Sufficient Scale Research Articles

A Comparative Study Between Two Systems with and Without Awareness in Controlling HIV/AIDS

Abstract It has always been a priority for all nations to reduce new HIV infections by implementing a comprehensive HIV prevention programme at a sufficient scale. Recently, the ‘HIV counselling & testing’ (HCT) campaign is gaining public attention, where HIV patients are identified through screening and immediately sent under a course of antiretroviral treatment (ART), neglecting the time extent they have been infected. In this article, we study a nonlinear mathematical model for the transmission dynamics of HIV/AIDS system receiving drug treatment along with effective awareness programs through media. Here, we consider two different circumstances: when treatment is only effective and when both treatment and awareness are included. The model is analyzed qualitatively using the stability theory of differential equations. The global stabilities of the equilibria under certain conditions are determined in terms of the model reproduction number. The effects of changes in some key epidemiological parameters are investigated. Projections are made to predict the long term dynamics of the disease. The epidemiological implications of such projections on public health planning and management are discussed. These studies show that the aware populations were less vulnerable to HIV infection than the unaware population.

How We Invest

In this chapter from their new book, Climate of Hope: How Cities, Businesses, and Citizens Can Save the Planet, the founder of Bloomberg LP and former mayor of New York City collaborates with the former executive director of the Sierra Club in showing how the pursuit of profit by companies and their investors is playing an important role in the battle against global warming. Climate change is shown as posing a series of discrete, manageable challenges—such as accelerating the transition from fossil fuels to clean energy—that have spurred a search for solutions that promise to make our society healthier and stronger. National governments, the authors argue, are not the best places to create or carry out these solutions. Rather, it is the mayors, CEOs, entrepreneurs, activists, concerned citizens, and other local actors who have the strongest incentives as well as the power and means to win the battle against climate change—and in ways that have already begun to generate economic growth and improve public health.State governors and mayors of cities around the U.S., in red and blue states alike, have been responsible for much of this progress. Cities and states have negotiated contracts with local utilities to provide greater amounts of clean energy, and used combinations of public and private capital to fund rapid transit, waste‐water treatment, and other infrastructure programs. But an equally important if not larger role is now being played by business. Companies large and small, with the backing of a growing number of environmentally conscious but resolutely profit‐seeking investors, are finding ways to reduce waste and strengthen worker protection and morale throughout supply chains that are providing increasingly climatefriendly products and services.The authors' bottom line, then, is that preventing climate change will require more than goodwill and government regulation. It will take the profit motive, a force that that many environmentalists have long viewed with suspicion. While acknowledging the past efforts of socially responsible investment funds that have shown a willingness to sacrifice returns, the authors conclude that the enlightened self‐interest of value‐seeking investors may well prove more effective than the “beneficence” of social investors and philanthropists in producing investments of sufficient scale and practical efficacy to meet the challenges of global warming.

The implementation of technical energy efficiency and CO2 emission reduction measures in shipping

Numerous energy efficiency and carbon reduction technologies have been identified within the shipping sector but their overall implementation remains unknown. It is important to know the implementation in order to establish a credible baseline and evaluate progress towards low carbon shipping. Using a cross-sectional survey of shipowners and operators this paper attempts to gauge the implementation of over thirty energy efficiency and CO2 emission reduction technologies. The results show that whilst there is a good spread of implementation across the different measures, only a select number of measures in each of the categories are implemented at sufficient scale. Secondly, the measures with high implementation have tended to be those that have small energy efficiency gains at the ship level, and the uptake of CO2 reducing technologies, particularly alternative fuels is low despite their high potential for reducing CO2 emissions. If shipping's emissions are to be in line with other sectors in the future and follow a decarbonisation pathway, it would require higher implementation of energy efficiency and CO2 reducing technologies than those driven by current regulations alone.

