Journal articles on the topic 'Globe Machinery and Supply Co'

Introduction: the implementation of land development programmes in the polar regions, Siberia andFar East turns more complex due to power shortages in these areas. High electric energy rates and the need to maintain special purpose buildings encourage engineers to develop autonomous energy supply systems.Methods: the co-authors have analyzed several types of autonomous power supply facilities and series of autonomous power supply units designated for the power supply to the production machinery installed as part of various economic and special-purpose facilities, located at a long distance from industrial sources of electric energy.Findings and discussion: the co-authors present an algorithm for the selection of the configuration of an autonomous power supply system. The co-authors employ the findings of their analysis to substantiate the choice of a solar power station as a supplementary source of energy used as part of hybrid power generation systems.Conclusion: the algorithm developed by the co-authors may be used to design an efficient autonomous power supply system comprising hybrid units.

Abstract This study examines the relationship between bank credits and performance and growth of manufacturing sub-sectors. Industrial Production Index was used for a different approach as a dependent variable. Indications of the autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) bound co-integration test support the theory that bank credits are more effective than loan rates on industrial production of sub-sectors. Moreover, the increase in bank credit leads to the rise of industrial production in all the sub-sectors, except Machinery. According to the Toda Yomamato causality test results, there are different degrees of causalities in means of the importance of bank loans for industrial production. On the other hand, in all sub-sectors except machinery and chemical sub-sectors, causality relations were observed at different grades beginning from loan interest rates to industrial production. As a result, this study concludes with the evidence of supply leading hypothesis via the financial sector leads and causes economic growth.

Abstract Activation of T cell accompanies remarkable enhancement of metabolism. Sufficient and continuous supply of nutrient such as amino acid is thus considerable importance to support immune reaction in T cell. However, the molecular mechanism of efficient incorporation of amino acid into activated T cell has not been determined. We characterized LAT1 as an essential amino acid transporter which is highly expressed in activated T cell. TCR stimulation and co-stimulation of human T cell triggered the dramatic induction of LAT1, although neither TCR stimulation nor co-stimulation alone did not affect the LAT1 expression. The promotion of LAT1 expression in activated T cell was prohibited by inhibitor of NF-kB and AP-1. These results indicate that LAT1 expression is induced by full activation of T cell and LAT1 could work as a potential transporter for essential amino acid in activated T cell. Our result that NF-kB and AP-1 are essential for LAT1 expression suggests that nutrient supply system and immune reaction system are included in one program and those systems are activated by the same molecular machinery in T cell.

At present, we are in the middle of a global pandemic due to COVID 19 disease caused by SARS-CoV-2 viral infection. It has now spread virtually to every corner of the globe. Medical professionals are faced with the challenge of managing diverse clinical manifestations and multisystem involvement of this infection. Although respiratory system is mainly involved COVID-19 disease, there have been diverse manifestations within the cardiovascular (CV) system that posing unique therapeutic challenges. Clinically, a patient may have features of myocarditis, heart failure, acute myocardial infarction, arrhythmia, and vascular thrombosis. Of these manifestations, the most common mechanism implicated is direct myocardial injury, whereas systemic inflammation, oxygen supply-demand mismatch, plaque rupture have also been suggested. Furthermore, current available data suggest cardiovascular related manifestations lead to increased morbidity and mortality. Also, patients with underlying cardiac conditions are more prone for severe disease and death. Although there are limited treatment options available for COVID-19 currently, it is imperative that the potential cardiovascular implications of these therapies are to be considered in these patients. There is need to review current available information regarding the implication of cardiovascular co-morbidity in COVID-19 disease so that we have uptodate and better understanding in this global problem. This review highlights the manifestations, pathophysiological mechanisms for cardiovascular manifestations of COVID-19 and address specific concerns of cardiac patients regarding medications and further management.

Several industries have recently seen the replacement of human labor by automated machinery and equipment. Across the globe, farmers’ attitudes on the use of technology in agriculture are divergent. However, although some people are excited and ready to embrace technology, others are cautious and wary of trying new technologies for the first time. The third category is particularly prevalent in underdeveloped nations such as India, owing to a lack of competence, a lack of effective translation, and most crucially, a lack of financial resources. It is fruitless for the government to attempt to resolve these difficulties due to the fact that they do not take into consideration the changing circumstances and input needs of each agricultural group. Smart Tillage is a cutting-edge framework that was developed to solve the challenges listed above. In India, a decision-based smart engine for the rental and sharing of tools and equipment has been developed, which leverages machine learning methods to proceed towards a selection of tools and equipment. The option is entirely reliant on a variety of input variables, including crop kind, harvest time/month, crop equipment needed, harvest type, and the amount of money available for rental. Additionally, an ideal recommendation engine driven by content and collaborative-based filtering will provide the farmer’s requirements depending on their requirements. In terms of escalation, the proposals would be cost-effective and excellent since they would need little changes in training, technique improvements, and resource management via a new rent-share model similar to that used by Uber. In this work, demand and supply algorithms are used to define market equilibrium, and the results are shown in graphs. This includes discussion of a variety of demand and supply parameters, their impact on market equilibrium prices and quantities, and their effect on shifting demand and supply curves. The many sorts of elasticities (demand, cross-price, supply, income, and so on) are examined, as well as the ramifications for pricing systems that may result from these elasticities.

Supply Chain Collaboration (SCC) has been a topic of great interest among the supply chain researchers for decades now. Collaboration among channel-partners is imperative for successful supply chain management and may be the most critical core competency for enhancing the supply chain performance. This paper examines the various SCC frameworks and their development through a bibliometric analysis of the SCC literature published under the Web of Science (WoS) database in the last twenty years from 2003 to 2022 (including early access for January, 2022) comprising of 4249 research articles. The analysis and graphical visualization of the bibliometric data is presented using measures of descriptive statistics and visualization tools identifying the linkages between the published literature. This study analyses the distribution of the publications based on the research author analysis, most cited publications analysis, publication source analysis, country-wise literature analysis and the keywords co-occurrence analysis. The study also examines the most cited researches on SCC in last two decades and attempts to collate the major developments in the SCC knowledgebase. This research corroborates the enormity of the research conducted in the past and accentuates the ever-growing significance of collaboration in the supply chains for future researchers and businesses worldwide. On an average more than two hundred articles are published every year on SCC and the time-series forecasts reaffirm its progressiveness and relevance as a research domain more than ever engaging researchers and business organisation across the globe. The systematically collated data of top twenty most cited articles, authors, journals, keyword and countries involved in SCC research has been prepared which will provide a source of practical reference for the early supply chain researchers and professionals globally.

Summary The main objective of this paper is to present a case of value interception as a result of restructuring the business model of a manufacturing company that operates in the agricultural machinery sector. A company that focuses on core activities in the value chain and commissions the manufacturing of most components to specialised suppliers – as a result of restructuring – becomes an integrator that controls all parts of the supply chain; from obtaining a raw material, through its own production of a possibly large number of components, to the distribution of a finished composite product. The framework of the conducted research featured the identification of the relationships occurring between own production of components comprising a given product, and an alternative solution, i.e. possibility of acquiring them by way of co-operation. The authors assumed that a derivative of the value intercepted in the finished product implementation process is the number of components manufactured using own production resources.

The world’s population is expected to grow at an increasing rate, leading to increased food consumption and waste production. Even though food waste represents one of the most challenging economic and environmental issues of the 21st century, it also provides a vast array of valuable resources. To address the challenge, this study uses resource recovery from food waste to close the supply chain loop, which is the cornerstone of a circular economy. By applying the bibliometric review technique, trends and patterns in food waste and circular economy were studied. The analysis of frequent keywords in the field provided insights into further research directions. A Boolean search of the keywords in the Scopus database resulted in 288 articles, published between 2015 and 2021. Further screening of titles, keywords, and abstracts resulted in 155 journal articles. Bibliometric coupling, including authors’ co-citation data, co-occurrence, and the occurrence of keywords, was graphically mapped using VOSviewer software. From the analysis of the publications, eight broad themes emerged: (1) anaerobic digestion of food waste for circular economy creation; (2) food waste systems and life cycle assessments for circular economy; (3) bio-based circular economy approaches; (4) consumer behavior and attitudes toward circular economies; (5) food supply chains and food waste in a circular economy; (6) material flow analysis and sustainability; (7) challenges, policies, and practices to achieve circularity; and (8) circular economy and patterns of consumption. Based on the eight themes, we emphasize an urgent need to promote the collaboration of governments, the private sector, educational institutions, and researchers, who should combine efforts to promote, integrate and accelerate acceptance of circularity, which will potentially mitigate greenhouse emissions associated with food loss and waste. We also highlight an opportunity to encourage consumer acceptance of upcycled food in the food waste hierarchy. In addition, we deduce that there is a need to quantify food waste and emissions of greenhouse gases due to this waste along the food value chain; this is important as it is one pathway of examining the ‘food leaks’ along the food supply chain. This can then inform optimal strategies targeting specific areas of the food supply chain experiencing food leaks. Lastly, food wastage affects the entire globe; however, future studies and funding need to be channeled towards investigating the possibility of implementing circularity in developing countries.

The Brantas is one of Indonesia's most important catchments. It is the “rice bowl” of Java and nationally important for its industrial activity. Surabaya, Indonesia's second largest city, is located at the mouth of the Brantas River which is pivotal to the city's water supply. The challenges associated with the institutional framework for natural resource management in East Java parallels that of many states and provinces around the globe. It is multi-layered and complex. Integrated Catchment Management (ICM) may be defined as “the co-ordinated and sustainable management of land, water, soil vegetation, fauna and other natural resources on a water catchment basis”. Over a period of six months, an ICM Strategy was researched and facilitated for the Brantas River Catchment in East Java via a short term advisor attachment. The aim of the Strategy is to improve co-ordination, co-operation, communication and consistency of government and community efforts towards sustaining the catchment's environmental, economic and social values. The attachment was part of the Pollution Control Implementation (PCI) Project funded by AusAid and the Indonesian Government. The ICM Strategy developed was broad based and addressed the priority natural resource management issues facing the Brantas Catchment. It was co-ordinated by BAPEDALDA, the Provincial Environmental Protection Agency, and developed by all agencies involved in natural resource management in the catchment. Various Universities and Non Government Organisations (NGOs) were also involved in the ICM process which developed the Strategy. At the conclusion of the attachment, a draft ICM Strategy and a proposed institutional framework had been developed. A working group of key agencies was also established to further enhance local “ownership”, finalise timescales and implementation responsibilities within the Strategy and bring the institutional arrangements into being through a Governor's Decree.

This article analyses two major trends of the 21st century. Firstly, the transition from fossil fuel-based energy production to renewable energy sources. Secondly, the inexorable urbanisation which can be witnessed all over the globe. The most promising renewable energy production technologies for the near future, i.e., wind and solar energy, are volatile by nature which makes matching supply and demand essential for a successful transition. Therefore, the aspects that determine the willingness of consumers to flexibilise their demand has gained growing attention. Initial research shows that different settings for (co-)ownership in terms of available prosumption options and used production technologies have a varying impact on demand flexibility. However, existing research has analysed flexibility drivers solely for the general population as an aggregate without any distinction regarding spatial, economic, or social factors. In this article, the authors go one step further and analyse whether those drivers for flexible consumption behaviour differ in rural or urban areas acknowledging differences in day-to-day life in both cases. This study is based on 2074 completed questionnaires from German consumers which were analysed using propensity score matching. The results show that people from rural and urban areas do not significantly differ in their willingness to be demand flexible in general. However, (co-)owners of RE installations from rural areas are generally significantly more demand flexible than (co-)owners of RE installations from urban areas. Further, when looking at different RE technologies, the results show that (co-)owners of solar installations are significantly more demand flexible if they are from rural areas. Lastly, when looking at usage options, people who solely consume produced electricity are more demand flexible if they are from rural areas as well.

Abstract. Changes in precipitation patterns and nitrogen (N) cycling across the globe are likely to affect ecosystem primary productivity and CO2 exchanges, especially in the arid and semi-arid grasslands because of their co-limitation of water and N supply. To evaluate the effects of water and N availability on ecosystem CO2 fluxes, we conducted a manipulative field experiment with water and N addition in a temperate steppe of Northern China. The growing-season CO2 fluxes, including net ecosystem exchange (NEE), gross ecosystem photosynthesis (GEP) and ecosystem respiration (ER) were examined in 2006 and 2007 with remarkably different amount of precipitation. Net carbon uptakes were found in all of treatments over the growing season in both years. However, their magnitude had inter-annual variations which coincided with the seasonal changes of precipitation amount. During these two growing seasons, water and N addition significantly increased NEE, owing to higher stimulation of GEP than ER. Our results suggest that net primary productivity, especially dominant species' biomass, correlated closely with variations in GEP and ER. Soil moisture was the driving environmental factor controlling seasonal and inter-annual variability in GEP and ER subsequently inducing changes in NEE. Moreover, the strengths of both water and N addition effects were greatly depended on the initial water condition in this temperate typical steppe.

Selenoproteins are a unique class of proteins that play key roles in redox signaling in the brain. This unique organ is comprised of a wide variety of cell types that includes excitatory neurons, inhibitory neurons, astrocytes, microglia, and oligodendrocytes. Whereas selenoproteins are known to be required for neural development and function, the cell-type specific expression of selenoproteins and selenium-related machinery has yet to be systematically investigated. Due to advances in sequencing technology and investment from the National Institutes of Health (NIH)-sponsored BRAIN initiative, RNA sequencing (RNAseq) data from thousands of cortical neurons can now be freely accessed and searched using the online RNAseq data navigator at the Allen Brain Atlas. Hence, we utilized this newly developed tool to perform a comprehensive analysis of the cell-type specific expression of selenium-related genes in brain. Select proteins of interest were further verified by means of multi-label immunofluorescent labeling of mouse brain sections. Of potential significance to neural selenium homeostasis, we report co-expression of selenoprotein P (SELENOP) and selenium binding protein 1 (SELENBP1) within astrocytes. These findings raise the intriguing possibility that SELENBP1 may negatively regulate astrocytic SELENOP synthesis and thereby limit downstream Se supply to neurons.

Purpose This year, Benchmarking: An International Journal (BIJ) is celebrating its 25th anniversary. The purpose of this paper is to show the historical connections and professional impact of the journal over the years. This is accomplished through a detailed bibliometric analysis (BA) of its content from 1994 to 2018. This paper also identifies leading trends that have affected BIJ during this time frame. Design/methodology/approach In this paper, the authors employ BA on data retrieved from the Scopus database. The authors used various indicators such as the most productive authors, institutions and countries, as well as the most cited papers, citing journals and articles most cited by BIJ between 1994 and 2018. Additionally, the authors have used the Gephi, VOSviewer software to map journals, keywords and institutions with bibliographic coupling and co-citation analysis. Findings The journal has improved its impact, productivity and reputation in the period under review. Articles published in BIJ have been cited in other journals more than 15,000 times. The most prominent themes among the articles published in BIJ are benchmarking, supply chain management and performance improvement. Significant contributions have come from authors and institutions around the globe. Co-authorships, though global, have centered around India, the USA and the UK. There is also a thematic similarity between articles from India and Thailand, and the USA and Germany, indicating high academic collaboration or prevalence of similar issues. Practical implications This paper provides evidence of the impact of BIJ, and in so doing, it helps authors to decide on the appropriateness of this publication for their research. The reader will also understand leading trends occurring in BIJ over the history of the journal. Originality/value This is the first paper that traces the progress of BIJ covering a time span of 25 years.

Risk assessment is of great significance in industrial production and sustainable development. Great potential is attributed to machine learning in industrial risk assessment as a promising technology in the fields of computer science and the internet. To better understand the role of machine learning in this field and to investigate the current research status, we selected 3116 papers from the SCIE and SSCI databases of the WOS retrieval platform between 1991 and 2022 as our data sample. The VOSviewer, Bibliometrix R, and CiteSpace software were used to perform co-occurrence analysis, clustering analysis, and dual-map overlay analysis of keywords. The results indicate that the development trend of machine learning in industrial risk assessment can be divided into three stages: initial exploration, stable development, and high-speed development. Machine learning algorithm design, applications in biomedicine, risk monitoring in construction and machinery, and environmental protection are the knowledge base of this study. There are three research hotspots in the application of machine learning to industrial risk assessment: the study of machine learning algorithms, the risk assessment of machine learning in the Industry 4.0 system, and the application of machine learning in autonomous driving. At present, the basic theories and structural systems related to this research have been established, and there are numerous research directions and extensive frontier branches. “Random Forest”, “Industry 4.0”, “supply chain risk assessment”, and “Internet of Things” are at the forefront of the research.

The present study on “knowledge and attitude of farmer towards improved farm implements” was conducted in the year 2020-2021 inYavatmal district of Maharashtra state. The exploratory research design of social research was used. In all, 80 respondents were selected by random sampling method. The data were collected by personally interviewing the respondents with the help of structured interview schedule. The data collected were carefully examined, classified, quantified and tabulated. Frequencies, mean, standard deviation and correlation co-efficient were employed for interpreting the results. The findings of the present study revealed that, more than half of the respondents 58.75 per cent belonged to middle age group, i.e. between 35 to 50 years. High proportion of the respondents 28.75 per cent were educated upto middleschool category (5th to 7thstandard). More than half 56.25 per cent of the respondents had medium family size category (3-6 members). Most of the respondents 45.00 per cent had medium land holding (4.01 to 10 ha). Nearly half of respondents i.e.41.25 per cent used river as source of irrigation. Majority of respondents 76.25 per cent had medium cropping pattern. 22.5 per cent of respondents had very high annual income i.e. above 100000 Rs. In case of source of information, it was observed that among the personal localite sources, majority of the farmers always get information from neibhour (93.75%) and 53.75 per cent of respondents sometime get information from researcher of agriculture university. (51.25 %) of farmers never get information from Gramsevak. In case of group contact methods 61.25 per cent of the respondents always get information from discussion as well as conference, 63.75 per cent farmers get information sometime from Agriculture day. (27.5%) of the farmers never participated in discussion. Among the mass sources majority (88.75%) of the farmers always get information from agriculture bulletin, followed by farmers rally (73.75%) and television (66.25%). It was observed that 52.5 per cent of farmers had medium exposure to sources of information. Regarding risk preference it was observed that 50.00 per cent of the respondents had medium risk preference. In knowledge level, 55.00 per cent of respondents had medium level of knowledge. The most popular implements were pick-axe, spade, sickle, M.B. Plough and gunny bags are known to all the respondents. About 46.25 per cent respondents were unaware about decintegrater. In case of attitude of the respondents towards the farm practices half of the farmers showed the favourable attitude towards farm practices i.e. 50.00 per cent. Important requirement requirements of respondents, that 91.25 per cent of farmers quoted provision of continues electric supply in day time at minimum rate for farm work, maximum farmers 87.5 per cent gave suggestion that government should make availability of fuel required farm machinery at subsidize rate. 86.25 per cent of respondents responded yes to facillating the group of farmers to own the high cost machinery by providing financial support and provision of good road connectivity for transportation is 85.00 per cent. Majority of farmers 83.75 per cent suggest provision of credit facility to purchase implements, equipment and machinery.

At a time when regional production networks have been resurgent, especially in Asia, why has India’s integration in regional markets not been deeper? Using highly disaggregated trade data and firm level field interviews, the paper found that despite low volumes, vertically specialized trade has been growing between India and ASEAN. Overall, we find that there is significant potential for deepening India’s engagement in ASEAN by expanding intermediates exports in the machinery sector, expanding into higher value specialty chemicals exports, unlocking the underexploited potential for growth in the electronics sector and moving up the value chain in the road vehicles and, telecommunications sectors where network exports are already important. Our field level interviews bear out these findings and show that besides the usual policy costs associated with supply side constraints in Indian manufacturing three factors hamper India’s deeper integration in Asian production networks: (i) low value addition in Indian manufacturing which translates into low-value component exports and a high degree of reliance on expensive imports creating a perverse effect on both learning and trade balance; (ii) a janus faced effect on technological change and productivity stemming from relatively low quality standards associated with cost-sensitive demand from domestic buyers and weak exports. This leads to technological stagnation on the one hand, and a growing capital intensity of routine operations on the other. (iii) and finally, despite the rise of export oriented industrial parks and SEZ’s there is a striking lack of an effective institutional eco-system of industrial advantage that agglomeration economies and colocation of interdependent, sectorally specialized firms can bring. Instead, sectoral fragmentation adds to manufacturing costs despite co-location. Although some firms have found innovative ways to cope, the coping costs are high.

