Value-transforming financial, carbon and biodiversity footprint accounting

Transformative changes in our production and consumption habits are needed to enable the sustainability transition towards carbon neutrality, no net loss of biodiversity, and planetary well-being. Organizations are the way we humans have organized our everyday life, and much of our negative environmental impacts, also called carbon and biodiversity footprints, are caused by organizations. Here we show how the financial accounts of any organization can be exploited to develop an integrated carbon and biodiversity footprint account. As a metric we utilize spatially explicit potential global loss of species which, we argue, can be understood as the biodiversity equivalent, the utility of which for biodiversity is similar to what carbon dioxide equivalent is for climate. We provide a global Biodiversity Footprint Database that organizations, experts and researchers can use to assess consumption-based biodiversity footprints. We also argue that the current integration of financial and environmental accounting is superficial, and provide a framework for a more robust financial value-transforming accounting model. To test the methodologies, we utilized a Finnish university as a living lab. Assigning an offsetting cost to the footprints significantly altered the financial value of the organization. We believe such value-transforming accounting is needed in order to draw the attention of senior executives and investors to the negative environmental impacts of their organizations

Commentary: risk factors for gastrointestinal bleeding in NSAID users – authors’ reply

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/94297/1/apt12056.pd

Risk factors associated with a decrease ≥2 g/dL in haemoglobin and/or ≥10% haematocrit in osteoarthritis patients taking celecoxib or a nonselective NSAID plus a PPI in a large randomised controlled trial ( CONDOR )

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/92441/1/apt5213.pd

Shape coexistence at the proton drip-line: First identification of excited states in 180Pb

Excited states in the extremely neutron-deficient nucleus, 180Pb, have been identified for the first time using the JUROGAM II array in conjunction with the RITU recoil separator at the Accelerator Laboratory of the University of Jyvaskyla. This study lies at the limit of what is presently achievable with in-beam spectroscopy, with an estimated cross-section of only 10 nb for the 92Mo(90Zr,2n)180Pb reaction. A continuation of the trend observed in 182Pb and 184Pb is seen, where the prolate minimum continues to rise beyond the N=104 mid-shell with respect to the spherical ground state. Beyond mean-field calculations are in reasonable correspondence with the trends deduced from experiment.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figures, submitted to Phys.Rev.

Impaired osteoclast homeostasis in the cystatin B-deficient mouse model of progressive myoclonus epilepsy

Peer reviewe

First observation of excited states in 173Hg

The neutron-deficient nucleus 173Hg has been studied following fusion-evaporation reactions. The observation of gamma rays decaying from excited states are reported for the first time and a tentative level scheme is proposed. The proposed level scheme is discussed within the context of the systematics of neighbouring neutron-deficient Hg nuclei. In addition to the gamma-ray spectroscopy, the alpha decay of this nucleus has been measured yielding superior precision to earlier measurements.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figure

Search for Fingerprints of Tetrahedral Symmetry in 156Gd^{156}Gd

Theoretical predictions suggest the presence of tetrahedral symmetry as an explanation for the vanishing intra-band E2-transitions at the bottom of the odd-spin negative parity band in $^{156}Gd$. The present study reports on experiment performed to address this phenomenon. It allowed to determine the intra-band E2 transitions and branching ratios B(E2)/B(E1) of two of the negative-parity bands in $^{156}Gd$.Comment: presented by Q.T. Doan at XLII Zakopane School of Physics: Breaking Frontiers: Submicron Structures in Physics and Biology, May 2008. 5 pages, minor corrections. To be published in the proceeding

