Town centre improvements through sustainable procurement

The project is investigating the potential to reduce town centre business costs and negative environmental impacts through the use of innovations in procurement and freight transport. These innovations include collaborative procurement, Business Improvement Districts, and Delivery and Servicing Plans. These approaches were being trialled and evaluated in three British towns: Cambridge, Lowestoft and Norwich. 17 companies were developing and applying a Delivery and Servicing Plan. Transport reduction effects were achieved

A Gentle Ethical Defence of Homeopathy

Recent discourses about the legitimacy of homeopathy have focused on its scientific plausibility, mechanism of action and evidence base. These, frequently, conclude not only that homeopathy is scientifically baseless, but that it is ‘unethical.’ They have also diminished patients’ perspectives, values and preferences. We contend that these critics confuse epistemic questions with questions of ethics; misconstrue the moral status of homeopaths and have an impoverished idea of ethics – one that fails to account either for the moral worth of care and of relationships, or for the perspectives, values and preferences of patients. Utilitarian critics, in particular, endeavour to present an objective evaluation – a type of moral calculus – quantifying the utilities and disutilities of homeopathy as a justification for the exclusion of homeopathy from research and healthcare. But these critiques are built upon a narrow formulation of evidence and care, and a diminished episteme that excludes the values and preferences of researchers, homeopaths and patients engaged in the practice of homeopathy. We suggest that homeopathy is ethical as it fulfils the needs and expectations of many patients; may be practiced safely and prudentially; values care and the virtues of the therapeutic relationship; and provides important benefits for patients. Keywords Homeopathy, ethics, utilitarian, patient values and preferences, evidence, EBM, outcome

Novel detection of provenance in the illegal wildlife trade using elemental data

© 2018, The Author(s). Despite being the fourth largest criminal market in the world, no forensic tools have been sufficiently developed to accurately determine the legal status of seized animals and their parts. Although legal trading is permissible for farmed or captive-bred animals, many animals are illegally removed from the wild and laundered by masquerading them as captive bred. Here we present high-resolution x-ray fluorescence (XRF) as a non-invasive and cost-effective tool for forensic classification. We tested the efficacy of this technique by using machine learning on a training set of zoo specimens and wild-caught individuals of short-beaked echidnas (Tachyglossus aculeatus), a small insectivorous monotreme in Australia. XRF outperformed stable isotope analysis (δ13C, δ15N), reducing overall classification error below 4%. XRF has the added advantage of providing samples every 200 μm on a single quill, enabling 100% classification accuracy by taking the consensus of votes per quill. This accurate and cost-effective forensic technique could provide a much needed in situ solution for combating the illegal laundering of wildlife, and conversely, assist with certification of legally bred animals

Influence of metals and metalloids on the composition and fluorescence quenching of the extracellular polymeric substances produced by the polymorphic fungus <i>Aureobasidium pullulans</i>

Aureobasidium pullulansis a ubiquitous and widely distributed fungus in the environment, and exhibits substantial tolerance against toxic metals. However, the interactions between metals and metalloids with the copious extracellular polymeric substances (EPS) produced byA. pullulansand possible relationships to tolerance are not well understood. In this study, it was found that mercury (Hg) and selenium (Se), as selenite, not only significantly inhibited growth ofA. pullulansbut also affected the composition of produced EPS. Lead (Pb) showed little influence on EPS yield or composition. The interactions of EPS fromA. pullulanswith the tested metals and metalloids depended on the specific element and their concentration. Fluorescence intensity measurements of the EPS showed that the presence of metal(loid)s stimulated the production of extracellular tryptophan-like and aromatic protein-like substances. Examination of fluorescence quenching and calculation of binding constants revealed that the fluorescence quenching process for Hg; arsenic (As), as arsenite; and Pb to EPS were mainly governed by static quenching which resulted in the formation of a stable non-fluorescent complexes between the EPS and metal(loid)s. Se showed no significant interaction with the EPS according to fluorescence quenching. These results provide further understanding of the interactions between metals and metalloids and EPS produced by fungi and their contribution to metal(loid) tolerance

The curse of conservation: empirical evidence demonstrating that changes in land-use legislation drove catastrophic bushfires in Southeast Australia

Protecting &ldquo;wilderness&rdquo; and removing human involvement in &ldquo;nature&rdquo; was a core pillar of the modern conservation movement through the 20th century. Conservation approaches and legislation informed by this narrative fail to recognise that Aboriginal people have long valued, used, and shaped most landscapes on Earth. Aboriginal people curated open and fire-safe Country for millennia with fire in what are now forested and fire-prone regions. Settler land holders recognised the importance of this and mimicked these practices. The Land Conservation Act of 1970 in Victoria, Australia, prohibited burning by settler land holders in an effort to protect natural landscapes. We present a 120-year record of vegetation and fire regime change from Gunaikurnai Country, southeast Australia. Our data demonstrate that catastrophic bushfires first impacted the local area immediately following the prohibition of settler burning in 1970, which allowed a rapid increase in flammable eucalypts that resulted in the onset of catastrophic bushfires. Our data corroborate local narratives on the root causes of the current bushfire crisis. Perpetuation of the wilderness myth in conservation may worsen this crisis, and it is time to listen to and learn from Indigenous and local people, and to empower these communities to drive research and management agendas.1. Introduction 1.1. Study Region 1.2. A confluence of Factors 2. Materials and Methods 2.1. Core Collection & Chronology 2.2. Pollen 2.3. Macroscopic Charcoal & Charanalysis 2.4. Magnetic Susceptibility 2.5. Numerical Data Analysis 3. Results 3.1. Chronology 3.2. Pollen 3.3. Macroscopic Charcoal & Charanalysis 3.4. Magnetic Susceptibility 3.5. Numerical Data Analysis 4. Discussion 4.1. Landscape Change between ca. 1900–2021 4.2. The Environmental Impact of Legislation 4.3. The Curse of Conservation That Ignores People as Managers and History as a Prelud