Folgen des Tourismus. Gesellschaftliche, ökologische und technische Dimensionen. Bd. 1

Der Tourismus ist weltweit ein herausragender Wirtschaftsfaktor und gilt als spektakuläre Wachstumsbranche. Seine unkontrollierte Expansion führt aber in zunehmendem Maße dazu, daß durch Belastungen der natürlichen Umwelt, der Kultur und der Bevölkerung in den touristischen Zielgebieten seine eigenen Grundlagen gefährdet werden. Die Weiterentwicklung und die Chancen des Tourismus z.B. für Wirtschaftswachstum und Arbeitsplätze hängen davon ab, ob es gelingt, den Massentourismus so umweltschonend wie möglich zu gestalten und in verträglichere Bahnen zu lenken. Dieses Buch liefert eine Bestandsaufnahme der Forschung und der Kenntnisse zum Phänomen des modernen Massentourismus mit Schwerpunkt auf Deutschland bzw. den Tourismus der Deutschen. Es befaßt sich mit der überragenden wirtschaftlichen Bedeutung des Tourismus; mit den tourismusinduzierten Umweltproblemen; mit technologischen Trends, die das globale Management des modernen Tourismus beeinflussen; und mit der Bedeutung von Veränderungen bei Motiven, Einstellungen und Werten des "homo turisticus". Ausführlich werden der Status der deutschen Tourismuspolitik und ihre zentralen Struktur- und Kommunikationsprobleme analysiert. - Ein zweiter Teil der im Auftrag des Deutschen Bundestags entstandenen Studie befaßt sich mit dem thematischen Schwerpunkt "Nachhaltige Tourismuspolitik im Zeitalter der Globalisierung"

Fabrication of Highly Ordered Polymeric Nanodot and Nanowire Arrays Templated by Supramolecular Assembly Block Copolymer Nanoporous Thin Films

Realizing the vast technological potential of patternable block copolymers requires both the precise controlling of the orientation and long-range ordering, which is still a challenging topic so far. Recently, we have demonstrated that ordered nanoporous thin film can be fabricated from a simple supramolecular assembly approach. Here we will extend this approach and provide a general route to fabricate large areas of highly ordered polymeric nanodot and nanowire arrays. We revealed that under a mixture solvent annealing atmosphere, a near-defect-free nanoporous thin film over large areas can be achieved. Under the direction of interpolymer hydrogen bonding and capillary action of nanopores, this ordered porous nanotemplate can be properly filled with phenolic resin precursor, followed by curation and pyrolysis at middle temperature to remove the nanotemplate, a perfect ordered polymer nanodot arrays replication was obtained. The orientation of the supramolecular assembly thin films can be readily re-aligned parallel to the substrate upon exposure to chloroform vapor, so this facile nanotemplate replica method can be further extend to generate large areas of polymeric nanowire arrays. Thus, we achieved a successful sub-30 nm patterns nanotemplates transfer methodology for fabricating polymeric nanopattern arrays with highly ordered structure and tunable morphologies

The object of regulation: tending the tensions of food safety

“I’m struggling to see what it actually is,” says Alison, peering into a colander of defrosting meat. What “it” is, we propose in this paper, is helpfully thought of as “the object of regulation” in at least three senses, which together signal both our inheritance of a Foucauldian problematic and our departure from it. Our suggestion is that much of even the best work on biopolitics, biopower, and biosecurity that has been inspired and informed by these writings has replicated Foucault’s own struggle to get to grips with the complexity of matters that he variously refers to “natural” or “artificial” “givens”. By following science and technology studies (STS) scholars in using broadly ethnographic techniques to explore objects as and at the intersection of practices, we redress this balance somewhat by thinking through an empirical study of the securing of food safety, specifically Alison’s inspection of a restaurant kitchen. What we find is that the securing of meat as a material object of regulation is primarily done by involving multiple versions of the future, something which requires a great deal of usually under-recognised, under-valued, and under-theorised articulation work. With risk based regulation, cost sharing, and public sector cuts in the UK set to redefine the ways in which Alison and her colleagues engage with food business operators, we conclude by arguing for a greater appreciation of the skilful work of tending the tensions of food safety, as well as recognition of its limitation

Exploring the Mode of Action of Bioactive Compounds by Microfluidic Transcriptional Profiling in Mycobacteria

10.1371/journal.pone.0069191PLoS ONE87-POLN

Achieving a cure for HIV infection: do we have reasons to be optimistic?

