Sierra Club v. Public Service Company of Colorado: Judicial Amendment or towards Continuous Emission Compliance; Expanding the Scope of Citizen Suits and the 1990 Amendments to the Clean Air Act

In Sierra Club v. Public Service Company of Colorado, the United States District Court for the district of Colorado granted plaintiffs summary judgment motion, in part, finding emissions violations in excess of 19,000 times within a five year period. The court held that in a citizen action under the Clean Air Act (CAA), violations of opacity standards may be established through data and reports from a facility\u27s Continuous Emissions Monitoring Systems (CEMS). This holds true despite the fact that it is neither the applicable test method under the Environmental Protection Agency\u27s (EPA) regulations nor is it provided for in the CAA State Implementation Plan (SIP) provisions. Prior to 1990, emission violations could only be demonstrated through the applicable standards set forth in the EPA\u27s regulations or SIPs. However, with the recently enacted 1990 Amendments, the Colorado court reasoned that the CAA allows any evidence of a violation or compliance to be considered under the Federal Rules of Evidence (FRE), including, but not limited to, bypass and control equipment malfunctions and expert testimony, regardless of whether it is an applicable test method under the EPA\u27s regulations. This case note discusses whether the court\u27s ruling constituted a judicial amendment or a rational analysis of the applicable statutory and regulatory scheme. Part II provides a background of the CAA, air pollution standards, and state compliance. Part ill analyzes whether the defendants are likely to succeed on appeal to the United States Court of Appeals, the impact of its decision upon industry, and how citizen groups are likely to gain power from this decision. Part IV concludes that the EPA should adopt the proposed rules requiring CEMS or similar systems to be installed in all utility plants to measure emissions violations on a continuous basis. These proposed rules clarify the requirements necessary to meet Congressional intent in passing the 1990 amendments. The rule will provide citizen groups with easy access to information for monitoring purposes and will ensure greater compliance with emission standards

A Pair of Compact Red Galaxies at Redshift 2.38, Immersed in a 100 kpc Scale Ly-alpha Nebula

We present Hubble Space Telescope (HST) and ground-based observations of a pair of galaxies at redshift 2.38, which are collectively known as 2142-4420 B1 (Francis et al. 1996). The two galaxies are both luminous extremely red objects (EROs), separated by 0.8 arcsec. They are embedded within a 100 kpc scale diffuse Ly-alpha nebula (or blob) of luminosity ~10^44 erg/s. The radial profiles and colors of both red objects are most naturally explained if they are young elliptical galaxies: the most distant yet found. It is not, however, possible to rule out a model in which they are abnormally compact, extremely dusty starbursting disk galaxies. If they are elliptical galaxies, their stellar populations have inferred masses of ~10^11 solar masses and ages of ~7x10^8 years. Both galaxies have color gradients: their centers are significantly bluer than their outer regions. The surface brightness of both galaxies is roughly an order of magnitude greater than would be predicted by the Kormendy relation. A chain of diffuse star formation extending 1 arcsec from the galaxies may be evidence that they are interacting or merging. The Ly-alpha nebula surrounding the galaxies shows apparent velocity substructure of amplitude ~ 700 km/s. We propose that the Ly-alpha emission from this nebula may be produced by fast shocks, powered either by a galactic superwind or by the release of gravitational potential energy.Comment: 33 pages, 9 figures, ApJ in press (to appear in Jun 10 issue

Participation as Post-Fordist Politics: Demos, New Labour, and Science Policy

In recent years, British science policy has seen a significant shift ‘from deficit to dialogue’ in conceptualizing the relationship between science and the public. Academics in the interdisciplinary field of Science and Technology Studies (STS) have been influential as advocates of the new public engagement agenda. However, this participatory agenda has deeper roots in the political ideology of the Third Way. A framing of participation as a politics suited to post-Fordist conditions was put forward in the magazine Marxism Today in the late 1980s, developed in the Demos thinktank in the 1990s, and influenced policy of the New Labour government. The encouragement of public participation and deliberation in relation to science and technology has been part of a broader implementation of participatory mechanisms under New Labour. This participatory program has been explicitly oriented toward producing forms of social consciousness and activity seen as essential to a viable knowledge economy and consumer society. STS arguments for public engagement in science have gained influence insofar as they have intersected with the Third Way politics of post-Fordism

