Defining a quantitative framework for evaluation and optimisation of the environmental impacts of mega-event projects

This paper presents a novel quantitative methodology for the evaluation and optimisation of the environmental impacts of the whole life cycle of a mega-event project: construction and staging the event and post-event site redevelopment and operation. Within the proposed framework, a mathematical model has been developed that takes into account greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions resulting from use of transportation fuel, energy, water and construction materials used at all stages of the mega-event project. The model is applied to a case study - the London Olympic Park. Three potential post-event site design scenarios of the Park have been developed: Business as Usual (BAU), Commercial World (CW) and High Rise High Density (HRHD). A quantitative summary of results demonstrates that the highest GHG emissions associated with the actual event are almost negligible compared to those associated with the legacy phase. The highest share of emissions in the legacy phase is attributed to embodied emissions from construction materials (almost 50% for the BAU and HRHD scenarios) and emissions resulting from the transportation of residents, visitors and employees to/from the site (almost 60% for the CW scenario). The BAU scenario is the one with the lowest GHG emissions compared to the other scenarios. The results also demonstrate how post-event site design scenarios can be optimised to minimise the GHG emissions. The overall outcomes illustrate how the proposed framework can be used to support decision making process for mega-event projects planning

Life cycle assessment of integrated waste management systems for alternative legacy scenarios of the London Olympic Park.

This paper presents the results of the life cycle assessment (LCA) of 10 integrated waste management systems (IWMSs) for 3 potential post-event site design scenarios of the London Olympic Park. The aim of the LCA study is to evaluate direct and indirect emissions resulting from various treatment options of municipal solid waste (MSW) annually generated on site together with avoided emissions resulting from energy, materials and nutrients recovery. IWMSs are modelled using GaBi v6.0 Product Sustainability software and results are presented based on the CML (v.Nov-10) characterisation method. The results show that IWMSs with advanced thermal treatment (ATT) and incineration with energy recovery have the lowest Global Warming Potential (GWP) than IWMSs where landfill is the primary waste treatment process. This is due to higher direct emissions and lower avoided emissions from the landfill process compared to the emissions from the thermal treatment processes. LCA results demonstrate that significant environmental savings are achieved through substitution of virgin materials with recycled ones. The results of the sensitivity analysis carried out for IWMS 1 shows that increasing recycling rate by 5%, 10% and 15% compared to the baseline scenario can reduce GWP by 8%, 17% and 25% respectively. Sensitivity analysis also shows how changes in waste composition affect the overall result of the system. The outcomes of such assessments provide decision-makers with fundamental information regarding the environmental impacts of different waste treatment options necessary for sustainable waste management planning

Report of the Committee on Trusts

The American Bar Association committee on trusts published a report on an investigation of whether common law and similar trusts should be subject to taxation as associations under income tax laws and if the tryst may be established without taxation burdens. The Committee requested a one-year continuation for further investigative consideration

Report of the Committee on Trusts

The American Bar Association committee on trusts published a report on an investigation of whether common law and similar trusts should be subject to taxation as associations under income tax laws and if the tryst may be established without taxation burdens. The Committee requested a one-year continuation for further investigative consideration

Bystander Effects of Hypoxia-Activated Prodrugs: Agent-Based Modeling Using Three Dimensional Cell Cultures

Intra-tumor heterogeneity represents a major barrier to anti-cancer therapies. One strategy to minimize this limitation relies on bystander effects via diffusion of cytotoxins from targeted cells. Hypoxia-activated prodrugs (HAPs) have the potential to exploit hypoxia in this way, but robust methods for measuring bystander effects are lacking. The objective of this study is to develop experimental models (monolayer, multilayer, and multicellular spheroid co-cultures) comprising ‘activator’ cells with high expression of prodrug-activating reductases and reductase-deficient ‘target’ cells, and to couple these with agent-based models (ABMs) that describe diffusion and reaction of prodrugs and their active metabolites, and killing probability for each cell. HCT116 cells were engineered as activators by overexpressing P450 oxidoreductase (POR) and as targets by knockout of POR, with fluorescent protein and antibiotic resistance markers to enable their quantitation in co-cultures. We investigated two HAPs with very different pharmacology: SN30000 is metabolized to DNA-breaking free radicals under hypoxia, while the dinitrobenzamide PR104A generates DNA-crosslinking nitrogen mustard metabolites. In anoxic spheroid co-cultures, increasing the proportion of activator cells decreased killing of both activators and targets by SN30000. An ABM parameterized by measuring SN30000 cytotoxicity in monolayers and diffusion-reaction in multilayers accurately predicted SN30000 activity in spheroids, demonstrating the lack of bystander effects and that rapid metabolic consumption of SN30000 inhibited prodrug penetration. In contrast, killing of targets by PR104A in anoxic spheroids was markedly increased by activators, demonstrating that a bystander effect more than compensates any penetration limitation. However, the ABM based on the well-studied hydroxylamine and amine metabolites of PR104A did not fit the cell survival data, indicating a need to reassess its cellular pharmacology. Characterization of extracellular metabolites of PR104A in anoxic cultures identified more stable, lipophilic, activated dichloro mustards with greater tissue diffusion distances. Including these metabolites explicitly in the ABM provided a good description of activator and target cell killing by PR104A in spheroids. This study represents the most direct demonstration of a hypoxic bystander effect for PR104A to date, and demonstrates the power of combining mathematical modeling of pharmacokinetics/pharmacodynamics with multicellular culture models to dissect bystander effects of targeted drug carriers

