The revision of the air quality legislation in the european union related to ground-level ozone

Complying with the obligation in the current ozone directive, the European Commission came forward in 1999 with a strategy to combat tropospheric ozone together with a proposed revision of the air quality legislation for this pollutant. As a daughter legislation under the 1996 Framework Directive on Air Quality, the proposed ozone daughter directive defines for the first time (interim) air quality targets for ozone to be attained by 2010, complemented by long-term objectives for ozone based on the guideline values of the World Health Organisation. It also sets out enhanced requirements for monitoring and assessment of ozone concentrations, as well as minimum criteria for appropriate information of the public about the measured air pollution.In the past, abatement strategies against air pollution consisted of concrete obligations for controlling emissions derived solely on the basis of technical and economic aspects, covering specific types of installations or activities, thus with no direct quantitative relationship to the level of air pollution let alone to its effects.In compensating this deficit, the Commission presented, as a complement to the existing sectoral legislation, a proposal for a directive on national emission ceilings (NEC) which quantifies emission targets for every Member State to bring its total precursor emissions by 2010 down to levels being considered as necessary to achieve everywhere on a regional scale the air quality targets set in the ozone daughter directive.As the core element of the ozone abatement strategy, the national ceilings for emissions of sulfur dioxide (SO(2)), nitrogen oxides (NO(x)), ammonia (NH(3)) and volatile organic compounds (VOC) were derived from a cost-effectiveness analysis integrating information on economic, technical, physical and biological aspects of ozone pollution and abatement. This integrated assessment considers the potential and costs for further emission control in the various economic sectors in the Member States and combines this with information on ozone formation and transport processes in the atmosphere and with indicators for the impact of ozone on human health and environmental. Reflecting the discussions with Member States and stakeholders, a number of decisive steps in the process of deriving the national emission ceilings are presented here: the way of framing interim objectives, how to choose an appropriate ambition level, aspects of how to cope with uncertainties in the model and the input data and how to treat extreme meteorological situations and resolve problems in the spatial distribution of the interim objectives given the different size of countries. Finally, the paper explains the scenario underpinning the proposed national emission ceilings, its environmental gains and the distribution of cost incurring for emission control measures in Member States.     

Restricted arc-connectivity of digraphs

Since interconnection networks are often modeled by graphs or digraphs, the edge-connectivity of a graph or arc-connectivity of a digraph are important measurements for fault tolerance of networks.The restricted edge-connectivity λ^′(G) of a graph G is the minimum cardinality over all edge-cuts S in a graph G such that there are no isolated vertices in G−S. A connected graph G is called λ^′-connected, if λ^′(G) exists.In 1988, Esfahanian and Hakimi [A.H. Esfahanian, S.L. Hakimi, On computing a conditional edge-connectivity of a graph, Inform. Process. Lett. 27 (1988), 195-199] have shown that each connected graph G of order n?4, except a star, is λ^′-connected and satisfies λ^′(G)?ξ(G), where ξ(G) is the minimum edge-degree of G.If D is a strongly connected digraph, then we call in this paper an arc set S a restricted arc-cut of D if D−S has a non-trivial strong component D₁ such that D−V(D₁) contains an arc. The restricted arc-connectivity λ^′(D) is the minimum cardinality over all restricted arc-cuts S.We observe that the recognition problem, whether λ^′(D) exists for a strongly connected digraph D is solvable in polynomial time. Furthermore, we present some analogous results to the above mentioned theorem of Esfahanian and Hakimi for digraphs, and we show that this theorem follows easily from one of our results.     

Provably correct and complete transaction rules for updating 3D city models

The shapes of our cities change very frequently. These changes have to be reflected in data sets representing urban objects. However, it must be assured that frequent updates do not affect geometric-topological consistency. This important aspect of spatial data quality guarantees essential assumptions on which users and applications of 3D city models rely: viz. that objects do not intersect, overlap or penetrate mutually, or completely cover one another. This raises the question how to guarantee that geometric-topological consistency is preserved when data sets are updated. Hence, there is a certain risk that plans and decisions which are based on these data sets are erroneous and that the tremendous efforts spent for data acquisition and updates become vain. In this paper, we solve this problem by presenting efficient transaction rules for updating 3D city models. These rules guarantee that geometric-topological consistency is preserved (Safety) and allow for the generation of arbitrary consistent 3D city models (Completeness). Safety as well as completeness is proven with mathematical rigor, guaranteeing the reliability of our method. Our method is applicable to 3D city models, which define—besides the terrain surface—complex spatial objects like buildings with rooms and storeys as interior structures, as well as bridges and tunnels. Those objects are represented as aggregations of solids, and their surfaces are complex from a topology point of view. 3D GIS models like CityGML, which are widely used to represent cities, provide the means to define semantics, geometry and topology, but do not address the problem of maintaining consistency. Hence, our approach complements CityGML.     

