The Challenge of Cooperative Regulatory Relations After Enlargement

This paper conceptualises European governance as a continuous series of collective action games among national regulators. European administration is theorized as a set of mutually beneficial relations among independent regulators, rather than as a hierarchy of supranational institutions, courts, and national administrators. The collective action approach highlights the importance of certain factors in fostering regulatory cooperation and enabling the common market to become an administrative reality: repeated interactions, monitoring and sanctioning by the Commission and the courts, reciprocity norms, and trust. It also suggests that one of the most significant challenges of enlargement will be to establish cooperative regulatory exchanges among old and new regulators. Regulators in the existing member states do not always trust the capacity of Central and Eastern European regulators to administer the acquis communautaire. Cooperation and trust among old and new regulators will also prove difficult because, after enlargement, their relations will gradually shift from ones of power to ones of mutually beneficial exchanges among equals. The solution lies in self-awareness of the structure of the collective action game, a more active role for the Commission and the Court in monitoring compliance, and strict adherence to a strategy of reciprocity in retaliating for non-compliance

Near-Infrared (NIR) Luminescent Homoleptic Lanthanide Salen Complexes Ln(4)(Salen)(4) (Ln = Nd, Yb Or Er)

The series of homoleptic tetranuclear [Ln(4)(L)(2)(HL)(2)(NO3)(2)(OH)(2)]center dot 2(NO3) (Ln = Nd, 1; Ln = Yb, 2; Ln = Er, 3; Ln = Gd, 4) have been self-assembled from the reaction of the Salen-type Schiff-base ligand H2L with Ln(NO3)(3)center dot 6H(2)O (Ln = Nd, Yb, Er or Gd), respectively (H2L: N, N'-bis(salicylidene) cyclohexane-1,2-diamine). The result of their photophysical properties shows that the strong and characteristic NIR luminescence for complexes 1 and 2 with emissive lifetimes in microsecond ranges are observed and the sensitization arises from the excited state (both (LC)-L-1 and (LC)-L-3) of the Salen-type Schiff-base ligand with the flexible linker.National Natural Science Foundation 21173165, 20871098Ministry of Education of China NCET-10-0936Higher Education of China 20116101110003State Key Laboratory of Structure Chemistry 20100014Education Committee Foundation of Shaanxi Province 11JK0588Hong Kong Research Grants Council, P. R. of China HKBU 202407, FRG/06-07/II-16)Hong Kong Research Grants Council, Robert A. Welch Foundation F-816Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board ARP 003658-0010-2006Petroleum Research Fund 47014-AC5Chemistr

The feasibility study of non-invasive fetal trisomy 18 and 21 detection with semiconductor sequencing platform

Objective: Recent non-invasive prenatal testing (NIPT) technologies are based on next-generation sequencing (NGS). NGS allows rapid and effective clinical diagnoses to be determined with two common sequencing systems: Illumina and Ion Torrent platforms. The majority of NIPT technology is associated with Illumina platform. We investigated whether fetal trisomy 18 and 21 were sensitively and specifically detectable by semiconductor sequencer: Ion Proton. Methods: From March 2012 to October 2013, we enrolled 155 pregnant women with fetuses who were diagnosed as high risk of fetal defects at Xiamen Maternal & Child Health Care Hospital (Xiamen, Fujian, China). Adapter-ligated DNA libraries were analyzed by the Ion Proton??? System (Life Technologies, Grand Island, NY, USA) with an average 0.3 ?? sequencing coverage per nucleotide. Average total raw reads per sample was 6.5 million and mean rate of uniquely mapped reads was 59.0%. The results of this study were derived from BWA mapping. Z-score was used for fetal trisomy 18 and 21 detection. Results: Interactive dot diagrams showed the minimal z-score values to discriminate negative versus positive cases of fetal trisomy 18 and 21. For fetal trisomy 18, the minimal z-score value of 2.459 showed 100% positive predictive and negative predictive values. The minimal z-score of 2.566 was used to classify negative versus positive cases of fetal trisomy 21. Conclusion: These results provide the evidence that fetal trisomy 18 and 21 detection can be performed with semiconductor sequencer. Our data also suggest that a prospective study should be performed with a larger cohort of clinically diverse obstetrics patients.open2

