SciTech Strategies (United States)

This presentation was submitted to the Society for Mining, Metallurgy, and Exploration (SME) MineXchange annual conference in Salt Lake City, Utah. This abstract and subsequent presentation provide an overview of the Critical Minerals Leadership Academy (CMLA) that took place in Laramie, Wyoming in August of 2025. The presentation includes information regarding the development of the CMLA, a review of the event, and information regarding participants, their backgrounds and future intentions.

ABSTRACT Starting in the 1970s, and most notably from the 1990s to 2025, the US federal government served as a market leader in demonstrating green building design and performance with its own facilities and thereby influencing the market through “leadership by example.” Over the decades, the government achieved measurable progress in reducing building energy and water use, while saving significantly on utility bills and maintaining occupant satisfaction. This article draws on the author's long‐term participation in this federal movement, supplemented by many additional sources, to outline the strategies behind the success of these policies and where they fell short. Strategies discussed include providing bipartisan leadership; creating and promoting showcase facilities; drawing on internal and external expertise; convening, educating and recognizing agency champions and practitioners; creating standards and frameworks for implementation; leveraging financial resources; testing innovations; and greening military properties. The author discusses how and why these approaches worked, instances where they confronted barriers and how key players worked to overcome them. The analysis reveals a picture of a richly complex, iterative process, not strictly driven from above (leadership) versus below (staff) or from inside versus outside the government, but as a learning process of continuous interaction and advancement. In the wake of the downsizing or elimination of many of these programs by the second Trump administration and the exit of many of their champions and practitioners from the government, the article concludes with a discussion of challenges to reviving US federal green building and posits approaches to overcome these challenges. This article is categorized under: Policy and Economics > Governance and Regulation. Sustainable Energy > Energy Efficiency. Cities and Transportation > Buildings.

ABSTRACT Quaternary ammonium compounds (QACs) are widely used to kill pathogenic microbes (including COVID-19), providing a substantial public health benefit. This review is an update to our previous publications that summarized and interpreted the current knowledge of the safety of the two most widely used QACs, alkyl dimethyl benzyl ammonium chloride (ADBAC) and didecyl dimethyl ammonium chloride (DDAC). A literature search was conducted for studies published since 2000 that addressed possible toxicity of ADBAC and DDAC as well as investigations into human exposure. The current database of high-quality animal toxicology studies with ADBAC/DDAC showed that adverse cellular changes are limited to effects at the point of contact. (1) Non-guideline animal toxicology investigations, (2) studies of the effect of QACs on subcellular functions, and (3) the sole report of systemic effects in humans might not be informative for human health risk assessment. Because of their widespread use, human exposure to QACs is frequent. Various reports measured QACs in media in the home and workplaces. Risk calculations performed based upon these exposure estimates performed as part of this review demonstrated that none of the exposure scenarios examined are predicted to pose adverse health risks to exposed individuals.

Previous studies of the use of peer review for the allocation of competitive funding agencies have concentrated on questions of efficiency and how to make the 'best' decision, by ensuring that successful applicants are also the more productive or visible in the long term. This paper examines the components of feedback received from an unsuccessful grant application, is associated with motivating applicants career decisions to persist (reapply for funding at T1), or to switch (not to reapply, or else leave academia). This study combined data from interviews with unsuccessful ECR applicants (n = 19) to The Wellcome Trust 2009-19, and manual coding of reviewer comments received by applicants (n = 81). All applicants received feedback on their application at T0 with a large proportion of unsuccessful applicants reapplying for funding at T1. Here, peer-review-comments-as-feedback sends signals to applicants to encourage them to persist (continue) or switch (not continue) even when the initial application has failed. Feedback associated by unsuccessful applicants as motivating their decision to resubmit had three characteristics: actionable; targeted; and fair. The results lead to identification of standards of feedback for funding agencies and peer-reviewers to promote when providing reviewer feedback to applicants as part of their peer review process. The provision of quality reviewer-reports-as-feedback to applicants, ensures that peer review acts as a participatory research governance tool focused on supporting the development of individuals and their future research plans.

Using a model of the literature indexed in Scopus, we have increased the accuracy of our ability to predict which of 20,747 research communities would achieve exceptional growth from 32.2 to 39.6 using double exponential smoothing of inertial indicators and by doing predictions in each of 26 fields rather than across the entire model. Each field nominated two (out of a possible 123) indicators as ‘best predictors’ following the procedure described in our previous studies. Significant diversity was found in which indicators performed best in each field, suggesting that field effects should be accounted for in predictive analytics. Nevertheless, there were groupings of contiguous fields with a surprising level of homogeneity in predictive indicators. Possible reasons for the similarities and differences are discussed.

Статья посвящена анализу современной кластерной политики в Стране Басков. В статье рассмотрены ключевые элементы кластерной политики в Стране Басков. Подробно представлен опыт Страны Басков в качестве примера становления и эволюции кластерной политики в европейском контексте. Руководящими принципами кластерной политики были следующие: активная роль правительства, инновации как основа новой модели, диверсификация, конкуренция и сотрудничество компаний как источник конкурентоспособности по сравнению с внешним миром, избегание применения протекционистской политики. Пример Басков показывает большой вес кластеров и высокий уровень их вклада в региональный ВВП. Применение стратегий умной специализации было одной из основных задач кластерной политики в последнее время. Центральным моментом стратегий умной специализации -является определение трех стратегических приоритетных областей: передовое производство, энергетика, биологические науки и здравоохранение. Вместе с этими тремя приоритетами, стратегия умной специализации также определяет четыре ниши возможностей в следующих областях: продукты питания, творческие и культурные индустрии, городской среды обитания и экологические экосистемы. Кластерные ассоциации играли ведущую роль на всех этапах Региональной стратегии Страны Басков, что иллюстрирует тип взаимодействия между этими двумя уровнями политики.

The past two years have created an amazing quasi-experimental condition for firms to find ways to succeed or fail dramatically during the economic catastrophe caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and other simultaneous crises. This gives us a unique opportunity to learn from successful firms what they did, and use that to generate new theory and practices that may generalize to a much broader audience. We often talk about how to integrate more field-work into our divisions. This is a wonderful opportunity to do just that. This global panel of business leaders from the United States, Lebanon, and China, will share how their firms not only survived, but thrived during these crises.

ABSTRACT Quaternary ammonium compounds (QACs) or quats are a large class of antimicrobial chemicals used in households and institutions as sanitizers and disinfectants. These chemicals are utilized as food processing sanitizers, algicides, in the process of water treatment, and preservatives in cosmetics. The aim of this study was to determine an Adverse Outcome Pathway (AOP) whereby two widely used QACs, alkyl dimethyl benzyl ammonium chloride (ADBAC) and didecyl dimethyl ammonium chloride (DDAC), may result in respiratory tract and gastrointestinal tract effects. When inhaled or ingested, these QACs are incorporated into the epithelial cell membrane at the point of contact. With sufficient dosage, the epithelial membrane is disrupted, reducing its fluidity, and releasing cellular contents. Further, ADBAC and DDAC might disrupt mitochondrial functions leading to decreased ATP production. Both events might lead to cell death, either attributed to direct lysis, necrosis, or apoptosis. Pro-inflammatory mediators are recruited to the tissue, inducing inflammation, edema, and excess mucus production. The primary tissue-level adverse outcome is epithelial degeneration and dysplasia. Most important, no apparent metabolism or distribution is involved in QAC action. Based upon this knowledge, it is suggested to replace default Uncertainty Factors for risk assessments with a set of Data Derived Extrapolation Factors.