Abstract Acute monocytic leukemia (AMoL) is a distinct subtype of AML with an average 3-year overall survival of 31% (Tallman, J Clin Oncol 2004), and the majority of patients die from disease progression after relapse. Adipocytes represent an essential component of the adults bone marrow (BM) microenvironment (Battula, Blood 2013, Tabe, Blood 2004, Konopleva, Blood 1999), and promote survival of monoblastic leukemia cells (Tabe, ASH, 2012). In this study, we employed a proteomic approach based on isobaric tags for relative and absolute quantification (iTRAQ, Applied Biosystems) to examine the molecular mechanism of pro-survival properties of BM adipocytes in co-culture with AMoL. The specific pathway alterations were identified by Metacore (GeneGo, St. Joseph, MI). We first confirmed the more prominent protective role of BM-derived adipocytes as compared to BM stromal cells (MSC) on AMoL cells. Co-culture with adipocytes derived from differentiated MSCs significantly protected U937 and primary AMoL cells (n = 5) from serum starvation-induced apoptosis compared to MSCs (U937 p = 0.029, primary samples p = 0.034). Gene expression analysis demonstrated striking upregulation of mRNA expression levels of CD36 (4.1+0.4-fold),FABP4 (569.3+40.1-fold), and PPARG (2.1+0.2-fold) in U937 cells co-cultured with adipocytes compared to the MSC co-cultured cells. Notably, Bcl-2 mRNA expression in U937 cells was significantly upregulated after adipocyte co-culture compared to MSCs (5.4+0.3-fold). We previously reported that fatty acids (FAs) promote leukemic cell survival via leukemia cells metabolic shifting from pyruvate oxidation to fatty acid oxidation for glycolysis, which links to the Bcl-2 anti-apoptotic machinery (Samudio, J Clin Invest. 2010). Mature adipocytes are capable of releasing abundant free fatty acids (Fas), the essential ligands of a nuclear receptor PPARgamma (PPARG), which are internalized by leukemic cells via scavenger receptor CD36 and ligate PPARG through fatty acid binding protein 4 (FABP4). Enhanced transcriptional activity of FA-ligated PPARG may in turn stimulate glucose metabolism, regulate fatty acids storage, maintain mitochondrial membrane potential, and prevents apoptosis by upregulating anti-apoptotic Bcl-2 resulting in further increase of its downstream target genes including CD36 and FABP4. To gain further insights into metabolic alterations induced in adipocyte-leukemia co-cultures, we performed iTRAQ proteomic analysis of U937 cells cultured in the presence of MSCs or adipocytes. A total of 1,610 proteins were detected by this technology, with 106 proteins differentially expressed between co-culture conditions; 50 genes were up-regulated and 56 genes were down-regulated by adipocytes co-culture compared to MSCs. Among the upregulated proteins, FA synthase (p = 0.007) ATP-citrate synthase responsible for cytosolic acetyl-CoA synthesis (p = 0.019); and glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase (p = 0.028) involved in the activation of glycolysis and gluconeogenesis pathways (p< 0.0001) were identified. Of note, 20% of the upregulated proteins (10/50) were ribosomal proteins, accompanied by an increase in six DNA elongation or replication related proteins. Anti-apoptotic chaperone proteins known to assist ribosome biogenesis, HSP70, HSP90alpha and HSP90beta were also increased by adipocyte co-culture (p<0.01). The mass spectrometry further revealed more prominent repression of Cytochrome c (p=0.01) as well as the proline metabolism pathway (p=0.0011) under adipocyte co-culture conditions, consistent with inhibition of mitochondrial apoptosis of U937 cells. Summary our results indicate that abundant FAs produced by BM adipocytes support AMoL cell survival via stimulation of PPARG transcription which directly increases the FA metabolism through uptake and translocation of FAs by CD36 and FABP4 in AMoL cells. FA metabolism in turn facilitates supply of Acetyl-CoA via oxidative phosphorylation, which drives the TCA cycle; and enhances ribosomal biogenesis of AMoL cells, resulting in pro-survival signaling in AMoL cells. It is conceivable that increased adipocyte content of the BM in adult AML patients may promote leukemogenesis and negatively affect the responsiveness to chemotherapy. Disclosures: No relevant conflicts of interest to declare.

The projected increase in the availability of gaseous fuels by growing popularity of household natural gas (NG) filling stations and the increase in the production of gaseous biogas-derived fuels is conducive to an increase in the use of NG fuel. Currently, natural gas in various forms (compressed natural gas (CNG), liquefied natural gas (LNG)) is popular in maritime, rail and road transport. A new direction of natural gas application may be non-road mobile machines powered by a small spark-ignition engine (SI). The use of these engines in the wood chippers can cause the reduction of machine costs and emissions of harmful exhaust gases. In addition, plant material chippers intended for composting in bio-gas plants can be driven by the gas they are used to produce. The biogas can be purified to bio-methane to meet natural gas quality standards. The article presents the design of the natural gas supply system, which is an upgrade of the Lifan GX 390 combustion engine spark ignition engine (Four-stroke, OHV (over head valve) with a maximum power of 9.56 kW), which is a common representative of small gasoline engines. The engine is mounted in a cylindrical chipper designed for shredding branches with a maximum diameter of up to 100 mm, which is a typical machine used for cleaning work in urban areas. The engine powered by CNG and traditionally gasoline has been tested in real working conditions, when shredding cherry plum (Prunus cerasifera Ehrh. Beitr. Naturk. 4:17. 1789 (Gartenkalender4:189–204. 1784)). Their diameter was ca. 80 mm, 3-metere-long, and humidity content ca. 25%. The systems were tested under the same actual operating conditions, the average power generated by the drives during shredding is about 0.69 kW. Based on the recorded results, it was found that the CNG-fuelled engine was characterized by nitrogen oxides (NOx) emissions higher by 45%. The other effects of CNG were a reduction in carbon dioxide (CO2), carbon monoxide (CO) and hydrocarbon (HC) emissions of about 81%, 26% and 57%, respectively. Additionally, the use of CNG reduced fuel consumption by 31% and hourly estimated machine operating costs resulting from fuel costs by 53% (for average fuel price in Poland: gasoline: 0.99 EUR/L and CNG: 0.71 EUR/m3 on 08 November 2020). The modernization performed by the authors ensured the work of the drive unit during shredding, closer to the value of stoichiometric mixtures. The average (AVG) value of the air fuel ratio (AFR) for CNG was enriched by 1.2% (AVG AFR was 17), while for the gasoline engine the mixture was more enriched by 4.8% (AVG AFR was 14). The operation of spark-ignition (SI) combustion engines is most advantageous when burning stoichiometric mixtures due to the cooperation with exhaust aftertreatment systems (e.g., three-function catalytic converter). A system powered by CNG may be beneficial in systems adapting to operating conditions, used in low-power shredding machines, whose problem is increased HC emissions, and CNG combustion may reduce them. The developed system does not exceed the emission standards applicable in the European Union. For CO emissions expressed in g/kWh, it was about 95% lower than the permissible value, and HC + NOx emissions were 85% lower. This suggests that the use of the fuel in question may contribute to tightening up the permissible emission regulations for non-road machinery.

Abstract Each transfusion requires 200-300 billion platelets in patients with thrombocytopenia. To continuously supply such a huge number of platelets by ex vivo generation, two distinct steps, megakaryopoiesis and platelet shedding, must be both considered. For the former, one approach is to increase the number of source cell, megakaryocytes. For example, the immortalized megakaryocyte cell line (imMKCL) system uses self-renewing megakaryocyte (MK) cell lines derived from induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) (Nakamura et al., Cell Stem Cell, 2014). For the latter, there have been an idea of bioreactors whereby shedding of platelets from proplatelets could be promoted by flow-dependent shear force within the bone marrow in vivo (Junt et al., Science, 2007; Zhang et al., J Exp Med, 2012). Based upon this idea, we constructed a flow chamber type bioreactor recapitulating in vivo blood flow shear rate. However, this bioreactor failed to efficiently yield platelets, and moreover, the produced platelets had poor quality as indicated by high Annexin V levels (Exp Hematol, 2011 and unpublished result). Recently, we demonstrated two different kinetics of platelet biogenesis from bone marrow MKs, whereby either thrombopoietin (TPO) mostly regulates steady-state shedding of platelets from proplatelets, or interleukin-a (IL-1a) triggers inflammation-dependent rupture of MK cytoplasm contributing to a quick increase of platelet count at higher rate (Nishimura et al., J Cell Biol, 2015). However, the rupture type platelets revealed shorter half-life with relatively higher Annexin V levels. Therefore, to gain insights from platelet biogenesis in vivo, we focused on biophysical analysis of steady-state platelet biogenesis via proplatelets in bone marrow. Our observations strongly indicated that the presence of 'vorticity' defined by vortex turbulence in addition to shear-dependent 'stress' and 'strain' correlates with the efficient shedding of competent platelets. From this new finding, we developed an alternative bioreactor system, which enabled generation of 100 billion platelets from imMKCL in a 16L-scale liquid culture condition without any adherent machinery using two 10L-bioreactors. Furthermore, platelets generated via new bioreactors showed low Annexin V levels (<10-15%) and shortened bleeding time post transfusion into NOG mice and rabbits with thrombocytopenia, comparable to human blood product platelets. Regarding the platelet production using WAVE bag system (GE healthcare, UK), the system is already clinically available for cord blood cell expansion in most countries, but lacks adequate levels of vorticity and shear strain/stress. Accordingly, the produced platelets had high Annexin V levels (i.e., 50-65%) as well as diminished yield efficiency (P<0.001). In conclusion, our study has uncovered the novel biophysical aspect of platelet biogenesis. The application of the new set of physical parameters in constructing large sized bioreactors shall facilitate the industrialization of platelet production. Disclosures Eto: Megakaryon Co. Ltd.: Research Funding.

Abstract Abstract 4313 Background: Vascular homeostasis and regeneration are maintained by proliferating vessel wall-derived somatic endothelial colony-forming progenitor cells (ECFCs). Despite promising experimental data, regenerative stem cell therapy approaches employing ECFCs have been of rather limited efficiency in clinical trials for both therapeutic vasculogenesis as well as anti-angiogenic therapy. We and others have recently shown that ECFC function in vivo requires a stringent interaction with mesenchymal stem and progenitor cells (MSPCs) * [Blood 2009; 113 (26):6716-25]. Co-transplantation of ECFCs and MSPCs is considered to be an advantageous strategy for vascular regenerative medicine. Hypoxia in ischemic tissue is considered to be a key factor influencing pro- and anti-angiogenic treatment by driving the revascularization machinery. In vivo most cells exist under an O2 pressure considerably below air oxygen. In vitro cells are usually expanded under air oxygen and suddenly encounter reduced O2 conditions when re-injected for therapy. Preliminary data suggests that low oxygen conditions differentially regulate stem cell function. We hypothesized that MSPCs act as hypoxia sensors and drive ECFCs to form functioning vessels in vivo. Methods: Adult human ECFCs were isolated and propagated directly from whole venous blood using a novel recovery strategy **[J Vis Exp. 2009;(32) pii: 1524]. MSPCs were isolated from human bone marrow aspirates. During cell culture, pooled human platelet lysate (pHPL) entirely replaced fetal bovine serum. Throughout this study we designated the oxygen level present in vivo in the venous environment as euoxia (41.5±3.4 mmHg). Oxygen levels below euoxia are defined as hypoxia (27.4±7.3 mmHg). Air-oxygen commonly used in standard laboratory practice is above euoxia and is therefore referred to as hyperoxia (139.8±2.9 mmHg). Progenitor cell phenotype, hierarchy, long-term proliferation, wound repair as well as migratory and vasculogenic functions were monitored under euoxia as compared to hypoxic or hyperoxic conditions. Molecular regulation of cellular responses to different oxygen levels was assessed by flow cytometry, immune cytochemistry and proteomic profiling. ECFC and MSPC interactions in vivo were studied in immune-deficient NSG mice (NOD.Cg-Prkdcscid Il2rgtm1Wjl/SzJ) after sub-cutaneous co-implantation in matrigel plugs. Immune histochemistry and TUNEL assays were performed on plugs at day 1, 7 and 14 after transplantation. Results: Compared to hyperoxic standard laboratory conditions in vitro, proliferation of ECFCs and MSPCs in primary and long-term cultures was significantly reduced under euoxia, and even more under hypoxic conditions. Hyperoxic conditioning resulted in a shift in progenitor hierarchy with an augmented number of ECFC high proliferative potential (HPP) colonies (60±18% of total colonies) as compared to euoxia (9±6%) and a complete loss of HPP colonies under hypoxia (0%). The absolute colony number remained unchanged independent of oxygen levels. Both ECFC vascular wound repair in scratch assays and matrigel vascular-like network formation in vitro were improved with escalating oxygen supply. The reoxygenation of hypoxic and euoxic ECFCs led to enhanced proliferation and function. Furthermore, MSPCs stabilized hypoxia inducible factor-1α (HIF-1α) under hypoxic as well as euoxic conditions, whereas ECFCs only stabilized HIF-1α when confronted with hypoxia in vitro. In a mouse model, subcutaneously injected ECFCs in matrigel underwent apoptosis after 1 day and attracted mouse leucocytes which infiltrated the matrigel plug. Co-implantation of ECFCs and MSPCs in these matrigel plugs resulted in reduced apoptosis and formation of perfused human vessels as soon as 7 days after transplantation. In this in vivo setting, perivascular cells but not endothelial cells were positive for HIF-1α in immune histochemistry. Background: These data indicate that oxygen levels differentially regulate ECFC and MSPC function during vascular homeostasis and regeneration. While hypoxic ECFCs alone are not able to function in vitro and form patent vessels in vivo, MSPCs react to the low oxygen environment and support ECFCs to perform vessel formation in vivo at least in part by rescuing ECFCs from hypoxia-induced apoptosis. This suggests that oxygen appears to be a key factor in stem cell transplantation and regenerative medicine. Disclosures: No relevant conflicts of interest to declare.

Abstract Abstract 699 Rationale: Vascular repair after hypoxic tissue damage requires a stringent interaction between somatic endothelial colony-forming progenitor cells (ECFCs) and mesenchymal stem and progenitor cells (MSPCs). Stem cell therapy to re-vascularize ischemic tissue has been a promising tool for various therapeutic targets including stroke, myocardial infarction and peripheral artery disease. Despite promising experimental data, therapeutic approaches employing endothelial progenitor cells have been of rather limited efficiency in clinical trials for both therapeutic vasculogenesis as well as anti-angiogenic therapy. Hypoxia in ischemic tissue is an extensively studied key factor that influences pro- and anti-angiogenic treatment by driving the revascularization machinery. We and others have shown that despite hypoxic stimulation, ECFCs in vivo only form patent vessels in the presence of MSPCs. Here we show that MSPCs but not ECFCs are the oxygen sensors enabling vasculogenesis in vivo. Methods: Adult human ECFCs were isolated from blood and MSPCs from bone marrow aspirates and expanded under humanized culture conditions. In in vitro studies progenitor cell phenotype, long-term proliferation, molecular cellular response, wound repair as well as migratory and vasculogenic functions were monitored under severe hypoxia (1% O2), venous oxygen conditions (5% O2) and standard culture conditions (20% O2). ECFC and MSPC interaction in vivo were studied in immune-deficient NSG mice (NOD.Cg-Prkdcscid Il2rgtm1Wjl/SzJ) after subcutaneous transplantation in various extracellular matrices (matrigel, collagen/fibronectin, human platelete lysate). To investigate the respective roles of MSPCs and ECFCs during vasculogenesis under hypoxia in vivo chemical and genetic inhibitors against protein synthesis (cycloheximide) and HIF-1α (YC-1, shRNA) were employed. Immune histochemistry, immune fluorescence and TUNEL assays were performed on plugs in the time course after transplantation. Results: In vitro studies showed that compared to 20% O2, proliferation of ECFCs and MSPCs in primary and long-term cultures was significantly reduced at 5% O2, and even more at 1% O2. Standard culture conditions resulted in a shift in the progenitor hierarchy with an augmented number of high proliferative potential (HPP)-ECFC colonies (60±18% of total colonies) as compared to venous oxygen conditions (9±6%) and a complete loss of HPP-ECFC colonies under severe hypoxia (0%). The absolute colony number remained unchanged independent of oxygen levels. Both ECFC vascular wound repair function in scratch assays and the ability to form vascular-like networks in matrigel assays in vitro were diminished with declining oxygen supply. The re-oxygenation to 20% O2 of ECFCs which where precultured at 1% or 5% O2 led to enhanced proliferation, colony size and function. Single cell analysis revealed that ECFCs stabilized hypoxia-inducing factor-1α (HIF-1α) only at 1% O2 while MSPCs stabilize HIF-1α at 1% O2 as well as 5% O2 conditions. In a mouse model, subcutaneously injected ECFCs underwent apoptosis after 24h and attracted mouse leucocytes. In contrast, ECFCs co-implanted in vivo with MSPCs were rescued from apoptotic death and formed perfused human vessels 7 days after transplantation independent of matrix. Perivascular cells, but not ECFCs, were positive for HIF-1α in vivo. Inhibition of MSPCs but not ECFCs protein synthesis and HIF-1α prior to co-implantation blocked vessel formation. Conclusion: These data demonstrates that hypoxic ECFCs alone show reduced functuionality in vitro and form patent vessels in vivo. In contrast, MSPCs react to the low oxygen environment more sensitively than ECFCs and promote vessel formation at least in part by rescuing ECFCs from hypoxia-induced apoptosis. Surprisingly, this study shows that therapeutic vasculogenesis can occur independent of endothelial HIF stabilization and protein synthesis. This data indicate that in addition to their established role regulating hematopoiesis, MSPCs oxygen sensing is crucial during vascular regeneration. This suggests a shift of focus from endothelial cells to perivascular cells as a therapeutic target in regenerative medicine and anti-angiogenic therapy. Disclosures: No relevant conflicts of interest to declare.

Solar energy is energy derived from the sun’s radiation. The sun’s energy can be exploited using a variety of technologies, including (a) photovoltaic (PV)/concentrator photovoltaics (CPV) systems that convert photons to electricity; and (b) solar thermal technologies that capture thermal energy from the sun’s radiation using solar collectors or concentrated solar power systems (CSP). Due to the quest for power supply from renewable, cheap, and non-gaseous emission sources coupled with the attempts to combat the shortage of potable water in rural areas, much research on the interface of solar energy power systems with water treatment plants has been reported. However, the greater part of the existing reports are based on theoretical modelling, with only minimal experimental, cost analysis, pilot projects and strategic studies. Also, even though solar-powered water treatment technologies are still in the early stages of research, and very rare studies based on real plants have been conducted, existing publications are mostly focused on single principles, making it impossible to assess and compare several technologies. Globally, this review has particularly highlighted the recent advances in the application of solar energy technologies in desalination and wastewater treatments. It likewise highlighted the key research findings and the critical gaps in the existing achievements. It further highlighted the attempts made on hybrid techniques with other renewable energy sources such as wind and geothermal energies which are paramount for scaling up and commercialization uses. However, the findings revealed that most of these studies were restricted to particular parts of the globe without candid evidence from the African perspective, especially Sub-Saharan Africa. Thus, due to the paucity of information concerning this topic within the region, there is a need for further studies on the application of solar energy for water treatment, especially on a pilot scale level for sustainable development. PRZEGLĄD ZASTOSOWAŃ ENERGII SŁONECZNEJ DO OCZYSZCZANIA ŚCIEKÓW; PERSPEKTYWA GLOBALNA I AFRYKAŃSKA Energia pochodząca z promieniowania słońca może być eksploatowana przy użyciu różnorodnych technologii, w tym (a) fotowoltaiki (PV)/skoncentrowanej fotowoltaiki (CPV), systemów, które przekształcają fotony w energię elektryczną; i (b) słoneczne technologie cieplne, które wychwytują energię cieplną z promieniowania słonecznego przy pomocy kolektorów słonecznych lub skoncentrowanych systemów energii słonecznej (CSP). Z powodu poszukiwań dostaw energii ze źródeł odnawialnych, tanich i nie emitujących zanieczyszczeń gazowych, a także wysiłków na rzecz walki z niedoborem wody pitnej w obszarach wiejskich, opublikowano wiele badań na temat systemów pozyskiwania energii słonecznej dla obsługi oczyszczalni ścieków. Jednakże większość istniejących opracowań oparta jest o modelowanie teoretyczne, jedynie z minimalną częścią eksperymentalną, analizą kosztów, projektami pilotażowymi i studiami strategicznymi. Co więcej, technologie oczyszczania wody zasilane energią słoneczną wciąż są na wczesnym etapie, a prace dotyczące badań w prawdziwych oczyszczalniach są rzadkie, publikacje w większości skupiają się na pojedynczych przypadkach, uniemożliwiając porównywanie kilku technologii wykorzystujących energię słoneczną do odsalania wody i oczyszczania ścieków. Wskazuje również kluczowe wyniki badań oraz istotne braki w istniejącym stanie zaawansowania. Ponadto przedstawia próby z technikami hybrydowymi, wykorzystującymi inne odnawialne źródła energii, takie jak wiatr i energia geotermalna, które są kluczowe w zwiększaniu skali produkcji i komercjalizacji. Jednakże wyniki badań wskazują, że większość prac ograniczona jest do innych kontynentów; brak jest jasnej afrykańskiej perspektywy, szczególnie dotyczącej Afryki subsaharyjskiej. Tak więc, z powodu skąpych informacji na ten temat, które dotyczą tego regionu, istnieje potrzeba dalszych badań nad zastosowaniem energii słonecznej do oczyszczania ścieków, szczególnie w skali pilotażowej, które przyczynią się do zrównoważonego rozwoju.