The Ethics of Corporate Governance

How should corporate directors determine what is the right decision? For at least the past 30 years the debate has raged as to whether shareholder value should take precedence over corporate social responsibility when crucial decisions arise. Directors face pressure, not least from ethical investors, to do the good thing when they seek to make the right choice. Corporate governance theory has tended to look to agency theory and the need of boards to curb excessive executive power to guide directors' decisions. While useful for those purposes, agency theory provides only limited guidance. Supplementing it with the alternatives - stakeholder theory and stewardship theory - tends to put directors in conflict with their legal obligations to work in the interests of shareholders. This paper seeks to reframe the discussion about corporate governance in terms of the ethical debate between consequential, teleological approaches to ethics and idealist, deontological ones, suggesting that directors are - for good reason - more inclined toward utilitarian judgments like those underpinning shareholder value. But the problems with shareholder value have become so great that a different framework is needed: strategic value, with an emphasis on long-term value creation judged from a decidedly utilitarian standpoint

Intravenous sodium nitrite in acute ST-elevation myocardial infarction: a randomized controlled trial (NIAMI).

AIM: Despite prompt revascularization of acute myocardial infarction (AMI), substantial myocardial injury may occur, in part a consequence of ischaemia reperfusion injury (IRI). There has been considerable interest in therapies that may reduce IRI. In experimental models of AMI, sodium nitrite substantially reduces IRI. In this double-blind randomized placebo controlled parallel-group trial, we investigated the effects of sodium nitrite administered immediately prior to reperfusion in patients with acute ST-elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI). METHODS AND RESULTS: A total of 229 patients presenting with acute STEMI were randomized to receive either an i.v. infusion of 70 μmol sodium nitrite (n = 118) or matching placebo (n = 111) over 5 min immediately before primary percutaneous intervention (PPCI). Patients underwent cardiac magnetic resonance imaging (CMR) at 6-8 days and at 6 months and serial blood sampling was performed over 72 h for the measurement of plasma creatine kinase (CK) and Troponin I. Myocardial infarct size (extent of late gadolinium enhancement at 6-8 days by CMR-the primary endpoint) did not differ between nitrite and placebo groups after adjustment for area at risk, diabetes status, and centre (effect size -0.7% 95% CI: -2.2%, +0.7%; P = 0.34). There were no significant differences in any of the secondary endpoints, including plasma troponin I and CK area under the curve, left ventricular volumes (LV), and ejection fraction (EF) measured at 6-8 days and at 6 months and final infarct size (FIS) measured at 6 months. CONCLUSIONS: Sodium nitrite administered intravenously immediately prior to reperfusion in patients with acute STEMI does not reduce infarct size

‘It's all the way you look at it, you know’: reading Bill ‘Bojangles’ Robinson's film career

This paper engages with a major paradox in African American tap dancer Bill ‘Bojangles’ Robinson's film image – namely, its concurrent adherences to and contestations of dehumanising racial iconography – to reveal the complex and often ambivalent ways in which identity is staged and enacted. Although Robinson is often understood as an embodiment of popular cultural imagery historically designed to dehumanise African Americans, this paper shows that Robinson's artistry displaces these readings by providing viewing pleasure for black, as much as white, audiences. Robinson's racially segregated scenes in Dixiana (1930) and Hooray for Love (1935) illuminate classical Hollywood's racial codes, whilst also showing how his inclusion within these otherwise all-white films provides grounding for creative and self-reflexive artistry. The films' references to Robinson's stage image and artistry overlap with minstrelsy-derived constructions of ‘blackness’, with the effect that they heighten possible interpretations of his cinematic persona by evading representational conclusion. Ultimately, Robinson's films should be read as sites of representational struggle that help to uncover the slipperiness of performances of African American identities in 1930s Hollywood

Bentham, Not Epicurus: The Relevance of Pleasure to Studies of Drug-Involved Pain

There is a disproportionate focus on pain over pleasure in policy-relevant research on drugs. This is unfortunate because theories of and findings on drug-involved pleasure can be used to inform knowledge of drug-involved pain. The cross-fertilization of theories and findings is bolstered by the availability of a conceptual framework that links drug-involved pain and pleasure in a comprehensive, powerful, simple, and instrumental manner. This article proposes such a framework. It consists of four types of drug-involved pain and pleasure: drug-specific corporal; drug-related corporal; economic; and, social. This quaternary scheme is illustrated with findings from four literatures, namely those on methamphetamine use; alcohol-related sexual contact among college students; resource transfer among drug users and dealers; and, relational and communal issues related to drugs. The article concludes with implications for the field

Determination of Beta-Defensin Genomic Copy Number in Different Populations: A Comparison of Three Methods

There have been conflicting reports in the literature on association of gene copy number with disease, including CCL3L1 and HIV susceptibility, and β-defensins and Crohn's disease. Quantification of precise gene copy numbers is important in order to define any association of gene copy number with disease. At present, real-time quantitative PCR (QPCR) is the most commonly used method to determine gene copy number, however the Paralogue Ratio Test (PRT) is being used in more and more laboratories.In this study we compare a Pyrosequencing-based Paralogue Ratio Test (PPRT) for determining beta-defensin gene copy number with two currently used methods for gene copy number determination, QPCR and triplex PRT by typing five different cohorts (UK, Danish, Portuguese, Ghanaian and Czech) of DNA from a total of 576 healthy individuals. We found a systematic measurement bias between DNA cohorts revealed by QPCR, but not by the PRT-based methods. Using PRT, copy number ranged from 2 to 9 copies, with a modal copy number of 4 in all populations.QPCR is very sensitive to quality of the template DNA, generating systematic biases that could produce false-positive or negative disease associations. Both triplex PRT and PPRT do not show this systematic bias, and type copy number within the correct range, although triplex PRT appears to be a more precise and accurate method to type beta-defensin copy number