This book provides practical, research-based advice on how to conduct high-quality stated choice studies. It covers every aspect of the topic, from planning and writing the survey, to analyzing results, to evaluating quality. There is no other book on the market today that so thoroughly addresses the methodology of stated choice. Chapters are written by top-notch academics and practitioners in an accessible style, offering practical, tough advice.

This book discusses UV radiation, its effects on ecosystems and the likely evolutionary consequences of changed UV radiation environments, past, present and future. The first two chapters examine the history of the UV radiation climate of earth and the factors that determine organismal and ecosystem exposure. Their purpose is to give the reader a physical perspective on UV radiation and an understanding of the constantly changing UV environment that ecosystems are exposed to over time. Variations in the UV radiation environment occur at the local level (such as boundary layer and plant canopy effects) through to global-scale changes (such as alterations in the column abundance of UV-B protecting ozone). UV radiation regimes also vary over temporal scales. These alterations occur on time scales of seconds (the movement of clouds and plant canopies) to literally billions of years (gross long-term changes in the composition of the Earth's atmosphere). In the chapters that follow five specific biological and ecological topics in photobiology are considered. They are effects of UV radiation on amphibians, plants, corals, aquatic microbial ecosystems and Antarctic ecosystems that are exposed to the anthropogenically generated ozone 'hole'. These chapters consider UV radiation effects at a diversity of levels from the biochemical to the community. Their purpose is to provide the reader with our current understanding of the ecological effects of UV radiation, the areas where questions still remain and to provide a perspective from which the reader can better understand questions in evolutionary photobiology. The final chapter investigates the biological consequences of altered extraterrestrial ultraviolet fluxes, which are quite different from those experienced on the Earth. Our knowledge of the role of UV radiation in shaping ecologies and evolutionary change is still in its infancy. This book brings together a number of authors with the aim of helping to consolidate a better understanding of this interesting area of photobiology.

This book provides a thorough understanding of the general principles of measurement for taking off quantities. An essential guide to any quantity surveyor, architect or engineer. Taking off quantities: Civil Engineering demonstrates, through a series of detailed worked examples from a range of civil engineering projects, how the measurement techniques are actually used.

Cosmogenic radionuclides are radioactive isotopes which are produced by natural processes and distributed within the Earth system. With a holistic view of the environment the authors show in this book how cosmogenic radionuclides can be used to trace and to reconstruct the history of a large variety of processes. They discuss the way in which cosmogenic radionuclides can assist in the quantification of complex processes in the present-day environment. The book aims to demonstrate to the reader the strength of analytic tools based on cosmogenic radionuclides, their contribution to almost any field of modern science, and how these tools may assist in the solution of many present and future problems that we face here on Earth. The book provides a comprehensive discussion of the basic principles behind the applications of cosmogenic (and other) radionuclides as environmental tracers and dating tools. The second section of the book discusses in some detail the production of radionuclides by cosmic radiation, their transport and distribution in the atmosphere and the hydrosphere, their storage in natural archives, and how they are measured. The third section of the book presents a number of examples selected to illustrate typical tracer and dating applications in a number of different spheres (atmosphere, hydrosphere, geosphere, biosphere, solar physics and astronomy). At the same time the authors have outlined the limitations of the use of cosmogenic radionuclides. Written on a level understandable by graduate students without specialist skills in physics or mathematics, the book addresses a wide audience, ranging from archaeology, biophysics, and geophysics, to atmospheric physics, hydrology, astrophysics and space science.

This book provides a source of inspiration and a manual for designers, entrepreneurs and professionals who are looking into the practical application of product configurators. In this growing profession, there is a need for a book which focuses on the configuration process from a design perspective. The book delves into the practical application of configurators using case studies of selected firms that present their most significant works. It offers the reader tips, suggestions, technical details and critical issues which need to be considered, from experienced actors and pioneers worldwide, which include: Unfold, Belgium In-flexions, France Nervous System, USA Okinlab, Germany SkimLab, France Twikit, Belgium INDG, The Netherlands ZeroLight, United Kingdom 3Dimerce, The Netherlands 3DSource, USA Bagaar, Belgium MyCustomizer, Canada Combeenation, Austria

Reviews of Environmental Contamination and Toxicology attempts to provide concise, critical reviews of timely advances, philosophy and significant areas of accomplished or needed endeavor in the total field of xenobiotics, in any segment of the environment, as well as toxicological implications.

