Big science, ethics, and the scalar effects of urban planning

The urban expansion currently under development around the two materials science facilities MAX IV and European Spallation Source in Lund, Sweden, surrounds two meticulously designed research facilities steered by global demands. The new urban area, together with the research facilities dedicated to science and the development of knowledge, expands the city of Lund onto high-quality agricultural land. In doing so, the municipal planning is attempting to align contemporary ideas of sustainable urban development with large-scale scientific infrastructure. This actualizes an ethical dilemma as the urban expansion onto productive agricultural land overrides previous decisions taken by the municipality regarding land use. It can also be understood as going against national land use policy which states that development on productive agricultural land should be avoided. As the planning stands today, the research facilities heavily push local urban development into the area while the intended research outcomes primarily relate to a global research community tied to international scientific demands for materials science. Although the Brunnshög area is realized through a neutralizing planning strategy, thought to balance and compensate for the development on farmland, the effects of the counterbalancing acts are primarily played out at a local urban level in terms of diverse, exciting, and locally sustainable neighbourhoods. The land use protection policies meant to secure national food production rather operates on a national scale. The argument made in this text is that sustainable development, and the intended balancing acts it involves, ought to be carefully considered in terms of scalar effects. Sustainable planning effects’ scalar extent should be taken into account through careful assessment of the step between good intentions and expected outcomes

Analiza biomolekula spektroskopijom NMR

Strukturna karakterizacija liganada, receptora i njihovih kompleksa u otopini od ključne je važnosti za uspješan dizajn bioaktivnih molekula i lijekova. Ovaj proces obuhvaća određivanje trodimenzijske strukture, funkcijskih skupina i strukturnih elemenata odgovornih za bioaktivnost, te mjesta i načina vezanja liganada na makromolekule. Interakcije liganada i receptora mogu se ispitivati različitim metodama, poput elektroforeze na gelu, vibracijske i spektroskopije NMR, kalorimetrije, kromatografije i mikroskopije.1 U ovom radu pobliže će biti opisane suvremene tehnike spektroskopije NMR koje se najviše koriste za karakterizaciju biomolekula i njihovih interakcija. Na konkretnim primjerima bit će prikazano kako se primjenom tehnika NMR mogu odrediti strukture liganada, makromolekula i njihovih veznih mjesta te dobiti uvid u konformacijske promjene, specifičnost i afinitet vezanja

Built environment, ethics and everyday life

In the wake of global crises concerning, for example, inequalities, migration, pandemics, and the environment, ethical concerns have come to the fore. In this thematic issue, we are especially interested in the role that the planning, design, and materialities of the built environment can take in relation to ethics, and we present four different openings or themes into urban ethics that we also think are worthy of further interrogation. First of all, we suggest that new ethics evolve around new materialities, i.e., urban development and new design solutions are always accompanied by new ethical issues that we need to tackle. Secondly, we highlight different aspects involved in the design and ethics of community building. Thirdly, we address the issue of sustainable planning by pointing to some its shortcomings, and especially the need to addressing ethical concerns in a more coherent way. Finally, we point to the need to further investigate communication, translation, and influence in participatory design processes. Taken together, we hope that this issue—by highlighting these themes in a series of different articles—can inspire further studies into the much needed field of investigation that is urban ethics

Existential Sustainability: An investigation of Loneliness and Belonging in Relation to Sustainable Housing

The strive to create sustainable societies is often addressed through the lens of social, economic-, or environmental sustainability. However, this division fails to acknowledge existential dimensions of sustainability, i.e., the fundamental concern to sustain a good and meaningful life. This paper expands the notion of Existential Sustainability in relation to socio-material dimensions and built environments. The paper responds to a double crisis in Sweden with growing loneliness and a severe housing crisis. 40% of Sweden’s households are single households and the production of new homes is characterized by small apartments. At the same time mental health problems among young adults haveincreased, as well as the experienced loneliness among elderly. This paper explores the rich relation between housing and existential sustainability through earlier research, statistics, and data from an ongoing project with Uppsala municipality. By doing so this paper aim to further expand and deepen the discussion on existential dimensions of housing in relation to UN’s SDG

Transferring Electrochemical CO2 Reduction from Semi-Batch into Continuous Operation Mode Using Gas Diffusion Electrodes

The electrochemical reduction of C02 is a promising method for its conversion which still suffers from important challenges that have to be solved before indus­ trial realization becomes attractive. The optimization of gas diffusion electrodes is described with respect to catalyst dispersion and mass transport limitations allowing solubility issues to be circumvented and current densities to be increased to industrially relevant values. The transfer of the promising results from semi-batch experiments into continuous mode of operation is demonstrated, and it is indi­cated how the energetic efficiency can be significantly improved by the choice of electrolyte, in terms of concentration and type. Thereby ohmic losses can be decreased and the intrinsic activity be improved

Development and Optimization of Gas Diffusion Electrodes for Electrochemical CO2 Reduction at High Current Density

The electrochemical reduction of CO2 to valuable compounds is a promising approach for its substantial utilization and the storage of electricity in chemical form. At present, the main challenges impeding technical realization are i) low production rates due to mass transport limitations deriving from the low solubility of CO2 in the electrolyte, ii) high overpotentials and poor energetic efficiency, necessitating development of more active catalysts, as well as iii) the demonstration of its continuous production which combines the above with low ohmic losses and long-term stability. Furthermore, hydrogen evolution occurs in the same potential range, and becomes dominating at current densities above 10 mA∙cm 2 on conventional metallic electrodes when diffusion of CO2 to the electrode surface becomes rate-determining

Suvremeno kirurško liječenje raka rektuma

Surgical treatment is a method of choice in treating patients with resectable primary form of rectal cancer. An important step in treatment is the multidisciplinary approach from different medical specialties in the fields of radiology, gastroenterology, oncology and surgery. In recent years, several minimally invasive surgical procedures have been developed that improve postoperative recovery while still preserving oncological principles, such as laparoscopic low anterior resection, transanal total mesorectal excision and robotic surgery. Surgical and oncological principles that must be respected in all cases are wide resection of the tumor with histologically free resection margins and the use of total mesorectal excision with anal sphincter preservation and preservation of the continuity of the intestine whenever possible.Kirurgija je metoda izbora u liječenju bolesnika s resektabilnim rakom rektuma. Važan korak u liječenju je multidisciplinarni pristup različitih medicinskih specijalnosti iz područja radiologije, gastroenterologije, onkologije i kirurgije. U posljednjih nekoliko godina razvijeno je nekoliko minimalno invazivnih kirurških postupaka s ciljem poboljšanja postoperativnog oporavka uz očuvanje svih onkoloških principa, kao što su laparoskopske niske prednje resekcije, transanalne totalne mezorektalne resekcije i robotske operacije. Kirurška i onkološka načela koja se moraju poštivati u svim slučajevima su široka resekcija tumora s histološki slobodnim resekcijskim rubovima i totalna mezorektalna ekscizija s očuvanjem analnog sfinktera kao i očuvanje kontinuiteta crijeva kad god je to moguće