Exposure factors manual

ABSTRACT: Assessing health risks associated with potential exposure to chemicals from petroleum or petrochemical operations requires the consideration of multiple exposure pathways. These pathways include ingestion of water, food, or soil, inhalation of vapors or airborne particulate, and dermal absorption from contaminated soil, water, or by direct skin contact. To estimate the exposures for each pathway, a number of variables related to exposure, that is, exposure factors, are needed. Some categories of exposure factors include physiologic factors (e.g., body weight), time-activity factors (e.g., time spent at home), and contact rate factors (e.g., soil ingestion rate). This manual is organized by exposure factor category and includes a description of selected exposure factors commonly used in risk assessments, a brief summary, and an evaluation of the current scientific data supporting a recommended point value for each factor, and available information on the known distributions. It is hoped that this information will promote consistency and quality among various risk assessment activities

Engineered Knottin Peptide Enables Noninvasive Optical Imaging of Intracranial Medulloblastoma

Central nervous system tumors carry grave clinical prognoses due to limited effectiveness of surgical resection, radiation, and chemotherapy. Thus, improved strategies for brain tumor visualization and targeted treatment are critically needed. We demonstrate that mouse cerebellar medulloblastoma (MB) can be targeted and illuminated with a fluorescent, engineered cystine knot (knottin) peptide that binds with high affinity to α β , α β , and α β integrin receptors. This integrin-binding knottin peptide, denoted EETI 2.5F, was evaluated as a molecular imaging probe in both orthotopic and genetic models of MB. Following tail vein injection, fluorescence arising from dye-conjugated EETI 2.5F was localized to the tumor compared with the normal surrounding brain tissue, as measured by optical imaging. The imaging signal intensity correlated with tumor volume. Due to its unique ability to bind to α β integrin, EETI 2.5F showed superior in vivo and ex vivo brain tumor imaging contrast compared with other engineered integrin-binding knottin peptides and with c(RGDfK), a well-studied integrin-binding peptidomimetic. Next, EETI 2.5F was fused to an antibody fragment crystallizable (Fc) domain (EETI 2.5F-Fc) to determine if a larger integrin-binding protein could also target intracranial brain tumors. EETI 2.5F-Fc, conjugated to a fluorescent dye, illuminated MB following i.v. injection and was able to distribute throughout the tumor parenchyma. In contrast, brain tumor imaging signals were not detected in mice injected with EETI 2.5F proteins containing a scrambled integrin-binding sequence, demonstrating the importance of target specificity. These results highlight the potential of using EETI 2.5F and EETI 2.5-Fc as targeted molecular probes for brain tumor imaging

The Development of New User Research Capabilities in Environmental Molecular Science: Workshop Report

On August 1, and 2, 2006, 104 scientists representing 40 institutions including 24 Universities and 5 National Laboratories gathered at the W.R. Wiley Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory, a National scientific user facility, to outline important science challenges for the next decade and identify major capabilities needed to pursue advanced research in the environmental molecular sciences. EMSL’s four science themes served as the framework for the workshop. The four science themes are 1) Biological Interactions and Interfaces, 2) Geochemistry/Biogeochemistry and Surface Science, 3) Atmospheric Aerosol Chemistry, and 4) Science of Interfacial Phenomena

Reserves and trade jointly determine exposure to food supply shocks

While a growing proportion of global food consumption is obtained through international trade, there is an ongoing debate on whether this increased reliance on trade benefits or hinders food security, and specifically, the ability of global food systems to absorb shocks due to local or regional losses of production. This paper introduces a model that simulates the short-term response to a food supply shock originating in a single country, which is partly absorbed through decreases in domestic reserves and consumption, and partly transmitted through the adjustment of trade flows. By applying the model to publicly-available data for the cereals commodity group over a 17 year period, we find that differential outcomes of supply shocks simulated through this time period are driven not only by the intensification of trade, but as importantly by changes in the distribution of reserves. Our analysis also identifies countries where trade dependency may accentuate the risk of food shortages from foreign production shocks; such risk could be reduced by increasing domestic reserves or importing food from a diversity of suppliers that possess their own reserves. This simulation-based model provides a framework to study the short-term, nonlinear and out-of-equilibrium response of trade networks to supply shocks, and could be applied to specific scenarios of environmental or economic perturbations

Human Resources and the Resource Based View of the Firm

The resource-based view (RBV) of the firm has influenced the field of strategic human resource management (SHRM) in a number of ways. This paper explores the impact of the RBV on the theoretical and empirical development of SHRM. It explores how the fields of strategy and SHRM are beginning to converge around a number of issues, and proposes a number of implications of this convergence

Integrating Life Cycle and Impact Assessments to Map Food's Cumulative Environmental Footprint

