of abnormal clonal palms, which has been associated to chromosomal aberration due to prolonged time in culture. In addition, IEs also allows rapid and direct introduction of elite genes into breeding programs and in biclonal seed production

N348I in the Connection Domain of HIV-1 Reverse Transcriptase Confers Zidovudine and Nevirapine Resistance

Analyzing HIV sequences from a Canadian cohort, Gilda Tachedjian and colleagues identify a common mutation in a little-studied domain of reverse transcriptase that confers resistance to two drug classes

A Text-Mining and GIS Approach to Understanding Transit Customer Satisfaction

Master of Science in Geographic Information Science and Technology (MS-GIST) Capstone Project.Performance evaluation is a concept that most can understand. Examples of performance evaluation include evaluating the performance of students in schools via assignments and exams, and corporations and boards evaluating departmental and corporation-wide performance. In many of these instances, the objectives of performance evaluation are clear. In our first example, the aim of schools may be the education of students, and therefore performance evaluation is conducted to measure students’ understanding and learning of the syllabi. In our second example, the aim of corporations may be to improve efficiency (reduce costs) and increase income. Performance measures used by private sector corporations may include number of sales, customer satisfaction ratings, and number of clicks on advertisements

Immature embryo: a useful tool for oil palm (Elaeis guineensis Jacq.) genetic transformation studies

Oil palm (Elaeis guineensis Jacq.) is the highest yielding oil-bearing crop. However, being a perennial crop, genetic improvement of oil palm is extremely slow. Indeed, compared to other annual oil crops such as soybean and rapeseed, genetic manipulations remained less important. Therefore, to remain competitive, oil palm growers and breeders need new and novel approaches. In this report, the potential of immature embryos (IE) as a useful tool for oil palm genetic transformation studies was evaluated. It was evident that IEs were amenable to both direct and Agrobacterium-mediated gene transfer. Due to the abundant supply of IE, optimization of biolistic and Agrobacterium-mediated gene transfer into IEs were easily carried out. Transient transformation frequencies were comparable to other plant systems reported, with as high as 97.4% recorded for biolistic and 64.4% for Agrobacterium-mediated gene transfer. Like most moncots, oil palm tissues were less sensitive to kanamycin, geneticin and chloramphenicol. Instead, both hygromycin and phosphinotrycin were toxic 20 mg/l, making both suitable candidates for selecting putative transformants. IEs were also more responsive to in vitro manipulations as compared to other explants such as leaf and root tissues. Rapid in vitro response to callusing and embryogenesis or rapid and highly efficient direct germination resulted in a shorter culture period. This would minimize the production of abnormal clonal palms, which has been associated to chromosomal aberration due to prolonged time in culture. In addition, IEs also allows rapid and direct introduction of elite genes into breeding programs and in biclonal seed production