Welcome

The Association of Environmental and Resource Economists (AERE)is pleased to launch the Review of Environmental Economics andPolicy with this inaugural issue. The need for a new journal aimed toward a broad audience haslong been recognized by AERE members and has been actively discussedfor several years by the AERE Board. The time was finally judgedright to initiate a careful review of the need and prospectsfor such a journal,     

Regional climate change projections for the Northeast USA

Climate projections at relevant temporal and spatial scales are essential to assess potential future climate change impacts on climatologically diverse regions such as the northeast United States. Here, we show how both statistical and dynamical downscaling methods applied to relatively coarse-scale atmosphere-ocean general circulation model output are able to improve simulation of spatial and temporal variability in temperature and precipitation across the region. We then develop high-resolution projections of future climate change across the northeast USA, using IPCC SRES emission scenarios combined with these downscaling methods. The projections show increases in temperature that are larger at higher latitudes and inland, as well as the potential for changing precipitation patterns, particularly along the coast. While the absolute magnitude of change expected over the coming century depends on the sensitivity of the climate system to human forcing, significantly higher increases in temperature and in winter precipitation are expected under a higher as compared to lower scenario of future emissions from human activities.     

Prenatal screening and diagnosis of neural tube defects

This review article discusses prenatal screening and diagnosis of neural tube defects (NTD). High detection rates occur in countries operating ultrasound screening programmes because classical two-dimensional ultrasound cranial signs (lemon shaped head, banana cerebellum, ventriculomegaly) are important diagnostic clues to the presence of spina bifida. Careful evaluation of both the spine and a search for other abnormalities is warranted. Important prognostic information for spina bifida relates to the lesion level, with a “watershed” between L3 and L4 marking a very high chance of being wheelchair bound with the higher lesions. Three-dimensional ultrasound using multiplanar views can achieve diagnostic accuracy within one vertebral body in around 80% of patients. There are high rates of pregnancy termination for spina bifida in many European countries, but the use of new imagining techniques allow better prediction of outcome, and consequently a refinement of prenatal counselling. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Predicting the safety performance of volunteers: Does motivation for volunteering influence driving behavior?

Volunteering has long been known for its positive effects on the individual and the community. However, no research to date has examined the safety of individuals when volunteering their services. The safety of individuals when driving a vehicle is particularly a concern in the nonprofit sector as volunteers is leaving organizations due to fear of public liability. As such, this paper aims to identify the internal motivational factors influencing the safety of volunteers when driving a vehicle (n = 73). Utilizing Clary’s et al. [Clary, E.G., Snyder, M., Ridge, R.D., Copeland, J., Stukas, A.A., Haugen, J., Miene, P., 1998. Understanding and assessing the motivations of volunteers: a functional approach. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 74, 1516–1530] scale of the motivational functions served by volunteering, we found that individuals who volunteer their services for ego-related functioning (protective) were more likely to report higher self-reported driving speeds, while individuals who volunteer their services for altruistic purposes (values) were more likely to report lower self-reported driving speeds. In turn, higher self-reported driving speeds were found to be associated with a greater number of self-reported crashes in the past two years. These results have important implications for volunteer driving organizations, as these results suggest that some motivations are associated with poorer driving performance.     

Public receptiveness to policies promoting plant-based diets: framing effects and social psychological and structural influences

Governmental and non-governmental organizations, social movements, and academics have called for reductions in meat consumption due to the environmental, animal welfare, and public health consequences of industrial animal agribusiness. An impactful move toward plant-based diets would require changes in public policy. First, we assess if there are different social and structural factors that influence support for policies that promote plant-based diets. We look at four categories of policies (action frames) that will likely reduce meat consumption: environmental, animal welfare, public health, and direct meat reduction. Second, we use a manipulation rhetorical frame to see if support can be altered by providing individuals with information about meat reduction, framing the issue in terms of environmental protection, animal welfare, or public health. Different social and structural factors predict support for different policy groupings, meaning that it matters how policies are enclosed in action frames. However, providing information to individuals about a particular impact (rhetorical frame) has limited influence on policy support.     

HOMINIDS: An agent-based spatial simulation model to evaluate behavioral patterns of early Pleistocene hominids

The HOMINIDS ABM is a new Agent Based Model that simulates the actions of two species of proto-human agents defined by a few, simple parameters. These proto-human agents attempt to subsist by foraging and nesting on dynamic, spatially explicit landscapes. The landscapes are described with a number of parameters based on empirical field data collected in habitats in East Africa. The results of three separate scenarios with 1 year model runs repeated 30 times each, for a total of 90 simulations, are presented and discussed to illustrate both the capacity and flexibility of our ABM modeling environment. The simulations show that the model food preferences and anatomy ascribed to Australopithecus boisei resulted in different expressions of foraging behaviors and subsistence strategies in two distinct ecological settings, and that adding tubers to the diet significantly increases the chances of the hominid agents meeting their daily caloric requirements year-round. In addition, this paper provides links to the open-source implementation code, along with the user documentation, design document, java API, and all datasets required to replicate the simulations.     

Full-Scale Evaluation of Mercury Control with Sorbent Injection and COHPAC at Alabama Power E.C. Gaston

Abstract

The overall objective of this project was to determine the cost and impacts of Hg control using sorbent injection into a Compact Hybrid Particulate Collector (COHPAC) at Alabama Power’s Gaston Unit 3. This test is part of a program funded by the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) to obtain the necessary information to assess the costs of controlling Hg from coal-fired utility plants that do not have scrubbers for SO₂ control. The economics will be developed based on various levels of Hg control.

Gaston Unit 3 was chosen for testing because COHPAC represents a cost-effective retrofit option for utilities with existing electrostatic precipitators (ESPs). COHPAC is an EPRI-patented concept that places a high air-to-cloth ratio baghouse downstream of an existing ESP to improve overall particulate collection efficiency. Activated carbons were injected upstream of COHPAC and downstream of the ESP to obtain performance and operational data.

Results were very encouraging, with up to 90% removal of Hg for short operating periods using powdered activated carbon (PAC). During the long-term tests, an average Hg removal efficiency of 78% was measured. The PAC injection rate for the long-term tests was chosen to maintain COHPAC cleaning frequency at less than 1.5 pulses/bag/hr.     

A Methodology for Assessing Blast Protection in Explosive Ordnance Disposal Bomb Suits

To reduce human casualties associated with explosive ordnance disposal, a wide range of protective wear has been designed to shield against the blast effects of improvised explosive devices and munitions. In this study, 4 commercially available bomb suits, representing a range of materials and armor masses, were evaluated against 0.227 and 0.567 kg of spherical C-4 explosives to determine the level of protection offered to the head, neck, and thorax.

A Hybrid III dummy, an instrumented human surrogate [1], was tested with and without protection from the 4 commercially available bomb suits. 20 tests with the dummy torso mounted to simulate a kneeling position were performed to confirm repeatability and robustness of the dummies, as well as to evaluate the 4 suits. Correlations between injury risk assessments based on past human or animal injury model data and various parameters such as bomb suit mass, projected area, and dummy coverage area were drawn.