Emergency department visits by pediatric patients sustained as a passenger on a motorcycle

Objective: Currently only 5 out of the 50 states in the United States have laws restricting the age of passengers permitted to ride on a motorcycle. This study sought to characterize the visits by patients under the age of 16 to U.S. emergency departments (EDs) for injuries sustained as a passenger on a motorcycle.

Methods: In this retrospective cohort study, data were obtained from the Nationwide Emergency Department Sample (NEDS) for the years 2006 to 2011. Pediatric patients who were passengers on a motorcycle that was involved in a crash were identified using International Classification of Diseases, Ninth Revision (ICD-9) External Cause of Injury codes. We also examined gender, age, disposition, regional differences, common injuries, and charges.

Results: Between 2006 and 2011 there were an estimated 9,689 visits to U.S. EDs by patients under the age of 16 who were passengers on a motorcycle involved in a crash. The overall average patient age was 9.4 years, and they were predominately male (54.5%). The majority (85%) of these patients were treated and released. The average charges for discharged patients were $2,116.50 and amounted to roughly $17,500,000 during the 6 years. The average cost for admission was $51,446 per patient and totaled over $54 million. The most common primary injuries included superficial contusions; sprains and strains; upper limb fractures; open wounds of head, neck, and trunk; and intracranial injuries.

Conclusion: Although there were only about 9,700 visits to U.S. EDs for motorcycle crashes involving passengers less than 16 years old for 2006 to 2011, the total cost of visits that resulted in either ED discharge or hospital admission amounted to over $71 million.     

Monitoring Regional Riparian Forest Cover Change Using Stratified Sampling and Multiresolution Imagery1

Claggett, Peter R., Judy A. Okay, and Stephen V. Stehman, 2010. Monitoring Regional Riparian Forest Cover Change Using Stratified Sampling and Multiresolution Imagery. Journal of the American Water Resources Association (JAWRA) 46(2):334-343. DOI: 10.1111/j.1752-1688.2010.00424.x Abstract: The Chesapeake Bay watershed encompasses 165,760 km² of land area with 464,098 km of rivers and streams. As part of the Chesapeake Bay restoration effort, state and federal partners have committed to restoring 26,000 miles (41,843 km) of riparian forest buffers. Monitoring trends in riparian forest buffers over large areas is necessary to evaluate the efficacy of these restoration efforts. A sampling approach for estimating change in riparian forest cover from 1993/1994 to 2005 was developed and implemented in Anne Arundel County, Maryland, to exemplify a method that could be applied throughout the Bay watershed. All stream reaches in the county were stratified using forest cover change derived from Landsat imagery. A stratified random sample of 219 reaches was selected and forest cover change within the riparian buffer of each sampled reach was interpreted from high-resolution aerial photography. The estimated footprint of gross change in riparian forest cover (i.e., the sum of gross gain and gross loss) for the county was 1.83% (SE = 0.22%). Stratified sampling taking advantage of a priori knowledge of locations of change proved to be a practical and efficient protocol for estimating riparian forest buffer change at the county scale and the protocol would readily extend to much broader scale monitoring.     

Improvements to lawn and garden equipment emissions estimates for Baltimore, Maryland

Lawn and garden equipment are a significant source of emissions of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and other pollutants in suburban and urban areas. Emission estimates for this source category are typically prepared using default equipment populations and activity data contained in emissions models such as the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) NONROAD model or the California Air Resources Board's (CARB) OFFROAD model. Although such default data may represent national or state averages, these data are unlikely to reflect regional or local differences in equipment usage patterns because of variations in climate, lot sizes, and other variables. To assess potential errors in lawn and garden equipment emission estimates produced by the NONROAD model and to demonstrate methods that can be used by local planning agencies to improve those emission estimates, this study used bottom-up data collection techniques in the Baltimore metropolitan area to develop local equipment population, activity, and temporal data for lawn and garden equipment in the area. Results of this study show that emission estimates of VOCs, particulate matter (PM), carbon monoxide (CO), carbon dioxide (CO2), and nitrogen oxides (NO(x)) for the Baltimore area that are based on local data collected through surveys of residential and commercial lawn and garden equipment users are 24-56% lower than estimates produced using NONROAD default data, largely because of a difference in equipment populations for high-usage commercial applications. Survey-derived emission estimates of PM and VOCs are 24 and 26% lower than NONROAD default estimates, respectively, whereas survey-derived emission estimates for CO, CO2, and NO(x) are more than 40% lower than NONROAD default estimates. In addition, study results show that the temporal allocation factors applied to residential lawn and garden equipment in the NONROAD model underestimated weekend activity levels by 30% compared with survey-derived temporal profiles.     

Smokeless Stacks—Industry’s Big Problem

There seems to be a general impression on the part of the public and many technical people that dust collecting systems on the open hearth furnace are simply a matter of giving a contract for a duplicate system to that previously installed; signing a check for a sum to cover the cost of the cleaning equipment itself, pressing the start-up button and then sitting back to receive the plaudits of a grateful community. This paper will briefly present some of the problems common to all of the installations to date. It will also explain why the cost of the cleaning equipment itself is such a small portion of the total cost.     

