Connecting the Dots: Public Engagement with Environmental Data

Air pollution and other environmental hazards are often imperceptible and need to be made publicly visible. The paper argues for the importance of visualizations in drawing public attention to imperceptible hazards and in providing the public with access to empirical data describing the risks. It also argues for critical inquiry into hazards’ selective visibility as it is produced by visualizations. The impact of visualizations and their selective visibility are considered through the example of a public art project called Particle Falls installed in 2014 in Pittsburgh, a city with a long history of both ignoring air pollution and working to ameliorate this problem. I examine the impact and selective visibility of Particle Falls by considering the underlying production of data, as well as context and support systems for this visualization, and by comparing it with other visualizations of local air quality.     

珠江三角洲4种淡水养殖鱼类重金属的残留及食用风险评价

为全面了解珠江三角洲淡水水产品中重金属污染现状,评估其生态风险与食用安全,于2014年8月至2015年8月采集罗非鱼、草鱼、乌鳢及鳜鱼主要养殖鱼类样品共计57份,采用原子荧光光谱仪(AFS),电感耦合等离子体质谱(ICP-MS)仪进行分析测定,并采用单因子污染指数(Pi)、重金属污染指数(MPI)、每周可耐受摄入量(PTWI)以及食入健康风险指标(Ri总)分别评估其污染程度、食用安全性与健康风险。结果表明,样品中Cr、Ni、Cu、Zn、As、Cd、Hg、Pb的含量范围分别为0.020~3.240,0.020~0.800,0.110~1.100,0.190~19.970,0.030~1.480,nd~0.606,0.003~0.118,0.040~0.803 mg·kg-1(湿重),Cr、As、Cd、Pb在水产品中超标率大小依次为As(7.0%),Pb(7.0%),Cd(5.3%),Cr(1.8%)。Pi结果表明,目前珠江三角洲养殖水域水产品中Cu与Zn残留处于正常范围内,Cr和Hg有少量样品为轻度污染,Pb、Cd与As存在重度污染样品,所占比例为2.86%、6.02%和5.74%。MPI结果显示不同水产品污染程度为乌鳢>鳜鱼>罗非鱼>草鱼,总体上各种水产品MPI依然处于较低的水平;食用安全性结果显示,目前成人每周摄入水产品是安全的,但乌鳢Cr,罗非鱼As含量较高分别达到PTWI的37.76%和19.51%,表明水产品中Cr、As残留可能存在一定的食用安全隐患。健康风险模型结果显示,所有样品均未超过国际辐射防护委员会(ICRP)的推荐的最大可接受水平(5×10-6a-1)。综合分析珠江三角洲淡水养殖主要水产品可知,其尚未出现明显的污染安全问题,但As与Cr等元素的潜在风险值得进一步关注。     

Hurricane Harvey and Greater Houston households: comparing pre-event preparedness with post-event health effects,event exposures,and recovery

Most disaster studies rely on convenience sampling and ‘after-only’ designs to assess impacts. This paper, focusing on Hurricane Harvey (2017) and leveraging a pre-/post-event sample of Greater Houston households (n=71) in the United States, establishes baselines for disaster preparedness and home structure flood hazard mitigation, explores household-level ramifications, and examines how preparedness and mitigation relate to health effects, event exposures, and recovery. Between 70 and 80 per cent of participants instituted preparedness measures. Mitigation actions varied: six per cent had interior drainage systems and 83 per cent had elevated indoor heating/cooling components. Sixty per cent reported home damage. One-half highlighted allergies and two-thirds indicated some level of post-traumatic stress (PTS). Three-quarters worried about family members/friends. The results of generalised linear models revealed that greater pre- event mitigation was associated with fewer physical health problems and adverse experiences, lower PTS, and faster recovery. The study design exposed the broad benefits of home structure flood hazard mitigation for households after Harvey.     

