Building bridges: How to cope with the gap between today and tomorrow

The future results from what we do today, but also what we leave undone , no matter for what reasons. Many of our decisions ? especially those which concern the more distant future ? have far reaching consequences. These decisions must now, and in the future, be made in a turbulent environment both conciously and with regard to the consequences that our decisions and actions may have. Concerning European spatial perspectives, it is clear that progressing integration processes will lead to changed space-time structures. In this respect, inter-municipal and inter-regional competition for investment and employment are factors of central significance. While we will never have clear knowledge of the future, preventative thought is a prerequisite for preventative action. To recognize development early and then to assess and judge each chance and risk, is one of the best means of achieving success in the area of regional competition. Future orientation in organizations, as in planning processes, should be understood first as a process of structured communication. The basis of this is to take into consideration a large range of possible futures. Scenarios serve to prepare decisions; they don't replace decisions. Rather they make especially clear, what is sometimes forgotten or dispelled and what will remain unchanged no matter what facts arise: It befits to us to make decisions with reference to our normative goals - particularly when we cannot be completely sure of possible outcomes. We need more than ever a discussion on useful long-term models and effects of our actions, equally for towns and regions within Europe in the process of unification. This is also a form of bridge building, beyond steel and concrete, with at least the same consequences for integration as the icons of technical engineering, which, by bridging separations, enable understanding and change.

Prestartle Stimulus and Interstimulus Interval Effects Upon Startle Response Modification in Man

An investigation was conducted to study the effects of interstimulus interval upon the startle response of eighteen male subjects. Four treatments were used, each consisting of a pre-startle sound and a startle eliciting sound, with an interstimulus interval of 0, 40, 120, or 1000 milliseconds. A treatment consisting of only the startle eliciting stimulus was used as a control. Electromyography and pulse rate were monitored to record the response to the stimuli. Each subject was tested twice over a two week period, with a week separating the two tests. Analysis of the electromyogram indicates that a significant difference (F= 21.82) does exist between the muscle response elicited by the treatments and the control response. While not significantly different from the other treatment responses, the treatment with an interstimulus internal of 120 milliseconds appeared to have exhibited the greatest amount of response inhibition. Analysis of pulse rate (F= 0.41) indicates that none of the treatments used elicited a significant change in pulse rate

Climate policies for road transport revisited (I): Evaluation of the current framework

The global rise of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and its potentially devastating consequences require a comprehensive regulatory framework for reducing emissions, including those from the transport sector. Alternative fuels and technologies have been promoted as means for reducing the carbon intensity of the transport sector. However, the overall transport policy framework in major world economies is geared towards the use of conventional fossil fuels. This paper evaluates the effectiveness and efficiency of current climate policies for road transport that (1) target fuel producers and/or car manufacturers, and (2) influence use of alternative fuels and technologies. With diversifying fuel supply chains, carbon intensity of fuels and energy efficiency of vehicles cannot be regulated by a single instrument. We demonstrate that vehicles are best regulated across all fuels in terms of energy per distance. We conclude that price-based policies and a cap on total emissions are essential for alleviating rebound effects and perverse incentives of fuel efficiency standards and low carbon fuel standards. In tandem with existing policy tools, cap and price signal policies incentivize all emissions reduction options. Design and effects of cap and trade in the transport sector are investigated in the companion article (Flachsland et al., 2010).Fuel efficiency standards, low carbon fuel standards, climate change

CITIES: Car Industry, Road Transport and an International Emission Trading Scheme – Policy Options

This report evaluates existing regulations for climate change mitigation in the transport sector and investigates the effects of including transportation in emission trading schemes.

Whole-genome sequencing of Klebsiella pneumoniae isolates to track strain progression in a single patient with recurrent urinary tract infection

Klebsiella pneumoniae is an important uropathogen that increasingly harbors broad-spectrum antibiotic resistance determinants. Evidence suggests that some same-strain recurrences in women with frequent urinary tract infections (UTIs) may emanate from a persistent intravesicular reservoir. Our objective was to analyze K. pneumoniae isolates collected over weeks from multiple body sites of a single patient with recurrent UTI in order to track ordered strain progression across body sites, as has been employed across patients in outbreak settings. Whole-genome sequencing of 26 K. pneumoniae isolates was performed utilizing the Illumina platform. PacBio sequencing was used to create a refined reference genome of the original urinary isolate (TOP52). Sequence variation was evaluated by comparing the 26 isolate sequences to the reference genome sequence. Whole-genome sequencing of the K. pneumoniae isolates from six different body sites of this patient with recurrent UTI demonstrated 100% chromosomal sequence identity of the isolates, with only a small P2 plasmid deletion in a minority of isolates. No single nucleotide variants were detected. The complete absence of single-nucleotide variants from 26 K. pneumoniae isolates from multiple body sites collected over weeks from a patient with recurrent UTI suggests that, unlike in an outbreak situation with strains collected from numerous patients, other methods are necessary to discern strain progression within a single host over a relatively short time frame.</p

A topography of climate change research

The massive expansion of scientific literature on climate change1 poses challenges for global environmental assessments and our understanding of how these assessments work. Big data and machine learning can help us deal with large collections of scientific text, making the production of assessments more tractable, and giving us better insights about how past assessments have engaged with the literature. We use topic modelling to draw a topic map, or topography, of over 400,000 publications from the Web of Science on climate change. We update current knowledge on the IPCC, showing that compared with the baseline of the literature identified, the social sciences are in fact over-represented in recent assessment reports. Technical, solutions-relevant knowledge—especially in agriculture and engineering—is under-represented. We suggest a variety of other applications of such maps, and our findings have direct implications for addressing growing demands for more solution-oriented climate change assessments that are also more firmly rooted in the social sciences2,3. The perceived lack of social science knowledge in assessment reports does not necessarily imply an IPCC bias, but rather suggests a need for more social science research with a focus on technical topics on climate solutions