National contributions to global ecosystem values

Current conservation templates prioritize biogeographic regions with high intensity ecosystem values, such as exceptional species richness or threat. Intensity-based targets are an important consideration in global efforts, but they do not capture all available opportunities to conserve ecosystem values, including those that accrue in low intensity over large areas. We assess six globally-significant ecosystem values—intact wilderness, freshwater availability, productive marine environments, breeding habitat for migratory wildlife, soil carbon storage, and latitudinal potential for range shift in the face of climate change—to highlight opportunities for high-impact broadly-distributed contributions to global conservation. Nations can serve as a cohesive block of policy that can profoundly influence conservation outcomes. Contributions to global ecosystem values that exceed what is predicted by a nation's area alone, can give rise to countries with the capacity to act as ‘conservation superpowers’, such as Canada and Russia. For these conservation superpowers, a relatively small number of national policies can have environmental repercussions for the rest of the world.     

Mineral landscapes: The next ten years?

A review of changes in approach to the restoration of mineral sites in Britain since the introduction of planning control in 1947, together with likely trends for the next decade.The period has seen great technological advances in the capacity of machinery, increased demand, and more rapid rates of extraction. The resulting re-organisation of the industry through mergers and take-overs has led to concentration into fewer and larger units of production, with the parallel closure of many smaller works and quarries. It is to assess the significance of such changes in their effect upon both restoration and after-use that this study has been prepared.     

Acoustic orientation via sequential comparison in an ultrasonic moth

Orientation of female lesser wax moths (Achroia grisella) to male calling song was tested on a locomotion-compensator device that withheld all inter-aural acoustic differences from the insect. Under these circumstances, females remained longer in the vicinity of the sound source if they experienced a variable sound level that increased when approaching the source rather than a level that remained constant at all times. Analyses of orientation paths revealed that greater retention near the source was achieved by enhanced turning when the perceived sound level remained unchanged or decreased but retaining the previous heading when the level increased. These findings suggest that acoustic orientation can be supplemented by mechanisms based on sequential, as opposed to instantaneous, comparison of auditory input. Such mechanisms may be valuable when binaural hearing is impaired or asymmetric or in environments where acoustic differences at the two ears are unreliable indications of direction to the sound source.     

Early impacts of alcoholic beverage warning labels: national study findings relevant to drinking and driving behavior

After November, 1989 Federal law required a standard health warning label on all alcoholic beverage containers sold for consumption in the U.S. Results are reported from a cross-sectional national household telephone interview survey of adults, occurring approximately 6 months after implementation of the warning labels (N=2000). Implications for health warnings with respect to information processing theory, the Health Belief Model, and other theories relevant to precaution adoption are briefly reviewed and two derivative hypotheses are tested using log-linear analysis. Relationships between various personal characteristics and (a) seeing the label and (b) recalling the driving impairment message are examined for consistency with theoretical expectations. We also examine associations between message recall, drinking style, and two precautionary behaviors undertaken to avoid drinking and driving. Adjusting for apparent false positives, approximately a quarter of the sample have noticed the label 6 months after its introduction; 16% recalled the specific driving impairment message. As hypothesized, exposure to the warning was predicted primarily by consumption pattern but also was associated with a personal salience factor, that is, ever having drunk alcohol so as to be at risk when driving. About a quarter of the heavy drinkers (5 drinks or more per occasion sometime and drinking at least weekly) who ever drank and drove saw the specific warning. Of two self-regulation strategies — limiting driving after drinking and limiting drinking when about to drive — the latter was the more prevalent. Both strategies were reported more by those who were heavy drinkers, those recalling the driving impairment message, and those perceiving driving after drinking to be very dangerous, than by other individuals.     

A parametric model of child body shape in seated postures

Objective: The shape of the current physical and computational surrogates of children used for restraint system assessments is based largely on standard anthropometric dimensions. These scalar dimensions provide valuable information on the overall size of the individual but do not provide good guidance on shape or posture. This study introduced the development of a parametric model that statistically predicts individual child body shapes in seated postures with a few given parameters.

Methods: Surface geometry data from a laser scanner of children ages 3 to 11 (n = 135) were standardized by a 2-level fitting method using intermediate templates. The standardized data were analyzed by principal component analysis (PCA) to efficiently describe the body shape variance. Parameters such as stature, body mass index, erect sitting height, and 2 posture variables related to torso recline and lumbar spine flexion were associated with the PCA model using regression.

Results: When the original scan data were compared with the predictions of the model using the given subject dimensions, the average root mean square error for the torso was 9.5 mm, and the 95th percentile error was 17.35 mm.

Conclusions: For the first time, a statistical model of child body shapes in seated postures is available. This parametric model allows the generation of an infinite number of virtual children spanning a wide range of body sizes and postures. The results have broad applicability in product design and safety analysis. Future work is needed to improve the representation of hands and feet and to extend the age range of the model. The model presented in this article is publicly available online through HumanShape.org.     

Factors impacting on pharmaceutical leaching following sewage application to land

Sewage effluent application to land is a treatment technology that requires appropriate consideration of various design factors. Soil type, level of sewage pre-treatment and irrigation rate were assessed for their influence on the success of soil treatment in removing pharmaceuticals remaining after conventional sewage treatment. A large scale experimental site was built to assess treatment performance in a realistic environment. Of the factors investigated, soil type had the biggest impact on treatment performance. In particular, carbamazepine was very efficiently removed (>99%) when irrigated onto a volcanic sandy loam soil. This was in contrast to irrigation onto a sandy soil where no carbamazepine removal occurred after irrigation. Differences were likely caused by the presence of allophane in the volcanic soil which is able to accumulate a high level of organic matter. Carbamazepine apparent adsorption distribution coefficients (K(d)) for both soils when irrigated with treated sewage effluent were determined as 25 L kg(-1) for the volcanic soil and 0.08 L kg(-1) for the sandy soil. Overall, a volcanic soil was reasonably efficient in removing carbamazepine while soil type was not a major factor for caffeine removal. Removal of caffeine, however, was more efficient when a partially treated rather than fully treated effluent was applied. Based on the investigated pharmaceuticals and given an appropriate design, effluent irrigation onto land, in conjunction with conventional sewage treatment may be considered a beneficial treatment for pharmaceutical removal.     

