The Financial and Environmental Implications of a Public Private Waste Management Strategic Initiative

Across the United States, there has been an increased demand for municipalities to manage taxpayer’s funds and meet the citizens’ needs. This paper describes how a county in New York State effectively implemented a public-private interface model to outsource management of the county’s landfill to a private waste management corporation as a strategic initiative to control the municipality’s increasing tax rate and to enhance the county’s competitive environment. This initiative is expected to provide the county with a substantial positive cash flow from landfill operations as opposed to significant annual increases in operating losses

Shiftwork and Light at Night Negatively Impact Molecular and Endocrine Timekeeping in the Female Reproductive Axis in Humans and Rodents

Shiftwork, including work that takes place at night (nightshift) and/or rotates between day and nightshifts, plays an important role in our society, but is associated with decreased health, including reproductive dysfunction. One key factor in shiftwork, exposure to light at night, has been identified as a likely contributor to the underlying health risks associated with shiftwork. Light at night disrupts the behavioral and molecular circadian timekeeping system, which is important for coordinated timing of physiological processes, causing mistimed hormone release and impaired physiological functions. This review focuses on the impact of shiftwork on reproductive function and pregnancy in women and laboratory rodents and potential underlying molecular mechanisms. We summarize the negative impact of shiftwork on female fertility and compare these findings to studies in rodent models of light shifts. Light-shift rodent models recapitulate several aspects of reproductive dysfunction found in shift workers, and their comparison with human studies can enable a deeper understanding of physiological and hormonal responses to light shifts and the underlying molecular mechanisms that may lead to reproductive disruption in human shift workers. The contributions of human and rodent studies are essential to identify the origins of impaired fertility in women employed in shiftwork