Annoyance caused by air pollution is a matter of public health as it can cause stress and ill-health and affect quality of life, among other burdens. The aim of this study is to apply the multiple correspondence analyses (MCA) technique as a differential tooling to explore relationships between variables that can influence peoples’ behaviour concerning annoyance caused by air pollution. Data were collected through a survey on air pollution, environmental issues and quality of life. Face-to-face survey studies were conducted in two industrialized urban areas (Vitoria in Brazil and Dunkirk in France). These two regions were chosen as their inhabitants often report feeling annoyed by air pollution, and both regions have similar industrial characteristics. The results showed a progressive correspondence between levels of annoyance and other active variables in the “air pollution” factor group: as the levels of annoyance increased, the levels of the other qualitative variables (importance of air quality, perceived exposure to industrial risk, assessment of air quality, perceived air pollution) also increased. Respondents who reported feeling annoyed by air pollution also thought that air quality was very important and were very concerned about exposure to industrial risks. Furthermore, they often assessed air quality as horrible, and they could frequently perceive air pollution by dust, odours and decreased visibility. The results also showed a statistically significant association between occurrence of allergies and high levels of annoyance.
NitroMAC (French acronym for continuous atmospheric measurements of nitrogenous compounds) is an instrument which has been developed for the semi-continuous measurement of atmospheric nitrous acid (HONO). This instrument relies on wet chemical sampling and detection using high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC)-visible absorption at 540 nm. Sampling proceeds by dissolution of gaseous HONO in a phosphate buffer solution followed by derivatization with sulfanilamide/N-(1-naphthyl)-ethylenediamine. The performance of this instrument was found to be as follows: a detection limit of around 3 ppt with measurement uncertainty of 10% over an analysis time of 10 min. Intercomparison was made between the instrument and a long-path absorption photometer (LOPAP) during two experiments in different environments. First, air was sampled in a smog chamber with concentrations up to 18 ppb of nitrous acid. NitroMAC and LOPAP measurements showed very good agreement. Then, in a second experiment, ambient air with HONO concentrations below 250 ppt was sampled. While NitroMAC showed its capability of measuring HONO in moderate and highly polluted environments, the intercomparison results in ambient air highlighted that corrections must be made for minor interferences when low concentrations are measured. 相似文献
Brownfields are abandoned, idled, or underused sites whose reuse necessitates some sort of intervention. These sites are largely
urban and are frequently contaminated. Brownfield management options can be associated with three types of environmental consequences:
those resulting from changes in the site’s environmental quality (primary impacts); those resulting from the actual intervention
stage (secondary impacts); and, if the vocation of the site changes, those resulting from effects on regional land use (tertiary
impacts). Different stakeholders and decision-making contexts will place a different importance on each of these types of
impacts. This article proposes a framework for comparing brownfield management options in regard to these three types of environmental
impacts and for interpreting these results from different perspectives. The assessment framework is based on consequential
life cycle assessment (LCA), which is shown to provide environmental information on the three types of impacts. The results
for a case study are presented, where a “rehabilitation” option allowing residential redevelopment is compared to an “exposure
minimization” option not resulting in the site being reused. Calculated primary and tertiary impacts are favorable to the
rehabilitation option, whereas secondary impacts are favorable to the exposure minimization option. A ternary diagram presents
the favorable option for different stereotypical perspectives. Tertiary impacts are much greater than secondary impacts, and
consequently all perspectives that consider tertiary impacts favor rehabilitation. The perspective that considers primary
and secondary impacts receives conflicting information. The ternary diagram, showing results for all perspectives, could possibly
be useful for consensus-building among stakeholders. 相似文献
In many European countries, milk production per cow has more than doubled in the last 40 years. The increase in production has been accompanied by declining ability to reproduce, increasing incidence of health problems, and declining longevity in modern dairy cows. Genetic selection for increased milk yield increasingly is viewed as increasing profit at the expense of reducing animal welfare. The economic future of the dairy industry is related directly to public acceptance of its breeding and production practices. It is important to the dairy industry that welfare problems should be addressed before there is widespread condemnation of breeding and management practices. A new breeding goal aimed at improving fitness and tolerance of metabolic stress is necessary to prevent the decrease in the quality of life of dairy cows and instead, perhaps, enhance it. 相似文献
A non-discharging evapotranspiration bed system installed on a dairy farm at Lincoln University was studied to evaluate actual evapotranspiration rate, ETa, to develop and validate a water balance model for the system, and to assess the feasible application of the vaporative concept for wastewater disposal in the immediate geographic area. Observations, measurements, and calculations indicate that ETa was slightly higher than the meteorologically estimated Penman potential ET (ETp) for the study period, and a ratio =ETa/ETp=1.21 was obtained. A water-balance equation of the system which can be used in different climatic conditions was obtained and can be written as W=Q+PPTN–Eta; where W is the variation of storage water in the bed (in mm), Q is the effluent wastewater (in mm), and PPTN is the total precipitation. It was also observed that a truly non-discharging ET bed system's feasible application in the study location may be highly questionable. This is due to the fact that the precipitation rate for the location generally exceeds the ETp during critical Winter months. However, two possibilities of improving the performance of the system were found and suggested for further studies. The suggestions were (1) to design the system with its surface adequately crowned to shed large amounts of rain water falling on it, and (2) to design a winter-sheltered-non-discharging ET bed which would consist of an ET bed with a removable transparent plastic roof to shed the total amount of rain water and act as a green house 相似文献
Temperature is expected to have an effect on the behavioral patterns of all organisms, especially ectotherms. However, although several studies focused on the effect of temperature on acoustic displays in both insects and anurans, almost nothing is known about how environmental temperature may affect ectotherm visual courtship displays and sexual performance. The purpose of this study was to determine the effect of environmental temperature on the sexual behavior of Alpine newts (Triturus alpestris). We subjected T. alpestris to two different temperatures in controlled laboratory conditions. Temperature had a major effect on both male and female behaviors: at low temperature, the frequencies of several displays, including tail-raising during sperm deposition, are lowered. This variation is caused indirectly by temperature because it is due to female responsiveness, which is temperature-dependent. However, the fanning movement of the males tail during its main courtship display is independent of female behavior: at lower temperatures, the tail beats at a lower rate, but for a longer time. The similar reproductive success (i.e. sperm transfer) at the two temperature ranges indicates that breeding in cold water is not costly but instead allows males and females to mate early in the season. This is particularly adaptive because, in many habitats, the reproductive period is shortened by drying or freezing conditions, which may impair survival of branchiate offspring. This study also demonstrates the necessity of considering environmental parameters when modeling optimality and characteristics of ectotherm behaviors.Communicated by W. Cooper 相似文献
Summary. 22-Acetyl-20-hydroxyecdysone was identified
as a major component in the secretion of elytral and pronotal
glands of Chrysolina carnifex, at an estimated concentration
of 1.5 x 10-1 M. This unexpected high concentration
of an ecdysteroid in an exocrine secretion of an insect is
discussed in terms of its potential defensive function, and in
the light of steroid production in similar glands of closely
related leaf beetles. 相似文献