American Coverage of The Crisis In Catalonia

Americans accumulate much of their knowledge of current world events through a variety of national news outlets. International news topics command variable attention in American headlines and are dependent on a number of factors including the domestic crisis of the day, perceived importance to the economy, public familiarity with the region, political impact on American interests, direct effect on American citizens or companies abroad and perceived interest of the American public. Given these reasons, American knowledge of foreign affairs is limited. Only when a constitutional crisis in a major European Union nation peaks with violence during a secessionist referendum does the issue make American headlines. On October 1, 2017, the regional government of Catalonia, one of Spain’s most influential autonomous communities, held an independence referendum. It was reported that around ninety percent of Catalans who voted said “yes” to independence, but these activists were confronted in the streets by a militarized police force sent by the Spanish national government, which declared the proceedings illegal. While this episode rightfully appeared in the headlines of many major American newspapers, these were some of the first events that exposed many Americans to the idea of Catalan secessionism – a deep-rooted narrative. Cognizant that there are more urgent issues to Americans that certainly deserve their share of media attention, my thesis poses the question “has the American media done a sufficient job covering the movement unfolding in Catalonia?” I examine patterns of news coverage pertaining to the Catalan ordeal and similar cases, and investigate the extent to which Americans are aware of the region of Catalonia itself. Following that, I assess the significance of the Catalan independence movement to American society to determine if its coverage has been sufficient.Spanish and Portugues

Accelerating the transition to Circular Economy: The development of a CE visibility evaluation framework for blockchain-enabled data pipeline solutions

Humanity faces the challenge of dealing with resource exhaustion and environmental destruction. The root of these issues lies in the linear economic model established after the industrial revolution. This model relies on two fundamental principles, limitlessness and easily accessible resources and unlimited earth regenerative capacity. The economy thrives by consuming planetary resources to manufacture products and generating wastes by disposing of products in the landfills or incinerating them when they are no longer desirable. However, the growing planet’s population and the limited regenerative earth capacity make this model unsustainable. The circular economy (CE) represents an alternative to the current consumption pattern. It is an economic model aspiring to limit the use of virgin resources in the production systems and eliminate the waste streams by promoting a closed resource loop. The transition to CE is at the top of the agendas of both policymakers and companies (defined as CE auditing actors), which have initiated policy instruments to catalyze it. Such policy instruments could vary from regulations to additional taxes for eco-unfriendly goods. These policy instruments are prone to manipulations when there is a lot at stake. An indicative example is the case, in which plastic waste exported from the Netherlands to Turkey for recycling or reuse was illegally dumped. To prevent such adversities, the CE auditing actors need a monitoring system to control the implementation of their policy instruments and enforce compliance when necessary. Such a system should provide visibility in the flows of raw materials and products in the supply chain and detect frauds. The need for a monitoring system can be addressed by leveraging the research on the data pipeline concept. A data pipeline is an IT infrastructure capturing data at the source. It equips authorities with data shared by the businesses voluntarily and in real-time. This data pertains to the flows of goods from a seller in an exporting country to a buyer in an importing country. Traditionally, data pipelines have been used by customs to access information stored in the traders’ information systems willing to be transparent. The supply chain visibility currently captured by data pipelines is not sufficient to serve CE. They need to be extended to monitor the entire journey of materials and products in the CE context. Furthermore, to unleash the full potential of the shared data, the data recipients need to have trust in the data and its quality. This condition can be satisfied by using blockchain-enabled data pipelines. Blockchain is a technology that exceeds the capabilities of traditional information systems thanks to four characteristics, namely, decentralization, auditability, immutability, and smart contracts. The thesis dives into the research domain of blockchain-based data pipeline solutions by investigating their ability to support the CE transition. For that reason, it develops a framework that evaluates their ability to enforce compliance with CE policy instruments by acting as monitoring systems. The evaluation framework identifies the information requirements needed to be captured by such architectures to monitor the journey of materials and products in a closed-loop supply chain.Management of Technology (MoT

Circular economy visibility evaluation framework

Sustainability is high on the agendas of public and private organizations. Governments are setting targets for reducing the use of virgin raw materials in products and to eliminate waste. To accelerate the transition towards a Circular Economy (CE) policymakers are launching instruments. However, policy instruments, such as financial incentives or new regulatory guidelines, are prone to manipulations when the stakes for the involved stakeholders are high. Therefore, policymakers and government authorities need a solid system to monitor and control the implementation and effectiveness of their CE measures. To this end, digital technologies are key to enabling visibility and monitoring of materials flows. They allow governments and other stakeholders to use data to steer the transition towards a CE. However, data from different materials supply chains reside in a diversity of digital platforms used by a diversity of stakeholders involved. Blockchain-based platforms can support the required visibility by combining data from different stakeholders across different materials supply chains. But connecting all data for CE visibility throughout the entire materials flows into one singular platform is unlikely. With the growing number of blockchain-based platforms that each covers parts of data on CE flows, there is a need to assess the level of visibility they offer and to determine which data is lacking to monitor full CE flows. In this article, the development of a framework to evaluate blockchain-enabled information systems on their ability to act as monitoring systems for CE purposes is presented. The design science research approach was followed to develop the framework. Insights provided by academic literature as well as empirical data from three extant blockchain-enabled platforms were used (i.e., TradeLens, FoodTrust, and Vinturas). The evaluation framework can be deployed by public and private actors (e.g., governments and banks) for monitoring purposes, but also by IT providers to offer CE visibility solutions.Information and Communication TechnologyEnergy & Industr

Assessment of blood–brain barrier penetration of miltefosine used to treat a fatal case of granulomatous amebic encephalitis possibly caused by an unusual Balamuthia mandrillaris strain

Balamuthia mandrillaris, a free-living ameba, causes rare but frequently fatal granulomatous amebic encephalitis (GAE). Few patients have survived after receiving experimental drug combinations, with or without brain lesion excisions. Some GAE survivors have been treated with a multi-drug regimen including miltefosine, an investigational anti-leishmanial agent with in vitro amebacidal activity. Miltefosine dosing for GAE has been based on leishmaniasis dosing because no data exist in humans concerning its pharmacologic distribution in the central nervous system. We describe results of limited cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) and serum drug level testing performed during clinical management of a child with fatal GAE who was treated with a multiple drug regimen including miltefosine. Brain biopsy specimens, CSF, and sera were tested for B. mandrillaris using multiple techniques, including culture, real-time polymerase chain reaction, immunohistochemical techniques, and serology. CSF and serum miltefosine levels were determined using a liquid chromatography method coupled to tandem mass spectrometry. The CSF miltefosine concentration on hospital admission day 12 was 0.4 μg/mL. The serum miltefosine concentration on day 37, about 80 h post-miltefosine treatment, was 15.3 μg/mL. These are the first results confirming some blood–brain barrier penetration by miltefosine in a human, although with low-level CSF accumulation. Further evaluation of brain parenchyma penetration is required to determine optimal miltefosine dosing for Balamuthia GAE, balanced with the drug’s toxicity profile. Additionally, the Balamuthia isolate was evaluated by real-time polymerase chain reaction (PCR), demonstrating genetic variability in 18S ribosomal RNA (18S rRNA) sequences and possibly signaling the first identification of multiple Balamuthia strains with varying pathogenicities