Environmental and Public Health Risks from Air Pollution at the Beijing 2008 Olympics

China  has   made  enormous  strides  in   tackling  its  environmental  problems,  but considerable work remains to be done.  In an article on environment and public health published in the Winter 2007 edition of this journal, the question was raised whether the forces unleashed by China’s aggressive approach to economic growth since the late 1970’s --- two to three times the global average --- were too strong to be controlled by its environmental policies.  The same question remains relative to health risks for the Summer Olympics this August (2008):  “The main problem appears to be that well intentioned public health and environmental policies have not yet been realistically integrated into overall policies which emphatically promote economic growth.”1    In other words, theory and practice are in conflict and in practice, China has been promoting objectives that are diametrically opposed.  In August, 2007, China conducted a dry run of procedures to control air pollution by restricting car use.   The results were hard to interpret: official websites claimed success, while other observers and official data showed varied results of successful pollution reduction (see below). Overwhelmingly the major health as well as environmental concern for Beijing is air pollution and solutions have concentrated on the city itself, but surrounding areas are also problematic and have not been addressed as well.  This article will look at the health risks to athletes and the preparations that the Chinese government has been making to forestall widespread air pollution for the games.  One of the main reasons Beijing was chosen for the 2008 Olympics over Toronto and Paris was its proposals to have a “green Olympics.

Is China Subordinating Health and Environmental Concerns to Economic Growth?

The popular press frequently portrays China in a negative light when it reports on environmental and health issues: widespread air and water pollution, mine accidents, and contaminated imports such as food and toys.  The image is hardly positive.  How much of this accurately reflects reality, and how much reflects a tendency of the popular press to accentuate the negative?  Is the image the same in professional journals and technical reports

Is China Ready for the Mantel of International Leadership?

In the past few years China has crossed two colossal crossroads.  It is now the world’s largest emitter of CO2 (2006/7)  and held the summer Olympics (2008).   And China shares a curious distinction with many other of the world’s “old” civilizations in Asia, Africa, the Middle East, Central and Latin America.  By today’s standards, they are considered developing countries, a designation that appears singularly objectionable to the Chinese.  But a designation that appears to be a significant driving force in China’s overriding policy fostering economic growth.  This article is a follow-up to two earlier articles published in this journal: “Is China Subordinating Health and Environmental Concerns to Economic Growth?” (Winter 2007) and “Environmental and Public Health Risks from Air Pollution at the Beijing 2008 Olympics” (Summer 2008).  Both articles open the door to ask “Is China Ready for the Mantel of International Leadership?”

Hospital volume allocation: integrating decision maker and patient perspectives

Planning problems in healthcare systems have received greater attention in the last decade, especially because of the concerns recently raised about the scattering of surgical interventions among a wide number of different facilities that can undermine the quality of the outcome due to the volume-outcome association. In this paper, an approach to plan the amount of surgical interventions that a facility has to perform to assure a low adjusted mortality rate is proposed. The approach explicitly takes into account the existing interaction among patients’ choices and decision makers’ planning decisions. The first objective of the proposed approach is to find a solution able to reach quality in health outcomes and patients’ adherence. The second objective is to investigate the difference among solutions that are identified as optimal by either only one of the actors’ perspective, i.e., decision makers and patients, or by considering both the perspectives simultaneously. Following these objectives, the proposed approach is applied to a case study on Italian colon cancer interventions performed in 2014. Results confirm a variation in the hospital planned volumes when considering patients’ behaviour together with the policy maker plan, especially due to personal preferences and lack of information about hospital quality

Electronic transport, ionic activation energy and trapping phenomena in a polymer-hybrid halide perovskite composite

