Organizations in context: proposal for a new theoretical approach in prescriptive accident research

Lately, requests have been made to include the contexts of enterprises in models to prevent accidents at work. This paper presents different contextual theories in order to analyze whether this type of theory could be a way to elaborate our understanding of context. A differentiation is made between (a) theories of understanding relations between enterprises and regulatory agencies and (b) theories to perceive the relation between enterprise and the broader context. The last group of theories has its point of departure in an organizational understanding diverging from the classical, rational understanding of organizations and organizational processes. The conclusion is that contextual theories open for an elaborated understanding of the role of contextual relations in accident prevention, but also that an investigation of the potentials for making the theories action-orientated is needed.     

A clustering approach to integrate traffic safety in road maintenance prioritization

Objectives: We combine data on roads and crash characteristics to identify patterns in road traffic crashes with regard to road characteristics. We illustrate how combined analysis of data regarding road maintenance, maintenance costs, road characteristics, crash characteristics, and geographical location can enrich road maintenance prioritization from a traffic safety perspective.

Methods: The study is based on traffic crash data merged with road maintenance data and annual average daily traffic (AADT) collected in Denmark. We analyzed 3,964 crashes that occurred from 2010 to 2015. A latent class clustering (LCC) technique was used to identify crash clusters with different road and crash characteristics. The distribution of crash severity and estimated road maintenance costs for each cluster was found and cluster differences were compared using the chi-square test. Finally, a map matching procedure was used to identify the geographical distribution of the crashes in each cluster.

Results: Results showed that based on road maintenance levels there was no difference in the distribution of crash severity. The LCC technique revealed 11 crash clusters. Five clusters were characterized by crashes on roads with a poor maintenance level (levels 4 and 3). Only a few of these crashes included a vulnerable road user (VRU) but many occurred on roads without barriers. Four clusters included a large share of crashes on acceptably maintained roads (level 2). For these clusters only small variations in road characteristics were found, whereas the differences in crash characteristics were more dominant. The last 2 clusters included crashes that mainly occurred on new roads with no need for maintenance (level 1). Injury severity, estimated maintenance costs, and geographical location were found to be differently distributed for most of the clusters.

Conclusions: We find that focusing solely on road maintenance and crash severity does not provide clear guidance of how to prioritize between road maintenance efforts from a traffic safety perspective. However, when combined with geographical location and crash characteristics, a more nuanced picture appears that allows consideration of different target groups and perspectives.     

Concepts of Animal Health and Welfare in Organic Livestock Systems

In 2005, The International Federation of Organic Agricultural Movements (IFOAM) developed four new ethical principles of organic agriculture to guide its future development: the principles of health, ecology, care, and fairness. The key distinctive concept of animal welfare in organic agriculture combines naturalness and human care, and can be linked meaningfully with these principles. In practice, a number of challenges are connected with making organic livestock systems work. These challenges are particularly dominant in immature agro-ecological systems, for example those that are characterized by industrialization and monoculture. Some of the current challenges are partly created by shortages of land and manure, which encourage zero-grazing and other confined systems. Other challenges are created in part by the conditions for farming and the way in which global food distribution systems are organized, e.g., how live animals are transported, how feed is traded and transported all over the globe, and the development of infrastructure and large herds. We find that the overall organic principles should be included when formulating guidelines for practical organic animal farming. This article explores how the special organic conceptions of animal welfare are related to the overall principles of organic agriculture. The aim is to identify potential routes for future development of organic livestock systems in different contexts and with reference to the specific understanding of animal welfare in organic agriculture. We include two contrasting cases represented by organic livestock systems in northwestern Europe and farming systems in tropical low-income countries; we use these cases to explore the widely different challenges of organic livestock systems in different parts of the world.     

Deltas,freshwater discharge,and waves along the Young Sound,NE Greenland

A wide range of delta morphologies occurs along the fringes of the Young Sound in Northeast Greenland due to spatial heterogeneity of delta regimes. In general, the delta regime is related to catchment and basin characteristics (geology, topography, drainage pattern, sediment availability, and bathymetry), fluvial discharges and associated sediment load, and processes by waves and currents. Main factors steering the Arctic fluvial discharges into the Young Sound are the snow and ice melt and precipitation in the catchment, and extreme events like glacier lake outburst floods (GLOFs). Waves are subordinate and only rework fringes of the delta plain forming sandy bars if the exposure and fetch are optimal. Spatial gradients and variability in driving forces (snow and precipitation) and catchment characteristics (amount of glacier coverage, sediment characteristics) as well as the strong and local influence of GLOFs in a specific catchment impede a simple upscaling of sediment fluxes from individual catchments toward a total sediment flux into the Young Sound.     

Modelling land use change across elevation gradients in district Swat, Pakistan

District Swat is part of the high mountain Hindu-Kush Himalayan region of Pakistan. Documentation and analysis of land use change in this region is challenging due to very disparate accounts of the state of forest resources and limited accessible data. Such analysis is, however, important due to concerns over the degradation of forest land leading to deterioration of the protection of water catchments and exposure of highly erodible soils. Furthermore, the area is identified as hotspot for biodiversity loss. The aim of this paper is to identify geophysical and geographical factors related to land use change and model how these relationships vary across the district. For three selected zones across the elevation gradient of the district, we analyse land use change by studying land use maps for the years 1968, 1990 and 2007. In the high-altitude zone, the forest area decreased by 30.5 %, a third of which was caused by agricultural expansion. In the mid-elevation zone, agriculture expanded by 70.3 % and forests decreased by 49.7 %. In the lower altitudes, agriculture expansion was 129.9 % consuming 31.7 % of the forest area over the forty-year time period. Annual deforestation rates observed were 0.80, 1.28 and 1.86 % in high, mid and low altitudes, respectively. In the high-altitude ecosystems, accessibility (distance to nearest road and city) had no significant role in agriculture expansion; rather land use change appears significantly related to geophysical factors such as slope, aspect and altitude. In the low-elevation zone, accessibility was the factor showing the closest association with agriculture expansion and abandonment. The analysis illustrates that land use change processes vary quite considerably between different altitudinal and vegetation cover zones of the same district and that environmental constraints and stage of economic development provide important contextual information.     

