Multianalyte LC-MS-based methods in doping control: what are the implications for doping athletes?

Over the last 50 years, the list of doping substances and methods has been progressively expanding, being regularly reviewed by the international antidoping authorities (formerly the Medical Commission of the International Olympic Committee, and afterward, following its constitution in 1999, the World Anti-Doping Agency [WADA]). New substances/classes of substances have been periodically included in the list, keeping the pace with more advanced and sophisticated doping trends. At present, and apart from the prohibited performance enhancing and masking methods (e.g., blood transfusions and tampering strategies), the list comprises several hundreds of biologically active substances, with broad differences in their physicochemical properties (i.e., molecular weight, polarity and acid-basic properties) [1]. As a consequence, the ‘one class – one procedure’ approach, which had been followed by nearly all accredited antidoping laboratories worldwide until the turn of the millennium, is no longer sustainable. The need to minimize the overall number of independent analytical procedures, and, in parallel, to reduce the analytical costs, stimulated the development of multitargeted methods, aimed to increase the overall ratio of ‘target analytes: procedure’ [2–6]. The above evolution has not always been a straight forward process. The need to comply with the WADA technical requirements (both in terms of identification criteria and of minimum required performance limits [7,8]) and with the reduction of the reporting time (a constraint that becomes even more critical during international sport events, where the daily workload also drastically increases) has imposed a thorough re-planning of the analytical procedures. The development of an antidoping analytical method requires the appropriate knowledge not only of the biophysicochemical properties of the target analyte, but also of its PK profile. Historically, immunological methods and GC-based techniques were applied in antidoping science, as preferential screening methods for the detection of prohibited substances, which were originally limited to nonendogenous stimulants and narcotics. In the 1980s, GC–MS became the reference analytical platform for the detection and quantification of the majority of the low molecular weight doping substances [3–6]. In the following two decades, with the inclusion in the Prohibited List of new classes of low molecular weight, hydrophilic, thermolabile, nonvolatile analytes (including, but not limited to, glucocorticoids and designer steroids) and simultaneously of peptide hormones, scientists were obliged to design, develop, validate and apply techniques based on LC–MS/MS

Strategic scenarios of global logistics: what lies ahead for Europe?

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Policy Alternatives for Federal Agricultural Subsidies:Fertilization Protocols and Their Effects on Crop Yields,Sustainability, and Food Justice

In the United States, the application of fertilizer in the agricultural industry too often leads to negative externalities, including the runoff of excess fertilizer into local waterways and the atmosphere, as well as the depletion of macro- and micronutrients from the soil over time. The consequences of these externalities can be costly, such as algal bloom in waterways, ozone depletion in the atmosphere, and perhaps most importantly a depletion of the nutrition value and hardiness of future crops. Given that these are broad-spanning problems that affect societal issues, including environmental sustainability and food justice, it is important for the federal government to ensure that the most efficient, effective, and equitable fertilization alternative is being put into practice. As the government’s most direct method of regulating behavior in the agricultural market is the utilization of subsidies, the alternatives laid out for this analysis include maintaining the status quo of compensating for conventional fertilizer shortfalls with pesticides and herbicides by maintaining the current subsidy program, limiting subsidy provision to USDA-approved organic farms utilizing organic fertilizer, or limiting subsidy provision to farms utilizing remineralization techniques through the application of rock dust. Through this analysis, it was revealed that the current status quo represents the profit maximization alternative by producing the greatest crop yield, though it is obtained at great cost via externalities. As such, the recommended alternative is to incentivize the utilization of both USDA-approved organic fertilizer and remineralization amendments, which combined together have the capacity to meet or exceed current crop yield figures while also providing for more sustainable agricultural practices

