Risky health and safety habits related to perceived value of the future

Risk homeostasis theory postulates that people accept a specific level (target level) of risk in a given activity in return for benefits accruing from that activity. It follows that, if people expect a great deal from the future, the less likely they are to jeopardise it by taking risks in respect of their health and safety. One effective method for reducing target level of risk are incentives, and the available literature contains ample evidence of the effectiveness of incentives programmes in accident prevention. As incentives essentially imply an enhanced quality of life in the future, the question arises as to how expectations of the future may be related to health and safety habits. In order to explore the relationship between perceived value of the future and health and safety habits, an analysis of the psychological literature on individual differences in future time orientation/perspective is presented. Four factors are identified: (1) clear ideation of the future, (2) active planning for the future, (3) time pressure, and (4) optimistic expectations about events outside one's own control. It is hypothesised that factors (1) and (2) are associated with positive health and safety habits, while factors (3) and (4) may characterise individuals with relatively high target levels of physical risk. Research questions and procedures for the study of these relationships are discussed.     

Biochemistry of parasites

Parasite biochemistry is a field growing in parallel with the new surge of interest in tropical diseases. Whereas previously parasitologists have been required to adopt biochemical methodology in order to stay abreast of developments, today we find a new phenomenon: biochemists abandoning their classical systems (E. coli, red blood cells, etc.) to work on parasites. The 13th annual meeting of the Federation of European Biochemical Societies (FEBS) held in Jerusalem in August 1980 presented the perfect opportunity to summarize work done by parasite biochemists and to introduce this field to workers in classical biochemistry.     

A proposal for improving the measurement of benefits from pollution abatement

Two basic and competing approaches for measuring the benefits of pollution abatement have found support in the recent literature-the property value approach and the health damage function approach. The purpose of this paper is to show that conditions will often exist when the property value approach will not accurately measure all benefits and conditions will always be present that cause the health damage function approach to underestimate benefits. In general, neither approach can stand alone. It is possible, however, that the two approaches can be combined in such a way as to improve the measurement of abatement benefits. We present an approach for combining these two methods and do so by introducing an “information coefficient” that measures the degree of knowledge about pollution effects held by the public. Approaches to estimating the information coefficient are suggested.     

Mean colony relatedness is a poor predictor of colony structure and female philopatry in the communally breeding Bechstein's bat (Myotis bechsteinii)

In order to understand why animals are social and how group members interact with each other it is important to know their relatedness. However, few studies have investigated the genealogy in complete social groups of free-living animals with low reproductive skew. This holds particularly true for bats. Although almost all bat species are social, their sociobiology is not well understood. Because they are volant, nocturnal and have a rather cryptic life-style, bats are difficult to observe in the wild. Furthermore females are generally gregarious making genetic parent-offspring assignment a challenging task. We used genetic markers in combination with knowledge about age and colony membership of individually marked bats to construct pedigrees in completely sampled maternity colonies of Bechstein's bats (Myotis bechsteinii). Despite considerable fluctuations in population size, no immigration occurred over 5 years in four colonies living in close proximity. Additionally, confrontation tests showed that females of one maternity colony were able to detect and attempted to prevent the intrusion of foreign females into a roost they occupy. Although colonies were absolutely closed, and 75% of the colony members lived together with close relatives (rS=0.25), mean colony relatedness was nearly zero (0.02). Average relatedness therefore is a poor estimator for the potential of kin selection in Bechstein's bat colonies and may be misleading when attempting to understand the social structure of animals living in groups where many members breed. Based on our results we discuss the potential adaptive value of living in closed societies with low reproductive skew.     

A Watershed-based Cumulative Risk Impact Analysis: Environmental Vulnerability and Impact Criteria

Swine Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs) have received much attention in recent years. As a result, a watershed-based screening tool, the Cumulative Risk Index Analysis (CRIA), was developed to assess the cumulative impacts of multiple CAFO facilities in a watershedsubunit. The CRIA formula calculates an index number based on: 1) the area of one or more facilities compared to the area of the watershed subunit, 2) the average of the environmental vulnerability criteria, and 3) the average of the industry-specific impact criteria. Each vulnerability or impact criterion is ranked on a 1 to 5 scale, with a low rank indicating low environmental vulnerability or impact and a high rank indicating high environmental vulnerability or impact. The individual criterion ranks, as well as the total CRIA score, can be used to focus the environmental analysis and facilitate discussions with industry, public, and other stakeholders in the Agency decision-making process.     

