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The notion of sustainable infrastructure for the delivery of social services is to fulfill basic human needs, in war-torn societies, human safety is a critical basic need. The relationship between sustainable infrastructure development and human safety remains underresearched in Afghan neighborhoods. Therefore, this study examined the effectiveness of the police facilities constructed for stability enhancement in Afghan communities. To do so, this study used Afghans&rsquo, polling datasets on the police presence and the public safety perceptions, including newly collected survey data related to the influence of the police facilities on human safety and other factors contributing to the neighborhoods&rsquo, well-being. The datasets are organized with a multilevel structure in which different individuals are sampled within neighborhoods and analyzed using a multilevel model approach to capture the randomness of the responses. The results showed that police facilities are more important to perceptions of safety in less safe areas and that Afghans in villages perceived themselves as safer than in urban areas, relative to their own immediate region. Those perceiving themselves as being safer were older, more highly educated, and widowed respondents. Overall, Afghans perceived the police facilities as institutional symbol for promoting improvements and opportunities for fulfilling basic human safety needs.

Hydropower is traditionally considered to be one type of “clean” energy, and has been heavily developed in many regions of the world. Nevertheless, this assumption is increasingly being challenged by recent findings that a large amount of methane and other greenhouse gases (GHGs) are emitted during reservoir creation, turbine operation, and dam decommissioning. Via a critical review of existing hydropower life cycle assessments and reservoir emission studies, we compared the GHG emissions of various types of dams based on their structural type, size, primary function, and geographical location during their construction, operation, and decommissioning phases. Means to improve dam performance and reduce related GHG emissions were identified. It was found that dams with reservoirs usually have much higher GHG emission rates than diversion dams. GHG emissions are mainly generated at the construction and maintenance stages for small-scale run-of-river dams, whereas decomposition of flooded biomass and organic matter in the sediment has the highest GHG emission contribution to large-scale reservoir-based dams. Generally, reservoir-based dams located in boreal and temperate regions have much lower reservoir emissions (3–70 g CO2 eq./kW h) compared with dams located in tropical regions (8–6647 g CO2 eq./kW h). Our analysis shows that although most hydroelectric dams have comparable GHG emissions to other types of renewable energy (e.g., solar, wind energy), electricity produced from tropical reservoir-based dams could potentially have a higher emission rate than fossil-based electricity.

As drinking water supply systems plan for sustainable management practices, impacts from future water quality and climate changes are a major concern. This study aims to understand the intraannual changes of energy consumption for water treatment, investigate the relative importance of water quality and climate indicators on energy consumption for water treatment, and predict the effects of climate change on the embodied energy of treated, potable water at two municipal drinking water systems located in the northeast and southeast US. To achieve this goal, a life cycle assessment was first performed to quantify the monthly energy consumption in the two drinking water systems. Regression and relative importance analyses were then performed between climate indicators, raw water quality indicators, and chemical and energy usages in the treatment processes to determine their correlations. These relationships were then used to project changes in embodied energy associated with the plants' processes, and the results were compared between the two regions. The projections of the southeastern US water plant were for an increase in energy demand resulted from an increase of treatment chemical usages. The northeastern US plant was projected to decrease its energy demand due to a reduced demand for heating the plant's infrastructure. The findings indicate that geographic location and treatment process may determine the way climate change affects drinking water systems.

Decisions about dams, like other environmental conflicts, involve complex trade-offs between different water uses with varying human and ecological impacts, have significant impacts on public resources, and involve many stakeholders with diverse and often conflicting interests. Given the many upcoming dam decisions in New England and across the United States, an improved understanding of public preferences about dam decisions is needed to steward resources in the public interest. This research asks (1) What does the public want to see happen with dams? and (2) How do public preferences regarding dam removal vary with demography and politics? We address these questions using data from three random sample statewide telephone polls conducted in New Hampshire over 2018 that asked people for their preferences concerning dam removal versus maintaining dams for specific benefits—property values, hydropower generation, industrial history, or recreation. Respondent age, education, gender, and political party were tested among the possible predictors. We find that majorities (52% or 54%) of respondents favor removing dams rather than keeping them for industrial history or property values, and a plurality (43%) favor removal over keeping them for recreation. A plurality (46%) prefer keeping dams, however, if they are used to generate hydropower. Respondent background characteristics and political identity affect these preferences in ways resembling those for many other environment-related issues: women, young or middle-aged individuals, and political liberals or moderates (Democrats or independents) more often support dam removal. Education, on the other hand, has no significant effects. The results quantify levels of general public support for dam removal in New England, illustrating the use of public opinion polling to complement input from public meetings and guide decisions. More broadly, they contribute a new topic to existing scholarship on the social bases of environmental concern.

