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Alcohol has potential deleterious effects on donor heart function. This study was conducted in rats to determine whether long-term alcohol ingestion produces impaired hemodynamic performance while maintaining a normal left ventricular ejection fraction in donor hearts before transplantation and whether donor cardiac function is affected after heart transplantation.Rats fed 30% alcohol in their drinking water for 12 weeks were compared with rats fed a normal diet. Left ventricular ejection fraction was measured by echocardiography with Simpson and single plane Dodge formulas in living sedated rats after 10 and 12 weeks of alcohol feeding. Explanted heart function was assessed before and 3 days after heterotopic heart transplantation (no immunosuppression) with a Langendorff preparation.Blood ethanol levels at 4 and 8 weeks were 0.08 +/- 0.04 and 0.08 +/- 0.09 gm/dl. Left ventricular ejection fraction was similar in the group fed an alcohol diet for 12 weeks when compared with the control group (65.4% +/- 1.6% vs. 66.5% +/- 2.9%, p = 0.33). Explanted alcohol-fed hearts before transplantation had significantly lower maximum and developed pressures and had a blunted response to 0.1 ml 10(-9) mol/L isoproterenol. After transplantation alcohol-fed hearts had significantly lower maximum and developed pressures and decreased maximum rates of pressure rise and pressure decline. Allografts (ACI to Lewis) exhibited decreased function in comparison with isografts (ACI to ACI).Alcohol feeding for 12 weeks in rats does not affect pretransplantation left ventricular ejection fraction, but it impairs explanted heart function, both before and after transplantation, resulting in a subclinical cardiomyopathy that is worsened by the presence of allograft rejection. Long-term alcohol exposure and rejection have independent, additive detrimental effects on left ventricular performance of the transplanted heart. Alcohol-exposed hearts may not be suitable donors.

This paper aims to provide a deeper understanding of the water-, sanitation- and hygiene (WASH)-related insecurities that people experiencing homelessness in urban areas of high-income countries (HIC) are facing, and how these insecurities are further complicated during extreme weather events. While limited recent research has looked into WASH among people experiencing homelessness in HICs, and while some work has considering the implications of climate change on WASH and health, the nexus of WASH, extreme weather events and homelessness in HICs have not been studied thus far. We conducted the first systematic scoping review of peer-reviewed literature on this nexus, which is understudied and marked by complexity, involving a range of systems and forms of impact. A total of 50 publications were included in our analysis.We found that public facilities like drinking water fountains, toilets, handwashing facilities, and showers are scarce, frequently unavailable, often pose safety and cleanliness issues, and access to non-public facilities may be cost-prohibitive for homeless populations. Consequently, people experiencing homelessness, including those sleeping rough, in encampments, or shelters, are often forced to limit drinking water consumption, forego healthy hygiene behaviours, and resort to open urination and defecation, all of which carry health risks. Extreme weather events, like heatwaves, extreme cold, heavy rain and flooding exacerbate challenges for people experiencing homelessness, further complicating their access to WASH, and reducing the ability of service providers to deliver extra relief, creating a dual WASH and health burden.Our review highlights that the Human Right to Water and Sanitation is not met for people experiencing homelessness in urban areas of high-income countries, with women emerging as one of the most vulnerable subgroups. It reveals that the impact of certain WASH issues (e.g. drinking water) on homeless populations are better understood than others (e.g. waste), and, similarly, the effects of certain extreme weather events (e.g. heatwaves) on the health and WASH conditions of people experiencing homelessness are better understood than others (e.g. flooding). Data gaps and the lack of information on limited WASH access and health circumstances of people experiencing homelessness, further minimize their representation and consequently impose obstacles to improve their situation.Based on our analysis, we established a framework which operationalizes the nexus of WASH, extreme weather events and homelessness. This framework improves our understanding of the underlying complexities at the intersection of these three issues and provides a foundation for enhanced preparedness and health-oriented planning.

