Real Remediation Research Articles

Analysis of social perception and field verification as a route to evaluation of environmental liabilities in Colombia: Case study Cesar (Colombia)

The extractive sector is positioned as one of the most polluting activities, contributing considerably to the environmental liabilities (EL) generation, especially in countries with a significant dependence on mining resources exploitation, such as Latin America. Colombia represents a good approximation to this scenario, mainly due to the convergence between high biodiversity and mineral deposits (first producer of emeralds worldwide, and first and second in coal and gold for Latin America). In Colombia, the economic valuation and the classification of EL have been proposed as tools to manage Els. However, a process of valuation and classification that includes a pluralistic approach is essential to obtain a better understanding of the implications of the EL in the territories, and with it, the validation of the management mechanisms. A case study of environmental liabilities for coal mining is shown, through which the sufficiency and assertiveness of the classification and economic valuation of liabilities developed by Rodríguez-Zapata and Ruiz-Agudelo (2021) is analyzed. The evaluated EL typologies were considered as an adequate tool to support the operationalization of EL focused on its management, however, due to the null capacity to detect the mismatch between a legal/administrative declaration of remediation of damages and a real remediation, this is considered insufficient to prioritize the degree of EL management and with this its urgency for intervention. In relation to the revision to the economic valuation, the reported amount of US$ 2.4 billion seems to be underestimating the costs of the ELs, mainly due to the magnitude of the human and natural communities on which each of these falls.

Experimental Characterisation and Field Experience of a Reusable, Modified Polyurethane Foam for the Mechanical Clean-Up of Oil Spills on the Sea Surface

Oil spills at sea, such as the Deepwater Horizon incident in 2010, are devastating environmental hazards, especially for biodiversity in the maritime ecosystem. In order to help the restoration of coastlines, it is critical to clean the oil up quickly and efficiently with various measures, such as the use of barriers, skimmers, sorbents, dispersing agents, in situ burning, and biological agents. However, most of them still cause high remediation costs; are inefficient, non-reusable, and not environmentally friendly; lack a convenient desorption method; or are simply not yet ready to use in a real-case scenario, where high amounts of hydrocarbons must be removed. Therefore, in this work, a reusable modified polyurethane foam for oil absorption on the sea surface is presented and characterised. Due to a chemical formulation with a special co-polymer, its oleophilic properties are strongly enhanced. Laboratory soaking tests with different oils and a mixture of Louisiana sweet crude oil with artificial sea water (ASW) are conducted. To do so, a pneumatic press with adjustable pressures was used to characterise the foam’s capability to recover oil between 10 and 18 times its own weight for a period of up to 50 consecutive repetitions with a maximum saturation in less than one minute. Sequential trials with different oil mass fractions in ASW determined a decreasing content of recovered ASW with increasing amounts of crude oil, while, in all cases, the total oil recovery rate proved to be more than 90% within one’s standard deviation. Finally, practical applications of sorption methods are presented to give an idea of difficulties encountered in real remediation scenarios.

Retracted] Numerical Simulation Method for Microbial Remediation Effect of Nano Heavy Metal Contaminated Soil

Heavy metal soil remediation is an important component in mitigating environmental problems, and microbial remediation has good treatment effect, good environmental affinity, and high treatment cost treatment efficiency. Numerical simulations of soil remediation effects enable the selection of suitable remediation methods and the determination of the optimal remediation input ratio. However, the current numerical simulation mainly relies on a single mathematical model, and the simulation error is large when applied to the microbial remediation with large variability. Numerical simulation methods of microbial remediation impacts of heavy metal contaminated soils will be investigated to overcome the foregoing problems. By researching the migratory law of heavy metal contaminated soil components, the process of microbial remediation of heavy metal contaminated soil will be examined, and a microbial proliferation model will be constructed. The numerical simulation of microbial remediation effect is realized by using HYDRUS to inverse solve the data of small laboratory tests and obtain the relevant parameters for numerical simulation. The maximum simulation error of the method studied at the time of testing was 2.1%, the simulation trend was consistent with the real remediation effect, and the simulation results were reliable. Although the simulation results of the numerical simulation method of the microbial remediation effect of heavy metal polluted soil proposed in this paper differ from actual values of the microbial remediation of heavy metals in soil, the overall trend of changes in soil heavy metal content is similar. It reveals that the outcomes of the approach investigated in this work are somewhat trustworthy when numerically modeling the effect of microbial remediation of heavy metals in soils. In other words, the numerical modeling approach utilized in this work to examine the impact of microbial remediation of heavy metal‐contaminated soil is highly precise and effective.

