The Carbon Rush: The Truth Behind the Carbon Market Smokescreen edited by Amy Miller

Michael Classens reviews The Carbon Rush: The Truth Behind the Carbon Market Smokescreen, edited by Amy Miller

Ultra-high-resolution dual-source CT for forensic dental visualization—discrimination of ceramic and composite fillings

Dental identification is the most valuable method to identify human remains in single cases with major postmortem alterations as well as in mass casualties because of its practicability and demanding reliability. Computed tomography (CT) has been investigated as a supportive tool for forensic identification and has proven to be valuable. It can also scan the dentition of a deceased within minutes. In the present study, we investigated currently used restorative materials using ultra-high-resolution dual-source CT and the extended CT scale for the purpose of a color-encoded, in scale, and artifact-free visualization in 3D volume rendering. In 122 human molars, 220 cavities with 2-, 3-, 4- and 5-mm diameter were prepared. With presently used filling materials (different composites, temporary filling materials, ceramic, and liner), these cavities were restored in six teeth for each material and cavity size (exception amalgam n = 1). The teeth were CT scanned and images reconstructed using an extended CT scale. Filling materials were analyzed in terms of resulting Hounsfield units (HU) and filling size representation within the images. Varying restorative materials showed distinctively differing radiopacities allowing for CT-data-based discrimination. Particularly, ceramic and composite fillings could be differentiated. The HU values were used to generate an updated volume-rendering preset for postmortem extended CT scale data of the dentition to easily visualize the position of restorations, the shape (in scale), and the material used which is color encoded in 3D. The results provide the scientific background for the application of 3D volume rendering to visualize the human dentition for forensic identification purpose

From Dismal Swamp to Smiling Farms

Driving through the Holland Marsh one is struck immediately by the black richness of its soil. This is some of the most profitable farmland in Canada. But the small agricultural preserve just north of Toronto is a canary in a coal mine. From Dismal Swamp to Smiling Farms recounts the transformation, use, and protection of the Holland Marsh, exploring how human ideas about nature shape agriculture, while agriculture in turn shapes ideas about nature. Drawing on interviews, media accounts, and archival data, Michael Classens concludes that celebrations of the Marsh as the quintessential example of peri-urban food sustainability and farmland protection have been too hasty. Instead, he demonstrates how capitalism and liberalism have fashioned and ultimately imperilled agriculture in the area. This fascinating case study reveals the contradictions and deficiencies of contemporary farmland preservation paradigms, highlighting the challenges of forging a more socially just and ecologically rational food system

Quality assessment of thyroid ultrasound and implementation of a standard reporting template to be used in training hospitals

A research report submitted to the Faculty of Health Sciences, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Medicine in the branch of Diagnostic Radiology, Johannesburg, 2017Ultrasound is the conventional and best imaging modality used to visualize the thyroid and thyroid-related disease. An adequate ultrasound report can significantly influence clinicians in making management decisions in these patients. Aim: The aim of this study was to critically assess the quality of thyroid ultrasound reports generated at Charlotte Maxeke Johannesburg Academic Hospital (CMJAH), a training hospital in Johannesburg, South Africa. Method: A retrospective cross-sectional study was performed. The quality of thyroid ultrasound reports was determined by using a data collection sheet that included items that should be contained in a thyroid ultrasound report. The contents of the data collection sheet was guided by current literature (including Thyroid Imaging Reporting and Data System (TIRADS); Thyroid, Head and Neck Cancer Foundation (THANC); American Thyroid Association guidelines (ATA), British Thyroid Association guidelines (BTA) and the Society for Endocrine, Metabolism and Diabetes of South Africa (SEMDSA)). The data collection sheet was designed by the principal investigator and supervisors. The quality of reports of training radiologists, sonographers as well as qualified radiologists were documented. Comparisons of the quality of reports was made between the above groups of reporters.XL201

Kensington Market: Collective Memory, Public History, and Toronto’s Urban Landscape

Book review by Michael Classens of Kensington Market: Collective Memory, Public History, and Toronto’s Urban Landscape written by Na Li

From Dismal Swamp to Smiling Farms: Socio-Ecological Change and Making Food in the Holland Marsh

In the early 1920s a three thousand hectare area of the Holland River lowlands, 60 kilometers north of Toronto, Ontario, was canalized, drained and transformed into fields. In the contemporary period, wetlands are places to protect not dredge, drain and farm. Yet in the 1920s support for the conversion of the Holland Marsh was virtually unanimous. Indeed in 1920 not converting the wetland to farmland would have been considered reckless. The pages that follow excavate the complex social, political, biophysical, and cultural processes that account for this significant divergence in ideas about, and uses of, land. Through a chronological environmental history of the area, important historical conjunctures and constellations of institutions, ideologies and technologies responsible for driving landscape change and the production of nature in the Holland Marsh are highlighted. Conceptually, I problematize the idea that the agricultural landscape is natural by drawing on Neil Smiths (2008 [1984]) provocative production of nature thesis. I combine this with more traditional political economic and political ecological approaches to the study of food agriculture in order to elaborate and extend Smiths work. I demonstrate that the context of natures production the actors, institutions, locale, history and politics both facilitate and impinge upon the production of nature