The exploitation of methylammonium lead iodide perovskite-polymer composites is a promising strategy for the preparation of photoactive thin layers for solar cells. The preparation of these composites is a simple fabrication method with improved moisture stability when compared to that of pristine perovskite films. To deepen the understanding of the charge transport properties of these films, we investigated charge carrier mobility, traps, and ion migration. For this purpose, we applied a combinatory measurement approach that proves how such composites can still retain an ambipolar charge transport nature and the same mobility values of the related perovskite. Furthermore, thermally stimulated current measurements revealed that the polymer influenced the creation of additional defects during film formation without affecting charge mobility. Finally, impedance spectroscopy measurements suggested the addition of starch may hinder ion migration, which would require larger activation energies to move ions in composite films. These results pave the way for new strategies of polymer-assisted perovskite film development

Methylammonium-formamidinium reactivity in aged organometal halide perovskite inks

Over the past 10 years, organometal halide perovskites have revolutionized the field of optoelectronics, particularly of emerging photovoltaic technologies. Today's best perovskite solar cells use triple-cation compositions containing a mixture of formamidinium, methylammonium, and cesium to enable more reproducible and stable device performance. The common procedure uses as-prepared precursor ink to avoid an undesirable decrease in device performance, attributed recently to a chemical reaction between methylammonium and formamidinium in solution. Here we employ nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy to explore different experimental conditions that can significantly modify these reaction kinetics; in particular, we find that the presence of cesium as the third cation can substantially slow down methylammonium-formamidinium reactivity. Our findings allow us to draw up a protocol for extended overtime perovskite ink stabilization

Fate of Salmonella enterica Typhimurium and Listeria monocytogenes in Black Soldier Fly (Hermetia illucens) Larvae Reared on Two Artificial Diets

Ensuring food security is one of the main challenges facing the world over the next 30 years. There is, thus, an urgent need to significantly increase the supply of sustainable protein that can be transformed into animal feed. Proteins from insects offer a valuable alternative. This article presents the results of challenge tests conducted to investigate the dynamics of the microbial load of Salmonella enterica Typhimurium and Listeria monocytogenes in black soldier fly (Hermetia illucens) larvae grown on contaminated substrates. Four separate challenge tests were performed on two substrates: the Gainesville diet and a homemade diet. The challenge test procedure was carried out in accordance with ISO/DIS 20976-2 (under development). The results of this study show that, when grown on contaminated substrates, BSF larvae do not eliminate Salmonella Typhimurium or L. monocytogenes, but can reduce their microbial load. Sanitation processes downstream of the breeding of BSF larvae are, however, required to reduce the microbiological risks of this novel food

253puse of red clover in premenopausal breast cancer patients receiving hormonal adjuvant treatment biological and clinical implications from a randomized clinical trial

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Rheological Tunability of Perovskite Precursor Solutions: From Spin Coating to Inkjet Printing Process

The high efficiencies (>22%) reached by perovskite-based optoelectronic devices in a very short period, demonstrates the great potential and tunability of this material. The current challenge lies in translating such efficiencies to commercially feasible forms produced through industrial fabrication methods. Herein, a novel first step towards the processability of starch-perovskite inks, developed in our previous work, is investigated, by using inkjet printing technology. The tunability of the viscosity of the starch-perovskite-based inks allows the selection of suitable concentrations to be used as printable inks. After exploration of several printing parameters, thick and opaque starch-perovskite nanocomposite films were obtained, showing interesting morphological and optical properties. The results obtained in this work underline the potential and versatility of our approach, opening the possibility to explore and optimize, in the future, further large-scale deposition methods towards fully printed and stable perovskite devices

Air- and water-stable and photocatalytically active germanium-based 2D perovskites by organic spacer engineering

There is increasing interest in the role of metal halide perovskites for heterogeneous catalysis. Here, we report a Ge-based 2D perovskite material that shows intrinsic water stability realized through organic cation engineering. Incorporating 4-phenylbenzilammonium (PhBz) we demonstrate, by means of extended experimental and computational results, that PhBz2GeBr4 and PhBz2GeI4 can achieve relevant air and water stability. The creation of composites embedding graphitic carbon nitride (g-C3N4) allows a proof of concept for light-induced hydrogen evolution in an aqueous environment by 2D Ge-based perovskites thanks to the effective charge transfer at the heterojunction between the two semiconductors