Green consumer markets in the fight against climate change

Climate change has become one of the greatest threats to environmental security, as attested by the growing frequency of severe flooding and storms, extreme temperatures and droughts. Accordingly, the European Union’s (EU) 6th Environment Action Programme (2010) lists tackling climate change as its first priority. A key aim of the EU has been to cut CO2 emissions, a major factor in climate change, by 8% until 2012 and 20% until 2020. The European Commission has proposed the encouragement of private consumer market for green products and services as one of several solutions to this problem. However, existing research suggests that the market share of these products has been only 3%, although 30% of individuals favour environmental and ethical goods. This article uses Public Goods Theory to explain why the contribution of the green consumer market to fighting climate change has been and possibly may remain limited without further public intervention

On the purification of α-cellulose from resinous wood for stable isotope (H, C and O) analysis

α-Cellulose was isolated from four samples of Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris L.). Each sample was divided into two portions. One portion had the resins removed by solvent extraction prior to removal of lignins by treatment with acidic sodium chlorite solution and treatment with sodium hydroxide solution to remove hemicelluloses. The other portion was processed in the same way apart from the solvent extraction step. The isolated wood constituents were characterised by attenuated total reflectance Fourier transform infrared (ATR/FT-IR) spectroscopy. The infrared spectra of the resulting α-cellulose samples were identical indicating that treatment with acidic sodium chlorite and sodium hydroxide was sufficient to remove resins. The values of the stable isotope ratios (carbon, oxygen and hydrogen) for each pair of α-cellulose sub-samples also showed no significant differences within the reproducibility of the methods. The implication of these studies demonstrate that the customary step of resin extraction from pine is unnecessary if sodium chlorite and sodium hydroxide are used for the isolation of α-cellulose following the technique described in this paper. In addition, the study demonstrates that the oxygen isotope ratio of the water used for cellulose extraction does not influence the stable isotope values in the α-cellulose obtained. The importance of isotopic homogeneity within the cellulose sample is also highlighted

Exhaled Nitric Oxide is Not a Biomarker for Pulmonary Tuberculosis.

To reduce transmission of tuberculosis (TB) in resource-limited countries where TB remains a major cause of mortality, novel diagnostic tools are urgently needed. We evaluated the fractional concentration of exhaled nitric oxide (FeNO) as an easily measured, noninvasive potential biomarker for diagnosis and monitoring of treatment response in participants with pulmonary TB including multidrug resistant-TB in Lima, Peru. In a longitudinal study however, we found no differences in baseline median FeNO levels between 38 TB participants and 93 age-matched controls (13 parts per billion [ppb] [interquartile range (IQR) = 8-26] versus 15 ppb [IQR = 12-24]), and there was no change over 60 days of treatment (15 ppb [IQR = 10-19] at day 60). Taking this and previous evidence together, we conclude FeNO is not of value in either the diagnosis of pulmonary TB or as a marker of treatment response

Plural policing in Europe:relationships and governance in contemporary security system

References to ‘plural policing’, ‘policing beyond the police’ and the ‘extended policing family’ are now commonplace in many discussions of policing in late modern societies. There is a danger that claims about the dynamic and changing nature of plural policing themselves become a new orthodoxy and begin to lose a sense of local nuance and recognition of the importance of place-based specificity and context in understanding the particularities of policing. It is this need to unpack the complex ways in which contemporary plural policing is now configured at a local level within different national political environments that provides the underpinning rationale for this Special Issue. Focussing on aspects of relationships and governance in six jurisdictions across northern and western Europe, it provides important insights into how the policies, practices and narratives around plural policing reflect the influence of particular histories and geographies. The first three articles are focused primarily on the relationships which have emerged in the public sector through its own processes of pluralisation, in particular, through the introduction of policing auxiliaries or municipal policing in Scotland, England and The Netherlands. The fourth article considers both relationships and governance in pluralised policing in Paris, France. A detailed analysis of the governance of safety and security is taken up in the final two articles, examining the cases of Austria and Belgium. These articles clearly demonstrate that experiences of pluralised policing vary widely within Europe and call into question the assumed dominance of neo-liberal forces in this area

Low-intensity microwave irradiation does not substantially alter gene expression in late larval and adult Caenorhabditis elegans.

Reports that low-intensity microwave radiation induces heat-shock reporter gene expression in the nematode, Caenorhabditis elegans, have recently been reinterpreted as a subtle thermal effect caused by slight heating. This study used a microwave exposure system (1.0 GHz, 0.5 W power input; SAR 0.9-3 mW kg-1 for 6-well plates) that minimises temperature differentials between sham and exposed conditions (≤0.1 °C). Parallel measurement and simulation studies of SAR distribution within this exposure system are presented. We compared 5 Affymetrix gene-arrays of pooled triplicate RNA populations from sham-exposed L4/adult worms against 5 gene-arrays of pooled RNA from microwave-exposed worms (taken from the same source population in each run). No genes showed consistent expression changes across all 5 comparisons, and all expression changes appeared modest after normalisation (≤ 40% up- or down-regulated). The number of statistically significant differences in gene expression (846) was less than the false-positive rate expected by chance (1131). We conclude that the pattern of gene expression in L4/adult C. elegans is substantially unaffected by low-intensity microwave radiation; the minor changes observed in this study could well be false positives. As a positive control, we compared RNA samples from N2 worms subjected to a mild heat-shock treatment (30ºC) against controls at 26 ºC (2 gene arrays per condition). As expected, heat-shock genes are strongly up-regulated at 30ºC, particularly an hsp-70 family member (C12C8.1) and hsp-16.2 . Under these heat-shock conditions, we confirmed that an hsp-16.2::GFP transgene was strongly up-regulated, whereas two non-heat-inducible transgenes (daf-16::GFP; cyp-34A9::GFP) showed little change in expression

