Design for occupational safety and health of workers in construction in developing countries: a study of architects in Nigeria

Purpose. Design for safety (DfS) of workers is amongst the prominent ways of tackling poor occupational safety and health performance in construction. However, in developing countries there is extremely limited research on DfS. This study thus makes an important contribution to the subject of DfS in developing countries by specifically examining the awareness and practice of DfS amongst architects within the construction sector of Nigeria. Materials and methods. A survey of architects, yielding 161 valid responses, was conducted. Results. While there is high awareness of the concept of DfS, the actual practice is low. Additionally, although there is high interest in DfS training, the engagement in DfS training is low. Significantly, awareness of DfS, training and education related to DfS, and membership of a design professional body have very limited bearing on the practice of DfS by architects. Conclusions. The findings are thus symptomatic of the prevalence of influential DfS implementation barriers within the construction sector. Industry stakeholders should seek to raise the profile of DfS practice within the sector. Furthermore, similar empirical studies in the construction sector of other developing countries would be useful in shedding light on the status of DfS in these countries.     

Effects of introducing energy recovery processes to the municipal solid waste management system in Ulaanbaatar,Mongolia

Currently, most developing countries have not set up municipal solid waste management systems with a view of recovering energy from waste or reducing greenhouse gas emissions. In this article, we have studied the possible effects of introducing three energy recovery processes either as a single or combination approach, refuse derived fuel production,incineration and waste power generation, and methane gas recovery from landfill and power generation in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, as a case study. We concluded that incineration process is the most suitable as first introduction of energy recovery. To operate it efficiently,3Rs strategies need to be promoted. And then, RDF production which is made of waste papers and plastics in high level of sorting may be considered as the second step of energy recovery.However, safety control and marketability of RDF will be required at that moment.     

Effects of introducing energy recovery processes to the municipal solid waste management system in Ulaanbaatar,Mongolia

Currently, most developing countries have not set up municipal solid waste management systems with a view of recovering energy from waste or reducing greenhouse gas emissions. In this article, we have studied the possible effects of introducing three energy recovery processes either as a single or combination approach, refuse derived fuel production, incineration and waste power generation, and methane gas recovery from landfill and power generation in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, as a case study. We concluded that incineration process is the most suitable as first introduction of energy recovery. To operate it efficiently, 3Rs strategies need to be promoted. And then, RDF production which is made of waste papers and plastics in high level of sorting may be considered as the second step of energy recovery. However, safety control and marketability of RDF will be required at that moment.     

Patterns of Citations of Open Access and Non‐Open Access Conservation Biology Journal Papers and Book Chapters

Abstract: Open access (OA) publishing, whereby authors, their institutions, or their granting bodies pay or provide a repository through which peer‐reviewed work is available online for free, is championed as a model to increase the number of citations per paper and disseminate results widely, especially to researchers in developing countries. We compared the number of citations of OA and non‐OA papers in six journals and four books published since 2000 to test whether OA increases number of citations overall and increases citations made by authors in developing countries. After controlling for type of paper (e.g., review or research paper), length of paper, authors’ citation profiles, number of authors per paper, and whether the author or the publisher released the paper in OA, OA had no statistically significant influence on the overall number of citations per journal paper. Journal papers were cited more frequently if the authors had published highly cited papers previously, were members of large teams of authors, or published relatively long papers, but papers were not cited more frequently if they were published in an OA source. Nevertheless, author‐archived OA book chapters accrued up to eight times more citations than chapters in the same book that were not available through OA, perhaps because there is no online abstracting service for book chapters. There was also little evidence that journal papers or book chapters published in OA received more citations from authors in developing countries relative to those journal papers or book chapters not published in OA. For scholarly publications in conservation biology, only book chapters had an OA citation advantage, and OA did not increase the number of citations papers or chapters received from authors in developing countries.     