Estimating cetacean density and abundance in the Central and Western Mediterranean Sea through aerial surveys: Implications for management

Systematic, effective monitoring of animal population parameters underpins successful conservation strategy and wildlife management, but it is often neglected in many regions, including much of the Mediterranean Sea. Nonetheless, a series of systematic multispecies aerial surveys was carried out in the seas around Italy to gather important baseline information on cetacean occurrence, distribution and abundance. The monitored areas included the Pelagos Sanctuary, the Tyrrhenian Sea, portions of the Seas of Corsica and Sardinia, the Ionian Seas as well as the Gulf of Taranto. Overall, approximately 48,000km were flown in either spring, summer and winter between 2009–2014, covering an area of 444,621km2. The most commonly observed species were the striped dolphin and the fin whale, with 975 and 83 recorded sightings, respectively. Other sighted cetacean species were the common bottlenose dolphin, the Risso's dolphin, the sperm whale, the pilot whale and the Cuvier's beaked whale. Uncorrected model- and design-based estimates of density and abundance for striped dolphins and fin whales were produced, resulting in a best estimate (model-based) of around 95,000 striped dolphins (CV=11.6%; 95% CI=92,900–120,300) occurring in the Pelagos Sanctuary, Central Tyrrhenian and Western Seas of Corsica and Sardinia combined area in summer 2010. Estimates were also obtained for each individual study region and year. An initial attempt to estimate perception bias for striped dolphins is also provided. The preferred summer 2010 uncorrected best estimate (design-based) for the same areas for fin whales was around 665 (CV=33.1%; 95% CI=350–1260). Estimates are also provided for the individual study regions and years. The results represent baseline data to develop efficient, long-term, systematic monitoring programmes, essential to evaluate trends, as required by a number of national and international frameworks, and stress the need to ensure that surveys are undertaken regularly and at a sufficient spatial scale. The management implications of the results are discussed also in light of a possible decline of fin whales abundance over the period from the mid-1990s to the present. Further work to understand changes in distribution and to allow for improved spatial models is emphasized.

Idealized numerical simulations of Mesoscale Convective Systems and their implications for forecast error

Deep convective mass transfer in a rotating, stratified fluid is capable of generating characteristic potential vorticity features and, if of sufficient spatial scale, these may affect baroclinic wave development and hence weather predictability. In current global numerical prediction models, it is still necessary to include convection parametrization even though these algorithms are ill‐suited to representing singular, mesoscale convective events. Some stochastic representations of the non‐equilibrium convective process in ensemble prediction systems perturb the vertical component of vorticity in order to crudely represent the upscale impact of deep convection (i.e. kinetic energy backscatter schemes). These use ad hoc assumptions about the structure of random wind errors associated with convection. The idealized, explicit convection simulations described here form the basis of a study of these convectively generated vorticity perturbations, and their implications for stochastic convective forcing in ensemble prediction systems is considered. Cases with no initial flow and constant shear are examined with emphasis on the impact on vertical vorticity within the mesoscale cloud shield. The results are interpreted in the wider context of operational forecast error in the simulated infrared radiance for cases of intense convective activity over the North American Great Plains. A Met Office Unified Model forecast made with 2.2 km horizontal resolution during the Hazardous Weather Testbed project provides additional support for the idealized model findings. The Stochastic Convective Backscatter scheme proposed by the author is integrated forward in time using the simulated convective mass transport as a driver for the random forcing term. In its ensemble forecast model implementation, this term uses parametrized convective mass fluxes. The results suggest a retuning of the scheme's filter scales in order to obtain a representation of model wind error more consistent with the simulations.