ENVIRONMENTAL CHANGE AND THE AGRO-PASTORALIST LIVELIHOOD IN THE ANDES OF PERU

This dissertation research focuses on a high elevation Andean social-ecological system. It examines system linkages between climate, grazing pasture (wetlands), and agro-pastoralist livelihood strategies in an indigenous peasant community. Working within the conceptual framework of complex systems dynamics and sustainable livelihoods analysis, methods and concepts are synthesized from the disciplines of climatology, hydrology, remote sensing and political ecology, and results contribute to the transdisciplinary literature on vulnerability analysis within the context of environmental change. In the Andes of southern Peru livelihoods are based on agro-pastoralist activities that rely on access to natural resources in the puna ecosystem. The majority of pastoralists in the study region are indigenous Quechua who in the higher elevations raise herds predominantly of alpaca and sheep. This region in Peru has the highest density of alpacas and is a national leader in the production of fiber. The people in the District of Nuñoa are extremely proud of their alpaca herding heritage and have recently declared the district to be the “World capital and patrimony of the Suri alpaca”. Alpaca are therefore both economically and culturally important. Together with other members in the camelidae family (llama, vicuña, and guanaco), alpaca are well suited to the high elevation puna ecosystem. Wetlands in the puna, known as bofedales, have hydrological and biological characteristics that make them a vital resource to the pastoralist livelihood. Climatic and environmental perturbations may be more pronounced in mountain regions and the affects to local water balance, ecosystems, and humans may be more profound. The sensitivity, adaptive capacity, and hence vulnerability of individuals, groups, and livelihoods to perturbations is a complex function of social, political, and environmental factors. This research uses a hierarchy of spatial scales to understand climate variability in the region as well as spatial and temporal changes in the natural resource base. A case study of an agro-patoralist community allows for the characterization of two disturbance regimes (climate and land use and management) and the linkages between components in the herding system and climate system. The results indicate that there is periodicity in the regional hydroclimatology but a deterioration of the resource base in the watershed. Economic and political factors may be contributing to the overuse of natural pastures which increases the future vulnerability of alpaca herders to environmental change in the Nuñoa watershed

Smart Urban Planning : Evaluating Urban Logistics Performance of Innovative Solutions and Sustainable Policies in the Venice Lagoon : the Results of a Case Study

Currently, remarkable gaps of operational, social and environmental efficiency and overall sub-optimization of the logistics and mobility systems exist in urban areas. There is then the need to promote and assess innovative transport solutions and policy-making within SUMPs (Sustainable Urban Mobility Plans) to deal with such critical issues in order to improve urban sustainability. The paper focuses on the case study of the Venice Lagoon, where islands—despite representing a relevant feature of urban planning—face a tremendous lack of accessibility, depopulation, social cohesion and they turn out to be poorly connected. By developing an original scenario-building methodological framework and performing data collection activities, the purpose of the paper consists of assessing the feasibility of a mixed passenger and freight transport system —sometimes called cargo hitching. Mixed passenger and freight systems/cargo hitching are considered as an innovative framework based on the integration of freight and passenger urban systems and resources to optimize the existing transport capacity, and thus, urban sustainability. Results show that the overall existing urban transport capacity can accommodate urban freight flows on main connections in the Lagoon. The reduction in spare public transport capacity, as well as in the number (and type) of circulating freight boats show—in various scenarios—the degree of optimization of the resulting urban network configuration and the positive impacts on urban sustainability. This paves the way for the regulatory framework to adopt proposed solutions

IoT-Enabled Real-Time Management of Smart Grids with Demand Response Aggregators

Integration of widely distributed small-scale Renewable Energy Sources like rooftop Photovoltaic panels and emerging loads like plug-in Electric Vehicles would cause more volatility in total net demand of distribution networks. Utility-owned storage units and control devices like tap changers and capacitors may not be sufficient to manage the system in real-time. Exploitation of available flexibility in demand side through aggregators is a new measure that distribution system operators are interested in. In this paper, we present a developed real-time management schema based on Internet of Things solutions which facilitate interactions between system operators and aggregators for ancillary services like power balance at primary substation or voltage regulation at secondary substations. Two algorithms for power balance and voltage regulation are developed based on modified Optimal Power Flow and voltage sensitivity matrix, respectively. To demonstrate the applicability of the schema, we set-up a real-time simulation- based test bed and realised the performance of this approach in a real-like environment using real data of a network with residential buildings