Comparative effects of Tagetes patula L. extraction, mercapto-palygorskite immobilisation, and the combination thereof on Cd accumulation by wheat in Cd-contaminated soil

Phytoextraction and in situ immobilisation are two of the most commonly used remediation techniques for Cd-contaminated farmland. In theory, phytoextraction followed by immobilisation can reduce the total Cd and available Cd contents of the soil, making it suitable for the remediation of heavily Cd-contaminated alkaline soil. However, the real remediation efficiency is uncertain, and it is also unknown whether phytoextraction affects subsequent wheat Cd accumulation. In this study, two seasonal pot experiments were conducted to determine the effects of S,S-ethylenediamine disuccinic acid (EDDS)-assisted Tagetes patula L. (T. patula) extraction, mercapto-palygorskite (MPAL) immobilisation, and the combination thereof on subsequent Cd accumulation in wheat. EDDS application significantly increased the Cd content in the subsequent-soil solution, but the EDDS-activated Cd could not be absorbed by wheat roots. T. patula extraction decreased the subsequent soil pH value by 0.1–0.2 pH units, increased the available Cd content by 0.19 mg/kg, but had no effect on subsequent wheat Cd accumulation. The Cd absorption capacity of wheat roots and the Cd translocation capacity of wheat stems to grains of high-Cd wheat were higher than that of low-Cd wheat cultivar. The application of MPAL had no effect on soil pH value, but significantly decreased soil available Cd and exchangeable Cd contents by 17.78–36.76% and 21.13–52.63%; it also increased the Fe/Mn oxide-bound Cd fraction by 14.02–64.00%. MPAL application decreased the wheat grain Cd concentrations from 0.51 to 0.13 mg/kg (high-Cd wheat) and 0.35 to 0.05 mg/kg (low-Cd wheat), but had no negative effect on Fe, Mn, Cu, and Zn elements. Compared with the single MPAL application treatments, the combination treatments had no inhibition effect on Cd accumulation in wheat. MPAL is an efficient amendment, and considering the remediation efficiency, stability, and time of these methods, the combination of MPAL application with a low-Cd accumulation wheat cultivar represents a suitable proposal to ensure the safe production of wheat in Cd-contaminated alkaline soil.

Medieval Historical Writing: Britain and Ireland, 500–1500. Edited by Jennifer Jahner, Emily Steiner, and Elizabeth M. Tyler. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019. Pp. xvi+581.

<i>Medieval Historical Writing: Britain and Ireland, 500–1500</i>. Edited by Jennifer Jahner, Emily Steiner, and Elizabeth M. Tyler. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019. Pp. xvi+581.

The Mechanism of Programmed Aging: The Way to Create a Real Remedy for Senescence.

BackgroundAccumulation of various damages is considered the primary cause of aging throughout the history of gerontology. No progress has been made in extending animal lifespan under the guidance of this concept. This concept denies the existence of longevity genes, but it has been experimentally shown that manipulating genes that affect cell division rates can increase the maximum lifespan of animals. These methods of prolonging life are unsuitable for humans because of dangerous side effects, but they undoubtedly indicate the programmed nature of aging.ObjectiveThe objective was to understand the mechanism of programmed aging to determine how to solve the problem of longevity.MethodsFundamental research has already explored key details relating to the mechanism of programmed aging, but they are scattered across different fields of knowledge. The way was to recognize and combine them into a uniform mechanism.ResultsOnly a decrease in bioenergetics is under direct genetic control. This causes many different harmful processes that serve as the execution mechanism of the aging program. The aging rate and, therefore, lifespan are determined by the rate of cell proliferation and the magnitude of the decrease in bioenergetics per cell division in critical tissues.ConclusionThe mechanism of programmed aging points the way to achieving an unlimited healthy life; it is necessary to develop a means for managing bioenergetics. It has already been substantially studied by molecular biologists and is now waiting for researchers from gerontology.