The Water Research Institute at the Technion (Israel Institute of Technology) is proud to have initiated and sponsored the International Workshop "Soil and Aquifer Pollution: Non-Aqueous Phase Liquids - Contamination and Recla- tion," held May 13th-15th, 1996, on the Technion campus in Haifa. Groundwater contamination is one of the pressing issues facing Israel and other countries which depend on groundwater for water supply. In Israel, 60% of the water supply comes from groundwater, most of it from two large aquifers. The Coastal Aquifer underlies the area where the largest concentration of human activity already takes place, and where much of future development is expected to occur. It is a phreatic sandstone aquifer, vulnerable to pollution from activities at the surface. The Mountain Aquifer is recharged in the higher terrain to the east, and flows, first in a phreatic zone, then confined, westward and underneath the Coastal Aquifer. This limestone aquifer has higher permeabilities and flow velo- ties, so pollution can reach the groundwater quite readily. Smaller local aquifers are also important components in the national water system. While measures are taken to protect these aquifers from pollution, there are locations where contamination has already occurred. Furthermore, accidental pollution may not be totally avoided in the future. Therefore, understanding the processes of groundwater contamination, recommending the proper measures for preventing it, and determining the best means for reclamation once pollution has occurred, are of great practical importance. Non-aqueous phase liquids (NAPLs) are among the most significant contaminants.

This book addresses most of the environmental impacts of sand mining from small rivers The problems and solutions addressed in this book are applicable to all rivers that drain through densely populated tropical coasts undergoing rapid economic growth. Many rivers in the world are drastically being altered to levels often beyond their natural resilience capability. Among the different types of human interventions, mining of sand and gravel is the most disastrous one, as the activity threatens the very existence of river ecosystem. A better understanding of sand budget is necessary if the problems of river and coastal environments are to be solved.

Transdisciplinarity is a new way of scientifically meeting the challenges of sustainability. Indeed, interdisciplinary collaboration and co-operation with non-academic 'practice partners' is at the core of this; creating contextualised, socially relevant knowledge about complex real-world problems. Transdisciplinary Research and Sustainability breaks new ground by presenting transdisciplinary research in practice, drawing on recent advances by the vibrant transdisciplinary research communities in the German-speaking world. It describes methodological innovations developed to address wide-ranging contemporary issues including climate change adaptation, energy policy, sustainable agriculture and soil conservation. Furthermore, the authors reflect on the challenges involved in integrating non-academic actors in scientific research, on the tensions that arise in the encounter of theory and praxis, and on the inherently normative, political nature of sustainability research. Highlighting the need for academic institutions to be transformed to reflect transdisciplinarity, this timely volume will appeal to postgraduate students and postdoctoral researchers interested in fields such as Sustainability Science, Transdisciplinary Studies and Philosophy of Science.

This volume summarises the materials presented at the NATO Advanced Research Workshop on Sea-Dumped Chemical Munitions, held in Kaliningrad (Moscow Region), Russia, in January 1995. The conference was sponsored by the NATO Division of Scientific and Environmental Affairs in the framework of its outreach programme to develop co-operation between NATO member countries and the Cooperation Partner countries in the area of disarmament technologies. The problem of the ecological threat posed by chemical weapons (CW) dumped in the seas after the Second World War deserves considerable international attention: the amount of these weapons, many of them having been captured from the German Army, is assessed at more than three times as much as the total chemical arsenals reported by the United States and Russia. They were disposed of in the shallow depths of North European seas - areas of active fishing - in close proximity to densely populated coastlines, with no consideration of the long-term consequences. The highly toxic material have time and again showed up, for instance when retrieved occasionally in the fishing nets, attracting local media coverage only. Nevertheless, this issue has not yet been given adequate and comprehensive scientific analysis, the sea-disposed munitions are not covered by either the Chemical Weapons Convention or other arms control treaties. In fact, the problem has been neglected for a long time on the international level. Only recently were official data made available by the countries which admitted conducting dumping operations.