Abstract The ordered assembly of a functional preinitiation complex (PIC), composed of general transcription factors (GTFs) is a prerequisite for the transcription of protein coding genes by RNA polymerase II. TFIID, comprised of the TATA binding protein (TBP) and 13 TBP-associated factors (TAFs), is the GTF that is thought to recognize the promoter sequences allowing site-specific PIC assembly. Transcriptional cofactors, such as SAGA (Spt-Ada-Gcn5-acetyltransferase), are also necessary to have tightly regulated transcription initiation. However, a new era on the role of the GTFs and specifically on the role of TFIID in tissue specific and promoter specific transcriptional regulation has emerged in the light of novel findings regarding the differentiation programs of different cell types1. TAF10 is a subunit of both the TFIID and the SAGA co-activator HAT complexes2. The role of TAF10 is indispensable for early embryonic transcription and mouse development as knockout (KO) embryos die early in gestation between E3.5 and E5.5, around the stage when the supply of maternal protein becomes insufficient3. However, when analyzing TFIID stability and transcription it was noted that not all cells and tissues were equally affected by the loss of TAF10. The contribution of the two TAF10-containing complexes (TFIID, SAGA) to erythropoiesis remains elusive. Ablation of TAF10 specifically in erythroid cells by crossing the TAF10-Lox with the EpoR-Cre mouse led to a differentiation block at around E13.5 with erythroid progenitor cells accumulating at a higher percentage (26% in the KO embryos vs 16% in the WTs at E12.5) at the double positive stage KIT+CD71+ and giving rise to fewer mature TER119+ cells in the fetal liver. At E13.5 embryos were dead with almost no erythroid cells in the fetal liver. Gene expression analysis of the fetal liver cells of the embryos revealed down-regulation of GATA1 expression and its target genes, bh1&bmaj/min globins and KLF1 transcription factor while expression of other genes known to have a role in mouse hematopoiesis remained unaffected (MYB, GATA2, PU.1). In order to get insight to the role of TAF10 during erythropoiesis we analyzed the composition of both TAF10-containing complexes (TFIID and SAGA) by mass spectrometry. We found that their stoichiometry changes slightly but not fundamentally during erythroid differentiation and development (human fetal liver erythroid progenitors, human blood erythroid progenitors and mouse erythroid progenitor cells) and no major rearrangements were generated in the composition of the TFIID as it was reported in other cell differentiation programs (e.g. skeletal differentiation, hepatogenesis). Additionally, we found GATA1 transcription factor only in the fetal liver and not in the adult erythroid cells in the mass spectrometry data of TAF10 immunoprecipitations (IPs), an interaction that we confirmed by reciprocal IP of TAF10 and GATA1 in MEL and mouse fetal liver cells. Most importantly, we checked whether TAF10 binding is enriched on the GATA1 locus in human erythroid cells during the fetal and the adult stage in erythroid proerythroblasts and we found that there is enriched binding of TAF10 in the palindromic GATA1 site in the fetal stage. Our results support a developmental role for TAF10 in GATA1 regulated genes, including GATA1 itself, during erythroid differentiation emphasizing the crosstalk between the transcriptional machinery and activators in erythropoiesis. References 1. Goodrich JA, Tjian R (2010) Unexpected roles for core promoter recognition factors in cell-type-specific transcription and gene regulation. Nature reviews Genetics 11: 549-558 2 .Timmers HT, Tora L (2005) SAGA unveiled. Trends Biochem Sci 30: 7-10 3. Mohan WS, Jr., Scheer E, Wendling O, Metzger D, Tora L (2003) TAF10 (TAF(II)30) is necessary for TFIID stability and early embryogenesis in mice. Mol Cell Biol 23: 4307-4318 Disclosures No relevant conflicts of interest to declare.

Human health, worldwide, is in great peril due to pollution and climate change. The sheer scale and expanse ofclimate change manifested as extreme weather conditions, changes in air quality, natural calamities, and vectorecology are negatively impacting human health. Frequent floods, wildfires, erratic rainfall, sea-level rise, andcyclones were documented across the globe in countries including Australia, Algeria, Brazil, China, Italy,Greece, Malaysia, Nigeria, Pakistan, South Africa, Spain, Türkiye and USA.1 The growing number of adversehealth outcomes due to climate hazards is increasing the burden in the health services already impacted by theCOVID-19 pandemic, co-epidemics (e.g., human immunodeficiency virus and tuberculosis) and double burdenof disease (communicable and non-communicable diseases). Anthropogenic activities have drasticallyincreased atmospheric greenhouse gas levels leading to a significant increase in the global mean surfacetemperature by 1.1° Celsius, warmer than the pre-industrial levels. The past seven years were declared thewarmest, the 1.5-degree climate target agreed upon at the Conference of the Parties (COP21 )in Paris seems far out of reach as the global mean surface temperature is projected to rise to a dangerous level of between 1.5oCelsius and 3.5 Celsius by the end of this century.1 The ongoing climate stressors affect the populations that are most vulnerable and marginalised, like olderpeople, pregnant women, new-born babies, people who are socially deprived and people working outdoors.Human exposure to intense heat is associated with heatstroke, adverse pregnancy outcomes (includingpremature birth), acute kidney injury, disturbed sleep patterns, mental health problems, cancers andworsening of underlying respiratory and cardiac disease. Annually, three million deaths are attributable toinfections caused by outdoor PM2-5 air pollution.1 Asthma, the most common respiratory illness amongadolescents, is influenced by higher and longer pollen seasons and poor air quality, increasing the risk of acuteasthma episodes. Vector-borne diseases like malaria and dengue have increased in Africa and Asia. Rare severeinfectious diseases caused by Naegleria fowleri, Nipah virus, and Coccidiodes spp have also increased. Extreme climate events also disrupt the food supply; leading to malnutrition and disease susceptibility. Humancontact with environmentally mediated pathogens through food, water, animals, or insect vectors, causessubstantial morbidity and mortality globally. Waterborne diseases are rising globally, especially in LMICs, withoutbreaks of diarrhoea, hepatitis, cholera, malaria, dengue, salmonellosis, typhoid, dysentery, schistosomiasis,and giardiasis.2 Moreover, Vibrio pathogens are more transmissible due to rising coastal water temperatures. In Pakistan, waterborne diseases are becoming more frequent due to climate-based increased variations intemperatures and rainfall patterns, which have led to the challenges of water unavailability and exposure tounsafe water. In 2017, an epidemic of drug-resistance typhoid resulted in an untreatable and prolongedinfection in Pakistani citizens resulting in many deaths in children below 15 years of age. The footprint of climate change is becoming more extreme in South Asia; India, Pakistan and the Philippinesare in the “high” bracket” of the vulnerability assessment that has been most severely impacted by extremeweather events, according to the latest report by Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Pakistan,a negligible contributor to the overall carbon footprint, is still among the top ten countries vulnerable to climatechange by Global Climate Risk Index 2021.1 The recent heavy rainfall and floods in Pakistan have resulted in theloss of life and livelihood. Human suffering, socioeconomic constraints, involuntary migration anddisplacement in climate emergency are massive. The response to the needs of the disaster-affected population remains a key challenge in terms of resourceconstraints, afflicted health systems, changing disease burden, the provision of shelter and emergency reliefitems, delivering lifesaving and livelihood assistance, water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) needs, preventionof disease outbreaks, addressing malnutrition, Gender-based violence (GBV), Psychosocial Support (PSS),dignified protection, and family tracing. The recent 2022 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP27) concluded with a cover decision known asthe Sharm el-Sheikh Implementation Plan. COP27 concluded to provide “loss and damage” funding forvulnerable countries hit hard by climate disasters. The other decisions included cutting greenhouse gasemissions and adapting to the inevitable impacts of climate change, boosting finance and technology support,and widening the capacity building needed by LMICs. The planet's warming is jeopardising human health, demanding immediate climate action for mitigation andadaptation, fossil fuel reduction, building resilient communities, investing in emerging green technology, andintegrating climate education into medical and school curricula.1-3 In our efforts towards a sustainable planet, itis critical to accelerate climate action by strengthening multisectoral engagement. Editor-in-Chief How to cite this: Alamgir W, Shan H. The Multifaceted Consequences of Climate Change on Human Health. Life and Science. 2023; 4(1): 1-2. doi: http://doi.org/10.37185/LnS.1.1.343

AbstractCorporate Reputation (CR) is essential to value generation and is co-created between a company and its stakeholders, including supply chain actors. Consequently, CR is a critical and valuable resource that should be managed carefully along supply chains. However, the current CR literature is fragmented, and a general definition of CR is elusive. Besides, the academic CR debate largely lacks a supply chain perspective. This is not surprising, as it is very difficult to collect reliable data along supply chains. When supply chains span the globe, data collection is especially challenging, as the chain consists of multiple suppliers and subcontractors, positioned at different tier levels. Recognizing this, the paper examines firstly the current state of CR research through a systematic literature review from a business perspective. The review is combined with a bibliometric mapping approach to show the most influential research clusters, representative of CR research streams and their contributors. This process highlights that the connection between CR and supply chain issues represents a major research gap. Consequently, this paper introduces a research agenda connecting these the two traditionally separated research fields.

The Oxford English Dictionary defines resilience as the ability to recover and bounce back after significantly pressing life events with long-lasting impact. The past three years have been among the most turbulent since the Great Depression of the 1900s. But in a more connected world, where socioeconomic conditions are co-dependent on a global supply chain, the way companies look at disruptions has to be different. Come what may, supply chains must be well oiled to keep the intricately connected cogs of the global machinery running. And for that organisations must be prepared to anticipate and tackle issues that come their way or seek out opportunities that make them less vulnerable to supply chain upsets. In other words, they must work on being more resilient than ever before. This paper takes a deep dive into how continuous global adversity has affected organisations and their supply chains and how they can learn from these events to be prepared yet agile for the way ahead.

Purpose This paper aims to review the latest management developments across the globe and pinpoint practical implications from cutting-edge research and case studies. Design/methodology/approach This briefing is prepared by an independent writer who adds their own impartial comments and places the articles in context. Findings To date, big data has been largely deployed to enhance operational activities. Its effectiveness has inspired growing recognition of its potential in relation to different strategic areas that include supply chain, co-creation, planning and value creation. Originality/value The briefing saves busy executives and researchers hours of reading time by selecting only the very best, most pertinent information and presenting it in a condensed and easy-to-digest format.

Makerspaces—informal shared spaces that offer access to technologies, resources and a community of peer learners for making—across the globe initiated a rapid response to the lack of medical hardware supplies during the global pandemic outbreak in early 2020 caused by the Corona virus (COVID-19). As our health systems faced unexperienced pressure, being close to collapsing in some countries, and global supply chains failing to react immediately, makers started to prototype, locally produce and globally share designs of Open Source healthcare products, such as face shields and other medical supplies. Local collaboration with hospitals and healthcare professionals were established. These bottom-up initiatives from maker networks across the globe are showing us how responsible innovation is happening outside the constraints of profit-driven large industries. In this qualitative study we present five cases from a global network of makers that contributed to the production of personal protective equipment (PPE) and healthcare-related products. We draw our cases from the experiences made in Careables, a mixed community of people and organizations committed to the co-design and making of open, personalized healthcare for everyone. With the presented cases we reflect on the potential implications for post-pandemic local production of healthcare products and analyze them from a social innovation perspective. These global experiences are valuable indications of transformative innovations that can reduce dependencies from international supply chains and mainstream mass production.

Abstract Recent years were characterized by an increase in spatially co-occurring hot, wet or dry extreme events around the globe. In this study, we analyse data from multi-model climate projections and identify a large increase in the projected global land area concurrently affected by hot, wet or dry extremes with increased global warming. Since spatially compounding extreme events can strongly amplify societal impacts as economic supply chains are increasingly interdependent, we want to highlight here that the world’s breadbasket regions are projected to be particularly affected by an increase in spatially co-occurring hot, wet or dry extreme events, posing risks to the global food security. The spatial extent of top-producing agricultural regions being potentially threatened by climate extremes will increase drastically if global mean temperatures shift from +1.5 °C to +2.0 °C. The occurrence of spatially compounding events and area affected in future climates under scenarios at +1.5°C, +2.0°C, +3.0°C and higher levels of global warming is determined using Earth System Model simulations from the 6th Phase of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP6).

Abstract It is assumed that the stimulatory effects of elevated CO2 concentration ([CO2]) on photosynthesis and growth may be substantially reduced by co-occurring environmental factors and the length of CO2 treatment. Here we present the study exploring the interactive effects of three manipulated factors ([CO2], nitrogen supply, and water availability) on physiological (gas-exchange, chlorophyll fluorescence), morphological and stoichiometric traits of Norway spruce (Picea abies) saplings after two and three years of the treatment under natural field conditions. Such multifactorial studies, going beyond two-way interactions, have received only limited attention until now. Our findings imply a significant reduction of [CO2]-enhanced rate of CO2 assimilation under reduced water availability which deepens with the severity of water depletion. Similarly, insufficient nitrogen availability leads to a down-regulation of photosynthesis under elevated [CO2] being particularly associated with reduced carboxylation efficiency of the Rubisco enzyme. Such adjustments in the photosynthesis machinery result in the stimulation of water use efficiency under elevated [CO2] only when it is combined with a high N supply and reduced water availability. These findings indicate limited effects of elevated [CO2] on carbon uptake in temperate coniferous forests when combined with naturally low nitrogen availability and intensifying droughts during the summer periods. Such interactions have to be incorporated into the mechanistic models predicting changes in terrestrial carbon sequestration and forest growth in the future.

The COVID-19 influenced global pandemic severely affected the market of small industries and had a deep impact on the agri economic of the farmer community across the globe. The main objective of this article is to emphasize on the influence of global pandemic with agriculture and food sector. The lockdown made ambivalent in agriculture, the point of concern is that, at the first phase of lockdown in India, Rabi crops are at harvest stage, due to the lockdown the breakdown of supply chain has been interrupted and left a noticeable impact on the marketability of agriculture crops even though it has registered moderate growth in terms of yield. At present globally mankind is experiencing the waves of pandemic and it caused significant loss to the yield of crops. If the situation continuous, the world is going to experience the hunger deaths. To overcome the issue discussed, agriculture sector needs to adapt new technologies, right from the cultivation, harvest and supply chain with marketing to bring the new normal life back to mankind. This is the right time to have transition from conventional agri practices to the technology invented smart agriculture. Indian agriculture sector should adapt and the former community need to be educated in applying ICT based smart agriculture practices such as utilization of automated machinery, AI (artificial intelligence) enabled cultivation methods, Internet of Things (IoT) and Wireless Sensor Networks based monitoring and maintenance of the agriculture practice The application ICTs methods in agriculture practices facilitate to choose good quality seeds, optimum quantity of manures required for the enhanced crop yield, and direct monetary of the agriculture firm in order to show resilience to the global pandemic impact on agriculture sector. In the present review authors emphasised on various smart agriculture methods and their importance in promoting the agriculture practice as profitable venture and also how this ICT methods helps the sector to overcome the impact of global pandemic and to bring back the new normal life.

Photosynthetic organelles offer attractive features for engineering small molecule bioproduction by their ability to convert solar energy into chemical energy required for metabolism. The possibility to couple biochemical production directly to photosynthetic assimilation as a source of energy and substrates has intrigued metabolic engineers. Specifically, the chemical diversity found in plants often relies on cytochrome P450-mediated hydroxylations that depend on reductant supply for catalysis and which often lead to metabolic bottlenecks for heterologous production of complex molecules. By directing P450 enzymes to plant chloroplasts one can elegantly deal with such redox prerequisites. In this study, we explore the capacity of the plant photosynthetic machinery to drive P450-dependent formation of the indigo precursor indoxyl-β-D-glucoside (indican) by targeting an engineered indican biosynthetic pathway to tobacco (Nicotiana benthamiana) chloroplasts. We show that both native and engineered variants belonging to the human CYP2 family are catalytically active in chloroplasts when driven by photosynthetic reducing power and optimize construct designs to improve productivity. However, while increasing supply of tryptophan leads to an increase in indole accumulation, it does not improve indican productivity, suggesting that P450 activity limits overall productivity. Co-expression of different redox partners also does not improve productivity, indicating that supply of reducing power is not a bottleneck. Finally, in vitro kinetic measurements showed that the different redox partners were efficiently reduced by photosystem I but plant ferredoxin provided the highest light-dependent P450 activity. This study demonstrates the inherent ability of photosynthesis to support P450-dependent metabolic pathways. Plants and photosynthetic microbes are therefore uniquely suited for engineering P450-dependent metabolic pathways regardless of enzyme origin. Our findings have implications for metabolic engineering in photosynthetic hosts for production of high-value chemicals or drug metabolites for pharmacological studies.

Summary Plants evolved sophisticated machineries to monitor levels of external nitrogen supply, respond to nitrogen demand from different tissues and integrate this information for coordinating its assimilation. Although roles of inorganic nitrogen in orchestrating developments have been studied in model plants and crops, systematic understanding of the origin and evolution of its assimilation and signaling machineries remains largely unknown. We expanded taxon samplings of algae and early‐diverging land plants, covering all main lineages of Archaeplastida, and reconstructed the evolutionary history of core components involved in inorganic nitrogen assimilation and signaling. Most components associated with inorganic nitrogen assimilation were derived from the ancestral Archaeplastida. Improvements of assimilation machineries by gene duplications and horizontal gene transfers were evident during plant terrestrialization. Clusterization of genes encoding nitrate assimilation proteins might be an adaptive strategy for algae to cope with changeable nitrate availability in different habitats. Green plants evolved complex nitrate signaling machinery that was stepwise improved by domains shuffling and regulation co‐option. Our study highlights innovations in inorganic nitrogen assimilation and signaling machineries, ranging from molecular modifications of proteins to genomic rearrangements, which shaped developmental and metabolic adaptations of plants to changeable nutrient availability in environments.

PurposeThe research provides a systematic literature review on the environmental sustainability of the globe artichoke [Cynara cardunculus L. var. scolymus (L.) Fiori], in the cultivated cardoon [Cynara cardunculus L. var. altilis DC.] and in the wild cardoon [Cynara cardunculus L. var. sylvestris (Lamk)] supply chains, to fill in the literature data gaps and to identify new research directions.Design/methodology/approachIn the light of the PRISMA standard guidelines, the research provides a systematic literature review according to six research strings on Scopus and Web of Science. 45 scientific articles have been selected out of 407 contributions. Data have been synthesized according to a co-word analysis through the VOSviewer software, to provide insights into the structure of the research network, to offer a multidimensional scaling and clustering into research groups and to discuss the results.FindingsThe research identifies five main research trends: (1) biomass-to-bioenergy or biomass-to-biocomposite materials; (2) waste-to-bioenergy or waste-to-bioproducts; (3) crop management to increase yield productivity; (4) environmental impacts assessment; (5) irrigation water management. Besides, the research highlights momentous challenges and adopted strategies to tackle climate change and to reduce natural resources consumption, as well as the nexus between circular economy and environmental impact assessment.Originality/valueThe novelty of this study relies on the fact that it analyses the environmental sustainability of the Cynara cardunculus L. spp. Supply chain in a systematic way, giving the opportunity to identify future research directions regarding the environmental impacts associated with agricultural production and industrial transformation.

