Global Waste Management Outlook

The Global Waste Management Outlook, a collective effort of the United Nations Environment Programme and the International Waste Management Association, is a pioneering scientific global assessment on the state of waste management and a call for action to the international community. Prepared as a follow up to the Rio+20 Summit and as a response to UNEP Governing Council decision GC 27/12, the document establishes the rationale and the tools for taking a holistic approach towards waste management and recognizing waste and resource management as a significant contributor to sustainable development and climate change mitigation. To complement the Sustainable Development Goals of the Post-2015 Development Agenda, the Outlook sets forth Global Waste Management Goals and a Global Call to Action to achieve those goals

Resource recovery and low carbon transitions: The hidden impacts of substituting cement with imported ‘waste’ materials from coal and steel production

Here we investigate the increasingly complex relationship between the resource recovery practices of the UK concrete industryandongoing low-carbontransitions takingplaceinelectricityandsteel.ReductionsinUKcoalbased electricity and primary steel production are reducing domestic availability of residues – coal ash and steel slag – that are used to replace cement in concrete; for decarbonisation purposes and to increase concrete quality. This is leading to an unusual mass-transportation of ‘wastes’ from the Global South to Global North. Focusing closely upon the mitigation pathways of concrete producers, we develop an inter-industry model of material flows, and a diversity of scenarios and sensitivity tests, to consider how resource recovery practices and carbon emissions of the three sectors may evolve. A continuation of domestic shortages in waste-derived cement substitutes appears inevitable and future international shortages possible. But even if foreign producers supplied enough cement substitutes to meet UK demand, the broader carbon implications of such trade may be far from benign. Using a revenue-based approach to allocate emissions to coal ash leads to a wide range of embodied carbon estimates – from relatively low (0.15t.CO2/t.ash) to exceeding that of traditional Portland cement (1t.CO2/t.ash). However, the carbonassociated withinternationally traded recovered resources currently stands behinda‘double-blind’systemofaccounting: emissionsdonotregisterintheconventionalterritorialaccountsof theimportingcountry andtheymaybehiddenfromitsconsumption-based accountsaswell.Theimpactsofsuch trade and related carbon accounting conventions are unclear and we emphasise the need for further investigation. To this end, our results demonstrate the importance of incorporating highly interconnected sectors and international trade into analyses of low-carbon transitions, and highlight the challenges this presents for designing appropriate policies, accounting frameworks, and interdisciplinary impact assessment methods that look beyond sectorial and national horizons.The UK Natural Environment Research Council (NERC), UK Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) and Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (DEFRA

Administración de capital de trabajo y su incidencia en la creación de valor de las empresas dedicadas a la prestación de servicios de publicidad.

La administración del capital de trabajo es una de las decisiones fundamentales en la gestión de una empresa que busca generar valor, mediante la gestión de las cuentas por cobrar, inventario y cuentas por pagar, siendo áreas de interés para la operatividad de una empresa, ya que influyen directamente en la generación de flujos de caja. Los administradores deben estar preparados para cualquier imprevisto que pueda afectar la continuidad del negocio, como el impacto financiero por el cierre comercial derivado por la pandemia del COVID-19 Debido a la importancia que representa en la gestión de las entidades, se realiza esta investigación con el objetivo de evaluar la administración del capital de trabajo de las empresas que se dedican a la prestación de servicios publicitarios y medir la creación de valor mediante el análisis de los flujos de caja descontados considerando el impacto financiero provocado por la pandemia del COVID-19. Se retomaron aportes teóricos sobre a la administración del capital de trabajo de los referentes teóricos más importantes como: Stephen Ross, Randolph Westerfield y Bradford Jordan con el libro “Fundamentos de Finanzas Corporativas, Novena Edición”; Lawrence Gitman y Chad Zutter con el libro “Principios de Administración Financiera, Decimosegunda Edición”; Modigliani y Miller (1958) con el libro “The Cost of Capital Corporation Finance and the Theory of Investment”, entre otros. El trabajo se desarrolló mediante una investigación con enfoque cuantitativo, método hipotético deductivo, estableciendo una hipótesis. El instrumento de investigación principal que sirvió de base para la recolección de información consistió en un ii cuestionario con 16 preguntas cerradas con opción de respuestas múltiples, dirigido a los administradores, gerentes financieros o contadores de 20 empresas del sector de publicidad, ubicadas en el municipio de Antiguo Cuscatlán, con el que se obtuvo datos de suma importancia para comprobar la hipótesis establecida. Los resultados obtenidos muestran que las empresas en estudio comprenden la importancia de administrar de forma eficiente el capital de trabajo, ya que tienen políticas establecidas como por ejemplo, realizar proyecciones de flujos de caja, mantienen un fondo de reserva para imprevistos financieros y oportunidades de inversión, en el caso de tener exceso de efectivo deciden invertir en el negocio y adquirir Propiedad Planta y Equipo, en caso contrario buscarían financiamiento a corto plazo o acelerar la gestión de cobro, para gestionar las cuentas cobrar las empresas establecen límites de crédito en monto y plazo, además de realizar una evaluación crediticia de los clientes, solicitando historial crediticio, referencias de otros proveedores y analizando la capacidad de pago; como técnica de cobro recurren a las llamadas telefónicas, visitas personales o contratar una agencia de cobro. Debido al sector de las empresas el 50% no tiene método de valoración de inventarios, esto es porque compran los insumos al momento de prestar el servicio de publicidad; para las cuentas por pagar tienen como política pagar antes de la fecha de vencimiento y aprovechar los descuentos por pronto pago. En relación a las medidas financieras tomadas por el cierre comercial por la pandemia del COVID-19 las empresas optaron por realizar recorte de personal y buscar financiamiento bancario; y el impacto financiero se vio reflejado en la disminución de la liquidez y rentabilidad. Dentro de las conclusiones más importantes se señala que al realizar una evaluación de la administración del capital de trabajo en las empresas permite medir si se está realizando iii una buena gestión de las cuentas por cobrar, inventarios y cuentas por pagar, ya que incide de forma directa en la generación de flujos de efectivo positivos o negativos, aumentando o disminuyendo el valor de la empresa, por ende se recomienda a todas las empresas realizar evaluaciones de la administración del capital de trabajo y así poder medir si la gestión de los activos y pasivos corrientes, genera flujos de caja positivos y aumenta el valor de la empresa. En caso contrario adoptar nuevas políticas para la gestión del capital de trabajo adecuadas a la entidad o buscar la mejora de las ya establecidas, como la agilización de cobranza a los clientes, no mantener inventario ocioso en almacenes y negociar créditos con proveedore

