Taxing Speculative Land Gains: The Vermont Experience

This Article summarizes a much lengthier, two-volume report on the land gains tax in an effort to provide a greater understanding of certain issues involved with the law, especially for legislators who believe their states might benefit from such a measure

Defining the Legal and Policy Framework to Stop the Dumping of Environmentally Harmful Products

Environmental dumping is a practice historically associated with the export of hazardous product waste from a developed country for irresponsible and often illegal disposal in a developing country. Now, with the industrialization and globalization of China and other developing countries, environmental dumping can involve both developing and developed countries as origin and destination. This dumping can be especially harmful to attempts to control under the Montreal Protocol ozone-depleting and climate-forcing chemical substances and/or products requiring unnecessarily high energy consumption. While developing country Parties to the Montreal Protocol are allowed to delay their phasedown of climate-forcing and ozone-depleting hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) during a multi-year grace period, there are advantages to earlier implementation when superior alternatives are already available at reasonable costs, as is the case for many uses of HFCs today. Thus, developing countries can benefit under the Protocol from setting controls for environmental dumping. This article aims to give policymakers, especially those in developing countries, a legal and policy “toolkit” that can be used to stop unwanted environmental dumping. It includes an examination of the history of environmental dumping, illustration of such dumping in practice, a detailed explanation and examination of the legal and policy tools, and a summary of the consequences of environmental dumping

Resolution and identification of scalemic caged xanthones from the leaf extract of Garcinia propinqua having potent cytotoxicities against colon cancer cells

A new scalemic 8,8a-dihydro caged xanthone (1) was isolated from the leaf extract of Garcinia propinqua. Five other known natural products, the three caged xanthones (2, 5 and 6) and the two neocaged xanthones, (3 and 4) were also isolated as scalemic mixtures. Their structures were characterized by spectroscopic methods. The enantiomeric ratios (er) of compounds 1-6 ranged from 1:0.7 to 1:0.9. These compounds were also resolved by semipreparative chiral HPLC. The absolute configurations of (+)-2 and (+)-3 were determined by single-crystal X-ray diffraction analysis using Cu Kα radiation while the absolute configurations of the other compounds were determined by comparisons of their ECD spectra. Compounds (-)-4, (+)-4, (-)-5, (+)-5, and (-)-6 showed potent cytotoxicities against a colon cancer cell line HCT116 with IC50 values of 2.60, 7.02, 1.47, 3.37, and 4.14μM, respectively, which were better than the standard control doxorubicin (IC50 9.74μM)

The Importance of Stopping Environmental Dumping in Ghana: The Case of Inefficient New and Used Cooling Appliances With Obsolete Refrigerants

Environmentally harmful product dumping ( environmental dumping ) of new and used low-efficiency cooling appliances with obsolete ozone-depleting and greenhouse gas refrigerants in African countries impoverishes communities, hinders economic development, threatens ecological systems, and harms public health. The use of low-efficiency cooling appliances increases energy demand, leading to higher power plant emissions and limiting affordable energy access in African countries. These low-efficiency appliances and products contain ozone-depleting refrigerants with high global-warming potential (GWP) or ozone-safe refrigerants with high GWP. Environmental dumping of these appliances and products makes it more difficult for countries to meet their international climate obligations and for the world to meet the Paris Agreement\u27s climate change mitigation targets. Ghana faces high levels of environmental dumping, despite a national ban on importing used cooling appliances and established efficiency standards for new air conditioners and refrigerators. Through the Energy Commission\u27s Office of Renewable Energy, Energy Efficiency, & Climate Change (REEECC), the government of Ghana is partnering with the Institute for Governance & Sustainable Development (IGSD) to stop environmental dumping. This article provides a list of interventions that can be implemented by Ghana, by governments in countries that export to Ghana, and by industry and other stakeholders. Notably, these actions focus on the shared responsibility of exporting countries and manufacturers by calling on exporting countries to update and enhance enforcement of their laws, and on global manufacturers to stop exporting inefficient products with obsolete refrigerants to Ghana and other African countries

Development and geometry of isotropic and directional shrinkage crack patterns

We have studied shrinkage crack patterns which form when a thin layer of an alumina/water slurry dries. Both isotropic and directional drying were studied. The dynamics of the pattern formation process and the geometric properties of the isotropic crack patterns are similar to what is expected from recent models, assuming weak disorder. There is some evidence for a gradual increase in disorder as the drying layer become thinner, but no sudden transition, in contrast to what has been seen in previous experiments. The morphology of the crack patterns is influenced by drying gradients and front propagation effects, with sharp gradients having a strong orienting and ordering effect.Comment: 8 pages, 11 figures, 8 in jpg format, 3 in postscript. See also http://mobydick.physics.utoronto.ca/mud.htm

An intact C-terminal end of albumin is required for its long half-life in humans.

Albumin has an average plasma half-life of three weeks and is thus an attractive carrier to improve the pharmacokinetics of fused therapeutics. The half-life is regulated by FcRn, a cellular receptor that protects against intracellular degradation. To tailor-design the therapeutic use of albumin, it is crucial to understand how structural alterations in albumin affect FcRn binding and transport properties. In the blood, the last C-terminal residue (L585) of albumin may be enzymatically cleaved. Here we demonstrate that removal of the L585 residue causes structural stabilization in regions of the principal FcRn binding domain and reduces receptor binding. In line with this, a short half-life of only 3.5 days was measured for cleaved albumin lacking L585 in a patient with acute pancreatitis. Thus, we reveal the structural requirement of an intact C-terminal end of albumin for a long plasma half-life, which has implications for design of albumin-based therapeutics

Theory of Scanning Tunneling Spectroscopy of Magnetic-Field-Induced Discrete Nodal States in a D-Wave Superconductor

In the presence of an external magnetic field, the low lying elementary excitations of a d-wave superconductor have quantized energy and their momenta are locked near the node direction. It is argued that these discrete states can most likely be detected by a local probe, such as a scanning tunneling microscope. The low temperature local tunneling conductance on the Wigner-Seitz cell boundaries of the vortex lattice is predicted to show peaks spaced as $\pm \sqrt{n}, n ={0,1,2, ...}$. The $n=0$ peak is anomalous, and it is present only if the superconducting order parameter changes sign at certain points on the Fermi surface. Away from the cell boundary, where the superfluid velocity is nonzero, each peak splits, in general, into four peaks, corresponding to the number of nodes in the order parameter.Comment: RevTeX 3.0, 4 pages, 3 figures (included

Diabetes Mellitus and Obesity as Risk Factors for Pancreatic Cancer

Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) is among the deadliest types of cancer. The worldwide estimates of its incidence and mortality in the general population are eight cases per 100,000 person-years and seven deaths per 100,000 person-years, and they are significantly higher in the United States than in the rest of the world. The incidence of this disease in the United States is more than 50,000 new cases in 2017. Indeed, total deaths due to PDAC are projected to increase dramatically to become the second leading cause of cancer-related deaths before 2030. Considering the failure to date to efficiently treat existing PDAC, increased effort should be undertaken to prevent this disease. A better understanding of the risk factors leading to PDAC development is of utmost importance to identify and formulate preventive strategies. Large epidemiologic and cohort studies have identified risk factors for the development of PDAC, including obesity and type 2 diabetes mellitus. This review highlights the current knowledge of obesity and type 2 diabetes as risk factors for PDAC development and progression, their interplay and underlying mechanisms, and the relation to diet. Research gaps and opportunities to address this deadly disease are also outlined