Abstract Background In addition to functioning as a precise monitoring mechanism in cell cycle, the anaphase-promoting complex/cyclosome (APC/C) is reported to be involved in regulating multiple metabolic processes by facilitating the ubiquitin-mediated degradation of key enzymes. Fatty acid oxidation is a metabolic pathway utilized by tumor cells that is crucial for malignant progression; however, its association with APC/C remains to be explored. Methods Cell cycle synchronization, immunoblotting, and propidium iodide staining were performed to investigate the carnitine palmitoyltransferase 1 C (CPT1C) expression manner. Proximity ligation assay and co-immunoprecipitation were performed to detect interactions between CPT1C and APC/C. Flow cytometry, 3-(4,5-dimethylthiazol-2-yl)-5-(3-carboxymethoxyphenyl)-2-(4-sulfophenyl)-2 H-tetrazolium, inner salt (MTS) assays, cell-scratch assays, and transwell assays and xenograft transplantation assays were performed to investigate the role of CPT1C in tumor progression in vitro and in vivo. Immunohistochemistry was performed on tumor tissue microarray to evaluate the expression levels of CPT1C and explore its potential clinical value. Results We identified CPT1C as a novel APC/C substrate. CPT1C protein levels exhibited cell cycle-dependent fluctuations, peaking at the G1/S boundary. Elevated CPT1C accelerated the G1/S transition, facilitating tumor cell proliferation in vitro and in vivo. Furthermore, CPT1C enhanced fatty acid utilization, upregulated ATP levels, and decreased reactive oxygen species levels, thereby favoring cell survival in a harsh metabolic environment. Clinically, high CPT1C expression correlated with poor survival in patients with esophageal squamous cell carcinoma. Conclusions Overall, our results revealed a novel interplay between fatty acid utilization and cell cycle machinery in tumor cells. Additionally, CPT1C promoted tumor cell proliferation and survival by augmenting cellular ATP levels and preserving redox homeostasis, particularly under metabolic stress. Therefore, CPT1C could be an independent prognostic indicator in esophageal squamous cell carcinoma.

Introduction: Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic unprecedentely led to health crisis in population across the globe. Even though the advent of vaccine has brought the spread of infection under control, shortage in vaccine supply, surge in breakthrough infections and associated mucormycosis in immunosuppressed individuals posed a potential threat. Aim: To know the incidence and outcome of COVID-19 with superadded mucormycosis in vaccinated and unvaccinated people. Materials and Methods: The present study was a cross-sectional study undertaken for a period of four months. Hospitalised COVID-19 patients were enrolled in the study. Details of age, gender and co-morbidities were taken into account. In COVID19 with mucormycosis, glycosylated haemoglobin value and steroid therapy were also noted. Clinical outcome for all the cases were analysed. Statistical analysis of the data collected was done with Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) 20.0 software. Results: Out of 134 cases, 84 and 50 cases belonged to vaccinated and unvaccinated groups respectively. Isolated COVID-19 infection was noted in 102 cases and COVID-19 with mucormycosis in 32 cases. Diabetes mellitus and steroid therapy showed to be the predisposing factors for development of mucormycosis in COVID-19 cases. High proportion of unvaccinated individuals died due to isolated COVID-19 infection compared to vaccinated individuals and it was found to be statistically significant. Conclusion: To combat serious threats caused by the COVID19 pandemic, complete vaccination which offers maximum protection is mandatory.

Industrial engineering is manufacturing and service Design, analysis of operations and systems, and related to control. Past At the time, an industrial engineer was in a manufacturing plant Working and workers and machines Engaged in functional capacity. Industrial Engineers To eliminate waste in production processes Find ways. a product or service Labor, machinery, materials, information to supply, and efficient systems for integrating energy They create. Industry Engineering every year countless international attracts students. It's great engineering and Committed to business. It is provides undergraduate students with key concepts in the design, planning and optimization of manufacturing and production processes. That is the basis of a Bachelor of Industrial Engineering degree. Petroleum engineer tops our list of highest paying engineering jobs. The primary responsibility of petroleum engineers is to design and develop ways to extract the natural resources of oil and gas from the earth. Elon Musk is a South African-born American who is an Industrial Engineer with Paypal Co-founded and Space Transportation Service He founded the company Space X. He is an electric car Among the early investors in the company Tesla Was and is one company's CEO. SPSS statistics is a SOA, SHO, GWO, PSO, MVO, SCA, GSA, GA, DE. The Cronbach's Alpha Reliability The overall Cronbach's Alpha value for the model is 0.991 which Indicates 70 % reliability. From the literature review, the above 80 % Cronbach's Alpha value model can be considered for analysis.

Abstract Purpose Recently, demand for plant-based milk products (PBMP) has increased for multiple reasons, such as the rapid population growth expected to reach 9.7 billion by 2050, health concerns such as lactose intolerance, nutritional aspects, ethical reasons, and environmental concerns. This leads to increased demand for food and competition for natural resources. Hemp-based milk is an emerging dairy alternative, and stakeholders in the supply chain are becoming increasingly interested in learning about the environmental effects of its production. This article aims for a comparative life cycle assessment of hemp-based and bovine milk with fat and protein correction to account for the differences in macronutrient content. Methods The cradle-to-factory gate LCA relied on experimental cultivation and milk production in Lower Saxony, Germany. Inventory was based on primary data from fields and the pilot plant of DIL e. V. and on literature and ecoinvent database to develop a life cycle assessment (LCA) model. The LCA was performed using Simapro 9.3 software and IMPACT 2002+ impact assessment method. The life cycle stages include cultivation, harvesting, and milk production. The study compared hemp-based milk to bovine milk based on 1 kg fat and protein-corrected milk (FPCM) as a functional unit (FU). Co-products are taken into consideration using mass-economic allocation. Results The results showed that hemp cultivation accounted for the highest impact (99%) in the production chain of hemp milk production. The GWP of 1 kg of FPCM hemp-based milk is 0.42 kg CO2 eq. The energy consumption for 1 kg of FPCM hemp-based milk is 4.73 MJ (12.26% lower than bovine milk). The other main factors impacting hemp-based milk production were terrestrial ecotoxicity (6.444E2 kg TEG soil) and aquatic ecotoxicity (2.458E2 kg TEG water). Hemp fiber was the co-product with 40% of the allocated impacts. The results are sensitive to the changes in fat-protein contents, functional unit, and system boundaries. The results demonstrated that the impacts of hemp milk production were within the range indicated for other PBMP production and 51.7% lower than bovine milk production in terms of GWP. This range primarily stems from field emissions, fertilizer application, and machinery usage during cultivation and harvest. Conclusion The results of the comparisons of bovine milk and hemp-based milk were dependable on the FU. The hemp-based milk has the potential to be a more sustainable alternative to bovine milk due to considerably lower impacts in impact categories—land occupation (99% lower than bovine milk), global warming (52% lower than bovine milk), and ionizing radiation (23% lower than bovine milk). It is primarily due to less use of agricultural machinery, less land requirement, and lower NH3 emissions than bovine milk in various stages of milk production.

Abstract Although there are a variety of ways in which people navigate their intimate lives, theories of human development and intimacy often implicitly assume a preference for monogamy to be universal (Seltzer, 2000; Conley et al., 2017; Moors et al., 2017). While many people around the globe indeed engage in serial monogamy, remarkable transformations in relationship and family demography have occurred over the past several decades (Glick, 1988; Fisher, 1989; Finkel et al., 2014; Foster, 2016, in Moors et al. 2021) Studies show that 1 out of 6 people (16.8%) desire to engage in polyamory, and 1 out of 9 people (10.7%) have engaged in polyamory at some point during their life. (Moors et al 2021). Besides seeking hypotheses on the reason for this change away from the monogamous relationship form, and based on these data, we can try to make a prediction about the willingness of people to also consider parenthood in consensual non-monogamous or polyamorous relationships and thus engage in polyparenthood in the future. In the fertility centre too, we are past an era in which heterosexual infertile couples form the majority of our patient population. The need for donor material is increasing, although demand grossly exceeds supply. In addition, in many countries donor anonymity is still enshrined in law, which poses a problem for a growing number of acceptors. Many patients desire information about the donor and an increasing number of patients anticipate the perspective of the future child, which has a right to know its origins. Other patients wish the donor would also include parental involvement, and fundamentally desire the genitor to be a co-parent for their child at some point. As a result, some patients seek refuge in non-regulated open donation arrangements outside the fertility clinic. Indeed, internet websites dedicated to facilitating contact between individuals who want to meet people with the common aim of having a child are mushrooming. Such websites make elective co-parenting accessible to large numbers of people, including both singles and those with partners. Furthermore, these websites are not restricted to LGBTQ+ individuals; heterosexual men and women can also become members and contact potential reproductive partners who may be of a different sexual orientation to themselves. This could trigger a paradigm shift in the fertility clinic; is co-parenting, multi-parenting and poly-parenting the future? It could resolve problems of donor shortage, and the often difficult search for roots still faced by donor-conceived children as a consequence of donor anonimity. At Brussels IVF, we anticipated this paradigm shift and developed a procedure to counsel candidates for co-parenting. Welfare of the child is the guiding principle leading to a joint parenting project worked out together with the co-parents. This procedure and counseling topics to be addressed by the fertility centre will be presented.

Apolipoprotein B-100 (apoB) is the central protein component of very low density lipoproteins (VLDL) and is subject to endoplasmic reticulum-associated degradation (ERAD). Hepatic assembly of VLDL particles is monitored by the cellular quality control machinery, which determines whether a properly formed lipoprotein is secreted or the inadequately lipidated apoB protein is degraded. Changes in lipid supply, ER folding capacity or ERAD pathway function can alter VLDL output from HepG2 cells. Bag6 is a cytosolic protein that has a role in the bilayer integration of proteins and is also implicated in maintaining the solubility of proteasome substrates that contain exposed hydrophobic regions. Notably, Bag6 has been observed to interact with the ERAD components gp78 and p97, which are known to facilitate apoB degradation. The goal of this study was to evaluate the role of cytosolic Bag6 in apoB metabolism in HepG2 cells. When MG132 was used to inhibit proteasomal degradation of apoB, Bag6 was co-immunoprecipitated with apoB as determined by functional proteomics and immunoblot analysis. Conversely, if VLDL assembly was enhanced by treatment of the cells with the MEK/ERK inhibitor U0126, both the Bag6-apoB and p97-apoB associations were no longer detectable. Metabolic labelling studies indicated that siRNA knockdown of Bag6 did not alter the initial rate of apoB biosynthesis, but decreased the secretion of newly synthesized apoB. The decrease in apoB secretion with Bag6 knockdown could not be reversed by U0126. In addition, Bag6 knockdown decreased the effectiveness of MG132 as an inhibitor of cellular apoB degradation even though ubiquitination of apoB appeared to be unaffected. These observations suggest that Bag6 may be a component of the ERAD pathway that modulates VLDL assembly. Reduction of Bag6 partially decreases both secretion and MG132-inhibitable degradation of apoB, suggesting that another mechanism is also involved in apoB degradation. We hypothesize that the “holdase” function of Bag6 may temporarily stabilize exposed hydrophobic domains of apoB prior to its progression to assembly or degradation.

Abstract Biorefineries, designed for the production of lignocellulose-based chemicals and fuels, are receiving increasing attention from the public, governments, and industries. A major obstacle for biorefineries to advance to commercial scale is the high cost of the enzymes required to derive the fermentable sugars from the feedstock used. As summarized in this review, techno-economic studies suggest co-localization and integration of enzyme manufacturing with the cellulosic biorefinery as the most promising alternative to alleviate this problem. Thus, cultivation of Trichoderma reesei, the principal producer of lignocellulolytic enzymes, on the lignocellulosic biomass processed on-site can reduce the cost of enzyme manufacturing. Further, due to a complex gene regulation machinery, the fungus can adjust the gene expression of the lignocellulolytic enzymes towards the characteristics of the feedstock, increasing the hydrolytic efficiency of the produced enzyme cocktail. Despite extensive research over decades, the underlying regulatory mechanisms are not fully elucidated. One aspect that has received relatively little attention in literature is the influence the characteristics of a lignocellulosic substrate, i.e., its chemical and physical composition, has on the produced enzyme mixture. Considering that the fungus is dependent on efficient enzymatic degradation of the lignocellulose for continuous supply of carbon and energy, a relationship between feedstock characteristics and secretome composition can be expected. The aim of this review was to systematically collect, appraise, and aggregate data and integrate results from studies analyzing enzyme production by T. reesei on insoluble cellulosic model substrates and lignocellulosic biomass. The results show that there is a direct effect of the substrate’s complexity (rated by structure, composition of the lignin–carbohydrate complex, and recalcitrance in enzymatic saccharification) on enzyme titers and the composition of specific activities in the secretome. It further shows that process-related factors, such as substrate loading and cultivation set-up, are direct targets for increasing enzyme yields. The literature on transcriptome and secretome composition further supports the proposed influence of substrate-related factors on the expression of lignocellulolytic enzymes. This review provides insights into the interrelation between the characteristics of the substrate and the enzyme production by T. reesei, which may help to advance integrated enzyme manufacturing of substrate-specific enzymes cocktails at scale.

