The circular economy: An interdisciplinary exploration of the concept and application in a global context

There have long been calls from industry for guidance in implementing strategies for sustainable development. The Circular Economy represents the most recent attempt to conceptualize the integration of economic activity and environmental wellbeing in a sustainable way. This set of ideas has been adopted by China as the basis of their economic development (included in both the 11th and the 12th ‘Five Year Plan’), escalating the concept in minds of western policymakers and NGOs. This paper traces the conceptualisations and origins of the Circular Economy, tracing its meanings, and exploring its antecedents in economics and ecology, and discusses how the Circular Economy has been operationalized in business and policy. The paper finds that while the Circular Economy places emphasis on the redesign of processes and cycling of materials, which may contribute to more sustainable business models, it also encapsulates tensions and limitations. These include an absence of the social dimension inherent in sustainable development that limits its ethical dimensions, and some unintended consequences. This leads us to propose a revised definition of the Circular Economy as “an economic model wherein planning, resourcing, procurement, production and reprocessing are designed and managed, as both process and output, to maximize ecosystem functioning and human well-being”

Line narrowing of AgGaSe2 optical parametric oscillator by injection seeding

Solid-state lasers are developed for atmospheric applications. Optical parametric oscillators (OPO) are being investigated as sources of tunable radiation in the 2.5-12 micron range where development of conventional lasers is subject to numerous difficulties. Parametric oscillation is a nonlinear optical technique for converting laser output to longer wavelengths. Incident photons, typically from a pulsed pump laser, are converted into two photons of longer wavelength, while satisfying energy conservation. The particular split of energy is determined by momentum conservation; the wavelength of interest is usually selected by angle orientation of the nonlinear material with respect to the direction of propagation of the pump beam. An OPO based on AgGaSe2 was considered

Does a Criminal Justice Degree Produce Law Enforcement Officers?

Police departments are being asked to diversify their ranks in a job field dominated by White males. Hispanics are predicted to be the majority-minority by 2043, few studies were conducted to explore whether Hispanic students majoring in criminal justice will pursue a career in law enforcement agencies upon graduation. Therefore, it is necessary and important to investigate the willingness of Hispanic students perusing a career in law enforcement agencies and what kind of factors behind this pursuit. This research anonymously surveyed 203 students currently enrolled in a four-year Hispanic university. Gender and the liberalizing effect served as the independent variables. The outcomes of binary logistic regression indicate that gender has a significant effect on the outcome variable while the liberation effect does not. This study hopes to add knowledge of Hispanic undergraduate criminal justice majors aiding law enforcement agencies and university to recruit Hispanics into their ranks better

Wind related faults on the GB transmission network

The GB power network suffers from regular faults with a significant percentage of them caused by adverse or extreme weather. There are current worries surrounding climate change and with some of the effects already being seen, such as a rise in coastal temperatures and more extreme weather, greater research into how society will be affected is required. The research discussed in this paper focuses on extreme weather and its effects on the GB transmission network. With the possibility of increased frequency and intensity of adverse or extreme weather, there is a concern that this will significantly affect the reliability of the network. The research described here has investigated the current effects of weather on the transmission system using data supplied by the three transmission companies that own and operate the GB network: Scottish Power Ltd., National Grid plc. and SSE plc. And will present the current effects of weather on the transmission network, how changes in the weather present challenges in ensuring security of supply and the beginnings of a relationship between weather types and weather related fault

Shear Plus Bending in Lapped Z-purlins

Six two purlin line, three span continuous Z-purlin tests were conducted to show that combined shear plus bending is a possible failure mode immediately outside the lapped portion of the purlin lines. AISI Specification provisions predicted that combined shear plus bending was the controlling limit state. Strain gage data showed that local buckling occurred immediately outside of the lapped portion of the purlins lines prior to failure which caused moment to redistribute to the positive moment region. It is concluded that shear plus bending is a possible controlling limit state for continuous lapped purlins

Tree of Life Synagogue Shooting in Pittsburgh: Preparedness, Prehospital Care, and Lessons Learned

On Saturday, October 27, 2018, a man with anti-Semitic motivations entered Tree of Life synagogue in the Squirrel Hill section of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; he had an AR-15 semi-automatic rifle and three handguns, opening fire upon worshippers. Eventually 11 civilians died at the scene and eight people sustained non-fatal injuries, including five police officers. Each person injured but alive at the scene received care at one of three local level-one trauma centers.  The injured had wounds often seen in war-settings, with the signature of high velocity weaponry.  We describe the scene response, specific elements of our hospital plans, the overall out-of-hospital preparedness in Pittsburgh, and the lessons learned