Reviews of Environmental Contamination and Toxicology provides concise, critical review articles of timely advances, philosophy and significant areas of accomplished or needed endeavor in the total field of xenobiotics, in any segment of the environment, as well as toxicological implications.

The book gives an outline of prevailing hydrogeologic conditions in the Arab Middle East together with the geologic background. Emphasis is given to relationships between the main features influencing the hydrogeologic conditions - regional geologic developments, paleogeographic conditions, morphology, climate and paleo-climate - and the resulting hydrogeologic features: formation of aquifers, distribution of major aquifers, main groundwater flow systems, occurrence of renewable and fossil groundwater. Reported data on hydraulic aquifer parameters, recharge rates and groundwater flow volumes are evaluated with a view to arrive at characteristic values under the specific hydrogeologic and climatic conditions. The area considered covers approximately the Arabian Plate. Information on the following countries is included: Bahrain, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, United Arab Emirates, West Bank and Gaza, Yemen.

This book presents both general and comprehensive observations of unsuccessful and successful experiences in water pollution trading programs within the U.S. These experiences help in understanding the major environmental, economic and regulatory barriers that prevent the application of pollution trading in water media to become successful. This work combines background information with real experience.

This book presents chemical analyses of our most pressing waste, pollution, and resource problems for the undergraduate or graduate student. The distinctive holistic approach provides both a solid ground in theory, as well as a laboratory manual detailing introductory and advanced experimental applications. The laboratory procedures are presented at microscale conditions, for minimum waste and maximum economy. This work fulfills an urgent need for an introductory text in environmental chemistry combining theory and practice, and is a valuable tool for preparing the next generation of environmental scientists.

The book covers a critical compilation of analytical methods used for the monitoring of pesticides and their degradation products in water. It contains up-to-date material and is the direct result of the authors' experience in the field of pesticide analysis. The book is structured in six chapters, starting from general aspects of pesticides like usage, physicochemical parameters and occurrence in the environment. A second chapter is devoted to sampling from water matrices, stability methods of pesticides in water and quality assurance issues. The general chromatographic methods for pesticides are reported, including the newly developed electrophoresis methods and GC-MS and LC-MS confirmatory analytical methods. Sample preparation methodologies, including off-line and on-line techniques are described in the next two chapters, with a comprehensive list of examples of pesticides and many metabolites, including the use of different GC-methods and LC-methods. The final chapter is devoted to the development of biological techniques, immunoassays and biosensors, for the trace determination of pesticides in water samples.

The book answers one of the key problems in pesticide analysis: the diversity of chemical functional groups, with varying polarity and physicochemical properties. Pesticides and their metabolites have received particular attention during the last few years in environmental trace-organic analysis. For instance, in the case of groundwater, the use of pesticides has become a cause for concern. Under the right conditions, pesticides, such as fertilizer nitrogen, can move through the soil into groundwater, a phenomenon once thought improbable. The movement of agrochemicals in surface water flow can be, in some instances, a major problem, specially in the case of water soluble pesticides that are generally transported to estuarine and coastal waters. Estuarine waters feature gradients of both pollutant concentrations and physicochemical characteristics such as salinity, turbidity and pH, and all these parameters must be carefully considered when developing methods of analysis for trace organics in estuarine waters.

One of the key parameters in analytical determination is the environmental sampling. Different protocols and devices are needed for sampling sea-water samples - usually using large sample volumes of more than 50 litres either with LLE or SPE, with the problems encountered due to dissolved and particulate matter - which is different from drinking water and well water sampling. The representativeness of the sampling is also of concern.

