Efficient local production of pork in Brazil is essential to meet the increasing internal demand for animal protein, and to make the Brazilian pork sector competitive and sustainable towards the future. Two important threats are: 1) Brazilian pork production relies on feed (corn and soy) that is becoming more expensive due to large demand for alternative uses and increasing transport distances, and 2) consolidation of pig breeding businesses has resulted in global breeding programs that do not necessarily select the best pigs for specific local circumstances (such as tropical climate or alternative feed). This multidisciplinary project will quantify these threats, develop and evaluate alternatives involving feeding by-products from more locally produced Macaúba and breeding strategies that allow global breeding plans to serve specific local breeding goals. This project potentially will decrease costs of Brazilian pork production, but also generates additional economic activities involved in harvesting and processing of Macaúba.

New energy technologies are sources of controversy; think of public opposition to wind parks. Controversies arise from value conflicts between stakeholders. Responsible innovation suggests that the diversity of relevant values is assessed and carefully evaluated in the development and implementation of energy projects. Whereas controversy is often seen as a barrier to implementation, we take the position that controversies can be regarded as an informal assessment of the energy project. Controversies articulate the conflicting values at stake and reveal unanticipated societal and ethical risks, and associated costs and benefits. We distinguish informal assessment from formal assessment. Formal assessment involves tools such as environmental impact assessment and (social) cost-benefit analysis to evaluate and ascertain formally established public values, associated with safety, health and economy. However, such (legally) formalized tools cannot cover the wide and variable range of values that an energy project puts at stake for different people in society. As a result, formal assessment methods often become debated in controversy, for instance because their scope and process is not considered appropriate for the project at hand. As such they can be seen as imperfect (and sometimes even counterproductive) in supporting public-private decision-making for socially responsible energy projects. To overcome this problem we aim to develop a methodology to enrich the assessment of energy projects by linking formal assessment to societal informal assessment. We will do so by 1) ex-post analysis of (non)controversial energy projects and 2) action research in running projects in which the methodology will be developed and evaluated. Keywords: 1. Energy 2. Controversy 3. Assessment 4. Public values 5. Institutions 6. Stakeholder participation

The sustainable feeding of a growing world population requires both reducing the animal-based component of our diet and the need to improve the health and welfare of our livestock. Modern group-housing systems provide behavioural freedom for the animals, but harmful social interactions like tail-biting and pecking also occur in these systems. In this project we will develop a hardware-software artificial intelligence system for automated detection and measuring of social interaction under field condition. With this system, farmers can intervene timely when outbreaks of harmful behaviours are detected and breeding companies can breed future generations of more sociable livestock.

This project explored how cells ensure accurate chromosome segregation, vital for human health. Focusing on a hereditary disease linked to aneuploidy (abnormal chromosome numbers) caused by mutations in the CENATAC gene, researchers found that disrupted CENATAC function leads to issues with chromosome distribution during cell division. This disruption results from improper splicing of approximately 90 genes, leading to defective protein production. The study revealed a crucial link between gene splicing and cell division, enhancing our understanding of chromosome abnormalities in disease.