"The Collapse of the EMS: Symptomatic of a Doomed EMU?"

In the soul searching following the tumult of the 1992 EMS crisis, observers and policy makers have been left wondering about its causes, and pondering the way forward to Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) in the context of the Maastricht Prescription. It is the contention of this paper that the need for monetary union is not completely justified on economic grounds, and that political considerations have played a large role in the formulation of the criteria for EMU. The paradox is that while the move toward Monetary Union (MU) and the path laid forth to achieve it embody political imperatives, decisions made on primarily political grounds created a system that was economically unsustainable; it is an ironic fact that a lack of continent wide political support may have indeed played a large role in the 1992 crisis. The paper is organized as follows: Section 1 assesses arguments for and against MU; we conclude that the benefits may not unequivocally exceed the costs when considered in a purely economic sense. Section 2 examines the political motivations behind MU in general and the process of EMU specifically, with attention to the Maastricht Treaty; we suggest that the Maastricht process is more politically (and perhaps inappropriately) motivated. Section 3 examines the September 1992 currency crisis and argues that political factors stemming from the Maastricht treaty substantially aid in understanding the causes of the crisis. Concluding remarks follow, and we briefly assess the future of the Maastricht process

A renal abnormality as a possible cause of essential hypertension

The renal abnormality which causes hypertension in the Milan hypertensive strain of rats disappears as hypertension develops. Because of the many analogies between the condition in these rats and "essential" hypertension in man, the same pattern of change may occur if a renal abnormality is the cause of essential hypertension in man. This hypothesis was tested in two groups of young normotensive subjects matched for age, sex, and body-surface area; in the first group both parents were hypertensive, and in the second group both parents were normotensive. Renal plasma-flow, glomerular filtration-rate, plasma-volume, plasma-renin activity, plasma-concentrations of Na+, K+, and catecholamines, 24 h urinary excretion of Na+, K+, and aldosterone, and the cardiac index were measured so that renal function and the role of factors affecting blood-pressure regulation could be assessed. Renal plasma-flow was significantly higher (p less than 0.01) in the first group, whereas results of tests for all the other factors were almost the same in both groups. The hypothesis that a primary kidney abnormality causes hypertension in a proportion of patients with essential hypertension is proposed

Ropivacaine attenuates endotoxin plus hyperinflation-mediated acute lung injury via inhibition of early-onset Src-dependent signaling

BACKGROUND: Acute lung injury (ALI) is associated with high mortality due to the lack of effective therapeutic strategies. Mechanical ventilation itself can cause ventilator-induced lung injury. Pulmonary vascular barrier function, regulated in part by Src kinase-dependent phosphorylation of caveolin-1 and intercellular adhesion molecule-1 (ICAM-1), plays a crucial role in the development of protein-/neutrophil-rich pulmonary edema, the hallmark of ALI. Amide-linked local anesthetics, such as ropivacaine, have anti-inflammatory properties in experimental ALI. We hypothesized ropivacaine may attenuate inflammation in a "double-hit" model of ALI triggered by bacterial endotoxin plus hyperinflation via inhibition of Src-dependent signaling. METHODS: C57BL/6 (WT) and ICAM-1 (-/-) mice were exposed to either nebulized normal saline (NS) or lipopolysaccharide (LPS, 10 mg) for 1 hour. An intravenous bolus of 0.33 mg/kg ropivacaine or vehicle was followed by mechanical ventilation with normal (7 ml/kg, NTV) or high tidal volume (28 ml/kg, HTV) for 2 hours. Measures of ALI (excess lung water (ELW), extravascular plasma equivalents, permeability index, myeloperoxidase activity) were assessed and lungs were homogenized for Western blot analysis of phosphorylated and total Src, ICAM-1 and caveolin-1. Additional experiments evaluated effects of ropivacaine on LPS-induced phosphorylation/expression of Src, ICAM-1 and caveolin-1 in human lung microvascular endothelial cells (HLMVEC). RESULTS: WT mice treated with LPS alone showed a 49% increase in ELW compared to control animals (p = 0.001), which was attenuated by ropivacaine (p = 0.001). HTV ventilation alone increased measures of ALI even more than LPS, an effect which was not altered by ropivacaine. LPS plus hyperinflation ("double-hit") increased all ALI parameters (ELW, EVPE, permeability index, MPO activity) by 3-4 fold compared to control, which were again decreased by ropivacaine. Western blot analyses of lung homogenates as well as HLMVEC treated in culture with LPS alone showed a reduction in Src activation/expression, as well as ICAM-1 expression and caveolin-1 phosphorylation. In ICAM-1 (-/-) mice, neither addition of LPS to HTV ventilation alone nor ropivacaine had an effect on the development of ALI. CONCLUSIONS: Ropivacaine may be a promising therapeutic agent for treating the cause of pulmonary edema by blocking inflammatory Src signaling, ICAM-1 expression, leukocyte infiltration, and vascular hyperpermeability