Older and incarcerated: policy implications of aging prison populations

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to explore the policy Implications of aging prison populations.Design/methodology/approachAn examination of the worldwide aging trend in prison and its implications for correctional policy, including an examination of population aging in California prisons as a case example of needed reform.FindingsPrison populations worldwide are aging at an unprecedented rate, and age-related medical costs have had serious consequences for jurisdictions struggling to respond to the changes. These trends are accompanied by a growing body of evidence that old age is strongly correlated with desistance from criminal behavior, suggesting an opportunity to at least partially address the challenges of an aging prison population through early release from prison for appropriate persons.Originality/valueSome policies do exist that aim to reduce the number of older, chronically ill or disabled and dying people in prison, but they have not achieved that goal on a sufficient scale. An examination of the situation in California shows that recognizing how the healthcare needs of incarcerated people change as they age – and how aging and aging-related health changes often decrease an older person’s likelihood of repeat offense – is critical to achieving effective and efficient policies and practices aimed at adequately caring for this population and reducing their numbers in prisons when appropriate.

Australian agricultural scale and corporate agroholdings: environmental and climatic impacts

The average size of Australian farms in scale and revenue are the globe’s largest. This scale is a result, in part, of low average rural population densities; development patterns in broadacre production; low levels of effective public policy transfers; a stable and suitable institutional setting suitable for corporate and other large scale investment; and low yields. It is also a factor of the natural variability of the country’s climatic systems which have contributed to the scale of extensive northern cattle production; this variability has implications for the pattern of ownership of broadacre and extensive production. Corporate ownership, tends to concentrate production aggregations at sufficient scale to offset its additional overheads in areas of relative climatic stability and to replicate these agroholding aggregations spatially to protect the stability of revenue flows. Family structures are more dominant in areas of greater climatic variability. Of interest is the impact that any increasing climatic variability (versus rapid changes in technology) may have upon this pattern.

Fluid flow characteristics of Bandanna Coal Formation: a case study from the Fairview Field, eastern Australia

ABSTRACTFluid flow characteristics of cleat systems in coalbed methane reservoirs are crucial in reservoir management and field development plans. This paper aims to evaluate the cleat system properties including cleat porosity, permeability, and aperture as well as the impact of permeability growth on production performance in the Bandanna Coal Formation of the Fairview Field, eastern Queensland. Owing to the presence of bad hole conditions and poor core recovery of the coal intervals, the petrophysical well logs and laboratory measurements cannot be used as a source of information for this purpose. Hence, a new approach is employed that utilises early water production data to measure water in place and absolute permeability of the coal. In addition, micro-computed tomography (CT) scan method is used to investigate the cleat system that is preserved in a core sample and results are compared with the ones obtained by analysis of production data. Cleat system evaluation by analysis of production data and micro-CT scan technique provides a comprehensive approach that brings confidence in measurements and helps to obtain cleat properties at the sufficient scale for reservoir engineering purposes. The necessary information including production data and core samples are collected from a dewatering well and the nearby observation well in the study area. Analysis of early water production data (single-phase flow) indicates that coal permeability is 189 mD and the average cleat porosity is approximately 5%. High cleat porosity describes the large volume of water produced over the life of the study well. The 3D model of the fossilised cleat system constructed by the micro-CT scan method reveals that coal is well-cleated and cleat spacing and mean cleat aperture are 4 and 0.136 mm, respectively. The average cleat porosity that is measured by the micro-CT scan method is 5.7%, which is fairly close to the cleat porosity measured by analysis of production data. Production data analysis indicates that effective permeability to gas starts to grow at the midlife of the well and it strongly controls the shape of the production profile. The results of this study help in future field development and infill drilling programs in the Fairview Field and provide important insights into cleat system of Bandanna Coal Formation.

A global threats overview for Numeniini populations: synthesising expert knowledge for a group of declining migratory birds

