A comprehensive framework for automotive sustainability assessment

Business efficiency, stakeholder pressure and the need for legislative compliance compel the automotive sector to design and manufacture fuel-efficient, low-impact, environmentally responsible and sustainable vehicles. Managing and responding to these multiple and sometimes conflicting interests requires the measurement of economic, environmental and societal performance. Although a number of automotive sustainability measures are mentioned within the literature, there is no single and unique approach for the complete and integrated sustainability assessment of vehicles. This study has developed a comprehensive automotive sustainability assessment framework by selecting a set of sustainability assessment criteria from the literature and refining these through an interview study with 24 automotive experts from academia, car manufacturers, consultancies and non-governmental organisations. Based on this approach, 26 midpoint and 9 end-point environmental, resource, social and economic impact categories have been identified for the construction of a framework for automotive sustainability assessment. The proposed framework can be used as a decision-supporting tool at the early stages of the vehicle development process. It allows source and sustainability issues to be identified throughout the entire vehicle life cycle and provides the means to sharpen analysis and discussion around these issues. The framework can also serve as a design structure for a wide range of sustainability assessment methods and tools (e.g. multi-criteria decision adding or sustainability accounting methods). It serves as guidance on what needs to be measured in an integrated sustainability assessment of vehicles and leaves the choice of what to include in the decision-making process to the discretion of individual companie

Inferring tidal wetland stability from channel sediment fluxes : observations and a conceptual model

Author Posting. © American Geophysical Union, 2013. This article is posted here by permission of American Geophysical Union for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Geophysical Research: Earth Surface 118 (2013): 2045–2058, doi:10.1002/jgrf.20143.Anthropogenic and climatic forces have modified the geomorphology of tidal wetlands over a range of timescales. Changes in land use, sediment supply, river flow, storminess, and sea level alter the layout of tidal channels, intertidal flats, and marsh plains; these elements define wetland complexes. Diagnostically, measurements of net sediment fluxes through tidal channels are high-temporal resolution, spatially integrated quantities that indicate (1) whether a complex is stable over seasonal timescales and (2) what mechanisms are leading to that state. We estimated sediment fluxes through tidal channels draining wetland complexes on the Blackwater and Transquaking Rivers, Maryland, USA. While the Blackwater complex has experienced decades of degradation and been largely converted to open water, the Transquaking complex has persisted as an expansive, vegetated marsh. The measured net export at the Blackwater complex (1.0 kg/s or 0.56 kg/m2/yr over the landward marsh area) was caused by northwesterly winds, which exported water and sediment on the subtidal timescale; tidally forced net fluxes were weak and precluded landward transport of suspended sediment from potential seaward sources. Though wind forcing also exported sediment at the Transquaking complex, strong tidal forcing and proximity to a turbidity maximum led to an import of sediment (0.031 kg/s or 0.70 kg/m2/yr). This resulted in a spatially averaged accretion of 3.9 mm/yr, equaling the regional relative sea level rise. Our results suggest that in areas where seaward sediment supply is dominant, seaward wetlands may be more capable of withstanding sea level rise over the short term than landward wetlands. We propose a conceptual model to determine a complex's tendency toward stability or instability based on sediment source, wetland channel location, and transport mechanisms. Wetlands with a reliable portfolio of sources and transport mechanisms appear better suited to offset natural and anthropogenic loss.Funding was provided by the USGS Coastal and Marine Geology Program and the Climate and Land Use Change Research and Development Program.2014-04-0

Asymmetric root distributions reveal press–pulse responses in retreating coastal forests

The impacts of climate change on ecosystems are manifested in how organisms respond to episodic and continuous stressors. The conversion of coastal forests to salt marshes represents a prominent example of ecosystem state change, driven by the continuous stress of sea-level rise (press), and episodic storms (pulse). Here, we measured the rooting dimension and fall direction of 143 windthrown eastern red cedar (Juniperus virginiana) trees in a rapidly retreating coastal forest in Chesapeake Bay (USA). We found that tree roots were distributed asymmetrically away from the leading edge of soil salinization and towards freshwater sources. The length, number, and circumference of roots were consistently higher in the upslope direction than downslope direction, suggesting an active morphological adaptation to sea-level rise and salinity stress. Windthrown trees consistently fell in the upslope direction regardless of aspect and prevailing wind direction, suggesting that asymmetric rooting destabilized standing trees, and reduced their ability to withstand high winds. Together, these observations help explain curious observations of coastal forest resilience, and highlight an interesting nonadditive response to climate change, where adaptation to press stressors increases vulnerability to pulse stressors

