scholarly journals A Call to Action: Incentivizing Arsenic Remediation

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bartlomiej K. Bancewicz

Arsenic is a threat to human health. Long-term Arsenic exposure can lead to numerous cancers and non-carcinogenic diseases. Over 230 million across 107 countries are drinking groundwater Arsenic concentrations above the maximum concentration limit of 10 μg/L. The number of affected individuals is expected to rise in parallel with a growing dependence on groundwater, driven by diminishing surface water quality and quantity. A growing number of people will come in contact with Arsenic-contaminated water at new locations, while excessive pumping, geogenic processes, and industrial sources raise Arsenic concentrations at active groundwater sites. It is time to begin implementing Arsenic remediation techniques to save human lives, boost the global economy, and instill the foundations of a global collaborative framework. The continued research and development of remediation technologies is crucial, but these technologies will remain ineffective unless implemented. This chapter reviews the ongoing Arsenic crisis and suggests a simplified plan of action for resolving this problem. This is a transcontinental endeavor, which must begin with world leaders identifying and engaging new stakeholders. This will require education and awareness campaigns to boost involvement of the public sector, private sector, and the general public.

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (5) ◽  
pp. 2466
Author(s):  
Tomas Molina ◽  
Ernest Abadal

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports on climate change have served to alert both the public and policymakers about the scope of the predicted changes and the effects they would have on natural and economic systems. The first IPCC report was published in 1990, since which time a further four have been produced. The aim of this study was to conduct a content analysis of the IPCC Summaries for Policymakers in order to determine the degree of certainty associated with the statements they contain. For each of the reports we analyzed all statements containing expressions indicating the corresponding level of confidence. The aggregated results show a shift over time towards higher certainty levels, implying a “Call to action” (from 32.8% of statements in IPCC2 to 70.2% in IPCC5). With regard to the international agreements drawn up to tackle climate change, the growing level of confidence expressed in the IPCC Summaries for Policymakers reports might have been a relevant factor in the history of decision making.


2016 ◽  
Vol 20 (9) ◽  
pp. 3619-3629 ◽  
Author(s):  
Frans C. van Geer ◽  
Brian Kronvang ◽  
Hans Peter Broers

Abstract. Four sessions on "Monitoring Strategies: temporal trends in groundwater and surface water quality and quantity" at the EGU conferences in 2012, 2013, 2014, and 2015 and a special issue of HESS form the background for this overview of the current state of high-resolution monitoring of nutrients. The overview includes a summary of technologies applied in high-frequency monitoring of nutrients in the special issue. Moreover, we present a new assessment of the objectives behind high-frequency monitoring as classified into three main groups: (i) improved understanding of the underlying hydrological, chemical, and biological processes (PU); (ii) quantification of true nutrient concentrations and loads (Q); and (iii) operational management, including evaluation of the effects of mitigation measures (M). The contributions in the special issue focus on the implementation of high-frequency monitoring within the broader context of policy making and management of water in Europe for support of EU directives such as the Water Framework Directive, the Groundwater Directive, and the Nitrates Directive. The overview presented enabled us to highlight the typical objectives encountered in the application of high-frequency monitoring and to reflect on future developments and research needs in this growing field of expertise.


2017 ◽  
Vol 5 (28) ◽  
Author(s):  
Nguyet Kong ◽  
Matthew Davis ◽  
Narine Arabyan ◽  
Bihua C. Huang ◽  
Allison M. Weis ◽  
...  

ABSTRACT Salmonella is a common food-associated bacterium that has substantial impact on worldwide human health and the global economy. This is the public release of 1,183 Salmonella draft genome sequences as part of the 100K Pathogen Genome Project. These isolates represent global genomic diversity in the Salmonella genus.


2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 80-100
Author(s):  
Terrianne Schulte

This paper comparatively examines how the League of Women Voters and Lake Erie sportsmen emerged to awaken the public to the pollution crisis affecting the Lake Erie watershed in the mid-twentieth century. Recognizing the degradation of the smallest of the Great Lakes due to the explosion of wartime industrial development and population growth, the League and the sportsmen commenced a decades-long struggle to clean up the lake and its tributaries through direct action in urban areas throughout the Lake Erie watershed. Disgusted by a fall in the number of fish, caused by cyanide poisoning, and the effect of oil on waterfowl, the sportsmen pressed for pollution control. The League members’ approach to water resources, on the other hand, was based on a broad and academic perspective regarding water quality and quantity in response to a series of regionally severe droughts that plagued the United States in the late 1940s and mid-1950s, and led to a national debate on water shortages and supplies. Ultimately, this paper examines two distinctly different approaches to an environmental emergency in the immediate postwar era.