Sin: A Thomistic Psychology by Steven J. Jensen

Reviewed by: Sin: A Thomistic Psychology by Steven J. Jensen Romanus Cessario O.P. Sin: A Thomistic Psychology. By Steven J. Jensen. Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2018. Pp. 336. $34.95 (soft). ISBN: 978-0-8132-3033-7. The Center for Thomistic Studies at the University of St. Thomas in Houston enjoys prominence among faculties devoted to the study of Saint Thomas Aquinas. Since 1975 a succession of recognized authorities in the field of Thomist studies has taught there. Steven Jensen, who currently serves as Director for the Center and also holds the Bishop Nold Chair in Graduate Philosophy, continues a work that began under the directorship of Professor Anton C. Pegis, formerly president of the Institute of Mediaeval Studies at Toronto. The Center places Houston on the map of Thomist centers throughout the world, alongside Toulouse, Rome, and Fribourg—to name only a few. The present volume witnesses to the quality of the scholarship that one has come to associate with Texas Thomism. Distinguer pour unir recalls an important work of the Thomist author Jacques Maritain, who visited the Houston Center and is numbered among its honorary members. Distinguish to unite captures the overall achievement of Jensen’s presentation of what he calls a Thomistic psychology. In other words, the author demonstrates the remarkable ability of a good thinker to expose the arguments of those colleagues who purport to interpret the same texts that he does. In this case, the texts under analysis come from the pen of the Angelic Doctor, especially the Secunda pars of the Summa theologiae and the disputed questions De malo. Both works date from roughly the same period of Aquinas’s teaching career (the late 1260s and early 1270s). It is a fair generalization to state that the way Aquinas understands the specifically human workings of the rational animal differs from how many theorists of our period explain human behavior. To claim, as Aquinas does, that “a good understood [bonum intellectum] is the will’s object and moves it by being something to aim for” (STh I, q. 82, a. 4) separates Thomists from those who hold that human actions arise from anything but an understood good. To further claim “that in all of our choices we always act for some good” (1) introduces a number of questions that the author treats in chapter 1 under the heading of “The Enigma of an Evil Will.” Facile replies to questions about the relationship of the will to the highest good leads to assertions that would easily fit in the mouth of someone like Goethe’s Mephistopheles. The authentic Christian tradition, however, will not allow evil to determine anything. Had Adam not sinned, Jensen would not have had to write this book. However, original sin entered the world. Christian thinkers, then, face the challenge of explaining the existence of disorder in a world that God created good. I believe that the author chose the title that he did, Sin, in order to make this point. One, therefore, may be forgiven for thinking that a book about Aquinas’s discussion of human willing would most fittingly carry the title [End Page 318] “Blessedness,” whereas casuist authors might hawk their wares by promising cogent thought about sins. The present author, however, cleverly draws us to his subject by his implicit appeal to that which no Christian can escape. Once Christ dies on Calvary, those who follow him must seek to promote the good and to restrain what is evil. Aquinas in fact makes this point explicitly at the start of the Tertia pars. Some have even argued that the whole of the Summa exposes the path persons must follow to become what God made the human creature to be. Jensen outlines the mistakes that thinkers have made about how one should walk along this path. We need to know these errors, even though it remains the case that the only real remedy for the mistakes humans make provides work for theologians and not philosophers. Chapter 2 introduces the various ways in which contemporary philosophers interpret Aquinas’s teleology. The word “teleology” does not appear in the Index. Jensen discusses the ways...

Corrective Justice of Constructive Trusts and Drawing upon the Constructive Trusts Institution: Take the Misappropriation of Corporate Opportunities as an Illustration