Measurement of the cross-section and charge asymmetry of WW bosons produced in proton-proton collisions at s=8\sqrt{s}=8 TeV with the ATLAS detector

This paper presents measurements of the $W^+ \rightarrow \mu^+\nu$ and $W^- \rightarrow \mu^-\nu$ cross-sections and the associated charge asymmetry as a function of the absolute pseudorapidity of the decay muon. The data were collected in proton--proton collisions at a centre-of-mass energy of 8 TeV with the ATLAS experiment at the LHC and correspond to a total integrated luminosity of 20.2~\mbox{fb^{-1}}. The precision of the cross-section measurements varies between 0.8% to 1.5% as a function of the pseudorapidity, excluding the 1.9% uncertainty on the integrated luminosity. The charge asymmetry is measured with an uncertainty between 0.002 and 0.003. The results are compared with predictions based on next-to-next-to-leading-order calculations with various parton distribution functions and have the sensitivity to discriminate between them.Comment: 38 pages in total, author list starting page 22, 5 figures, 4 tables, submitted to EPJC. All figures including auxiliary figures are available at https://atlas.web.cern.ch/Atlas/GROUPS/PHYSICS/PAPERS/STDM-2017-13

Search for chargino-neutralino production with mass splittings near the electroweak scale in three-lepton final states in √s=13 TeV pp collisions with the ATLAS detector

A search for supersymmetry through the pair production of electroweakinos with mass splittings near the electroweak scale and decaying via on-shell W and Z bosons is presented for a three-lepton final state. The analyzed proton-proton collision data taken at a center-of-mass energy of √s=13  TeV were collected between 2015 and 2018 by the ATLAS experiment at the Large Hadron Collider, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 139  fb−1. A search, emulating the recursive jigsaw reconstruction technique with easily reproducible laboratory-frame variables, is performed. The two excesses observed in the 2015–2016 data recursive jigsaw analysis in the low-mass three-lepton phase space are reproduced. Results with the full data set are in agreement with the Standard Model expectations. They are interpreted to set exclusion limits at the 95% confidence level on simplified models of chargino-neutralino pair production for masses up to 345 GeV

Vitamin D and oestrogen receptor polymorphisms in developmental dysplasia of the hip and primary protrusio acetabuli – A preliminary study

We investigated the association of developmental dysplasia of the hip (DDH) and primary protrusion acetabuli (PPA) with Vitamin D receptor polymorphisms Taq I and Fok I and oestrogen receptor polymorphisms Pvu II and Xba I. 45 patients with DDH and 20 patients with PPA were included in the study. Healthy controls (n = 101) aged 18–60 years were recruited from the same geographical area. The control subjects had a normal acetabular morphology based on a recent pelvic radiograph performed for an unrelated cause. DNA was obtained from all the subjects from peripheral blood. Genotype frequencies were compared in the three groups. The relationship between the genotype and morphology of the hip joint, severity of the disease, age at onset of disease and gender were examined. The oestrogen receptor Xba I wild-type genotype (XX, compared with Xx and xx combined) was more common in the DDH group (55.8%) than controls (37.9%), though this just failed to achieve statistical significance (p = 0.053, odds ratio = 2.1, 95% CI = 0.9–4.6). In the DDH group, homozygosity for the mutant Taq I Vitamin D receptor t allele was associated with higher acetabular index (Mann-Whitney U-test, p = 0.03). Pvu II pp oestrogen receptor genotype was associated with low centre edge angle (p = 0.07). This study suggests a possible correlation between gene polymorphism in the oestrogen and vitamin D receptors and susceptibility to, and severity of DDH. The Taq I vitamin D receptor polymorphisms may be associated with abnormal acetabular morphology leading to DDH while the Xba I oestrogen receptor XX genotype may be associated with increased risk of developing DDH. No such correlations were found in the group with PPA