We evaluate the relative desirability of alternative futures for the upper Merrimack River watershed in New Hampshire, USA based on the value of ecosystem services at the end of the 21st century as gauged by its present-day inhabitants. This evaluation is accomplished by integrating land-use and socioeconomic scenarios, downscaled climate projections, biogeophysical simulation models, and the results of a citizen-stakeholder deliberative multicriteria evaluation. We find that although there are some trade-offs between alternative plausible futures, for the most part, it can be expected that future inhabitants of the watershed will be most satisfied if land-use planning in the intervening years prioritizes water supply and flood protection as well as maintenance of existing farmland and forest cover. With respect to climate change, it is expected that future watershed inhabitants will be more negatively affected by the projected loss of snow cover than the anticipated increase in hot summer days. More important than the specific results for the upper Merrimack River watershed, this integrative assessment demonstrates the complex yet ultimately informative potential to link stakeholder engagement with scenario generation, ecosystem models, and multiattribute evaluation for informing regional-scale planning and decision making.

Significance We assess the trade-offs and synergies involved with coordinated dam removal at three spatial scales in New England. We find that increasing the scale of dam decisions improves trade-offs among ecosystem services, river safety, and cost, but the benefits of large-scale river restoration vary dramatically by location. Our model may help facilitate future dam decision negotiations by identifying appropriate scales, locations, and criteria that satisfy multilateral funding, policy, and stakeholder goals., Aging infrastructure and growing interests in river restoration have led to a substantial rise in dam removals in the United States. However, the decision to remove a dam involves many complex trade-offs. The benefits of dam removal for hazard reduction and ecological restoration are potentially offset by the loss of hydroelectricity production, water supply, and other important services. We use a multiobjective approach to examine a wide array of trade-offs and synergies involved with strategic dam removal at three spatial scales in New England. We find that increasing the scale of decision-making improves the efficiency of trade-offs among ecosystem services, river safety, and economic costs resulting from dam removal, but this may lead to heterogeneous and less equitable local-scale outcomes. Our model may help facilitate multilateral funding, policy, and stakeholder agreements by analyzing the trade-offs of coordinated dam decisions, including net benefit alternatives to dam removal, at scales that satisfy these agreements.

Melanoma in situ (MIS) diagnosed from a subtotal biopsy may be upstaged to invasive melanoma after resection. The frequency of this phenomenon is markedly variable.To quantify the rate of upstaging MIS on the head and neck after resection at this institution, characterize the location of the invasive component relative to the clinically evident lesion, and determine the rate of upstaging with time.The authors retrospectively reviewed clinical records of adult patients with a preoperative diagnosis of MIS on the head and neck from January 1994 to August 2012. Patient and tumor characteristics were recorded.In total, 624 patients met the inclusion criteria and 24 (4%) were upstaged after resection. Four patients had invasive disease beyond the clinically evident lesion. The annual percentage of upstaged lesions seemed to show an increasing trend with time.Upstaging of MIS on the head and neck occurs at a relatively low rate that may be increasing with time. Invasive components of lentigo maligna melanoma may exist beyond the clinically evident margins. Histological examination of the maximal amount of the surgical specimen is paramount for optimal staging and treatment of MIS.

Different economic development strategies may result in varied socioeconomic and environmental synergies or tradeoffs, suggesting an opportunity for environmentally conscious planning. To understand such synergies or tradeoffs, a dynamic environmental life cycle assessment was conducted for eleven groups of New Hampshire industries. Historical state level Gross Domestic Product (GDP)-by-industry data was combined with economic input-output analysis to calculate the direct and life cycle energy use, freshwater use, greenhouse gas emissions, and eutrophication potential of each industry on a yearly basis for the period of 1997–2012. The future development of agriculture, traditional manufacturing, high tech, and tourism industries were investigated based on government projections. Total life cycle impacts of the 11 industries were found to represent around three to seven times those of direct impacts, indicating the significance of the supply chain impacts. Traditional manufacturing has the highest life cycle impacts even though it contributes to less than 10% of the state GDP. Future development of high tech was found to be the best strategy to increase GDP while imposing the least additional environmental impacts. Tourism presents relatively high impacts in terms of freshwater use and eutrophication potential, and a change in recreational style might be able to reduce its impacts.