ER Stress in ERp57 Knockout Knee Joint Chondrocytes Induces Osteoarthritic Cartilage Degradation and Osteophyte Formation

Ageing or obesity are risk factors for protein aggregation in the endoplasmic reticulum (ER) of chondrocytes. This condition is called ER stress and leads to induction of the unfolded protein response (UPR), which, depending on the stress level, restores normal cell function or initiates apoptotic cell death. Here the role of ER stress in knee osteoarthritis (OA) was evaluated. It was first tested in vitro and in vivo whether a knockout (KO) of the protein disulfide isomerase ERp57 in chondrocytes induces sufficient ER stress for such analyses. ER stress in ERp57 KO chondrocytes was confirmed by immunofluorescence, immunohistochemistry, and transmission electron microscopy. Knee joints of wildtype (WT) and cartilage-specific ERp57 KO mice (ERp57 cKO) were analyzed by indentation-type atomic force microscopy (IT-AFM), toluidine blue, and immunofluorescence/-histochemical staining. Apoptotic cell death was investigated by a TUNEL assay. Additionally, OA was induced via forced exercise on a treadmill. ER stress in chondrocytes resulted in a reduced compressive stiffness of knee cartilage. With ER stress, 18-month-old mice developed osteoarthritic cartilage degeneration with osteophyte formation in knee joints. These degenerative changes were preceded by apoptotic death in articular chondrocytes. Young mice were not susceptible to OA, even when subjected to forced exercise. This study demonstrates that ER stress induces the development of age-related knee osteoarthritis owing to a decreased protective function of the UPR in chondrocytes with increasing age, while apoptosis increases. Therefore, inhibition of ER stress appears to be an attractive therapeutic target for OA.     

Sustainability: ecological, social, economic, technological, and systems perspectives

Sustainability is generally associated with a definition by the World Commission on Environment and Development, 1987: "... development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs ..." However, there is no mathematical theory embodying these concepts, although one would be immensely valuable in humanity's efforts to manage the environment. The concept of sustainability applies to integrated systems comprising humans and the rest of nature; the structures and operation of the human component (society, economy, law, etc.) must be such that they reinforce the persistence of the structures and operation of the natural component (ecosystem trophic linkages, biodiversity, biogeochemical cycles, etc.). One of the challenges of sustainability research lies in linking measures of ecosystem functioning to the structure and operation of the associated social system. We review the nature of this complex system including its ecological, social, economic, and technological aspects, and propose an approach to assessing sustainability based on Information Theory that bridges the natural and human systems. These principles are then illustrated using a model system with an ecological food web linked to a rudimentary social system. This work is part of the efforts of a larger multidisciplinary group at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's National Risk Management Research Laboratory.     

Indexing transitional knowledge.

Various indexes have been proposed to mark when a child is on the verge of acquiring new knowledge. This article described a new method for indexing this point of transition, which is based on the specificity of children's verbal explanations. The degree to which children were specific in their verbal explanations was related to whether they benefited from instruction. In particular, children who were vague in their explanations (i.e., less specific) benefited from instruction more than children who were explicit in their explanations (i.e., more specific). This index provides insights into the child's mental state prior to acquiring new knowledge. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

On parsing two-level grammars

Summary Making use of the fact that two-level grammars (TLGs) may be thought of as finite specification of context-free grammars (CFGs) with infinite sets of productions, known techniques for parsing CFGs are applied to TLGs by first specifying a canonical CFG G — called skeleton grammar — obtained from the cross-reference of the TLG G. Under very natural restrictions it can be shown that for these grammar pairs (G, G) there exists a 1 — 1 correspondence between leftmost derivations in G and leftmost derivations in G. With these results a straightforward parsing algorithm for restricted TLGs is given.     