阴离子洗涤剂分析中标准物质的比较初探

通过对用分析纯十二烷基苯磺酸钠配制成阴离子洗涤剂标准物质与国家标准十二烷基苯磺酸钠溶液比较，二者无显著性差异，具有同等的效果。     

STATISTICAL AND GEOSTATISTICAL MODELLING OF PRELIMINARILY ADJUSTED DEFOLIATION ON AN EUROPEAN SCALE

Since 1987 tree crown condition is surveyed annually in large parts of Europe mainly in terms of defoliation. The plot-wise means of defoliation from 1994 to 2000 were evaluated by General Linear Models (GLM) in order to describe country-specific levels of defoliation and age-trends. Additional runs with estimates for influences of insects and fungi were performed. The amount of variance of defoliation explained by country, age and its interaction was between 35% and 59% for the main tree species, except for Quercus ilex. Additionally, up to 10% could be explained by the inclusion of estimates for infestations by insects and fungi. Residuals of the GLMs were taken as a measure of forest condition not biased by country or age effects and interpreted as preliminarily adjusted defoliation (PAD). PAD values were analysed using geostatistical methods. The modelled spatial autocorrelations were used for kriging. The resulting maps give an overview on regions with elevated defoliation, which may pinpoint regional causes of defoliation. The elimination of methodologically caused variance is a precondition of any cause–effect oriented analyses. The combination of explorative modelling and geostatistics will promote the choice of further promising predictors.     

我国农村生态环境问题与综合保护对策

文登市是我国北方沿海比较典型的快速发展城市,所面临的生态环境问题相当严峻,在我国北方具有广泛的代表性.农村生态环境的破坏已经成为农村现代化、区域社会经济持续发展的又一严重障碍,本文针对文登市农村目前所面临的生态环境问题,阐述其产生根源与综合保护对策.     

对秦皇岛生态环境保护与旅游开发的调查与思考

良好的生态环境是人类生存和发展的基础,是经济社会发展的物质条件。保护和管理好自然生态环境,是实施可持续发展的关键,也是实现跨世纪绿色工程的重要战略。本文通过对秦皇岛生态环境保护与旅游开发的调查与思考得出结论：将秦皇岛建设成以旅游为龙头的生态城市是秦皇岛市建设和发展的方向。     

Municipal solid waste management and short-term projection of the waste discard levels in Taiwan

Industrialization and urbanization result in significant changes in lifestyle. These lifestyle changes seem to lead to unsustainable consumption patterns and increase the generation of various kinds of environmental loads, especially the amount of municipal solid waste (MSW). Taiwan is a small island with scarce natural resources. The economic development in Taiwan has resulted in the generation of large amounts of MSW. As a result, the Taiwan Environmental Pollution Administration (TEPA) has produced regulations for waste minimization and has imposed several important policy measures that have successfully reduced the MSW discard rate in recent years and have established a public recycling network as a part of the MSW collection. Nowadays, the objective of the MSW policies in Taiwan is to develop a “zero-waste society.” This article aims to review the MSW management progress in Taiwan and to project future MSW discards up to 2011 based on the national plan and assumed scenarios for socioeconomic variables. According to the analysis results, a more sustainable consumption pattern can be proposed and the corresponding MSW management system can be planned so as to develop a low-waste-discard society.     

黄河三角洲二元结构与多元可持续发展初探

黄河三角洲由石油资源的开发而兴起,其区位条件和油气资源条件都十分优越,但目前仍处于经济发达地区的低谷区。通过对二元结构系数的定量分析,发现该地区具有明显的复合二元结构特征,即“油地+城乡”,二元结构是制约三角洲持续发展的一个重要限制性因素。目前,石油产业的全面改组改制、优越的外部环境和自身基础条件、东营港扩建及其附属加工制造业基地的立项、综合性交通运输网络体系的形成等都是三角洲全面发展的难得机遇。要实现多元可持续发展的目标,必须转变观念,由“以油建城”到“以港兴城”、大力发展资源深加工工业和具有竞争优势的制造业;构建高效生态农业经济体系;推进城市的“内聚式”发展。