Our Corporation Law clearly provides that directors and key managers have the duty not to misappropriate the corporate opportunities and the benefits obtained from the breach of the duty should be of the corporation, that is, the corporation has the disgorgement right”. This provision over the legal remedy of the misappropriation of corporate opportunities by directors and key managers aims to incorporate the benefits into the corporation, which is based on the theory of unjust enrichment and doesn’t grant the victims with the real remedies for the breach of fiduciary duties. This cannot be sufficient to protect the victims’ rights: firstly, disgorgement of profits would be hindered, if benefits obtained by corporate fiduciaries would have been changed into other forms of property or transferred to the third party; secondly, corporate fiduciaries would not be liable to make up for the loss while the corporation hasn’t directly suffered a financial loss, but an opportunity loss; thirdly, disgorgement of profits based on the theory of unjust enrichment cannot give enough relief for such a wrong. The constructive trusts for the breach of fiduciary duty in the case of misappropriation of corporate opportunities shall have different legal effects: on the one hand, the victims can claim the disgorgement of profits by wrongdoers from the misappropriation of corporate opportunities; on the other hand, the benefits obtained by the wrongdoers can be traced by the victims through the real remedies while they have been transferred to the third party. According to the principle of the constructive trusts, the constructive trusts can be real remedy devices and personal remedy tools which can make up for the deficiency of the principle of unjust enrichment as remedy devices while the fiduciaries breach the fiduciary duty such as the misappropriation of corporate opportunities. The constructive trusts have advantages over the general creditors in the protection of rights. It is up to the parties to choose which remedy to protect themselves. The corrective function of constructive trusts is a measure of restitution of the wrongdoing from the breach of fiduciary duty. Constructive trusts have two corrective functions: disgorging the property and compensating the damages, which can provide the parties with a real remedy and a personal remedy. Especially a real remedy can offer victims a complete right protection mechanism, for it has an advantage over an ordinary creditor in the right protection. The institution of constructive trusts can fill the gap in the current statutory provisions of breach of fiduciary duties and make up for the deficiency of the rules of unjust enrichment, which cannot be substituted by other civil institutions and is worth being borrowed by our state’s trusts law. However, the conflicts among some legal ideas or concepts should be resolved when transplanting constructive trusts. The article takes the correction of the misappropriation of corporate opportunities as an illustration to study the corrective justice of constructive trusts, whose aim is to develop some theories related, promote the judicial practice, learn from constructive trusts and localize them by our state’s trusts law.

Dechlorination of p-Chlorophenol by Fe-Pd Nanoparticles Promoted by Poly (γ-glutamic acid)–Dopamine Composite

Palladium-doped nanoscale zerovalent iron nanoparticles (Fe-Pd NPs) was fabricated and stabilized by poly (γ-glutamic acid)–Dopamine composite (PGA-DA). The fabricated nanoparticles had high dechlorination activity towards p-Chlorophenol (p-CP). PGA-DA modified Fe-Pd NPs significantly outperformed PGA modified ones in catalytic activities even in weak alkaline condition. Fe-Pd NPs@PGA-DA (10 mg PGA-DA and 0.4 wt% Pd loading) could achieve 100 % p-CP removal within 60 min. It is worth mentioning that the presence of DA alone could overwhelm dechlorination capacity of Fe-Pd NPs toward p-CP. The coordination bonding between catechol and Fe ions was also investigated in detail. This study demonstrated that PGA-DA is a promising modifier and stabilizer for Fe-Pd NPs, which was expected to be applied in real environmental remediation technology.

Survival Rights for Children, What are the Upstream Barriers?

The determinants of health, water, food, shelter, a basic education and healthcare are minimum core human rights, or the rights required for survival and should be available to every child, in all countries, today. In a globalised world, there are limitations on all country’s ability to determine policy and control revenue, even when in the interest of public health. We carried out a review of the literature on the main leakages of revenue from low and middle-income countries and present a conceptual framework to identify policies or practices which may help or hinder children enjoying their survival rights. We suggest the analysis, country by country, to identify key barriers, in terms of policies and revenues (generation, allocation and utilisation). This involves systematically screening policies and practices of the main actors; national governments, high-income country partners, multinational enterprises, and international organisations for their possible influence on human rights realisation. We know that the cause of most of the child deaths in low and middle-income countries is a result of structural injustices, and while it may not be possible to prove causality between economic policies and breaches of rights, it is possible to audit upstream policy decisions through the lens of children’s right to their survival rights. We propose a pragmatic framework to do this. Child health advocates need to highlight the fact that technical interventions in the absence of action on structural injustices cannot address the fundamental causes of poor health. It could even be said that we collude with the fallacy that these injustices can be solved with technical solutions when we fail to speak out. Human rights and child health associations could lead or commission an upstream audit using this framework on behalf of children in their country in order to seek real remedies.

Rapid Evaluation of the Bioremediation of Fuel Oil in Soil by Gas Chromatography–Laser Ionization Time-of-Flight Mass Spectrometry

ABSTRACTGas chromatography–laser ionization time-of-flight mass spectrometry (GC-LI-TOFMS) was applied to the analysis of fuel oil in soil and soil treated by bioremediation. To demonstrate rapid and selective measurement, only filtered samples after extraction of fuel oil from soil were prepared. The required time for preparing three sample solutions from an oil-contaminated soil sample was only ca. 30 min. The degree of the decrease in the fuel oil in a soil sample by vaporization was confirmed by GC-LI-TOFMS, and after 7 days, the five peak areas arising from the constituents in fuel oil were decreased to between 39 and 79% of their original values. Next, the effect of bioremediation was confirmed by the addition of microbes (Rhodococcus sp. and Acinetobacter sp.). As a result, after 7 days, the five peak areas were decreased to between 61 and 81% of the values of the first decreases, after allowing for the effect of vaporization. This method showed sufficient selectivity, robustness, and rapidity for the measurement of oil-contaminated soil treated by bioremediation, which is essential for the evaluation of real environmental remediation.