A Pressure-oriented Approach to Water Management

Without a comprehensive understanding of anthropogenic pressures on the water environment, it is difficult to develop effective and efficient strategies to support water management in a proactive way. A broader systems perspective and expanded information systems are therefore essential to aid in systematically exploring interlinks between socioeconomic activities and impaired waters at an appropriate scale. This thesis examined the root causes of human-induced water problems, taking the socioeconomic sector into account and using systems thinking and life cycle thinking as the two main methods. The European DPSIR (Drivers-Pressures-State of the Environment-Impacts-Responses) framework was also used as a basis for discussing two kinds of approaches to water management, namely state/impacts-oriented and pressure-oriented. The results indicate that current water management approaches are mainly state/impacts-oriented. The state/impacts-oriented approach is mainly based on observed pollutants in environmental monitoring and/or on biodiversity changes in ecological monitoring. Employing this approach, the main concern is hydrophysical and biogeochemical changes in the water environment and the end result is reactive responses to combat water problems. As a response, a pressure-oriented approach, derived from a DPR (Drivers-Pressures-Responses) model, was developed to aid in alleviating/avoiding human-induced pressures on the water environment. From a principal perspective, this approach could lead to proactive water-centric policy and decision making and the derivation of pressure-oriented information systems. The underlying principle of the DPR approach is that many root causes of human-induced water problems are closely related to anthroposphere metabolism. An industrial ecology (IE) perspective, based on the principle of mass/material balance, was also introduced to trace water flows in the human-oriented water system and to account for emissions/wastes discharged into the natural water system. This IE-based perspective should be used as part of the basis for developing pressure-oriented monitoring and assessing impacts of human-induced pressures on recipient waters. While demonstrating the use of the pressure-oriented approach, two conceptual frameworks were developed, for water quantity and water quality analysis, respectively. These two frameworks could help motivate decision makers to consider water problems in a broader socioeconomic and environment context. Thus they should be the first step in making a broader systems analysis in any given river basin, regarding setting systems boundary and identifying data availability. In this context, a combined hydrological and administrative boundary is suggested to monitor anthropogenic processes and organise socioeconomic activity statistics.QC 2012051

Stabilisering med alternativa bindemedel : Sammanställning av geotekniska egenskaper, klimatpåverkan och kostnad

Stabilization with lime/cement columns is a common method for soil reinforcement for road and railway construction. The production of lime and cement, however, has been associated with a major negative impact on the environment and climate. There is potential to reduce this impact by partially replacing cement and lime with alternative binders such as slag or fly ash. At present, there is uncertainty in the industry about the geotechnical and environmental properties of materials stabilized with alternative binders. This project gives an overview of geotechnical and chemical properties of materials stabilized with both traditional and alternative binders, compares prices for different binders, and makes an assessment of climate impact of different binders and stabilization alternatives using life-cycle analysis (LCA). The project discusss key stages in the planning cycle of a stabilization project and presents a workflow for the selection of binders and stablization method taking into consideration life cycle perspective

Life cycle impact assessment in the arctic: Challenges and research needs

Life cycle assessment (LCA) is increasingly used for environmental assessment of products and production processes to support environmental decision-making both worldwide and in the Arctic. However, there are several weaknesses in the impact assessment methodology in LCA, e.g., related to uncertainties of impact assessment results, absence of spatial differentiation in characterization modeling, and gaps in the coverage of impact pathways of different “archetypal” environments. Searching for a new resource base and areas for operation, marine and marine-based industries are continuously moving north, which underlines the need for better life cycle impact assessment in the Arctic, particularly to aid in industrial environmental management systems and stakeholder communications. This paper aims to investigate gaps and challenges in the application of the currently available impact assessment methods in the Arctic context. A simplified Arctic mining LCA case study was carried out to demonstrate the relevance of Arctic emissions at the midpoint and endpoint levels, as well as possible influences of the Arctic context on the impact assessment results. Results of this study showed that significant research gaps remain in Arctic-dependent life cycle impact assessment, particularly on: (i) the possible influences of the Arctic-specific features on characterization factors for impact assessment (such as seasonality, cold climate, precipitation, and marine dependence); and (ii) the coverage of impact pathways, especially on the under-addressed marine impacts and marine/near-shore dispersion processes. Addressing those identified research gaps and demand for future Arctic life cycle impact assessment could increase the credibility of LCA as an environmental decision-making support tool for Arctic industries and better support sustainable Arctic development