Search for new phenomena in final states with an energetic jet and large missing transverse momentum in pp collisions at √ s = 8 TeV with the ATLAS detector

Results of a search for new phenomena in final states with an energetic jet and large missing transverse momentum are reported. The search uses 20.3 fb−1 of √ s = 8 TeV data collected in 2012 with the ATLAS detector at the LHC. Events are required to have at least one jet with pT > 120 GeV and no leptons. Nine signal regions are considered with increasing missing transverse momentum requirements between Emiss T > 150 GeV and Emiss T > 700 GeV. Good agreement is observed between the number of events in data and Standard Model expectations. The results are translated into exclusion limits on models with either large extra spatial dimensions, pair production of weakly interacting dark matter candidates, or production of very light gravitinos in a gauge-mediated supersymmetric model. In addition, limits on the production of an invisibly decaying Higgs-like boson leading to similar topologies in the final state are presente

Can oral corticosteroids reduce the severity or duration of an acute cough, and the associated National Health Service and societal costs, in adults presenting to primary care?: study protocol for a randomised controlled trial

Background: Acute lower respiratory tract infection (LRTI) is one of the most common conditions managed internationally and is costly to health services and patients. Despite good evidence that antibiotics are not effective for improving the symptoms of uncomplicated LRTI, they are widely prescribed, contributing to antimicrobial resistance. Many of the symptoms observed in LRTI are mediated by inflammatory processes also observed in exacerbations of asthma, for which there is strong evidence of corticosteroid effectiveness. The primary aim of the OSAC (Oral Steroids for Acute Cough) Trial is to determine whether oral prednisolone (40 mg daily for 5 days) can reduce the duration of moderately bad (or worse) cough and the severity of all its associated symptoms on days 2 to 4 post-randomisation (day 1 is trial entry) by at least 20% in adults ≥18 years with acute LRTI presenting to primary care. Methods/design: OSAC is a two-arm, multi-centre, placebo-controlled, randomised superiority trial. The target sample size is 436 patients, which allows for a 20% dropout rate. Patients will be recruited from primary care sites (General Practitioner surgeries) across England and followed up until symptom resolution. The two primary clinical outcomes are the duration of moderately bad (or worse) cough, and the severity of all its associated symptoms on days 2 to 4 post-randomisation. Secondary outcomes include: antibiotic consumption; symptom burden; adverse events; participant satisfaction with treatment and intention to consult for future similar illnesses. A parallel economic evaluation will investigate the cost-effectiveness of the intervention. Discussion: Results from the OSAC trial will increase knowledge regarding the clinical and cost-effectiveness of corticosteroids for LRTI, and will establish the potential of a new treatment option that could substantially improve patient health. We have chosen a relatively high ‘efficacy dose’ as this will enable us to decide on the potential for further research into lower dose oral and/or inhaled corticosteroids. This trial will also contribute to a growing body of research investigating the natural course of this very common illness, as well as the effects of steroids on the undesirable inflammatory symptoms associated with infection. Trial registration: Current Controlled Trials ISRCTN57309858 (31 January 2013)

Adaptation in integrated assessment modeling: where do we stand?

Adaptation is an important element on the climate change policy agenda. Integrated assessment models, which are key tools to assess climate change policies, have begun to address adaptation, either by including it implicitly in damage cost estimates, or by making it an explicit control variable. We analyze how modelers have chosen to describe adaptation within an integrated framework, and suggest many ways they could improve the treatment of adaptation by considering more of its bottom-up characteristics. Until this happens, we suggest, models may be too optimistic about the net benefits adaptation can provide, and therefore may underestimate the amount of mitigation they judge to be socially optimal. Under some conditions, better modeling of adaptation costs and benefits could have important implications for defining mitigation targets. © Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2009