Advisers to Mecklenburg County’s Solid Waste Department want an outside engineering expert to review a proposed waste-to-energy plant before giving its operators the area’s residential trash for use as fuel. The Mecklenburg (NC) Board of County Commissioners says the county should refrain from signing a contract with the developers of the ReVenture project without a favorable recommendation from an outside expert source.
Read more: Charlotte Business Journal.
Nuclear energy analyst Robert Alvarez of the Institute for Policy Studies says there are many things we do not know about the Fukushima Prefecture nuclear plant failure, including whether the containment structure is fully intact.
The information that has been made public, particularly by the Japanese nuclear safety authorities, certainly indicate that radioactive elements from the fuel itself have escaped and entered the environment. And even if the reactor maintains its integrity, there’s a possibility that things like open relief valves on the top of the reactor and things like that may still release large amounts of radioactivity.
Robert Alvarez, an Institute for Policy Studies senior scholar, served as senior policy adviser to the Energy Department’s secretary and deputy assistant secretary for national security and the environment from 1993 to 1999.
Guardian.co.uk reports that Japan’s fears of nuclear mayhem recede as the nuclear reactor at Fukushima Daiichi starts to cool.
For a few unnerving hours, Japan faced a bleak and unsettling prospect. The devastation wreaked by Friday’s earthquake and tsunami seemed set to be followed by a nuclear meltdown that could have spread radioactive waste over large parts of the country. Fears of a nuclear fallout were raised when a massive explosion rocked the Fukushima Daiichi atomic power plant following damage to one of its reactors in Friday’s earthquake.
“To reduce the pressure, you would have to release some steam into the atmosphere from the system,” said physics expert Professpr Patrick H. Regan, professor of nuclear physics at Surrey University. “In that steam, there will be small but measurable amounts of radioactive nitrogen 16 [produced when neutrons hit water]. This remains radioactive for only about five seconds, after which it decays to natural oxygen.”
Felicia Miyakawa, associate professor of musicology and assistant director of Middle Tennessee State University School of Music, has been enlisted as an expert musicologist to testify in a copyright lawsuit against rapper Lil Wayne.
Lil Wayne, also known as Weezy, is being sued over his song “Mrs. Officer” that features singer Bobby V. Producer Michael “Mali Boy” Bradford is suing Lil Wayne, whose real name is Dwayne Michael Carter Jr., claiming that he made the track’s original beat but was not credited and compensated.
Read more: www.dnj.com.
Medical expert witnesses may consult regarding different specialty areas of medicine including surgery, anesthesiology, independent medical exams (IMEs), cancer treatment, and related topics. A medical expert at the Weill Cornell Medical College recently published an article weighing the pros and cons of using radioactive iodine ablation after partial or total thyroidectomies. Stanley Goldsmith, director of the school’s Department of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging, wrote in the journal Seminars in Nuclear Medicine that an individual approach should be taken when using the treatment, since different patients often have radically different symptoms.
In particular, Goldsmith said that low-risk patients – those who do not have an advanced form of thyroid cancer – may not require post-operative ablation at all, or only in low doses at most. That being said, he added that defining “low risk” can be problematic. Ablation with radioactive iodine involves taking one or a series of pills containing iodine-131, a radioactive isotope of the element.
Read more: endocrineweb.com.
Insurance expert witnesses may opine on HMOs, property insurance, insurance regulations, and related topics. Don Brown, an authority in Florida’s property insurance market debate writes:
Florida hasn’t seen a hurricane in five years, but over that time the public has seen insurance companies filing bankruptcy, going insolvent, and leaving the state. The property insurance market has gotten so bad due to choking state regulation and suppressed rates that if a storm or fire destroys your home there’s a risk your claim won’t be paid.
There’s also a rising tide of media reports covering the sinkhole threat facing Florida’s homeowners. “Don’t believe the rhetoric that we have a sinkhole crisis in Florida, because we don’t. The more accurate assessment is we have a sinkhole claims crisis that has created a cottage industry that threatens Florida consumers,” Brown said.
JurisPro, Inc., the expert witness directory formed by a group of practicing attorneys, celebrates its 11th year. JurisPro, Inc. (www.JurisPro.com) is a professional marketing company that maintains a free online directory of over 1600 expert witnesses. At JurisPro, you can read the expert’s CV, see their photo, learn their background, hear them speak, and contact them by phone, email, fax, or mail.
US District Judge Cynthia M. Rufe of the Eastern District of Pennsylvania has ruled that three plaintiffs’ medical expert witnesses meet the Daubert standard for scientific validity in Avandia lawsuits currently before the court. Avandia lawsuits are numerous, with some 3,500 cases filed in California state courts, and 1,200 in Pennsylvania, with all but 250 of those having been settled with GlaxoSmithKline – the maker of the diabetes medication.
Read more: lawyersandsettlements.com.
Pine trees were mysteriously dying, after being treated at Jacksonville’s wastewater spray fields.
The Jacksonville Daily News reported the city had hired a group of experts to investigate. The city manager said 6% of the trees irrigated by wastewater were affected so far.
An environmental expert said wind, combined with the acidity of the wastewater and drought conditions, could be the cause, but the official cause of the tree deaths is still unknown.
Jerry Grodin, a licensed psychiatrist and former president of the New York State Psychiatric Association, is often called on as an expert witness in forensic psychology in the Capital District. “The system is unprepared to deal with mental illness,” the expert says. The problem is that even when people are found to be mentally unstable, it is often not until they have worked their way through the system for a while. “The system does not screen for people who have a mental condition (early enough).”
Jill Daniels, spokesperson for the New York State Office of Mental Health says “there are close to 8,000 people in New York state who are receiving (mental health) treatment in state prisons.”
Read more: thesaratogian.
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