SummaryThe Numeniini is a tribe of 13 wader species (Scolopacidae, Charadriiformes) of which seven are Near Threatened or globally threatened, including two Critically Endangered. To help inform conservation management and policy responses, we present the results of an expert assessment of the threats that members of this taxonomic group face across migratory flyways. Most threats are increasing in intensity, particularly in non-breeding areas, where habitat loss resulting from residential and commercial development, aquaculture, mining, transport, disturbance, problematic invasive species, pollution and climate change were regarded as having the greatest detrimental impact. Fewer threats (mining, disturbance, problematic native species and climate change) were identified as widely affecting breeding areas. Numeniini populations face the greatest number of non-breeding threats in the East Asian-Australasian Flyway, especially those associated with coastal reclamation; related threats were also identified across the Central and Atlantic Americas, and East Atlantic flyways. Threats on the breeding grounds were greatest in Central and Atlantic Americas, East Atlantic and West Asian flyways. Three priority actions were associated with monitoring and research: to monitor breeding population trends (which for species breeding in remote areas may best be achieved through surveys at key non-breeding sites), to deploy tracking technologies to identify migratory connectivity, and to monitor land-cover change across breeding and non-breeding areas. Two priority actions were focused on conservation and policy responses: to identify and effectively protect key non-breeding sites across all flyways (particularly in the East Asian- Australasian Flyway), and to implement successful conservation interventions at a sufficient scale across human-dominated landscapes for species’ recovery to be achieved. If implemented urgently, these measures in combination have the potential to alter the current population declines of many Numeniini species and provide a template for the conservation of other groups of threatened species.

"If You Don't Do Parking Management .. Forget Your Behaviour Change, It's Not Going to Work.": Health and Transport Practitioner Perspectives on Workplace Active Travel Promotion.

ObjectivesAfter having conducted two studies of the effectiveness of workplace travel plans for promoting active travel, we investigated health and transport practitioners’ perspectives on implementing workplace travel plans to share some of the lessons learnt. The objectives of this study were to describe perceived elements of effective workplace travel plans, barriers and enablers to workplace travel planning, their experiences of working with the other profession on travel plan implementation, their recommendations for workplace travel planning, and also to explore similarities and differences in transport and health practitioner perspectives.Materials and MethodsFourteen health and ten transport practitioners who had prior involvement in workplace travel plan programs were purposefully selected from workplaces in Australia. We conducted 20 in-depth interviews since data saturation had been reached at this point, and data were subject to framework analysis.ResultsPerceived essential elements of effective workplace travel plans included parking management; leadership, organisational commitment and governance; skills and other resources like a dedicated travel plan coordinator; and, pre-conditions including supportive transport infrastructure in the surrounds. Recommendations for promoting travel plans included supportive government policy, focusing on business benefits and working at different scales of implementation (e.g. single large worksites and business precincts). Health and transport practitioner perspectives differed, with transport practitioners believing that parking management is the key action for managing travel demand at a worksite.ConclusionsHealth practitioners implementing travel plans may require training including concepts of travel demand management, and support from transport planners on parking management strategies. Promoting an understanding of the shared travel behaviour change skills of transport and health practitioners may assist further collaboration. For take-up by organisations to be of sufficient scale to create meaningful population level reductions in driving and increases in active travel, promotion and travel plans should be focused on the priorities of the organisations. Supportive government policy is also required.

Strategies for bringing stem cell-derived dopamine neurons to the clinic-The NYSTEM trial.

Over the last 10 years, there has been significant progress in defining culture conditions to derive bona fide human midbrain dopamine (mDA) neurons from human embryonic stem cells or from human-induced pluripotent stem cells, two cell sources referred to as human pluripotent stem cells (hPSCs). Those developments have made it possible to manufacture mDA neurons with at sufficient scale and precision to contemplate their use in cell replacement therapy for the treatment of Parkinson's disease. Our group is one of the several teams that are in the process of initiating the first human clinical trials based on the use of mDA neurons derived from hPSCs. With support from the NY state stem cell program (NYSTEM), we have implemented protocols for deriving mDA neurons under current good manufacturing practice-compliant conditions for regulatory approval of the cell-based product for human applications. We have been able to demonstrate that in vitro-derived mDA neurons can be generated under defined conditions and at large scale; that they can be cryopreserved prior to transplantation; and that the cryopreserved product is capable of reversing PD symptoms in rodent models of PD. We have further demonstrated the ability of the cells to engraft in the brain of PD monkeys and defined factors such as the shelf-life of the cells prior to and the viability of the cells after thawing and observed a lack of tumorigenic cells in the preparation. The final steps prior to initiating human trails include extensive safety studies using the fully qualified and cryopreserved mDA neuron products to get data from the exactly same batch of cells to be used for early-stage human studies. Our work sets the stage for developing an off-the-shelf cell therapy for Parkinson's disease that may develop into a valid therapeutic option for PD patients in the future.

