Meeting Consumer Concerns for Food Safety in South Korea: The Importance of Food Safety and Ethics in a Globalizing Market

As the issue of food safety became one of the important public agenda, consumer concern for food safety became the general public concern. The Korea U.S. Free Trade Agreement (KORUS FTA) completion allowing import of U.S. beef to Korea has turned into a massive public uproar and a series of demonstrations, revealing widespread concerns on the part of Korean producers and consumers about government food safety regulations and mishandling of the beef trade requirement. The mishandling of public concerns for BSE on U.S. beef import by the administrators led to a breakdown of the relationship between the public and the government and a loss of consumer confidence in Korea’s food safety system. The KORUS FTA beef crisis raised the issues of government accountability and the importance of understanding moral and ethical aspects of food safety management that pose perceived risk for BSE by the Korean citizen. The aim of this paper is to address the importance of understanding consumer concerns, food ethics and of appropriate risk communication in dealing with politically and publically sensitive food safety issues. This is achieved by assessing the factors that contributed to the conflict between the Korean government and the Korean public over the KORUS FTA beef agreement.     

OPERA: a New High-Resolution Energy System Model for Sector Integration Research

Environmental Modeling & Assessment - This article introduces and describes OPERA, a new technology-rich bottom-up energy system optimization model for the Netherlands. We give a detailed...     

Usability of the climate-resilient nature-based sand motor pilot,The Netherlands

Coastline maintenance in the Netherlands, formally in place since 1990, aims at a sustainable preservation of coastal flood protection. Over 25 years annual assessments, comparing the actual coastline positions with the 1990 reference position of the coastline, have governed the execution of sand nourishments following an adaptive management method. This method involves yearly assessment of the coastline based on measurements, design and adoption of nourishment strategies and measures and execution of the nourishments. This management approach has enabled learning and introduction of innovations in coastline maintenance. For instance, in comparison to the early nineties, nourishments are now placed more on the foreshore and the yearly nourishment budget has doubled. The most recent innovation in coastline maintenance is the ‘Sand Motor’, a nature-based nourishment approach, which concentrates the regular nourishments in space and time, given that natural processes should redistribute the sediment over the wider coastal system. In contrast to regular nourishments, the Sand Motor combines flood protection with nature and recreational objectives and is much larger in dimensions. Five years after the construction of the Sand Motor we investigate its usability in this article. We present the results of first Sand Motor evaluation and draw conclusion on the adoption and usefulness of it for coastline management from the perspective of the adaptive management method used in coastline maintenance. Recent evaluation of the monitoring data shows that the large amount of sand used for the Sand Motor has a positive impact on coastal protection. Bridging between the Sand Motor pilot and daily nourishement practice is however not yet achieved.     

Tit for tat among neighboring hooded warblers

Summary The dear-enemy relationship of territorial songbirds could be mutually beneficial to neighbors, as males who recognize neighbors and reduce their responses to these neighbors would require less time and energy for territorial defense. In order for this relationship to be evolutionarily stable, this reduction in response to a neighbor must be conditional on reciprocal restraint by that neighbor. This study examined the possibility of such conditional responses in hooded warblers (Wilsonia citrina). Responses of territorial hooded warblers to playbacks of neighbors' songs from shared boundaries were measured before and after playbacks that simulated intrusions of those same neighbors (NNNN treatment) or strange birds (NSSN treatment) into the subjects' territories. Each male received both treatments separated by at least 8 days. Males increased their responses to playbacks of a neighbor's songs at the boundary after simulated intrusions of that same neighbor (NNNN) but did not increase their responses to such playbacks after simulated intrusions of strangers (NSSN). This increased response to a defecting neighbor suggests that the relationship between neighboring territorial hooded warblers is based on a conditional strategy like tit-for-tat.     

Solving mercury (Hg) speciation in soil samples by synchrotron X-ray microspectroscopic techniques

Direct mercury (Hg) speciation was assessed for soil samples with a Hg concentration ranging from 7 up to 240 mg kg⁻¹. Hg chemical forms were identified and quantified by sequential extractions and bulk- and micro-analytical techniques exploiting synchrotron generated X-rays. In particular, microspectroscopic techniques such as μ-XRF, μ-XRD and μ-XANES were necessary to solve bulk Hg speciation, in both soil fractions <2 mm and <2 μm. The main Hg-species found in the soil samples were metacinnabar (β-HgS), cinnabar (α-HgS), corderoite (Hg₃S₂Cl₂), and an amorphous phase containing Hg bound to chlorine and sulfur. The amount of metacinnabar and amorphous phases increased in the fraction <2 μm. No interaction among Hg-species and soil components was observed. All the observed Hg-species originated from the slow weathering of an inert Hg-containing waste material (K106, U.S. EPA) dumped in the area several years ago, which is changing into a relatively more dangerous source of pollution.     