Producing food exerts pressures on the environment. Understanding the location and magnitude of food production is key to reducing the impacts of these pressures on nature and people. In this Perspective, Kuempel et al. outline an approach for integrating life cycle assessment and cumulative impact mapping data and methodologies to map the cumulative environmental pressure of food systems. The approach enables quantification of current and potential future environmental pressures, which are needed to reduce the net impact of feeding humanity. © 2020 The AuthorsFeeding a growing, increasingly affluent population while limiting environmental pressures of food production is a central challenge for society. Understanding the location and magnitude of food production is key to addressing this challenge because pressures vary substantially across food production types. Applying data and models from life cycle assessment with the methodologies for mapping cumulative environmental impacts of human activities (hereafter cumulative impact mapping) provides a powerful approach to spatially map the cumulative environmental pressure of food production in a way that is consistent and comprehensive across food types. However, these methodologies have yet to be combined. By synthesizing life cycle assessment and cumulative impact mapping methodologies, we provide guidance for comprehensively and cumulatively mapping the environmental pressures (e.g., greenhouse gas emissions, spatial occupancy, and freshwater use) associated with food production systems. This spatial approach enables quantification of current and potential future environmental pressures, which is needed for decision makers to create more sustainable food policies and practices. © 2020 The Author

Accounting, Soci(et)al Risks, and Public Reason: Governmental Risk Discourses About the ILVA Steel Plant in Taranto (Italy)

The case of the ILVA steel plant in Taranto represents an example of con- trasting, incommensurable sustainability issues, explored in terms of “social” and “societal” risks (Asenova et al. in Managing the risks of public spending cuts in Scotland, 2013; Redistribution of social and societal risk: the impact on individuals, their networks and communities, 2015) [Asenova et al. (2015) refer to social risks as the risks of unemployment, and to societal risks as environmental and health risks.]. The case of ILVA has received significant attention for the great amount of dangerous pollutants spread in the environment, as well as the evidence of higher illness and mortality rates in the districts nearest to the plant. In July 2012, the Italian Judiciary halted activity in the steel plant. Four months after, the Italian Government declared the steel plant site as a “Strategic National Interest Site”, and allowed the company to restart its activity. Drawing on governmentality (Foucault in Questions of method, 1991), the paper aims to explore the role of accounting—here broadly intended as calculative practices (Miller in Soc Res 68:379–396, 2001)—in moulding ministerial discourse to support decisions when the governance of contrasting risks is needed to safeguard public interest. Supported by discourse analysis of governmental speech, the research shows that the Italian Government based its decision on various experts’ risk appraisals: accounting shaped governmental discourse by giving more visibility and relevance to “social” risks (i.e. unemployment, economic development, produc- tivity and competitiveness risks), while silencing “societal” ones (i.e. environmental and health risks). Focusing on a case of incommensurable contrasting issues, the findings contribute to show that accounting concurrently plays a significant role in government decisions legitimizing the business continuity through the creation of a specific risk discourse

Fitting as a temporal sensemaking process: shifting trajectories and stable themes

This study identifies several mechanisms and the overall process by which individuals understand their evolving fit with their work environment. Prior person-environment research has emphasized one-time quantitative assessments of fit, primarily as new entrants enter their work environment. In this study, we employed a qualitative approach to investigate the following question: how do long-tenured professionals make sense of fit over time? Three key findings emerged from the fit-related histories we collected. First, we discovered four prototypical fit trajectories, which were constructed from temporal comparisons with past, present, and future fit, and employed to make momentary sense of events occurring in the work environment. Second, we identified two fit processes that played out over time: a slow accumulation journey and a sudden identity-threat journey. Third, we found that individuals’ set of fit experiences was explained by one of four enduring fit themes, explaining their pattern of fit experiences over time and their reaction to misfit. Most surprising was the significant turnover among our long-tenured participants in the year or so following our interviews. Our findings break from traditional thinking about fit as predicting outcomes in the moment, to fitting as both a journey and a retrospective and prospective process of sensemaking. Keywords: person-environment fit, misfit, temporal, time, process, sensemaking, qualitative, identit

The blameworthiness of health and safety rule violations

Man-made disasters usually lead to the tightening of safety regulations, because rule breaking is seen as a major cause of them. This reaction is based on the presumptions that the safety rules are good and that the rule-breakers are wrong. The reasons the personnel of a coke factory gave for breaking rules raise doubt about the tenability of these presumptions. It is unlikely that this result would have been achieved on the basis of a disaster evaluation or High-Reliability Theory. In both approaches, knowledge of the consequences of human conduct hinders an unprejudiced judgement about the blameworthiness of rule breaking