As the global imperative for sustainable energy builds and with hydroelectricity proposed as one aspect of a sustainable energy profile, public discourse reflects the complex and competing discourses and social-ecological trade-offs surrounding hydropower and dams. Is hydropower “green”? Is it “sustainable”? Is it “renewable”? Does hydropower provide a necessary alternative to fossil fuel dependence? Can the ecological consequences of hydropower be mitigated? Is this the end of the hydropower era, or is it simply the beginning of a new chapter? These pressing questions circulate through discussions about hydropower in a time of changing climate, globally declining fisheries, and aging infrastructure, lending a sense of urgency to the many decisions to be made about the future of dams. The United States and European Union (EU) saw an enduring trend of dam building from the Industrial Revolution through the mid-1970s. In these countries, contemporary media discussions about hydropower are largely focused on removing existing hydropower dams and retrofitting existing dams that offer hydropower potential. Outside of these contexts, increasing numbers of countries are debating the merits of building new large-scale hydropower dams that, in many developing countries, may have disproportionate impacts on indigenous communities that hold little political or economic power. As a result, news and social media attention to hydropower outside the United States/EU often focus on activist efforts to oppose hydropower and on its complex consequences for ecosystems and communities alike. Despite hydropower’s wide range of ecological, economic, and social trade-offs, and the increasing urgency of global conversations about hydropower, relatively little work in communication studies explores news media, social media, or public debate in the context of hydropower and dam removal. In an effort to expand the scope of communication studies, after reviewing existing work the attention here shifts to research focused more broadly on human dimensions of hydropower. These dual bodies of work focus on small and large dams from Europe to the Americas to Asia and have applied a range of methods for analyzing media coverage of the hydropower debate. Those studies are reviewed here, with an emphasis on the key themes that emerge across studies—including trust, communication, local engagement, and a call to action for interdisciplinary approaches, intertwined with conflict, conflict resolution, and social and ecological resistance. The conclusion offers an original case brief that elucidates emerging themes from our ongoing research about hydropower and dam removal in the United States, and suggests future directions for research.

Carbon recycling, in which organic waste is recycled into chemical feedstock for material production, may provide benefits in resource efficiency and a more cyclical economy - but may also create "trade-offs" in increased impacts elsewhere. We investigate the system-wide environmental burdens and cost associated with carbon recycling routes capable of converting municipal solid waste (MSW) by gasification and Fischer-Tropsch synthesis into ethylene. Results are compared to business-as-usual (BAU) cases in which ethylene is derived from fossil resources and waste is either landfilled with methane and energy recovery (BAU#1) or incinerated (BAU#2) with energy recovery. Monte Carlo and sensitivity analysis is used to assess uncertainties of the results. Results indicate that carbon recycling may lead to a reduction in cumulative energy demand (CED), total material requirement (TMR), and acidification, when compared to BAU#1. Global warming potential is found to be similar or slightly lower than BAU#1 and BAU#2. In comparison to BAU#2, carbon recycling results in higher CED, TMR, acidification, and smog potential, mainly as a result of larger (fossil-based) energy offsets from energy recovery. However, if a renewable power mix (envisioned for the future) is assumed to be offset, BAU#2 impacts may be similar or higher than carbon recycling routes. Production cost per kilogram (kg) MSW-derived ethylene range between US$1.85 and US$2.06 (Jan 2011 US$). This compares to US$1.17 per kg for fossil-based ethylene. Waste-derived ethylene breaks even with its fossil-based counterpart at a tipping fee of roughly US$42 per metric ton of waste feedstock.

