Tag: economics
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Cellulosic Biofuel Process Close to Cost-Competitive
Chemical engineers at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana have devised a process for producing biofuels from non-food feedstocks they say is nearly cost-competitive with fossil fuels. An economic analysis of the process developed in the lab of Purdue’s Rakesh Agrawal is described in the journal Biomass Conversion and Biorefinery (paid subscription required). This method,…
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Lean Management Helps Improve Surgery Efficiency, Morale
Researchers and clinicians from University of Michigan medical school and health system in Ann Arbor adapted lean management concepts from industry to one hospital operating room and found improved efficiency and morale, with implications for increasing hospital capacity and revenues. The results of the study appear online in the Journal of the American College of…
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Challenge Seeks Electric Power Utility Service Enhancements
A new challenge on InnoCentive seeks ideas to improve the process for electric power utilities to deploy two types of electricity services in a timely, cost-effective manner. The challenge has a payout of $15,000 and a deadline of 8 July for submissions. InnoCentive in Waltham, Massachusetts is a company the conducts open-innovation, crowd-sourcing competitions for…
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Bay Area Consortium to Fund Large-Scale Solar R&D
The Bay Area Photovoltaic Consortium (BAPVC) unveiled its first research grants aimed at making utility-scale solar power cost-competitive by the end of the decade. The new funds from the consortium — an industry-backed venture led by Stanford University and the University of California-Berkeley — total $7.5 million. The grants will support 18 projects at BAPVC…
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Genetic Tests Not Triggering More Health Care Use
Researchers at Group Health Research Institute in Seattle, National Institutes of Health, Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit, and Abt Associates in Bethesda, Maryland found patients who receive genetic tests for susceptibility to disease were no more likely to use medical services after receiving the results than before the tests. The study results appear online today…
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HHS Awards First Health Care Innovation Awards
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services revealed the first group of universities, companies, and medical centers to receive Health Care Innovation awards. The three-year cooperative agreements, authorized by the Affordable Care Act, total $122.6 million and are administered through HHS’s Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation. The department says the 26 awardees were…
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Investors to Back Start-Ups That Cut Health Care Costs
The Paliwoda Group in New York has started a new investment fund that plans to support early-stage companies with solutions aimed at cutting the costs of health care. The company’s Health Tech Fund is now accepting proposals on its Web site. The Health Tech Fund plans to invest in early-stage companies with projects having the…
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U.S. Obesity Rate Expected to Rise to 42% by 2030
Public health researchers at Duke University, RTI International in North Carolina, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention forecast that by 2030, the percentage of Americans considered obese is expected to rise by a third, with adverse health and financial implications. The team’s findings appear today online in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine.…
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NIH Funding Portfolio Evaluated With Investment Metrics
An interdisciplinary team of business, computer science, and medical researchers tested funding decisions at National Institutes of Health over a 42-year period using measures of investment efficiency from the world of finance. The findings of the team from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and the investment management firm AlphaSimplex LLC in Cambridge,…
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New York University to Build Urban Sciences Center
A Center for Urban Science and Progress (CUSP) is planned for downtown Brooklyn, New York to conduct research on issues and technology related to the needs of the world’s cities. The new campus, which will include an incubator for spin-off businesses, is a consortium of New York University and its Polytechnic Institute (NYU-Poly), other U.S.…