Farming Intensification and Environmental Justice in Northern Ireland

Going for Growth, an industry-led strategy to expand the agri-food sector, was adopted by the Northern Irish government in 2013 in order to encourage farming intensification in Northern Ireland. This approach, however, threatens an already fragile natural environment and has already had detrimental consequences for human health and well-being. This article employs an environmental justice perspective to scrutinize farming intensification in a community affected by this phenomenon. Based on findings from semi-structured interviews with local residents, the article describes their exposure to environmental risks as a result of farming intensification. The uneven distribution of environmental burdens is also coupled with limited opportunities for the local residents to engage in environmental decision-making and to be recognized as active agents of change. The article concludes that farming intensification in Northern Ireland is marked by procedural environmental injustice and should be addressed by downscaling levels of production and reforming decision-making processes

The Criminogenic Nature of Food Production Harm Responses: A Case Study of Anaerobic Digestion Technology Subsidies in Northern Ireland

Meat production in its current shape is burdened with multiple environmental challenges. Technological solutions have been touted as a means of reconciliation of economic growth and environmental sustainability. In Northern Ireland, anaerobic digestion (AD) technology was presented as a solution for more sustainable animal waste management and greenhouse gas emission reduction in the context of the Going for Growth (GfG) agrifood strategy. AD sites were also eligible for the Renewable Obligation Certificates (ROCs) subsidy support scheme. While criminological engagement with the issues around food crime is yet inchoate, even less attention has been paid to the issue of the criminogenic nature of responses to food production harm. The paper fills this lacuna by discussing how an ostensibly positive initiative of incentivising AD through subsidy provision may have criminogenic potential: it may exacerbate environmental harm due to its ineffectiveness for dealing with ammonia emissions from animal waste, and create opportunities for deviance, such as breaches in planning regulation and subsidy fraud

“You spend an awful amount of time fighting it and they aren’t really listening…” - political economy of pig farming intensification and environmental justice in Northern Ireland

It is indisputable that theoretical and empirical research on food in criminology needs to be developed further. My qualitative green criminological study advances this endeavour by understanding how the process of pig farming intensification in Northern Ireland leads to environmental injustice. The study establishes how power relations that are driving the process of intensification (in the context of the Going for Growth agri-food strategy and beyond) may affect the context of environmental decision-making and ultimately influence both the distribution of environmental harms from farming intensification and the realm of capabilities. To achieve this aim, legislation and policy documents related to farming, planning, environmental regulation have been reviewed, twenty-nine semi-structured interviews with four different participant categories (local residents, government, farming industry, NGO participants and public-spirited citizens) have been conducted, and official statistics related to farming and agriculture and media data have been analysed. The study reveals the workings of the political economy of neoliberal capitalism in meat production on the international, national, and local levels. It demonstrates how power relations between the corporate farming industry actors and the state operate to secure and perpetuate a growth- and efficiency-driven model of meat production, thus reinforcing the hegemony of the neoliberal capitalist order. Power relations between the farming industry actors and the state also affect the processes of environmental decision-making. My study demonstrates that such processes are marked by recognitional and procedural injustices, rooted in an imbalance of power between those reinforcing the hegemony of the neoliberal capitalist order and those seeking to challenge it. Discussions around power and injustice are closely intertwined with the discussion around harm. I conclude that recognitional and procedural injustices will result in an uneven distribution of environmental harm from new intensive farms, negatively affect the meta-capability of sustainable ecological capacity and compromise other capabilities such as bodily health, play, affiliation, and other species. The findings reveal the role of power in legitimisation, normalisation, and regulation of harm. My study expands the knowledge of complex relationships between political and economic actors from a green criminological perspective and demonstrates how, within those relationships, power is exercised, maintained, and ultimately directed to preserve the status quo of neoliberal capitalism. The findings also advance the idea that non-minority populations that do not face discrimination can nevertheless face environmental injustice on the grounds of their disenfranchisement in the processes of environmental decision-making. Finally, the findings in my study allow to expand on the insufficiently discussed concept of capabilities in environmental justice and highlight the importance of capabilities-related research in green criminology

