Some factors influencing effective utilization of drinking water facilities: women,income, and health in rural north Ghana

In the examination of the implementation of rural drinking water facilities, not enough attention has been paid to analyzing the socioeconomic and political relationships that affect the effective utilization of the facilities, particularly as these relate to women in rural society. This paper suggests that much of the difficulty in instituting the utilization of safe water supply sources has to do with the rather low economic status of women—the main water collectors. Poverty consigns women to long periods of work in activities or jobs that bring little reward. This makes it difficult to effectively digest the messages delivered by program staff and limits the extent of usage of the safe water facilities.     

Testing of a GIS model ofEucalyptus Iargiflorens health on a semiarid,saline floodplain

Irrigated agriculture has resulted in substantial changes in water flows to the lower reaches of the River Murray. These changes have led to large-scale occurrences of dieback inEucalyptus largiflorens (black box) woodlands as well as increased inputs of salt to the river. Management options to address problems of this scale call for the use of spatial data sets via geographic information systems (GIS). A GIS exists for one floodplain of the River Murray at Chowilla, and a simple model predicted six health classes ofEucalyptus largiflorens based on groundwater salinity, flooding frequency, and groundwater depth.To determine the usefulness of the model for vegetation management, the quality of both the model and the GIS data sets were tested. Success of the testing procedure was judged by the degree of spatial matching between the model's predictions of health and that assessed from aerial photographs and by field truthing. Analyses at 80 sites showed that tree health was significantly greater where groundwater salinity was less than 40 dS/m or flooding occurred more frequently than 1 in 10 years or depth to groundwater exceeded 4 m. Testing of the GIS data sets found that vegetation was misclassified at 15% of sites. Association was shown between GIS-predicted values and field-truthed values of groundwater salinity but not groundwater depth. The GIS model of health is a useful starting point for future vegetation management and can be further improved by increasing the quality of the data coverages and further refining of the model to optimize parameters and thresholds.     

The Maintenance of Landscape Health in the Midst of Land Use Change

Land use design that recognizes the landscape attributes that characterize homeostatic health can emphasize them during land use change. The attributes of landscape health are the working mechanisms of all open systems, and can be observed in the homeostatic behavior of forests, deserts and floodplains. These attributes are openness, self-regulation, storage and diversity. The attributes of health comprise criteria for evaluating and guiding land use. To maintain landscape health, land use design can maintain and restore these mechanisms during change of moderate pace and scale.     

Stretching “smart”: advancing health and well-being through the smart city agenda

ABSTRACT

Contemporary smart cities have largely mirrored the sustainable development agenda by embracing an ecological modernisation approach to urban development. There is a strong focus on stimulating economic activity and environmental protection with little emphasis on social equity and the human experience. The health and well-being agenda has potential to shift the focus of smart cities to centre on social aims. Through the systematic and widespread application of technologies such as wearable health monitors, the creation of open data platforms for health parameters, and the development of virtual communication between patients and health professionals, the smart city can serve as a means to improve the lives of urban residents. In this article, we present a case study of smart health in Kashiwanoha Smart City in Japan. We explore how the pursuit of greater health and well-being has stretched smart city activities beyond technological innovation to directly impact resident lifestyles and become more socially relevant. Smart health strategies examined include a combination of experiments in monitoring and visualisation, education through information provision, and enticement for behavioural change. Findings suggest that smart cities have great potential to be designed and executed to tackle social problems and realise more sustainable, equitable and liveable cities.     

室内空气污染对人体健康的影响与保护对策

本文首先介绍了室内空气污染的定义、室内空气中常见的污染物及其主要来源,分析 了室内空气中主要污染物对人体健康的影响,从而提出了保护室内环境的对策。     

Quality design: a planning methodology for the integration of refugee and local health services,West Nile,Uganda

In an emergency, the international community responds to the immediate health needs of refugees through the establishment of action-oriented, life-saving services. Healthcare delivery is often managed with limited, if any, coordination with local health management structures. In situations where refugees remain in the host country for many years, sustainability issues inevitably arise. Refugee-hosting governments may ultimately be called upon to assume the management and funding of refugee services. Planning for service integration, while protecting against declines in service quality, is a challenge in the typically resource-poor host environments. This paper discusses these issues by presenting the experience of the West Nile districts in northern Uganda, and describes quality design as a relevant planning methodology. Quality design is a systematic planning approach that documents and directly incorporates the service users' self-defined expectations and needs.     

酒钢焦化厂焦炉地下室通风降温技术改造探讨

介绍了酒钢焦化厂焦炉地下室通风降温技术改造成果。通过参数确定、方案对比,采用了通风降温技术措施,效桌明显,改善了职工的作业环境,保护了工人的身体健康。     

环境铅对儿童健康的危害

本文介绍了环境铅的来源，我国儿童接触铅的情况和环境铅对儿童健康危害及其预防措施，这是国内外近年研究铅毒的成果汇集，可帮助我们对环境铅危害健康的认识，有益于保护儿童发育成长。