The role of media exposure, social exposure and biospheric value orientation in the environmental attitude-intention-behavior model in adolescents

This paper explores the hypothesis that contextual environments (media exposure and social exposure) and biospheric value orientation are important antecedents to the attitude-intention-behavior model ( [Ajzen, 2001] and [Ajzen, 2002] ) in the context of environmental psychology. Data for this investigation were obtained from a random sample of 2106 (1073 males and 1025 females) high school students in Hong Kong. A path analysis demonstrates that adolescents’ social exposure and media exposure are associated with biospheric value orientation. The biosperhic value orientation is found to mediate between the contextual variables (media exposure and social exposure) and environmental attitude. This environmental attitude, in turn, mediates the relationship between this value orientation and behavioral intention to act environmentally. Results show that both adolescents’ behavioral intention and degree of social exposure are associated with their environmental behavior. Overall, this article provides empirical support for the proposed path model. The article concludes by presenting theoretical and practical implications for future research in environmental psychology.     

College and university environmental programs as a policy problem (part 2): strategies for improvement

Environmental studies and environmental sciences programs in American and Canadian colleges and universities seek to ameliorate environmental problems through empirical enquiry and analytic judgment. In a companion article (Part 1) we describe the environmental program movement (EPM) and discuss factors that have hindered its performance. Here, we complete our analysis by proposing strategies for improvement. We recommend that environmental programs re-organize around three principles. First, adopt as an overriding goal the concept of human dignity??defined as freedom and social justice in healthy, sustainable environments. This clear higher-order goal captures the human and environmental aspirations of the EPM and would provide a more coherent direction for the efforts of diverse participants. Second, employ an explicit, genuinely interdisciplinary analytical framework that facilitates the use of multiple methods to investigate and address environmental and social problems in context. Third, develop educational programs and applied experiences that provide students with the technical knowledge, powers of observation, critical thinking skills and management acumen required for them to become effective professionals and leaders. Organizing around these three principles would build unity in the EPM while at the same time capitalizing on the strengths of the many disciplines and diverse local conditions involved.     

Institutional,Individual, and Socio-Cultural Domains of Partnerships: A Typology of USDA Forest Service Recreation Partners

Federal land management agencies, such as the USDA Forest Service, have expanded the role of recreation partners reflecting constrained growth in appropriations and broader societal trends towards civic environmental governance. Partnerships with individual volunteers, service groups, commercial outfitters, and other government agencies provide the USDA Forest Service with the resources necessary to complete projects and meet goals under fiscal constraints. Existing partnership typologies typically focus on collaborative or strategic alliances and highlight organizational dimensions (e.g., structure and process) defined by researchers. This paper presents a partner typology constructed from USDA Forest Service partnership practitioners’ conceptualizations of 35 common partner types. Multidimensional scaling of data from unconstrained pile sorts identified 3 distinct cultural dimensions of recreation partners—specifically, partnership character, partner impact, and partner motivations—that represent institutional, individual, and socio-cultural cognitive domains. A hierarchical agglomerative cluster analysis provides further insight into the various domains of agency personnel’s conceptualizations. While three dimensions with high reliability (RSQ = 0.83) and corresponding hierarchical clusters illustrate commonality between agency personnel’s partnership suppositions, this study also reveals variance in personnel’s familiarity and affinity for specific partnership types. This real-world perspective on partner types highlights that agency practitioners not only make strategic choices when selecting and cultivating partnerships to accomplish critical task, but also elect to work with partners for the primary purpose of providing public service and fostering land stewardship.     

Determination of the swimming trajectory and speed of chain-forming dinoflagellate <Emphasis Type="Italic">Cochlodinium polykrikoides</Emphasis> with digital holographic particle tracking velocimetry

The marine dinoflagellate Cochlodinium polykrikoides is a harmful and highly motile algal species. To distinguish between the motility characteristics of solitary and chain-forming cells, the swimming trajectories and speeds of solitary cells and 2- to 8-cell chains of C. polykrikoides were measured using a digital holographic particle tracking velocimetry (PTV) technique. C. polykrikoides cells exhibited helical swimming trajectories similar to other dinoflagellate species. The swimming speed increased as the number of cells in the chain increased, from an average of 391 μm s⁻¹ (solitary cells) to 856 μm s⁻¹ (8-cell chain). The helix radius R and pitch P also increased as the number of cells in the chain increased. R increased from 9.24 μm (solitary cell) to 20.3 μm (8-cell chain) and P increased from 107 μm (solitary cell) to 164 μm (8-cell chain). The free thrust-generating motion of the transverse flagella and large drag reduction in the chain-forming cells seemed to increase the swimming speed compared to solitary cells. The measured swimming speeds agreed with those from field observations. The superior motility of chain-forming C. polykrikoides cells may be an important factor for its bloom, in addition to the factors reported previously.     