The Rise of China and the End of the World as We Know It

The Rise of China and the End of the World as We Know It Arif Dirlik (bio) The evidence is all around us, yet it is still not easy to overcome a sense of the absurd prognosticating of the end of the world. Authoritative analysts of capitalist modernity like Fredric Jameson and Slavoj Žižek tell us that “it has become easier to imagine the end of the world than to imagine the end of capitalism.”1 According to sociologists and social analysts such as John Bellamy Foster and Naomi Klein, certain doom awaits us anyway if we cannot imagine the end of capitalism. Unbridled capitalism has created an ecological and social crisis that is readily recognized by all but the most intransigent of its perpetrators. Contemporary capitalism fosters a culture of self-indulgent consumerism and a developmentalist mentality that refuses to give up on faith in the limitless exploitability of nature and the equally limitless powers of technology to overcome any obstacles an embattled nature might throw up. Contemplating the end of the world might serve as an antidote to a faith that increasingly seems illusory. Still, it is no easy task to imagine the end of the world—except for the religious zealot or like-minded secular counterparts suffering from incurable addiction to apocalyptic thinking. Difficult as it is, there is much to be gained from imagining the end of world in thinking through some of the more intractable problems of the present. I do so below, focusing on the People’s Republic of China, whose impressive development over the last thirty years has been accompanied by an equally impressive destructiveness that has produced both awe and ambivalence. If there is a suggestion of parody in my title, it is not intended to discredit the prognostication but to invite reflection on the relationship it indicates: the rise of China, or more properly, the People’s Republic of China (PRC), and the impending end of the world as we know it. The end of the world as we know it may be understood in two senses. The end of the world in a literal sense, which is no longer the purview of a lunatic fringe or religious millenarianism but has moved to the center of global concerns, backed with the authority of science, so that it is those who would deny the possibility that appear as the unredeemable lunatics. Less drastically [End Page 533] but equally poignantly, it suggests the end of the world as we have known it, which is a fate that has befallen many with the rise of the modern world, who now seek to recover what they have lost, threatening to bring the same fate upon the victors of modernity. The PRC figures prominently in both senses. The PRC’s development over the last three decades has been greeted with enthusiasm, mixed with a good dose of anxiety. Most often noted among its achievements are accumulation of wealth on a sufficient scale to reconfigure the global distribution of wealth and poverty, large-scale poverty reduction as measured by global institutions such as the World Bank, seemingly overnight urbanization of a paradigmatic agrarian society, and creation of a “middle class” large and hungry enough to raise global consumption to unprecedented levels. Less conspicuous but no less significant is the impact of the PRC’s “rise” on societies of the global South not only as a source of investment and affordable commodities but as a rival to advanced capitalist societies that has opened up new spaces for political maneuver. Other achievements evoke greater ambivalence, among them the PRC’s rise to global power status that challenges the order (or disorder, depending on perspective) secured by US hegemony, and what sometimes sounds like bragging rights to be number one in everything from global trade and voracious consumption of raw materials to environmental destruction at home and, increasingly, abroad. It has drawn ongoing criticism for its abuse of human rights, perversion of its own laws in the suppression of citizens’ rights and freedoms, creation of one of the most unequal societies in the contemporary world out of one of the most equal only three decades ago, dispossession and exploitation...

Biosimilars in rheumatic diseases: structural and functional variability that may impact clinical and regulatory decisions.