Introduction: Bubbles and Sport The ephemeral materiality of bubbles – beautiful, spectacular, and distracting but ultimately fragile – when applied to protect or conserve in the interests of sport-media profit, creates conditions that exacerbate existing inequalities in sport and society. Bubbles are usually something to watch, admire, and chase after in their brief yet shiny lives. There is supposed to be, technically, nothing inside them other than one or more gasses, and yet we constantly refer to people and objects being inside bubbles. The metaphor of the bubble has been used to describe the life of celebrities, politicians in purpose-built capital cities like Canberra, and even leftist, environmentally activist urban dwellers. The metaphorical and material qualities of bubbles are aligned—they cannot be easily captured and are liable to change at any time. In this article we address the metaphorical sporting bubble, which is often evoked in describing life in professional sport. This is a vernacular term used to capture and condemn the conditions of life of elite sportspeople (usually men), most commonly after there has been a sport-related scandal, especially of a sexual nature (Rowe). It is frequently paired with connotatively loaded adjectives like pampered and indulged. The sporting bubble is rarely interrogated in academic literature, the concept largely being left to the media and moral entrepreneurs. It is represented as involving a highly privileged but also pressurised life for those who live inside it. A sporting bubble is a world constructed for its most prized inhabitants that enables them to be protected from insurgents and to set the terms of their encounters with others, especially sport fans and disciplinary agents of the state. The Covid-19 pandemic both reinforced and reconfigured the operational concept of the bubble, re-arranging tensions between safety (protecting athletes) and fragility (short careers, risks of injury, etc.) for those within, while safeguarding those without from bubble contagion. Privilege and Precarity Bubble-induced social isolation, critics argue, encourages a loss of perspective among those under its protection, an entitled disconnection from the usual rules and responsibilities of everyday life. For this reason, the denizens of the sporting bubble are seen as being at risk to themselves and, more troublingly, to those allowed temporarily to penetrate it, especially young women who are first exploited by and then ejected from it (Benedict). There are many well-documented cases of professional male athletes “behaving badly” and trying to rely on institutional status and various versions of the sporting bubble for shelter (Flood and Dyson; Reel and Crouch; Wade). In the age of mobile and social media, it is increasingly difficult to keep misbehaviour in-house, resulting in a slew of media stories about, for example, drunkenness and sexual misconduct, such as when then-Sydney Roosters co-captain Mitchell Pearce was suspended and fined in 2016 after being filmed trying to force an unwanted kiss on a woman and then simulating a lewd act with her dog while drunk. There is contestation between those who condemn such behaviour as aberrant and those who regard it as the conventional expression of youthful masculinity as part of the familiar “boys will be boys” dictum. The latter naturalise an inequitable gender order, frequently treating sportsmen as victims of predatory women, and ignoring asymmetries of power between men and women, especially in homosocial environments (Toffoletti). For those in the sporting bubble (predominantly elite sportsmen and highly paid executives, also mostly men, with an array of service staff of both sexes moving in and out of it), life is reflected for those being protected via an array of screens (small screens in homes and indoor places of entertainment, and even smaller screens on theirs and others’ phones, as well as huge screens at sport events). These male sport stars are paid handsomely to use their skill and strength to perform for the sporting codes, their every facial expression and bodily action watched by the media and relayed to audiences. This is often a precarious existence, the usually brief career of an athlete worker being dependent on health, luck, age, successful competition with rivals, networks, and club and coach preferences. There is a large, aspirational reserve army of athletes vying to play at the elite level, despite risks of injury and invasive, life-changing medical interventions. Responsibility for avoiding performance and image enhancing drugs (PIEDs) also weighs heavily on their shoulders (Connor). Professional sportspeople, in their more reflective moments, know that their time in the limelight will soon be up, meaning that getting a ticket to the sporting bubble, even for a short time, can make all the difference to their post-sport lives and those of their families. The most vulnerable of the small minority of participants in sport who make a good, short-term living from it are those for whom, in the absence of quality education and prior social status, it is their sole likely means of upward social mobility (Spaaij). Elite sport performers are surrounded by minders, doctors, fitness instructors, therapists, coaches, advisors and other service personnel, all supporting athletes to stay focussed on and maximise performance quality to satisfy co-present crowds, broadcasters, sponsors, sports bodies and mass media audiences. The shield offered by the sporting bubble supports the teleological win-at-all-costs mentality of professional sport. The stakes are high, with athlete and executive salaries, sponsorships and broadcasting deals entangled in a complex web of investments in keeping the “talent” pivotal to the “attention economy” (Davenport and Beck)—the players that provide the content for sale—in top form. Yet, the bubble cannot be entirely secured and poor behaviour or performance can have devastating effects, including permanent injury or disability, mental illness and loss of reputation (Rowe, “Scandals and Sport”). Given this fragile materiality of the sporting bubble, it is striking that, in response to the sudden shutdown following the economic and health crisis caused by the 2020 global pandemic, the leaders of professional sport decided to create more of them and seek to seal the metaphorical and material space with unprecedented efficiency. The outcome was a multi-sided tale of mobility, confinement, capital, labour, and the gendering of sport and society. The Covid-19 Gilded Cage Sociologists such as Zygmunt Bauman and John Urry have analysed the socio-politics of mobilities, whereby some people in the world, such as tourists, can traverse the globe at their leisure, while others remain fixed in geographical space because they lack the means to be mobile or, in contrast, are involuntarily displaced by war, so-called “ethnic cleansing”, famine, poverty or environmental degradation. The Covid-19 global pandemic re-framed these matters of mobilities (Rowe, “Subjecting Pandemic Sport”), with conventional moving around—between houses, businesses, cities, regions and countries—suddenly subjected to the imperative to be static and, in perniciously unreflective technocratic discourse, “socially distanced” (when what was actually meant was to be “physically distanced”). The late-twentieth century analysis of the “risk society” by Ulrich Beck, in which the mysterious consequences of humans’ predation on their environment are visited upon them with terrifying force, was dramatically realised with the coming of Covid-19. In another iteration of the metaphor, it burst the bubble of twenty-first century global sport. What we today call sport was formed through the process of sportisation (Maguire), whereby hyper-local, folk physical play was reconfigured as multi-spatial industrialised sport in modernity, becoming increasingly reliant on individual athletes and teams travelling across the landscape and well over the horizon. Co-present crowds were, in turn, overshadowed in the sport economy when sport events were taken to much larger, dispersed audiences via the media, especially in broadcast mode (Nicholson, Kerr, and Sherwood). This lucrative mediation of professional sport, though, came with an unforgiving obligation to generate an uninterrupted supply of spectacular live sport content. The pandemic closed down most sports events and those that did take place lacked the crucial participation of the co-present crowd to provide the requisite event atmosphere demanded by those viewers accustomed to a sense of occasion. Instead, they received a strange spectacle of sport performers operating in empty “cathedrals”, often with a “faked” crowd presence. The mediated sport spectacle under the pandemic involved cardboard cut-out and sex doll spectators, Zoom images of fans on large screens, and sampled sounds of the crowd recycled from sport video games. Confected co-presence produced simulacra of the “real” as Baudrillardian visions came to life. The sporting bubble had become even more remote. For elite sportspeople routinely isolated from the “common people”, the live sport encounter offered some sensory experience of the social – the sounds, sights and even smells of the crowd. Now the sporting bubble closed in on an already insulated and insular existence. It exposed the irony of the bubble as a sign of both privileged mobility and incarcerated athlete work, both refuge and prison. Its logic of contagion also turned a structure intended to protect those inside from those outside into, as already observed, a mechanism to manage the threat of insiders to outsiders. In Australia, as in many other countries, the populace was enjoined by governments and health authorities to help prevent the spread of Covid-19 through isolation and immobility. There were various exceptions, principally those classified as essential workers, a heterogeneous cohort ranging from supermarket shelf stackers to pharmacists. People in the cultural, leisure and sports industries, including musicians, actors, and athletes, were not counted among this crucial labour force. Indeed, the performing arts (including dance, theatre and music) were put on ice with quite devastating effects on the livelihoods and wellbeing of those involved. So, with all major sports shut down (the exception being horse racing, which received the benefit both of government subsidies and expanding online gambling revenue), sport organisations began to represent themselves as essential services that could help sustain collective mental and even spiritual wellbeing. This case was made most aggressively by Australian Rugby League Commission Chairman, Peter V’landys, in contending that “an Australia without rugby league is not Australia”. In similar vein, prominent sport and media figure Phil Gould insisted, when describing rugby league fans in Western Sydney’s Penrith, “they’re lost, because the football’s not on … . It holds their families together. People don’t understand that … . Their life begins in the second week of March, and it ends in October”. Despite misgivings about public safety and equality before the pandemic regime, sporting bubbles were allowed to form, re-form and circulate. The indefinite shutdown of the National Rugby League (NRL) on 23 March 2020 was followed after negotiation between multiple entities by its reopening on 28 May 2020. The competition included a team from another nation-state (the Warriors from Aotearoa/New Zealand) in creating an international sporting bubble on the Central Coast of New South Wales, separating them from their families and friends across the Tasman Sea. Appeals to the mental health of fans and the importance of the NRL to myths of “Australianness” notwithstanding, the league had not prudently maintained a financial reserve and so could not afford to shut down for long. Significant gambling revenue for leagues like the NRL and Australian Football League (AFL) also influenced the push to return to sport business as usual. Sport contests were needed in order to exploit the gambling opportunities – especially online and mobile – stimulated by home “confinement”. During the coronavirus lockdowns, Australians’ weekly spending on gambling went up by 142 per cent, and the NRL earned significantly more than usual from gambling revenue—potentially $10 million above forecasts for 2020. Despite the clear financial imperative at play, including heavy reliance on gambling, sporting bubble-making involved special licence. The state of Queensland, which had pursued a hard-line approach by closing its borders for most of those wishing to cross them for biographical landmark events like family funerals and even for medical treatment in border communities, became “the nation's sporting hub”. Queensland became the home of most teams of the men’s AFL (notably the women’s AFLW season having been cancelled) following a large Covid-19 second wave in Melbourne. The women’s National Netball League was based exclusively in Queensland. This state, which for the first time hosted the AFL Grand Final, deployed sport as a tool in both national sports tourism marketing and internal pre-election politics, sponsoring a documentary, The Sporting Bubble 2020, via its Tourism and Events arm. While Queensland became the larger bubble incorporating many other sporting bubbles, both the AFL and the NRL had versions of the “fly in, fly out” labour rhythms conventionally associated with the mining industry in remote and regional areas. In this instance, though, the bubble experience did not involve long stays in miners’ camps or even the one-night hotel stopovers familiar to the popular music and sport industries. Here, the bubble moved, usually by plane, to fulfil the requirements of a live sport “gig”, whereupon it was immediately returned to its more solid bubble hub or to domestic self-isolation. In the space created between disciplined expectation and deplored non-compliance, the sporting bubble inevitably became the scrutinised object and subject of scandal. Sporting Bubble Scandals While people with a very low risk of spreading Covid-19 (coming from areas with no active cases) were denied entry to Queensland for even the most serious of reasons (for example, the death of a child), images of AFL players and their families socialising and enjoying swimming at the Royal Pines Resort sporting bubble crossed our screens. Yet, despite their (players’, officials’ and families’) relative privilege and freedom of movement under the AFL Covid-Safe Plan, some players and others inside the bubble were involved in “scandals”. Most notable was the case of a drunken brawl outside a Gold Coast strip club which led to two Richmond players being “banished”, suspended for 10 matches, and the club fined $100,000. But it was not only players who breached Covid-19 bubble protocols: Collingwood coaches Nathan Buckley and Brenton Sanderson paid the $50,000 fine imposed on the club for playing tennis in Perth outside their bubble, while Richmond was fined $45,000 after Brooke Cotchin, wife of team captain Trent, posted an image to Instagram of a Gold Coast day spa that she had visited outside the “hub” (the institutionally preferred term for bubble). She was subsequently distressed after being trolled. Also of concern was the lack of physical distancing, and the range of people allowed into the sporting bubble, including babysitters, grandparents, and swimming coaches (for children). There were other cases of players being caught leaving the bubble to attend parties and sharing videos of their “antics” on social media. Biosecurity breaches of bubbles by players occurred relatively frequently, with stern words from both the AFL and NRL leaders (and their clubs) and fines accumulating in the thousands of dollars. Some people were also caught sneaking into bubbles, with Lekahni Pearce, the girlfriend of Swans player Elijah Taylor, stating that it was easy in Perth, “no security, I didn’t see a security guard” (in Barron, Stevens, and Zaczek) (a month later, outside the bubble, they had broken up and he pled guilty to unlawfully assaulting her; Ramsey). Flouting the rules, despite stern threats from government, did not lead to any bubble being popped. The sport-media machine powering sporting bubbles continued to run, the attendant emotional or health risks accepted in the name of national cultural therapy, while sponsorship, advertising and gambling revenue continued to accumulate mostly for the benefit of men. Gendering Sporting Bubbles Designed as biosecurity structures to maintain the supply of media-sport content, keep players and other vital cogs of the machine running smoothly, and to exclude Covid-19, sporting bubbles were, in their most advanced form, exclusive luxury camps that illuminated the elevated socio-cultural status of sportsmen. The ongoing inequalities between men’s and women’s sport in Australia and around the world were clearly in evidence, as well as the politics of gender whereby women are obliged to “care” and men are enabled to be “careless” – or at least to manage carefully their “duty of care”. In Australia, the only sport for women that continued during the height of the Covid-19 lockdown was netball, which operated in a bubble that was one of sacrifice rather than privilege. With minimum salaries of only $30,000 – significantly less than the lowest-paid “rookies” in the AFL – and some being mothers of small children and/or with professional jobs juggled alongside their netball careers, these elite sportswomen wanted to continue to play despite the personal inconvenience or cost (Pavlidis). Not one breach of the netballers out of the bubble was reported, indicating that they took their responsibilities with appropriate seriousness and, perhaps, were subjected to less scrutiny than the sportsmen accustomed to attracting front-page headlines. National Netball League (also known after its Queensland-based naming rights sponsor as Suncorp Super Netball) players could be regarded as fortunate to have the opportunity to be in a bubble and to participate in their competition. The NRL Women’s (NRLW) Premiership season was also completed, but only involved four teams subject to fly in, fly out and bubble arrangements, and being played in so-called curtain-raiser games for the NRL. As noted earlier, the AFLW season was truncated, despite all the prior training and sacrifice required of its players. Similarly, because of their resource advantages, the UK men’s and boy’s top six tiers of association football were allowed to continue during lockdown, compared to only two for women and girls. In the United States, inequalities between men’s and women’s sports were clearly demonstrated by the conditions afforded to those elite sportswomen inside the Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA) sport bubble in the IMG Academy in Florida. Players shared photos of rodent traps in their rooms, insect traps under their mattresses, inedible food and blocked plumbing in their bubble accommodation. These conditions were a far cry from the luxury usually afforded elite sportsmen, including in Florida’s Walt Disney World for the men’s NBA, and is just one of the many instances of how gendered inequality was both reproduced and exacerbated by Covid-19. Bursting the Bubble As we have seen, governments and corporate leaders in sport were able to create material and metaphorical bubbles during the Covid-19 lockdown in order to transmit stadium sport contests into home spaces. The rationale was the importance of sport to national identity, belonging and the routines and rhythms of life. But for whom? Many women, who still carry the major responsibilities of “care”, found that Covid-19 intensified the affective relations and gendered inequities of “home” as a leisure site (Fullagar and Pavlidis). Rates of domestic violence surged, and many women experienced significant anxiety and depression related to the stress of home confinement and home schooling. During the pandemic, women were also more likely to experience the stress and trauma of being first responders, witnessing virus-related sickness and death as the majority of nurses and care workers. They also bore the brunt of much of the economic and employment loss during this time. Also, as noted above, livelihoods in the arts and cultural sector did not receive the benefits of the “bubble”, despite having a comparable claim to sport in contributing significantly to societal wellbeing. This sector’s workforce is substantially female, although men dominate its senior roles. Despite these inequalities, after the late March to May hiatus, many elite male sportsmen – and some sportswomen - operated in a bubble. Moving in and out of them was not easy. Life inside could be mentally stressful (especially in long stays of up to 150 days in sports like cricket), and tabloid and social media troll punishment awaited those who were caught going “over the fence”. But, life in the sporting bubble was generally preferable to the daily realities of those afflicted by the trauma arising from forced home confinement, and for whom watching moving sports images was scant compensation for compulsory immobility. The ethical foundation of the sparkly, ephemeral fantasy of the sporting bubble is questionable when it is placed in the service of a voracious “media sports cultural complex” (Rowe, Global Media Sport) that consumes sport labour power and rolls back progress in gender relations as a default response to a global pandemic. Covid-19 dramatically highlighted social inequalities in many areas of life, including medical care, work, and sport. For the small minority of people involved in sport who are elite professionals, the only thing worse than being in a sporting bubble during the pandemic was not being in one, as being outside precluded their participation. Being inside the bubble was a privilege, albeit a dubious one. But, as in wider society, not all sporting bubbles are created equal. Some are more opulent than others, and the experiences of the supporting and the supported can be very different. The surface of the sporting bubble may be impermanent, but when its interior is opened up to scrutiny, it reveals some very durable structures of inequality. Bubbles are made to burst. They are, by nature, temporary, translucent structures created as spectacles. As a form of luminosity, bubbles “allow a thing or object to exist only as a flash, sparkle or shimmer” (Deleuze, 52). In echoing Deleuze, Angela McRobbie (54) argues that luminosity “softens and disguises the regulative dynamics of neoliberal society”. The sporting bubble was designed to discharge that function for those millions rendered immobile by home confinement legislation in Australia and around the world, who were having to deal with the associated trauma, risk and disadvantage. 