Civil Liability for Damage Caused to the Environment by Hazardous Waste: Lessons for the European Union from the US Experience

As environmental awareness has surged over the last two decades, environmental law has rapidly developed. In both agricultural and industrial countries, the environment is a sensitive and vital area where substantial economic interests are at stake. In the United States, many social, political, and economic reasons have spawned rapid expansion of environmental law. Congress has enacted numerous statutes and empowered federal agencies, primarily the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), to adopt standards and enforce these new laws. A decade ago, environmental liability was not a major concern for US businesses and was rarely dealt with in commercial contracts. However, the situation for the private sector has changed drastically due to the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act (CERCLA). Now, it is not uncommon for companies or individuals to be faced with cleanup costs of hundreds of millions of dollars. This has created a whole sub-industry of specialists for companies dealing with environmental problems, including lawyers, consultants, engineers, and lobbyists. In the EU, environmental law has developed at a slower pace due to its particular structure and complicated legislative procedure. However, with the Single European Act (SEA) in 1987, and the new Maastricht Treaty in 1993, environmental concerns are becoming more prominent in the EU, and European companies will soon be facing the same problems that have arisen in the US. This paper examines the impact of the CERCLA that regulates hazardous waste liability in the US and the resulting problems from its application that the EU’s legislators should seriously consider before adopting a European counterpart to CERCLA, which is currently under consideration

Exploring the interface between biomedical sciences and the arts through the global sci/art network MEDinART

MEDinART (www.MEDinART.eu) is a continuously growing global sci/art network that connects biomedical sciences with technology and arts through the work of more than 170 artists from 30 countries who are influenced by aspects of biomedical sciences. MEDinART aims are to unite the artists who are influenced by biomedicine, to connect different countries and cultures through the universal language of sci/art, and to globalise the biomedical-inspired art movement. Inspired and created by the Author, Vasia Hatzi, MEDinART explores the interface between biomedicine with arts through talks, exhibitions and articles in events, conferences and journals around the world. Here we present the goals of MEDinARΤ, its philosophy and the messages that it delivers to society through its activities

Intelligent planning for allocating containers in maritime terminals

Maritime container terminals are facilities where cargo containers are transshipped between ships or between ships and land vehicles (tucks or trains). These terminals involve a large number of complex and combinatorial problems. One of them is related to the Container Stacking Problem. A container yard is a type of temporary store where containers await further transport by truck, train or vessel. The main efficiency problem for an individual stack is to ensure easy access to containers at the expected time of transfer. Stacks are 'last-in, first-out' storage structures where containers are stocked in the order they arrive. But they should be retrieved from the stack in the order (usually different) they should be shipped. This retrieval operation should be efficiently performed, since berthing time of vessels and the terminal operations should be optimized. To do this, cranes can relocate containers in the stacks to minimize the rearrangements required to meet the expected order of demand for containers. In this paper, we present a domain-dependent heuristically guided planner for obtaining the optimized reshuffling plan, given a stacking state and a container demand. The planner can also be used for finding the best allocation of containers in a yard-bay in order to minimize the number of reshuffles as well as to be used for simulation tasks and obtaining conclusions about possible yard configurations. © 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.This work has been partially supported by the research projects TIN2010-20976-C02-01 (Min. de Ciencia e Innovacion, Spain), P19/08 (Min. de Fomento, Spain-FEDER) and the VALi+d Program of the Conselleria d'Educacio (Generalitat Valenciana), as well as with the collaboration of the maritime container terminal MSC (Mediterranean Shipping Company S.A.).Rodríguez Molins, M.; Salido Gregorio, MA.; Barber Sanchís, F. (2012). Intelligent planning for allocating containers in maritime terminals. Expert Systems with Applications. 39(1):978-989. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eswa.2011.07.098S97898939

Vehicular traffic flow at an intersection with the possibility of turning

We have developed a Nagel-Schreckenberg cellular automata model for describing of vehicular traffic flow at a single intersection. A set of traffic lights operating in fixed-time scheme controls the traffic flow. Open boundary condition is applied to the streets each of which conduct a uni-directional flow. Streets are single-lane and cars can turn upon reaching to the intersection with prescribed probabilities. Extensive Monte Carlo simulations are carried out to find the model flow characteristics. In particular, we investigate the flows dependence on the signalisation parameters, turning probabilities and input rates. It is shown that for each set of parameters, there exist a plateau region inside which the total outflow from the intersection remains almost constant. We also compute total waiting time of vehicles per cycle behind red lights for various control parameters.Comment: 8 pages, 17 eps figures, Late

Semantic Web Service Composition using Planning and Ontology Concept Relevance

Abstract: This paper presents PORSCE II, a system that combines planning and ontology concept relevance for automatically composing semantic web services. The presented approach includes transformation of the web service composition problem into a planning problem, enhancement with semantic awareness and relaxation and solution through external planners. The produced plans are visualized and their accuracy is assessed

The use of premature chromosome condensation to study in interphase cells the influence of environmental factors on human genetic material

Nowadays, there is a constantly increasing concern regarding the mutagenic and carcinogenic potential of a variety of harmful environmental factors to which humans are exposed in their natural and anthropogenic environment. These factors exert their hazardous potential in humans' personal (diet, smoking, pharmaceuticals, cosmetics) and occupational environment that constitute part of the anthropogenic environment. It is well known that genetic damage due to these factors has dramatic implications for human health. Since most of the environmental genotoxic factors induce arrest or delay in cell cycle progression, the conventional analysis of chromosomes at metaphase may underestimate their genotoxic potential. Premature Chromosome Condensation (PCC) induced either by means of cell fusion or specific chemicals, enables the microscopic visualization of interphase chromosomes whose morphology depends on the cell cycle stage, as well as the analysis of structural and numerical aberrations at the G1 and G2 phases of the cell cycle. The PCC has been successfully used in problems involving cell cycle analysis, diagnosis and prognosis of human leukaemia, assessment of interphase chromosome malformations resulting from exposure to radiation or chemicals, as well as elucidation of the mechanisms underlying the conversion of DNA damage into chromosomal damage. In this report, particular emphasis is given to the advantages of the PCC methodology used as an alternative to conventional metaphase analysis in answering questions in the fields of radiobiology, biological dosimetry, toxicogenetics, clinical cytogenetics and experimental therapeutics

