输美轮胎特保案对中国贸易的影响及对策

分析了2009年9月26日美国对中国轮胎进口实施的特别保护措施,运用国际贸易和国际经济学的相关理论,对美国轮胎特保法案进行了剖析。在目前中美轮胎贸易情况下,从宏观和微观的角度探讨了轮胎贸易顺差形成的原因,以及长期和短期内对中国经济的影响,并对中国轮胎出口贸易提出了几点政策建议。     

美国地震风险评估中灾害模型的探讨

介绍了以美国地震灾害模型为例的地震风险评估在金融保险业和土木工程两大领域的应用,回顾了地震灾害风险评估发展的历史背景,其中,金融保险业的模型更测重于对历史理赔数据的分析,土木工程业的模型则注重于对工程结构的分析。着重探讨了评估模型中地震灾害部分的建立,其中包括致灾因子模块及孕灾环境模块。针对建模中致灾因子、孕灾环境等的关键要素,如地震源及震级、地震衰减方式、场地土壤土质条件、地震复发率等,作了分析及归纳总结,并系统地介绍了所涉及要素的数据信息获取过程及对应的建模方法,进一步探讨了相应的风险量化的步骤和方法。     

Effects of increased wood energy consumption on carbon storage in forests of the United States

Large but feasible increases that have been projected for the production of wood energy in the United States can be expected to significantly alter the current carbon storage patterns in US forest vegetation. The 1976 net wood increment left after forest cutting equals about 136 × 10⁶ tons of carbon/year, with about 60% of the increment found in merchantable trees, and the remainder in nonmerchantable components.Achieving 5–10 quads of wood energy beyond 1976 levels by the year 2010 can significantly change current carbon storage patterns with the magnitude of change dependent on the extent of residue harvest to meet energy goals, and the rate of future forest growth. Complete loss of the apparent net wood increment is a possible outcome.Although the future growth and harvest situation cannot be known now, a range of possible scenarios suggests that US forests in the year 2010 will store much less carbon than today, thus significantly changing their role in the global carbon cycle.     

Public and occupational risks of the Nevada (USA) Test Site

The Nevada Test Site (NTS), north of Las Vegas, was the scene of hundreds of nuclear weapons tests over four decades, both above- and belowground. There is considerable interest, both in neighboring communities and elsewhere, in the risks it poses. Overall, the greatest risks are nonradioactive in origin, with occupational risks to employees and accident risks in transporting low-level nuclear wastes to the NTS from other Department of Energy (DOE) sites ranking highest. For radiation risks, that to workers handling radioactive materials is much higher than that to the surrounding population, either present or future. Overall, annual risks are small, with all fatalities approximately 0.008% of total Nevada deaths. At the NTS, the government spends about 5000 times more on radiation as opposed to nonradiation deaths. This suggests that at least some resources may be misallocated towards cleanup of public risks and that the occupational risk of cleanup may be much higher than the public risk. Thus risk may be multiplied by well-meaning programs.     

Illinois redesigns its ambient water quality monitoring network

Illinois has been operating an ambient water quality network of almost 600 stations for several years. In 1977 changes in program emphasis toward intensive monitoring, the need for improved procedures and quality control in monitoring operations, and the desire to create a single data base of all Illinois State monitoring data, resulted in a redesign of the ambient monitoring program.A unique cooperative program between the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency and the US Geological Survey provides for their monitoring a portion of the network. The Survey provides flow data at most network stations as well as extensive manpower training, equipment, data processing, and program quality control. Informal agreements with other agencies have permitted a great reduction in the monitoring effort required by the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency.     

美国军用标准航天器试验基线与量级调整研究

对美国航天器试验的军用标准的发展进行了调研,系统地整理了MIL-STD-1540标准到SMC-S-016A标准的发展脉络,针对系统级、组件级试验基线的修订进行了整理、分析。以热试验为典型研究对象,整理了不同标准对于系统级、组件级热试验在试验温度范围、循环数、剪裁方法上的修改,对比了试验基线、试验量级的变迁,结合美国航天器型号与验证理念的发展,分析了其修订的依据,为我国相应标准的制定、修订提供了参考。     

Composition of Floating Debris in Harbours of the United States

As part of a programme to characterize floating anthropogenic debris in the aquatic environment, the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) conducted 18 field surveys in the harbours of major metropolitan cities of the east, west, and Gulf coasts of the United States and the Mid-Atlantic Bight. the surveys were designed to provide information on the types, relative amounts, and distributions of aquatic debris in different geographic regions of the United States. Neuston nets (0.33 mm mesh) were used to collect surface debris during outgoing tides on two or three consecutive days in selected areas of each city. After each net tow, the debris, which ranged in size from small resin pellets to large plastic sheeting pieces, was identified, categorized, and counted. the data are being used to qualitatively characterize aquatic debris in coastal metropolitan areas, to examine potential regional variations, and to tentatively identify potential sources.     

Quantitative assessment in safety reports of the consequences from the detonation of solid explosives

Safety reports are mandatory documents in member states of European Union whenever any threshold limits of amounts of either stored or processed hazardous substances are exceeded. After a short introduction to EU Seveso Directives on major-accident hazards involving dangerous substances and to the transposition and implementation by member states, with a brief comment on last 2012/18/EU Directive (also known as Seveso III directive), the paper focuses on drafting of safety reports for industrial activities involving solid explosives. Specifically, the quantitative assessment of consequences from detonation is tackled respect to the side-on overpressure and the debris production. Both direct and inverse problems are illustrated to determine respectively the overpressure value at a given distance, and the explosive amount that allows respecting the regulations. Their solution is based on either analytic or numerical techniques and being based on recent scientific publications on the matter either evaluates or zeroes nonlinear algebraic equations. The availability of these equations avoids grounding the consequences assessment on diagrams and nomograms that otherwise would lead to interpretation and usage errors besides avoiding the automatic solution of the inverse problem. The paper focuses also on details such as embankment, crater, munitions, rocket propellant, building structure, and wall material that, at different levels, play a role in the assessment of detonation consequences. A discussion on debris formation, the available literature, and the evaluation of the impact probability of fragments on both fixed and moving targets closes the paper.     

Lead astray: scale,environmental justice and the El Paso smelter

Residents in Paso del Norte (El Paso, Texas; Sunland Park, New Mexico; and Juárez, Mexico) have been concerned about heavy metal contamination in their communities since the 1970s, when high blood lead levels were found in children living in Smeltertown – a company town for the local metals smelter. After the smelter's closure in 1999, and throughout onsite and offsite cleanup efforts, residents have continued to express concerns about these contamination issues. Using a politics of scale framework and analysing ethnographic data and government, media and scientific documents, this paper identifies a set of major disjunctures between the scales of heavy metal contamination and the scales at which that contamination is regulated. These disjunctures exacerbate regional environmental injustice by complicating public participation, neglecting vulnerability and displacing hazards to new communities. Consequently, applying a politics of scale framework to this case study highlights regulatory and policy failures to address environmental justice.     

Environments,Risks, and the Limits of Representation: Examples from Nuclear Energy and Some Implications of Fukushima

This essay examines examples from the field of nuclear energy, including the 2011 disaster at Fukushima-Daiichi, through perspectives drawn from phenomenology, social systems theory, and constitutive communication theory. The essay argues that although prevailing approaches to nuclear risk analysis and risk communication seek to represent a world of preexisting phenomena, they also fundamentally constitute the world on which decision-makers, organizations, and communities act. Representations of nuclear risk are inevitably and problematically limited, with important implications for policy, practice, and communicative action.