In late 2005 Czech authorities first began to discover substantial amounts of municipal waste illegally transported from Germany to the Czech Republic. The dumping of more than 30 000 tonnes of German waste in 'black dumps' throughout the Bohemian countryside raised social, economic, and political questions about how to mitigate the negative human health and environmental impacts and prevent dumping in the future. In addition to prompting practical policy questions, the situation challenges sociologists to theorise the causes, effects, and possible responses to the problem. This article draws on the environmental sociological Treadmill of Production (ToP) theory to examine the role of the state in managing the crisis. The author presents the history of the Bohemian illegal waste problem and then describes and analyses relevant waste management policies in the Czech Republic, Germany, and the European Union in the light of the ToP theory, which hypothesises that environmental degradation is caused primarily by institutional political-economic forces, and that the protection of environmental quality can be achieved only through structural reform. The dilemma of illegal waste shipment highlights the difficult role of the government, which must balance its responsibilities to protect environmental quality and human health and promote commerce and economic growth in an international context. Data from interviews and documentary analysis are used to describe the case study and test the ToP theory. The author concludes that while the ToP theory is useful for analysing the illegal waste issue by highlighting the structural character of the problem, some refinement of the theory may be necessary to better understand this case study.
The study of leaf vascular systems is important in order to understand the fluid dynamics of water movement in leaves. Recent studies have shown how these systems can be involved in the performance of photosynthesis, which is linked to the density of the vascular network per unit of leaf area. The aim of the present study was to highlight the correlation between a leaf vein density (VD) and net photosynthetic rate (PN), which was undertaken using a digital camera, a stereoscopic microscope, and a light source. The proposed hypothesis was tested, for the first time, on the leaves of two cultivars of Vitis vinifera (L.). A significant difference was found between the VD of mature leaves of the two cultivars. VD was also significantly correlated with the maximum leaf PN. These findings support the hypothesis that the vascular system of grape leaves can be correlated with leaf photosynthesis performance., M. Pagano, P. Corona, P. Storchi., and Obsahuje bibliografii
IMI is a unique Public-Private Partnership (PPP) between the pharmaceutical industry, represented by the European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations (EFPIA), and the European Communities represented by the European Commission. The First Call of the IMI Joint Undertaking was launched by European Commissioner for Science and Research Janez Potočnik and EFPIA President Arthur Higgins on April 30. and Táňa Perglová.