Biologics as therapeutic interventions for human disease represent both a distinctly modern novelty and an echo of ancient, or at least old, medical practice. The similarity lies in the sense that in both the synthetic effort occurs in living organisms (an extract of a plant, animal tissue, or a cell culture) while the difference is apparent in the bioengineering required in modern methods and the corresponding flexibility to customize the therapeutic product. Although the concept of looking to living systems as a source of medically useful compounds either for research or for actual patient care has never vanished, the development of biochemistry and advances in medicinal chemistry made production by total synthesis the standard for a safe, reliable, and commercial drug production at sufficient scale. In this interval was where much of the modern apparatus for approving medical therapies came to be developed, and as such, the most proper extension of the regulatory regime to modern biologics is not entirely obvious. In particular, the notion of generics for off-patent conventional pharmaceuticals and their role in the marketplace with respect to increasing the accessibility of treatment is not congruent with the relationship between what are known as biosimilars and off-patent originating biologics. In this article, we review elements of the scientific basis for challenges in the production, use, and regulation of biosimilars. In light of these advances, we propose suggestions to modify constraints on biosimilar regulations in the interest of patient care and access to therapies.

Mechanism for DNA transposons to generate introns on genomic scales.

Discovered four decades ago, the existence of introns was one of the most unexpected findings in molecular biology1. Introns are sequences interrupting genes that must be removed as part of mRNA production. Genome sequencing projects have documented that most eukaryotic genes contain at least one and frequently many introns2,3. Comparison of these genomes reveals a history of long evolutionary periods with little intron gain punctuated by episodes of rapid, extensive gain2,3. However, no detailed mechanism for such episodic intron generation has been empirically supported on a sufficient scale, despite several proposals4–8. Here we show how short non-autonomous DNA transposons independently generated hundreds to thousands of introns in the prasinophyte Micromonas pusilla and the pelagophyte Aureococcus anophagefferens. Each transposon carries one splice site. The other splice site is co-opted from gene sequence duplicated upon transposon insertion, allowing perfect splicing out of RNA. The distributions of sequences that can be co-opted are biased with respect to codons, and phasing of transposon-generated introns is similarly biased. These transposons insert between preexisting nucleosomes, so that multiple nearby insertions generate nucleosome-sized intervening segments. Thus, transposon insertion and sequence co-option may explain the intron phase biases2 and prevalence of nucleosome-sized exons9 observed in eukaryotes. Overall, the two independent examples of proliferating elements illustrate a general DNA transposon mechanism plausibly accounting for episodes of rapid, extensive intron gain during eukaryotic evolution2,3.

Long-term effects of channelization on a cold-water stream community

Stream channelization is a common form of anthropogenic disturbance, whose impacts on cold-water biological communities have received little attention in comparison with the body of work demonstrating its negative effects on lowland, warm-water systems. Furthermore, it has been suggested that physical stream processes, given sufficient temporal scale, are capable of restoring channelized reaches to their natural state; however, empirical evidence of this is lacking. Here, we examine the effects of stream channelization on fish and invertebrate communities and their habitats in disturbed and undisturbed cold-water mountain streams in southern Alberta, 80 years postchannelization. Our results show that negative impacts associated with channelization, such as a significant reduction of deep pools and loss of flow refugia, remain prevalent along impacted reaches, inhibiting the reestablishment of native species across multiple trophic levels. While these findings are applicable for a range of cold-water salmonid populations, we suggest that they may be of special importance to the management of mountain whitefish (Prosopium williamsoni) populations, which may be more sensitive to channelization than other cold-water species.

