Spatial mapping of temporal risk characteristics to improve environmental health risk identification: a case study of a dengue epidemic in Taiwan

Mapping uneven events, such as disease cases or pollutants, is a basic but important procedure for analyzing regional relationships and variation in public health and environmental agencies. The purpose of mapping is to find out the spatial clustering of uneven events and identify spatial risk areas, which could lead to potential environmental hazards or epidemics. Meanwhile, more hypotheses could be generated through mapping process for further investigations. This paper proposed a novel spatial-temporal approach to focusing on: (1) how often these uneven cases occur, (2) how long these cases persist and (3) how significant cases occur in consecutive periods across the study area. The proposed model was applied to the dengue fever epidemic in Taiwan in 2002 as a case study, which was the worst epidemic in the last 60 years. This approach provides procedures to identify spatial health risk levels with temporal characteristics and assists in generating hypothesis that will be investigated in further detail.     

On the relationship between platform topology, topside weight and structural reliability under storm overload

The relationship between platform configuration and structural reliability is investigated by comparing the collapse behaviour of simple jacket, jack-up and monopod topologies under storm loading in moderately shallow North West Shelf (NWS) waters. Two different pushover analysis methods are used to find the ultimate strength, which give quite different reserve strength ratio (RSR) results for certain structures. The effect on the structural reliability of varying topside weight is also assessed. It is found that the reliability trends are strongly dependent on structural topology — an effect that is not included in current Codes of practice. It is also shown that a single set of partial load factors for dead and environmental loads cannot achieve uniform reliability across different platform configurations in the same environment. Furthermore, in some cases, a working stress design format gives more consistent reliability results than the load and resistance design factor approach.     

The social epidemiology of disease with particular emphasis on multiple sclerosis.

A particular conceptual perspective in the epidemiology of disease is discussed and evaluated: (1) that epidemiologic research is concerned with investigating the possible role played by biological and environmental factors in the etiology of disease but that the particular approach of the social epidemiologist is to concentrate on sociodemographic factors in the explanation; and (2) that a rich tradition of conceptual linkage already exists in epidemiologic research whereby sociologists working separately or in concert with epidemiologists, or physician epidemiologists concerned with details of social behavior and group relationships, have collected an analyzed sociodemographic data on the etiology of all kinds of disease conditions, inclusive of multiple sclerosis (MS). This paper is divided into four subsections which give an indication of its focus: (1) epidemiology and social epidemiologic research; (2) sociodemographic factors in epidemiologic research; (3) contribution of sociology to the social epidemiology of disease; and (4) sociodemographic factors in epidemiologic research on MS. This latter subsection includes a review and critique of some of the most frequently investigated sociodemographic factors in MS research: age, sex, race and socioeconomic status. Although the etiology of MS remains a mystery, sufficient epidemiologic evidence exists to connect three of these four sociodemographic factors to the etiology and distribution of this disease.     

Implications of patterns of carbon pools and fluxes across a semiarid environmental gradient

Landscape scale environmental gradients present variable spatial patterns and ecological processes caused by climate, topography and soil characteristics and, as such, offer candidate sites to study environmental change. Data are presented on the spatial pattern of dominant species, biomass, and carbon pools and the temporal pattern of fluxes across a transitional zone shifting from Great Basin Desert scrub, up through pinyon–juniper woodlands and into ponderosa pine forest and the ecotones between each vegetation type. The mean annual temperature (MAT) difference across the gradient is approximately 3°C from bottom to top (MAT 8.5–5.5) and annual precipitation averages from 320 to 530 mm/yr, respectively. The stems of the dominant woody vegetation approach a random spatial pattern across the entire gradient, while the canopy cover shows a clustered pattern. The size of the clusters increases with elevation according to available soil moisture which in turn affects available nutrient resources. The total density of woody species declines with increasing soil moisture along the gradient, but total biomass increases. Belowground carbon and nutrient pools change from a heterogenous to a homogenous distribution on either side of the woodlands. Although temperature controls the seasonal patterns of carbon efflux from the soils, soil moisture appears to be the primary driving variable, but response differs underneath the different dominant species. Similarly, decomposition of dominant litter occurs faster at the cooler and more moist sites, but differs within sites due to litter quality of the different species. The spatial pattern of these communities provides information on the direction of future changes. The ecological processes that we documented are not statistically different in the ecotones as compared to the adjoining communities, but are different at sites above the woodland than those below the woodland. We speculate that an increase in MAT will have a major impact on C pools and C sequestering and release processes in these semiarid landscapes. However, the impact will be primarily related to moisture availability rather than direct effects of an increase in temperature.     