The introduction of highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) in 1996 has transformed a lethal disease to a chronic pathology with a dramatic decrease in mortality and morbidity of AIDS-related symptoms in infected patients. However, HAART has not allowed the cure of HIV infection, the main obstacle to HIV eradication being the existence of quiescent reservoirs. Several other problems have been encountered with HAART (such as side effects, adherence to medication, emergence of resistance and cost of treatment), and these motivate the search for new ways to treat these patients. Recent advances hold promise for the ultimate cure of HIV infection, which is the topic of this review. Besides these new strategies aiming to eliminate the virus, efforts must be made to improve current HAART. We believe that the cure of HIV infection will not be attained in the short term and that a strategy based on purging the reservoirs has to be associated with an aggressive HAART strategy

Wireless phone use in childhood and adolescence and neuroepithelial brain tumours: Results from the international MOBI-Kids study

In recent decades, the possibility that use of mobile communicating devices, particularly wireless (mobile and cordless) phones, may increase brain tumour risk, has been a concern, particularly given the considerable increase in their use by young people. MOBI-Kids, a 14-country (Australia, Austria, Canada, France, Germany, Greece, India, Israel, Italy, Japan, Korea, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Spain) case-control study, was conducted to evaluate whether wireless phone use (and particularly resulting exposure to radiofrequency (RF) and extremely low frequency (ELF) electromagnetic fields (EMF)) increases risk of brain tumours in young people. Between 2010 and 2015, the study recruited 899 people with brain tumours aged 10 to 24 years old and 1,910 controls (operated for appendicitis) matched to the cases on date of diagnosis, study region and age. Participation rates were 72% for cases and 54% for controls. The mean ages of cases and controls were 16.5 and 16.6 years, respectively; 57% were males. The vast majority of study participants were wireless phones users, even in the youngest age group, and the study included substantial numbers of long-term (over 10 years) users: 22% overall, 51% in the 20-24-year-olds. Most tumours were of the neuroepithelial type (NBT; n = 671), mainly glioma. The odds ratios (OR) of NBT appeared to decrease with increasing time since start of use of wireless phones, cumulative number of calls and cumulative call time, particularly in the 15-19 years old age group. A decreasing trend in ORs was also observed with increasing estimated cumulative RF specific energy and ELF induced current density at the location of the tumour. Further analyses suggest that the large number of ORs below 1 in this study is unlikely to represent an unknown causal preventive effect of mobile phone exposure: they can be at least partially explained by differential recall by proxies and prodromal symptoms affecting phone use before diagnosis of the cases. We cannot rule out, however, residual confounding from sources we did not measure. Overall, our study provides no evidence of a causal association between wireless phone use and brain tumours in young people. However, the sources of bias summarised above prevent us from ruling out a small increased risk

Mitochondrial Bioenergetic Alterations in Mouse Neuroblastoma Cells Infected with Sindbis Virus: Implications to Viral Replication and Neuronal Death

The metabolic resources crucial for viral replication are provided by the host. Details of the mechanisms by which viruses interact with host metabolism, altering and recruiting high free-energy molecules for their own replication, remain unknown. Sindbis virus, the prototype of and most widespread alphavirus, causes outbreaks of arthritis in humans and serves as a model for the study of the pathogenesis of neurological diseases induced by alphaviruses in mice. In this work, respirometric analysis was used to evaluate the effects of Sindbis virus infection on mitochondrial bioenergetics of a mouse neuroblastoma cell lineage, Neuro 2a. The modulation of mitochondrial functions affected cellular ATP content and this was synchronous with Sindbis virus replication cycle and cell death. At 15 h, irrespective of effects on cell viability, viral replication induced a decrease in oxygen consumption uncoupled to ATP synthesis and a 36% decrease in maximum uncoupled respiration, which led to an increase of 30% in the fraction of oxygen consumption used for ATP synthesis. Decreased proton leak associated to complex I respiration contributed to the apparent improvement of mitochondrial function. Cellular ATP content was not affected by infection. After 24 h, mitochondria dysfunction was clearly observed as maximum uncoupled respiration reduced 65%, along with a decrease in the fraction of oxygen consumption used for ATP synthesis. Suppressed respiration driven by complexes I- and II-related substrates seemed to play a role in mitochondrial dysfunction. Despite the increase in glucose uptake and glycolytic flux, these changes were followed by a 30% decrease in ATP content and neuronal death. Taken together, mitochondrial bioenergetics is modulated during Sindbis virus infection in such a way as to favor ATP synthesis required to support active viral replication. These early changes in metabolism of Neuro 2a cells may form the molecular basis of neuronal dysfunction and Sindbis virus-induced encephalitis