Mechanisms of selective attention in grasshopper choruses: who listens to whom?

In many rhythmically signaling species of acoustic insects and anurans, males form choruses at typical population densities. Recent findings that females may prefer leading calls indicate that the timing of a male's signals relative to those of neighboring choruses is an important component of mate attraction. Within a chorus, however, males cannot time their calls such that they lead all neighbors. Hence, they are expected to show selective attention toward only a subset of the group. We used field playback experiments to determine the incidence of and mechanism(s) responsible for selective attention in choruses of the territorial grasshoppers Ligurotettix coquilletti and L. planum. Our data revealed significant selective attention in both species and are inconsistent with either fixed-threshold or fixed-number mechanisms. Rather, regulation of selective attention by a sliding-threshold mechanism is supported. We discuss these results in the context of the evolution of chorus structure. Received: 24 September 1997 / Accepted after revision: 28 February 1998     

Combined analysis of modeled and monitored SO2 concentrations at a complex smelting facility

Vale Canada Limited owns and operates a large nickel smelting facility located in Sudbury, Ontario. This is a complex facility with many sources of SO₂ emissions, including a mix of source types ranging from passive building roof vents to North America's tallest stack. In addition, as this facility performs batch operations, there is significant variability in the emission rates depending on the operations that are occurring. Although SO₂ emission rates for many of the sources have been measured by source testing, the reliability of these emission rates has not been tested from a dispersion modeling perspective. This facility is a significant source of SO₂ in the local region, making it critical that when modeling the emissions from this facility for regulatory or other purposes, that the resulting concentrations are representative of what would actually be measured or otherwise observed. To assess the accuracy of the modeling, a detailed analysis of modeled and monitored data for SO₂ at the facility was performed. A mobile SO₂ monitor sampled at five locations downwind of different source groups for different wind directions resulting in a total of 168 hr of valid data that could be used for the modeled to monitored results comparison. The facility was modeled in AERMOD (American Meteorological Society/U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Regulatory Model) using site-specific meteorological data such that the modeled periods coincided with the same times as the monitored events. In addition, great effort was invested into estimating the actual SO₂ emission rates that would likely be occurring during each of the monitoring events. SO₂ concentrations were modeled for receptors around each monitoring location so that the modeled data could be directly compared with the monitored data. The modeled and monitored concentrations were compared and showed that there were no systematic biases in the modeled concentrations.

Implications:

This paper is a case study of a Combined Analysis of Modelled and Monitored Data (CAMM), which is an approach promulgated within air quality regulations in the Province of Ontario, Canada. Although combining dispersion models and monitoring data to estimate or refine estimates of source emission rates is not a new technique, this study shows how, with a high degree of rigor in the design of the monitoring and filtering of the data, it can be applied to a large industrial facility, with a variety of emission sources. The comparison of modeled and monitored SO₂ concentrations in this case study also provides an illustration of the AERMOD model performance for a large industrial complex with many sources, at short time scales in comparison with monitored data. Overall, this analysis demonstrated that the AERMOD model performed well.     

Passenger head kinematics in abrupt braking and lane change events

Abstract

Objective: A test track study was conducted to quantify patterns of adult front seat passenger head motion during abrupt vehicle maneuvers.

Method: Eighty-seven men and women with a wide range of body sizes and ages participated in data collection on a closed test track in a passenger sedan under manual control by a test driver. Because a primary goal of the study was to gather “unaware” data, the participants were instructed that the study was concerned with vehicle dynamics and they were required to read from a questionnaire taped to the top of their thighs as the drive began. The first event was a hard brake (approximately 1 g) to a stop from 35?mph (56 kph). Within the space of approximately 5?min the participants also experienced an aggressive lane change, a sharp right turn with simultaneous hard braking, and a second hard braking event. A Microsoft Kinect v2 sensor was positioned to view the area around the front passenger seat. Head location was tracked using the Kinect data with a novel methodology that fit 3D head scan data to the depth data acquired in the vehicle.

Result: The mean (standard deviation) forward excursion of the estimated head center of gravity (CG) location in the first braking event was 135 (62) mm. The forward head CG excursion in the second braking event of 115 (51) mm was significantly less than that in the first, but the difference was small relative to the within-condition variance. Head excursion on the second braking trial was less than that on the first trial for 69% of participants. The mean maximum inboard head excursion in lane-change maneuvers was 118 (40) mm. Forward head excursions in braking were significantly smaller for older passengers and those with higher body mass index, but the combined factors accounted for less than 25% of the variance. Inboard head excursion in the lane-change event was significantly related to stature, but only about 7% of variance was related to body size. Head excursions for men and women did not differ significantly after accounting for body size.

Discussion: This is the first quantitative occupant dynamics study to use a large, diverse sample of passengers, enabling the exploration of the effects of covariates such as age and body size.

Conclusions: The data demonstrate that a relatively large range of head positions can be expected to result from abrupt vehicle maneuvers. The data do not support simple scaling of excursions based on body size.