Determination of ethanolamine,ethylene glycol and triethylene glycol by ion chromatography for laboratory and field biodegradation studies

The determination of alkanolamines and glycols in groundwater and subsurface environments is essential for environmental assessment, remediation and monitoring for selected industrial sites. Monoethanolamine (MEA), ammonium, sodium, magnesium and calcium detection was performed using cation exchange chromatography (IC) with suppressed conductivity detection. Acetate, chloride, nitrite, nitrate, phosphate, sulfate and oxalate were monitored employing anion exchange chromatography with suppressed conductivity. Detection of ethylene glycol (MEG) and triethylene glycol (TEG) and ethanol was carried out using ion exclusion chromatography with pulsed amperometric detection. Effective determination of MEA, MEG and TEG in complex groundwater matrices without compound transformation offered improved monitoring capabilities. This study presents robust analytical tools for MEA, MEG and TEG determination in biodegradation studies. Using ion chromatography offered significant advantages for the analyses of groundwater samples and laboratory bioreactor monitoring.     

Development of a method to rate the primary safety of vehicles using linked New Zealand crash and vehicle licensing data

Objective: Vehicle safety rating systems aim firstly to inform consumers about safe vehicle choices and, secondly, to encourage vehicle manufacturers to aspire to safer levels of vehicle performance. Primary rating systems (that measure the ability of a vehicle to assist the driver in avoiding crashes) have not been developed for a variety of reasons, mainly associated with the difficult task of disassociating driver behavior and vehicle exposure characteristics from the estimation of crash involvement risk specific to a given vehicle. The aim of the current study was to explore different approaches to primary safety estimation, identifying which approaches (if any) may be most valid and most practical, given typical data that may be available for producing ratings.

Methods: Data analyzed consisted of crash data and motor vehicle registration data for the period 2003 to 2012: 21,643,864 observations (representing vehicle-years) and 135,578 crashed vehicles. Various logistic models were tested as a means to estimate primary safety: Conditional models (conditioning on the vehicle owner over all vehicles owned); full models not conditioned on the owner, with all available owner and vehicle data; reduced models with few variables; induced exposure models; and models that synthesised elements from the latter two models.

Results: It was found that excluding young drivers (aged 25 and under) from all primary safety estimates attenuated some high risks estimated for make/model combinations favored by young people. The conditional model had clear biases that made it unsuitable. Estimates from a reduced model based just on crash rates per year (but including an owner location variable) produced estimates that were generally similar to the full model, although there was more spread in the estimates. The best replication of the full model estimates was generated by a synthesis of the reduced model and an induced exposure model.

Conclusions: This study compared approaches to estimating primary safety that could mimic an analysis based on a very rich data set, using variables that are commonly available when registered fleet data are linked to crash data. This exploratory study has highlighted promising avenues for developing primary safety rating systems for vehicle makes and models.     

Quantifying the relative irreplaceability of important bird and biodiversity areas

World governments have committed to increase the global protected areas coverage by 2020, but the effectiveness of this commitment for protecting biodiversity depends on where new protected areas are located. Threshold‐ and complementarity‐based approaches have been independently used to identify important sites for biodiversity. We brought together these approaches by performing a complementarity‐based analysis of irreplaceability in important bird and biodiversity areas (IBAs), which are sites identified using a threshold‐based approach. We determined whether irreplaceability values are higher inside than outside IBAs and whether any observed difference depends on known characteristics of the IBAs. We focused on 3 regions with comprehensive IBA inventories and bird distribution atlases: Australia, southern Africa, and Europe. Irreplaceability values were significantly higher inside than outside IBAs, although differences were much smaller in Europe than elsewhere. Higher irreplaceability values in IBAs were associated with the presence and number of restricted‐range species; number of criteria under which the site was identified; and mean geographic range size of the species for which the site was identified (trigger species). In addition, IBAs were characterized by higher irreplaceability values when using proportional species representation targets, rather than fixed targets. There were broadly comparable results when measuring irreplaceability for trigger species and when considering all bird species, which indicates a good surrogacy effect of the former. Recently, the International Union for Conservation of Nature has convened a consultation to consolidate global standards for the identification of key biodiversity areas (KBAs), building from existing approaches such as IBAs. Our results informed this consultation, and in particular a proposed irreplaceability criterion that will allow the new KBA standard to draw on the strengths of both threshold‐ and complementarity‐based approaches.     