The sample preparation of organic compounds from water matrices has been recognized to be a bottleneck and it has been traditionally neglected in the literature. We should comment following R.W. Frie's ideas - that the most sophisticated hardware is useless if the chemistry in the protocol does not work. During the last few years new adsorbents have appeared - carbon type, polymeric sorbents with high capacity and immunosorbents - which can more efficiently trap the more polar compounds.

The development of advanced automation methods based, usually on solid phase extraction techniques - PROSPEKT, OSP-2 and ASPEC XL - are examples of commercially available equipment that are of growing importance. These systems are generally coupled to LC and GC techniques.

Sampling and sample handling can not be regarded as separate techniques in the analytical process and both should be integrated into the whole analytical determination. For this reason, validation and confirmation methods, such as mass spectrometry, either GC-MS and/or LC-MS, are needed. These serve to check the quality assurance of the developed method. The discussion between multiscreening versus specific methods of analysis and the influence of the matrix (ground-, surface- and estuarine-water), is also a point of concern due to the diversity of chemical classes within the compounds of study.

Finally the use of rapid methods of analysis, which refer basically to biological techniques, biosensors and immunoassays are also of growing interest for the determination of pesticides in environmental matrices. The rapid development of these techniques, being more sensitive and that can work at different pH and drastic environmental conditions, like very different pH and salinity values, makes that these methods are very useful and complementary to conventional GC and/or LC techniques for the determination of pesticides.

This book outlines the methodologies, approaches and tools for modelling chemicals in a Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) perspective, and also covers the main advantages and drawbacks of applying LCA to chemical processes. In the first part of this book, authors pay close attention to the limitations of modelling the environmental and social impacts of chemical processes, providing valuable insights to the problems of the Life Cycle Inventory (LCI) analysis for chemical processes. In the second part of this book, readers will learn about the LCA application to chemical processes in the laboratory and industrial scale. In each chapter of this book, readers will also find specific case studies on the modelling and application of LCA in the chemical industry.

Specifically written for contractors and small businesses carrying out small works, this second edition of Spon's Estimating Cost Guide to Small Groundworks, Landscaping Work and Gardening contains accurate information on thousands of rates, each broken down to labour, material overheads and profit.This is the first book to focus on this range of external work, including garden maintenance work on blocks of flats and individual houses, schools and sports fields, garden makeovers, laying patios and paths, small land drainage schemes on farmland, and small-scale local authority maintenance work.

In this book, editor G Rasul Chaudhry presents a wide range of topics authored by researchers at the cutting edge of biodegradation and bioremediation. The book includes recent research describing how microorganisms clean soil and water, and how they remove toxic substances. It also presents information on how genetics and molecular biological methods are used to improve the ability of microorganisms to degrade a variety of substances.

Groundwater Contamination in Coastal Aquifers: Assessment and Management first describes groundwater contamination in coastal aquifers and then delves into specific topics surrounding various hydrogeochemical processes. Next, the book covers case studies of groundwater quality assessment using recent techniques, explains the various pollutants and contaminants in coastal aquifers, and covers management and remediation methods to control contamination in coastal aquifers. This key reference encompasses various topics in broader perspectives on groundwater contamination in coastal aquifers, providing a significant contribution to the field of hydrogeology.

The series Advances in Industrial Control aims to report and encourage technology transfer in control engineering. The rapid development of control technology has an impact on all areas of the control discipline. New theory, new controllers, actuators, sensors, new industrial processes, computer methods, new applications, new philosophies ..., new challenges. Much of this development work resides in industrial reports, feasibility study papers and the reports of advanced collaborative projects. The series offers an opportunity for researchers to present an extended exposition of such new work in all aspects of industrial control for wider and rapid dissemination. The water and wastewater industry has undergone many changes in recent years. Of particular importance has been a renewed emphasis on improving resource management with tighter regulatory controls setting new targets on pricing, industry efficiency and loss reduction for both water and wastewater with more stringent environmental discharge conditions for wastewater. Meantime, the demand for water and wastewater services grows as the population increases and wishes for improved living conditions involving, among other items, domestic appliances that use water. Consequently, the installed infrastructure of the industry has to be continuously upgraded and extended, and employed more effectively to accommodate the new demands, both in throughput and in meeting the new regulatory conditions. Investment in fixed infrastructure is capital-intensive and slow to come on-stream. One outcome of these changes and demands is that the industry is examining the potential benefits of, and in many cases using, more advanced control systems.