Author(s):  
James Jarrett

In the years since his death, some of the most important new areas of enquiry in Pinter studies have centred on the artistic works inspired by this major dramatist. One such endeavour is a new theatre production entitled Truth to Power Café. Truth to Power Café has been written and devised by the artist and producer Jeremy Goldstein. Goldstein’s work is a blend of poetry, performance and storytelling – an exploration of his own hidden history, and an articulation of his own ambivalent feelings. Even though Pinter contended that art and politics were irreconcilable, the argument of this paper is that Truth to Power Café represents an attempt by Goldstein to generate a synthesis between the artistic and the political: to reconcile the subjective character of art with the public nature of political activism; to mobilize the power of the theatre to enable the oppressed to break through the ritualistic ‘habits of lying’ that protect the powerful, and to discover a form of theatre where the audience can articulate themselves with ‘honesty’ and ‘precision’. Goldstein reconceptualizes the theatre as a ‘safe space’, where audience members can speak out against oppressive forces. Goldstein’s performance is a ‘call to action’. Each life testimony mediates between Goldstein’s lyrical psycho-biography, and the audience’s reception of his presentation, situating each regional performance of Truth to Power Café in its social, historical, and economic context. Goldstein achieves his objective by interweaving the personal, the private and the artistic with the public, the political and the historical.


2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Jennifer Spitulnik

The occupational folk group of Broadway musical theater performers uses folklore in public spaces as a kind of representational strategy for the group as a whole. This strategy is significant in representing the group’s identity to itself as well as to outsiders who are invested in knowing more about them, such as Broadway enthusiasts. That is, the group can and does tell the story of itself, representing itself ethnographically, by way of its individual members. Social media technologies provide a platform for Broadway performers to present these native ethnographies both to the public and to other members of the folk group. I argue that these native, self-conscious ethnographic works by musical theater performers are both concerned with representing themselves as individuals, and with representing the cultural group of musical theater performers as a whole. Exploring the folklore and folk identities performed by members of this group in online social media suggests new ways of understanding the politics and practices of ethnography, particularly on social network sites in our postmodern global economy of attention. In this project, the first in any field to consider musical theater performers as a cultural or folk group, I investigate actors’ recognition of and group use of vernacular creative expressionsâ€"folkloreâ€"as a representational strategy. Through this work, I explore the ways in which self-representation on the part of the ethnographic participants claims voice and authority for the group, while simultaneously performing group membership and identity for multiple audiences.


2003 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 154-164 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  

Today’s critically ill patients require heightened vigilance and extraordinarily intricate care. As skilled and responsible health professionals, the 403 000 critical care nurses in the United States must acquire the specialized knowledge and skills needed to provide this care and demonstrate their competence to the public, their employers, and their profession. Recognizing that nurses can validate specialty competence through certification, this white paper from the American Association of Critical-Care Nurses and the AACN Certification Corporation puts forth a call to action for all who can influence and will benefit from certified nurses’ contribution to patient care.


Author(s):  
David Touretzky ◽  
Christina Gardner-McCune ◽  
Fred Martin ◽  
Deborah Seehorn

The ubiquity of AI in society means the time is ripe to consider what educated 21st century digital citizens should know about this subject. In May 2018, the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI) and the Computer Science Teachers Association (CSTA) formed a joint working group to develop national guidelines for teaching AI to K-12 students. Inspired by CSTA's national standards for K-12 computing education, the AI for K-12 guidelines will define what students in each grade band should know about artificial intelligence, machine learning, and robotics. The AI for K-12 working group is also creating an online resource directory where teachers can find AI- related videos, demos, software, and activity descriptions they can incorporate into their lesson plans. This blue sky talk invites the AI research community to reflect on the big ideas in AI that every K-12 student should know, and how we should communicate with the public about advances in AI and their future impact on society. It is a call to action for more AI researchers to become AI educators, creating resources that help teachers and students understand our work.


Author(s):  
Yunus Topsakal

The public and private sectors will undergo a significant transformation with the use of blockchain technology, and this potential of blockchain technology will be influential in all areas of life. In addition, blockchain technology can help ease the integration of the Internet of Things, augmented reality, and artificial intelligence applications. The question of how such a technology that is in the process of development will be applied in areas such as taxation, notary operations, and banking, arises simultaneously. Studies related to blockchain technology have mainly been carried out in the fields of finance, logistics, banking, and education. However, there is a paucity of studies on blockchain technology in the tourism industry which has an important role in the global economy. Therefore, the potential of using blockchain technology in the tourism industry is evaluated in this chapter. For this purpose, the features, advantages, and disadvantages of blockchain technology are explained. The potential uses of blockchain technology in the tourism industry are then discussed.


2019 ◽  
Vol 67 ◽  
pp. 04014
Author(s):  
Oleg Vasyliev ◽  
Volodymyr Volokhov ◽  
Inna Volokhova ◽  
Olena Lukianova ◽  
Hanna Zhovtiak

Modern economic conditions and the integration of the national economy into the global economy require structural changes and a search for a new model of relationship between the public and private sectors. The relevance of this article is determined by the fact that the existing scientific concepts have not formed a general understanding of the theoretical aspects for the implementation of public-private partnership at the railway transport, have not established development priorities and tasks of the state in the implementation of the mechanism of public-private partnership at the railway transport. Realization of the projects capable of maintaining implementation of the development priorities of the railway industry requires significant investments of private business and financial, organizational and legal support of the state. The authors substantiate the necessity of using public-private partnership at the railway transport of Ukraine for solving the most urgent current problem – renewal of the material and technical resources and bringing them in line with the requirements of the leading European countries. The proposed priority-partnership approach and the obtained results open up new opportunities for further research into the solution of the problem regarding the implementation of public-private partnership at the railway transport.


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