GARCH modelling in association with FFT–ARIMA to forecast ozone episodes

In operational forecasting of the surface O₃ by statistical modelling, it is customary to assume the O₃ time series to be generated through a homoskedastic process. In the present work, we’ve taken heteroskedasticity of the O₃ time series explicitly into account and have shown how it resulted in O₃ forecasts with improved forecast confidence intervals. Moreover, it also enabled us to make more accurate probability forecasts of ozone episodes in the urban areas. The study has been conducted on daily maximum O₃ time series for four urban sites of two major European cities, Brussels and London. The sites are: Brussels (Molenbeek) (B1), Brussels (PARL.EUROPE) (B2), London (Brent) (L1) and London (Bloomsbury) (L2). Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) has been used to model the periodicities (annual periodicity is especially distinct) exhibited by the time series. The residuals of “actual data subtracted with their corresponding FFT component” exhibited stationarity and have been modelled using ARIMA (Autoregressive Integrated Moving Average) process. The MAPEs (Mean absolute percentage errors) using FFT–ARIMA for one day ahead 100 out of sample forecasts, were obtained as follows: 20%, 17.8%, 19.7% and 23.6% at the sites B1, B2, L1 and L2. The residuals obtained through FFT–ARIMA have been modelled using GARCH (Generalized Autoregressive Conditional Heteroskedastic) process. The conditional standard deviations obtained using GARCH have been used to estimate the improved forecast confidence intervals and to make probability forecasts of ozone episodes. At the sites B1, B2, L1 and L2, 91.3%, 90%, 70.6% and 53.8% of the times probability forecasts of ozone episodes (for one day ahead 30 out of sample) have correctly been made using GARCH as against 82.6%, 80%, 58.8% and 38.4% without GARCH. The incorporation of GARCH also significantly reduced the no. of false alarms raised by the models.     

The availability of copper in soils historically amended with sewage sludge, manure, and compost

Metals in soils amended with sewage sludge are typically less available compared with those in soils spiked with soluble metal salts. However, it is unclear if this difference remains in the long term. A survey of copper (Cu) availability was made in soils amended with sewage sludge, manure, and compost, collectively named organic amendments. Paired sets of amended and control soils were collected from 22 field trials where the organic amendments had aged up to 112 yr. Amended soils had higher total Cu concentrations (range, 2-220 mg Cu kg; median, 15 mg Cu kg) and organic C (range, 1-16 g kg; median, 4 g kg) than control soils. All samples were freshly spiked with CuCl, and the toxicity of added Cu to barley was compared between amended and control soils. The toxicity of added Cu was significantly lower in amended soils than in control soil in 15 sets by, on average, a factor of 1.4, suggesting that aged amendments do not largely increase Cu binding sites. The fraction of added Cu that is isotopic exchangeable Cu (labile Cu) was compared between control soils freshly spiked with CuCl and amended soils with both soils at identical total Cu concentrations. Copper derived from amendments was significantly less labile (on average 5.9-fold) than freshly added Cu in 18 sets of soils. This study shows that Cu availability after long-term applications of organic amendments is lower than that of freshly added Cu salts, mainly because of its lower availability in the original matrix and ageing reactions than because of increased metal binding sites in soil.     

Domestic sampling: exposure assessment to moth repellent products using ultrasonic extraction and capillary GC-MS

Moth repellent agents are considered major contributors to indoor air pollution. In this study, the chemical contamination of clothes due to their direct or indirect exposure to moth repellent agents such as p-dichlorobenzene, naphthalene and camphor were investigated. Cotton cloths were used as clothing simulant. They were analyzed using ultrasonic extraction followed by GC-MS analysis. Extrapolated results indicate that a regular cotton shirt indirectly exposed to these chemicals in a storage cabinet can contain up to 7, 3 and 7.5mg of p-dichlorobenzene, naphthalene and camphor, respectively, even after one-hour of airing. Passive sorptive sampling using polydimethylsiloxane-coated stir-bars and ultrasonic extraction followed by GC-MS analysis was used to monitor the concentration distribution in a wardrobe.     

Air-quality modelling in the Lake Baikal region

In this paper, we assess the status of the air quality in the Lake Baikal region which is strongly influenced by the presence of anthropogenic pollution sources. We combined the local data, with global databases, remote sensing imagery and modelling tools. This approach allows to inventorise the air-polluting sources and to quantify the air-quality concentration levels in the Lake Baikal region to a reasonable level, despite the fact that local data are scarcely available. In the simulations, we focus on the month of July 2003, as for this period, validation data are available for a number of ground-based measurement stations within the Lake Baikal region.