Diagnostic roles of MUC1 and GLUT1 in differentiating thymic carcinoma from type B3 thymoma

MUC1 is a transmembrane mucin that has been related to tumor progression and outcome in various malignancies. GLUT1 is a member of the mammalian facilitative glucose transporter (GLUT) family of passive carriers that functions as an energy-independent system for transporting glucose. Both of them are useful markers for the diagnosis, progression, and prognosis of various tumors, especially those that are cancerous. However, the clinical significance of MUC1 and GLUT1 in thymic epithelial tumors remains uncertain due to a lack of quality specimen and studies at sufficient scale, both owing, in part, to the rarity of the tumors. The aim of this article is to study the expression patterns of MUC1 and GLUT1 in thymic carcinoma and type B3 thymoma, and to evaluate their diagnostic value for these two types of tumors via immunohistochemistry. Forty-three patients were included in the study, including twenty-two with thymic carcinoma and twenty-one with type B3 thymoma. Tumor tissue sections were immunohistochemically stained for MUC1 and GLUT1; meanwhile, some tumors were also stained with CKpan, TDT, CD5, and CD117. MUC1 was expressed in a total of 17 cases, with a positive rate of 77.27% (17/22) in thymic carcinoma and 9.52% (2/21) in type B3 thymoma, revealing a significant difference (p<0.0001). A significant difference (p<0.0001) was also shown for GLUT1, where the positive rates for thymic carcinoma and type B3 thymoma were 100% (22/22) and 42.86% (9/21), respectively. The expression of MUC1 was significantly correlated with GLUT1 (p<0.0001). Furthermore, GLUT1 staining sensitivity and specificity for thymic carcinoma were 100% (22/22) and 70.97% (22/31), respectively, while MUC1 staining sensitivity and specificity were 77.27% (17/22) and 89.47% (17/19), respectively.In conclusion, our study shows that MUC1 and GLUT1 staining may play a useful role in differentiating thymic carcinoma from type B3 thymoma, with high sensitivity and specificity.

Rightsizing the Army in Austere Times

ABSTRACT: Force reductions resulting from the 2014 Quadrennial Defense Review significantly compromise the US Army's ability to maintain the global commitments and positioning necessary for managing strategic risks arising from multiple, unforeseen sources. In this article, the authors discuss how active duty Army capacity affects America's strategic risk. ********** During the upcoming decade, the United States will be challenged by a new strategic threat or worse, multiple strategic threats. How will the US Army respond if sequestration cuts continue? The near-future Army--for better or worse--will originate in this decade. The size and readiness of the near-future Army will offer one of two options, either reducing America's strategic or increasing it. So what would be the right size of the Army if we want to reduce America's strategic risk? The results of 2014 Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) led to reducing the size of the Army to levels unseen since before World War II. Unfortunately, the current force reduction can only produce one result, the weakening of the joint force's ability to deter conflict, which accordingly increases America's strategic risk. Since the publication of the 2014 QDR, numerous new threats have emerged to challenge the Army's reductions. Daesh captured large parts of Iraq and Syria. The Syrian Civil War escalated, causing a Middle East and European refugee crisis. Russia annexed Crimea, invaded Ukraine, and intervened alongside the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps to maintain the Assad regime in Syria. North Korea remained bellicose, testing nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles. China continued its territorial expansion in the South China Sea, and the Taliban continued to intensify offensive operations in Afghanistan. All of these events occurred in just the last several years; what might the next few years bring? While acknowledging the indispensable roles of both the Army Reserve and Army National Guard as strategic reserves, their roles, missions, and sizing are beyond the scope and length of this article, which focuses on the size of the active duty Army. This discussion considers what the Army brings to the fight in relation to forward presence and deployable capabilities, the current and future demand on land forces, and examines two options for rightsizing the Army to reduce strategic risk. To set the stage for Army force sizing, we discuss the definition of strategic and five troubling assumptions about future war. Strategic Risk How does strategic relate to the size of the current and future US Army? Strategic is the probability of failure to achieve a strategic objective at an acceptable cost. The smaller the army, the higher the of failure to obtain a strategic objective at an acceptable cost. (1) Senior US Army leaders view today's Army at high risk in regards to the emerging threats and potential for future great-power conflict. High is the rating in which the Army would not be able to accomplish all its assigned tasks in the allotted time and level of casualties. (2) Five Faulty Assumptions While assessments of strategic risk, acceptable cost, and the size of the Army are complex, several false assumptions about future war and landpower have gained currency in defense circles. These assumptions increase national strategic by failing to appreciate Army capacity-capability with sufficient scale and endurance--as an essential element of national security. The is troubling because it threatens to consign the US military to a repetition of the mistakes of recent wars and the development of joint forces ill-prepared for future threats. Forward-positioned land forces do not prevent conflict. Deterrence depends on the demonstrated ability to prevent the enemy from accomplishing its objectives, and deterrence theory states deterring aggression is most likely to succeed when the potential aggressor believes the threats will be enacted. …

