Evoking equity as a rationale for solar geoengineering research? Scrutinizing emerging expert visions of equity

This paper examines how notions of equity are being evoked by expert advocates of more research into solar geoengineering. We trace how specific understandings of equity figure centrally—although not always explicitly—in these expert visions. We find that understandings of equity in such “vanguard visions” are narrowly conceived as epistemic challenges, answerable by (more) scientific analysis. Major concerns about equity are treated as empirical matters, requiring scientific assessment of feasibility, risks, or “win–win” distributive outcomes and optimizations, with concurrent calls to delimit risk or reduce scientific uncertainties. We argue that such epistemic framings sidestep, inter alia, the inequality in resources available to diverse non-experts—including the “vulnerable” evoked in expert visions—to project their own equity perspectives onto imagined technological pathways of the future. These may include concerns relating to moral or historical responsibility and/or lack of agency in shaping the directions of innovation. We conclude that the performative power and political implications of specific expert visions of equity, evoked as a rationale to undertake solar geoengineering research, require continued scrutiny.     

Bioinformatics Approach to Assess the Biogeographical Patterns of Soil Communities: The Utility for Soil Provenance,

Soil DNA profiling has potential as a forensic tool to establish a link between soil collected at a crime scene and soil recovered from a suspect. However, a quantitative measure is needed to investigate the spatial/temporal variability across multiple scales prior to their application in forensic science. In this study, soil DNA profiles across Miami‐Dade, FL, were generated using length heterogeneity PCR to target four taxa. The objectives of this study were to (i) assess the biogeographical patterns of soils to determine whether soil biota is spatially correlated with geographic location and (ii) evaluate five machine learning algorithms for their predictive ability to recognize biotic patterns which could accurately classify soils at different spatial scales regardless of seasonal collection. Results demonstrate that soil communities have unique patterns and are spatially autocorrelated. Bioinformatic algorithms could accurately classify soils across all scales with Random Forest significantly outperforming all other algorithms regardless of spatial level.     

Forensic evaluation of occupational marks in establishing identity—A case report

The livings have responsibilities for the dead; and in particular, civilized societies recognize the need for identity both during life and at death, particularly in circumstances when an unknown body is summoned for medico-legal autopsy. There are numerous tools for identification of an unknown body which includes visual identification, fingerprints, medical prostheses, odontological techniques, DNA fingerprints and to include in the list is the occupational marks over the body sustained during the course of his or her profession. The medico-legal investigators should possess comprehensive knowledge of such occupational marks, which aid in identification. We are highlighting a case of rare entity, where a forensic evaluation of occupational marks was done to establish the identity of an unknown elderly male, who committed suicide by ligature hanging.     

Privatizing Environmental Resources: The Need for Supervision of Clean Development Mechanism Contracts?

This article argues that a current trend in global sustainable development governance is actively to engage the private sector in participating in the process of implementing global and national policy goals. This trend is based on the notion that the private sector has the ideas, technologies and resources at its disposal that can be channelled to addressing global environmental challenges. This new trend does not, however, take into account the past and present implications of private sector investment in fields such as mining and forestry. Nor does it closely examine how private sector rules will subsequently infiltrate and govern environmental management. On the basis of an examination of current policy developments and contracts in the area of environmental management and their implications for developing countries, this article argues in favour of establishing an authority that oversees the legitimacy and legality of these new contracts, especially in, but not limited to, the area of climate change.     

The role of institutional and governance factors in public–private partnerships infrastructure investments in emerging economies

The overall development and sustained growth of any economy depend heavily on its infrastructure provisioning. Emerging economies are usually characterised by constrained public investments in infrastructure. Budgetary constraints of the governments are one of the major hurdles to these investments. Due to these reasons that governments of emerging economies continuously seek collaborations with the private sector for additional sources of funding infrastructure. Economies with solid institutional and governance frameworks are known to provide a conducive environment for enhanced private sector attraction in the sector. However, emerging economies face greater institutional and governance issues than developed economies, and they sometimes fall short of luring private investments in the infrastructure sector. The objective of this study is to empirically evaluate the role of institutional and governance aspects in private sector attraction in emerging economies. This study provides empirical evidence with a sample of 114 emerging economies over a period of 20 years. Various econometric estimates were developed to explore the interplay between public-private partnership investments and governance factors. The results of the study provide an evidence of a positive association between these factors and private investments in public-private partnership arrangements.     

Cook,eat, man,woman: understanding the New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition,nutritionism and its alternatives from Malawi

The Group of Eight Countries (G8) launched the New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition to improve nutritional outcomes through private sector involvement in agricultural development. The accession of Malawi to the Alliance reveals the assumptions behind the intervention. We show that while the New Alliance may seem to have little to do with nutrition, its emergence as a frame for the privatization of food and agriculture has been decades in the making, and is best understood as an outcome of a project of nutritionism. To highlight the failings of the approach, we present findings from the Soils, Food and Healthy Communities Initiative in northern Malawi, which has demonstrated success in combatting malnutrition through a combination of agroecological farming practices, community mobilization, women's empowerment and changes in intrahousehold gender dynamics. Contrasting a political economic analysis of the New Alliance alongside that of the Soils, Food and Healthy Communities Initiative shows the difference between a concern with the gendered social context of malnutrition, and nutritionism. We conclude with an analysis of the ways that nutrition can play a part in interventions that are inimical, or conducive, to freedom.