RENEB accident simulation exercise

Purpose: The RENEB accident exercise was carried out in order to train the RENEB participants in coordinating and managing potentially large data sets that would be generated in case of a major radiological event. Materials and methods: Each participant was offered the possibility to activate the network by sending an alerting email about a simulated radiation emergency. The same participant had to collect, compile and report capacity, triage categorization and exposure scenario results obtained from all other participants. The exercise was performed over 27 weeks and involved the network consisting of 28 institutes: 21 RENEB members, four candidates and three non-RENEB partners. Results: The duration of a single exercise never exceeded 10 days, while the response from the assisting laboratories never came later than within half a day. During each week of the exercise, around 4500 samples were reported by all service laboratories (SL) to be examined and 54 scenarios were coherently estimated by all laboratories (the standard deviation from the mean of all SL answers for a given scenario category and a set of data was not larger than 3 patient codes). Conclusions: Each participant received training in both the role of a reference laboratory (activating the network) and of a service laboratory (responding to an activation request). The procedures in the case of radiological event were successfully established and tested

Angiogenin cleaves tRNA and promotes stress-induced translational repression

Stress-induced phosphorylation of eIF2α inhibits global protein synthesis to conserve energy for repair of stress-induced damage. Stress-induced translational arrest is observed in cells expressing a nonphosphorylatable eIF2α mutant (S51A), which indicates the existence of an alternative pathway of translational control. In this paper, we show that arsenite, heat shock, or ultraviolet irradiation promotes transfer RNA (tRNA) cleavage and accumulation of tRNA-derived, stress-induced small RNAs (tiRNAs). We show that angiogenin, a secreted ribonuclease, is required for stress-induced production of tiRNAs. Knockdown of angiogenin, but not related ribonucleases, inhibits arsenite-induced tiRNA production and translational arrest. In contrast, knockdown of the angiogenin inhibitor RNH1 enhances tiRNA production and promotes arsenite-induced translational arrest. Moreover, recombinant angiogenin, but not RNase 4 or RNase A, induces tiRNA production and inhibits protein synthesis in the absence of exogenous stress. Finally, transfection of angiogenin-induced tiRNAs promotes phospho-eIF2α–independent translational arrest. Our results introduce angiogenin and tiRNAs as components of a phospho-eIF2α–independent stress response program

Prospective cohort study of procalcitonin levels in children with cancer presenting with febrile neutropenia

BACKGROUND: Febrile neutropenia (FNP) causes significant morbidity and mortality in children undergoing treatment for cancer. The development of clinical decision rules to help stratify risks in paediatric FNP patients and the use of inflammatory biomarkers to identify high risk patients is an area of recent research. This study aimed to assess if procalcitonin (PCT) levels could be used to help diagnose or exclude severe infection in children with cancer who present with febrile neutropenia, both as a single measurement and in addition to previously developed clinical decision rules. METHODS: This prospective cohort study of a diagnostic test included patients between birth and 18 years old admitted with febrile neutropenia to the Paediatric Oncology and Haematology Ward in Leeds between 1(st) October 2012 and 30(th) September 2013. Each admission with FNP was treated as a separate episode. Blood was taken for a procalcitonin level at admission with routine investigations. 'R' was used for statistical analysis. Likelihood ratios were calculated and multivariable logistic regression. RESULTS: Forty-eight episodes from 27 patients were included. PCT >2 ng/dL was strongly associated with increased risk of severe infection (likelihood ratio of 26 [95% CI 3.5, 190]). The data suggests that the clinical decision rules are largely ineffective at risk stratification, frequently over-stating the risk of individual episodes. High procalcitonin levels on admission are correlated with a greatly increased risk of severe infection. CONCLUSIONS: This study does not show a definitive benefit in using PCT in FNP though it supports further research on its use. The benefit of novel biomarkers has not been proven and before introducing new tests for patients it is important their benefit above existing features is proven, particularly due to the increasing importance of health economics

Photosensitive drugs: a review on their photoprotection by liposomes and cyclodextrins.

Nowadays, an exciting challenge in the drug chemistry and technology research is represented by the development of methods aimed to protect molecular integrity and therapeutic activity of drugs from effects of light. The photostability characterization is ruled by ICH (The International Council for Harmonization of Technical Requirements for Pharmaceuticals for Human Use), which releases details throughout basic protocols of stability tests to be performed on new medicinal products for human use. The definition of suitable photoprotective systems is fundamental for pharmaceutical manufacturing and for human healthy as well, since light exposure may affect either drugs or drug formulations giving rise even to allergenic or mutagenic by-products. Here, we summarize and discuss the recent studies on the formulation of photosensitive drugs into supramolecular systems, capable of entrapping the molecules in a hollow of their structure by weak noncovalent interactions and protecting them from light. The best known supramolecular matrices belong to the 'auto-assembled' structures, of which liposomes are the most representative, and the 'host-guest' systems, of which cyclodextrins represent the most common 'host' counterpart. A relevant number of papers concerning the use of both liposomes and cyclodextrins as photoprotection systems for drugs has been published over the last 20 years, demonstrating that this topic captures interest in an increasing number of researchers