Basic infrastructure services – water and sanitation, waste collection and management, transport, energy, and housing – form the foundation upon which cities are built. Sustainable and equitable provision of services is key to combating climate change, eradicating poverty and meeting targets set out in international sustainability agendas. However, even as the language of the sustainability transitions literature is being appropriated by governments, social movements and practitioners, the concepts of sustainability and sustainability transitions remain ill-defined and often narrowly applied. We conduct a corpus-assisted discourse analysis of the sustainability transitions literature on urban basic infrastructure services to tap into prevailing representations and conceptions. Findings show that the delivery of sustainable urban services is discursively framed as a predominantly institutional and economic challenge, favouring a top-down techno-managerial approach to transitions that applies technical fixes to environmental problems at the expense of social dimensions of sustainability. While some studies, such as those with a focus on the Global South and/or water and sanitation services, engage to a greater degree with issues such as justice and equality, they still tend towards technical and economic solutions. An integrated approach encompassing all dimensions of sustainability and a broader understanding of infrastructure services not as separate, single-purpose technologies but as part of interconnected systems with multiple social, economic and environmental objectives is needed if we are to transition to a more sustainable urban future. Management in the Built Environment Urban Development Management

In spite of all the national, regional and local crisis management efforts, never since World War Two have so many Dutch citizens died in one year: 967 persons per 100,000 inhabitants. In 1993, a year with a vehement influenza-epidemic, 901 per 100,000 inhabitants died.

Energy sector reforms with an emphasis on electricity growth have been taking place extensively and rapidly worldwide Particularly, motivated chiefly by classical economics’ standpoint of efficiency and market considerations, reforms have been made in the developed North. Models of reforms in the North have in turn been replicated in developing countries. However, questions arise as to whether the models used are suitable for the mostly rural and socioeconomically disadvantaged economies in the South. It is argued in this paper that a sustainability focused mode of reforms guided by futures studies is needed for such economies. Reforms taking place in Kenya and neighbouring countries are in particular examined from a sustainable future perspective; and appropriate improvements and further research are recommended. International Journal of Sustainable Energy Planning and Management, Vol 5 (2015)

We follow Schmalensee, Stoker, and Judson (1998) to forecast CO2 emissions based on the environmental Kuznets curve (EKC). Our findings suggest that the EKC will not lead to significant decreases in CO2 emissions even by 2050 for countries with the highest incomes. Therefore, mandatory emissions cuts are required to limit climate change. In the same spirit of Horowitz (2009) and Ng and Zhao (2010), we then use a reduced-form approach to estimate the economic costs of mandatory emission cuts. Based on our parameter estimates, we find that a 25% mandatory deduction in CO2 emissions from 1990 will lead to a 5.63% decrease in the combined GDP of the 19 OECD countries, and a 40% deduction will result in a 12.92% loss in income (holding other relevant variables constant)! Our estimates are substantially higher than those in Paltsev, Reillya, Jacobya, and Morris (2009) and Dellink, Briner and Clapp (2010), and suggest that the economic cost to limit climate change as envisioned in the Copenhagen Accord may be substantial and more research should be done before mandatory emission cuts are implemented.

The aim of this survey was to identify the attitudes of the public in the United States and in 12 European countries towards foreign policy and transatlantic issues. This survey concentrated on issues such as: United States and European Union (EU) leadership and relations, favorability towards certain countries and institutions, security, cooperation and the perception of threat, including concerns over Afghanistan, Iran, and Russia, Turkey and Turkish accession to the EU, climate change and the international economic crisis, and economic versus military power. Several questions were also asked pertaining to voting and politics including whether respondents discussed political matters with their friends and whether they attempted to persuade others close to them to share their views on politics which they held strong opinions about, their assessment of the current United States President, their political party attachment, their vote intention for the next national elections, their voting behavior in the November 2008 United States presidential election, and their left-right political self-placement. Demographic and other background information includes age, gender, race, age when finished full-time education and stage at which full-time education completed, occupation, household composition, type of locality, and region of residence. computer-assisted personal interview (CAPI); computer-assisted telephone interview (CATI); paper and pencil interview (PAPI)The original data collection was carried out by TNS Opinion - Brussels, on request of the German Marshall Fund of the United States.The codebook and setup files for this collection contain characters with diacritical marks used in many European languages.A split ballot was used for one or more questions in this survey. The variable SPLIT defines the separate groups for the countries of Bulgaria, Romania, Slovenia, and Turkey. Split ballots in other countries are fully randomized.The fieldwork dates in the data file for Romania and Turkey are not consistent with the fieldwork dates in the "Technical Note" section of the ICPSR codebook.For data collection, the computer-assisted face-to-face interview was used in Poland, the paper and pencil interview was used in Bulgaria, Romania, Slovakia, and Turkey, and the computer-assisted telephone interview was used in all other countries. For the computer-assisted telephone interview, only fixed telephone lines are included.Additional information on the Transatlantic Trends Survey is provided on the Transatlantic Trends Web site. (1) Stratified multistage random sampling (3 steps selection) was implemented in the countries using face-to-face interviewing. Sampling points were selected according to region and urbanization, and then random routes were conducted within these sampling points. The closest birthday rule was used to randomly select respondents within each household. Four callbacks were used for each address. (2) Random-digit dialing was implemented in the countries using telephone interviewing. Eight callbacks were used for each telephone number. The closest birthday rule was used to randomly select respondents within a household. The adult population (aged 18 years and over) with access to a landline telephone in 13 countries: Bulgaria, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Spain, Turkey, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Smallest Geographic Unit: country Response Rates: The total response rate for all countries surveyed is 18 percent. Please refer to the "Technical Note" in the ICPSR codebook for additional information about response rate. Please refer to the "Technical Note" in the ICPSR codebook for further information about weighting. Datasets: DS1: Transatlantic Trends Survey, 2009

