Environmental management of assembled chemical weapons assessment program.

Environmental planning and management was an integral part of the ACWA Program planning process. To ensure that environmental protection issues could be addressed expeditiously and not delay the demonstrations, the PMACWA scaled the technology demonstrations such that simplified regulatory processes and existing research and development facilities could be used. The use of enclosed facilities for the demonstrations prevents any uncontrolled discharges to the environment and made it possible to conduct environmental assessments relatively quickly. The PMACWA also arranged for public briefings to ease any community concerns over the operations with chemical weapons. These steps precluded regulatory and community resistance to the ACWA activities. The cooperation of the regulators and stakeholders has been a key element in enabling the ACWA Program to move with the speed that it has to date. Technology demonstrations are currently underway and are scheduled to be completed in late May 1999. The data collected during these demonstrations will be used to prepare and submit a summary report to Congress by August 1999. The challenge continues for the ACWA management to guide the demonstrations to completion and to plan for possible pilot testing. As the scale of the ACWA facilities increase in size, the ease of reduced regulatory processes and environmental analyses will no longer be possible. However, the PMACWA will continue to explore all paths through the environmental process to speed the ACWA program to its goals while at the same time ensuring adequate protection of public health and safety and of the environment

Universities and community-based research in developing countries: community voice and educational provision in rural Tanzania

The main focus of recent research on the community engagement role of universities has been in developed countries, generally in towns and cities and usually conducted from the perspectives of universities rather than the communities with which they engage. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the community engagement role of universities in the rural areas of developing countries, and its potential for strengthening the voice of rural communities. The particular focus is on the provision of primary and secondary education. The paper is based on the assumption that in order for community members to have both the capacity and the confidence to engage in political discourse for improving educational capacity and quality, they need the opportunity to become involved and well-versed in the options available, beyond their own experience. Particular attention is given in the paper to community-based research (CBR). CBR is explored from the perspectives of community members and local leaders in the government-community partnerships which have responsibility for the provision of primary and secondary education in rural Tanzania. The historical and policy background of the partnerships, together with findings from two case studies, provide the context for the paper

Arsenic speciation in soil using high performance liquid chromatography/inductively coupled plasma/mass spectrometry

A method has been developed to identify and quantify As(III), As(V), and organoarsenic compounds in soil samples from the Rocky Mountain Arsenal (RMA) by high performance liquid chromatography/inductively coupled plasma/mass spectrometry (HPLC/ICP/MS). The soils were extracted using tetrabutylammonium hydroxide (TBAH) and sonication. The percentages of As(III), As(V), and organoarsenic species extracted from soil samples were 30, 50, and 100 respectively. The arsenic species were not altered during the extraction process. They were separated by reversed-phase, ion-pairing, HPLC using a microbore Inertsil-ODS{trademark} column. The HPLC column effluent was introduced into an ICP/MS system using a direct injection nebulizer (DIN). Detection limits of less than 1 pg were readily obtained for each arsenic species. Internal standards are recommended to increase accuracy and precision. Soil samples spiked with arsenic oxide, sodium arsenate, dimethylarsinic acid (DMAA), and chlorovinyl arsenious acid (CVAA) were extracted, identified and quantified with the HPLC/ICP/MS system. The soil samples were analyzed in support of the analytical needs of a thermal desorption treatability study being conducted at the RMA

HRM practices used to promote pro-environmental behavior: a UK survey

To date, the extent to which UK organizations use human resource management (HRM) practices to promote pro-environmental behavior through workplace HRM policies and initiatives is under-researched within the literature. Therefore, this paper presents results of a survey investigating current HRM practices used to promote pro-environmental behavior in a sample of 214 UK organizations representing different sizes and industry sectors. Overall, findings indicated that HRM practices are not used to a great extent to encourage employees to become more pro-environmental. The most prevalent practices used within organizations incorporated elements of management involvement supporting the idea that managers are the gatekeepers to environmental performance. Although organizations indicated that some HRM practices were more effective than others at encouraging pro-environmental behavior in their staff, only a very small percentage of organizations actually conducted any form of evaluation; organizations consequently lack clear evidence as to whether their HRM practices actually result in employee behavior change. Practical implications and future research directions are discussed

IT controls in the public cloud : success factors for allocation of roles and responsibilities