Recent results on the nature of low-, intermediate- and high-energy nuclear forces as well as on the internal structure of nucleons and atomic nuclei are presented. Prospects to find a new state of the nuclear matter at extreme conditions that existed in the early Universe and the utilisation of the nuclear energy are discussed.

Nanotechnology for CO2 Utilization in Oilfield Applications delivers a critical reference for petroleum and reservoir engineers to learn the latest advancements of combining the use of CO2 and nanofluids to lower carbon footprint. Starting with the existing chemical and physical methods employed for synthesizing nanofluids, the reference moves into the scalability and fabrication techniques given for all the various nanofluids currently used in oilfield applications. This is followed by various, relevant characterization techniques. Advancing on, the reference covers nanofluids used in drilling, cementing, and EOR fluids, including their challenges and implementation problems associated with the use of nanofluids. Finally, the authors discuss the combined application of CO2 and nanofluids, listing challenges and benefits of CO2, such as carbonation capacity of nanofluids via rheological analysis for better CO2 utilization. Supported by visual world maps on CCS sites and case studies across the industry, this book gives today's engineers a much-needed tool to lower emissions.

Although world-class firms like GE and Motorola have relied on Six Sigma to build their performance cultures, these processes are all too often left out of human resources (HR) functions. This lack of Six Sigma principles is even more surprising because preventing errors and improving productivity are so critical to the people management processes of hiring, retention, appraisal, and development.From the history and evolution of the Total Quality movement to initiatives for introducing a Six Sigma continuous process improvement strategy in your HR department, Achieving HR Excellence through Six Sigma introduces a new way to envision your role within the organization. It explains how this powerful methodology works and supplies a roadmap to help you find and eliminate waste in your HR processes.Describing exactly what HR excellence means, the book outlines dozens of proven approaches as well as a hierarchy of the exact steps required to achieve it. It illustrates the Six Sigma methodology from the creation of a project to its successful completion. At each stage, it describes the specific tools currently available and provides examples of organizations that have used Six Sigma within HR to improve their organizations.The text presents proven approaches that can help you solve and even eliminate people management problems altogether. Filled with real-world examples, it demonstrates how to implement six sigma into the transformational side of your organization. It also includes a listing of additional resources to help you along your Six Sigma journey.Explaining how to build a new business model for your HR organization, the book supplies the new perspective and broad view you will need to discover and recommend game-changing alternatives to traditional HR approaches in your organization.

The rapid growth of the discipline of aquatic ecology has been driven both by scientific interest in the complexities of aquatic ecosystems and by their enormous environmental importance and sensitivity. This book focuses on the remarkably diverse roles played by underwater plants, and is divided into three parts: 10 thematic chapters, followed by 18 case studies, and rounded off by three integrative chapters. The topics range from macrophytes as fish food to macrophytes as mollusc and microbe habitat, making this of interest to aquatic ecologists as well as limnologists, ecosystem ecologists, microbial ecologists, fish biologists, and environmental managers.

Gradually-varied flow (GVF) is a steady non-uniform flow in an open channel with gradual changes in its water surface elevation. The evaluation of GVF profiles under a specific flow discharge is very important in hydraulic engineering. This book proposes a novel approach to analytically solve the GVF profiles by using the direct integration and Gaussian hypergeometric function. Both normal-depth- and critical-depth-based dimensionless GVF profiles are presented. The novel approach has laid the foundation to compute at one sweep the GVF profiles in a series of sustaining and adverse channels, which may have horizontal slopes sandwiched in between them.