Abstract 5925: Mapping the molecular communication within the tumor microenvironment of pancreatic cancer as well as between tumor and peritumoral tissue

Abstract We are analyzing in detail the molecular communication between the different cell types in the microenvironment of pancreatic ductal adenocarcinomas (PDAC). Also, its regulation is being investigated, looking at aspects such as the kind and mixture of molecules needed for triggering a particular regulative function, and unraveling the inter- and intracellular processes utilized to transmit a molecular message. Although a rare tumor entity, adding up to only about 3% of all cancer cases in the Western world, PDAC is the fourth most frequent cause of cancer-related death; mortality is nearly identical to incidence. There is no real remedy apart from surgery, which can be applied to only 10 to 20% of patients. Even then, basically all patients will experience tumor recurrence. Our study is based on a large basic set of data at the levels of DNA, RNA and protein that was generated from some 1000 pancreatic tumor samples [1], supplemented with information from studies that aim at an elucidation of functional molecules and comparative analyses in other tumors. This has already led to the creation of basic functional knowledge about metastasis [e.g., 2], the establishment of means for diagnosis [3, 4], an accurate disease prognosis [1], the characterization of communication processes [5] and the identification of new therapeutic avenues [6]. At the conference, we will report about the status of mapping particularly the protein-mediated communication between the different cell types in the tumor microenvironment. Also, we will show results about the effect that PDAC tissue has on the wider peritumoral environment and vice versa. The peritumoral tissue is exhibiting a field defect that does not seem to be dependent on DNA-methylation. A comparison of PDAC and cystic pancreatic tumors revealed that differences in communicating with the peritumoral tissue could actually be more important to the known pathological difference between the two cancer entities than the molecular variations in the tumor cells. 1. Bauer et al. (2017), work submitted for publication 2. Botla et al. (2016) Cancer Res. 76, 4149-4159 3. Keller et al. (2014) BMC Med. 12, 224 4. Moskalev et al. (2015) Oncotarget 6, 4418-4427 5. Dror et al. (2016) Nature Cell Biol. 18, 1006-1017 6. Jandaghi et al. (2016) Gastroenterology, in press (doi: 10.1053/j.gastro.2016.08.040) www.dkfz.de/funct_genome/ Note: This abstract was not presented at the meeting. Citation Format: Mohamed S. Alhamdani, Andrea S. Bauer, Jörg D. Hoheisel. Mapping the molecular communication within the tumor microenvironment of pancreatic cancer as well as between tumor and peritumoral tissue [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the American Association for Cancer Research Annual Meeting 2017; 2017 Apr 1-5; Washington, DC. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2017;77(13 Suppl):Abstract nr 5925. doi:10.1158/1538-7445.AM2017-5925

James Nehring. Why Teach? Notes and Questions from a Life in Education. New York: Rowman &amp; Littlefield, 2015. 190 pp. $65.00 (cloth); $32.00 (paper).

James Nehring. <i>Why Teach? Notes and Questions from a Life in Education</i>. New York: Rowman &amp; Littlefield, 2015. 190 pp. $65.00 (cloth); $32.00 (paper).

The Caliphate Is Not a Tweet Away: The Social Media Experience of Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb

ABSTRACTThis article offers a descriptive analysis of the propaganda activities of Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb on Internet social media. It examines the group's propaganda actions from its creation in 1998 until the end of 2015 and argues that the use of social media, Twitter in particular, has failed to offer any real remedy to its mediocre propaganda actions. During the period in which its Twitter profiles were active, the organization continued to manifest the same problems, including a shortage of qualified human resources and poor internal coordination, which had prevented it from engaging in efficient propaganda activity previously. The study of the social media experience of the group offers further evidence of the vulnerabilities of this Maghrebi jihadist organization.

