Urban and rural carbon footprints in developing countries

A good understanding of household carbon emissions is an important part of forming climate mitigation strategies to achieve the goals set out in the Paris agreement. Numerous studies have been carried out on emissions from household consumption and the inequality between urban and rural areas in high-income developed countries, but there is a lack of in-depth analysis of such differences in developing countries. Our research details household carbon footprints of four urban and four rural income categories for 90 developing countries, by linking global expenditure data to the Environmentally Extended Multi-Regional Input-Output (EEMRIO) approach. We show that there are large inequalities between urban and rural areas in developing countries. The average per capita carbon footprint in urban areas tends to be larger than that of rural inhabitants ranging from twice as large to 9 times larger. We find that electricity consumption and transport are the largest contributors to the total carbon footprint in all expenditure groups. High-income rural households have an average per capita carbon footprint of 12.38 t CO2 which is 25% higher than the equivalent urban high-income group, which deviates from the literature looking at a subset of cases. Our study contributes to the existing research on carbon footprints by providing knowledge on the consumption patterns and related carbon emissions of urban and rural populations in these understudied parts of the world

Impacts of poverty alleviation on national and global carbon emissions

Wealth and income are disproportionately distributed among the global population. This has direct consequences on consumption patterns and consumption-based carbon footprints, resulting in carbon inequality. Due to persistent inequality, millions of people still live in poverty today. On the basis of global expenditure data, we compute country- and expenditure-specific per capita carbon footprints with unprecedented details. We show that they can reach several hundred tons of CO2 per year, while the majority of people living below poverty lines have yearly carbon footprints of less than 1 tCO2. Reaching targets under United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 1, lifting more than one billion people out of poverty, leads to only small relative increases in global carbon emissions of 1.6–2.1% or less. Nevertheless, carbon emissions in low- and lower-middle-income countries in sub-Saharan Africa can more than double as an effect of poverty alleviation. To ensure global progress on poverty alleviation without overshooting climate targets, high-emitting countries need to reduce their emissions substantially

The vulnerability of shifting towards a greener world:The impact of the EU's green transition on material demand

The green transition from fossil fuels to renewables requires acquisition of rare earth minerals and other materials for construction of renewable energy technologies and may lead to new dependencies through imports potentially causing immense pressure on global supply chains. This study investigates the material vulnerability of sectors and countries in the EU. Vulnerability maps are created for the EU's material demands by combining three analyses: input-output analysis, forward linkage analysis and network analysis. The approach reveals the relative importance of individual sectors and their vulnerability given increasing demand. As such, the analyses help to identify which sectors, based on their current implementation of renewable energy sources, could put a country and the EU at risk of not meeting their mitigation targets by 2050. The analysis concludes that Austria, Germany, the Czech Republic, Denmark and Slovakia will experience particularly large material vulnerabilities in several of the materials investigated. Hence, such findings can provide early warnings to sectors and countries about potential implications in their supply chains along with potential mitigation measures such as secondary sourcing, material substitution and material diplomacy

Imaging of lumpectomy surface with large field-of-view confocal laser scanning microscopy 'Histolog® scanner' for breast margin assessment in comparison with conventional specimen radiography

Purpose: The Histolog® Scanner (SamanTree Medical SA, Lausanne, Switzerland) is a large field-of-view confocal laser scanning microscope designed to allow intraoperative margin assessment by the production of histological images ready for assessment in the operating room. We evaluated the feasibility and the performance of the Histolog® Scanner (HS) to correctly identify infiltrated margins in clinical practice of lumpectomy specimens. It was extrapolated if the utilization of the HS has the potential to reduce infiltrated margins and therefore reduce re-operation rates in patients undergoing breast conserving surgery (BCS) due to a primarily diagnosed breast cancer including ductal carcinoma in situ. Methods: This is a single-center, prospective, non-interventional, diagnostic pilot study including 50 consecutive patients receiving BCS. The complete surface of the specimen was scanned using the HS intraoperatively. The surgery and the intraoperative margin assessment of the specimen was performed according to the clinical routine consisting of conventional specimen radiography as well as the clinical impression of the surgeon. Three surgeons and an experienced pathologist assessed the scans produced by the HS for cancer cells on the surface. The potential of the HS to correctly identify involved margins was compared to the results of the conventional specimen radiography alone as well as the clinical routine. The histopathological report served as the gold standard. Results: 50 specimens corresponding to 300 surfaces were scanned by the HS. The mean sensitivity of the surgeons to identify involved margins with the HS was 37.5% ± 5.6%, the specificity was 75.2% ± 13.0%. The assessment of resection margins by the pathologist resulted in a sensitivity of 37.5% and a specificity of 81.0%, while the local clinical routine resulted in a sensitivity of 37.5% and a specificity of 78.2%. Conclusion: Acquisition of high-resolution histological images using the HS was feasible in clinical practice. Sensitivity and specificity were comparable to clinical routine. With more specific training and experience on image interpretation and acquisition, the HS may have the potential to enable more accuracy in the margin assessment of BCS specimens

Coulomb dissociation of O-16 into He-4 and C-12

We measured the Coulomb dissociation of O-16 into He-4 and C-12 within the FAIR Phase-0 program at GSI Helmholtzzentrum fur Schwerionenforschung Darmstadt, Germany. From this we will extract the photon dissociation cross section O-16(alpha,gamma)C-12, which is the time reversed reaction to C-12(alpha,gamma)O-16. With this indirect method, we aim to improve on the accuracy of the experimental data at lower energies than measured so far. The expected low cross section for the Coulomb dissociation reaction and close magnetic rigidity of beam and fragments demand a high precision measurement. Hence, new detector systems were built and radical changes to the (RB)-B-3 setup were necessary to cope with the high-intensity O-16 beam. All tracking detectors were designed to let the unreacted O-16 ions pass, while detecting the C-12 and He-4

