Assessing of Environmental Quality in Six Areas in India,Sri Lanka and Bangladesh

Environmental quality for environmental health has been examined visually by describing general conditions and drinking water supply, sanitation and solid waste treatment conditions and practices in six South-East Asian villages with a dense population. The environmental review was supplemented by discussions with local people and political and administrative decision makers. Some drinking water analyses were done in order to show the water quality to the local people. The quality of the general conditions and the conditions and practices of drinking water supply, excreta disposal and solid waste treatment practices have been graded with the grading system presented below. The grading could be done in 1 or 2 days in each area by two persons, of which one was an environmental scientist and the other a social scientist, who also knew the local culture and worked as a translator.     

Specific features of bird community formation depending on the degree of anthropogenic impact

The population density and relative abundance of some bird species reach the highest values in the communities of habitats with a high degree of anthropogenic transformation. The species diversity of birds shows an inverse correlation with the index of anthropogenic impact (in grades) calculated with regard to a number of parameters. Relevant correlations change periodically, with the correlation coefficient reaching the highest values in the nesting period and decreasing to a minimum during the flight period.     

Uranium resource appraisal: Past trends and outlook for adequacy of supply

As uranium has practically no other industrial uses besides electricity generation, demand is determined by the requirements and stockpiling policies of electric utilities. The uranium market has experienced strong fluctuations and is currently affected by the reductions in nuclear forecasts resulting from the slowdown in electricity demand. Analysing supply/demand indicators proves, however, that in retrospect the development has been relatively smooth and it appears that oversupply is more a consequence of overly optimistic short-term expectations. In the future, especially in the long term, nuclear power policies continue to be concerned with striking a proper balance between increasing production capability and development of new reactor technologies which would be less dependent on the availability of uranium. A bounding scenario approach is applied in this article to the assessment of adequacy of supply under varying assumptions on the total installed nuclear capacity, available resource base and attainable production capability.     

Traffic noise, work noise and cardiovascular risk factors: The Caerphilly and Speedwell collaborative heart disease studies

As part of two large heart surveys, associations between traffic noise exposure and cardiovascular risk factors were studied. The Caerphilly sample (small town, total sample) consisted of 2512 men aged 45 to 59 years and the Speedwell sample (suburb of a major city, random sample) of 2030 men of same age group. Both studies have a prospective design; cross-sectional results are presented here. Acoustic measurements were carried out in both areas. Among the possible risk factors for ischaemic heart disease studied were blood pressure, blood coagulation, blood lipids and other biochemical factors. Statistically significant noise effects were detected for systolic blood pressure, total cholesterol, HDL cholesterol, total triglycerides, blood viscosity, platelet count and glucose level, although not all of these were consistent with noise being a risk factor for heart disease. In a subsample, the additional influence of work noise as determined by noise dosimetry was studied in 255 men, taking the use of ear protection into account. The associations between traffic noise and risk factors were more pronounced in men who also were exposed to high work noise levels.     

Variety of technological trajectories in low emission vehicles (LEVs): A patent data analysis

This paper focuses on the diversity of engine technologies for low emission vehicles (LEVs) that are developed by car manufacturers in order to substitute for the conventional internal combustion engine vehicle (ICEV). Our purpose is to analyse the competition between the various technologies for LEVs as well as the innovative strategy of car manufacturers. We first propose to define and to represent these technological trajectories in order to compare their performances and to identify their strengths and weaknesses. The technological bottlenecks, the barriers to the adoption of these alternative engine technologies as well as the features of this technological competition are underlined. We then use a patent data analysis to study the patent portfolios of the main car manufacturers in these technologies over the period [1990–2005]. The dynamics of patent applications by car manufacturers gives insight on the competition among technologies and on the strategy of firms. This analysis emphasises the progressive diversification of firms' patent portfolios over the whole set of engine technologies and the differentiated strategic positioning of car manufacturers according to countries.