Performance, Identity, and Immigration Law: A Theatre of Undocumentedness by Gad Guterman (review)

Reviewed by: Performance, Identity, and Immigration Law: A Theatre of Undocumentedness by Gad Guterman Christopher Goodson PERFORMANCE, IDENTITY, AND IMMIGRATION LAW: A THEATRE OF UNDOCUMENTEDNESS. By Gad Guterman. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014; pp. 248. In this well-researched study, Gad Guterman examines how the growing repertory of theatrical representations of undocumented immigrants “can bring those forced into spaces of nonexistence out of the shadows and, in so doing, mitigate the violence characteristic to those spaces” (4). For Guterman, this repertory has received scant attention, and, given the “screaming rhetoric” within the immigration debate, he seeks to answer the question, “How does theatre participate in making undocumentedness visible?” (10, 4). Avoiding an analytical structure based on nationality or ethnicity and instead foregrounding questions of movement, labor, and family, Guterman inventively titles his chapters with headings from the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965. He thereby unifies the plays through a legalistic framework, highlighting both the shifting frontier of undocumentedness and evolving US policy. Guterman concludes his first section by examining US immigration law, from the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 to Arizona State Bill 1070. In chapter 2, Guterman borrows Diana Taylor’s concept of the repeatable “scenario” and offers the “border scenario,” examining Genny Lim’s Paper Angels, which depicts Chinese immigrants at California’s Angel Island Immigration Detention Center, and Culture Clash’s Bordertown, a comedic take on Mexico/US border issues (34). For Guterman, both plays highlight the frailty and ambivalence of US law, as well as the border’s inherent theatricality. The plays, each depicting entry attempts into the United States, “expose the role that performance plays in maneuvering border interactions” (41). Guterman’s methodology is not limited to close readings of the texts, as he draws from both archival video and live performance. The live body is essential for him because not only does an actor’s ability to “cross-document” challenge an audience’s understanding of legal labels of identity, but real-world “performances of credibility” are integral to the immigrant experience, whether crossing the border or taking a citizen’s entrance exam (47, 41). Although Guterman applauds the intention of such plays, he ends his chapter with an incisive materialist analysis that shows how the work risks being de-historicized by a push to fit into ethnic cubbyholes. He uses chapter 3 to spotlight plays that exhibit the skewed power dynamics and unsustainable situations faced by domestic workers while at the same time provoking his readers to consider theatre-making’s deep entanglement with the exploitive practices that rely upon undocumented labor. While Guterman commends Lisa Loomer’s Living Out, Milcha Sánchez-Scott’s Latina, and Octavio Solis’s Lydia for their sympathetic depictions of female laborers at odds with the isolating conditions of domestic work, he also uncovers what he feels to be the ineffectiveness of the plays’ flattened and essentialized characters. Guterman strongly questions how the productions of these plays, imbricated in a capitalist system of labor exploitation (that is, the practices of their corporate sponsors and un-credited theatre custodians), offer any real remedy to those in undocumentedness. Suggesting that the plays perpetuate clichéd images of immigrants within a political economy of theatre that excludes those for whom it claims to advocate, Guterman provocatively suggests that the plays result in the practice of what he calls “undocumentedface,” a kind of questionable ventriloquism in which “the undocumented are representable and represented but not present” (93). Guterman’s next chapter skillfully examines the characters within Teatro de la Esperanza’s La Victima, Janet Noble’s Away Alone, and Guillermo Reyes’s Deporting the Divas to expose how US immigration law imposes meaning and value on various relationships, especially in regard to the upholding of heterosexual normativity. For the undocumented characters in these plays, whether in a multigenerational Mexican American family, in the surrogate families of the Irish diaspora, or in the twice-marginalized space of homosexual immigrants in California, the precarious state of legal nonexistence impedes their ability to maintain personal relationships. Although the plays ostensibly challenge the hypocrisies within US law, for Guterman, they often reinforce the compulsory heteronormativity that (in the real world) satisfies immigration authorities. In an...

Ceramic foam supported active materials for boron remediation in water

Due to the narrow range between boron necessities and toxicity in the environment, there is a high interest in the design of effective boron remediation procedures. We have previously reported a promising boron adsorption material based on the affinity of boron aqueous species for cis-diol groups that were anchored on different mesoporous silica matrices. However, the small particle size of these systems makes them difficult to be applied on real remediation situations. In this context we report herein a novel system for boron adsorption from aqueous solutions in which the high boron affinity for functionalized mesoporous materials is combined with the mechanical properties of ceramic foams as macroscopic supports. The efficiency of these new composites for boron removal is very high and comparable with the parent microparticulated adsorbent.

