Energy and material flows of megacities

Understanding the drivers of energy and material flows of cities is important for addressing global environmental challenges. Accessing, sharing, and managing energy and material resources is particularly critical for megacities, which face enormous social stresses because of their sheer size and complexity. Here we quantify the energy and material flows through the world’s 27 megacities with populations greater than 10 million people as of 2010. Collectively the resource flows through megacities are largely consistent with scaling laws established in the emerging science of cities. Correlations are established for electricity consumption, heating and industrial fuel use, ground transportation energy use, water consumption, waste generation, and steel production in terms of heating-degree-days, urban form, economic activity, and population growth. The results help identify megacities exhibiting high and low levels of consumption and those making efficient use of resources. The correlation between per capita electricity use and urbanized area per capita is shown to be a consequence of gross building floor area per capita, which is found to increase for lower-density cities. Many of the megacities are growing rapidly in population but are growing even faster in terms of gross domestic product (GDP) and energy use. In the decade from 2001–2011, electricity use and ground transportation fuel use in megacities grew at approximately half the rate of GDP growth.The remarkable growth of cities on our planet during the past century has provoked a range of scientific inquires. From 1900–2011, the world’s urban population grew from 220 million (13% of the world’s population) to 3,530 million (52% of the world’s population) (1, 2). This phenomenon of urbanization has prompted the development of a science of cities (3, 4), including interdisciplinary contributions on scaling laws (5, 6), networks (7), and the thermodynamics of cities (8, 9). The growth of cities also has been strongly linked to global challenges of environmental sustainability, making the study of urban energy and material flows, e.g., for determining greenhouse gas emissions from cities and urban resource efficiency (10–19), important.At the pinnacle of the growth of cities is the formation of megacities, i.e., metropolitan regions with populations in excess of 10 million people. In 1970, there were only eight megacities on the planet (SI Appendix, Fig. S1). By 2010, the number had grown to 27, and a further 10 megacities likely will exist by 2020 (20). In 2010, 460 million people (6.7% of the global population) lived in the 27 megacities. The sheer size and complexity of megacities gives rise to enormous social and environmental challenges. Megacities often are perceived to be areas of high global risk (i.e., threatened by economic, environmental, geopolitical, societal, and technological risks with potential impacts across entire countries) with extreme levels of poverty, vulnerability, and social–spatial fragmentation (21–24). To provide adequate water and wastewater services, many megacities require massive technical investment and appropriate institutional development (25, 26). Many inhabitants of megacities also suffer severe health impacts from air pollution (27). However, these factors present only one side; the megacities include some of the wealthiest cities in the world (albeit with large disparities between citizens). Even the poorer megacities are seen by some as potential centers of innovation, where high levels of resource efficiency might reduce global environmental burdens (21, 28, 29). Whether megacities can develop as sustainable cities depends to a large extent on how they obtain, share, and manage their energy and material resources.The aims of our study are first to quantify the energy and material flows for the world’s 27 megacities, based on 2010 population, and second to identify physical and economic characteristics that underlie these resource flows at multiple scales. This goal entailed developing a common data-collection process applied to all the megacities. The cities were identified based on Brinkhoff’s database of metropolitan regions (www.citypopulation.de/world/Agglomerations.html; SI Appendix, Fig. S2). The megacities are essentially common commuter-sheds of more than 10 million people; most are contiguous urban regions, but a contiguous area is not a requirement; for example, the London megacity includes a ring of commuter towns outside the Greater London area. Megacities can spread across political borders. They include large tracts of suburban regions, which can have higher per capita resource flows than central areas (30, 31). We quantify energy flows for the dominant direct forms of consumption in megacities. A wide and complex range of materials flow through cities; here the focus is on water, concrete, steel, and waste. We show how values of aggregate resource use of all megacities generally are consistent with the scaling laws that have been developed for cities (5, 6). We then analyze factors correlated with energy and material flow at macro- and microscales; discuss megacities with low, high, and efficient use of resources; and examine changes over time.     