Ecological Networks: Connecting environmental,economic and social systems?

Ecological networks for different spatial scales (international to sub-regional) are being defined and realized throughout Europe. Historically they have been focused on nature conservation, but they may offer a mechanism whereby a holistic, integrated and long-term approach to regional and sub-regional sustainable development can be promoted. Economic, social and environmental factors operate at different spatial and temporal scales, presenting challenges to those wishing to develop an ecological network. A case study based on the development of an ecological network for Cheshire, a sub-region of the European Region-North West (UK), demonstrates how environmental issues might be integrated with social and economic drivers of change. A framework for an ecological network is proposed by combining an outline model of the socio-ecological system within Cheshire with a checklist that can be used to assess the sustainable management of a landscape.     

Spatial heterogeneity of the spring flood acid pulse in a boreal stream network

Spatial and temporal patterns in streamwater acidity are ecologically important, but difficult to measure in parallel. Here we present the spatial distribution of streamwater chemistry relevant to acidity from 60 stream sites distributed throughout a 67 km² boreal catchment, sampled during a period of winter baseflow (high pH) and during a spring flood episode (low pH). Sites were grouped based on pH level and pH change from winter baseflow to spring flood. The site attributes of each pH group were then assessed in terms of both stream chemistry and subcatchment landscape characteristics. Winter baseflow pH was high throughout most of the stream network (median pH 6.4), but during the spring flood episode stream sites experienced declines in pH ranging from 0-1.6 pH units, resulting in pH ranging from 4.3-6.3. Spring flood pH was highest in larger, lower altitude catchments underlain by fine sorted sediments, and lowest in small, higher altitude catchments with a mixture of peat wetlands and forested till. Wetland-dominated headwater catchments had low but stable pH, while the spring flood pH drop was largest in a group of catchments of intermediate size which contained well-developed coniferous forest and a moderate proportion of peat wetlands. There was a trend with distance downstream of higher pH, acid neutralizing capacity (ANC) and base cation concentrations together with lower dissolved organic carbon (DOC, strongly negatively correlated with pH). This apparent scale-dependence of stream chemistry could be explained by a number of environmental factors which vary predictably with altitude, catchment area and distance downstream—most notably, a shift in surficial sediment type from unsorted till and peat wetlands to fine sorted sediments at lower altitudes in this catchment. As a result of the combination of spatial heterogeneity in landscape characteristics and scale-related processes, boreal catchments like this one can be expected to experience high spatial variability both in terms of chemistry at any given point in time, and in the change experienced during high discharge episodes. Although chemistry patterns showed associations with landscape characteristics, considerable additional variability remained, suggesting that the modeling of dynamic stream chemistry from map parameters will continue to present a challenge.     

Arsenic for the fool: An exponential connection

Anthropogenic arsenic is insidiously building up together with natural arsenic to a level unprecedented in the history of mankind. Arsenopyrite (FeAsS) is the principal ore of arsenic and gold in hard rock mines; it is formed by a coupled substitution of sulphur by arsenic in the structure of pyrite (FeS₂) — nicknamed “fool's gold”. Other important sources of anthropogenic arsenic are fossil fuels such as coal and oil. Here I report on the first indication that the environmental concentration of total arsenic in topsoils - in the 7-18 ppm range - is exponentially related to the prevalence and mortality of Alzheimer's disease and other dementias in European countries. This evidence defies the imputed absence of verified cases of human morbidity or mortality resulting from exposure to low-level arsenic in topsoils.     

Spatial correlation of incidence of dengue with socioeconomic, demographic and environmental variables in a Brazilian city

Dengue is endemic in most tropical countries. The reasons for its maintenance are related to several risk factors including socioeconomic factors. Urban space and time are also two important dimensions to describe the dynamics of an outbreak. The aim of this study was to evaluate the existence of a spatial correlation of the incidence of dengue and to identify variables that explain the spatial dependence in a medium-sized city of Brazil. We analyzed registered autochthonous dengue cases from September 1994 to August 2002 correlating them with socioeconomic, demographic and environmental variables using the Moran index. Our results indicate spatial dependence of the incidence of dengue and that socioeconomic factors were critical both at the beginning of the study and later on; other variables related to the organization of urban space were also involved in the occurrence of the disease. The use of spatial analysis tools is important to identify critical control areas with several variables intimately related to the modulation of the disease dynamics.     