Global economic consequences of deploying bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS)

Bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS) is considered a potential source of net negative carbon emissions and, if deployed at sufficient scale, could help reduce carbon dioxide emissions and concentrations. However, the viability and economic consequences of large-scale BECCS deployment are not fully understood. We use the Global Change Assessment Model (GCAM) integrated assessment model to explore the potential global and regional economic impacts of BECCS. As a negative-emissions technology, BECCS would entail a net subsidy in a policy environment in which carbon emissions are taxed. We show that by mid-century, in a world committed to limiting climate change to 2 °C, carbon tax revenues have peaked and are rapidly approaching the point where climate mitigation is a net burden on general tax revenues. Assuming that the required policy instruments are available to support BECCS deployment, we consider its effects on global trade patterns of fossil fuels, biomass, and agricultural products. We find that in a world committed to limiting climate change to 2 °C, the absence of CCS harms fossil-fuel exporting regions, while the presence of CCS, and BECCS in particular, allows greater continued use and export of fossil fuels. We also explore the relationship between carbon prices, food-crop prices and use of BECCS. We show that the carbon price and biomass and food crop prices are directly related. We also show that BECCS reduces the upward pressure on food crop prices by lowering carbon prices and lowering the total biomass demand in climate change mitigation scenarios. All of this notwithstanding, many challenges, both technical and institutional, remain to be addressed before BECCS can be deployed at scale.

Ethical and Professional Complications in the Construction of Multi-Developer Hobbyist Games

The modern availability of powerful video game development frameworks has resulted in something of an indie renaissance. Within this blossoming of small scale development are numerous hobbyist developers who build games for their own inherent satisfaction rather than with the expectation of any financial remuneration. While many of these individuals labour in isolation, some have undertaken projects of sufficient scale and complexity to require the recruitment of multiple developers over long periods of time. The lack of direct payment for volunteered efforts in such environments creates numerous interpersonal issues that must be considered—these relate to aspects of intellectual property ownership and the treatment of developers, as well as to the expectations of those players who may invest their time in a hobbyist title. The nature of recruitment for such projects is such that formal experience in software development or games design cannot be assumed, and the management complexities this paradigm introduces are of sufficient complexity that few tools are available to ensure the coherent development of a game. This paper is a reflective analysis of the issues that emerged through the development of one such game. The observations contained within however are applicable to all multi-developer projects where financial compensation for contributions are likely to be non-existent.

A plantation-dominated forest transition in Chile

As one of the few countries in Latin America to have reversed persistent losses in tree cover, Chile may hold important insights for forest transition theory. However, existing studies have not provided methodologically consistent analyses at sufficient temporal and spatial scales to properly assess the state of Chile's forest transition. In the current study, we generate high-resolution maps of Chilean land use change between 1986, 2001 and 2011. We couple remote sensing with a review of historic assessments of Chile's forest resources to document long-term trends in forest extent. This historical review identifies multiple discrete forest transitions throughout Chile's history. These fluctuations in forest clearing emphasize that the cultural, economic and political forces that precipitate forest transitions can all be reversed. The remote sensing analysis calls into question official statistics indicating an expansion of native forests between 1986 and 2011. We find that increases in forest cover were largely driven by the expansion of forest plantations, rather than through native forest regeneration. Plantation forests directly displaced native forests in many locations, especially during the 1986–2001 period. Nevertheless, declines in the rate of forest conversion during the 2001–2011 period suggest that plantations are beginning to ease pressure on native forests.