Living Lab in Irkutsk

Based on the comparative analysis of Living Labs already operating in Europe and Russia, a mechanism of the Living Lab in the Pervomaysky District of Irkutsk is being developed. The Living Lab will open in the spring of 2022. Its main goal is to initiate a dialogue between the residents, authorities, investors and experts and to organize a permanent cooperation mechanism for all stakeholders. The purpose of the Living Lab is to identify the possibility of revitalizing the pedestrian boulevard as a linking space between the Pervomaisky and Universitetsky districts on the basis of the analysis of the use of public spaces of the district and the needs of the residents

Опыт реновации панельной застройки 1960–1980 годов в Германии

The article presents the materials and the key conclusions of the research and practice excursion around the three German cities (Berlin, Dresden and Halle) visited by professors and students of the Architectural Faculty of INRTU Institute of Architecture and Construction in 2016. The excursion was financially supported by the Volkswagen Foundation to analyze and summarize the successful German practices in realizing the complex programs on renovation of the territory of mass panel house-building of the 1960-1980s.В статье представлены материалы и основные выводы научно-практической экскурсии преподавателей и студентов архитектурного факультета Института архитектуры и строительства ИрНИТУ, прошедшей в 2016 году по трем городам Германии (Берлин, Дрезден, Галле) и осуществленной при финансовой поддержке Фонда «Фольксваген» с целью анализа и обобщения положительного опыта Германии в реализации комплексных программ реновации территорий массовой панельной застройки 1960–1980-х годов

Cross-Polarization OCT for In Vivo Diagnostics and Prediction of Bladder Cancer

This chapter contains three parts covering recent efforts to increase the accuracy of optical coherence tomography (OCT) differential diagnostics of bladder pathologies. The first part compares the diagnostic efficacy of traditional OCT and cross-polarization OCT (CP OCT); CP OCT and fluorescence cystoscopy (FC) for detecting flat lesions in the bladder at the early stages of cancer. The second part contains a report on achievements in application of CP OCT for detection of recurrent carcinoma in the scar area that is a hardly distinguishable form of bladder cancer using an optimized CP OCT image analysis. The third part of the chapter reviews the results on CP OCT usage for in vivo diagnosis of the bladder cancer after radiation therapy of cervical cancer

Towards targeted colorectal cancer biopsy based on tissue morphology assessment by compression optical coherence elastography

Identifying the precise topography of cancer for targeted biopsy in colonoscopic examination is a challenge in current diagnostic practice. For the first time we demonstrate the use of compression optical coherence elastography (C-OCE) technology as a new functional OCT modality for differentiating between cancerous and non-cancerous tissues in colon and detecting their morphological features on the basis of measurement of tissue elastic properties. The method uses pre-determined stiffness values (Young’s modulus) to distinguish between different morphological structures of normal (mucosa and submucosa), benign tumor (adenoma) and malignant tumor tissue (including cancer cells, gland-like structures, cribriform gland-like structures, stromal fibers, extracellular mucin). After analyzing in excess of fifty tissue samples, a threshold stiffness value of 520 kPa was suggested above which areas of colorectal cancer were detected invariably. A high Pearson correlation (r =0.98; p <0.05), and a negligible bias (0.22) by good agreement of the segmentation results of C-OCE and histological (reference standard) images was demonstrated, indicating the efficiency of C-OCE to identify the precise localization of colorectal cancer and the possibility to perform targeted biopsy. Furthermore, we demonstrated the ability of C-OCE to differentiate morphological subtypes of colorectal cancer – low-grade and high-grade colorectal adenocarcinomas, mucinous adenocarcinoma, and cribriform patterns. The obtained ex vivo results highlight prospects of C-OCE for high-level colon malignancy detection. The future endoscopic use of C-OCE will allow targeted biopsy sampling and simultaneous rapid analysis of the heterogeneous morphology of colon tumors

Зимник-2019: Студгородок* Трансформация кампуса в Иркутске. Программа культурного, социально-экономического и пространственного развития

The article tells about the strategy of Winter University of Urban Planning and the characteristics of Winter University of Urban Planning 2019, as well as the experts, pilots and participants of the workshop. The practice-oriented approach of the workshop and the value of the campus have made the Winter University a platform for interesting discussions and innovative proposals.Рассматривается стратегия Зимнего градостроительного университета, особенности МБЗГУ 2019 года. Перечисляются эксперты и пилоты воркшопа, его участники. Практическая ориентированность воркшопа и ценность территории планирования сделали Зимник интересной территорией дискуссий и инновационных предложений