Overcoming barriers to sustainability by combining conceptual,visual, and networking systems

Sustainability challenges rarely align with the conventional boundaries of our disciplines, institutions and means of communication. To address these challenges amid real-world complexity, we need to think holistically and collaborate across disciplines. In this paper, we synthesise three themes: (1) more integrated conceptual frameworks; (2) digital visual communication which provides fluid expression of complex ideas and perceptions; and (3) online networks which can empower sustainability initiatives and communicate them across social and institutional barriers at a global scale. Each of these tools can help to overcome persistent barriers to sustainability. When used together, they provide a strategic basis for the design of digital collaboration platforms for addressing sustainability challenges. Using design thinking, we developed a Synergy Map which identifies relationships among a number of barriers to sustainability and conceptual and digital tools which help to address them. The Map identifies the potential for synthesising these tools into effective digital artefacts. We provide several examples and identify characteristics of particular value for overcoming barriers to sustainability. Combining new theoretical developments in sustainability sciences with recent advances in communication and networking technologies offers substantial potential for advancing sustainability on multiple fronts.     

The role of socio-economic data in food needs assessment and monitoring

This paper reviews six case studies examined as part of a project to review targetting methodologies employed by non-government organisations in Africa during the 1984-6 food crisis. Most agencies have not yet fully evaluated the role of data in informing policy decisions during their respective emergency programmes. The case studies presented reflect a wide variety of approaches to targetting emergency food aid that are based largely on the use of 'socio-economic' data. The recent emergency relief operations in Africa seem to indicate a change in relief agencies' approaches to the assessment and monitoring of needs of the affected populations. Earlier dependance on nutritional data has given way to an increasing reliance on the use of socio-economic indicators. There was a wide variation in the case studies of the type of indicators collected and utilised in needs assessment and monitoring. There were those who relied almost exclusively on nutritional data to target resources during the 1984-86 African crisis, and others whose experiences during that period lead them to attach more weight to socio-economic data. Other agencies appear to have recognised the problems of relying solely on nutritional data to target food aid during their 1984–86 emergency programmes, and thus more or less abandoned classical anthropometric surveys in their needs assessment and monitoring methodologies during this period. Thus nutritional data has a less significant role in the decision making process than previously had been the case.     

Food aid and food crisis in Sub-Saharan Africa: Statistical trends and implications*

This paper documents the rapid expansion and changes in food aid flows to Sub-Saharan Africa up to mid-1985. Trends for Sub-Saharan Africa as a whole and for the more seriously affected countries are examined, as are the comparative experiences of food aid of individual countries in the region. Table 11 lists the Sub-Saharan African countries and indicates the most seriously affected food-short countries, as defined by the WFP/FAO task force. It should be borne in mind that some practical problems exist in compiling data on food aid. These include lack of availability of reliable data, especially of most recent data; lack of common terminology and definitions; and different accounting systems. These data problems are sometimes a source of confusion. However, the basic facts are clear: food aid gradually emerged during the early 1980s as a resource too often of considerable significance to many countries of Sub-Saharan Africa. These trends were only accelerated with the crisis of 1984-1985. These facts provide a point of reference for further analysis of the sources of the crisis, its actual dimensions and consequences.     

Prenatal diagnosis and post-mortem study of a fetus with mosaic trisomy 14 due to a dic(14)(p11)

Amniocentesis at 17 weeks' gestation revealed a mosaic karyotype—46,XX/46,XX, — 14,+dic(14)(p11). No abnormalities were detected on ultrasound. Growth and placentation were normal. The fetus was examined after termination of pregnancy and micrognathia and pulmonary hyperlobation were the only abnormalities detected. Several tissues were set up for cytogenetics, including fetal skin, kidney, ovary, and placenta. The diagnosis was confirmed by these studies. The level of mosaicism varied between tissues, with the trisomy 14 cell line highest in amniotic fluid.     

Use of signature whistles during separations and reunions by wild bottlenose dolphin mothers and infants

We examine the contexts and patterns of signature whistle production by wild bottlenose dolphin mother-infant pairs (Tursiops spp.) to gain insight into the functional significance of whistles. Results are based on focal observations and simultaneous recordings of underwater vocalizations. Whistles occur primarily when mother-infant pairs are separated, and the probability of whistles increases with distance of separation. The timing of whistles during separations varies, but whistles tend to be produced in repetitive series and are generally concentrated toward the later stages of the separation, i.e., during the process of reunion. Although we focused on infants, mothers do not appear to whistle during separations as frequently as infants. Infant whistles may function to facilitate reunions by conveying information to the mother concerning the infant's motivation to reunite and/or its location. Infant whistles could induce a cooperative response from the mother including approach, slowing to allow the infant to catch up or whistling. Highly individualized signature whistles may be particularly useful in a fission-fusion society in which individuals (mothers and infants as well as adults) join and leave temporary parties in a fluid manner, yet maintain consistent, long-term associations with particular individuals. Correspondence to: R.A. Smolker     

Job level risk assessment using task level strain index scores: a pilot study.