Initiation of insulin glargine therapy in type 2 diabetes subjects suboptimally controlled on oral antidiabetic agents: results from the AT.LANTUS trial

Objective: For many patients with type 2 diabetes, oral antidiabetic agents (OADs) do not provide optimal glycaemic control, necessitating insulin therapy. Fear of hypoglycaemia is a major barrier to initiating insulin therapy. The AT.LANTUS study investigated optimal methods to initiate and maintain insulin glargine (LANTUS^®, glargine, Sanofi-aventis, Paris, France) therapy using two treatment algorithms. This subgroup analysis investigated the initiation of once-daily glargine therapy in patients suboptimally controlled on multiple OADs. Research Design and Methods: This study was a 24-week, multinational (59 countries), multicenter (611), randomized study. Algorithm 1 was a clinic-driven titration and algorithm 2 was a patient-driven titration. Titration was based on target fasting blood glucose ≤100 mg/dl (≤5.5 mmol/l). Algorithms were compared for incidence of severe hypoglycaemia [requiring assistance and blood glucose <50 mg/dl (<2.8 mmol/l)] and baseline to end-point change in haemoglobin A_1c (HbA_1c). Results: Of the 4961 patients enrolled in the study, 865 were included in this subgroup analysis: 340 received glargine plus 1 OAD and 525 received glargine plus >1 OAD. Incidence of severe hypoglycaemia was <1%. HbA_1c decreased significantly between baseline and end-point for patients receiving glargine plus 1 OAD (−1.4%, p < 0.001; algorithm 1 −1.3% vs. algorithm 2 −1.5%; p = 0.03) and glargine plus >1 OAD (−1.7%, p < 0.001; algorithm 1 −1.5% vs. algorithm 2 −1.8%; p = 0.001). Conclusions: This study shows that initiation of once-daily glargine with OADs results in significant reduction of HbA_1c with a low risk of hypoglycaemia. The greater reduction in HbA_1c was seen in patients randomized to the patient-driven algorithm (algorithm 2) on 1 or >1 OAD.     

Granulocyte-macrophage colony-stimulating factor, interleukin-3 (IL-3), and IL-5 greatly enhance the interaction of human eosinophils with opsonized particles by changing the affinity of complement receptor type 3

Eosinophil functions can be modulated by several cytokines such as granulocyte-macrophage colony-stimulating factor (GM-CSF), interleukin- 3 (IL-3), and IL-5. We have investigated the modulatory role of these cytokines on the interaction of human eosinophils with opsonized particles (serum-treated zymosan [STZ]). Addition of STZ to eosinophils isolated from the peripheral blood of normal human donors resulted in an interaction of the STZ particles with only 15% to 25% of the cells. Treatment of the eosinophils with GM-CSF, IL-3, or IL-5 strongly enhanced both the rate of particle binding and the percentage of eosinophils binding STZ. The effect of the cytokines is most likely mediated by a change in affinity of the complement receptor type 3 (CR3) on the eosinophils for the complement fragment iC3b on the STZ particles. This is indicated by the observation that (1) the effect of the cytokines on STZ binding was prevented by a monoclonal antibody against the iC3b-binding site on CR3 and (2) the enhanced binding was already apparent before upregulation of CR3 on the cell surface was observed. In a previous study, similar results were obtained with platelet-activating factor (PAF)-primed eosinophils. Because we found that the cytokines strongly enhanced the STZ-induced PAF synthesis, we investigated the role of both released PAF and cell-associated PAF in the priming phenomenon by the cytokines. Cytokine priming appeared to be largely independent of the synthesis of PAF.     

Deprivation of dietary nucleotides decreases protein synthesis in the liver and small intestine in rats

BACKGROUND & AIMS: Dietary nucleotides are reported to influence the growth and functioning of the liver and small intestine. The aim of this study was to examine the mechanism by which nucleotides exert their effects in these tissues by assessing protein synthesis activity and related parameters in the presence or absence of dietary nucleotides. METHODS: Rats were fed a purified diet with or without nucleotides for 10 days. Fractional protein synthesis rate, RNA and DNA concentrations, polysome size distribution, and number of ribosomes were assessed. RESULTS: Fractional protein synthesis rates of the liver and small intestine were lower in the nucleotide-deprived group than in the control group. In the liver, RNA concentration was also lower in the nucleotide-deprived group, but values in the small intestine were similar in the two groups. In the liver, deprivation of nucleotides resulted in a reduction in the number of ribosomes and in polysome breakdown. Protein and DNA concentrations did not vary in the liver; however, the concentration of DNA was lower in the small intestine of the nucleotide-deprived group than in the control group. CONCLUSIONS: Dietary nucleotides can modulate protein synthesis in the liver and small intestine as a result of tissue-specific nucleic acid changes. (Gastroenterology 1996 Jun;110(6):1760-9)