Measurement Methods for Above-ground Site Investigation Programmes according to StandAG (Project “MessEr”) – an Overview

In Germany, the site selection process for a repository for high-level radioactive waste is stipulated by the Site Selection Act (Standortauswahlgesetz – StandAG). During the site selection process, the implementer has to identify and propose siting regions. The Federal Office for the Safety of Nuclear Waste Management (Bundesamt für die Sicherheit der nuklearen Entsorgung – BASE) as the responsible federal authority has to review the implementer's proposal and finally the siting regions remaining in the site selection process will be laid down by federal law. The corresponding above-ground site investigation programmes submitted by the implementer will also be reviewed and then determined by BASE. These programmes and subsequent revisions have to be published by BASE in the Federal Gazette (§ 15 StandAG). When reviewing as well as determining above-ground site investigation programmes, state-of-the-art science and technology have to be considered – especially in the field of applied measurement methods. For this reason, it is convenient to have a catalogue of relevant and available measurement methods. This overview shows the findings and results from the project “MessEr”, which was carried out by GRS gGmbH and initiated and funded by BASE (funding code/FKZ 4717F01202). To derive such a catalogue for the above-ground site investigation within the site selection process the project “MessEr” (Messmethoden für übertägige Erkundungsprogramme gemäß StandAG – Measurement methods for surface-based exploration programmes in accordance with the StandAG) was initiated by BASE. This catalogue should combine two key features: (i) it should be understandable not only for experts but also for interested members of the general public and (ii) it also should provide a basis to evaluate proposed site investigation programmes. Accordingly, the main task within the project was to compile above-ground measurement methods considering the three host rocks according to the StandAG – rock salt, clay rock and crystalline rock – and to classify them with regard to the kind of investigation, measuring principles and achievable knowledge. In a second step, every single measurement method had to be characterised and described in detail: advantages, disadvantages and efforts, as well as limitations and uncertainties. Furthermore, aspects such as applicability (with regard to the host rock), the combination of different methods and any possible needs of research and development were discussed. For further information, references such as standard textbooks, weblinks, journals or reports from other international repository projects were compiled for each method. The final step of “MessEr” was to evaluate Appendices 1 to 12 to § 24 StandAG (“geoscientific consideration criteria”) with respect to their significance and requirements for above-ground site investigation methods. This resulted in three matrices showing the correlations of required parameters and necessary knowledge according to the StandAG with the compiled measurement methods.

Introduction

The introduction to The Oxford Handbook of the American Civil War provides an overview of historical scholarship regarding the effect of military campaigns on nonmilitary resources and people. Using war and society methods, it explores the consequences of military campaigns in the political, social, and environmental spheres. Topics covered in the introduction include movement, deportation, and depopulation among civilians; refugees; military action and emancipation; insurrection; guerrilla warfare; resistance to Federal authority on the Great Plains and in the Southwest; gender; African Americans, Hispanos, and Native Americans; locations of localized total war; military conscription in the Confederacy; cities, rural areas, and the natural environment; the synergy between war and politics; religion; spatial, and temporal analysis of military campaigns; logistics; the soldier experience; and medical care.

When Think Tanks Refuse Thinking: Why American Pro-Market Conservatives Oppose Market Integration

American pro-market conservatives often oppose use of federal authority to rein in anti-competitive behavior by market actors. Competitive barriers, whether created by local jurisdictions or the absence of national competitive rules, go unaddressed. In international comparison, especially considering the European Union's use of central authority for market openness, this is quite puzzling. Based on interviews and archival research, I trace inattention to market barriers to contradictions within Hayek's neoliberalism and an enthusiastic reception within the American academy of one possible interpretation of those writings. This conception of markets—competitive federalism—diffused into the conservative law and economics movements, think tanks, and eventually mainstream conservative politics. It permitted conservatism to align a strong pro-market rhetoric with demands for states’ rights and federal retrenchment, albeit side-stepping many significant issues in economic theory and policy. Thus, conservatives pursue spending and tax cuts, deregulation and decentralization, often to the detriment of market openness.