Water quality in less-developed countries is often subject to substantial degradation, but is rarely studied in a systematic way. The concentration and flux of major ions, carbon, nitrogen, silicon, and trace metals in the heavily urbanized Bagmati River within Kathmandu Valley, Nepal, are reported. The concentrations of all chemical species increased with distance downstream with the exceptions of protons and nitrate, and showed strong relationships with population density adjacent to the river. Total dissolved nitrogen (TDN), dominated by NH4, was found in high concentrations along the Bagmati drainage system. The export of dissolved organic carbon (DOC) and TDN were 23 and 33 tons km−2 year−1, respectively, at the outlet point of the Kathmandu Valley, much higher than in relatively undeveloped watersheds. The cationic and silica fluxes were 106 and 18 tons km−2 year−1 at the outlet of the Bagmati within Kathmandu Valley, and 36 and 32 tons km−2 year−1 from the relatively pristine headwater area. The difference between headwaters and the urban site suggests that the apparent weathering flux is three times higher than the actual weathering rate in the heavily urbanized Bagmati basin. Fluxes of cations and silica are above the world average, as well as fluxes from densely populated North American and European watersheds. End-member composition of anthropogenic sources like sewage or agricultural runoff is needed to understand the drivers of this high rate of apparent weathering.

Summary A life cycle assessment (LCA) of various end-of-life management options for construction and demolition (C&D) debris was conducted using the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Municipal Solid Waste Decision Support Tool. A comparative LCA evaluated seven different management scenarios using the annual production of C&D debris in New Hampshire as the functional unit. Each scenario encompassed C&D debris transport, processing, separation, and recycling, as well as varying end-of-life management options for the C&D debris (e.g., combustion to generate electricity versus landfilling for the wood debris stream and recycling versus landfilling for the nonwood debris stream) and different bases for the electricity generation offsets (e.g., the northeastern U.S. power grid versus coal-fired power generation). A sensitivity analysis was also conducted by varying the energy content of the C&D wood debris and by examining the impact of basing the energy offsets on electricity generated from various fossil fuels. The results include impacts for greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, criteria air pollutants, ancillary solid waste production, and organic and inorganic constituents in water emissions. Scenarios with nonwood C&D debris recycling coupled with combustion of C&D wood debris to generate electricity had lower impacts than other scenarios. The nonwood C&D debris recycling scenarios where C&D wood debris was landfilled resulted in less overall impact than the scenarios where all C&D debris was landfilled. The lowest impact scenario included nonwood C&D debris recycling with local combustion of the C&D wood debris to generate electricity, providing a net gain in energy production of more than 7 trillion British thermal units (BTU) per year and a 130,000 tons per year reduction in GHG emissions. The sensitivity analysis revealed that for energy consumption, the model is sensitive to the energy content of the C&D wood debris but insensitive to the basis for the energy offset, and the opposite is true for GHG emissions.

Purpose Shifting the resource base for chemical and energy production from fossil feed stocks to renewable raw materials is seen by many as one of the key strategies towards sustainable development. The objective of this study is to assess the environmental burdens of producing polyitaconic acid (PIA), a water-soluble polymer derived from itaconic acid identified by the US Department of Energy as one of the top 12 value added chemicals from northeast (NE) US softwood biomass. Results are compared to corn-derived PIA and fossil-based poly acrylic acid (PAA) on the basis of 1 kg of polymer at the factory gate.

Municipalities all over the globe seek to evaluate the sustainability of their communities and this process requires an interdisciplinary perspective. Walkability and social capital are important measures of sustainable communities that are not necessarily considered together in measurement schemes. Through a community-based case study, the following article examines the relationship between select measures of social capital and self-perceived walkability. Descriptive statistics demonstrated that higher levels of social capital existed in more walkable communities. More sophisticated analysis further supported this association. A community index was created from responses to questions about participating in civic engagement activities such as donating blood, attending a committee meeting or public hearing, interacting with individuals in various neighborhoods, and contributing to a community project. A trust index was also created with answers to survey questions about general trust and trust of neighbors and other members of communities. Multilevel models demonstrated that higher levels of walkability were associated with higher levels of participation in community activities, even after controlling for socio-demographic factors. Similar patterns were found for the trust index where higher levels of walkability were positively associated with positive responses to a variety of trust questions. Implications for sustainable communities policy and management are suggested.

