Environmental Policy and Federal Structure: A Comparison of the United States and Germany

The assignment of tasks to the appropriate level of government is an important aspect of environmental policy design. Because the costs and benefits of pollution control policies are closely tied to geography, political solutions should reflect the underlying spatial structure of environmental problems. These solutions should not only incorporate the long-distance effects of air and water pollution, but also account for the mobility of economic actors and the resource base of governments. There are three general types of environmental problems. Global issues have no complex geographical component. Regional problems arise when political boundaries do not coincide with the pollution\u27s geographical impact. The environmental effects of local issues are confined within existing governmental borders. After outlining the political-economic arguments for the division of regulatory authority, I examine the actual pattern in two concrete cases: the United States and Germany. Both have advanced capitalist economies governed by representative federal democracies. They have similar levels of economic development and energy use and similar types of pollution problems. Both are viewed as environmental leaders. Public and private spending on environmental protection is high.\u27 Germany is, however, much smaller in area and population and is much more densely populated. It is embedded in the European continent, and its economy depends heavily on crossborder trade. Conditions in other European countries affect the quality of Germany\u27s air and water. American and German federalism have different structures, and this difference has had an impact on environmental policy. American federalism gives a strong role to federal officials in the administration of environmental laws, though in practice the states carry out much of the day-to-day implementation. Earmarked matching grants and federal oversight of state efforts provide high levels of central influence. In contrast, the German federal system delegates implementation to the states and localities with federal statutes, regulations, and guidelines providing the regulatory structure. For some environmental issues only federal framework statutes are permitted, giving the states considerable independent lawmaking authority. Earmarked intergovernmental grants are unimportant and face constitutional limits, but federal subsidies and tax breaks for industry are a recognized aspect of environmental policy. Although both Germany and the United States have recognized the complex geographical character of environmental problems, neither has done an adequate job of matching problems to government structures. To oversimplify, Germany seems too decentralized and the United States too centralized. Part of the problem derives from the countries\u27 respective constitutional structures, but much of it is a by-product of substantive environmental law

Juguetes como instrumentos de enseñanza en ingeniería: el caso del Slinky®

(Eng) Though not so much nowadays educationally exploited as it should be, toys are very useful resources in courses in science and engineering. A widely known toy, the Slinky®, is used through this article to explain in a simple way important physical principles and to show how they have been applied for scientific and technological developments.(Spa) Aunque no tan explotados educacionalmente hoy en día como debiera ser, los juguetes resultan recursos muy útiles en cursos de ciencias e ingenierías. Un juguete ampliamente conocido, el Slinky®, es utilizado en el presente artículo para explicar de manera sencilla importantes principios físicos y mostrar como ellos han sido aplicados en desarrollos científicos y tecnológicos

The pre-history of cryoscopy: what was done before raoult?

Cryoscopy is considered one of the foundations of the modern theory of solutions and of physical chemistry. This paper shows in order the first regularities pointed out by several scientists on the subject, in the first chapter of its birth as a scientific discipline. The study is focused on the identification of the different steps that helped, first qualitatively and then quantitatively, to adjust the different classes of possible solutions, including those that formed hydrates, to a basic formulation that the French scientist François-Marie Raoult would later generalize in the law that bears his name

The contributions of Henri Victor Regnault in the context of organic chemistry of the first half of the nineteenth century

A very little known aspect of the scientific career of Regnault is his contribution to the emerging organic chemistry in the first half of the nineteenth century. The purpose of this article is not only to describe two of his most important researches in this field, as were the discovery of two series of halogenated derivates of certain organic compounds and the precise identification of some of the then recently discovered alkaloids, but also the main features that identified his research method. With the involvement in these subjects, Regnault unintentionally positioned himself in the midst of some of the polemics about the classification of organic compounds that characterized this age of science

Juguetes como instrumentos de enseñanza en ingeniería: El caso del pájaro bebedor.

casi que inflexible y que en buena proporción aun hoy en día presentan los conceptos y principios de manera abstracta y sin relación con la realidad que el estudiante conoce, a un esquema más pedagógico que permite una mayor conexión con el entorno. Un muy bien conocido y representativo juguete se usa en este artículo para mostrar como ejemplos relacionados de la vida real que rodean la vida de los estudiantes pueden usarse para complementar los conceptos teóricos, en este caso físicos, y desarrollos matemáticos que rodean un tema específico, contribuyendo así positivamente a la motivación para el estudio y análisis de sistemas más complejos

