Finance's Social License? Sugar, Farmland and Health.

BACKGROUND: This paper examines the exclusion of public health from social license narratives within an increasingly financialised food system, through a case study of foreign ownership in the Australian sugar industry. As finance actors such as asset management firms, pension funds, private equity funds, state owned enterprises and sovereign wealth funds engage in speculative farmland investment, commodity futures trading, and the conversion of farmland into a financial asset, power within agro-industrial food supply chains becomes increasingly concentrated. This has been associated with increased food prices and more processed food, contributing to obesogenic diets, hunger, and poorer health outcomes for many. The potential for negative social and environmental impacts has prompted awareness of the need for financial actors to demonstrate sustainability, responsibility and accountability in their farmland investments. METHODS: This paper uses thematic analysis of qualitative interviews and key documents to assess four recent acquisitions of sugarcane land in North Queensland. We consider how companies' efforts to establish or maintain a social license to operate (SLO) intersect with their capital accumulation strategies. RESULTS: Our findings demonstrate that the link between the commodification of 'unhealthy' food inputs (such as sugar) and financialisation remains outside the purview of financiers. Instead, agribusiness firms use narratives centred on biofuels investment and energy/food security to justify their legitimacy in the sugar sector. We organise our findings according to two 'narratives:' constructing trust and credibility through ethical compliance; and, biofuels expansion as a legitimate response to climate change. The concept of social license is much stronger in the second narrative, but health is largely missing. CONCLUSION: The 'distancing' between responsibility and health outcomes highlights the limits to principles of responsible financial investment, and to the legitimacy of finance to claim an SLO - the ongoing approval and acceptance by society to conduct its activities.

Assessing the sleeping habits of patients in a sleep disorder centre: a review of sleep diary accuracy.

BACKGROUND: Excessive daytime sleepiness (EDS) is a complaint common to many aspects of medicine. There are primary and secondary causes for EDS, with secondary causes including a large number of common conditions. Primary causes, such as narcolepsy, are much rarer. When assessing for primary hypersomnia, restricted or fragmented sleep must be ruled out. This process involves assessment of sleeping habits using a sleep diary and/or actigraphy. Clinicians are suspicious of the accuracy with which patients use the former. This review aims to evaluate the accuracy of a sleep diary study against the 'objective gold standard' actigraphy report. METHODS: Data from 35 patients at a Sleep Disorder Centre who underwent both a sleep diary and actigraphy study for suspected primary hypersomnia in 2016 was collected. Mean values of four variables were calculated: 'time of lights out', 'time to fall asleep', 'time of waking' and 'sleep time'. The 'similarity' was assessed. This was a term defined in three different ways: if sleep diary values are accurate to within 20, 30 and 60 min respectively. Percentage 'similarity', mean time differences and standard deviations (SDs) were calculated for each variable. A paired t-test was also performed to assess the significance of the time differences between the two modalities. RESULTS: Least accurate was 'sleep time', with 14.7%, 23.5% and 58.8% of patients within 20, 30 and 60 min of the actigraphy respectively. Mean time difference for this variable was 66 min (versus 33, 15 and 22). 'Time to fall asleep' was most accurate, with 76.5%, 82.4% and 100% 'similarity' respectively. CONCLUSIONS: The clinically acceptable accuracy has no universal definition, so clinicians must use experience and reasoning to determine this level to interpret this data. The review suggests that some variables are entered with high accuracy, and the diary is low cost and adds subjective information that cannot be gathered from actigraphy. Therefore, use is recommended to continue alongside actigraphy.

A Nanoporous Cytochrome c Film with Highly Ordered Porous Structure for Sensing of Toxic Vapors.

Creating well-ordered nanoporosity in biomolecules promises stability and activity, offering access to an even wider range of application possibilities. Here, the preparation of nanoporous protein films containing cytochrome c protein molecules is reported through a soft-templating strategy using polystyrene (PS) spheres of different sizes as templates. The stability of the cytochrome c film is demonstrated through electrochemistry studies to show a reusable nature of these films over a long period of time. The size of the PS spheres is varied to tune the pore diameter and the thickness of the cytochrome c films, which are quite stable and highly selective for sensing toxic acidic vapors. The fusion of the templating strategy and the self-assembly of biomolecules may offer various possibilities by generating a new series of porous biomolecules including enzymes with different molecular weights and diameters, peptides, antibodies, and DNA with interesting catalytic, adsorption, sensing, and electronic properties.