Ecological Networks: connecting environmental, economic and social systems?

Ecological networks for different spatial scales (international to sub-regional) are being defined and realized throughout Europe. Historically they have been focused on nature conservation, but they may offer a mechanism whereby a holistic, integrated and long-term approach to regional and sub-regional sustainable development can be promoted. Economic, social and environmental factors operate at different spatial and temporal scales, presenting challenges to those wishing to develop an ecological network. A case study based on the development of an ecological network for Cheshire, a sub-region of the European Region-North West (UK), demonstrates how environmental issues might be integrated with social and economic drivers of change. A framework for an ecological network is proposed by combining an outline model of the socio-ecological system within Cheshire with a checklist that can be used to assess the sustainable management of a landscape.     

Food waste conversion options in Singapore: Environmental impacts based on an LCA perspective

Proper management and recycling of huge volumes of food waste is one of the challenges faced by Singapore. Semakau island — the only offshore landfill of the nation — only accepts inert, inorganic solid waste and therefore a large bulk of food waste is directed to incinerators. A remaining small percent is sent for recycling via anaerobic digestion (AD), followed by composting of the digestate material. This article investigates the environmental performance of four food waste conversion scenarios — based on a life cycle assessment perspective — taking into account air emissions, useful energy from the incinerators and AD process, as well as carbon dioxide mitigation from the compost products derived from the digestate material and a proposed aerobic composting system. The life cycle impact results were generated for global warming, acidification, eutrophication, photochemical oxidation and energy use. The total normalized results showed that a small-scale proposed aerobic composting system is more environmentally favorable than incinerators, but less ideal compared to the AD process. By making full use of the AD's Recycling Phase II process alone, the Singapore Green Plan's 2012 aim to increase the recycling of food waste to 30% can easily be achieved, along with reduced global warming impacts.     

Cultural activities as a location factor in European competition between regions: Concepts and some evidence

The main aim of this paper is to provide a theoretical background and empirical evidence on the importance of the cultural sector for competitiveness and development of the regional economy. It is argued that the fall of barriers to trade and the movement of capital and labor in the European Single Market will result in a transformation of the forces shaping its spatial structure. Consequently, the theory of international trade looses its capacity to explain the volume and structure of exchange between regions, which are or belong to different states within the European Union. On the other hand, the theory of spatial distribution of economic activities becomes increasingly relevant for explaining movements of the factors of production and patterns of interregional specialisation.  Based on a case study, the paper analyses the influence of “soft” location factors, in particular cultural activities, on the competitive position of producers located in different urban regions. The “cultural multiplier” approach is used to measure direct income flows resulting from such activities while the concept of externalities is employed to analyse the indirect effects. Received: March 1997/Accepted: July 1998     

Higher temperature and urbanization affect the spatial patterns of dengue fever transmission in subtropical Taiwan

Our study conducted spatial analysis to examine how temperature and other environmental factors might affect dengue fever distributions, and to forecast areas with potential risk for dengue fever endemics with predicted climatic change in Taiwan. Geographic information system (GIS) was used to demonstrate the spatial patterns of all studied variables across 356 townships. Relationships between cumulative incidence of dengue fever, climatic and non-climatic factors were explored. Numbers of months with average temperature higher than 18 °C per year and degree of urbanization were found to be associated with increasing risk of dengue fever incidence at township level. With every 1 °C increase of monthly average temperature, the total population at risk for dengue fever transmission would increase by 1.95 times (from 3,966,173 to 7,748,267). A highly-suggested warmer trend, with a statistical model, across the Taiwan Island is predicted to result in a sizable increase in population and geographical areas at higher risk for dengue fever epidemics.     