The history of the rectilinear diameter law

The formulation of the so-called law of rectilinear diameter for the determination of the critical volume of substances in the concluding decades of the nineteenth century became in a very useful and acceptably exact alternative tool for researchers in the field of critical phenomena. Its corresponding original expression, and even those of its early few modifications, were so mathematically simple that their use did not limit to exclusively contribute to remove the by then experimental obstacle for the estimating of this critical parameter, but also extended along several decades in the increasing applications of the principle of corresponding states

Toys as teaching tools in engineering: the cases of Newton’s cradle and the gyroscope

Resumen Los funcionamientos de dos juguetes ampliamente conocidos, el péndulo de Newton y el giroscopio, han servido como modelo, ya sea para el desarrollo de una variedad de aplicaciones en diversas áreas de ciencia e ingeniería, o como herramienta pedagógica para la explicación de los principios físicos que gobiernan estos accesorios. La presentación de estos dos casos destaca una vez más la existencia de otras alternativas educacionales, en ocasiones más claras y de mayor motivación para los estudiantes que las tradicionales, en la descripción de ciertos fenómenos físicos. Abstract The behaviors of two widely known toys, Newton’s cradle and gyroscope, have served as a model, either for the development of a variety of applications in various areas of science and engineering, or as pedagogical tool for the explanation of the physical principles that govern these accessories. The presentation of these two cases highlights once again the existence of educational alternatives, sometimes clearer and having greater motivation for students than the traditional ones, in the description of certain physical phenomena

Paper Session I-B - Passive Radiation Dosimetry on STS-91 Using DNA: Initial Results from ASPR-GRaDEx-1

Quantifying the radiation dosage and damage to biological systems, especially to humans during repetitive high altitude flight and during long duration space flight is important for several reasons. Radiation can cause altered biosynthesis and long term genotoxicity resulting in cancer and birth defects etc. Radiation damage to biological systems depends in a complex way on incident radiation species and their energy spectra. TY.pically non-biological, i.e. film or electronic monitoring systems with narrow energy band sensitivity are used for dosimetry and then results are extrapolated to biological models. For this reason it may be desirable to perform radiation dosimetry by using biological molecules e.g. DNA or RNA strands as passive sensors. The Association of Small Payload Researchers in conjunction with Texas A&M University and Broward Community College have constructed a genotoxicology experiment to determine the degree to which in-vitro naked DNA extracted from tissues of a variety of vertebrate organisms including man, chicken, and fish, is damaged by exposure to cosmic radiation in a space environment. The DNA is assayed by means of agarose gel electrophoresis to determine the average length of DNA strands in each sample. It is hoped that a low mass low cost passive biological system to determine dose-response relationship (increase in strand breaks with increase in exposure) can be developed to perform radiation dosimetry in support of long duration space flight, and to predict negative effects on biological systems (e.g. astronauts and greenhouses) in space. Initial results of a genotoxicology and radiation dosimetry experiment (ASPR-GRaDEx-1) are presented. The payload orbited on the space shuttle Discovery (STS-91) in June of 1998. The study has been supported by the Florida Space Institute, NASA, ASPR, the Department of Wildlife and Fisheries Sciences at Texas A&M University, Boeing-KSC, the National Space Biomedical Research Institute, the Florida Space Grant Consortium, Broward and Brevard Community Colleges, the University of Miami, and Belen Jesuit High School

Free Intra-Abdominal Air without Peritoneal Perforation after TEM: A Report of Two Cases

Transanal endoscopic microsurgery (TEM) is a minimally invasive treatment modality for a variety of rectal lesions. Due to its minimally invasive nature, TEM has emerged as a safe method. Among most threatening complications are hemorrhage and peritoneal perforation. We report on two patients who demonstrated intra-abdominal free air on an erect chest X-ray after TEM procedure without other findings of a pneumoperitoneum. We hypothesize that due to the combination of elevated pressures in the retroperitoneal cavity and decreased integrity of the retroperitoneal barrier, insufflated CO(2) gas can diffuse into the intraperitoneal cavity. Conservative treatment should be considered in patients with free intra-abdominal air postoperatively. However, there should be no suspicion of peritoneal entry during the procedure and the patient should be in generally good condition without severe abdominal symptoms