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IntroductionAustralia is at a particular point in its history where there is a noticeable diaspora of artists and creative practitioners away from the major capitals of Sydney and Melbourne (in particular), driven in no small part by ballooning house prices of the last eight years. This has meant big changes for some regional spaces, and in turn, for the face of Australian cultural life. Regional cultural precincts are forming with tourist flows, funding attention and cultural economies. Likewise, there appears to be growing consciousness in the ‘art centres’ of Melbourne and Sydney of interesting and relevant activities outside their limits. This research draws on my experience as an art practitioner, curator and social researcher in one such region (Castlemaine in Central Victoria), and particularly from a recent interview series I have conducted in collaboration with art space in that region, Wide Open Road Art. In this, 23 regional and city-based artists were asked about the social, economic and local conditions that can and have supported their art practices. Drawing from these conversations and Bourdieu’s ideas around cultural production, the article suggests that authentic, diverse, interesting and disruptive creative practices in Australian cultural life involve the increasingly pressing need for security while existing outside the modern imperative of high consumption; of finding alternative ways to live well while entering into the shared space of cultural production. Indeed, it is argued that often it is the capacity to defy key economic paradigms, for example of ‘rational (economic) self-interest’, that allows creative life to flourish (Bourdieu Field; Ley “Artists”). While regional spaces present new opportunities for this, there are pitfalls and nuances worth exploring.Changes in Regional AustraliaAustralia has long been an urbanising nation. Since Federation our cities have increased from a third to now constituting two-thirds of the country’s total population (Gray and Lawrence 6; ABS), making us one of the most urbanised countries in the world. Indeed, as machines replaced manual labour on farms; as Australia’s manufacturing industry began its decline; and as young people in particular left the country for city universities (Gray and Lawrence), the post-war industrial-economic boom drove this widespread demographic and economic shift. In the 1980s closures of regional town facilities like banks, schools and hospitals propelled widespread belief that regional Australia was in crisis and would be increasingly difficult to sustain (Rentschler, Bridson, and Evans; Gray and Lawrence 2; Barr et al.; ABS). However, the late 1990s and early 21st century saw a turnaround that has been referred to by some as the rise of the ‘sea change’. That is, widespread renewed interest and idealisation of not just coastal areas but anywhere outside the city (Murphy). It was a simultaneous pursuit of “a small ‘a’ alternative lifestyle” and escape from rising living costs in urban areas, especially for the unemployed, single parents and those with disabilities (Murphy). This renewed interest has been sustained. The latest wave, or series of waves, have coincided with the post-GFC house price spike, of cheap credit and lenient lending designed to stimulate the economy. This initiative in part led to Sydney and Melbourne median dwelling prices rising by up to 114% in eight years (Scutt 2017), which alone had a huge influence on who was able to afford to live in city areas and who was not. Rapid population increases and diminished social networks and familial support are also considered drivers that sent a wave of people (a million since 2011) towards the outer fringes of the cities and to ‘commuter belt’ country towns (Docherty; Murphy). While the underprivileged are clearly most disadvantaged in what has actually been a global development process (see Jayne on this, and on the city as a consumer itself), artists and creatives are also a unique category who haven’t fared well with hyper-urbanisation (Ley “Artists”). Despite the class privilege that often accompanies such a career choice, the economic disadvantage art professions often involve has seen a diaspora of artists moving to regional areas, particularly those in the hinterlands around and train lines to major centres. We see the recent ‘rise of a regional bohemia’ (Regional Australia Institute): towns like Toowoomba, Byron Bay, Surf Coast, Gold Coast-Tweed, Kangaroo Valley, Wollongong, Warburton, Bendigo, Tooyday, New Norfolk, and countless more being re-identified as arts towns and precincts. In Australia in 2016–17, 1 in 6 professional artists, and 1 in 4 visual artists, were living in a regional town (Throsby and Petetskaya). Creative arts in regional Australia makes up a quarter of the nation’s creative output and is a $2.8 billion industry; and our regions particularly draw in creative practitioners in their prime productive years (aged 24 to 44) (Regional Australia Institute).WORA Conservation SeriesIn 2018 artist and curator Helen Mathwin and myself received a local shire grant to record a conversation series with 23 artists who were based in the Central Goldfields region of Victoria as well as further afield, but who had a connection to the regional arts space we run, WideOpenRoadArt (WORA). In videoed, in-depth, approximately hour-long, semi-structured interviews conducted throughout 2018, we spoke to artists (16 women and 7 men) about the relocation phenomenon we were witnessing in our own growing arts town. Most were interviewed in WORA’s roving art float, but we seized any ad hoc opportunity we had to have genuine discussions with people. Focal points were around sustainability of practice and the social conditions that supported artists’ professional pursuits. This included accessing an arts community, circles of cultural production, and the ‘art centre’; the capacity to exhibit; but also, social factors such as affordable housing and the ability to live on a low-income while having dependants; and so on. The conversations were rich with lived experiences and insights on these issues.Financial ImperativesIn line with the discussion above, the most prominent factor we noticed in the interviews was the inescapable importance of being able to live cheaply. The consistent message that all of the interviewees, both regional- and city-based, conveyed was that a career in art-making required an important independence from the need to earn a substantial income. One interviewee commented: “I do run my art as a business, I have an ABN […] it makes a healthy loss! I don’t think I’ve ever made a profit […].” Another put it: “now that I’m in [this] town and I have a house and stuff I do feel like there is maybe a bit more security around those daily things that will hopefully give me space to [make artworks].”Much has been said on the pervasive inability to monetise art careers, notably Bourdieu’s observations that art exists on an interdependent field of cultural capital, determining for itself an autonomous conception of value separate to economics (Bourdieu, Field 39). This is somewhat similar to the idea of art as a sacred phenomenon irreducible to dollar terms (Abbing 38; see also Benjamin’s “aura”; “The Work of Art”). Art’s difficult relationship with commodification is part of its heroism that Benjamin described (Benjamin Charles Baudelaire 79), its potential to sanctify mainstream society by staying separate to the lowly aspirations of commerce (Ley “Artists” 2529). However, it is understood, artists still need to attain professional education and capacities, yet they remain at the bottom of the income ladder not only professionally, but in the case of visual artists, they remain at the bottom of the creative income hierarchies as well. Further to this, within visual arts, only a tiny proportion achieve financially backed success (Menger 277). “Artistic labour markets are characterised by high risk of failure, excess supply of recruits, low artistic income level, skewed income distribution and multiple jobholding” (Mangset, Torvik Heian, Kleppe, and Løyland; Menger). Mangset et al. point to ideas that have long surrounded the “charismatic artist myth,” of a quasi-metaphysical calling to be an artist that can lead one to overlook the profession’s vast pitfalls in terms of economic sustainability. One interviewee described it as follows: “From a very young age I wanted to be an artist […] so there’s never been a time that I’ve thought that’s not what I’m doing.” A 1% rule seems widely acknowledged in how the profession manages the financial winners against those who miss out; the tiny proportion of megastar artists versus a vast struggling remainder.As even successful artists often dip below the poverty line between paid engagements, housing costs can make the difference between being able to live in an area and not (Turnbull and Whitford). One artist described:[the reason we moved here from Melbourne] was financial, yes definitely. We wouldn’t have been able to purchase a property […] in Melbourne, we would not have been able to live in place that we wanted to live, and to do what we wanted to do […]. It was never an option for us to get a big mortgage.Another said:It partly came about as a financial practicality to move out here. My partner […] wanted to be in the bush, but I was resistant at first, we were in Melbourne but we just couldn’t afford Melbourne in the end, we had an apartment, we had a studio. My partner was a cabinet maker then. You know, just every month all our money went to rent and we just couldn’t manage anymore. So we thought, well maybe if we come out to the bush […] It was just by a happy accident that we found a property […] that we could afford, that was off-grid so it cut the bills down for us [...] that had a little studio and already had a little cottage on there that we could rent that out to get money.For a prominent artist we spoke to this issue was starkly reflected. Despite large exhibitions at some of the highest profile galleries in regional Victoria, the commissions offered for these shows were so insubstantial that the artist and their family had to take on staggering sums of personal debt to execute the ambitious and critically acclaimed shows. Another very successful artist we interviewed who had shown widely at ‘A-list’ international arts institutions and received several substantial grants, spoke of their dismay and pessimism at the idea of financial survival. For all artists we spoke to, pursuing their arts practice was in constant tension with economic imperatives, and their lives had all been shaped by the need to make shrewd decisions to continue practising. There were two artists out of the 23 we interviewed who considered their artwork able to provide full-time income, although this still relied on living costs remaining extremely low. “We are very lucky to have bought a very cheap property [in the country] that I can [also] have my workshop on, so I’m not paying for two properties in Melbourne […] So that certainly takes a fair bit of pressure off financially.” Their co-interviewee described this as “pretty luxurious!” Notably, the two who thought they could live off their art practices were both men, mid-career, whose works were large, spectacular festival items, which alongside the artists’ skill and hard work was also a factor in the type of remuneration received.Decongested LivingBeyond more affordable real estate and rental spaces, life outside our cities offers other benefits that have particular relevance to creative practitioners. Opera and festival director Lindy Hume described her move to the NSW South Coast in terms of space to think and be creative. “The abundance of time, space and silence makes living in places like [Hume’s town] ideal for creating new work” (Brown). And certainly, this was a theme that arose frequently in our interviews. Many of our regionally based artists were in part choosing the de-pressurised space of non-metro areas, and also seeking an embedded, daily connection to nature for themselves, their art-making process and their families. In one interview this was described as “dreamtime”. “Some of my more creative moments are out walking in the forest with the dog, that sort of semi-daydreamy thing where your mind is taken away by the place you’re in.”Creative HubsAll of our regional interviewees mentioned the value of the local community, as a general exchange, social support and like-minded connection, but also specifically of an arts community. Whether a tree change by choice or a more reactive move, the diaspora of artists, among others, has led to a type of rural renaissance in certain popular areas. Creative hubs located around the country, often in close proximity to the urban centres, are creating tremendous opportunities to network with other talented people doing interesting things, living in close proximity and often open to cross-fertilisation. One said: “[Castlemaine] is the best place in Australia, it has this insane cultural richness in a tiny town, you can’t go out and not meet people on the street […] For someone who has not had community in their life that is so gorgeous.” Another said:[Being an artist here] is kind of easy! Lots of people around to connect—with […] other artists but also creatively minded people [...] So it means you can just bump into someone from down the street and have an amazing conversation in five minutes about some amazing thing! […] There’s a concentration here that works.With these hubs, regional spaces are entering into a new relevance in the sphere of cultural production. They are generating unique and interesting local creative scenes for people to live amongst or visit, and generating strong local arts economies, tourist economies, and funding opportunities (Rentschler, Bridson, and Evans). Victoria in particular has burgeoned, with tourist flows to its regions increasing 13 per cent in 5 years and generating tourism worth $10 billion (Tourism Victoria). Victoria’s Greater Bendigo is Australia’s most popularly searched tourist destination on Trip Advisor, with tourism increasing 52% in 10 years (Boland). Simultaneously, funding flows have increased to regional zones, as governments seek to promote development outside Australia’s urban centres and are confident in the arts as a key strategy in boosting health, economies and overall wellbeing (see Rentschler, Bridson, and Evans; see also the 2018 Regional Centre for Culture initiative, Boland). The regions are also an increasingly relevant participant in national cultural life (Turnbull and Whitford; Mitchell; Simpson; Woodhead). Opportunities for an openness to productive exchange between regional and metropolitan sites appear to be growing, with regional festivals and art events gaining importance and unique attributes in the consciousness of the arts ‘centre’ (see for example Fairley; Simpson; Farrelly; Woodhead).Difficulties of Regional LocationDespite this, our interviews still brought to light the difficulties and barriers experienced living as a regional artist. For some, living in regional Victoria was an accepted set-back in their ambitions, something to be concealed and counteracted with education in reputable metropolitan art schools or city-based jobs. For others there was difficulty accessing a sympathetic arts community—although arts towns had vibrant cultures, certain types of creativity were preferred (often craft-based and more community-oriented). Practitioners who were active in maintaining their links to a metropolitan art scene voiced more difficulty in fitting in and successfully exhibiting their (often more conceptual or boundary-pushing) work in regional locations.The Gentrification ProblemThe other increasingly obvious issue in the revivification of some non-metropolitan areas is that they can and are already showing signs of being victims of their own success. That is, some regional arts precincts are attracting so many new residents that they are ceasing to be the low-cost, hospitable environments for artists they once were. Geographer David Ley has given attention to this particular pattern of gentrification that trails behind artists (Ley “Artists”). Ley draws from Florida’s ideas of late capitalism’s ascendency of creativity over the brute utilitarianism of the industrial era. This has got to the point that artists and creative professionals have an increasing capacity to shape and generate value in areas of life that were previous overlooked, especially with built environments (2529). Now more than ever, there is the “urbane middle-class” pursuing ‘the swirling milieu of artists, bohemians and immigrants” (Florida) as they create new, desirable landscapes with the “refuse of society” (Benjamin Charles Baudelaire 79; Ley New Middle Class). With Australia’s historic shifts in affordability in our major cities, this pattern that Ley identified in urban built environments can be seen across our states and regions as well.But with gentrification comes increased costs of living, as housing, shops and infrastructure all alter for an affluent consumer-resident. This diminishes what Bourdieu describes as “the suspension and removal of economic necessity” fundamental to the avant-garde (Bourdieu Distinction 54). That is to say, its relief from heavy pressure to materially survive is arguably critical to the reflexive, imaginative, and truly new offerings that art can provide. And as argued earlier, there seems an inbuilt economic irrationality in artmaking as a vocation—of dedicating one’s energy, time and resources to a pursuit that is notoriously impoverishing. But this irrationality may at the same time be critical to setting forth new ideas, perspectives, reflections and disruptions of taken-for-granted social assumptions, and why art is so indispensable in the first place (Bourdieu Field 39; Ley New Middle Class 2531; Weber on irrationality and the Enlightenment Project; also Adorno’s the ‘primitive’ in art). Australia’s cities, like those of most developed nations, increasingly demand we busy ourselves with the high-consumption of modern life that makes certain activities that sit outside this almost impossible. As gentrification unfolds from the metropolis to the regions, Australia faces a new level of far-reaching social inequality that has real consequences for who is able to participate in art-making, where these people can live, and ultimately what kind of diversity of ideas and voices participate in the generation of our national cultural life. ConclusionThe revival of some of Australia’s more popular regional towns has brought new life to some regional areas, particularly in reshaping their identities as cultural hubs worth experiencing, living amongst or supporting their development. Our interviews brought to life the significant benefits artists have experienced in relocating to country towns, whether by choice or necessity, as well as some setbacks. It was clear that economics played a major role in the demographic shift that took place in the area being examined; more specifically, that the general reorientation of social life towards consumption activities are having dramatic spatial consequences that we are currently seeing transform our major centres. The ability of art and creative practices to breathe new life into forgotten and devalued ideas and spaces is a foundational attribute but one that also creates a gentrification problem. Indeed, this is possibly the key drawback to the revivification of certain regional areas, alongside other prejudices and clashes between metro and regional cultures. It is argued that the transformative and redemptive actions art can perform need to involve the modern irrationality of not being transfixed by matters of economic materialism, so as to sit outside taken-for-granted value structures. This emphasises the importance of equality and open access in our spaces and landscapes if we are to pursue a vibrant, diverse and progressive national cultural sphere.ReferencesAbbing, Hans. Why Artists Are Poor: The Exceptional Economy of the Arts. Amsterdam: Amsterdam UP, 2002.Adorno, Theodor. Aesthetic Theory. London: Routledge, 1983.Australian Bureau of Statistics. “Population Growth: Capital City Growth and Development.” 4102.0—Australian Social Trends. Canberra: Australian Bureau of Sttaistics, 1996. <http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/2f762f95845417aeca25706c00834efa/924739f180990e34ca2570ec0073cdf7!OpenDocument>.Barr, Neil, Kushan Karunaratne, and Roger Wilkinson. Australia’s Farmers: Past, Present and Future. Land and Water Resources Research and Development Corporation, 2005. 1 Mar. 2019 <http://inform.regionalaustralia.org.au/industry/agriculture-forestry-and-fisheries/item/australia-s-farmers-past-present-and-future>.Benjamin, Walter. Charles Baudelaire: A Lyric Poet in the Era of High Capitalism. London: NLB, 1973.———. “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction.” Illuminations. Ed. Hannah Arendt. Trans. Harry Zohn. New York: Schocken Books, 1969.Boland, Brooke. “What It Takes to Be a Leading Regional Centre of Culture.” Arts Hub 18 July 2018. 1 Mar. 2019 <https://www.artshub.com.au/festival/news-article/sponsored-content/festivals/brooke-boland/what-it-takes-to-be-a-leading-regional-centre-of-culture-256110>.Bourdieu, Pierre. Distinction. Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 1984.———. The Field of Cultural Production. New York: Columbia UP, 1993.Brown, Bill. “‘Restless Giant’ Lures Queensland Opera’s Artistic Director Lindy Hume to the Regional Art Movement.” ABC News 13 Sep. 2017. 10 Mar. 2019 <https://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-09-12/regional-creative-industries-on-the-rise/8895842>.Docherty, Glenn. “Why 5 Million Australians Can’t Get to Work, Home or School on Time.” Sydney Morning Herald 17 Feb. 2019. 10 Mar. 2019 <https://www.smh.com.au/national/why-5-million-australians-can-t-get-to-work-home-or-school-on-time-20190215-p50y1x.html>.Fairley, Gina. “Big Hit Exhibitions to See These Summer Holidays.” Arts Hub 14 Dec. 2018. 1 Mar. 2019 <https://visual.artshub.com.au/news-article/news/visual-arts/gina-fairley/big-hit-exhibitions-to-see-these-summer-holidays-257016>.Farrelly, Kate. “Bendigo: The Regional City That’s Transformed into a Foodie and Cultural Hub.” Domain 9 Apr. 2019. 10 Mar. 2019 <https://www.domain.com.au/news/bendigo-the-regional-city-you-didnt-expect-to-become-a-foodie-and-cultural-hub-813317/>.Florida, Richard. “A Creative, Dynamic City Is an Open, Tolerant City.” The Globe and Mail 24 Jun. 2002: T8.Gray, Ian, and Geoffrey Lawrence. A Future For Regional Australia: Escaping Global Misfortune. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001.Hume, Lindy. Restless Giant: Changing Cultural Values in Regional Australia. Strawberry Hills: Currency House, 2017.Jayne, Mark. Cities and Consumption. London: Routledge, 2005.Ley, David. The New Middle Class and the Remaking of the Central City. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996.———. “Artists, Aestheticisation and Gentrification.” Urban Studies 40.12 (2003): 2527–44.Menger, Pierre-Michel. “Artistic Labor Markets: Contingent Works, Excess Supply and Occupational Risk Management.” Handbook of the Economics of Art and Culture. Eds. Victor Ginsburgh and David Throsby. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 2006. 766–811.Mangset, Per, Mari Torvik Heian, Bard Kleppe and Knut Løyland. “Why Are Artists Getting Poorer: About the Reproduction of Low Income among Artists.” International Journal of Cultural Policy 24.4 (2018): 539-58.Mitchell, Scott. “Want to Start Collecting Art But Don’t Know Where to Begin? Trust Your Own Taste, plus More Tips.” ABC Life, 31 Mar. 2019 <https://www.abc.net.au/life/tips-for-buying-art-starting-collection/10084036>.Murphy, Peter. “Sea Change: Re-Inventing Rural and Regional Australia.” Transformations 2 (March 2002).Regional Australia Institute. “The Rise of the Regional Bohemians.” Regional Australia Institute 24 May. 2017. 1 Mar. 2019 <http://www.regionalaustralia.org.au/home/2017/05/rise-regional-bohemians-painting-new-picture-arts-culture-regional-australia/>.Rentschler, Ruth, Kerrie Bridson, and Jody Evans. Regional Arts Australia Stats and Stories: The Impact of the Arts in Regional Australia. Regional Arts Australia [n.d.]. <https://www.cacwa.org.au/documents/item/477>.Simpson, Andrea. “The Regions: Delivering Exceptional Arts Experiences to the Community.” ArtsHub 11 Apr. 2019. <https://visual.artshub.com.au/news-article/sponsored-content/visual-arts/andrea-simpson/the-regions-delivering-exceptional-arts-experiences-to-the-community-257752>.