Retracted: Study of the change of water quality for a lake in Central China

Water environment has undergone several state changes, and the factors responsible for causing these water state changes are different. In this paper, a fuzzy comprehensive-quantifying assessment (FCQA) is proposed to evaluate the water quality changes for a representative lake in central China in recent decades. The innovation assessment method develops an index, S_mid, by applying a quantifying method to the fuzzy comprehensive assessment (FCA). The water quality of the lake is evaluated, and the temporal and spatial variations are analysed based on the data of 1991–2006. The Gray Filling Model [GM (1,1)] was used to predict the water quality trends in the subsequent 5 years, and the possible factors responsible for causing water environmental changes were analysed. The temporal and spatial variations of water quality show that there is a strong relationship between human activities and the water quality, and that excessive pen fish farming is the key internal pollution source threatening the lake at present.     

BEPAS—a life cycle building environmental performance assessment model

This paper presents a building environmental performance analysis system—BEPAS, which was developed based on the life cycle assessment (LCA) framework. In BEPAS, environmental impacts were investigated in three main aspects of a building that were closely related to environmental performance—building facilities, building materials and location. In addition, a set of environmental databases were developed, covering the environmental performance profiles of these environmental aspects. The BEPAS can be used to assess the environmental performance of a new or existing building. This paper also discusses a case project in order to illustrate the assessment procedures and test the effectiveness of the system in application.     

Spatio-temporal variation in soil derived nitrous oxide emissions under sugarcane

Nitrous oxide (N₂O) is a significant greenhouse gas with a global warming potential that is 300 times than that of carbon dioxide. Soil derived N₂O emissions usually display a high degree of spatial and temporal variability because of their dependence on soil chemical and physical properties, and climate dependent environmental factors. However, there is little research that incorporates spatial dependence in the estimation of N₂O emissions allowing for environmental factors in the same model. This study aims to examine the impact of two environmental factors (soil temperature and soil moisture) on N₂O emissions and explore the spatial structure of N₂O in the sub-tropical South East Queensland region of Australia. The replicated data on N₂O emissions and soil properties were collected at a typical sugarcane land site covering 25 uniform grid points across 3600 m² between October 2007 and September 2008. A Bayesian conditional autoregressive (CAR) model was used to model spatial dependence. Results showed that soil moisture and soil temperature appeared to have substantially different effects on N₂O emissions after taking spatial dependence into account in the four seasons. There was a substantial variation in the spatial distribution of N₂O emission in the different seasons. The high N₂O emission regions were accompanied by high uncertainty and changed in varying seasons in this study site. Spatial CAR models might be more plausible to elucidate and account for the uncertainty arising from unclear variables and spatial variability in the assessment of N₂O emissions in soils, and more accurately identify relationships with key environmental factors and help to reduce the uncertainty of the soil parameters.     

杭州文化创意产业发展特征评价与空间类型划分

20世纪80年代以来,我国文化创意产业的发展不仅面临全新快速发展的全球化环境,而且身处地方社会独具的重叠和收缩的现代化进程之中。步入新世纪,文化创意产业区空间实践发展迅猛,但存在产品定位趋同与同质化建设、资源分散等问题。为探索城镇地域涌现的文化创意产业区空间可持续发展路径,文章以外部全球化与内部地方性发展水平为双重线索,对长三角地区典型个案的发展特征进行评价,通过解析制度要素演进机理进而揭示地域空间发展格局。文化创意产业的健康增长需要内外要素间的互动,增长曲线的峰值决定了一个最优的"地方-全球化"要素配比。保持地域禀赋的要素配置格局相对于全球化范式的弹性适应能力是政策创新与建构地方制度整合机制的关键。地方性要素作用途径分异致使多样化空间载体涌现,因而需要地方政策采取不同策略进行引导。     

Environmental risk assessment of zinc in European freshwaters: A critical appraisal

