Question: How long had Oxford Nanopore Technologies been in business by the year that it released the MinION nanopore sequencing device to selected researchers? Passage 1:Drees worked as a civil servant for the Ministry of Colonial Affairs in Batavia in the Dutch East Indies from 1945 until 1947 and as a financial analyst at the International Monetary Fund (IMF) from 1947 until 1950. Drees worked as Deputy Director of the Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis from 1 January 1950 until 1 January 1956 and as a civil servant for the Ministry of Finance as Director-General of the department for Budgetary Affairs from 1 January 1956 until 1 September 1969. In August 1969 Drees was appointed as Treasurer-General of the Ministry of Finance, serving from 1 September 1969 until 8 January 1971. In December 1970 Drees was approached by the Chairman of the newly founded Democratic Socialists '70 Jan van Stuijvenberg to seek the leadership for the election of 1971. Drees accepted and was unopposed in his candidacy and was elected as Leader and became the Lijsttrekker (top candidate) of the Democratic Socialists '70 for the election on 8 January 1971, he resigned as Treasurer-General that same day. After the election the Democratic Socialists '70 entered the House of Representatives with 8 seats. Drees was elected as a Member of the House of Representatives and became the Parliamentary leader of the Democratic Socialists '70 in the House of Representatives, taking office on 11 May 1971. Following the Drees was appointed as appointed as Minister of Transport and Water Management in the Cabinet Biesheuvel I, taking office on 6 July 1971. The Cabinet Biesheuvel I fell just one year later on 19 July 1972 after the Democratic Socialists '70 (DS'70) retracted their support following there dissatisfaction with the proposed budget memorandum to further reduce the deficit. The Democratic Socialists '70 cabinet members resigned on 21 July 1972. For the election of 1972 Drees again served as Lijsttrekker. The Democratic Socialists '70 suffered a small loss, losing 2 seats and now had 6 seats in the House of Representatives. Drees returned as a Member of the House of Representatives and Parliamentary leader in the House of Representatives, taking office on 5 September 1972. For the election of 1977 Drees once more served as Lijsttrekker. The Democratic Socialists '70 suffered a big loss, losing 5 seats and now had only 1 seat in the House of Representatives. Drees took responsibility for the defeat and sequentially announced he was stepping down as Leader and Parliamentary leader and a Member of the House of Representative on 20 August 1977.
 Passage 2:As a young professor at UC Davis, Deamer continued to work with electron microscopy, revealing for the first time particles related to functional ATPase enzymes within the membranes of sarcoplasmic reticulum. After spending sabbaticals in England at the University of Bristol in 1971 and with Alec Bangham in 1975, Deamer became interested in liposomes. Conversations with Bangham inspired his research on the role of membranes in the origin of life, and in 1985 Deamer demonstrated that the Murchison carbonaceous meteorite contained lipid-like compounds that could assemble into membranous vesicles. Deamer described the significance of self-assembly processes in his 2011 book First Life. In collaborative work with Mark Akeson, a post-doctoral student at the time, the two established methods for monitoring proton permeation through ion channels such as gramicidin. In 1989, while returning from a scientific meeting in Oregon, Deamer conceived that it might be possible to sequence single molecules of DNA by using an imposed voltage to pull them individually through a nanoscopic channel. The DNA sequence could be distinguished by the specific modulating effect of the four bases on the ionic current through the channel. In 1993, he and Dan Branton initiated a research collaboration with John Kasianowitz at NIST to explore this possibility with the hemolysin channel, and in 1996 published the first paper demonstrating that nanopore sequencing may be feasible. George Church at Harvard had independently proposed a similar idea, and Church, Branton and Deamer decided to initiate a patent application which was awarded in 1998. Mark Akeson joined the research effort in 1997, and in 1999 published a paper showing that the hemolysin channel, now referred to as a nanopore, could distinguish between purine and pyrimidine bases in single RNA molecules. In 2007, Oxford Nanopore Technologies (ONT) licensed the patents describing the technology and in 2014 released the MinION nanopore sequencing device to selected researchers. The first publications appeared in 2015, one of which used the MinION to sequence E. coli DNA with 99.4% accuracy relative to the established 5.4 million base pair genome. Despite earlier skepticism, nanopore sequencing is now accepted as a viable third generation sequencing method. The original 1996 paper has been cited over 2000 times in the scientific literature, and in 2017, twenty one years later, a Google search for nanopore sequencing returned 226,000 results.
 Passage 3:After his rise to power in 1805, Muhammad Ali Pasha embarked on consolidating his power and building an empire. His way of achieving that was to modernize Egypt and to build a European style strong army and a modern system of government. His desire for modernization fueled many new establishments such as the first modern military school, educational institutions, hospitals, roads and canals, factories to turn out uniforms and munitions, and a shipbuilding foundry at Alexandria. He established the school of Engineering (Mohandes Khana) in 1820 to provide the engineers and scientists he would need to carry out all the great projects he had planned. Impressed by the scientific and cultural aspects of the French Expedition (1798–1801), Muhammad Ali relied on French scientists and craftsmen to help him modernize Egypt. French engineer Pascal Coste was the first engineer hired by Muhammad Ali in 1817 to help him construct his ambitious projects. Coste worked on some small projects first, then came his biggest when he was appointed by Muhammad Ali as the Chief Engineer for Lower Egypt. This was the highest engineering post in Egypt at the time since most of Muhammad Ali's work to improve irrigation was concentrated in this region of the Nile Delta. Under his new position, Coste started working on constructing the Mahmoudiyah canal, the first of a long list of great irrigation projects that were to be constructed in that era.

Output: 2