The rapid adoption of cloud computing by organizations has resulted in the transformation of the roles and responsibilities of staff in managing the information technology (IT) resources (via IT governance controls) that have migrated to the cloud. Hence, the objective of this research is to provide a set of success factors that can assist IT managers to allocate the roles and responsibilities of IT controls appropriately to staff to manage the migrated IT resources. Accordingly, we generated a set of success factors from behavioral and information systems (IS) literature. These success factors were verified using in-depth interviews of executives from the United Arab Emirates (UAE). The empirical intervention suggests that the role allocation is driven predominantly by people’s skills, competencies, organizational strategy, structures, and policies. In addition, the research made clear that the most significant competency and skill for a person allocated to IT controls is to be able to evaluate and manage a cloud service provider, especially in terms of risks, compliance, and security issues related to public cloud technology. The findings of this study not only offer new insights for scholars and practitioners involved in assigning responsibilities but also provide extensions for IT governance framework authorities to align their guidelines to the emerging cloud technology

The role of mathematical modeling in VOC analysis using isoprene as a prototypic example

Isoprene is one of the most abundant endogenous volatile organic compounds (VOCs) contained in human breath and is considered to be a potentially useful biomarker for diagnostic and monitoring purposes. However, neither the exact biochemical origin of isoprene nor its physiological role are understood in sufficient depth, thus hindering the validation of breath isoprene tests in clinical routine. Exhaled isoprene concentrations are reported to change under different clinical and physiological conditions, especially in response to enhanced cardiovascular and respiratory activity. Investigating isoprene exhalation kinetics under dynamical exercise helps to gather the relevant experimental information for understanding the gas exchange phenomena associated with this important VOC. A first model for isoprene in exhaled breath has been developed by our research group. In the present paper, we aim at giving a concise overview of this model and describe its role in providing supportive evidence for a peripheral (extrahepatic) source of isoprene. In this sense, the results presented here may enable a new perspective on the biochemical processes governing isoprene formation in the human body.Comment: 17 page

Reassessing China’s Higher Education Development: A Focus on Academic Culture

During the past three and a half decades, China has been progressing in higher education in a surprisingly dramatic manner, evidenced especially by scientific publications and sheer numbers of graduates. Such a fact has national, regional and global implications. China’s higher education development and its future directions are now placed highly on the research agendas of many from various parts of the world. Unlike the general acknowledgment of China’s achievements, assessment of the future development of China’s higher education is wide open to question. To some, Chinese universities are on a trajectory to become “world-class” and China’s high-fliers challenge Western supremacy. To others, China’s notion of “world-class” status has been largely imitative. Pumping resources into universities will only lead to diminishing returns as Chinese culture and practices will act as a brake to the pursuit of academic excellence. An increasing deal of attention has been paid to where China will be located in a global higher education landscape and in what shape. Based on the author’s long-standing professional observation and recent empirical studies, this article assesses China’s higher education development, with a particular focus on the challenges brought forward by academic culture. It interrogates China’s pride of the idea that Chinese universities are not willing to assume that Western models define excellence, and asks how far Chinese universities could move within their current development model.postprin

Analytically Solvable Asymptotic Model of Atrial Excitability

We report a three-variable simplified model of excitation fronts in human atrial tissue. The model is derived by novel asymptotic techniques \new{from the biophysically realistic model of Courtemanche et al (1998) in extension of our previous similar models. An iterative analytical solution of the model is presented which is in excellent quantitative agreement with the realistic model. It opens new possibilities for analytical studies as well as for efficient numerical simulation of this and other cardiac models of similar structure

Isoprene and acetone concentration profiles during exercise on an ergometer

A real-time recording setup combining exhaled breath VOC measurements by proton transfer reaction mass spectrometry (PTR-MS) with hemodynamic and respiratory data is presented. Continuous automatic sampling of exhaled breath is implemented on the basis of measured respiratory flow: a flow-controlled shutter mechanism guarantees that only end-tidal exhalation segments are drawn into the mass spectrometer for analysis. Exhaled breath concentration profiles of two prototypic compounds, isoprene and acetone, during several exercise regimes were acquired, reaffirming and complementing earlier experimental findings regarding the dynamic response of these compounds reported by Senthilmohan et al. [1] and Karl et al. [2]. While isoprene tends to react very sensitively to changes in pulmonary ventilation and perfusion due to its lipophilic behavior and low Henry constant, hydrophilic acetone shows a rather stable behavior. Characteristic (median) values for breath isoprene concentration and molar flow, i.e., the amount of isoprene exhaled per minute are 100 ppb and 29 nmol/min, respectively, with some intra-individual day-to-day variation. At the onset of exercise breath isoprene concentration increases drastically, usually by a factor of ~3-4 within about one minute. Due to a simultaneous increase in ventilation, the associated rise in molar flow is even more pronounced, leading to a ratio between peak molar flow and molar flow at rest of ~11. Our setup holds great potential in capturing continuous dynamics of non-polar, low-soluble VOCs over a wide measurement range with simultaneous appraisal of decisive physiological factors affecting exhalation kinetics.Comment: 35 page