Photo by Jo-Anne McArthur on Unsplash ABSTRACT The UK-based campaign group Scrap Factory Farming has launched a legal challenge against industrial animal agriculture; the challenge is in the process of judicial review. While a fringe movement, Scrap Factory Farming has already accrued some serious backers, including the legal team of Michael Mansfield QC. The premise is that factory farming is a danger not just to animals or the environment but also to human health. According to its stated goals, governments should be given until 2025 to phase out industrialized “concentrated animal feeding organizations” (CAFOs) in favor of more sustainable and safer agriculture. This paper will discuss the bioethical issues involved in Scrap Factory Farming’s legal challenge and argue that an overhaul of factory farming is long overdue. INTRODUCTION A CAFO is a subset of animal feeding operations that has a highly concentrated animal population. CAFOs house at least 1000 beef cows, 2500 pigs, or 125,000 chickens for at least 45 days a year. The animals are often confined in pens or cages to use minimal energy, allowing them to put on as much weight as possible in as short a time. The animals are killed early relative to their total lifespans because the return on investment (the amount of meat produced compared to animal feed) is a curve of diminishing returns. CAFOs’ primary goal is efficiency: fifty billion animals are “processed” in CAFOs every year. The bioethical questions raised by CAFOs include whether it is acceptable to kill the animals, and if so, under what circumstances, whether the animals have rights, and what animal welfare standards should apply. While there are laws and standards in place, they tend to reflect the farm lobby and fail to consider broader animal ethics. Another critical issue applicable to industrial animal agriculture is the problem of the just distribution of scarce resources. There is a finite amount of food that the world can produce, which is, for the moment, approximately enough to go around.[1] The issue is how it goes around. Despite there being enough calories and nutrients on the planet to give all a comfortable life, these calories and nutrients are distributed such that there is excess and waste in much of the global North and rampant starvation and malnutrition in the global South. The problem of distribution can be solved in two ways: either by efficient and just distribution or by increasing net production (either increase productivity or decrease waste) so that even an inefficient and unjust distribution system will probably meet the minimum nutritional standards for all humans. This essay explores four bioethical fields (animal ethics, climate ethics, workers’ rights, and just distribution) as they relate to current industrial agriculture and CAFOs. l. Animal Ethics Two central paradigms characterize animal ethics: welfarism and animal rights. These roughly correspond to the classical frameworks of utilitarianism and deontology. Welfarists[2] hold the common-sense position that animals must be treated well and respected as individuals but do not have inalienable rights in the same ways as humans. A typical welfare position might be, “I believe that animals should be given the best life possible, but there is no inherent evil in using animals for food, so long as they are handled and killed humanely.” Animal rights theorists and activists, on the other hand, would say, “I believe non-human animals should be given the best lives possible, but we should also respect certain rights of theirs analogous to human rights: they should never be killed for food, experimented upon, etc.” Jeremy Bentham famously gave an early exposition of the animal rights case: “The question is not Can they reason?, nor Can they talk?, but Can they suffer? Why should the law refuse its protection to any sensitive being?” Those who take an animal welfare stance have grounds to oppose the treatment of animals in CAFOs as opposed to more traditional grass-fed animal agriculture. CAFOs cannot respect the natural behaviors or needs of animals who evolved socially for millions of years in open plains. If more space was allowed per animal or more time for socialization and other positive experiences in the animal’s life, the yield of the farm would drop. This is not commercially viable in a competitive industry like animal agriculture; thus, there is very little incentive for CAFOs to treat animals well. Rampant abuse is documented.[3] Acts of cruelty are routine: pigs often have teeth pulled and tails docked because they often go mad in their conditions and attempt to cannibalize each other; chickens have their beaks clipped to avoid them pecking at each other, causing immense pain; cows and bulls have their horns burned off to avoid them damaging others (as this damages the final meat product, too); male chicks that hatch in the egg industry are ground up in a macerator, un-anaesthetized, in the first 24 hours of their life as they will not go on to lay eggs. These practices vary widely among factory farms and among jurisdictions. Yet, arguably, the welfare of animals cannot be properly respected because all CAFOs fundamentally see animals as mere products-in-the-making instead of the complex, sentient, and emotional individuals science has repeatedly shown them to be.[4] ll. Climate Ethics The climate impact of farming animals is increasingly evident. Around 15-20 percent of human-made emissions come from animal agriculture.[5] and deforestation to create space for livestock grazing or growing crops to feed farm animals. An average quarter-pound hamburger uses up to six kilograms of feed, causes 66 square feet of deforestation, and uses up to 65 liters of water, with around 4kg of carbon emissions to boot – a majority of which come from the cattle themselves (as opposed to food processing or food miles).[6] According to environmentalist George Monbiot, “Even if you shipped bananas six times around the planet, their impact would be lower than local beef and lamb.”[7] The disparity between the impact of animal and plant-based produce is stark. Not all animal products are created equally. Broadly, there are two ways to farm animals: extensive or intensive farming. Extensive animal farming might be considered a “traditional” way of farming: keeping animals in large fields, as naturally as possible, often rotating them between different areas to not overgraze any one pasture. However, its efficiency is much lower than intensive farming – the style CAFOs use. Intensive animal farming is arguably more environmentally efficient. That is, CAFOs produce more output per unit of natural resource input than extensive systems do. However, environmental efficiency is relative rather than absolute, as the level of intensive animal agriculture leads to large-scale deforestation to produce crops for factory-farmed animals. CAFOs are also point-sources of pollution from the massive quantities of animal waste produced – around 1,000,000 tons per day in the US alone, triple the amount of all human waste produced per day – which has significant negative impacts on human health in the surrounding areas.[8] The environmental impacts of CAFOs must be given serious ethical consideration using new frameworks in climate ethics and bioethics. One example of a land ethic to guide thinking in this area is that “[it] is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic community. It is wrong when it tends otherwise.”[9] It remains to be seen whether CAFOs can operate in a way that respects and preserves “integrity, stability, and beauty” of their local ecosystem, given the facts above. The pollution CAFOs emit affects the surrounding areas. Hog CAFOs are built disproportionately around predominantly minority communities in North Carolina where poverty rates are high.[10] Animal waste carries heavy metals, infectious diseases, and antibiotic-resistant pathogens into nearby water sources and houses. lll. Workers’ Rights The poor treatment of slaughterhouse workers has been documented in the US during the COVID-19 pandemic, where, despite outbreaks of coronavirus among workers, the White House ordered that they remain open to maintain the supply of meat. The staff of slaughterhouses in the US is almost exclusively people with low socioeconomic status, ethnic minorities, and migrants.[11] Almost half of frontline slaughterhouse workers are Hispanic, and a quarter is Black. Additionally, half are immigrants, and a quarter comes from families with limited English proficiency. An eighth live in poverty, with around 45 percent below 200 percent of the poverty line. Only one-in-forty has a college degree or more, while one-in-six lacks health insurance. Employee turnover rates are around 200 percent per year.[12] Injuries are very common in the fast-moving conveyor belt environment with sharp knives, machinery, and a crowd of workers. OSHA found 17 cases of hospitalizations, two body part amputations per week, and loss of an eye every month in the American industrial meat industry. This is three times the workplace accident rate of the average American worker across all industries. Beef and pork workers are likely to suffer repetitive strain at seven times the rate of the rest of the population. One worker told the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) that “every co-worker I know has been injured at some point… I can attest that the line speeds are already too fast to keep up with. Please, I am asking you not to increase them anymore.”[13] Slaughterhouses pose a major risk to public health from zoonotic disease transmission. 20 percent of slaughterhouse workers interviewed in Kenya admit to slaughtering sick animals, which greatly increases the risk of transmitting disease either to a worker further down the production line or a consumer at the supermarket.[14] Moreover, due to poor hygienic conditions and high population density, animals in CAFOs are overfed with antibiotics. Over two-thirds of all antibiotics globally are given to animals in agriculture, predicted to increase by 66 percent by 2030.[15] The majority of these animals do not require antibiotics; their overuse creates a strong and consistent selection pressure on any present bacterial pathogens that leads to antibiotic resistance that could create devastating cross-species disease affecting even humans. The World Health Organization predicts that around 10 million humans per year could die of antibiotic-resistant diseases by 2050.[16] Many of these antibiotics are also necessary for human medical interventions, so antibiotics in animals have a tremendous opportunity cost. The final concern is that of zoonosis itself. A zoonotic disease is any disease that crosses the species boundary from animals to humans. According to the United Nations, 60 percent of all known infections and 75 percent of all emerging infections are zoonotic.[17] Many potential zoonoses are harbored in wild animals (particularly when wild animals are hunted and sold in wet markets) because of the natural biodiversity. However, around a third of zoonoses originate in domesticated animals, which is a huge proportion given the relative lack of diversity of the animals we choose to eat. Q fever, or “query fever,” is an example of a slaughterhouse-borne disease. Q fever has a high fatality rate when untreated that decreases to “just” 2 percent with appropriate treatment.[18] H1N1 (swine flu) and H5N1 (bird flu) are perhaps the most famous examples of zoonoses associated with factory farming. lV. Unjust Distribution The global distribution of food can cause suffering. According to research commissioned by the BBC, the average Ethiopian eats around seven kilograms of meat per year, and the average Rwandan eats eight.[19] This is a factor of ten smaller than the average European, while the average American clocks in at around 115 kilograms of meat per year. In terms of calories, Eritreans average around 1600kcal per day while most Europeans ingest double that. Despite enough calories on the planet to sustain its population, 25,000 people worldwide starve to death each day, 40 percent of whom are children. There are two ways to address the unjust distribution: efficient redistribution and greater net production, which are not mutually exclusive. Some argue that redistribution will lead to lower net productivity because it disincentivizes labor;[20] others argue that redistribution is necessary to respect human rights of survival and equality.[21] Instead of arguing this point, I will focus on people’s food choices and their effect on both the efficiency and total yield of global agriculture, as these are usually less discussed. Regardless of the metric used, animals always produce far fewer calories and nutrients (protein, iron, zinc, and all the others) than we feed them. This is true because of the conservation of mass. They cannot feasibly produce more, as they burn off and excrete much of what they ingest. The exact measurement of the loss varies based on the metric used. When compared to live weight, cows consume somewhere around ten times their weight. When it comes to actual edible weight, they consume up to 25 times more than we can get out of them. Cows are only around one percent efficient in terms of calorific production and four percent efficient in protein production. Poultry is more efficient, but we still lose half of all crops we put into them by weight and get out only a fifth of the protein and a tenth of the calories fed to them.[22] Most other animals lie somewhere in the middle of these two in terms of efficiency, but no animal is ever as efficient as eating plants before they are filtered through animals in terms of the nutritional value available to the world. Due to this inefficiency, it takes over 100 square meters to produce 1000 calories of beef or lamb compared to just 1.3 square meters to produce the same calories from tofu.[23] The food choices in the Western world, where we eat so much more meat than people eat elsewhere, are directly related to a reduction in the amount of food and nutrition in the rest of the world. The most influential theory of justice in recent times is John Rawls’ Original Position wherein stakeholders in an idealized future society meet behind a “veil of ignorance” to negotiate policy, not knowing the role they will play in that society. There is an equal chance of each policymaker ending up poverty-stricken or incredibly privileged; therefore, each should negotiate to maximize the outcome of all citizens, especially those worst-off in society, known as the “maximin” strategy. In this hypothetical scenario, resource distribution would be devised to be as just as possible and should therefore sway away from animal consumption. CONCLUSION Evidence is growing that animals of all sorts, including fish and certain invertebrates, feel pain in ways that people are increasingly inclined to respect, though still, climate science is more developed and often inspires more public passion than animal rights do. Workers’ rights and welfare in slaughterhouses have become mainstream topics of conversation because of the outbreaks of COVID-19 in such settings. Environmentalists note overconsumption in high-income countries, also shining a light on the starvation of much of the low-income population of the world. At the intersection of these bioethical issues lies the modern CAFO, significantly contributing to animal suffering, climate change, poor working conditions conducive to disease, and unjust distribution of finite global resources (physical space and crops). It is certainly time to move away from the CAFO model of agriculture to at least a healthy mixture of extensive agriculture and alternative (non-animal) proteins. - [1] Berners-Lee M, Kennelly C, Watson R, Hewitt CN; Current global food production is sufficient to meet human nutritional needs in 2050 provided there is radical societal adaptation. Elementa: Science of the Anthropocene. 6:52, 2018. 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IntroductionTasmania hangs from the map of Australia like a drop in freefall from the substance of the mainland. Often the whole state is mislaid from Australian maps and logos (Reddit). Tasmania has, at least since federation, been considered peripheral—a region seen as isolated, a ‘problem’ economically, politically, and culturally. However, Tasmania not only cleaves to the ‘north island’ of Australia but is also subject to the gravitational pull of an even greater land mass—Antarctica. In this article, we upturn the political conventions of map-making that place both Antarctica and Tasmania in obscure positions at the base of the globe. We show how a changing global climate re-frames Antarctica and the Southern Ocean as key drivers of worldwide environmental shifts. The liquid and solid water between Tasmania and Antarctica is revealed not as a homogenous barrier, but as a dynamic and relational medium linking the Tasmanian archipelago with Antarctica. When Antarctica becomes the focus, the script is flipped: Tasmania is no longer on the edge, but core to a network of gateways into the southern land. The state’s capital of Hobart can from this perspective be understood as an “Antarctic city”, central to the geopolitics, economy, and culture of the frozen continent (Salazar et al.). Viewed from the south, we argue, Tasmania is not a problem, but an opportunity for a form of ecological, cultural, economic, and political sustainability that opens up the southern continent to science, discovery, and imagination.A Centre at the End of the Earth? Tasmania as ParadoxThe islands of Tasmania owe their existence to climate change: a period of warming at the end of the last ice age melted the vast sheets of ice covering the polar regions, causing sea levels to rise by more than one hundred metres (Tasmanian Climate Change Office 8). Eleven thousand years ago, Aboriginal people would have witnessed the rise of what is now called Bass Strait, turning what had been a peninsula into an archipelago, with the large island of Tasmania at its heart. The heterogeneous practices and narratives of Tasmanian regional identity have been shaped by the geography of these islands, and their connection to the Southern Ocean and Antarctica. Regions, understood as “centres of collective consciousness and sociospatial identities” (Paasi 241) are constantly reproduced and reimagined through place-based social practices and communications over time. As we will show, diverse and contradictory narratives of Tasmanian regionality often co-exist, interacting in complex and sometimes complementary ways. Ecocritical literary scholar C.A. Cranston considers duality to be embedded in the textual construction of Tasmania, writing “it was hell, it was heaven, it was penal, it was paradise” (29). Tasmania is multiply polarised: it is both isolated and connected; close and far away; rich in resources and poor in capital; the socially conservative birthplace of radical green politics (Hay 60). The weather, as if sensing the fine balance of these paradoxes, blows hot and cold at a moment’s notice.Tasmania has wielded extraordinary political influence at times in its history—notably during the settlement of Melbourne in 1835 (Boyce), and during protests against damming the Franklin River in the early 1980s (Mercer). However, twentieth-century historical and political narratives of Tasmania portray the Bass Strait as a barrier, isolating Tasmanians from the mainland (Harwood 61). Sir Bede Callaghan, who headed one of a long line of federal government inquiries into “the Tasmanian problem” (Harwood 106), was clear that Tasmania was a victim of its own geography:the major disability facing the people of Tasmania (although some residents may consider it an advantage) is that Tasmania is an island. Separation from the mainland adversely affects the economy of the State and the general welfare of the people in many ways. (Callaghan 3)This perspective may stem from the fact that Tasmania has maintained the lowest Gross Domestic Product per capita of all states since federation (Bureau of Infrastructure Transport and Regional Economics 9). Socially, economically, and culturally, Tasmania consistently ranks among the worst regions of Australia. Statistical comparisons with other parts of Australia reveal the population’s high unemployment, low wages, poor educational outcomes, and bad health (West 31). The state’s remoteness and isolation from the mainland states and its reliance on federal income have contributed to the whole of Tasmania, including Hobart, being classified as ‘regional’ by the Australian government, in an attempt to promote immigration and economic growth (Department of Infrastructure and Regional Development 1). Tasmania is indeed both regional and remote. However, in this article we argue that, while regionality may be cast as a disadvantage, the island’s remote location is also an asset, particularly when viewed from a far southern perspective (Image 1).Image 1: Antarctica (Orthographic Projection). Image Credit: Wikimedia Commons, Modified Shading of Tasmania and Addition of Captions by H. Nielsen.Connecting Oceans/Collapsing DistanceTasmania and Antarctica have been closely linked in the past—the future archipelago formed a land bridge between Antarctica and northern land masses until the opening of the Tasman Seaway some 32 million years ago (Barker et al.). The far south was tangible to the Indigenous people of the island in the weather blowing in from the Southern Ocean, while the southern lights, or “nuyina”, formed a visible connection (Australia’s new icebreaker vessel is named RSV Nuyina in recognition of these links). In the contemporary Australian imagination, Tasmania tends to be defined by its marine boundaries, the sea around the islands represented as flat, empty space against which to highlight the topography of its landscape and the isolation of its position (Davies et al.). A more relational geographic perspective illuminates the “power of cross-currents and connections” (Stratford et al. 273) across these seascapes. The sea country of Tasmania is multiple and heterogeneous: the rough, shallow waters of the island-scattered Bass Strait flow into the Tasman Sea, where the continental shelf descends toward an abyssal plain studded with volcanic seamounts. To the south, the Southern Ocean provides nutrient-rich upwellings that attract fish and cetacean populations. Tasmania’s coast is a dynamic, liminal space, moving and changing in response to the global currents that are driven by the shifting, calving and melting ice shelves and sheets in Antarctica.Oceans have long been a medium of connection between Tasmania and Antarctica. In the early colonial period, when the seas were the major thoroughfares of the world and inland travel was treacherous and slow, Tasmania’s connection with the Southern Ocean made it a valuable hub for exploration and exploitation of the south. Between 1642 and 1900, early European explorers were followed by British penal colonists, convicts, sealers, and whalers (Kriwoken and Williamson 93). Tasmania was well known to polar explorers, with expeditions led by Jules Dumont d’Urville, James Clark Ross, Roald Amundsen, and Douglas Mawson all transiting through the port of Hobart. Now that the city is no longer a whaling hub, growing populations of cetaceans continue to migrate past the islands on their annual journeys from the tropics, across the Sub-Antarctic Front and Antarctic circumpolar current, and into the south polar region, while southern species such as leopard seals are occasionally seen around Tasmania (Tasmania Parks and Wildlife). Although the water surrounding Tasmania and Antarctica is at times homogenised as a ‘barrier’, rendering these places isolated, the bodies of water that surround both are in fact permeable, and regularly crossed by both humans and marine species. The waters are diverse in their physical characteristics, underlying topography, sea life, and relationships, and serve to connect many different ocean regions, ecosystems, and weather patterns.Views from the Far SouthWhen considered in terms of its relative proximity to Antarctic, rather than its distance from Australia’s political and economic centres, Tasmania’s identity undergoes a significant shift. A sign at Cockle Creek, in the state’s far south, reminds visitors that they are closer to Antarctica than to Cairns, invoking a discourse of connectedness that collapses the standard ten-day ship voyage to Australia’s closest Antarctic station into a unit comparable with the routinely scheduled 5.5 hour flight to North Queensland. Hobart is the logistical hub for the Australian Antarctic Division and the French Institut Polaire Francais (IPEV), and has hosted Antarctic vessels belonging to the USA, South Korea, and Japan in recent years. From a far southern perspective, Hobart is not a regional Australian capital but a global polar hub. This alters the city’s geographic imaginary not only in a latitudinal sense—from “top down” to “bottom up”—but also a longitudinal one. Via its southward connection to Antarctica, Hobart is also connected east and west to four other recognized gateways: Cape Town in South Africa, Christchurch in New Zealand; Punta Arenas in Chile; and Ushuaia in Argentina (Image 2). The latter cities are considered small by international standards, but play an outsized role in relation to Antarctica.Image 2: H. Nielsen with a Sign Announcing Distances between Antarctic ‘Gateway’ Cities and Antarctica, Ushuaia, Argentina, 2018. Image Credit: Nicki D'Souza.These five cities form what might be called—to adapt geographer Klaus Dodds’ term—a ‘Southern Rim’ around the South Polar region (Dodds Geopolitics). They exist in ambiguous relationship to each other. Although the five cities signed a Statement of Intent in 2009 committing them to collaboration, they continue to compete vigorously for northern hemisphere traffic and the brand identity of the most prominent global gateway. A state government brochure spruiks Hobart, for example, as the “perfect Antarctic Gateway” emphasising its uniqueness and “natural advantages” in this regard (Tasmanian Government, 2016). In practice, the cities are automatically differentiated by their geographic position with respect to Antarctica. Although the ‘ice continent’ is often conceived as one entity, it too has regions, in both scientific and geographical senses (Terauds and Lee; Antonello). Hobart provides access to parts of East Antarctica, where the Australian, French, Japanese, and Chinese programs (among others) have bases; Cape Town is a useful access point for Europeans going to Dronning Maud Land; Christchurch is closest to the Ross Sea region, site of the largest US base; and Punta Arenas and Ushuaia neighbour the Antarctic Peninsula, home to numerous bases as well as a thriving tourist industry.The Antarctic sector is important to the Tasmanian economy, contributing $186 million (AUD) in 2017/18 (Wells; Gutwein; Tasmanian Polar Network). Unsurprisingly, Tasmania’s gateway brand has been actively promoted, with the 2016 Australian Antarctic Strategy and 20 Year Action Plan foregrounding the need to “Build Tasmania’s status as the premier East Antarctic Gateway for science and operations” and the state government releasing a “Tasmanian Antarctic Gateway Strategy” in 2017. The Chinese Antarctic program has been a particular focus: a Memorandum of Understanding focussed on Australia and China’s Antarctic relations includes a “commitment to utilise Australia, including Tasmania, as an Antarctic ‘gateway’.” (Australian Antarctic Division). These efforts towards a closer relationship with China have more recently come under attack as part of a questioning of China’s interests in the region (without, it should be noted, a concomitant questioning of Australia’s own considerable interests) (Baker 9). In these exchanges, a global power and a state of Australia generally classed as regional and peripheral are brought into direct contact via the even more remote Antarctic region. This connection was particularly visible when Chinese President Xi Jinping travelled to Hobart in 2014, in a visit described as both “strategic” and “incongruous” (Burden). There can be differences in how this relationship is narrated to domestic and international audiences, with issues of sovereignty and international cooperation variously foregrounded, laying the ground for what Dodds terms “awkward Antarctic nationalism” (1).Territory and ConnectionsThe awkwardness comes to a head in Tasmania, where domestic and international views of connections with the far south collide. Australia claims sovereignty over almost 6 million km2 of the Antarctic continent—a claim that in area is “roughly the size of mainland Australia minus Queensland” (Bergin). This geopolitical context elevates the importance of a regional part of Australia: the claims to Antarctic territory (which are recognised only by four other claimant nations) are performed not only in Antarctic localities, where they are made visible “with paraphernalia such as maps, flags, and plaques” (Salazar 55), but also in Tasmania, particularly in Hobart and surrounds. A replica of Mawson’s Huts in central Hobart makes Australia’s historic territorial interests in Antarctica visible an urban setting, foregrounding the figure of Douglas Mawson, the well-known Australian scientist and explorer who led the expeditions that proclaimed Australia’s sovereignty in the region of the continent roughly to its south (Leane et al.). Tasmania is caught in a balancing act, as it fosters international Antarctic connections (such hosting vessels from other national programs), while also playing a key role in administering what is domestically referred to as the Australian Antarctic Territory. The rhetoric of protection can offer common ground: island studies scholar Godfrey Baldacchino notes that as island narratives have moved “away from the perspective of the ‘explorer-discoverer-colonist’” they have been replaced by “the perspective of the ‘custodian-steward-environmentalist’” (49), but reminds readers that a colonising disposition still lurks beneath the surface. It must be remembered that terms such as “stewardship” and “leadership” can undertake sovereignty labour (Dodds “Awkward”), and that Tasmania’s Antarctic connections can be mobilised for a range of purposes. When Environment Minister Greg Hunt proclaimed at a press conference that: “Hobart is the gateway to the Antarctic for the future” (26 Apr. 2016), the remark had meaning within discourses of both sovereignty and economics. Tasmania’s capital was leveraged as a way to position Australia as a leader in the Antarctic arena.From ‘Gateway’ to ‘Antarctic City’While discussion of Antarctic ‘Gateway’ Cities often focuses on the economic and logistical benefit of their Antarctic connections, Hobart’s “gateway” identity, like those of its counterparts, stretches well beyond this, encompassing geological, climatic, historical, political, cultural and scientific links. Even the southerly wind, according to cartoonist Jon Kudelka, “has penguins in it” (Image 3). Hobart residents feel a high level of connection to Antarctica. In 2018, a survey of 300 randomly selected residents of Greater Hobart was conducted under the umbrella of the “Antarctic Cities” Australian Research Council Linkage Project led by Assoc. Prof. Juan Francisco Salazar (and involving all three present authors). Fourteen percent of respondents reported having been involved in an economic activity related to Antarctica, and 36% had attended a cultural event about Antarctica. Connections between the southern continent and Hobart were recognised as important: 71.9% agreed that “people in my city can influence the cultural meanings that shape our relationship to Antarctica”, while 90% agreed or strongly agreed that Hobart should play a significant role as a custodian of Antarctica’s future, and 88.4% agreed or strongly agreed that: “How we treat Antarctica is a test of our approach to ecological sustainability.” Image 3: “The Southerly” Demonstrates How Weather Connects Hobart