A Semidefinite Relaxation based Branch-and-Bound Method for Tight Neural Network Verification

We introduce a novel method based on semidefinite program (SDP) for the tight and efficient verification of neural networks. The proposed SDP relaxation advances the present SoA in SDP-based neural network verification by adding a set of linear constraints based on eigenvectors. We extend this novel SDP relaxation by combining it with a branch-and-bound method that can provably close the relaxation gap up to zero. We show formally that the proposed approach leads to a provably tighter solution than the present SoA. We report experimental results showing that the proposed method outperforms baselines in terms of verified accuracy while retaining an acceptable computational overhead

Urban and rural carbon footprints in developing countries

A good understanding of household carbon emissions is an important part of forming climate mitigation strategies to achieve the goals set out in the Paris agreement. Numerous studies have been carried out on emissions from household consumption and the inequality between urban and rural areas in high-income developed countries, but there is a lack of in-depth analysis of such differences in developing countries. Our research details household carbon footprints of four urban and four rural income categories for 90 developing countries, by linking global expenditure data to the Environmentally Extended Multi-Regional Input-Output (EEMRIO) approach. We show that there are large inequalities between urban and rural areas in developing countries. The average per capita carbon footprint in urban areas tends to be larger than that of rural inhabitants ranging from twice as large to 9 times larger. We find that electricity consumption and transport are the largest contributors to the total carbon footprint in all expenditure groups. High-income rural households have an average per capita carbon footprint of 12.38 t CO2 which is 25% higher than the equivalent urban high-income group, which deviates from the literature looking at a subset of cases. Our study contributes to the existing research on carbon footprints by providing knowledge on the consumption patterns and related carbon emissions of urban and rural populations in these understudied parts of the world

ecologically unequal exchanges driven by EU consumption

In our globalized economy, the consumption of goods and services induces economic benefits but also environmental pressures and impacts around the world. Consumption levels are especially high in the current 27 member countries of the European Union (EU), which are some of the wealthiest economies in the world. Here, we determine the global distribution of ten selected environmental pressures and impacts, as well as value added induced by EU consumption from 1995 to 2019. We show that large shares of all analysed environmental pressures and impacts are outsourced to countries and regions outside the EU, while more than 85% of the economic benefits stay within the member countries. But there is also uneven distribution of costs and benefits within the EU. Over the analysed period, pressures and impacts induced by EU consumption largely decreased within the EU but increased outside its borders. We show that Eastern European neighbours of the EU experienced the highest environmental pressures and impacts per unit of GDP associated with EU consumption. The findings of this research add to the discussions on outsourcing environmental pressures and impacts and highlight the need for a reduction of pressures and impacts induced by EU consumption.</p

Burden of the global energy price crisis on households

The Russia–Ukraine conflict has triggered an energy crisis that directly affected household energy costs for heating, cooling and mobility and indirectly pushed up the costs of other goods and services throughout global supply chains. Here we bridge a global multi-regional input–output database with detailed household-expenditure data to model the direct and indirect impacts of increased energy prices on 201 expenditure groups in 116 countries. On the basis of a set of energy price scenarios, we show that total energy costs of households would increase by 62.6–112.9%, contributing to a 2.7–4.8% increase in household expenditures. The energy cost burdens across household groups vary due to differences in supply chain structure, consumption patterns and energy needs. Under the cost-of-living pressures, an additional 78 million–141 million people will potentially be pushed into extreme poverty. Targeted energy assistance can help vulnerable households during this crisis. We emphasize support for increased costs of necessities, especially for food

Diltiazem Prophylaxis for the Prevention of Atrial Fibrillation in Patients Undergoing Thoracoabdominal Esophagectomy: A Retrospective Cohort Study

Background!#!Atrial fibrillation (AF) represents the most frequent arrhythmic disorder after thoracoabdominal esophageal resection and is associated with a significant increase in perioperative morbidity and mortality.!##!Methods!#!In this retrospective cohort study, 167 patients who underwent thoracoabdominal esophagectomy at a large university hospital were assessed. We compared patients who received a 14-day postoperative course of diltiazem with a control group of patients who did not undergo diltiazem prophylaxis. Diltiazem therapy started immediately upon admission to the intensive care unit (ICU) with a loading dose of 0.25 mg/kg bodyweight (i.v.) followed by continuous infusion (0.1 mg/kg bodyweight/h) for 40-48 h. Oral administration (Dilzem!##!Results!#!A total of 117 patients were assessed. Twelve (10.3%) of all patients developed postoperative new-onset atrial fibrillation in the first 30 days after surgical intervention. Prevalence of new-onset AF showed no significant differences between the diltiazem group and control group (p = 0.74). The prevalence of bradycardia (14.7% vs. 3.6%; p = 0.03) and dose of norepinephrine required (0.09 vs. 0.04 µg/kg bodyweight/min; p = 0.04) were higher in the diltiazem group. There were no significant differences between the groups for the median postoperative duration of hospital/ICU stay or mortality.!##!Conclusions!#!A prophylactic 14-day postoperative course of diltiazem was not associated with a reduction in new-onset AF or 30-day mortality following thoracoabdominal esophagectomy. Prophylactic diltiazem therapy was associated with drug-related adverse effects such as bradycardia and increased requirement of norepinephrine. German Clinical Trial Registration Number: DKRS00016631