Complementary benefits of tourism and hunting to communal conservancies in Namibia

Tourism and hunting both generate substantial revenues for communities and private operators in Africa, but few studies have quantitatively examined the trade‐offs and synergies that may result from these two activities. We evaluated financial and in‐kind benefit streams from tourism and hunting on 77 communal conservancies in Namibia from 1998 to 2013, where community‐based wildlife conservation has been promoted as a land‐use that complements traditional subsistence agriculture. We used data collected annually for all communal conservancies to characterize whether benefits were derived from hunting or tourism. We classified these benefits into 3 broad classes and examined how benefits flowed to stakeholders within communities under the status quo and under a simulated ban on hunting. Across all conservancies, total benefits from hunting and tourism increased at roughly the same rate, although conservancies typically started generating benefits from hunting within 3 years of formation as opposed to after 6 years for tourism. Disaggregation of data revealed that the main benefits from hunting were income for conservancy management and food in the form of meat for the community at large. The majority of tourism benefits were salaried jobs at lodges. A simulated ban on trophy hunting significantly reduced the number of conservancies that could cover their operating costs, whereas eliminating income from tourism did not have as severe an effect. Given that the benefits generated from hunting and tourism typically begin at different times in a conservancy's life‐span (earlier vs. later, respectively) and flow to different segments of local communities, these 2 activities together may provide the greatest incentives for conservation on communal lands in Namibia. A singular focus on either hunting or tourism would reduce the value of wildlife as a competitive land‐use option and have grave repercussions for the viability of community‐based conservation efforts in Namibia, and possibly other parts of Africa.     

How work ideologies shape the psychological contracts of professional employees: doctors' responses to perceived breach

This study suggests that the psychological contract between a professional and his/her employing organization is shaped by both professional and administrative work ideologies and therefore involves both professional and administrative roles and perceived role obligations. It is also suggested that because of important differences between these two ideologies, a professional employee's response to perceptions that his/her organization is not fulfilling its role obligations will depend on whether the perceived breach involves professional or administrative obligations. Hypotheses based on this general proposition were strongly supported in a sample of medical professionals. Specifically, results suggest that perceived breaches of administrative role obligations are most strongly associated with dissatisfaction, thoughts of quitting, and turnover whereas perceived breaches of professional role obligations are most strongly associated with lower organizational commitment and job performance (productivity and client satisfaction). Implications for theory and research on the dimensionality of the psychological employment contract and on the employment of professionals are considered. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A quantitative global review of species population monitoring

Species monitoring, defined here as the repeated, systematic collection of data to detect long-term changes in the populations of wild species, is a vital component of conservation practice and policy. We created a database of nearly 1200 schemes, ranging in start date from 1800 to 2018, to review spatial, temporal, taxonomic, and methodological patterns in global species monitoring. We identified monitoring schemes through standardized web searches, an online survey of stakeholders, in-depth national searches in a sample of countries, and a review of global biodiversity databases. We estimated the total global number of monitoring schemes operating at 3300–15,000. Since 2000, there has been a sharp increase in the number of new schemes being initiated in lower- and middle-income countries and in megadiverse countries, but a decrease in high-income countries. The total number of monitoring schemes in a country and its per capita gross domestic product were strongly, positively correlated. Schemes that were active in 2018 had been running for an average of 21 years in high-income countries, compared with 13 years in middle-income countries and 10 years in low-income countries. In high-income countries, over one-half of monitoring schemes received government funding, but this was less than one-quarter in low-income countries. Data collection was undertaken partly or wholly by volunteers in 37% of schemes, and such schemes covered significantly more sites and species than those undertaken by professionals alone. Birds were by far the most widely monitored taxonomic group, accounting for around half of all schemes, but this bias declined over time. Monitoring in most taxonomic groups remains sparse and uncoordinated, and most of the data generated are elusive and unlikely to feed into wider biodiversity conservation processes. These shortcomings could be addressed by, for example, creating an open global meta-database of biodiversity monitoring schemes and enhancing capacity for species monitoring in countries with high biodiversity. Article impact statement: Species population monitoring for conservation purposes remains strongly biased toward a few vertebrate taxa in wealthier countries.     

The invasibility of marine algal assemblages: role of functional diversity and identity

The emergence of the biodiversity-ecosystem functioning debate in the last decade has renewed interest in understanding why some communities are more easily invaded than others and how the impact of invasion on recipient communities and ecosystems varies. To date most of the research on invasibility has focused on taxonomic diversity, i.e., species richness. However, functional diversity of the communities should be more relevant for the resistance of the community to invasions, as the extent of functional differences among the species in an assemblage is a major determinant of ecosystem processes. Although coastal marine habitats are among the most heavily invaded ecosystems, studies on community invasibility and vulnerability in these habitats are scarce. We carried out a manipulative field experiment in tide pools of the rocky intertidal to test the hypothesis that increasing functional richness reduces the susceptibility of macroalgal communities to invasion. We selected a priori four functional groups on the basis of previous knowledge of local species characteristics: encrusting, turf, subcanopy, and canopy species. Synthetic assemblages containing one, two, three, or four different functional groups of seaweeds were created, and invasion by native species was monitored over an eight-month period. Cover and resource availability in the assemblages with only one functional group showed different patterns in the use of space and light, confirming true functional differences among our groups. Experimental results showed that the identity of functional groups was more important than functional richness in determining the ability of macroalgal communities to resist invasion and that resistance to invasion was resource-mediated.