The European collaborative study on mosaicism in chorionic villus sampling: Data from 1986 to 1987

Data on a total of 11 855 diagnostic chorionic villus samples obtained in the years 1986 and 1987 were compiled from a questionnaire filled in by 36 European cytogenetic centres. Mosaicism was reported in 141 cases. The cytogenetic findings were followed by induced abortion in 24 cases. Spontaneous abortion was observed in nine mosaic pregnancies, a rate not significantly different from that observed for CVS in total. Mosaicism was found in 1.2 per cent of analyses by direct analysis/short-term culture, in contrast to the 0.6 per cent found after long-term culture. Evidence for fetal non-mosaicism was found in 99 of the 141 cases. The finding of mosaicism in first-trimester CVS should always elicit further analyses, preferably after amniocentesis, to substantiate the suspected fetal chromosome aberration.     

Effects of chlorination on the adhesion strength and deflocculation of activated sludge flocs.

A side effect of the application of chlorine for controlling filamentous bulking is deflocculation of floc-forming bacteria, which may cause unacceptable effluent deterioration depending on dosing. It was assumed that chlorine may adversely affect the adhesion ability of floc bacteria, promoting their erosion in shear flow. The effect of chlorination on the strength of activated sludge flocs was investigated. The adhesion-erosion (AE) model developed by Mikkelsen and Keiding was used to interpret results from deflocculation tests with varying shear and solids concentration. The AE model yields the adhesion enthalpy (deltaHG/R) of cells in sludge flocs and parameters from the model were used to quantify the sludge in terms of floc strength. Two activated sludges with different initial characteristics were studied. The resulting model parameters showed that the AE model was suitable for quantifying the bond energy of particles to the activated sludge exposed to chlorine. For one activated sludge, adhesion of cells was largely unaffected by the applied chlorine doses. A second sludge showed reduced adhesion strength with chlorine, leading to increasing deflocculation. The simple batch test and AE model proved valuable for assessing the effect of chlorination on the flocs in activated sludge. By use of these procedures, it is possible to determine acceptable chlorine dosing to avoid excessive deflocculation and effluent deterioration.     

Changes in pigment concentration and composition in Norway spruce induced by long-term exposure to low levels of ozone

Rametes of Norway spruce were fumigated with 30 ppb (nl litre(-1)) ozone above ambient level for 4 years in open-top chambers. They were grown under different light conditions, because some of the chambers received approximately 10% less light than the others. Samples from three age classes were analyzed for nitrogen and pigments using HPLC. It could be demonstrated that the ozone treatment reduced the concentration of chlorophyll (a) and (b), alpha- and beta-carotene, but increased the concentration of antheraxanthin. A significant decrease was found for the violaxanthin/antheraxanthin ratio following the ozone treatment. The concentration of all the pigments and of nitrogen were significantly related to the age classes, and a similar relationship was found for the light levels, except for antheraxanthin and total carotenoids. The ratio of chlorophyll a/b was only significantly related to the age classes.     

Concurrent nitrate and Fe(III) reduction during anaerobic biodegradation of phenols in a sandstone aquifer

The biodegradation of phenols (5, 60, 600 mg l⁻¹) under anaerobic conditions (nitrate enriched and unamended) was studied in laboratory microcosms with sandstone material and groundwater from within an anaerobic ammonium plume in an aquifer. The aqueous phase was sampled and analyzed for phenols and selected redox sensitive parameters on a regular basis. An experiment with sandstone material from specific depth intervals from a vertical profile across the ammonium plume was also conducted. The miniature microcosms used in this experiment were sacrificed for sampling for phenols and selected redox sensitive parameters at the end of the experiment. The sandstone material was characterized with respect to oxidation and reduction potential and Fe(II) and Fe(III) speciation prior to use for all microcosms and at the end of the experiments for selected microcosms.The redox conditions in the anaerobic microcosms were mixed nitrate and Fe(III) reducing. Nitrate and Fe(III) were apparently the dominant electron acceptors at high and low nitrate concentrations, respectively. When biomass growth is taken into account, nitrate and Fe(III) reduction constituted sufficient electron acceptor capacity for the mineralization of the phenols observed to be degraded even at an initial phenols concentration of 60 mg l⁻¹ (high) in an unamended microcosm, whereas nitrate reduction alone is unlikely to have provided sufficient electron acceptor capacity for the observed degradation of the phenols in the unamended microcosm.For microcosm systems, with solid aquifer materials, dissolution of organic substances from the solid material may occur. A quantitative determination of the speciation (mineral types and quantity) of electron acceptors associated with the solids, at levels relevant for degradation of specific organic compounds in aquifers, cannot always be obtained. Hence, complete mass balances of electron acceptor consumption for specific organic compounds degradation are difficult to confine. For aquifer materials with low initial Fe(II) content, Fe(II) determinations on solids and in aqueous phase samples may provide valuable information on Fe(III) reduction. However, in microcosms with natural sediments and where electron acceptors are associated with the sediments, complete mass-balances for substrates and electron acceptors are not likely to be obtained.