Inhibitory effect of antioxidants on the benz[a]anthracene-induced oxidative DNA damage in lymphocyte

Benz[a]anthracene is a ubiquitous environmental contaminant formed during the incomplete combustion of organic material. Some of the metabolites of benz[a]anthracene are known to be toxic and carcinogenic. In this investigation, benz[a]anthracene-induced oxidative damage to lymphocyte DNA was evaluated with the Comet assay (single cell gel electrophoresis). The level of oxidative DNA damage caused by benz[a]anthracene increased in a dose-dependent manner (24, 49) and oxidative DNA damage was significantly inhibited by 5 and 10 microg ml(-1) ascorbate, 5 microg ml(-1) polyphenols, as well as 5 and 10 microg ml(-1) curcumin. Moreover, traditional Korean medicinal herbs such as Acanthopanax and ginseng significantly reduced DNA damage. The results demonstrate that antioxidant supplementation to lymphocytes inhibits oxidative DNA damage in vitro, supporting an inhibitory effect against oxidative DNA damage, probably due to reduction of reactive oxygen species production induced by benz[a]anthracene.     

Application of eggshell waste for the immobilization of cadmium and lead in a contaminated soil

Liming materials have been used to immobilize heavy metals in contaminated soils. However, no studies have evaluated the use of eggshell waste as a source of calcium carbonate (CaCO₃) to immobilize both cadmium (Cd) and lead (Pb) in soils. This study was conducted to evaluate the effectiveness of eggshell waste on the immobilization of Cd and Pb and to determine the metal availability following various single extraction techniques. Incubation experiments were conducted by mixing 0–5% powdered eggshell waste and curing the soil (1,246 mg Pb kg^?1 soil and 17 mg Cd kg^?1 soil) for 30 days. Five extractants, 0.01 M calcium chloride (CaCl₂), 1 M CaCl₂, 0.1 M hydrochloric acid (HCl), 0.43 M acetic acid (CH₃COOH), and 0.05 M ethylendiaminetetraacetic acid (EDTA), were used to determine the extractability of Cd and Pb following treatments with CaCO₃ and eggshell waste. Generally, the extractability of Cd and Pb in the soils decreased in response to treatments with CaCO₃ and eggshell waste, regardless of extractant. Using CaCl₂ extraction, the lowest Cd concentration was achieved upon both CaCO₃ and eggshell waste treatments, while the lowest Pb concentration was observed using HCl extraction. The highest amount of immobilized Cd and Pb was extracted by CH₃COOH or EDTA in soils treated with CaCO₃ and eggshell waste, indicating that remobilization of Cd and Pb may occur under acidic conditions. Based on the findings obtained, eggshell waste can be used as an alternative to CaCO₃ for the immobilization of heavy metals in soils.     

Size-selective sampling of particulates using a physiologic sampling pump

Recent laboratory research indicates physiologic sampling of gas and vapor may provide more representative estimates of personal exposures than traditional methods. Modifications to the physiologic sampling pump (PSP) used in that research are described which extend its usefulness to size-selective sampling of particulates. PSPs used in previous research varied motor speed to keep sampling proportional to the subject's inhalation. This caused airflow and particle velocities through the collection device to continually change making those pumps unsuitable for sampling particulates. The modified implementation of the PSP pulls a constant airflow into and through a cyclone, then uses valves to either direct the airflow through, or divert the airflow around, the sampling filter. By using physiologic inputs to regulate the fraction of each second that air flows through the sampling filter, samples may be collected in proportion to inhalation rate. To evaluate the performance of a functional prototype 5 different sizes of monodisperse aerosols of ammonium fluorescein were generated by a vibrating orifice aerosol generator and introduced into a calm air chamber. To simulate different inhalation rates the valves of the PSP were energized using 9 different duty cycles. Efficiency curves are presented and compared to a standard respirable convention by bias mapping. The performance of the modified cyclone used in the PSP sampling head compared favorably with a commercially available cyclone of the same model, operating at a constant airflow (± 10% over almost all the size distributions of concern). The new method makes physiologic sampling of the respirable fraction of particulates feasible.     

Modelling the Transport of Oil–Mineral-Aggregates (OMAs) in the Marine Environment and Assessment of Their Potential Risks

Spilled oil can interact with suspended particles in marine environments and form oil–mineral aggregates (OMAs). Some OMAs with densities higher than seawater density can settle to the seedbed to pose potential risks to benthic organisms. To understand the transport and fate of oil associated with OMAs and evaluate their potential risks, an integrated hydrodynamic and fate/transport model has been used in a hypothetical case study of 1,000 tonnes of South Louisiana oil spilled in the Bristol Channel. Several scenarios have been simulated under different wave and current conditions. By using OMA properties derived from laboratory measurements reported in literature, it has been found that the risk to the benthos is unlikely for the two hypothetical cases with strong currents, but it is likely for the wave only (weak current) case. The effects of other factors such as OMA properties and sediment concentration were also examined in terms of their effects on the transport process and risks.