A hybrid decision-making approach based on FCM and MOORA for occupational health and safety risk analysis

IntroductionWith the development of industries and increased diversity of their associated hazards, the importance of identifying these hazards and controlling the Occupational Health and Safety (OHS) risks has also dramatically augmented. Currently, there is a serious need for a risk management system to identify and prioritize risks with the aim of providing corrective/preventive measures to minimize the negative consequences of OHS risks. In fact, this system can help the protection of employees’ health and reduction of organizational costs. Method: The present study proposes a hybrid decision-making approach based on the Failure Mode and Effect Analysis (FMEA), Fuzzy Cognitive Map (FCM), and Multi-Objective Optimization on the basis of Ratio Analysis (MOORA) for assessing and prioritizing OHS risks. After identifying the risks and determining the values of the risk assessment criteria via the FMEA technique, the attempt is made to determine the weights of criteria based on their causal relationships through FCM and the hybrid learning algorithm. Then, the risk prioritization is carried out using the MOORA method based on the decision matrix (the output of the FMEA) and the weights of the criteria (the output of the FCM). Results: The results from the implementation of the proposed approach in a manufacturing company reveal that the score at issue can overcome some of the drawbacks of the traditional Risk Priority Number (RPN) in the conventional FMEA, including lack of assignment the different relative importance to the assessment criteria, inability to take into account other important management criteria, lack of consideration of causal relationships among criteria, and high dependence of the prioritization on the experts’ opinions, which finally provides a full and distinct risk prioritization.     

庐山不同森林植被类型土壤特性及其健康评价

土壤作为森林生态系统的一个重要因子,评价森林土壤健康状况对森林健康的维护经营以及森林系统功能的发挥具有重要意义。在系统调查和分析庐山8种森林植被类型土壤特性的基础上,评价指标分别从物种多样性以及不同的森林土壤特性中进行筛选,包括物种多样性系数、枯落物层厚度、腐殖质层厚度、土层厚度、容重、粘粒含量、有机质、p H值、阳离子交换量、全氮、水解氮、有效磷、速效钾、磷酸酶活性等指标,基于SPSS19.0软件对所获得数据进行差异性检验和相关分析,确定各项指标的权重,应用合适的土壤健康评分函数,将测得的指标值转换为对应指标的分值,最后通过加权综合法,计算其土壤健康指数,并对不同森林植被类型土壤健康状况进行评价。结果表明,8种森林植被类型下最终的土壤健康指数大小排序为:针阔混交林(0.78)常-落混交林(0.72)灌丛(0.69)常绿阔叶林(0.67)落叶阔叶林(0.64)竹林(0.59)马尾松林(0.53)黄山松林(0.46)。     

基于混合指标值TODIM方法的东营市生态系统健康评价

城市生态系统健康评价是城市可持续发展以及城市生态文明建设的需要。在当今各种"城市病"频发的背景下,研究城市生态系统健康水平,不仅有利于协调城市发展与城市生态系统健康之间的矛盾,而且对于指导城市建设规划编制,监控城市生态环境的可持续发展具有重要的现实意义。鉴于此,论文在原有的城市生态系统健康评价指标的基础上,通过基于混合指标值的TODIM方法评价东营市2007—2013年间的城市生态系统健康状况,并分析活力、组成结构、恢复力、维持生态系统服务功能以及生态系统认知的构成指标对城市生态系统健康状况的影响。为了避免主观判断对城市生态系统健康评价的不确定性,文章采用兼顾客观信息和主观信息的组合权重赋权法确定各个指标的权重;根据东营市城市生态系统健康评价指标的特性和数据特点,建立了混合多属性决策TODIM方法的数学模型;采用扩展的TODIM方法对东营市城市生态系统健康状况进行评价,并分析了各个指标在城市生态发展过程中的作用。研究表明:(1)东营市的城市生态系统健康状况一直向好,由脆弱状态逐渐过渡到亚健康状态,但是生态状况仍然不容乐观,距离健康状态仍有较大的差距;(2)环保投入力度不足、污染物排放量增加、产业结构仍不完善、建成区人口密度过高等成为制约东营市城市生态系统健康发展的突出问题。文章提出了相应的对策建议,以促进城市生态系统的健康发展。     

