Opinion: Coordinated Development of Emission Inventories for Climate Forcers and Air Pollutants

Emissions into the atmosphere of fine particulates, their precursors, and precursors to tropospheric ozone, not only impact human health and ecosystems, but also impact the climate by altering Earth’s radiative balance. Accurately quantifying these impacts across local to global scales, historically, and in future scenarios, requires emission inventories that are accurate, transparent, complete, comparable, and consistent. In an effort to better quantify the emissions and impacts of these pollutants, also called short-lived climate forcers (SLCFs), the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is developing a new SLCF emissions methodology report. This report would supplement existing IPCC reporting guidance on greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions inventories, currently used by inventory compilers to fulfill national reporting requirements under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and new requirements of the Enhanced Transparency Framework (ETF) under the Paris Agreement starting in 2024. We review the relevant issues, including how air pollutant and GHG inventory activities have historically been structured, as well as potential benefits, challenges, and recommendations for coordinating GHG and air pollutant inventory efforts. We argue that while there are potential benefits to increasing coordination between air pollutant and GHG inventory development efforts, we also caution that there are differences in appropriate methodologies and applications that must jointly be considered.

Project risk management in Iranian small construction firms

The objective of this study is to evaluate RM in small projects in Iran using identification of status, barriers, and the impact of RM on project performance. In this study, theoretical foundations and research literature were first developed through library, and then a questionnaire about these variables was designed and distributed among a number of experts in the active construction companies. Data were collected from 40 projects submitted by 25 experts from 5 executive companies. According to the studies, 10 barriers are identified as major obstacles to RM implementation in such projects, prioritized as follows: (1) lack of potential benefits, (2) not economical, (3) lack of time, (4) lack of budget, (5) lack of knowledge, (6) lack of government legislation, (7) lack of manpower, (8) low profit margin, (9) complexity of analytical tools, and (10) competition among SMCs. The findings of this research can provide an in-depth understanding of RM in small projects in Iran and make benefits of RM convincing to the participants of small projects.

Effects of Resistant Starch Interventions on Metabolic Biomarkers in Pre-Diabetes and Diabetes Adults

Simple lifestyle changes can prevent or delay the onset of type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM). In addition to maintaining a physically active way of life, the diet has become one of the bases in managing TD2M. Due to many studies linking the ability of resistant starch (RS) to a substantial role in enhancing the nutritional quality of food and disease prevention, the challenge of incorporating RS into the diet and increasing its intake remains. Therefore, we conducted this review to assess the potential benefits of RS on metabolic biomarkers in pre-diabetes and diabetes adults based on available intervention studies over the last decade. Based on the conducted review, we observed that RS intake correlates directly to minimize possible effects through different mechanisms for better control of pre-diabetic and diabetic conditions. In most studies, significant changes were evident in the postprandial glucose and insulin incremental area under the curve (iAUC). Comparative evaluation of RS consumption and control groups also showed differences with inflammatory markers such as TNF-α, IL-1β, MCP-1, and E-selectin. Only RS2 and RS3 were extensively investigated and widely reported among the five reported RS types. However, a proper comparison and conclusion are deemed inappropriate considering the variations observed with the study duration, sample size, subjects and their metabolic conditions, intervention doses, and the intervention base products. In conclusion, this result provides interesting insights into the potential use of RS as part of a sustainable diet in diabetes management and should be further explored in terms of the mechanism involved.

Antimonopoly Compliance: Review of Foreign Practice. Part I

The article contains the best foreign practices of implementing the of antimonopoly compliance Institute (compliance) in order to identify and manage the risks of violations of competition law and the possibility of preventing these violations by companies. The article presents the definition of compliance, describes the experience of foreign competition authorities in development, organization and implementation of compliance programs. Special attention is paid to the potential benefits that business receives as part of the successful implementation of the antimonopoly compliance system, including the possibility of mitigating circumstance in case a company commits an antimonopoly offense.