and Antarctica. Image Credit: Jon Kudelka, Reproduced with Permission.Hobart, like the other gateways, activates these connections in its conscious place-branding. The city is particularly strong as a centre of Antarctic research: signs at the cruise-ship terminal on the waterfront claim that “There are more Antarctic scientists based in Hobart […] than at any other one place on earth, making Hobart a globally significant contributor to our understanding of Antarctica and the Southern Ocean.” Researchers are based at the Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies (IMAS), the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), and the Australian Antarctic Division (AAD), with several working between institutions. Many Antarctic researchers located elsewhere in the world also have a connection with the place through affiliations and collaborations, leading journalist Jo Chandler to assert that “the breadth and depth of Hobart’s knowledge of ice, water, and the life forms they nurture […] is arguably unrivalled anywhere in the world” (86).Hobart also plays a significant role in Antarctica’s governance, as the site of the secretariats for the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR) and the Agreement on the Conservation of Albatrosses and Petrels (ACAP), and as host of the Antarctic Consultative Treaty Meetings on more than one occasion (1986, 2012). The cultural domain is active, with Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery (TMAG) featuring a permanent exhibit, “Islands to Ice”, emphasising the ocean as connecting the two places; the Mawson’s Huts Replica Museum aiming (among other things) to “highlight Hobart as the gateway to the Antarctic continent for the Asia Pacific region”; and a biennial Australian Antarctic Festival drawing over twenty thousand visitors, about a sixth of them from interstate or overseas (Hingley). Antarctic links are evident in the city’s natural and built environment: the dolerite columns of Mt Wellington, the statue of the Tasmanian Antarctic explorer Louis Bernacchi on the waterfront, and the wharfs that regularly accommodate icebreakers such as the Aurora Australis and the Astrolabe. Antarctica is figured as a southern neighbour; as historian Tom Griffiths puts it, Tasmanians “grow up with Antarctica breathing down their necks” (5). As an Antarctic City, Hobart mediates access to Antarctica both physically and in the cultural imaginary.Perhaps in recognition of the diverse ways in which a region or a city might be connected to Antarctica, researchers have recently been suggesting critical approaches to the ‘gateway’ label. C. Michael Hall points to a fuzziness in the way the term is applied, noting that it has drifted from its initial definition (drawn from economic geography) as denoting an access and supply point to a hinterland that produces a certain level of economic benefits. While Hall looks to keep the term robustly defined to avoid empty “local boosterism” (272–73), Gabriela Roldan aims to move the concept “beyond its function as an entry and exit door”, arguing that, among other things, the local community should be actively engaged in the Antarctic region (57). Leane, examining the representation of Hobart as a gateway in historical travel texts, concurs that “ingress and egress” are insufficient descriptors of Tasmania’s relationship with Antarctica, suggesting that at least discursively the island is positioned as “part of an Antarctic rim, itself sharing qualities of the polar region” (45). The ARC Linkage Project described above, supported by the Hobart City Council, the State Government and the University of Tasmania, as well as other national and international partners, aims to foster the idea of the Hobart and its counterparts as ‘Antarctic cities’ whose citizens act as custodians for the South Polar region, with a genuine concern for and investment in its future.Near and Far: Local Perspectives A changing climate may once again herald a shift in the identity of the Tasmanian islands. Recognition of the central role of Antarctica in regulating the global climate has generated scientific and political re-evaluation of the region. Antarctica is not only the planet’s largest heat sink but is the engine of global water currents and wind patterns that drive weather patterns and biodiversity across the world (Convey et al. 543). For example, Tas van Ommen’s research into Antarctic glaciology shows the tangible connection between increased snowfall in coastal East Antarctica and patterns of drought southwest Western Australia (van Ommen and Morgan). Hobart has become a global centre of marine and Antarctic science, bringing investment and development to the city. As the global climate heats up, Tasmania—thanks to its low latitude and southerly weather patterns—is one of the few regions in Australia likely to remain temperate. This is already leading to migration from the mainland that is impacting house prices and rental availability (Johnston; Landers 1). The region’s future is therefore closely entangled with its proximity to the far south. Salazar writes that “we cannot continue to think of Antarctica as the end of the Earth” (67). Shifting Antarctica into focus also brings Tasmania in from the margins. As an Antarctic city, Hobart assumes a privileged positioned on the global stage. This allows the city to present itself as central to international research efforts—in contrast to domestic views of the place as a small regional capital. The city inhabits dual identities; it is both on the periphery of Australian concerns and at the centre of Antarctic activity. Tasmania, then, is not in freefall, but rather at the forefront of a push to recognise Antarctica as entangled with its neighbours to the north.AcknowledgementsThis work was supported by the Australian Research Council under LP160100210.ReferencesAntonello, Alessandro. “Finding Place in Antarctica.” Antarctica and the Humanities. Eds. Peder Roberts, Lize-Marie van der Watt, and Adrian Howkins. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016. 181–204.Australian Government. 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Introduction In December 2010, Nespresso, the world’s leading brand of premium-portioned coffee, opened a flagship “boutique” in Sydney’s Pitt Street Mall. This was Nespresso’s fifth boutique opening of 2010, after Brussels, Miami, Soho, and Munich. The Sydney debut coincided with the mall’s upmarket redevelopment, which explains Nespresso’s arrival in the city: strategic geographic expansion is key to the brand’s growth. Rather than panoramic ubiquity, a retail option favoured by brands like McDonalds, KFC and Starbucks, Nespresso opts for iconic, prestigious locations. This strategy has been highly successful: since 2000 Nespresso has recorded year-on-year per annum growth of 30 per cent. This has been achieved, moreover, despite a global financial downturn and an international coffee market replete with brand variety. In turn, Nespresso marks an evolution in the coffee market over the last decade. The Nespresso Story Founded in 1986, Nespresso is the fasting growing brand in the Nestlé Group. Its headquarters are in Lausanne, Switzerland, with over 7,000 employees worldwide. In 2012, Nespresso had 270 boutiques in 50 countries. The brand’s growth strategy involves three main components: premium coffee capsules, “mated” with specially designed machines, and accompanied by exceptional customer service through the Nespresso Club. Each component requires some explanation. Nespresso offers 16 varieties of Grand Crus coffee: 7 espresso blends, 3 pure origin espressos, 3 lungos (for larger cups), and 3 decaffeinated coffees. Each 5.5 grams of portioned coffee is cased in a hermetically sealed aluminium capsule, or pod, designed to preserve the complex, volatile aromas (between 800 and 900 per pod), and prevent oxidation. These capsules are designed to be used exclusively with Nespresso-branded machines, which are equipped with a patented high-pressure extraction system designed for optimum release of the coffee. These machines, of which there are 28 models, are developed with 6 machine partners, and Antoine Cahen, from Ateliers du Nord in Lausanne, designs most of them. For its consumers, members of the Nespresso Club, the capsules and machines guarantee perfect espresso coffee every time, within seconds and with minimum effort—what Nespresso calls the “ultimate coffee experience.” The Nespresso Club promotes this experience as an everyday luxury, whereby café-quality coffee can be enjoyed in the privacy and comfort of Club members’ homes. This domestic focus is a relatively recent turn in its history. Nestlé patented some of its pod technology in 1976; the compatible machines, initially made in Switzerland by Turmix, were developed a decade later. Nespresso S. A. was set up as a subsidiary unit within the Nestlé Group with a view to target the office and fine restaurant sector. It was first test-marketed in Japan in 1986, and rolled out the same year in Switzerland, France and Italy. However, by 1988, low sales prompted Nespresso’s newly appointed CEO, Jean-Paul Gillard, to rethink the brand’s focus. Gillard subsequently repositioned Nespresso’s target market away from the commercial sector towards high-income households and individuals, and introduced a mail-order distribution system; these elements became the hallmarks of the Nespresso Club (Markides 55). The Nespresso Club was designed to give members who had purchased Nespresso machines 24-hour customer service, by mail, phone, fax, and email. By the end of 1997 there were some 250,000 Club members worldwide. The boom in domestic, user-friendly espresso machines from the early 1990s helped Nespresso’s growth in this period. The cumulative efforts by the main manufacturers—Krups, Bosch, Braun, Saeco and DeLonghi—lowered the machines’ average price to around US $100 (Purpura, “Espresso” 88; Purpura, “New” 116). This paralleled consumers’ growing sophistication, as they became increasingly familiar with café-quality espresso, cappuccino and latté—for reasons to be detailed below. Nespresso was primed to exploit this cultural shift in the market and forge a charismatic point of difference: an aspirational, luxury option within an increasingly accessible and familiar field. Between 2006 and 2008, Nespresso sales more than doubled, prompting a second production factory to supplement the original plant in Avenches (Simonian). In 2008, Nespresso grew 20 times faster than the global coffee market (Reguly B1). As Nespresso sales exceeded $1.3 billion AU in 2009, with 4.8 billion capsules shipped out annually and 5 million Club members worldwide, it became Nestlé’s fastest growing division (Canning 28). According to Nespresso’s Oceania market director, Renaud Tinel, the brand now represents 8 per cent of the total coffee market; of Nespresso specifically, he reports that 10,000 cups (using one capsule per cup) were consumed worldwide each minute in 2009, and that increased to 12,300 cups per minute in 2010 (O’Brien 16). Given such growth in such a brief period, the atypical dynamic between the boutique, the Club and the Nespresso brand warrants closer consideration. Nespresso opened its first boutique in Paris in 2000, on the Avenue des Champs-Élysées. It was a symbolic choice and signalled the brand’s preference for glamorous precincts in cosmopolitan cities. This has become the design template for all Nespresso boutiques, what the company calls “brand embassies” in its press releases. More like art gallery-style emporiums than retail spaces, these boutiques perform three main functions: they showcase Nespresso coffees, machines and accessories (all elegantly displayed); they enable Club members to stock up on capsules; and they offer excellent customer service, which invariably equates to detailed production information. The brand’s revenue model reflects the boutique’s role in the broader business strategy: 50 per cent of Nespresso’s business is generated online, 30 per cent through the boutiques, and 20 per cent through call centres. Whatever floor space these boutiques dedicate to coffee consumption is—compared to the emphasis on exhibition and ambience—minimal and marginal. In turn, this tightly monitored, self-focused model inverts the conventional function of most commercial coffee sites. For several hundred years, the café has fostered a convivial atmosphere, served consumers’ social inclinations, and overwhelmingly encouraged diverse, eclectic clientele. The Nespresso boutique is the antithesis to this, and instead actively limits interaction: the Club “community” does not meet as a community, and is united only in atomised allegiance to the Nespresso brand. In this regard, Nespresso stands in stark contrast to another coffee brand that has been highly successful in recent years—Starbucks. Starbucks famously recreates the aesthetics, rhetoric and atmosphere of the café as a “third place”—a term popularised by urban sociologist Ray Oldenburg to describe non-work, non-domestic spaces where patrons converge for respite or recreation. These liminal spaces (cafés, parks, hair salons, book stores and such locations) might be private, commercial sites, yet they provide opportunities for chance encounters, even therapeutic interactions. In this way, they aid sociability and civic life (Kleinman 193). Long before the term “third place” was coined, coffee houses were deemed exemplars of egalitarian social space. As Rudolf P. Gaudio notes, the early coffee houses of Western Europe, in Oxford and London in the mid-1600s, “were characterized as places where commoners and aristocrats could meet and socialize without regard to rank” (670). From this sanguine perspective, they both informed and animated the modern public sphere. That is, and following Habermas, as a place where a mixed cohort of individuals could meet and discuss matters of public importance, and where politics intersected society, the eighteenth-century British coffee house both typified and strengthened the public sphere (Karababa and Ger 746). Moreover, and even from their early Ottoman origins (Karababa and Ger), there has been an historical correlation between the coffee house and the cosmopolitan, with the latter at least partly defined in terms of demographic breadth (Luckins). Ironically, and insofar as Nespresso appeals to coffee-literate consumers, the brand owes much to Starbucks. In the two decades preceding Nespresso’s arrival, Starbucks played a significant role in refining coffee literacy around the world, gauging mass-market trends, and stirring consumer consciousness. For Nespresso, this constituted major preparatory phenomena, as its strategy (and success) since the early 2000s presupposed the coffee market that Starbucks had helped to create. According to Nespresso’s chief executive Richard Giradot, central to Nespresso’s expansion is a focus on particular cities and their coffee culture (Canning 28). In turn, it pays to take stock of how such cities developed a coffee culture amenable to Nespresso—and therein lays the brand’s debt to Starbucks. Until the last few years, and before celebrity ambassador George Clooney was enlisted in 2005, Nespresso’s marketing was driven primarily by Club members’ recommendations. At the same time, though, Nespresso insisted that Club members were coffee connoisseurs, whose knowledge and enjoyment of coffee exceeded conventional coffee offerings. In 2000, Henk Kwakman, one of Nestlé’s Coffee Specialists, explained the need for portioned coffee in terms of guaranteed perfection, one that demanding consumers would expect. “In general”, he reasoned, “people who really like espresso coffee are very much more quality driven. When you consider such an intense taste experience, the quality is very important. If the espresso is slightly off quality, the connoisseur notices this immediately” (quoted in Butler 50). What matters here is how this corps of connoisseurs grew to a scale big enough to sustain and strengthen the Nespresso system, in the absence of a robust marketing or educative drive by Nespresso (until very recently). Put simply, the brand’s ascent was aided by Starbucks, specifically by the latter’s success in changing the mainstream coffee market during the 1990s. In establishing such a strong transnational presence, Starbucks challenged smaller, competing brands to define themselves with more clarity and conviction. Indeed, working with data that identified just 200 freestanding coffee houses in the US prior to 1990 compared to 14,000 in 2003, Kjeldgaard and Ostberg go so far as to state that: “Put bluntly, in the US there was no local coffee consumptionscape prior to Starbucks” (Kjeldgaard and Ostberg 176). Starbucks effectively redefined the coffee world for mainstream consumers in ways that were directly beneficial for Nespresso. Starbucks: Coffee as Ambience, Experience, and Cultural Capital While visitors to Nespresso boutiques can sample the coffee, with highly trained baristas and staff on site to explain the Nespresso system, in the main there are few concessions to the conventional café experience. Primarily, these boutiques function as material spaces for existing Club members to stock up on capsules, and therefore they complement the Nespresso system with a suitably streamlined space: efficient, stylish and conspicuously upmarket. Outside at least one Sydney boutique for instance (Bondi Junction, in the fashionable eastern suburbs), visitors enter through a club-style cordon, something usually associated with exclusive bars or hotels. This demarcates the boutique from neighbouring coffee chains, and signals Nespresso’s claim to more privileged patrons. This strategy though, the cultivation of a particular customer through aesthetic design and subtle flattery, is not unique. For decades, Starbucks also contrived a “special” coffee experience. Moreover, while the Starbucks model strikes a very different sensorial chord to that of Nespresso (in terms of décor, target consumer and so on) it effectively groomed and prepped everyday coffee drinkers to a level of relative self-sufficiency and expertise—and therein is the link between Starbucks’s mass-marketed approach and Nespresso’s timely arrival. Starbucks opened its first store in 1971, in Seattle. Three partners founded it: Jerry Baldwin and Zev Siegl, both teachers, and Gordon Bowker, a writer. In 1982, as they opened their sixth Seattle store, they were joined by Howard Schultz. Schultz’s trip to Italy the following year led to an entrepreneurial epiphany to which he now attributes Starbucks’s success. Inspired by how cafés in Italy, particularly the espresso bars in Milan, were vibrant social hubs, Schultz returned to the US with a newfound sensitivity to ambience and attitude. In 1987, Schultz bought Starbucks outright and stated his business philosophy thus: “We aren’t in the coffee business, serving people. We are in the people business, serving coffee” (quoted in Ruzich 432). This was articulated most clearly in how Schultz structured Starbucks as the ultimate “third place”, a welcoming amalgam of aromas, music, furniture, textures, literature and free WiFi. This transformed the café experience twofold. First, sensory overload masked the dull homogeny of a global chain with an air of warm, comforting domesticity—an inviting, everyday “home away from home.” To this end, in 1994, Schultz enlisted interior design “mastermind” Wright Massey; with his team of 45 designers, Massey created the chain’s decor blueprint, an “oasis for contemplation” (quoted in Scerri 60). At the same time though, and second, Starbucks promoted a revisionist, airbrushed version of how the coffee was produced. Patrons could see and smell the freshly roasted beans, and read about their places of origin in the free pamphlets. In this way, Starbucks merged the exotic and the cosmopolitan. The global supply chain underwent an image makeover, helped by a “new” vocabulary that familiarised its coffee drinkers with the diversity and complexity of coffee, and such terms as aroma, acidity, body and flavour. This strategy had a decisive impact on the coffee market, first in the US and then elsewhere: Starbucks oversaw a significant expansion in coffee consumption, both quantitatively and qualitatively. In the decades following the Second World War, coffee consumption in the US reached a plateau. Moreover, as Steven Topik points out, the rise of this type of coffee connoisseurship actually coincided with declining per capita consumption of coffee in the US—so the social status attributed to specialised knowledge of coffee “saved” the market: “Coffee’s rise as a sign of distinction and connoisseurship meant its appeal was no longer just its photoactive role as a stimulant nor the democratic sociability of the coffee shop” (Topik 100). Starbucks’s singular triumph was to not only convert non-coffee drinkers, but also train them to a level of relative sophistication. The average “cup o’ Joe” thus gave way to the latte, cappuccino, macchiato and more, and a world of coffee hitherto beyond (perhaps above) the average American consumer became both regular and routine. By 2003, Starbucks’s revenue was US $4.1 billion, and by 2012 there were almost 20,000 stores in 58 countries. As an idealised “third place,” Starbucks functioned as a welcoming haven that flattened out and muted the realities of global trade. The variety of beans on offer (Arabica, Latin American, speciality single origin and so on) bespoke a generous and bountiful modernity; while brochures schooled patrons in the nuances of terroir, an appreciation for origin and distinctiveness that encoded cultural capital. This positioned Starbucks within a happy narrative of the coffee economy, and drew patrons into this story by flattering their consumer choices. Against the generic sameness of supermarket options, Starbucks promised distinction, in Pierre Bourdieu’s sense of the term, and diversity in its coffee offerings. For Greg Dickinson, the Starbucks experience—the scent of the beans, the sound of the grinders, the taste of the coffees—negated the abstractions of postmodern, global trade: by sensory seduction, patrons connected with something real, authentic and material. At the same time, Starbucks professed commitment to the “triple bottom line” (Savitz), the corporate mantra that has morphed into virtual orthodoxy over the last fifteen years. This was hardly surprising; companies that trade in food staples typically grown in developing regions (coffee, tea, sugar, and coffee) felt the “political-aesthetic problematization of food” (Sassatelli and Davolio). This saw increasingly cognisant consumers trying to reconcile the pleasures of consumption with environmental and human responsibilities. The “triple bottom line” approach, which ostensibly promotes best business practice for people, profits and the planet, was folded into Starbucks’s marketing. The company heavily promoted its range of civic engagement, such as donations to nurses’ associations, literacy programs, clean water programs, and fair dealings with its coffee growers in developing societies (Simon). This bode well for its target market. As Constance M. Ruch has argued, Starbucks sought the burgeoning and lucrative “bobo” class, a term Ruch borrows from David Brooks. A portmanteau of “bourgeois bohemians,” “bobo” describes the educated elite that seeks the ambience and experience of a counter-cultural aesthetic, but without the political commitment. Until the last few years, it seemed Starbucks had successfully grafted this cultural zeitgeist onto its “third place.” Ironically, the scale and scope of the brand’s success has meant that Starbucks’s claim to an ethical agenda draws frequent and often fierce attack. As a global behemoth, Starbucks evolved into an iconic symbol of advanced consumer culture. For those critical of how such brands overwhelm smaller, more local competition, the brand is now synonymous for insidious, unstoppable retail spread. This in turn renders Starbucks vulnerable to protests that, despite its gestures towards sustainability (human and environmental), and by virtue of its size, ubiquity and ultimately conservative philosophy, it has lost whatever cachet or charm it supposedly once had. As Bryant Simon argues, in co-opting the language of ethical practice within an ultimately corporatist context, Starbucks only ever appealed to a modest form of altruism; not just in terms of the funds committed to worthy causes, but also to move thorny issues to “the most non-contentious middle-ground,” lest conservative customers felt alienated (Simon 162). Yet, having flagged itself as an ethical brand, Starbucks became an even bigger target for anti-corporatist sentiment, and the charge that, as a multinational giant, it remained complicit in (and one of the biggest benefactors of) a starkly inequitable and asymmetric global trade. It remains a major presence in the world coffee market, and arguably the most famous of the coffee chains. Over the last decade though, the speed and intensity with which Nespresso has grown, coupled with its atypical approach to consumer engagement, suggests that, in terms of brand equity, it now offers a more compelling point of difference than Starbucks. Brand “Me” Insofar as the Nespresso system depends on a consumer market versed in the intricacies of quality coffee, Starbucks can be at least partly credited for nurturing a more refined palate amongst everyday coffee drinkers. Yet while Starbucks courted the “average” consumer in its quest for market control, saturating the suburban landscape with thousands of virtually indistinguishable stores, Nespresso marks a very different sensibility. Put simply, Nespresso inverts the logic of a coffee house as a “third place,” and patrons are drawn not to socialise and relax but to pursue their own highly individualised interests. The difference with Starbucks could not be starker. One visitor to the Bloomingdale boutique (in New York’s fashionable Soho district) described it as having “the feel of Switzerland rather than Seattle. Instead of velvet sofas and comfy music, it has hard surfaces, bright colours and European hostesses” (Gapper 9). By creating a system that narrows the gap between production and consumption, to the point where Nespresso boutiques advertise the coffee brand but do not promote on-site coffee drinking, the boutiques are blithely indifferent to the historical, romanticised image of the coffee house as a meeting place. The result is a coffee experience that exploits the sophistication and vanity of aspirational consumers, but ignores the socialising scaffold by which coffee houses historically and perhaps naively made some claim to community building. If anything, Nespresso restricts patrons’ contemplative field: they consider only their relationships to the brand. In turn, Nespresso offers the ultimate expression of contemporary consumer capitalism, a hyper-individual experience for a hyper-modern age. By developing a global brand that is both luxurious and niche, Nespresso became “the Louis Vuitton of coffee” (Betts 14). Where Starbucks pursued retail ubiquity, Nespresso targets affluent, upmarket cities. As chief executive Richard Giradot put it, with no hint of embarrassment or apology: “If you take China, for example, we are not speaking about China, we are speaking about Shanghai, Hong Kong, Beijing because you will not sell our concept in the middle of nowhere in China” (quoted in Canning 28). For this reason, while Europe accounts for 90 per cent of Nespresso sales (Betts 15), its forays into the Americas, Asia and Australasia invariably spotlights cities that are already iconic or emerging economic hubs. The first boutique in Latin America, for instance, was opened in Jardins, a wealthy suburb in Sao Paulo, Brazil. In Nespresso, Nestlé has popularised a coffee experience neatly suited to contemporary consumer trends: Club members inhabit a branded world as hermetically sealed as the aluminium pods they purchase and consume. Besides the Club’s phone, fax and online distribution channels, pods can only be bought at the boutiques, which minimise even the potential for serendipitous mingling. The baristas are there primarily for product demonstrations, whilst highly trained staff recite the machines’ strengths (be they in design or utility), or information about the actual coffees. For Club members, the boutique service is merely the human extension of Nespresso’s online presence, whereby product information becomes increasingly tailored to increasingly individualised tastes. In the boutique, this emphasis on the individual is sold in terms of elegance, expedience and privilege. Nespresso boasts that over 70 per cent of its workforce is “customer facing,” sharing their passion and knowledge with Club members. Having already received and processed the product information (through the website, boutique staff, and promotional brochures), Club members need not do anything more than purchase their pods. In some of the more recently opened boutiques, such as in Paris-Madeleine, there is even an Exclusive Room where only Club members may enter—curious tourists (or potential members) are kept out. Club members though can select their preferred Grands Crus and checkout automatically, thanks to RFID (radio frequency identification) technology inserted in the capsule sleeves. So, where Starbucks exudes an inclusive, hearth-like hospitality, the Nespresso Club appears more like a pampered clique, albeit a growing one. As described in the Financial Times, “combine the reception desk of a designer hotel with an expensive fashion display and you get some idea what a Nespresso ‘coffee boutique’ is like” (Wiggins and Simonian 10). Conclusion Instead of sociability, Nespresso puts a premium on exclusivity and the knowledge gained through that exclusive experience. The more Club members know about the coffee, the faster and more individualised (and “therefore” better) the transaction they have with the Nespresso brand. This in turn confirms Zygmunt Bauman’s contention that, in a consumer society, being free to choose requires competence: “Freedom to choose does not mean that all choices are right—there are good and bad choices, better and worse choices. The kind of choice eventually made is the evidence of competence or its lack” (Bauman 43-44). Consumption here becomes an endless process of self-fashioning through commodities; a process Eva Illouz considers “all the more strenuous when the market recruits the consumer through the sysiphian exercise of his/her freedom to choose who he/she is” (Illouz 392). In a status-based setting, the more finely graded the differences between commodities (various places of origin, blends, intensities, and so on), the harder the consumer works to stay ahead—which means to be sufficiently informed. Consumers are locked in a game of constant reassurance, to show upward mobility to both themselves and society. For all that, and like Starbucks, Nespresso shows some signs of corporate social responsibility. In 2009, the company announced its “Ecolaboration” initiative, a series of eco-friendly targets for 2013. By then, Nespresso aims to: source 80 per cent of its coffee through Sustainable Quality Programs and Rainforest Alliance Certified farms; triple its capacity to recycle used capsules to 75 per cent; and reduce the overall carbon footprint required to produce each cup of Nespresso by 20 per cent (Nespresso). This information is conveyed through the brand’s website, press releases and brochures. However, since such endeavours are now de rigueur for many brands, it does not register as particularly innovative, progressive or challenging: it is an unexceptional (even expected) part of contemporary mainstream marketing. Indeed, the use of actor George Clooney as Nespresso’s brand ambassador since 2005 shows shrewd appraisal of consumers’ political and cultural sensibilities. As a celebrity who splits his time between Hollywood and Lake Como in Italy, Clooney embodies the glamorous, cosmopolitan lifestyle that Nespresso signifies. 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