A risk assessment report (RAR) on zinc and zinc compounds has recently been prepared in the framework of the European Union (EU) Council Regulation 793/93/EEC on Existing Chemicals. The EU Scientific Committee on Human and Environmental Risks (SCHER) has, however, expressed some fundamental, science-based concerns about the approach followed and the conclusions. The main objective of the present study was to assess the potential environmental risks associated with current use patterns of Zn in nine EU river basins in Germany, France and Belgium, thereby using more advanced methodologies which are largely in line with the recommendations made by SCHER. This included (i) avoiding working with measured Zn concentrations from monitoring stations that were potentially influenced by point sources and/or historical contamination, (ii) the full bioavailability normalization of all chronic ecotoxicity data to river basin specific physico-chemistry using biotic ligand models (BLM), prior to deriving predicted no effect concentrations (PNEC) with the species sensitivity distribution (SSD) approach, and (iii) the use of a probabilistic framework for risk characterization. Further, a total risk approach instead of an added risk approach was used, and the PNEC was equated to the HC5-50 without an additional assessment factor. Based on monitoring data we estimated predicted environmental concentrations (PEC) for the different EU river basins between 1.3 and 14.6 µg dissolved Zn/L. PNEC values varied between 22.1 and 46.1 µg dissolved Zn/L. This resulted in deterministic risk characterization ratios (RCR) that were below 1 in all river basins, suggesting that there is no deterministic regional risk associated with current use patterns of Zn in these river basins. With the probabilistic approach we identified rather limited risks, i.e., between < 0.4 and 18.3%. When the EU RAR approach was applied to the same monitoring datasets, deterministic risks were found in different river basins. A detailed analysis showed that this different deterministic conclusion of risk is mainly due to the fact that the EU RAR (i) uses an additional assessment factor of 2 to derive the PNEC and (ii) uses a more conservative approach for implementing bioavailability (BioF approach). We argue that the larger conservatism in the EU RAR mainly originates from decisions made to deal in a pragmatic way with (i) uncertainty related to the across-species extrapolation of BLMs and (ii) the relatively high sensitivity of some multi-species toxicity studies.     

Distance decay function in criminal behavior: a case of Israel

Nearly a half of property crimes in major cities of Israel are committed by offenders who live outside these cities, with the numbers of crime-perpetrators dropping steadily as distances between the places of criminal residences and the central city increase. However, the situation is different for localities in which offenders reside. In many cases, property offenders travel considerable distances to their targets, showing no monotonic distance decay in their journey-to-crime patterns. The explanation proposed is that interurban income disparities, and not only travel distances, influence journey-to-crime areas, thus suggesting that the spatial unevenness of urban development (i.e., geographic proximity of affluent and poor towns) may spur property crime rates.      

Exploring an integrated method for measuring the relative spatial equity in public facilities in the context of urban parks

This paper proposes a new integrated modeling framework that contributes to the evaluation of public facility distribution for spatial equity in urban development. The framework consists of two integrated models—accessibility and mobility—that, based on the gravity model, are integrated as a framework for measuring the relative spatial equities of urban public facilities. They are presented as geographic information system (GIS) and spatial analysis models. The models consider individual traffic behavioral abilities and simulate regional differences in the spatial equities of urban parks. The results show unequal regional spatial development that affects mismatches between urban park services. The accumulated travel time costs associated with different resident traffic mobility and urban park location types affect the access opportunities of residents. This integrated model could be a useful reference to help urban planners analyze, investigate, and adjust the distribution of public facilities in a more equitable manner.     

Global burden of disease as a result of indoor air pollution in Shaanxi, Hubei and Zhejiang, China

Indoor air pollution in developing countries is a major global health problem, yet estimates of the global burden of disease vary widely and are associated with large uncertainty. The World Health Organization uses the fuel based approach to estimate 1.6 million premature deaths globally each year associated with exposure to indoor air pollution, of which 420 000 are in China. The fuel based approach uses a ventilation factor to account for differences in indoor air concentrations and exposures in different parts of the world based on regional differences in stove technology. In China this approach assumes that flues eliminate the majority of indoor air pollution, with a ventilation factor of 0.25. To account for historic exposure leading to current disease patterns the ventilation factor was adjusted to 0.5 for adult health endpoints. Measurements in three Chinese provinces, Shaanxi, Hubei and Zhejiang, however, show that high PM₄ concentrations are present in kitchens and living rooms even with stoves with flues as a result of multiple stove and flue use. Comparison of Indian and Chinese indoor air concentrations suggests more appropriate ventilation factors in the range 0.76-1.0 for women and children, and 1.0 for men. Premature mortality in the three provinces using these estimates would be closer to 60 600, rather than current estimates of 46 000. With the addition of cardiovascular diseases these estimates would increase by 92 000. Pollutant based estimates using measured indoor air concentrations and combined with dose-response estimates would imply a burden of disease of 157 800 premature deaths including cardiovascular diseases, a tripling of current estimates.