Indigenous pig production and welfare of ultra-poor ethnic minority households in the Northern mountains of Vietnam

Environment, Development and Sustainability - Eliminating ultra-poverty has received particular attention of policymakers and scholars. The ultra-poor in mountainous regions often live on...     

A dental stool with chest support reduces lower back muscle activation

Activation of back musculature during work tasks leads to fatigue and potential injury. This is especially prevalent in dentists who perform much of their work from a seated position. We examined the use of an ergonomic dental stool with mid-sternum chest support for reducing lower back muscle activation. Electromyography of lower back extensors was assessed from 30 dental students for 20?s during three conditions in random order: (a) sitting upright at 90° of hip flexion on a standard stool, (b) leaning forward at 80° of hip flexion on a standard stool, and (c) leaning forward at 80° of hip flexion while sitting on an ergonomic stool. Muscular activity of the back extensors was reduced when using the ergonomic stool compared to the standard stool, by 33–50% (p?相似文献   

Towards eco-agro industrial clusters in aquatic production: the case of shrimp processing industry in Vietnam

The concept of industrial ecology has been applied in this research to study possibilities to develop an eco-industrial cluster model for fishery production industry in Vietnam. By learning from experiments of other developed countries, we apply the principles of Industrial Ecology and of Ecological Modernization in the context of Vietnam. We design a physical-technological conceptual model for minimizing waste in agro-industries, with a case study of frozen shrimp production. The results indicate that it is possible and feasible to develop an eco-industrial cluster including aquaculture, fishery processing companies, by-product plants, and wastewater treatment units. By doing so, aquaculture and industry can cooperate for environmentally sound development. Actors and institutions that may govern the proposed eco-industrial cluster of shrimp processing industry are also analysed in this paper. The economic feasibility of the designed eco-agro industrial cluster for fish production in Vietnam depends on the energy savings and effective revenues gained from selling the produced valuable materials, such as Chitosan and animal feed.     

Processes in informal end-processing of e-waste generated from personal computers in Vietnam

Informal treatment of e-waste plays an important role in many countries which have no or weak formal waste management structures. One of the challenges for assessing informal e-waste recycling technologies is to identify their disadvantages and potential technology improvement. The analysis of informal recycling processes starts with a balance of input and output materials for each of the processes. Main obstacles are the fact that in most cases, mixed or variety materials serve as input and, secondly by nature, the informal sector does not systematically measure and monitor the process. This study presents the processes and available data for informal e-waste recycling of desktop personal computer as it consists of components made of plastic and many metals within the Vietnamese context. To identify the most relevant processes, critical flows and technology gap, two scenarios are compared: (1) current situation in which recycling activities are taken in recycling craft villages and (2) appropriately selected BAT. The selected materials from e-waste cover a wide range of recycling processes and technologies: Printed Circuit Board treatment, metal (ferrous metal, aluminum and copper) and plastic recycling.

     

Steel slag quality control for road construction aggregates and its environmental impact: case study of Vietnamese steel industry—leaching of heavy metals from steel-making slag

Environmental Science and Pollution Research - Steel slag is an industrial by product of steel manufacturing processes and has been widely utilized within civil and construction materials for road...     

Prediction of groundwater nitrate concentration in a semiarid region using hybrid Bayesian artificial intelligence approaches

Environmental Science and Pollution Research - Nitrate is a major pollutant in groundwater whose main source is municipal wastewater and agricultural activities. In the present study, Bayesian...     