The Effect of Building Fan Operation on Indoor-Outdoor Dust Relationships

As part of an energy conservation program recently implemented by the Bell System, fans in many telephone equipment buildings now operate only when necessary to bring the temperature within allowable limits, rather than continuously. In the study reported here the effects of fan operation on indoor-outdoor dust relationships were monitored at 2 representative telephone offices. Automatic dichotomous samplers were used to collect fine and coarse aerosol particles inside telephone equipment buildings at Wichita, KS and Lubbock, TX. At both sites, outdoor samples (roof top) were collected at the same time as the indoor samples. During the tests the building fans were repetitively cycled between 2-week intervals of continuous fan operation and 2-week intervals of intermittent fan operation. The indoor dust concentrations typically increased when the fans were off. The results indicate that this increase was due to loss of constant filtration, but not due to loss of building pressurlzation (i.e., filtration of the recirculated air is largely responsible for the lower dust levels when the fans are running continuously). An expression is derived for the relative dust increase when the building fans are switched off. Among other factors, the relative increase is directly proportional to the efficiency of the building filters and to the rate at which air is recirculated through them. The present findings can be extended to similar buildings.     

Environmental Auditing—A Timely and Effective Tool

The requirements of environmental regulations imposed on industry are complex and expensive. As these regulations have developed, corporate compliance programs have had to become more sophisticated. For many, this means that an environmental auditing program is now timely (or overdue) for organizing their approach to meeting the constraints of these regulations. Contributing to this timeliness is a renewed emphasis by regulators on enforcement activities. This paper discusses what environmental auditing is and what it consists of, gives examples from a few approaches which are currently being used, and reviews some of its benefits and liabilities.     

Intermittent agitation of liquid manure: effects on methane,microbial activity,and temperature in a farm-scale study

Liquid manure storages are a significant source of methane (CH₄) emissions. Farmers commonly agitate (stir) liquid manure prior to field application to homogenize nutrients and solids. During agitation, manure undergoes mechanical stress and is exposed to the air, disrupting anaerobic conditions. This on-farm study aimed to better understand the effects of agitation on CH₄ emissions, and explore the potential for intentional agitation (three times) to disrupt the exponential increase of CH₄ emissions in spring and summer. Results showed that agitation substantially increased manure temperature in the study year compared to the previous year, particularly at upper- and mid-depths of the stored manure. The temporal pattern of CH₄ emissions was altered by reduced emissions over the subsequent week, followed by an increase during the second week. Microbial analysis indicated that the activity of archaea and methanogens increased after each agitation event, but there was little change in the populations of methanogens, archaea, and bacteria. Overall, CH₄ emissions were higher than any of the previous three years, likely due to warmer manure temperatures that were higher than the previous years (despite similar air temperatures). Therefore, intermittent manure agitation with the frequency, duration, and intensity used in this study is not recommended as a CH₄ emission mitigation practice.

Implications: The potential to mitigate methane emissions from liquid manure storages by strategically timed agitation was evaluated in a detailed farm-scale study. Agitation was conducted with readily-available farm equipment, and targeted at the early summer to disrupt methanogenic communities when CH₄ emissions increase exponentially. Methane emissions were reduced for about one week after agitation. However, agitation led to increased manure temperature, and was associated with increased activity of methanogens. Overall, agitation was associated with similar or higher methane emissions. Therefore, agitation is not recommended as a mitigation strategy.     

Guidance for the Field Demonstration of Remediation Technologies

This paper will focus on the demonstration of hazardous waste cleanup technologies in the field. The technologies will be at the pilot- or full-scale, and further referred to as field-scale. The main objectives of demonstration at the field-scale are development of reliable performance and cost data. Technology demonstrations provide performance, cost effectiveness, and reliability data so that potential technology users have sufficient information to make effective decisions as to the applicability of the technology to a specific situation. The demonstration and evaluation of a technology should be conducted with the purpose of characterizing performance, need for pre- and post-processing of the waste feed, identification of waste type and constituents applicable to the technology, system throughput, problems and limitations of the technology, and operating and maintenance costs. Table I provides a summary of remediation activities for demonstration projects.     

Modeling Emissions from Elevated Cylindrical Bins

Abstract

This paper demonstrates how wind tunnel modeling data that accurately describe plume characteristics near an unconventional emission source can be used to improve the near-field downwind plume profiles predicted by conventional air pollution dispersion models. The study considers a vertical, cylindrical-shaped, elevated bin similar to large product storage bins that can be found at many industrial plant sites. Two dispersion models are considered: the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's ISC2(ST) model and the Ontario Ministry of the Environment and Energy's GAS model. The wind tunnel study showed that plume behavior was contrary to what was predicted using conventional dispersion models such as ISC2(ST) and GAS and default values of input parameters. The wind tunnel data were used to develop a protocol for correcting the dispersion models inputs, resulting in a substantial improvement in the accuracy of the dispersion estimates.