A small temperature rise may contribute towards the apparent induction by microwaves of heatshock gene expression in the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans

We have previously reported that low-intensity microwave exposure (0.75-1.0 GHz CW at 0.5 W; SAR 4-40 mW kg-1) can induce an apparently non-thermal heat-shock response in Caenorhabditis elegans worms carrying hsp16-1::reporter genes. Using matched copper TEM cells for both sham and exposed groups, we can detect only modest reporter induction in the latter (15-20% after 2.5 h at 26°C, rising to ~50% after 20 h). Traceable calibration of our copper TEM cell by the National Physical Laboratory (NPL) reveals significant power loss within the cell (8.5% at 1.0 GHz), accompanied by slight heating of exposed samples (~0.3°C at 1.0 W). Thus exposed samples are in fact slightly warmer (by ≤0.2°C at 0.5 W) than sham controls. Following NPL recommendations, our TEM cell design was modified with the aim of reducing both power loss and consequent heating. In the modified silver-plated cell, power loss is only 1.5% at 1.0 GHz, and sample warming is reduced to ~ 0.15°C at 1.0 W (i.e. ≤ 0.1°C at 0.5 W). Under sham:sham conditions, there is no difference in reporter expression between the modified silverplated TEM cell and an unmodified copper cell. However, worms exposed to microwaves (1.0 GHz and 0.5 W) in the silver-plated cell also show no detectable induction of reporter expression relative to sham controls in the copper cell. Thus the 20% “microwave induction” observed using two copper cells may be caused by a small temperature difference between sham and exposed conditions. In worms incubated for 2.5 h at 26.0, 26.2 and 27.0°C (with no microwave field), there is a consistent and significant increase in reporter expression between 26.0 and 26.2°C (by ~20% in each of 6 independent runs), but paradoxically expression levels at 27.0°C are similar to those seen at 26.0°C. This surprising result is in line with other evidence pointing towards complex regulation of hsp16-1 gene expression across the sub-heat-shock range of 25-27.5°C in C. elegans. We conclude that our original interpretation of a non-thermal effect of microwaves cannot be sustained; at least part of the explanation appears to be thermal

Northern European trees show a progressively diminishing response to increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations

In order to predict accurately how elevated atmospheric CO2 concentrations will affect the global carbon cycle, it is necessary to know how trees respond to increasing CO2 concentrations. In this paper we examine the response over the period AD 1895 – 1994 of three tree species growing across northern Europe to increases in atmospheric CO2 concentrations using parameters derived from stable carbon isotope ratios of trunk cellulose. Using the isotope data we calculate values of intrinsic water-use efficiency (IWUE) and intercellular CO2 concentrations in the leaf (ci). Our results show that trees have responded to higher levels of atmospheric CO2 by increasing IWUE whilst generally maintaining constant ci values. However, the IWUE of most of the trees in this study has not continued to rise in line with increasing atmospheric CO2. This behaviour has implications for estimations of future terrestrial carbon storage

Historical Criminology and the Explanatory Power of the Past

To what extent can the past ‘explain’ the present? This deceptively simple question lies at the heart of historical criminology (research which incorporates historical primary sources while addressing present-day debates and practices in the criminal justice field). This article seeks first to categorise the ways in which criminologists have used historical data thus far, arguing that it is most commonly deployed to ‘problematize’ the contemporary rather than to ‘explain’ it. The article then interrogates the reticence of criminologists to attribute explicative power in relation to the present to historical data. Finally, it proposes the adoption of long time-frame historical research methods, outlining three advantages which would accrue from this: the identification and analysis of historical continuities; a more nuanced, shared understanding of micro/macro change over time in relation to criminal justice; and a method for identifying and analysing instances of historical recurrence, particularly in perceptions and discourses around crime and justice

Media representation of regulated incivilities: Relevant actors, problems, solutions and the role played by experts in the Flemish press

This article analyses the representations of regulated nuisance in a section of Flemish newspapers over time. It identifies the groups of people who have been successful in conveying messages in and through Flemish press news, and explores the way they have represented problems of, and suggested solutions to, regulated incivilities over the years. Furthermore, against the backdrop of newsmaking criminology, it considers whether and how crime and justice experts have contributed to shaping the Flemish media discourse on regulated incivilities over time. Overall the analysis of press news has found that the press, by giving coverage to the voices of local institutional actors, has promoted the criminalization of nuisance and, especially, of physical incivilities. The views of criminological experts, by contrast, have remained marginal. The article concludes by suggesting how such findings present a new set of empirical and conceptual challenges for newsmaking criminology, and more generally, for public criminology