Safety intelligence : An exploration of senior managers' characteristics

Peer reviewedPostprin

A MUSE Exploration of Edge Cases in Jet Launching

The evolution of stellar objects and the potential planetary systems that form around them are core preoccupations for astronomers. Common to many sun-like stars in their formative years is the presence of astrophysical jets. They are tightly linked to accretion processes and are believed to play a crucial role in stellar evolution by carrying away mass and angular momentum, but the process by which they are launched is not yet determined. The majority of our knowledge comes from the study of low-mass Classical T-Tauri stars, and advances in instrumentation – particularly in ground-based astronomy – have made it possible to observe jets closer to their region of launch. The goal of this thesis is to utilize high angular resolution integral field spectroscopy to explore less common jet launching sources in an effort to better understand jet behavior and its impact on stellar evolution. We present MUSE observations of the intermediate-mass Herbig Ae star HD 163296, the giant Orion proplyd 244-440, and the proto-brown dwarf candidate Mayrit 1082188, each of which features a unique outflow system and together constitute a rich data set spanning a range of age, mass, and environment. In our study of HD 163296 we observe a complex outflow system that is still active despite its age. We analyze the morphology of the proplyd jet system and find it is possibly driven by a smaller companion hidden within the photoevaporating disk. In our final study we discover a large cavity associated with Mayrit 1082188, which suggests a wind-driven process similar to standard outflow models. A key finding of this work is the evidence of commonality, and our results indicate that the outflow mechanism is efficient in its utilization of material, durable in its ability to launch under harsh conditions, and scalable in power to the mass of the driving source

Men, rheumatoid arthritis, psychosocial impact and self-management: A narrative review.

Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is a chronic disease affecting fewer men than women. We systematically reviewed the literature on impact and self-management of RA men. Twenty eight papers were included, and grouped into two categories: Psychosocial impact of RA; and Coping and self-management. This review finds gender differences relating to quality of life; work; distress; self-management; coping; and support. We conclude there is a dearth of literature focussing on RA men only, and mixed gender studies include insufficient men to draw strong conclusions about men. Thus, further research is needed to understand the support needs of men with RA in depth

Biomarker Discovery in Animal Health and Disease: The Application of Post-Genomic Technologies

The causes of many important diseases in animals are complex and multifactorial, which present unique challenges. Biomarkers indicate the presence or extent of a biological process, which is directly linked to the clinical manifestations and outcome of a particular disease. Identifying biomarkers or biomarker profiles will be an important step towards disease characterization and management of disease in animals. The emergence of post-genomic technologies has led to the development of strategies aimed at identifying specific and sensitive biomarkers from the thousands of molecules present in a tissue or biological fluid. This review will summarize the current developments in biomarker discovery and will focus on the role of transcriptomics, proteomics and metabolomics in biomarker discovery for animal health and disease

Fractional Hamiltonian Monodromy from a Gauss-Manin Monodromy

Fractional Hamiltonian Monodromy is a generalization of the notion of Hamiltonian Monodromy, recently introduced by N. N. Nekhoroshev, D. A. Sadovskii and B. I. Zhilinskii for energy-momentum maps whose image has a particular type of non-isolated singularities. In this paper, we analyze the notion of Fractional Hamiltonian Monodromy in terms of the Gauss-Manin Monodromy of a Riemann surface constructed from the energy-momentum map and associated to a loop in complex space which bypasses the line of singularities. We also prove some propositions on Fractional Hamiltonian Monodromy for 1:-n and m:-n resonant systems.Comment: 39 pages, 24 figures. submitted to J. Math. Phy

Variability in marsh migration potential determined by topographic rather than anthropogenic constraints in the Chesapeake Bay region

© The Author(s), 2022. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. The definitive version was published in Molino, G. D., Carr, J. A., Ganju, N. K., & Kirwan, M. L. Variability in marsh migration potential determined by topographic rather than anthropogenic constraints in the Chesapeake Bay region. Limnology and Oceanography Letters, 7(4), (2022): 321-331, https://doi.org/10.1002/lol2.10262.Sea level rise (SLR) and saltwater intrusion are driving inland shifts in coastal ecosystems. Here, we make high-resolution (1 m) predictions of land conversion under future SLR scenarios in 81 watersheds surrounding Chesapeake Bay, United States, a hotspot for accelerated SLR and saltwater intrusion. We find that 1050–3748 km2 of marsh could be created by 2100, largely at the expense of forested wetlands. Predicted marsh migration exceeds total current tidal marsh area and is ~ 4× greater than historical observations. Anthropogenic land use in marsh migration areas is concentrated within a few watersheds and minimally impacts calculated metrics of marsh resilience. Despite regional marsh area maintenance, local ecosystem service replacement within vulnerable watersheds remains uncertain. However, our work suggests that topography rather than land use drives spatial variability in wetland vulnerability regionally, and that rural land conversion is needed to compensate for extensive areal losses on heavily developed coasts globally.This work was funded by the U.S. Geological Survey Climate Research and Development and the U.S. Geological Survey Coastal and Marine Hazards and Resources Program. Additional funding was provided from the National Science Foundation CAREER, LTER, and CZN programs (EAR-1654374, DEB-1832221, and EAR-2012670)