机动车尾气对人体健康的危害

随着城市机动车保有量的不断增加,机动车尾气已经成为影响我国城市大气环境的主要问题之一。本文以儿童和交通警察两类人群为例,分析了机动车尾气污染给人体呼吸系统、免疫系统、心脑血管系统等造成的危害。结果表明,由于儿童的呼吸带与机动车尾气排放带非常接近,交警在机动车尾气环境中暴露事件太长,导致这两类人群的呼吸系统极易遭到破坏,发生支气管炎等疾病的概率大大增加;而免疫球蛋白水平和血压发生改变导致了抵抗能力的下降。最后建议通过采取发展公共交通、加强城市交通管理、完善检查维修制度等有效措施加强机动车尾气治理,减少对人体健康产生的危害。     

Heterogeneous and unconventional coalitions around global food risks: integrating Brazil into the debates

Current debates about food-borne risks (GMOs and BSE) have not only deepened public concern about how food is produced on farms, processed in factories, and transported, stored and traded. More importantly, these debates have exposed a crisis related to central social issues, such as the role of science, politics and business corporations in the decision-making processes for determining which risks societies should, or are prepared to, assume. In this article, I discuss how cultural and social constructivist studies of environmental and health risks and Ulrich Beck's theory of world risk society can contribute to the analysis of how to deal with these conflicts. The criticism of quantitative methods of risk analysis has resulted in a certain idealization of the lay knowledge of risks as being intuitively more correct than the scientific one. One consequence of this polarization between expert and lay knowledge—idealizing the latter—is a disappointing vagueness when looking for alternatives on how to deal practically with risks that have important consequences. A key obstacle to the implementation of some of the suggestions presented by the critical risk analysis approach is that, for example, in the current global dynamics of food-borne risks we can find heterogeneous alliances for and against GMOs allying lay people and experts, as well as conventional and unconventional social actors, in a complicated manner, at the regional, national and international levels. Since a significant part of the analysis of manufactured risks focuses on the situation of highly industrialized countries, a more complex perspective of these lay and scientific alliances can be obtained from a more extensive study of the reactions surrounding GMOs and BSE in less-industrialized countries, such as Brazil. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

基于经济学视角的职业健康规制问题研究

用经济学分析工具对现有的职业健康规制进行探讨,研究规制机构、企业和劳动者三方行为主体的博弈,通过分析存在的问题,提出解决职业健康规制的对策。在理顺职业健康规制体制,健全机构的同时不断完善法规体系。同时,加强对劳动者职业健康的保障,完善第三方介入机制,并且加大对违规企业的处罚力度,提高对劳动者的赔偿。不断强化企业作为职业健康责任主体的意识,推进职业危害防治技术创新,培养"以人为本"的职业健康安全文化观念。     

企业系统化安全管理的主要问题及成因分析

针对系统化安全管理实践中存在着安全管理体系建立的模板化、安全管理体系运行的形式化、安全管理体系持续改进的无效化等问题,提出要提高安全管理绩效,首先纠正企业对系统化安全管理的认知偏差,统一企业不同管理层次的认识;其次是用正确的安全管理方法论作指导,开展系统化安全管理实践;三是匹配企业安全管理实践与系统化要求,发挥和协调不同管理主体的参与,对危险源进行动态化管理,有效实施绩效监测与改进。总之,企业系统化安全管理不能作为单纯的一项工作或任务来完成,必须以解决企业的具体安全生产问题为目标;系统化安全管理是一个持续优化的动态过程,既要把握安全管理系统化的要求,也要有效开展安全管理系统化实践。