The Circular Economy: An Interdisciplinary Exploration of the Concept and Application in a Global Context

There have long been calls from industry for guidance in implementing strategies for sustainable development. The Circular Economy represents the most recent attempt to conceptualize the integration of economic activity and environmental wellbeing in a sustainable way. This set of ideas has been adopted by China as the basis of their economic development (included in both the 11th and the 12th ‘Five Year Plan’), escalating the concept in minds of western policymakers and NGOs. This paper traces the conceptualisations and origins of the Circular Economy, tracing its meanings, and exploring its antecedents in economics and ecology, and discusses how the Circular Economy has been operationalized in business and policy. The paper finds that while the Circular Economy places emphasis on the redesign of processes and cycling of materials, which may contribute to more sustainable business models, it also encapsulates tensions and limitations. These include an absence of the social dimension inherent in sustainable development that limits its ethical dimensions, and some unintended consequences. This leads us to propose a revised definition of the Circular Economy as “an economic model wherein planning, resourcing, procurement, production and reprocessing are designed and managed, as both process and output, to maximize ecosystem functioning and human well-being”

NW Briton, Queensland Agricultural College, to JK Murray, 23 Jun 1976

The Jack Keith Murray collection consists of correspondence, pocket appointment diaries, scientific and technical papers, notes, transcripts of lectures, photographs and other material principally relating to Murray's activities in Papua New Guinea. Sir Jack Keith Murray was born in 1889 in Brighton, Victoria. He was appointed principal of the Queensland State Agricultural College (Gatton) in 1923 and became a professor of Agriculture at the University of Queensland in 1929. He served as a colonel in the army in World War II and was commanding officer of the 25th (Darling Downs) Battalion in 1940. In September 1945 he was appointed Administrator of the Australian territories of Papua and New Guinea, after the military administration left. He retired from that position in 1952. He was appointed to the University of Queensland Senate in 1953 and died in 1980

Transcriptional responses in Honey Bee larvae infected with chalkbrood fungus

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Diseases and other stress factors working synergistically weaken honey bee health and may play a major role in the losses of bee populations in recent years. Among a large number of bee diseases, chalkbrood has been on the rise. We present here the experimental identification of honey bee genes that are differentially expressed in response to infection of honey bee larvae with the chalkbrood fungus, <it>Ascosphaera apis</it>.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>We used cDNA-AFLP ^®Technology to profile transcripts in infected and uninfected bee larvae. From 64 primer combinations, over 7,400 transcriptionally-derived fragments were obtained A total of 98 reproducible polymorphic cDNA-AFLP fragments were excised and sequenced, followed by quantitative real-time RT-PCR (qRT-PCR) analysis of these and additional samples.</p> <p>We have identified a number of differentially-regulated transcripts that are implicated in general mechanisms of stress adaptation, including energy metabolism and protein transport. One of the most interesting differentially-regulated transcripts is for a chitinase-like enzyme that may be linked to anti-fungal activities in the honey bee larvae, similarly to gut and fat-body specific chitinases found in mosquitoes and the red flour beetle. Surprisingly, we did not find many components of the well-characterized NF-κB intracellular signaling pathways to be differentially-regulated using the cDNA-AFLP approach. Therefore, utilizing qRT-PCR, we probed some of the immune related genes to determine whether the lack of up-regulation of their transcripts in our analysis can be attributed to lack of immune activation or to limitations of the cDNA-AFLP approach.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Using a combination of cDNA-AFLP and qRT-PCR analyses, we were able to determine several key transcriptional events that constitute the overall effort in the honey bee larvae to fight natural fungal infection. Honey bee transcripts identified in this study are involved in critical functions related to transcriptional regulation, apoptotic degradation of ubiquitinated proteins, nutritional regulation, and RNA processing. We found that immune regulation of the anti-fungal responses in honey bee involves highly coordinated activation of both NF-κB signaling pathways, leading to production of anti-microbial peptides. Significantly, activation of immune responses in the infected bee larvae was associated with down-regulation of major storage proteins, leading to depletion of nutritional resources.</p