Individual rights and the environmental public interest: A comparison of German and Chinese approaches to environmental litigation

This article compares the framework of environmental public interest litigation in China to the individualized system of judicial review in Germany. It shows that environmental reform requires modern States such as Germany and China to consider certain objective criteria related to the public interest. These criteria are objective insofar as they relate to certain empirically measurable conditions that have arisen in the context of industrialization, and they relate to the public interest insofar as their treatment requires substantial intervention from the State to ensure that economic practices do not endanger the basic natural preconditions of human life. Between the law's instrumentality to the ‘normal’ functioning of modern industrial society and reforms enacted in the public interest, environmental public interest litigation in Germany and China stands out as it implies a possibility for various stakeholders outside of the administrative structure to promote environmental interests. This returns a degree of agency to environmental stakeholders in helping to practically determine the transition towards sustainability. The substantiveness of environmental litigation is assessed, first, in relation to its openness, examining which social actors possess standing to litigate in the public interest, and, second, in relation to its scope, referring to which acts become contestable through the framework of public interest litigation. The court cases, academic debates and legislative reforms surrounding environmental public interest litigation in Germany and China reflect the decisive features of their respective legal ideologies, but they are also an area within which the limits of the dominant legal ideology are tested.Peer Reviewe

High resolution lunar radar studies: Preliminary results

High resolution radar data for the lunar surface were acquired over 14 sites in June and November 1990 using the new 10 MHz data taking system at the Arecibo Observatory. The raw data collected for each site covers an area approximately 100 by 400 km and will be processed using delay-Doppler techniques into images of backscatter cross section with three fo four independent looks. All observations transmitted a circularly polarized signal and both senses of circular polarization were received containing the polarized and depolarized component of the backscatter signal. The relative power in these two polarizations provides useful information on properties of the surface, in particular surface roughness. The effort to date focused on the initial data analysis with new software written to perform a full synthetic aperture focusing on the raw radar data. This analysis will involve the use of complementary high resolution optical and topographic data sets to aid interpretation of surface scattering mechanisms

A multisensory approach to measure public space quality in the city of Bulawayo, Zimbabwe

The measurement of the quality of public space is important in spatial planning as a first step towards improved urban quality. It would seem as if city builders sometimes use their sub-jective judgements of place quality through incomprehensive sensory tools and not the users’ sensory experience and aspirations. Based on the multisensory experiences and aspirations of users as they interact with the streetscapes and public parks in Bulawayo, the purpose of this article was to develop and test the utility of a new public space quality mea-suring tool. A public space quality assess-ment was undertaken that employed a quantitative design where 400 participants were recruited through systematic sampling and data collected by means of a multisensory public space quality measurement tool. The tool and the ‘Sensory Public Space Quality Framework’ were developed to guide city planners in providing for people-centred public spaces clothed with good sensory qualities.

Genome-wide mapping reveals single-origin chromosome replication in Leishmania, a eukaryotic microbe

Background DNA replication initiates on defined genome sites, termed origins. Origin usage appears to follow common rules in the eukaryotic organisms examined to date: all chromosomes are replicated from multiple origins, which display variations in firing efficiency and are selected from a larger pool of potential origins. To ask if these features of DNA replication are true of all eukaryotes, we describe genome-wide origin mapping in the parasite Leishmania. Results Origin mapping in Leishmania suggests a striking divergence in origin usage relative to characterized eukaryotes, since each chromosome appears to be replicated from a single origin. By comparing two species of Leishmania, we find evidence that such origin singularity is maintained in the face of chromosome fusion or fission events during evolution. Mapping Leishmania origins suggests that all origins fire with equal efficiency, and that the genomic sites occupied by origins differ from related non-origins sites. Finally, we provide evidence that origin location in Leishmania displays striking conservation with Trypanosoma brucei, despite the latter parasite replicating its chromosomes from multiple, variable strength origins. Conclusions The demonstration of chromosome replication for a single origin in Leishmania, a microbial eukaryote, has implications for the evolution of origin multiplicity and associated controls, and may explain the pervasive aneuploidy that characterizes Leishmania chromosome architecture

The development of a prototype intelligent user interface subsystem for NASA's scientific database systems

The National Space Science Data Center (NSSDC) has initiated an Intelligent Data Management (IDM) research effort which has as one of its components the development of an Intelligent User Interface (IUI).The intent of the latter is to develop a friendly and intelligent user interface service that is based on expert systems and natural language processing technologies. The purpose is to support the large number of potential scientific and engineering users presently having need of space and land related research and technical data but who have little or no experience in query languages or understanding of the information content or architecture of the databases involved. This technical memorandum presents prototype Intelligent User Interface Subsystem (IUIS) using the Crustal Dynamics Project Database as a test bed for the implementation of the CRUDDES (Crustal Dynamics Expert System). The knowledge base has more than 200 rules and represents a single application view and the architectural view. Operational performance using CRUDDES has allowed nondatabase users to obtain useful information from the database previously accessible only to an expert database user or the database designer

Kinetic limitations of cooperativity based drug delivery systems

We study theoretically a novel drug delivery system that utilizes the overexpression of certain proteins in cancerous cells for cell specific chemotherapy. The system consists of dendrimers conjugated with "keys" (ex: folic acid) which "key-lock" bind to particular cell membrane proteins (ex: folate receptor). The increased concentration of "locks" on the surface leads to a longer residence time for the dendrimer and greater incorporation into the cell. Cooperative binding of the nanocomplexes leads to an enhancement of cell specificity. However, both our theory and detailed analysis of in-vitro experiments indicate that the degree of cooperativity is kinetically limited. We demonstrate that cooperativity and hence the specificity to particular cell type can be increased by making the strength of individual bonds weaker, and suggest a particular implementation of this idea. The implications of the work for optimizing the design of drug delivery vehicles are discussed.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures, v3: minor revision

A Descriptive Portrait of Teacher Attrition at Tennessee Charter Schools

This study offers an analysis of teacher attrition patterns at charter schools in Nashville and Memphis, Tennessee. Using survey data from 121 teachers, the study reports teacher opinion regarding four common causes of teacher attrition, examines the role of demography and school organization on future attrition plans, and offers various regression models in an attempt to predict future plans for the teachers within the sample. Overall, teachers reported lukewarm feelings regarding common causes of teacher attrition, and no background characteristic or school organizational structure held significance for future plans.

Comparison of Hop Derived Humulone Constituents in Beer Using UV-Vis, HPLC, and LC-MS

Lupulones and humulones are two families of compounds derived from the hop flower (Humulus lupulus), utilized in brewing beer. Isohumulones are produced during the boiling process by isomerization reactions of humulones and are the primary bittering compounds in beer. The concentration in parts per million (ppm) of isohumulone is reported as IBU (International Bittering Units). Measurement of these compounds is valuable to brewers, but is confounded by other constituents in beer which may also absorb at the 275nm wavelength in UV-Vis spectrometry, the industry standard method. 25 samples were measured using UV-Vis, then analyzed by High Precision Liquid Chromatography (HPLC) and HPLC-Mass Spectrometry (LC-MS). Results were varied with respect to reported IBU. Of note, a sample containing an adjunct had much higher 275nm absorbance than expected, absent when eluted through HPLC, suggesting a falsely higher reading than actual due to interference by the adjunct