FINAL REPORT Skills and quality jobs in construction in the framework of the European Green Deal and the post Covid Recovery

Technical Report commissioned by the Just Transition Centre-International Trade Union Confederation and the European Federation of Building and Wood Workers. The aim is to inform the client-institutions to take action. Therefore, it is an *impact product*

As safe as houses? Why standards for urban development matter

Standards for designing, improving, and maintaining the built environment have conceptual and practical value for health. Yet, their importance runs the risk of being subsumed in tangential discourses, including over their applicability for particular populations or in particular contexts. This paper applies an integrative systems perspective to several relevant scenarios, while broadly revisiting the health rationale for built environment standards. As with any intervention, standards can have negative unintended consequences, in some cases inducing adverse outcomes. Yet, forgoing standards is not an acceptable answer for sustainable urbanization. The systems perspective adopted here surveys some of the driving forces that underlie adverse outcomes, and suggests potential leverage points and criteria for action

Donor genetic variants as risk factors for thrombosis after liver transplantation:A genome-wide association study

Thrombosis after liver transplantation substantially impairs graft‐ and patient survival. Inevitably, heritable disorders of coagulation originating in the donor liver are transmitted by transplantation. We hypothesized that genetic variants in donor thrombophilia genes are associated with increased risk of posttransplant thrombosis. We genotyped 775 donors for adult recipients and 310 donors for pediatric recipients transplanted between 1993 and 2018. We determined the association between known donor thrombophilia gene variants and recipient posttransplant thrombosis. In addition, we performed a genome‐wide association study (GWAS) and meta‐analyzed 1085 liver transplantations. In our donor cohort, known thrombosis risk loci were not associated with posttransplant thrombosis, suggesting that it is unnecessary to exclude liver donors based on thrombosis‐susceptible polymorphisms. By performing a meta‐GWAS from children and adults, we identified 280 variants in 55 loci at suggestive genetic significance threshold. Downstream prioritization strategies identified biologically plausible candidate genes, among which were AK4 (rs11208611‐T, p = 4.22 × 10(−05)) which encodes a protein that regulates cellular ATP levels and concurrent activation of AMPK and mTOR, and RGS5 (rs10917696‐C, p = 2.62 × 10(−05)) which is involved in vascular development. We provide evidence that common genetic variants in the donor, but not previously known thrombophilia‐related variants, are associated with increased risk of thrombosis after liver transplantation

Drivers for implementing green building technologies : an international survey of experts

2016-2017 > Academic research: refereed > Publication in refereed journal201804_a bcm

Smart Cities, Grids, Homes and the Workforce: Challenges and Prospects

The chapter explores specific developments and opportunities in smart technology in cities as well as the interface with the workforce. The first part of the chapter looks at technological development in smart grids and smart homes: integration of new Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) such as Internet of Things and advanced algorithms based on Artificial Intelligence (AI) to manage energy in urban areas and support user awareness or operator observation. The “smartness” of smart cities is defined. The enablers including AI and ICT, and their applications and benefits for users are discussed. The interoperability layers of smart grids architecture model are presented, and the importance of multidisciplinary ex-ante analysis of newly developed technologies and distributed intelligence is highlighted. The second part relates to the urban workforce. This is distinctive as most literature on smart cities looks at the impact on people as residents/users—not as workers. This part starts by discussing the overall impact of the development of smart grids and homes in the workforce across the sectors of the urban economy. Following, it concentrates on workers in trades related to the built environment. It argues that technological developments need a restructuring of vocational training, which may lead to a more skilled workforce with better working conditions. At the same time, it may reduce the quantity of employment, therefore part of the wealth generated by economic growth derived from technological advancements should be used to strengthen social protection. The chapter makes proposals to address current challenges, reaching a win–win situation

The role of government in adjusting economies Paper 5 - the health sector in Venezuela

Funded by the Overseas Development AdministrationAvailable from British Library Document Supply Centre-DSC:q96/16309 / BLDSC - British Library Document Supply CentreSIGLEGBUnited Kingdo

Gut mucosa dissociation protocols influence cell type proportions and single-cell gene expression levels.

Single-cell RNA sequencing (scRNA-seq) has revolutionized the study of the cellular landscape of organs. Most single-cell protocols require fresh material, which limits sample size per experiment, and consequently, introduces batch effects. This is especially true for samples acquired through complex medical procedures, such as intestinal mucosal biopsies. Moreover, the tissue dissociation procedure required for obtaining single cells is a major source of noise; different dissociation procedures applied to different compartments of the tissue induce artificial gene expression differences between cell subsets. To overcome these challenges, we have developed a one-step dissociation protocol and demonstrated its use on cryopreserved gut mucosal biopsies. Using flow cytometry and scRNA-seq analysis, we compared this one-step dissociation protocol with the current gold standard, two-step collagenase digestion, and an adaptation of a recently published alternative, three-step cold-active Bacillus licheniformus protease digestion. Both cell viability and cell type composition were comparable between the one-step and two-step collagenase dissociation, with the former being more time-efficient. The cold protease digestion resulted in equal cell viability, but better preserves the epithelial cell types. Consequently, to analyze the rarer cell types, such as glial cells, larger total biopsy cell numbers are required as input material. The multi-step protocols affected cell types spanning multiple compartments differently. In summary, we show that cryopreserved gut mucosal biopsies can be used to overcome the logistical challenges and batch effects in large scRNA-seq studies. Furthermore, we demonstrate that using cryopreserved biopsies digested using a one-step collagenase protocol enables large-scale scRNA-seq, FACS, organoid generation and intraepithelial lymphocyte expansion