Water-Quality Standards, Maximum Loads, and the Clean Water Act: The Need for Judicial Enforcement

The Clean Water Act of 1972 regulates the cleanliness of the nation\u27s waters by requiring federal and state pollution-control agencies to set water-quality standards and establish maximum loads. Confusion surrounds the requirement for maximum loads and federal courts have declined to enforce it. This Comment first examines the history of the Clean Water Act of 1972, then discusses four cases in which courts have refused to enforce maximum load requirements. The Comment analyzes the procedural and substantive requirements of judicial enforcement of maximum loads, as well as the nature of the pollution involved. The Comment concludes that the courts have erred and that Congress intended maximum loads to be comprehensive cleanup plans for ensuring compliance with water-quality standards, and proposes rules for maximum loads that would aid in judicial enforcement of the Act

Water-Quality Standards, Maximum Loads, and the Clean Water Act: The Need for Judicial Enforcement

The Clean Water Act of 1972 regulates the cleanliness of the nation\u27s waters by requiring federal and state pollution-control agencies to set water-quality standards and establish maximum loads. Confusion surrounds the requirement for maximum loads and federal courts have declined to enforce it. This Comment first examines the history of the Clean Water Act of 1972, then discusses four cases in which courts have refused to enforce maximum load requirements. The Comment analyzes the procedural and substantive requirements of judicial enforcement of maximum loads, as well as the nature of the pollution involved. The Comment concludes that the courts have erred and that Congress intended maximum loads to be comprehensive cleanup plans for ensuring compliance with water-quality standards, and proposes rules for maximum loads that would aid in judicial enforcement of the Act

Board gender diversity, feminine culture, and innovation for environmental sustainability

The environmental crisis is one of global society's most extreme grand challenges. One of the supply-side factors that can help cope with it is corporate environmental innovation. Based on the upper echelon and value belief theory and with significant empirical analyses, our results strongly support that the presence of women on the board positively impacts innovation aimed at environmental sustainability. The results are based on a sample of 19,800 firm-year observations of 2,966 unique firms in 54 industry groups domiciled in 52 countries for the 2003-2019 period. The global distribution of the firms means that the sample is diverse enough to examine our main hypotheses. In addition, we show that culturally masculine societies, as captured by their grammatical gender marking, have a negative impact on such innovation. The masculine culture also moderates the impact of gender board diversity on innovation for environmental sustainability. Our results are robust to a battery of empirical tests and definitions, including instrumental variable approach and propensity score matching causality tests. We further explored firms’ attitudes towards innovation for environmental sustainability by adding a qualitative case study research design to our quantitative analysis. That was based on Semi-structured interviews with board members and executives. The case studies provided additional support to the results in the quantitative analysis part. This study's empirical results have various broad theoretical and practical implications for board composition, taking into account the linguistic environment of the firm

DETERMINANTS AND OUTCOME OF SEPSIS AMONG INTENSIVE CARE UNIT PATIENTS OF A TERTIARY CARE HOSPITAL, SOUTHERN INDIA- A RETROSPECTIVE CASE–CONTROL STUDY

Objective: To assess the determinants and outcome of sepsis among intensive care unit (ICU) patients. Methods: A retrospective case–control design was used to assess the determinants and outcomes of sepsis among the patients hospitalized in the ICU from July 2016 to June 2017. Data were collected from the in-patient records of patients hospitalized in the ICU. The medical records were grouped as cases and controls based on the inclusion criteria and the presence or absence of sepsis. The patient list was prepared using the ICU admission register based on the ICD 10 classification of sepsis. From this list, medical records of 348 sepsis cases and 348 non-sepsis patients (controls) were reviewed. Data were collected using demographic pro forma, sepsis determinants checklist, and outcome determinants checklist. Results: Multivariate logistic regression analysis revealed that the likelihood of patients with pre-existing chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and renal failure developing sepsis was twice higher than those who did not have it. Previous hospitalization, heart disease, and the use of antibiotics were the major contributing factors that contributed to the development of sepsis. Most of the cases had septic shock with multi-organ failure. The control group had a faster rate of recovery, and the highest mortality rate was seen among sepsis patients. Conclusion: In the present study, the various risk factors for the development of sepsis were the presence of specific co-morbidities and multiple devices and catheters, such as central line, urinary catheter, Ryles tube, endotracheal tube, tracheostomy tube, and fulminating infections. Routine surveillance of infectious agents and infection control should be emphasize