Water quality trends in the Delaware River Basin (USA) from 1980 to 2005

In 1940, the tidal Delaware River was ??one of the most grossly polluted areas in the United States.?? During the 1950s, water quality was so poor along the river at Philadelphia that zero oxygen levels prevented migration of American shad leading to near extirpation of the species. Since then, water quality in the Delaware Basin has improved with implementation of the 1961 Delaware River Basin Compact and 1970s Federal Clean Water Act Amendments. At 15 gages along the Delaware River and major tributaries between 1980 and 2005, water quality for dissolved oxygen, phosphorus, nitrogen, and sediment improved at 39%, remained constant at 51%, and degraded at 10% of the stations. Since 1980, improved water-quality stations outnumbered degraded stations by a 4 to 1 margin. Water quality remains good in the nontidal river above Trenton and, while improved, remains fair to poor for phosphorus and nitrogen in the tidal estuary near Philadelphia and in the Lehigh and Schuylkill tributaries. Water quality is good in heavily forested watersheds (>50%) and poor in highly cultivated watersheds. Water quality recovery in the Delaware Basin is coincident with implementation of environmental laws enacted in the 1960s and 1970s and is congruent with return of striped bass, shad, blue crab, and bald eagle populations.     

Hyperspectral Characteristics of Canopy Components and Structure for Phenological Assessment of an Invasive Weed

Spectral reflectance values of four canopy components (stems, buds, opening flowers, and postflowers of yellow starthistle (Centaurea solstitialis)) were measured to describe their spectral characteristics. We then physically combined these canopy components to simulate the flowering stage indicated by accumulated flower ratios (AFR) 10%, 40%, 70%, and 90%, respectively. Spectral dissimilarity and spectral angles were calculated to quantitatively identify spectral differences among canopy components and characteristic patterns of these flowering stages. This study demonstrated the ability of hyperspectral data to characterize canopy components, and identify different flowering stages. Stems had a typical spectral profile of green vegetation, which produced a spectral dissimilarity with three reproduction organs (buds, opening flowers, and postflowers). Quantitative differences between simulated flower stages depended on spectral regions and phenological stages examined. Using full-range canopy spectra, the initial flowering stage could be separated from the early peak, peak, and late flowering stages by three spectral regions, i.e. the blue absorption (around 480 nm) and red absorption (around 650 nm) regions and NIR plateau from 730 nm to 950 nm. For airborne CASI data, only the red absorption region and NIR plateau could be used to identify the flowering stages in the field. This study also revealed that the peak flowering stage was more easily recognized than any of the other three stages.     

Quantification and reduction of erroneous differences between images in remote sensing

The reliability of image data, along with the difficulty of accurately comparing images acquired at different times or from different sensors, is a generic problem in remote sensing. Measurement repeatability errors occur frequently and can substantially reduce the system’s ability to reliably quantify real spectral and spatial change in a target. This paper outlines methodologies for quantifying and reducing erroneous differences between monochrome and multispectral or hyperspectral images. [Each of these image types is acquired by an instrument that collects light photons across a variable range of the electromagnetic spectrum (often referred to as an image band). The hyperspectral image is often referred to as a hyperspectral cube with XY spatial dimensions and many Z bands (spectral demotions)]. In this paper, we specifically discuss the Pixel Block Transform (PBT), the Spectral Averaging Transform (SAT), and the Wavelet Transform (WAVEL). We briefly address sensor fusion. Results indicate that the PBT is a powerful cross-noise and repeatability error reducing tool, applicable to monochrome, multispectral, and hyperspectral images. The SAT is as powerful as the PBT in reducing error but is suitable only for hyperspectral imagery. WAVEL can reduce some of the finer scale noise, but it is not as powerful in reducing cross-noise as PBT or SAT and it requires some trial and error for selecting the appropriate wavelet function. It is important that those involved in developing statistically sound relationships between remotely sensed imagery and other data sources understand the problems and their solutions to prevent wasting time or developing relationships that are statistically insignificant or unstable, or that lead to faulty conclusions.