Evaluating the impact of HIA on urban reconstruction decision-making. Who manages whose risks?

Practitioners and academic researchers increasingly look to evaluation of health impact assessment (HIA) to improve its practice, its efficiency and its legitimacy. Evaluation is also used to account to policy-makers, who express doubts that the benefits of HIA justify its costs. Until recently evaluation of HIA focused on instrument design and procedures but now the focus needs to shift to analysis of the interaction of HIA and decision-making. Multiple case studies have been applied to identify the conditions in which HIA produces the desired benefits. These studies used analytical concepts derived from the literature on evaluation, knowledge utilization, science of sociology and knowledge management.This paper describes a case study in which the strategic motives of the decision-makers affected the impact of an HIA. This HIA comprised of a quantitative environmental model ‘City & Environment’ that was used to assess environmental health impacts of an urban reconstruction plan in a Dutch city. The evaluation of the HIA shows that the decision to follow the recommendations of the HIA was part of a damage control strategy. The more HIA goals deviate from the policy problem and the less HIA is embedded in institutional procedures, then the more HIA impact will be subject to strategic decision-making behaviour. Appropriate cognitive and social strategies are needed to avoid ‘negative learning’ in those the HIA seeks to influence.     

双龙风景区自驾车游客结构与行为特征研究

基于双龙风景区自驾车游客的实地问卷调查资料，得出双龙风景区自驾车游客的客源地构成；分析了自驾车游客的年龄、职业、收入等结构特征及其出游时间、旅游偏好、消费水平等行为特征；揭示了制约自驾车游客出游的主要因素；针对自驾车游客的旅游体验与评价，提出了促进自驾车旅游发展的建议，以期为相关旅游企业及旅游管理部门的决策提供参考依据。     

省级生产安全应急救援体系建设方案探讨

省级生产安全应急救援体系是国家生产安全应急救援体系的重要组成部分。为了使省级生产安全应急救援体系的建设方案具有实用性、先进性、经济性和可操作性 ,笔者通过调研许多地方的经济现状、重大危险源和现有的生产安全应急救援资源 ,提出了省级应急救援体系的基本框架和体系在应急救援情况下的响应程序。要在省、市 (地区 )、县三级建立起权威的应急救援指挥机构 ,才能使应急救援体系实现高度的统一指挥 ,灵敏高效 ;充分地整合和利用现有各种救援力量和通讯系统 ,实现资源共享 ,避免重复建设 ;促进“110” ,“119” ,“12 0” ,“12 2”等通讯网络联动 ,并逐步应用GPS ,GIS等资源 ,建立先进的动态跟踪监测 ,可视的信息系统 ;应急救援队伍由3部分组成 ,即政府主办的公共应急救援队伍 (现有 )、政府资助由行业或集团公司主办的专业应急救援队伍、企业自备的应急救援队伍 ;同时对体系中各种机构的组成及其主要职责提出了设想。     

Complex behaviour of trivalent rare earth elements by humic acids

The complexation behaviours of trivalent rare earth elements (La, Ce, Ho and Yb) by two types of humic acids were investigated under a specified set of conditions. Humic acids show quite different complexation capacities an conditional formation constants with the REEs. Apparently there are two types of binding sites in the functional groups of humic acid, in which the first binding sites have stronger ability than the second. Cerium shows the largest complexation capacities and highest formation constants among the four REEs with two humic acids, this anomaly may be relative to the distribution pattern of the REEs in seawater. The experimental results were comparable to the values of other metals reported and provided the basic data for environmental geochemistry of rare earth elements.     

Complex behaviour of trivalent rare earth elements by humic acids

The complexation behaviours of trivalent rare earth elements (La, Ce, Ho and Yb) by two types of humic acids were investigated under a specified set of conditions. Humic acids show quite different complexation capacities an conditional formation constants with the REEs. Apparently there are two types of binding sites in the functional groups of humic acid, in which the first binding sites have stronger ability than the second. Cerium shows the largest complexation capacities and highest formation constants among the four REEs with two humic acids, this anomaly may be relative to the distribution pattern of the REEs in seawater. The experimental results were comparable to the values of other metals reported and provided the basic data for the environmental geochemistry of rare earth elements.     

Modulation of echocardiographic parameters by fetal behaviour

In order to verify if fetal behavioural states could affect cardiac parameters, thirty-one healthy fetuses were studied near term. We evaluated systolic time intervals (pre-ejection period and ventricular ejection time), M-mode parameters (fractional shortening and mean circumferential shortening) and Doppler flow velocities (mean peak velocity of aortic and pulmunary arteries) of left and right ventricles. Both fetal breathing movements and fetal heart rate patterns seem to modify these parameters with an increase of cardiac contractility during active phases of fetal behaviour.     

The prenatal diagnosis of the 48,xxyy syndrome

A 48,XXYY fetus was diagnosed prenatally in a 34-year old female who was seen at 18-5 weeks of pregnancy for genetic counselling and amniocentesis for advanced maternal age. The pregnancy was terminated, and skin and peripheral blood samples were obtained at the time of delivery. These samples also exhibited the 48,XXYY chromosomal complement.     

Multiple reproductive strategies in a tropical hover wasp

Reproductive skew theory has been an important component of efforts to design a unifying theory of social evolution, as it aims to explain patterns of reproductive partitioning in animal societies as a function of relatedness, group productivity, fighting ability and ecological constraints on independent reproduction. However, empirical tests of the theory have often provided ambiguous or non-conclusive results, assumptions behind alternative models have rarely been tested, and theoretical elaborations have shown the limitations of the reproductive skew approach. Here we analyse a relatively large sample of colonies of the Stenogastrine wasp Parischnogaster mellyi with a powerful set of DNA microsatellite markers. We show that various apparently stable forms of social organisation co-exist in a single population, and that sharing of reproduction between related and unrelated egg-laying females occurs in some of the nests. Present reproductive skew theory appears to be at best partly sufficient to account for the observed complexity of social organisation. The observed patterns of colony composition and reproductive sharing are weakly consistent with the hypothesis of reproductive transactions, while they can more parsimoniously be explained by the life-history characteristics of the species.Communicated by R.F.A. Moritz     

Social behaviour in genetically heterogeneous groups of Dictyostelium giganteum

The Dictyostelid or cellular slime moulds (CSMs) are soil amoebae with an asexual life cycle involving social behaviour and division of labour. The most obvious distinction is between ‘germ line’ or pre-spore cells, which survive, and ‘somatic’ or pre-stalk cells, which eventually die. A plausible hypothesis to explain the apparent altruism of pre-stalk cells is that it is directed at clonal relatives. We have tested this hypothesis by comparing indices of altruistic behaviour between clonal and chimeric (genetically heterogeneous) social groups. The groups were generated by mixing amoebae belonging to distinguishable strains of Dictyostelium giganteum. The amoebae of one strain do not aggregate at all when mixed with any of three other strains and aggregate poorly with a fourth. Among the latter, co-aggregation occurs but is followed by varying extents of sorting out. At times, two strains form separate fruiting bodies; in other cases, they remain together but are clustered in clonal groups within a single chimeric structure. Our expectation was that the allocation of cells to the stalk pathway would be higher, and to the spore pathway lower, in clonal social groups than in chimeras. The expectation was not always fulfilled. In addition, three strains could be arrayed in a linear rank order in terms of the relative efficiencies of spore-formation in binary mixtures; but when all three were mixed, they were equally efficient. More than overall genetic similarity, cell fate in a chimera seems to result from complex non-linear interactions based on epigenetic differences.