An Empirical Study on the Determination and Coliection Rules for Marital Community Debts

In dealing with the problem of determining whether a debt should be a marital community debt and how such a debt should be collected,judges may have different value orientations regarding the tradeoff between the protection of marriage and family and the protection of the creditors,which needs to be studied based on empirical evidence.After the Judicial Interpretationss[2018]No.2(Fa Shi[2018]No.2)was enacted,we analyzed 863 judgments and motions of the Supreme People's Court of the People's Republic of China(PRC)and the high people's courts,and found that under the framework of existing normative regime,judges can still reach different valuejudgmentssbasedondifferent interpretative techniques.Judges differed in interpreting the terms of“common intent,”“family daily needs,”“common livelihood,”and1“joint production and operation,”and they applied various debt collection rules.These facts indicate that sometimes judges have a complex value balancing process in marginal cases,and they have made different value judgmenttthroughh extending or confining debt determination rules or debt collection rules.In some other cases,the different application of rules indicate that judges have interpreted those rules in a wrong way.By studying the judges'existing value orientations and how judges made their decisions,we can evaluate whether existing rules for determining and collecting marital community debts have balanced conflicting values properly,and such facts can also build further consensus for the development of rules.

Disinfection byproducts in drinking water and regulatory compliance： A critical review

Disinfection by-products （DBPs） are regulated in drinking water in a number of countries. This critical review focuses on the issues associated with DBP regulatory compliance, including methods for DBP analysis, occurrence levels, the regulation comparison among various countries, DBP compliance strategies, and emerging DBPs. The regulation comparison between China and the United States （US） indicated that the DBP regulations in China are more stringent based on the number of regulated compounds and maximum levels. The comparison assessment using the Information Collection Rule （ICR） database indicated that the compliance rate of 500 large US water plants under the China regulations is much lower than that under the US regulations （e.g. 62.2% versus 89.6% for total trihalomethanes）. Precursor removal and alternative disinfectants are common practices for DBP regulatory compliance. DBP removal after formation, including air stripping for trihalomethane removal and biodegradation for haloacetic acid removal, have gained more acceptance in DBP control. Formation of emerging DBPs, including iodinated DBPs and nitrogenous DBPs, is one of unintended consequences of precursor removal and alternative disinfection. At much lower levels than carbonaceous DBPs, however, emerging DBPs have posed higher health risks.

Evaluate HAA removal in biologically active carbon filters using the ICR database

The effects of biologically active carbon(BAC)filtration on haloacetic acid(HAA)levels in plant effluents and distribution systems were investigated using the United States Environmental Protection Agency’s Information Collection Rule(ICR)database.The results showed that average HAA5 concentrations in all locations were 20.4μg·L^(-1)and 29.6μg·L^(-1)in ICR plants with granular activated carbon(GAC)and ICR plants without GAC process,respectively.For plants without GAC,the highest HAA levels were observed in the quarters of April to June and July to September.However,for plants with GAC,the highest HAA levels were observed in the quarters of April to June and January to March.This HAA level profile inversely correlated well with water temperature,or biologic activity.For GAC plants,simulated distribution samples matched well with distribution system equivalent samples for Cl3AA and THMs.For plants with and without GAC,simulated distribution samples overestimated readily biodegradable HAAs in distribution systems.The study indicated that through HAA biodegradation,GAC process plays an important role in lowering HAA levels in finished drinking water.