Mapping India's Energy Policy 2022

Carefully designed energy support measures—subsidies, public utilities' investments, and public finance institutions' lending—and government's energy revenues play a key role in India's transition to clean energy and reaching net-zero emissions by 2070. Looking at how the Government of India has supported different types of energy from FY 2014 to FY 2021, the study aims to improve transparency, create accountability, and encourage a responsible shift in support away from fossil fuels and toward clean energy.Mapping India's Energy Subsidies 2022 covers India's subsidies to fossil fuels, electricity transmission and distribution, renewable energy, and electric vehicles between fiscal year (FY) 2014 and FY 2021.We found that fossil fuels continue to receive far more subsidies than clean energy in India. This disparity became even more pronounced from FY 2020 to FY 2021, going from 7.3 times to 9 times the amount of subsidies to renewables

New genetic loci link adipose and insulin biology to body fat distribution.

Body fat distribution is a heritable trait and a well-established predictor of adverse metabolic outcomes, independent of overall adiposity. To increase our understanding of the genetic basis of body fat distribution and its molecular links to cardiometabolic traits, here we conduct genome-wide association meta-analyses of traits related to waist and hip circumferences in up to 224,459 individuals. We identify 49 loci (33 new) associated with waist-to-hip ratio adjusted for body mass index (BMI), and an additional 19 loci newly associated with related waist and hip circumference measures (P < 5 × 10(-8)). In total, 20 of the 49 waist-to-hip ratio adjusted for BMI loci show significant sexual dimorphism, 19 of which display a stronger effect in women. The identified loci were enriched for genes expressed in adipose tissue and for putative regulatory elements in adipocytes. Pathway analyses implicated adipogenesis, angiogenesis, transcriptional regulation and insulin resistance as processes affecting fat distribution, providing insight into potential pathophysiological mechanisms

Stroke genetics informs drug discovery and risk prediction across ancestries

Previous genome-wide association studies (GWASs) of stroke — the second leading cause of death worldwide — were conducted predominantly in populations of European ancestry1,2. Here, in cross-ancestry GWAS meta-analyses of 110,182 patients who have had a stroke (five ancestries, 33% non-European) and 1,503,898 control individuals, we identify association signals for stroke and its subtypes at 89 (61 new) independent loci: 60 in primary inverse-variance-weighted analyses and 29 in secondary meta-regression and multitrait analyses. On the basis of internal cross-ancestry validation and an independent follow-up in 89,084 additional cases of stroke (30% non-European) and 1,013,843 control individuals, 87% of the primary stroke risk loci and 60% of the secondary stroke risk loci were replicated (P < 0.05). Effect sizes were highly correlated across ancestries. Cross-ancestry fine-mapping, in silico mutagenesis analysis3, and transcriptome-wide and proteome-wide association analyses revealed putative causal genes (such as SH3PXD2A and FURIN) and variants (such as at GRK5 and NOS3). Using a three-pronged approach4, we provide genetic evidence for putative drug effects, highlighting F11, KLKB1, PROC, GP1BA, LAMC2 and VCAM1 as possible targets, with drugs already under investigation for stroke for F11 and PROC. A polygenic score integrating cross-ancestry and ancestry-specific stroke GWASs with vascular-risk factor GWASs (integrative polygenic scores) strongly predicted ischaemic stroke in populations of European, East Asian and African ancestry5. Stroke genetic risk scores were predictive of ischaemic stroke independent of clinical risk factors in 52,600 clinical-trial participants with cardiometabolic disease. Our results provide insights to inform biology, reveal potential drug targets and derive genetic risk prediction tools across ancestries

2006, in preparation

Government support for ethanol and biodiesel in Canad

Taxing coal to hit the goals: a simple way for Indonesia to reduce carbon emissions.

The Government of Indonesia has pledged to reduce absolute carbon emissions by between 29% and 41% by 2030 compared to "business as usual" (Republic of Indonesia, 2021). To help achieve this, the government is considering options for carbon pricing, including an emissions trading scheme (ETS), a carbon tax, or results-based payments. A pilot ETS is underway in the electricity generation sector, and a draft law has proposed a carbon tax of IDR 75,000 (USD 5.10) per tonne of carbon dioxide (Jiao & Sihombing, 2021). Carbon pricing is an effective and economically efficient way to reduce emissions, but significant details will need to be resolved, including fuel and sectoral coverage, exemptions for vulnerable consumers, and timeframes for implementation. Negotiations to resolve these issues will take time. As an interim and immediate measure, we recommend the government simply increase taxes on coal as a de facto form of carbon taxation. A coal tax is recommended for four reasons: 1) coal is highly polluting; 2) taxes are an effective way to reflect coal's negative impact in its price; 3) a coal tax would be relatively easy to administer; 4) a tax would generate significant revenue

The potential of intensity-modulated proton radiotherapy to reduce swallowing dysfunction in the treatment of head and neck cancer:A planning comparative study

<p>Background. Predictive models for swallowing dysfunction were developed previously and showed the potential of improved intensity-modulated radiotherapy to reduce the risk of swallowing dysfunction. Still the risk is high. The aim of this study was to determine the potential of swallowing-sparing (SW) intensity-modulated proton therapy (IMPT) in head and neck cancer (HNC) for reducing the risk of swallowing dysfunction relative to currently used photon therapy. Material and methods. Twenty-five patients with oropharyngeal (n = 21) and hypopharyngeal (n = 4) cancer received primary radiotherapy, including bilateral neck irradiation, using standard (ST) intensity-modulated photon therapy (IMRT). Prophylactic (54 Gy) and therapeutic (70 Gy) target volumes were defined. The dose to the parotid and submandibular glands was reduced as much as possible. Four additional radiotherapy plans were created for each patient: SW-IMRT, ST-IMPT, 3-beam SW-IMPT (3B-SW-IMPT) and 7-beam SW-IMPT (7B-SW-IMPT). All plans were optimized similarly, with additional attempts to spare the swallowing organs at risk (SWOARs) in the SW plans. Probabilities of swallowing dysfunction were calculated with recently developed predictive models. Results. All plans complied with standard HNC radiotherapy objectives. The mean parotid gland doses were similar for the ST and SW photon plans, but clearly lower in all IMPT plans (ipsilateral parotid gland ST-IMRT: 46 Gy, 7B-SW-IMPT: 29 Gy). The mean dose in the SWOARs was lowest with SW-IMPT, in particular with 7B-SW-IMPT (supraglottic larynx ST-IMRT: 60 Gy, 7B-SW-IMPT: 40 Gy). The observed dose reductions to the SWOARs translated into substantial overall reductions in normal tissue complication risks for different swallowing dysfunction endpoints. Compared with ST-IMRT, the risk of physician-rated grade 2-4 swallowing dysfunction was reduced on average by 8.8% (95% CI 6.5-11.1%) with SW-IMRT, and by 17.2% (95% CI: 12.7-21.7%) with 7B-SW-IMPT. Conclusion. SWOAR-sparing with proton therapy has the potential to substantially reduce the risk of swallowing dysfunction compared to similar treatment with photons.</p>