Safety culture and organizational climate in air traffic control

Due to organizational changes in the Swedish air navigation services (ANS), which in extension could impact flight safety, the safety culture (SC), organizational climate (OC), and related areas are monitored. Study locations are the two main air traffic control centers in Sweden and parts of the central ANS office. This paper reports on a first attempt to investigate whether relationships exist between SC and OC. The findings show that such relationships exist

The effect of spatial and temporal planning scale on the trade-off between the financial value and carbon storage in production forests

Background: Increasing carbon stock in standing forests is one of the proposed ways to mitigate climate change. However, in production forests, this typically would lead to reduced harvesting possibilities and thus reduced financial gain for the forest owners. The size of this reduction should depend on the chosen target level of the carbon stock as well as the required speed of accumulation. Furthermore, due to landscape heterogeneity, the size of the loss can be expected to vary the planning scale, often related to forest property size.Aim: This study aimed to quantify the effects of spatial and temporal planning scales on the severity of the tradeoff between Net Present Value (NPV) of future timber sales and carbon storage in production forests in Southern Sweden.Methods: We used the Heureka PlanWise forest decision support system with built-in Linear Programming functionality. We created six Production Possibility Frontiers (PPF) that quantified the trade-off for the combinations of two scenarios for timing of carbon accumulation (either by 2100 or by 2100 with an intermediate target by 2045) and three spatial management scales (-3300 ha, -300 ha, and -60 ha; 1068 stands).Results: There was a strong effect of temporal scale, with consistently lower NPV, with the same carbon stock in 2100, when the intermediate target for 2045 was applied. The effect of the spatial scale was only apparent between the smallest (50 ha) scale and the larger scales (300 and 3300 ha), with consistently lower NPV with the same carbon stock at the smallest scale.Conclusion: We conclude that both the effects of spatial management scale and temporal scale on the cost of carbon storage should be considered in relation to potential climate policies

Dynamic Description with Computer Supported Pictures

A methodology was developed and tested in six case studies at four medium-sized manufacturing companies within the machine engineering industry. Existing and planned work environments and production processes were described with the aid of computer-generated pictures. The pictures were used within the framework of an action research methodology in which managers and those employees affected, together with trade unions and company health care representatives, cooperated to establish the preconditions for improved planning from the point of view of both productivity and work environment. The picture methodology using animated pictures, developed to create and present two- and three-dimensional views of a computer model with manipulable objects, was tested both in a workshop with 20 participants from manufacturing companies and corporate health care and in an experimental study with 30 psychology students as experimental subjects. At a Community College with an artistic bet, the way in which different groups within the college described its organization with the aid of pictures and symbols was studied

Biomass burning in eastern Europe during spring 2006 caused high deposition of ammonium in northern Fennoscandia

High air concentrations of ammonium were detected at low and high altitude sites in Sweden, Finland and Norway during the spring 2006, coinciding with polluted air from biomass burning in eastern Europe passing over central and northern Fennoscandia. Unusually high values for throughfall deposition of ammonium were detected at one low altitude site and several high altitude sites in north Sweden. The occurrence of the high ammonium in throughfall differed between the summer months 2006, most likely related to the timing of precipitation events. The ammonia dry deposition may have contributed to unusual visible injuries on the tree vegetation in northern Fennoscandia that occurred during 2006, in combination with high ozone concentrations. It is concluded that long-range transport of ammonium from large-scale biomass burning may contribute substantially to the nitrogen load at northern latitudes. (C) 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved

L

Article discussing research on L- and M-shell x-ray production cross sections of Nd, Gd, Ho, Yb, Au, and Pb by 25-MeV carbon and 32-MeV oxygen ions