Mycobacterium avium ssp. paratuberculosis in the Food Supply: A Public Health Issue

This article examines the policy implications of Mycobacterium avium subspecies paratuberculosis (MAP) as a zoonotic pathogen and the public health risks posed by the presence of MAP in food, particularly milk products. Viable MAP has been cultured from commercially pasteurized milk in the US. Dairy pasteurization standards and regulations are examined in light of this finding. On the basis of the precautionary principle, the authors suggest options to reduce exposure to MAP, including (1) increased federal authority to regulate pasteurization of all dairy products, (2) modification of pasteurization standards in order to more effectively kill MAP, (3) removal of the Pasteurized Milk Ordinance (PMO) provision that allows states to override federal policy in intrastate dairy sales, and (4) creation of a mandatory Johne's Disease Control Program. These measures would reduce human exposure to MAP and may reduce the risk of diseases associated with MAP.

Oncolytic Viruses for Malignant Glioma: On the Verge of Success?

Glioblastoma is one of the most difficult tumor types to treat with conventional therapy options like tumor debulking and chemo- and radiotherapy. Immunotherapeutic agents like oncolytic viruses, immune checkpoint inhibitors, and chimeric antigen receptor T cells have revolutionized cancer therapy, but their success in glioblastoma remains limited and further optimization of immunotherapies is needed. Several oncolytic viruses have demonstrated the ability to infect tumors and trigger anti-tumor immune responses in malignant glioma patients. Leading the pack, oncolytic herpesvirus, first in its class, awaits an approval for treating malignant glioma from MHLW, the federal authority of Japan. Nevertheless, some major hurdles like the blood–brain barrier, the immunosuppressive tumor microenvironment, and tumor heterogeneity can engender suboptimal efficacy in malignant glioma. In this review, we discuss the current status of malignant glioma therapies with a focus on oncolytic viruses in clinical trials. Furthermore, we discuss the obstacles faced by oncolytic viruses in malignant glioma patients and strategies that are being used to overcome these limitations to (1) optimize delivery of oncolytic viruses beyond the blood–brain barrier; (2) trigger inflammatory immune responses in and around tumors; and (3) use multimodal therapies in combination to tackle tumor heterogeneity, with an end goal of optimizing the therapeutic outcome of oncolytic virotherapy.

Mapp v. Ohio, the Exclusionary Rule, and Constitutional Judicial Review

Mapp v. Ohio is the US Supreme Court opinion that imposed the Fourth Amendment exclusionary rule on the states. Mapp overruled earlier cases by holding that evidence obtained by unreasonable government searches and seizures was not admissible in state or local criminal prosecutions, just as it had long been inadmissible in federal cases. It is hard to overstate the impact of this decision, which changed the rules and procedures both for policing and for litigation in criminal cases throughout the United States. But Mapp’s significance extends beyond its specific holding. It adopted an interpretive method, often labeled “selective incorporation,” employed by the Supreme Court in subsequent decisions, that imposed specific provisions contained in the Bill of Rights, the first eight amendments to the Constitution upon the states. These decisions redefined federalism in the United States by establishing federal authority over government actions previously governed by state law. In the realm of search and seizure law, by requiring states to adhere to the Supreme Court’s search and seizure opinions, Mapp also generated potent political and legal opposition. In subsequent opinions the Supreme Court limited the exclusionary rule’s scope, diluting Mapp’s impact on police practices by reducing the situations in which federal constitutional rules required exclusion of evidence.