The 2000 EU Water Framework Directive and Chinese Water Management : experiences and perspectives

This paper addresses Integrated River Basin Management as a solution to water stress through a comparative analysis of water management in Europe and China. It makes a preliminary assessment of the European experiences so far with the Water Framework Directive (WFD) on river basin management and investigates its potential value for other areas, focusing on China. Problems and possibilities of policy transfer in the process of initiating and stimulating sustainable water management are investigated. Could the WFD, which seems to have beneficial impact in Europe, be used to reach the same results in China? We will deal with this and other questions, discussing the differences in water management and context between China and the EU and the problems with adopting a WFD inspired approach in China.QC 2011111

Klimatpåverkan från stabilitetshöjande åtgärder : Åtgärdsprojekt inom Älvängens västra industriområde, Ale kommun

Huvudsyftet med denna rapport var att beräkna klimatpåverkan från ett utfört stabilitetshöjande åtgärdsprojekt inom Älvängens västra industriområde, Ale kommun, baserat på projektspecifika mängduppgifter och klimatdata. Klimatberäkningarna omfattar samtliga utförda åtgärder, dvs. tryckbank, avlastningsschakt och naturanpassade erosionsskydd. Den totala klimatpåverkan (moduler A1-A5 och D) från det utförda åtgärdsprojektet uppgår till 934,8 ton CO2e, varav modul A1-A5 står för 88,7 % (832,9 ton CO2e) och modul D för 10,9 % (101,9 ton CO2e). I denna studie avser modul D klimatpåverkan i samband med den minskade elproduktionen (42,97 MWh per år) vid Lilla Edets vattenkraftverk, eftersom den anlagda tryckbanken utmed Göta älv skulle kunna orsaka en genomsnittlig dämningseffekt på 1,4 mm. När det gäller fördelningen av den totala klimatpåverkan mellan de olika åtgärderna svarar tryckbank för 89,9 % (totalt 840,6 ton CO2e inklusive modul D), avlastningsschakt för 8,4 % (78,6 ton CO2e) och erosionsskydd för 1,4 % (13,2 ton CO2e). Klimatpåverkan från åtgärden med tryckbank (738,7 ton CO2, modul A1-A5) är till stor del kopplad till tryckbanksmassor (45,1 %) och dieselförbrukning av arbetsmaskiner på arbetsplatsen (42,2 %). Tryckbanksmassornas klimatpåverkan kommer från produktionsskedet (33 %), följt av transport (12,1 %). Bidraget från dieselförbrukningen på arbetsplatsen fördelas mellan arbetsmaskiner på följande sätt: mudderverk (utläggning av tryckbanksmassor) 17 %, bogserbåt (transport av tryckbanksmassor mellan utlastningspunkt och utläggningsområden) 9,3 %, hjullastare (transport av tryckbanksmassor från upplag till utlastningspunk) 9,1 % och grävmaskin (utlastning av massor från utlastningspunk till pråmar) 6,8 %. För att ytterligare minska den totala klimatpåverkan från det utförda åtgärdsprojektet bör fokus läggas på bland annat inköp och transport av bergkrossprodukter med mindre klimatpåverkan. Dessutom skulle det vara värdefullt att undersöka möjligheter att minska klimatpåverkan från drivmedelsförbrukning för arbetsmaskiner på byggplatsen

Klimatpåverkan från geokonstruktioner för byggnader : En litteraturöversikt (2020-2023)

Under de senaste åren har minskning av inbäddade koldioxidutsläpp från byggnader blivit allt viktigare för att uppnå ett klimatneutralt byggande. Hittills har forskningen om klimatneutralt byggande huvudsakligen fokuserat på klimatpåverkan från byggmaterial i marköverbyggnaden, särskilt stommaterial. Däremot har klimatpåverkan från geokonstruktioner fått begränsad uppmärksamhet i litteraturen. Syftet med denna litteraturöversikt var att sammanfatta den aktuella kunskapen om klimatpåverkan från geokonstruktioner för byggnader, baserat på 45 fallstudier som presenterats i 15 utvalda vetenskapliga artiklar publicerade mellan januari 2020 och juli 2023. Målet var dels att kartlägga klimatpåverkan från geokonstruktioner baserat på dessa fallstudier, dels att identifiera eventuella kunskapsluckor inom området