Integrated Ecosystem Assessment: Lake Ontario Water Management

BACKGROUND: Ecosystem management requires organizing, synthesizing, and projecting information at a large scale while simultaneously addressing public interests, dynamic ecological properties, and a continuum of physicochemical conditions. We compared the impacts of seven water level management plans for Lake Ontario on a set of environmental attributes of public relevance. METHODOLOGY AND FINDINGS: Our assessment method was developed with a set of established impact assessment tools (checklists, classifications, matrices, simulations, representative taxa, and performance relations) and the concept of archetypal geomorphic shoreline classes. We considered each environmental attribute and shoreline class in its typical and essential form and predicted how water level change would interact with defining properties. The analysis indicated that about half the shoreline of Lake Ontario is potentially sensitive to water level change with a small portion being highly sensitive. The current water management plan may be best for maintaining the environmental resources. In contrast, a natural water regime plan designed for greatest environmental benefits most often had adverse impacts, impacted most shoreline classes, and the largest portion of the lake coast. Plans that balanced multiple objectives and avoided hydrologic extremes were found to be similar relative to the environment, low on adverse impacts, and had many minor impacts across many shoreline classes. SIGNIFICANCE: The Lake Ontario ecosystem assessment provided information that can inform decisions about water management and the environment. No approach and set of methods will perfectly and unarguably accomplish integrated ecosystem assessment. For managing water levels in Lake Ontario, we found that there are no uniformly good and bad options for environmental conservation. The scientific challenge was selecting a set of tools and practices to present broad, relevant, unbiased, and accessible information to guide decision-making on a set of management options

A trial of a job-specific workers' health surveillance program for construction workers: study protocol

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Dutch construction workers are offered periodic health examinations. This care can be improved by tailoring this workers health surveillance (WHS) to the demands of the job and adjust the preventive actions to the specific health risks of a worker in a particular job. To improve the quality of the WHS for construction workers and stimulate relevant job-specific preventive actions by the occupational physician, we have developed a job-specific WHS. The job-specific WHS consists of modules assessing both physical and psychological requirements. The selected measurement instruments chosen, are based on their appropriateness to measure the workers' capacity and health requirements. They include a questionnaire and biometrical tests, and physical performance tests that measure physical functional capabilities. Furthermore, our job-specific WHS provides occupational physicians with a protocol to increase the worker-behavioural effectiveness of their counselling and to stimulate job-specific preventive actions. The objective of this paper is to describe and clarify our study to evaluate the behavioural effects of this job-specific WHS on workers and occupational physicians.</p> <p>Methods/Design</p> <p>The ongoing study of bricklayers and supervisors is a nonrandomised trial to compare the outcome of an intervention (job-specific WHS) group (n = 206) with that of a control (WHS) group (n = 206). The study includes a three-month follow-up. The primary outcome measure is the proportion of participants who have undertaken one or more of the preventive actions advised by their occupational physician in the three months after attending the WHS. A process evaluation will be carried out to determine context, reach, dose delivered, dose received, fidelity, and satisfaction. The present study is in accordance with the TREND Statement.</p> <p>Discussion</p> <p>This study will allow an evaluation of the behaviour of both the workers and occupational physician regarding the preventive actions undertaken by them within the scope of a job-specific WHS.</p> <p>Trial registration</p> <p><a href="http://www.trialregister.nl/trialreg/admin/rctview.asp?TC=3012">NTR3012</a></p

Struggles over work take place at home: women’s decisions, choices and constraints in the Tiruppur textile industry, India

Examining women’s choices around paid work in south India, this article shows the need to pay greater attention to the sphere of reproduction, and in particular the way that women endeavour to fit their productive work around their reproductive roles and responsibilities. Focussing on the region of the Tiruppur garment cluster in Tamil Nadu, India, it outlines the opportunities available to rural women, shedding light first on women’s decisions whether to work or not, and second, on how women choose between particular types of work available to them. The article demonstrates the primacy of the reproductive economy in shaping women's movements in and out of paid work, particularly the importance of stage in life course, household composition and patriarchal control to women’s decisions. Main findings of the article are that most women work, but their particular job choices reflect multiple social and reproductive constraints, while those who withdraw from work have been subjected to new expressions of patriarchy. The article advances understandings in feminist geographies of work by drawing on ethnographic insights to highlight the mutual embeddedness of the reproductive and productive economies

Deepening Inclusive and Community-Engaged Education in Three Schools: A Teachers' Resource

In 2009 the Toronto District School Board (TDSB) initiated the Inclusive Schools three-year pilot project with the intent to engage teachers, teacher educators, students, parents, staff, and administrators in investigating and developing effective inclusive curriculum and instructional practices that could be implemented in classrooms and school-wide. In addition, the project aimed to identify practices and factors that contribute to improved student engagement and learning and that strengthen community connections. Over a three-year period, three TDSB elementary schools - Carleton Village Public School, Flemington Public School, and Grey Owl Junior Public School - carried out 19 school-based inquiries. School-based inquiries were grounded in a professional learning process that emphasized inquiry, partnership, collaboration, action and reflection, and professional choice and responsibility. Participants had different understandings and experiences, which they brought to their particular investigations. This teachers’ resource contains reports on school-based inquiries into effective inclusive curriculum practices. It is intended for teachers who are considering the integration of inclusive approaches in their day-to-day work in schools. As such, the purpose of this resource is to contribute toward understanding how to support student learning and ongoing teacher education in ways that are responsive to today’s educational context