Reporting practices in situations of conflicting institutional logics: the case of a German federal authority

Purpose This study aims to understand how reporting practices act as drivers of change in situations of conflicting institutional logics in a public sector organisation. Design/methodology/approach The findings are based on a case study of a German federal authority, where management accounting reports were introduced as part of a “new” managerial logic of control. Findings In the case organisation, management accounting reports were intended to change the behaviour of executives but were still guided by an “old” logic of justification. Nevertheless, over time, the addressees of the reports used the reports and reconciled different logics. This documents a process from decoupling to compromising and, finally, reconciling different institutional logics. Originality/value By examining the practices of management accounting reporting, this study elaborates the tensions placed on individuals by conflicting institutional logics and provides insights into how organisational practices are used to handle and reconcile conflicting logics in a public sector organisation. Therefore, this paper contributes to the discussion on how organisational practices act as drivers of organisational change.

Equal Footing

In 1796, the Southwest Territory became the first U.S. territory to become a state, joining the union as Tennessee. This new state promptly used its newfound status as a sovereign on “equal footing” with existing states to challenge the persistence of federal authority, especially over land and Indian affairs. A series of collisions followed: over ownership of the public domain; over William Blount’s odd scheme to use his supposed influence in Indian country to challenge federal power; and, above all, over the federal government’s attempt to survey the boundary of the Cherokee Nation, which threatened to dispossess white land claimants. Ultimately, the federal government preserved its formal authority even as it gave Tennessee what it wanted—a seemingly Pyrrhic victory that had important precedential consequences. In particular, when part of the Northwest Territory sought to become the new state of Ohio in 1802, the federal government sought to protect its authority. Most importantly, it decided for the first time to attach conditions to the new state’s admission that guaranteed federal land ownership, a practice that quickly became a constitutional norm; the new state also tacitly accepted continued federal authority over the state’s Native peoples. The result was that the federal government’s power to adjudicate property and jurisdictional conflicts survived despite state challenge; in the process, the federal government ironically became the most visible defender of the earlier, multipolar order against these states’ assaults.

The Land Company Experiment

The first major federal effort to remake territorial property came through large sales to land companies. This chapter recounts this history through the stories of three land companies: the Tennessee Company, the Ohio Company, and the Miami Company. The Tennessee Company represented what the federal government hoped to avoid. Created by speculator Zachariah Cox, the Company purchased millions of acres of land in Georgia’s Yazoo sale. Cox then spent the next decade challenging federal authority, threatening Native nations, bamboozling investors with dubious title, and asserting his own sovereignty in the southern borderlands. When it created the Ohio and Miami Companies in the Northwest Territory, the federal government sought to avoid such outcomes. The two companies, headed by Rufus Putnam and John Cleves Symmes, promised to distribute title systemically while also preserving peace with Native peoples. Yet this supposedly mutually beneficial relationship did not work out. Both companies felt abandoned and betrayed by the federal government when war with the Northwest Indian Confederacy ensued. Yet, like the Tennessee Company, the Ohio and Miami Companies also both succumbed to the lure of profit on bare promises of future title, creating still more property confusion and uncertainty that fell to the federal government to resolve. The experiment’s failure led Congress to reject large-scale land sales as a viable solution to the territories’ property uncertainty.

Introduction

This introduction outlines the central argument of Federal Ground. Federal authority in the Northwest and Southwest Territories, the book contends, stemmed less from foundational texts like the Northwest Ordinance than from the demands of territorial residents, who looked on the federal government not as an institution but as a resource and successfully pushed it to serve their ends. The introduction explores the contrast between the formal, nearly unchecked authority that the U.S. Constitution granted the federal government in the territories and the reality that these supposed territories were Native homelands and borderlands where imperial powers had come and gone with little change in control. It then grapples with the amorphous nature of federal government in the territories, divided among cabinet officials, local territorial officers, and key intermediaries like Governors Arthur St. Clair and William Blount, and recounts how these diverse officials believed themselves constrained to try to understand the territories’ inhabitants. It also explores the difficult question of how to measure federal state power in the early republic, contrasting the fiscal-military state with the alternate model of an adjudicatory state, in which territorial citizens turned to federal law to claim rights. It notes the benefits of considering the two territories together and previews the individual chapters and their arguments.