Notes Toward a Meteorology of the Cloud

The premise of detailed forecasts is meteorological observation. An ominous cloud has eclipsed the global horizon of neoliberal capitalist realism. Researching cloud formations, I queried Google with the search term “clouds.” However, when using the term “cloud,” I only received results about server-based computing. Thus the cloud is singular, not plural: 100% cloud cover, blanketing the sky with grey. This is not a marketing-friendly cumulus cloud, but rather a dark, sheetlike formation—what meteorologists call a pallium. Whereas curative approaches require consideration and cogitation—care—what the pallium offers instead is palliation; alleviation of symptoms without any real remedy. In accordance with the techno-utopian walled garden, opposing or divergent views are eradicated under the pallium, leaving us with an AstroTurfed landscape that is paralyzing in its uniformity. Luke Howard’s categories of tropospheric clouds parallel the multifarious manifestations of the contemporary cloud: in commercial data collection for targeted marketing, as well as in government surveillance for preemptive law enforcement. A digital meteorology of these formations—the benign cumuliform, appearing in the logos of corporate cloud-computing services; the grey, ominous stratiform; and the striated, interstellar cirriform—must be considered, in order to predict and prepare for the imminent approach of the panoptic pharmakon of the pallium, as it arrives under the guise of a swarm of cutesy cumulus clouds. Drawing from studies of panopticism, contemporary marketing practices, and the effluence tapped by Edward Snowden, this essay deploys hydrous analogies to forecast whether anything but AstroTurf can survive in the current climate.

Razing the Forest to Kill a Tree: EEOC V. Abercrombie and Why the Supreme Court Must Continue to Place the Burden of Actual Notice on Applicants and Employees in Title VII Requests for Religious Accommodation

The Supreme Court must affirm the 10th Circuit’s holding in EEOC v. Abercrombie that job applicants are required to give notice to an employer of a possible inflexible religious exemption from a facially-neutral corporate policy before the employer has a duty to accommodate that applicant under Title VII. Requiring applicants to bear the burden of providing notice is the most workable standard available that best comports with the aims of Title VII and the Civil Rights Act. The “suspicion of a possible conflict” approach advocated by the EEOC and debated at oral argument would conflate correct guesswork with actual knowledge, foster uncertainty, lead to muddled and marginal corporate HR policies, link the religious practices of groups with those of individual applicants, force employers to educate themselves about various forms of religious garb in contradiction with established precedent, and possibly result in unintentional yet invidious discrimination based on inquiring employers engaging in stereotypes and misperceptions of certain dress articles. The “suspicion of a possible conflict” standard is simply not tenable in practice. By contrast, the current state of the law-requiring the applicant to notify the employer of an accommodation — is clear, coheres to EEOC directives, and provides real remedies for applicants who take the initiative to understand corporate policies and determine whether they conflict with their own personal beliefs. Rather than unfairly discriminating against applicants or in any way limiting Title VII’s effect, the notice requirement protects applicants from improper employer assumptions and provides a clear “trigger point” past which a bilateral dialogue on reasonable accommodations must start.

Compensation of Analog-to-Digital Converter Nonlinearities using Dither

Analog-digital converters are inherently nonlinear. Conventional A/D conversion allows no real remedy afterwards. However, an alternative is to increase the available information by observing the transition instants, even with a conventional ADC. Performing the conversion with significant oversampling data points at threshold level crosses can be used. The values of these samples are precisely known, assuming histogram test was executed on the ADC beforehand. For almost constant signals having too few transition level crossings, dither is added. Interpolation is utilized to ensure uniformly sampled data points. This method reduces the conversion error considerably.

ENVIRONMENTAL CONDITION INDEX FOR ESTIMATION ON EUTROPHIC STATE OF ENCLOSED AQUIFER ECOSYSTEM

To evaluate the effect of sediment treatment on aquifer ecosystem, a new ecological index that is composed of water quality, sediment quality and biota quantity was proposed in this study. According to ECI (Environmental Condition Index), DAF treatment (Dissolved Air Flotation) + MgO sprinkling was assessed as the most efficiency method for improvement of eutrophicated ecosystem, that is, this method can make the organic matter quantity in aquatic ecosystem minimum level in comparison with other sediment treatment method. Also, for application of this method to real field remediation such as eutrophicated lake, marsh, reservoir and so on, more detailed analysis for treatment function and optimum condition of sediment treatment was considered to be necessary.