The aim of this survey was to identify the attitudes of the public in the United States and in 12 European countries towards foreign policy and transatlantic issues. This survey concentrated on issues such as: United States and European Union (EU) leadership and relations, international relations, the likelihood of strong leadership from the United States, the EU, Russia, China, and India five years from now, respondent assessment of the current United States President on various issues such as climate change and stabilizing Afghanistan, which issues should be priorities for United States and EU leaders in the next five years, favorability towards certain countries and institutions, international cooperation, international conflict, the role of China in international issues, Turkey and Turkish accession to the EU, the international economic crisis, economic versus military power, Turkey and Cyprus reunification, political party attachment, vote intentions in the next national elections, and left-right political self-placement. Demographic and other background information includes age, gender, race, age when finished full-time education and stage at which full-time education completed, occupation, type of phone line, household composition, type of locality, and region of residence. computer-assisted personal interview (CAPI); computer-assisted telephone interview (CATI); paper and pencil interview (PAPI)The original data collection was carried out by TNS Opinion -- Brussels, on request of the German Marshall Fund of the United States.The codebook and setup files for this collection contain characters with diacritical marks used in many European languages.Indirect Identifiers: To limit possible disclosure risk, the time of interview variables P2A_1, P2A_2, P2B_1, and P2B_2 have been dropped from the public-use data.A split ballot was used for one or more questions in this survey. The variables SPLIT1, SPLIT2, and SPLIT3 define the separate groups.For data collection, the computer-assisted face-to-face interview was used in Poland, the paper and pencil interview was used in Bulgaria, Romania, Slovakia, and Turkey, and the computer-assisted telephone interview was used in all other countries. Twenty percent of the sample in the Italy, Portugal, Spain, and the United States was contacted through mobile phone instead of landline. Only fixed telephone lines are included in all other cases.Additional information on the Transatlantic Trends Survey is provided on the Transatlantic Trends Web site. The basic sample design applied in all states is multi-stage random (probability). In each household, the respondent was drawn at random (following the "closest birthday rule"). Up to five call-backs for telephone interviews and four visits in total for face-to-face interviews were attempted before dropping a potential respondent. The face-to-face interview was used in Bulgaria, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, and Turkey due to the low telephone penetration rate in these five countries. The adult population (aged 18 years and over) with access to landline telephone in 13 countries: Bulgaria, France, Germany, Italy, The Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Spain, Turkey, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Smallest Geographic Unit: country Response Rates: The total response rate for all countries surveyed is 12 percent. Please refer to the "Technical Note" in the ICPSR codebook for additional information about response rate. Please refer to the "Technical Note" in the ICPSR codebook for further information about weighting. Datasets: DS1: Transatlantic Trends Survey, 2010

Background: Alcohol hangover is a common occurrence among individuals who have experienced an episode of heavy alcohol consumption the previous night. Until now defined as the general feeling of misery that develops once the Blood Alcohol Concentration approaches zero. Despite its prevalence and several related adverse consequences, insufficient research has been conducted with regards to this matter and further understanding of the pathology of alcohol hangover is necessary. During the 9th Alcohol Hangover Research Group meeting, held on April 29th 2017, Utrecht, The Netherlands, numerous aspects of alcohol hangover were presented and many advances with regards to determinants, biological and cognitive consequences and potential treatment have been presented. Conclusion: Precisely, a definition of alcohol hangover has been established and wider understandings of biological and cognitive effects, alcohol metabolism, immune functioning and potential treatment of alcohol hangover were presented and discussed. Further research and development are necessary to attain a wider understanding of the pathology of alcohol hangover.