About the Author Zachary Brown is a native of Toronto Ontario and a junior studying history at Stanford University with a concentration in US history. His academic interests include the American Civil War, the rhetoric of Anglo-Indian interactions in the Colonial period, and political authority in the Hellenistic period and the early Roman Empire. Zachary hopes to pursue graduate studies in history.
About the author Zachary Brown is a native of Toronto Ontario and a junior studying history at Stanford University with a concentration in US history. His academic interests include the American Civil War, the rhetoric of Anglo-Indian interactions in the Colonial period, and political authority in the Hellenistic period and the early Roman Empire. Zachary hopes to pursue graduate studies in history.
Over the last decade, many of America's urban areas have developed "sustainability plans" focusing on the long-term viability of their communities. Although many local governments have concentrated on environmental issues, others have incorporated economic and social policies. A new subset of literature has emerged highlighting equity and social justice within the sustainability dialogue. Scholars and practitioners alike argue that true sustainability requires equal access to all three pillars of sustainability for all groups. Through interviews with public and private actors, as well as content analysis of the plan, this study investigates the structure of the governance network responsible for the development of "Sustainable Chicago 2015", elements of the sustainability plan, and the plan's consideration of equity and social justice. The central purpose of this research is to determine if underserved communities were represented in the decision-making process and whether they will benefit from the resulting policies and programs. "Sustainable Chicago 2015" is found to be largely an environmental plan, with some elements of economic and social sustainability that are rooted in the environment. As a guiding document for Chicago, the plan defines sustainability for the city and includes little explicit acknowledgement of Chicago's underserved communities. This can be seen as a result of a lack of underserved and minority voices in the decision-making coalition, but ultimately the network was found to have little influence on the plan. From the onset, "Sustainable Chicago 2015" was the mayor's plan and that vision did not emphasize social justice and economic equity.
Decision analysis tools and mathematical modeling are increasingly emphasized in malaria control programs worldwide to improve resource allocation and address ongoing challenges with sustainability. However, such tools require substantial scientific evidence, which is costly to acquire. The value of information (VOI) has been proposed as a metric for gauging the value of reduced model uncertainty. We apply this concept to an evidenced‐based Malaria Decision Analysis Support Tool (MDAST) designed for application in East Africa. In developing MDAST, substantial gaps in the scientific evidence base were identified regarding insecticide resistance in malaria vector control and the effectiveness of alternative mosquito control approaches, including larviciding. We identify four entomological parameters in the model (two for insecticide resistance and two for larviciding) that involve high levels of uncertainty and to which outputs in MDAST are sensitive. We estimate and compare a VOI for combinations of these parameters in evaluating three policy alternatives relative to a status quo policy. We find having perfect information on the uncertain parameters could improve program net benefits by up to 5–21%, with the highest VOI associated with jointly eliminating uncertainty about reproductive speed of malaria‐transmitting mosquitoes and initial efficacy of larviciding at reducing the emergence of new adult mosquitoes. Future research on parameter uncertainty in decision analysis of malaria control policy should investigate the VOI with respect to other aspects of malaria transmission (such as antimalarial resistance), the costs of reducing uncertainty in these parameters, and the extent to which imperfect information about these parameters can improve payoffs.
Batteries that extend performance beyond the intrinsic limits of Li-ion batteries are among the most important developments required to continue the revolution promised by electrochemical devices. Of these next-generation batteries, lithium sulfur (Li–S) chemistry is among the most commercially mature, with cells offering a substantial increase in gravimetric energy density, reduced costs and improved safety prospects. However, there remain outstanding issues to advance the commercial prospects of the technology and benefit from the economies of scale felt by Li-ion cells, including improving both the rate performance and longevity of cells. To address these challenges, the Faraday Institution, the UK's independent institute for electrochemical energy storage science and technology, launched the Lithium Sulfur Technology Accelerator (LiSTAR) programme in October 2019. This Roadmap, authored by researchers and partners of the LiSTAR programme, is intended to highlight the outstanding issues that must be addressed and provide an insight into the pathways towards solving them adopted by the LiSTAR consortium. In compiling this Roadmap we hope to aid the development of the wider Li–S research community, providing a guide for academia, industry, government and funding agencies in this important and rapidly developing research space.