Alteration in Activity Patterns of Cows as a Result of Pain Due to Health Conditions

The main conditions and diseases considered painful in dairy cows are mastitis, lameness, calving (including dystocia and caesarean section) and metritis. The cattle literature reports that deviation from normal daily activity patterns (both increased and/or reduced daily lying time) can be indicative of painful conditions and diseases in cows. This narrative review discusses on how pain due to several health conditions in dairy cows modifies its activity pattern and explores if non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) are capable of restoring it. Divergent outcomes may differ depending upon the painful cause, the severity and the moment, and consequently its interpretation should be properly explained. For instance, cows with clinical mastitis reduced their time lying and increased the number of lying bouts and stepping due to pain caused by the swollen udder when cows are lying. However, lame cows show longer lying times, with a lower number of lying bouts and longer and more variable lying bouts duration, as compared to non-lame cows. When the relationship between painful disorders and daily activity patterns is studied, factors such as parity, bedding type and severity of disease are important factors to take into consideration. The potential benefits of the NSAIDs treatment in painful health disorders depend upon the type of drug administered, its dosage and administration mode, and the time of administration relative to the painful health disorder. This narrative review can be used as a tool to properly interpret and grade pain in cows through behavioural activity patterns and proposes directions for future investigations.

Polymer Supported Proline-Based Organocatalysts in Asymmetric Aldol Reactions: A Review

The use of proline-based organocatalysts has acquired significant importance in organic synthesis, especially in enantioselective synthesis. Proline and its derivatives are proven to be quite effective chiral organocatalysts for a variety of transformations including the aldol reaction, which is considered as one of the important C-C bond forming reactions in organic synthesis. The use of chiral organocatalysts has several advantages over its metal-mediated analogues. Subsequently, a large number of highly efficient proline-based organocatalysts including polymer-supported chiral analogues have been identified for aldol reaction. The use of polymer-supported organocatalysts exhibited remarkable stability under the reaction conditions and offered the best results particularly in terms of its recyclability and reusability. These potential benefits along with its economic and green chemistry advantages have led to the search for many polymer-supported proline catalysts. In this review, recent developments in exploring various polymer immobilized proline-based chiral organocatalysts for asymmetric aldol reactions are described.

Systematic visual analysis of groundwater hydrographs: potential benefits and challenges

Visual analysis of time series in hydrology is frequently seen as a crucial step to becoming acquainted with the nature of the data, as well as detecting unexpected errors, biases, etc. Human eyes, in particular those of a trained expert, are well suited to recognize irregularities and distinct patterns. However, there are limits as to what the eye can resolve and process; moreover, visual analysis is by definition subjective and has low reproducibility. Visual inspection is frequently mentioned in publications, but rarely described in detail, even though it may have significantly affected decisions made in the process of performing the underlying study. This paper presents a visual analysis of groundwater hydrographs that has been performed in relation to attempts to classify groundwater time series as part of developing a new concept for prediction in data-scarce groundwater systems. Within this concept, determining the similarity of groundwater hydrographs is essential. As standard approaches for similarity analysis of groundwater hydrographs do not yet exist, different approaches were developed and tested. This provided the opportunity to carry out a comparison between visual analysis and formal, automated classification approaches. The presented visual classification was carried out on two sets of time series from central Europe and Fennoscandia. It is explained why and where visual classification can be beneficial but also where the limitations and challenges associated with the approach lie. It is concluded that systematic visual analysis of time series in hydrology, despite its subjectivity and low reproducibility, should receive much more attention.

Maternal transmission as a symbiont sieve, and the absence of lactation in male mammals

Gut microbiomes of humans carry a complex symbiotic assemblage of microorganisms. As in all mammals, the special mode of feeding newborn infants through milk from the mammary gland enhances the opportunity for vertical transmission of elements of this microbiome. This has potential benefits, but it also brings with it some hazards for the host. We point out here that vertical transmission from both parents would allow host populations to be invaded by elements that are deleterious. In contrast, vertical transmission, when restricted to one parent, acts as a sieve preventing the spread of such elements. Because some transmission from mother to infant is unavoidable in placental mammals, uniparental transmission of symbionts, if it were to be selected, would require some separation of the father from the newborn infant. This paper therefore puts forward the hypothesis that the asymmetry in roles of mother and father, together with the hazards that come with biparental transmission, generate a selection pressure against male lactation in humans, and in mammals in general.