Chemical Time Bombs: Definition, Concepts, and Examples

This report discusses the question of the potential long-term impacts of the accumulation and mobilization of toxic and environmentally harmful chemicals in the environment. This paper deals with the potential problems caused by long-term accumulations of chemicals in the environment, cites examples of economic costs of such occurrences, and defines the means by which, under certain circumstances, such accumulations behave as "time bombs". The report gives examples of such behavior and discusses how chemical time bombs may be predicted

Changes in Valued "Capacities" of Soils and Sediments as Indicators of Nonlinear and Time-Delayed Environmental Effects

This paper discusses the buffering, oxygen-donating, and sorption capacities of soils and sediments as an inter-connected system for regulating the retention and release of chemical pollutants. In this context, the author discusses the chemical conditions under which sediments may serve as a source or a sink for toxic materials, and conditions under which soils may retain or release them. It is demonstrated that nonlinear, time-delayed ecological transformations in soils and sediments often can be understood in terms of the interlinked system. The author discusses some possible future long-term environmental problems that might beset Europe, and some implications for a monitoring strategy for foreseeing such problems. Because the release of adsorbed toxic chemicals from heavily polluted sediments and soils can occur suddenly owing to changes in oxygen status (i.e., redox potential) or acidity, strategies for preventing the long-term release of such materials should not only consider current conditions of pH and redox potential, but also, how those conditions might change in the future

Navigating an academic maze: experiences of an international female scholar

Academia is a world filled with bright people searching for explanations for phenomena around us, and developing and testing new theories to explain the hows and whys of our experience. It is a world defined by a drive to expand the boundaries of knowledge, and is ostensibly characterized by intellectual enlightenment and relentless progress. But is academia truly progressive? Perhaps for some of us. For others, however, it is still a world where many people struggle to be seen, to be heard, and to succeed—especially if you are in the minority (e.g., you are female, international, a person of color, or have other features that put you in a minority category). In this essay, I share some of my personal experiences as an international female academic, with the hope that my challenges—and the ways I work to overcome them—will resonate with other people in the margins of our presumably progressive field

Understanding engagement: exploring how young non-professional journalists think about civic engagement

Title from PDF of title page (University of Missouri--Columbia, viewed on September 12, 2013).The entire thesis text is included in the research.pdf file; the official abstract appears in the short.pdf file; a non-technical public abstract appears in the public.pdf file.Thesis advisor: Dr. Timothy VosIncludes bibliographical references.M.A. University of Missouri--Columbia 2013.Dissertations, Academic -- University of Missouri--Columbia -- Journalism."May 2013"This study explores the understanding young citizen journalists have of civic engagement. It is based upon 10 semi-structured, in-depth interviews with youth and community media participants, ages 18 to 25. Those interviews, which were analyzed using the constant comparative method, revealed that participants saw their journalistic work an act of civic engagement, despite being uncertain of the concrete benefits it provided to society. Also, the results showed that the youth and community media programs in which the participants took part did not serve to draw participants into political and geographic community engagement. However, the citizen journalism these young people performed did help them enter into public life and establish connections with adults as well as their peers. Through these connections with others, the participants demonstrated a deep understanding of how they fit into the fabric of society and how their interests related to those of others. They preferred to act on issues important to their lives on a small scale through networks of people who shared their concerns. Future research might explore the relationship between youth and the lack of engagement in geographic communities as opposed to their increased identification with interest-based communities

Industrial Metabolism and River Basin Studies: A New Approach for the Analysis of Chemical Pollution

The object of this report is to demonstrate the merit of studies in industrial metabolism as a new analytical tool for assessing the sources and flows of toxic chemicals. The methodology provides a framework for "cradle-to-grave" analysis that traces the movement of chemicals through the industrial economy, identifies the entry points through which they pass from the economy to the environment, and assesses their impact once they have entered the environment. The analysis is guided throughout by the simple constraint imposed by the principle of mass balance, which requires that the sum total of a chemical remains constant as it moves through a system from production to consumption to disposal, even as the partitioning of the chemical into various economic streams changes. Much of the analysis in this report is focused on the Rhine River Basin. The authors suggest that the spatial unit of large river basins may be ideal for studies in industrial metabolism. By definition, a river basin encompasses the land area that drains into the rivers or its tributaries. Thus, if one accounts for movements of materials into or out of the basin (particularly via atmospheric transport), it may be assumed that emissions generated within the basin can be lost from the basin only by river transport and discharge at its mouth. The remainder of the emissions (equal to total emissions minus the output from the basin) is deposited in and spatially bound by the basin, accumulating in chemical sinks, including agricultural soils, ground waters, sediments of lakes and tributaries, and landfills and toxic waste dumps. Mass balance analysis ensures that these sinks are accounted for and provides boundary conditions for assessing cumulative loads. Moreover, the tracing of chemical flows, both in the economy and environment occurs within the same spatial domain, and linkages between sources and their environmental effects are more easily established

Designing new customer experiences: a study of socio-material practices in service design

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How nascent occupations construct a mandate: the case of service designers' ethos

In this paper, we study the way that nascent occupations constructing an occupational mandate invoke not only skills and expertise or a new technology to distinguish themselves from other occupations, but also their values. We studied service design, an emerging occupation whose practitioners aim to understand customers and help organizations develop new or improved services and customer experiences, translate those into feasible solutions, and implement them. Practitioners enacted their values in their daily work activities through a set of material practices, such as shadowing customers or front-line staff, conducting interviews in the service context, or creating “journey maps” of a service user’s experience. The role of values in the construction of an occupational mandate is particularly salient for occupations such as service design, which cannot solely rely on skills and technical expertise as sources of differentiation. We show how service designers differentiated themselves from other competing occupations by highlighting how their values make their work practices unique. Both values and work practices, what service designers call their ethos, were essential to enable service designers to define the proper conduct and modes of thinking characteristic of their occupational mandate