Investigating the Properties and Hydrolysis Ability of Poly-Lactic Acid/Chitosan Nanocomposites Using Polycaprolactone.

Poly-lactic acid (PLA) has been widely applied in the medical field (in biomedicines such as medical capsules, surgical sutures and suture wounds) owing to its high biodegradability, good biocompatibility and ability to be dissolved in common solvents. Chitosan (CS) is an abundant polysaccharide and a cationic polyelectrolyte present in nature. In this study, the combination of PLA and CS has been used to form PLA/CS nanocomposites having the advantages of both the original components. To enhance the dispersibility and compatibility between PLA and CS in the PLA/CS nanocomposites, polycaprolactone (PCL) is added as a compatibilizer. The Fourier Transform Infrared spectroscopies prove the existence of the interactions of PCL with PLA and CS. A more regular dispersion of CS of 200-400 nm particle size, is observed in the PLA matrix of the PLA/CS nanocomposites containing PCL, through the Field Emission Scanning Electron Microscopy images. The appearance of one glass transition temperature (T(g)) value of PLA/CS/PCL nanocomposites occuring between the T(g) values of PLA and CS in DSC diagrams confirms the improvement in the compatibility between PLA and CS, due to the presence of PCL. The TGA result shows that PCL plays an important role in enhancing the thermal stability of PLA/CS/PCL nanocomposites. The hydrolysis of PLA/CS/PCL nanocomposites in alkaline and phosphate buffer solutions was investigated. The obtained results show that the PLA/CS/PCL nanocomposites have slower hydrolysis ability than the PLA/CS composites.

Bifunctional Mesoporous Carbon Nitride: Highly Efficient Enzyme-like Catalyst for One-pot Deacetalization-Knoevenagel Reaction.

Recently, mesoporous carbon nitride (MCN) has aroused extensive interest for its potential applications in organocatalysis, photo- and electrochemistry and CO2 capture. However, further surface functionalization of MCN for advanced nanomaterials and catalysis still remains very challenging. Here we show that acidic carboxyl groups can be smoothly introduced onto the surface of well-ordered MCN without annihilation between the introduced acid groups and MCN's inherent basic groups through a facile UV light oxidation method. The functionalization generates a novel bifunctional nanocatalyst which offers an enzyme-like catalytic performance in the one-pot deacetalization-Knoevenagel reaction of benzaldehyde dimethylacetal and malononitrile with 100% conversion and more than 99% selectivity due to the cooperative catalysis between the acid and base groups separated on the surface of the catalyst. The results provide a general method to create multifunctional nanomaterials and open new opportunities for the development of high efficient catalyst for green organic synthesis.

Quick high-temperature hydrothermal synthesis of mesoporous materials with 3D cubic structure for the adsorption of lysozyme.

Three-dimensional cage-like mesoporous FDU-12 materials with large tuneable pore sizes ranging from 9.9 to 15.6 nm were prepared by varying the synthesis temperature from 100 to 200 °C for the aging time of just 2 h using a tri-block copolymer F-127(EO106PO70EO106) as the surfactant and 1,3,5-trimethyl benzene as the swelling agent in an acidic condition. The mesoporous structure and textural features of FDU-12-HX (where H denotes the hydrothermal method and X denotes the synthesis temperature) samples were elucidated and probed using x-ray diffraction, N2 adsorption, 29Si magic angle spinning nuclear magnetic resonance, scanning electron microscopy and transmission electron microscopy. It has been demonstrated that the aging time can be significantly reduced from 72 to 2 h without affecting the structural order of the FDU-12 materials with a simple adjustment of the synthesis temperature from 100 to 200 °C. Among the materials prepared, the samples prepared at 200 °C had the highest pore volume and the largest pore diameter. Lysozyme adsorption experiments were conducted over FDU-12 samples prepared at different temperatures in order to understand their biomolecule adsorption capacity, where the FDU-12-HX samples displayed high adsorption performance of 29 µmol g-1 in spite of shortening the actual synthesis time from 72 to 2 h. Further, the influence of surface area, pore volume and pore diameter on the adsorption capacity of FDU-12-HX samples has been investigated and results are discussed in correlation with the textural parameters of the FDU-12-HX and other mesoporous adsorbents including SBA-15, MCM-41, KIT-5, KIT-6 and CMK-3.