The health benefits of reduced tropospheric ozone in California

Californians are exposed daily to concentrations of ozone (O3) that are among the highest in the United States. Recently, the state adopted a new 8-hr ambient standard of 0.070 ppm, more stringent than the current federal standard. The new standard is based on controlled human studies and on dozens of epidemiologic studies reporting associations between O3 at current ambient levels and a wide range of adverse health outcomes. Clearly, the new O3 standards will require further reductions in the precursor pollutants and additional expenditures for pollution control. Therefore, it is important to quantify the incremental health benefits of moving from current conditions to the new California standard. In this paper, a standard methodology is applied to quantify the health benefits associated with O3 concentration reductions in California. O3 concentration reductions are estimated using ambient monitoring data and a proportional rollback approach in which changes are specific to each air basin, and control strategies may impact concentrations both below and above the standard. Health impacts are based on published epidemiologic studies, including O3-related mortality and morbidity, and economic values are assigned to these outcomes based on willingness-to-pay and cost-of-illness studies. Central estimates of this research indicate that attaining the California 8-hr standard, relative to current concentrations, would result in annual reductions of 630 cases of premature mortality, 4200 respiratory hospital admissions, 660 pediatric emergency room visits for asthma, 4.7 million days of school loss, and 3.1 million minor restricted activity days, with a median estimated economic value of dollar 4.5 billion. Sensitivity analyses indicate that these findings are robust with respect to exposure assessment methods but are influenced by assumptions about the slope of the concentration-response function in threshold models and the magnitude of the O3-mortality relationship. Although uncertainties exist for several components of the methodology, these results indicate that the benefits of reducing O3 to the California standard may be substantial and that further research on the shape of the O3-mortality concentration-response function and economic value of O3-related mortality would best reduce these uncertainties.     

The impacts of local farming system development trajectories on greenhouse gas emissions in the northern mountains of Vietnam

The northern mountain region of Vietnam (NMR) is dominated by swidden/fallow farming systems. The fallow land of these systems is populated by small trees and bushes. Since the 1960s the government of Vietnam has tried to limit or stop swiddening and replace it with permanent upland agricultural fields, paddy, fruit trees and animal husbandry. Discussion in the policy debate and literature focuses on the impacts these changes have on local people’s livelihoods. There have been no attempts to evaluate the impact of these changes on greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. This paper examines the realities of current farming system changes taking place at the hamlet level and other changes that could take place due to government land use policies and extension programs. The paper answers the following questions: How could farming system changes influence net GHGs? Which farming system changes in the NMR, the trajectories of changes that are currently observed or those that would be followed if farmers adhere strictly to government policies and programs, will have a greater affect on the GHG contributions from agriculture in the region? Could ‘clean development mechanism’ (CDM) projects make a difference in the profitability of the pathways mentioned? Results show: (1) if farming systems in the NMR continue along currently observed change trajectories there will be increases in GHG emissions; (2) if the NMR farming systems change according to government policies and programs there will be a net sequestration of carbon in regrowing vegetation during the initial 20 years; (3) over the longer term, in areas where systems change to fit government policies, increased GHG emissions from other changes in the farming systems (e.g. increased paddy and increased pig raising in sties) will overtake the amounts of carbon sequestered in vegetation; (4) CMD projects only make a difference if (a) maximum biomass potential of regrowing fallow can be reached; (b) a favourable baseline is chosen; (c) timing and length of the accounting period is correct; and (d) farmers do not take compensatory action in response to government policies. Given these conditions it does not appear that currently envisioned clean development mechanisms would be beneficial to farmers in the NMR.     

Phytoremediation potential of indigenous plants from Thai Nguyen province, Vietnam

This study was focused on determining Arsenic (As), Lead (Pb), Cadmium (Cd) and Zinc (Zn) in 33 indigenous plants and 12 soil in-situ plant samples in Thai Nguyen Province, Vietnam. The results showed that the soils of surveyed mining areas contained 181.2- 6754.3 mg kg(-1) As, 235.5-4337.2 mg kg(-1) Pb, 0.8- 419 mg kg(-1) Cd and 361.8-17565.1 mg kg(-1) Zn depending on the characteristics of each mining site. These values are much higher than those typical for normal soil. The heavy metal uptake into shoots and roots of 33 indigenous plant species was also determined. Two species of the plants investigated, Pteris vittata L. and Pityrogramma calomelanos L. were As hyperaccumulators, containing more than 0.1% heavy metals in their shoots. Eleusine indica L., Cynodon dactylon L., Cyperus rotundus L. and Equisetum ramosissimum (Vauch) accumulate very high Pb (0.15-0.65%) and Zn (0.22-1.56%) concentration in their roots. Additional experiments to clarify the potential of six these plants as good candidates for phytoremediation of heavy metal pollution soil are being carried out in our laboratory.     

Linearized and nonlinearized modellings for comparative uptake assessment of metal-organic framework-derived nanocomposite towards sulfonamide antibiotics

Environmental Science and Pollution Research - The emergent occurrence of sulfonamide species involving sulfadiazine (SDZ) and sulfamethazine (SMZ) in aquatic systems can cause a wide range of...