Improving Colorectal Cancer Screening Decision Making Processes

Introduction: Although shared decision making is recommended for cancer screening, it is not routinely completed in practice because of time constraints. We evaluated a process for improving decision making about colorectal cancer (CRC) screening using mailed decision aids (DA) with follow-up telephone support in primary care practices. Methods: We identified patients aged 50-75 who were not up to date with CRC screening in three primary care practices. DA were distributed via mail with telephone follow-up to eligible patients, and charts were reviewed six months later for CRC screening completion. Results: Among 1,064 eligible patients who received the mailed DA, 513 (48.2%) were reached by phone. During the six months after the intervention, 148/1064 (13.9%) patients were screened for CRC (4.8% underwent FIT, 9.1% underwent colonoscopy). Younger patients (aged 50-54) had higher rates of any screening (32.4%) compared with all other age groups (range 12.8%-19.6%), p=0.026, while Medicaid patients had the lowest rates of screening (4.0%), and insured patients had the highest rates (45.3%), p=0.003. Overall, 113/513 (22.0%) who were reached by phone went on to complete screening within 6 months, compared with 35/551 (6.4%) of patients who were not reached by phone (p Conclusion: A standard process for identifying patients unscreened for CRC and DA distribution via mail with telephone decision support modestly increased CRC screening and is consistent with the goal of providing preference-sensitive care and informed decision making. Improving care processes to include decision support outside of office visits is possible in primary care practices

Sources of pro-cyclicality in east Asian financial systems

Procyclicality is a normal feature of economic systems, but financial sector weaknesses can exacerbate it sufficiently to pose a threat to macroeconomic and financial stability. These include shortcomings in bank risk management and governance, in supervision and in terms of dependence on volatile sources of funds. The paper tests econometrically for the importance of such features leading to pro-cyclicality in the financial systems of 11 East Asian countries. This analysis makes it possible to identify specific policy measures for East Asian countries that could limit the extent to which financial systems exacerbate pro-cyclicality

A Fibreoptic Endoscopic Study of Upper Gastrointestinal Bleeding at Bugando Medical Centre in Northwestern Tanzania: a Retrospective Review of 240 Cases.

Upper gastrointestinal (GI) bleeding is recognized as a common and potentially life-threatening abdominal emergency that needs a prompt assessment and aggressive emergency treatment. A retrospective study was undertaken at Bugando Medical Centre in northwestern Tanzania between March 2010 and September 2011 to describe our own experiences with fibreoptic upper GI endoscopy in the management of patients with upper gastrointestinal bleeding in our setting and compare our results with those from other centers in the world. A total of 240 patients representing 18.7% of all patients (i.e. 1292) who had fibreoptic upper GI endoscopy during the study period were studied. Males outnumbered female by a ratio of 2.1:1. Their median age was 37 years and most of patients (60.0%) were aged 40 years and below. The vast majority of the patients (80.4%) presented with haematemesis alone followed by malaena alone in 9.2% of cases. The use of non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, alcohol and smoking prior to the onset of bleeding was recorded in 7.9%, 51.7% and 38.3% of cases respectively. Previous history of peptic ulcer disease was reported in 22(9.2%) patients. Nine (3.8%) patients were HIV positive. The source of bleeding was accurately identified in 97.7% of patients. Diagnostic accuracy was greater within the first 24 h of the bleeding onset, and in the presence of haematemesis. Oesophageal varices were the most frequent cause of upper GI bleeding (51.3%) followed by peptic ulcers in 25.0% of cases. The majority of patients (60.8%) were treated conservatively. Endoscopic and surgical treatments were performed in 30.8% and 5.8% of cases respectively. 140 (58.3%) patients received blood transfusion. The median length of hospitalization was 8 days and it was significantly longer in patients who underwent surgical treatment and those with higher Rockall scores (P < 0.001). Rebleeding was reported in 3.3% of the patients. The overall mortality rate of 11.7% was significantly higher in patients with variceal bleeding, shock, hepatic decompensation, HIV infection, comorbidities, malignancy, age > 60 years and in patients with higher Rockall scores and those who underwent surgery (P < 0.001). Oesophageal varices are the commonest cause of upper gastrointestinal bleeding in our environment and it is associated with high morbidity and mortality. The diagnostic accuracy of fibreoptic endoscopy was related to the time interval between the onset of bleeding and endoscopy. Therefore, it is recommended that early endoscopy should be performed within 24 h of the onset of bleeding