Highly ordered nanoporous carbon films with tunable pore diameters and their excellent sensing properties.

Ordered porous carbon films with tunable pore diameters, immobilized with glucose oxidase (GOD) have been fabricated and employed for the construction of a biosensor for glucose molecules. The as-prepared porous films have large specific surface areas and highly ordered porous structure with uniform pore sizes, which are critical for the immobilization of large amounts of GOD and support the promotion of heterogeneous electron transfer. The developed biosensors give enough room for the encapsulation of a high amount of GOD molecules and show excellent biosensing performance with a linear response to glucose concentration ranging from 0.5 to 9 mM and a detection limit of 1.5 µM. It is also demonstrated that the sensitivity of the biosensor can be easily tuned by modulating the pore size of carbon film as it dictates the amount of immobilization of GOD in the porous channels. The fabricated carbon-film-based biosensor has a good stability and a high reproducibility, which opens the gateway for the commercialization of this excellent technology.

Mesoporous carbon encapsulated with SrO nanoparticles for the transesterification of ethyl acetoacetate.

Highly basic active sites were introduced by the encapsulation of SrO nanoparticles inside the porous channels of highly ordered mesoporous carbon using wet-impregnation method. The samples prepared were thoroughly investigated employing various physico-chemical characterization techniques such as X-ray diffraction (XRD), N2 adsorption, high resolution transmission electron microscope (HRTEM) and elemental mapping. The basic sites located inside the nanochannels were quantified by the temperature programmed desorption (TPD) of CO2. XRD, N2 adsorption and HRTEM results revealed that the structural order of the parent CMK-3 support is retained even after higher loading of SrO nanoparticles. TPD of CO2 profiles confirmed that the number of basic active sites can be controlled by varying the SrO loading and the pore diameter of the CMK-3 support. The catalytic potential of the prepared samples was investigated on the transesterification of ethyl acetoacetate (EAA) as a probe reaction. Among the catalysts studied, CMK-3-150 loaded with 30 wt% of SrO nanoparticles exhibited the highest catalytic activity. The effect of various alcohols such as aryl (benzyl alcohol), aliphatic (1-butanol and 1-octanol) and cyclic alcohols (cyclohexanol and furfuryl alcohol) affecting the activity of the catalyst was also investigated. It was found that the catalyst offers maximum conversion when linear aliphatic alcohols especially, 1-butanol with shorter chain length are used. The amount of SrO loading, pore diameter of the CMK-3 support and the weight of the catalyst affecting the catalytic performance of the samples were investigated and discussed in accordance with the physico-chemical characterization data of the catalysts.

Choosing organics: a path analysis of factors underlying the selection of organic food among Australian consumers.

Path analysis of attitudinal, motivational, demographic and behavioural factors influencing food choice among Australian consumers who had consumed at least some organic food in the preceding 12 months showed that concern with the naturalness of food and the sensory and emotional experience of eating were the major determinants of increasing levels of organic consumption. Increasing consumption was also related to other 'green consumption' behaviours such as recycling and to lower levels of concern with convenience in the purchase and preparation of food. Most of these factors were, in turn, strongly affected by gender and the level of responsibility taken by respondents for food provisioning within their households, a responsibility dominated by women. Education had a slightly negative effect on the levels of concern for sensory and emotional appeal due to lower levels of education among women. Income, age, political and ecological values and willingness to pay a premium for safe and environmentally friendly foods all had extremely minor effects.