Study of thermal and acoustic noise interferences in low stiffness atomic force microscope cantilevers and characterization of their dynamic properties

The atomic force microscope (AFM) is a powerful tool for the measurement of forces at the micro/nano scale when calibrated cantilevers are used. Besides many existing calibration techniques, the thermal calibration is one of the simplest and fastest methods for the dynamic characterization of an AFM cantilever. This method is efficient provided that the Brownian motion (thermal noise) is the most important source of excitation during the calibration process. Otherwise, the value of spring constant is underestimated. This paper investigates noise interference ranges in low stiffness AFM cantilevers taking into account thermal fluctuations and acoustic pressures as two main sources of noise. As a result, a preliminary knowledge about the conditions in which thermal fluctuations and acoustic pressures have closely the same effect on the AFM cantilever (noise interference) is provided with both theoretical and experimental arguments. Consequently, beyond the noise interference range, commercial low stiffness AFM cantilevers are calibrated in two ways: using the thermal noise (in a wide temperature range) and acoustic pressures generated by a loudspeaker. We then demonstrate that acoustic noises can also be used for an efficient characterization and calibration of low stiffness AFM cantilevers. The accuracy of the acoustic characterization is evaluated by comparison with results from the thermal calibration.     

Book reviews

RESOURCE TRENDS AND POPULATION POLICY: A TIME FOR REASSESSMENT, by Lester R. Brown. Worldwatch Institute, Washington, D.C., May 1979; Worldwatch Paper 29. (Paperback $2.00)

THE NEXT SEVENTY YEARS: POPULATION, FOOD AND RESOURCES, by B. Gil‐land. Abacus Press, London, 1979. 133 pp. (£9.50)

POPULATION POLICY ANALYSIS, edited by M. E. Kraft and M. Schneider. D. C. Heath, London, 1979. (£0.00)

ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT ASSESSMENT, by Brian B. Clark, Ronald Bisset and Peter Wath‐ern. Manssell, London and Bowker, New York, 1980. 516 pp. (£0.00)

ADVANCES IN ECOLOGICAL RESEARCH, Vol. 11, edited by Amyan MacFadyen. Academic Press, London, 1980. 428 pp. (£25.00)

MICROBIAL GROWTH AND SURVIVAL IN EXTREMES OF ENVIRONMENT, edited by G. W. Gould and Janet E. Cory. Academic Press, London, 1980. 244 pp. (£16.00)

UNDER NEW MANAGEMENT: Port Growth and Emerging Coastal Management Programs, by Marc Hershman, Robert Goodwin, Andrew Ruot‐sala, Maureen McCrea and Yehuda Hayuth. A Washington Sea Grant Publication, 1978. 212 pp. ($12.50)

HANDBOOK OF INDUSTRIAL ENERGY ANALYSIS, by J. Boustead and G. F. Hancock. Ellis‐Harwood, Chichester, U.K., 1979. (£25.00)

TREE GROWTH AND ENVIRONMENTAL STRESSES, by T. T. Kozlowski. University of Washington Press, Seattle and London, 1979. vii + 192 pp. (£12.50)

ALL GOOD THINGS AROUND US, by Pamela Michael. Illustrated by Christabel King. Ernest Benn Ltd., London, 1980. 240 pp. (£12.95)

HUMAN GEOGRAPHY (2nd Edition), by A. V. Perpillou. Longman Group, London, U.K., 1977. xviii + 570 pp. 37 pls., 27 maps and diagrams, Index. (Paperback £5.50)

INDUSTRIAL AND HAZARDOUS WASTES IMPOUNDMENT, by N. P. Cheremisinoff, P. N. Cheremisinoff, F. Ellerbeck and A. J. Perna. Ann Arbor Science, Michigan, 1979. ix + 475 pp. Index. (£16.25)

PHOSPHORUS IN THE ENVIRONMENT: ITS CHEMISTRY AND BIOCHEMISTRY. (Ciba Foundation No. 57, New Series), by Ruth Porter and David W. Fitzsimons. Elsevier, 1978. (£18.15)

TOXIC AND HAZARDOUS WASTE DISPOSAL. Vol. II, edited by R. B. Pojasek (Options for Sterilization Solidifications). Ann Arbor Science, Michigan, U.S.A., 1979, 259 pp. (£19.80)

SON OF THE WILDERNESS (The Life of John Muir), by Linnie Marsh Wolfe. The University of Wisconsin Press, Madison, 1978. 364 pp. (Paperback £4.90)

NATURE'S PRICE, by W. van Dieren and M. G. W. Hummelinck. Marion Boyars, London, Boston, 1979. (Paperback £3.50)

PERMACULTURE ONE, by Bill (B. C.) Molli‐son and David Holmgren. Corgi Books, Trans‐world Publishers Ltd., Melbourne, Australia. 128 pp. (A $4.95)

ENVIRONMENTAL AERODYNAMICS, by R. S. Scorer. Ellis Horwood, Chichester, U.K., 1978. 488 pp. (Hardback £20.00; paperback £7.50)