This paper explores 2 methods of modifying the Strain Index (SI) to assess the ergonomic risk of multi-task jobs. Twenty-eight automotive jobs (15 cases and 13 controls) were studied. The first method is based on the maximum task SI score, and the second method is modeled on the NIOSH Composite Lifting Index (CLI) algorithm, named cumulative assessment of risk to the distal upper extremity (CARD). Significant odds ratios of 11 (CI 1.7-69) and 24 (CI 2.4-240) were obtained using the modified maximum task and CARD, respectively. This indicates that modification of the SI may be useful in determining the risk of distal upper extremity injury associated with a multi-task job.     

Modulation-assisted high speed machining of compacted graphite iron (CGI)

The application of controlled, low-frequency modulation (～100 Hz) superimposed onto the cutting process in the feed-direction – modulation-assisted machining (MAM) – is shown to be quite effective in reducing the wear of cubic boron nitride (CBN) tools when machining compacted graphite iron (CGI) at high machining speeds (>500 m/min). The tool life is at least 20 times greater than in conventional machining. This significant reduction in wear is a consequence of the multiple effects realized by MAM, including periodic disruption of the tool–workpiece contact, formation of discrete chips, enhanced fluid action and lower cutting temperatures. The propensity for thermochemical wear of CBN, the principal wear mode at high speeds in CGI machining, is thus reduced. The tool wear in MAM is also found to be smaller at the higher cutting speeds (730 m/min) tested. The feed-direction MAM appears feasible for implementation in industrial machining applications involving high speeds.     

Cross-Media Environmental Impacts of Air Pollution Regulations for a Coal-Fired Power Plant

The types and rates of pollutant emissions from a coal-fired power plant depend upon plant design, coal characteristics, and environmental control policy. In the past, air pollution regulations were often promulgated without rigorous analysis of the resulting energy penalties and secondary environmental impacts that occur in other environmental media (air, land, or water), which are counterproductive to overall environmental quality. This paper describes a Comparative Assessment Model that has been developed to consider systematically such tradeoffs for conventional and advanced coal-to-electric technologies. The model is applied to quantify the secondary (“cross-media”) environmental and resource impacts resulting from alternative air pollution control policies that reduce sulfur dioxide emissions from a 1000 MW power plant. Multimedia pollutant burdens are presented, together with the increased requirements for coal, limestone, and water that are incurred in generating a fixed net quantity of electricity. The development of sound public policy requires that environmental regulations be sensitive to adverse effects in all environmental media, and that tradeoffs involved in the regulation of specific pollutants to one medium be rigorously and systematically characterized.     

Cesium isotope ratios as indicators of nuclear power plant operations

There are multiple paths by which radioactive cesium can reach the effluent from reactor operations. The radioactive ¹³⁵Cs/¹³⁷Cs ratios are controlled by these paths. In an effort to better understand the origin of this radiation, these ¹³⁵Cs/¹³⁷Cs ratios in effluents from three power reactor sites have been measured in offsite samples. These ratios are different from global fallout by up to six fold and as such cannot have a significant component from this source. A cesium ratio for a sample collected outside of the plant boundary provides integration over the operating life of the reactor. A sample collected inside the plant at any given time can be much different from this lifetime ratio. The measured cesium ratios vary significantly for the three reactors and indicate that the multiple paths have widely varying levels of contributions. There are too many ways these isotopes can fractionate to be useful for quantitative evaluations of operating parameters in an offsite sample, although it may be possible to obtain limited qualitative information for an onsite sample.     

Developmental toxicity of two common corn pesticides to the endangered southern bell frog (Litoria raniformis)

To examine the link between corn agriculture and the observed decline of the endangered southern bell frog (SBF), the effects of two corn crop pesticides on larval growth and development were investigated. Tadpoles were exposed to terbufos sulfone (10 μg/L), a major breakdown product of the insecticide terbufos, and the herbicide atrazine (25 μg/L) individually and as a mixture until the completion of metamorphosis. Atrazine did not interact synergistically with terbufos sulfone or result in significant effects on growth and development alone, although there was some indication of accelerated metamorphosis in the pilot study. Terbufos sulfone alone and as a mixture (terbufos/atrazine) significantly slowed larval development and ultimately delayed metamorphosis. The observed developmental effects from an environmentally relevant concentration of terbufos sulfone indicates a risk posed by this persistent degradation product to the endangered SBF, which breeds and develops in the rice bays adjacent to corn fields treated with pesticides.