Authors consider the environmental prospects of using melted waste slag as the aggregate for asphalt pavement. In particular, the enrichment of slag-derived fragments in fine abrasion dust particles originated from slag asphalt concrete and its size dependency were concerned. A series of surface abrasion tests for asphalt concrete specimens, containing only natural aggregates as reference or 30 wt% of substituted slag aggregates, were performed. Although two of three slag-asphalt concretes generated 1.5–3.0 times larger amount of abrasion dust than the reference asphalt concrete did, it could not be explained only by abrasion resistance of slag. The enrichment of slag-derived fragments in abrasion dust, estimated on the basis of the peak intensity of quartz and heavy metal concentrations, had size dependency for all slag-asphalt concretes. Slag-derived fragments were enriched in abrasion dust particles with diameters of 150–1000 μm. Enrichment factors were 1.4–2.1. In contrast, there was no enrichment in abrasion dust particles with diameter less than 75 μm. This suggests that prior airborne-size fragmentation of substituted slag aggregates does not need to be considered for tested slag aggregates when environmental risks of abrasion dust of slag-asphalt pavement are assessed.

A modeling framework was conceptualized for capturing the complexities in resilience and sustainability associated with integration of centralized and decentralized water and energy systems under future demographic, climate, and technology scenarios. This framework integrates survey instruments for characterizing individual preferences (utility functions) related to decentralization of water and energy infrastructure systems. It also includes a spatial agent-based model to develop spatially explicit adoption trajectories and patterns in accordance with utility functions and characteristics of the major metropolitan case study locations as well as a system dynamics model that considers interactions among infrastructure systems, characterizes measures of resilience and sustainability, and feeds these back to the agent-based model. A cross-scale spatial optimization model for understanding and characterizing the possible best case outcomes and for informing the design of policies and incentive/disincentive programs is also included. This framework is able to provide a robust capacity for considering the ways in which future development of energy and water resources can be assessed.

Management of contaminated sediments is problematic and costly. Several new technologies are under development that may in some cases reduce costs and environmental or ecological impacts. However, there are significant barriers to implementing new technologies, including the increased management complexity, the potential for introducing antagonistic or incommensurate objectives that are unfamiliar to stakeholders or regulators, and the difficulty of capturing private, commercial benefits from environmental improvements that may primarily benefit the public. This article identifies several innovative contaminated sediments technologies, discusses the difficulty of proving or quantifying the benefits of new technologies, and presents an agenda for research that would foster partnerships between scientific, government, and public communities of interest for the purpose of improving innovative technology assessment and environmental decision making.

Contaminated sediments and other sites present a difficult challenge for environmental decisionmakers. They are typically slow to recover or attenuate naturally, may involve multiple regulatory agencies and stakeholder groups, and engender multiple toxicological and ecotoxicological risks. While environmental decision-making strategies over the last several decades have evolved into increasingly more sophisticated, information-intensive, and complex approaches, there remains considerable dissatisfaction among business, industry, and the public with existing management strategies. Consequently, contaminated sediments and materials are the subject of intense technology development, such as beneficial reuse or in situ treatment. However, current decision analysis approaches, such as comparative risk assessment, benefit-cost analysis, and life cycle assessment, do not offer a comprehensive approach for incorporating the varied types of information and multiple stakeholder and public views that must typically be brought to bear when new technologies are under consideration. Alternatively, multicriteria decision analysis (MCDA) offers a scientifically sound decision framework for management of contaminated materials or sites where stakeholder participation is of crucial concern and criteria such as economics, environmental impacts, safety, and risk cannot be easily condensed into simple monetary expressions. This article brings together a multidisciplinary review of existing decision-making approaches at regulatory agencies in the United States and Europe and synthesizes state-of-the-art research in MCDA methods applicable to the assessment of contaminated sediment management technologies. Additionally, it tests an MCDA approach for coupling expert judgment and stakeholder values in a hypothetical contaminated sediments management case study wherein MCDA is used as a tool for testing stakeholder responses to and improving expert assessment of innovative contaminated sediments technologies.

Hundreds of millions of cubic meters of contaminated sediments are dredged from US harbors and waterways annually for maintenance of navigation, environmental remediation, or both. In recent years, inexpensive ocean dumping has been largely eliminated as a disposal alternative causing a crisis in the management of sediment. This paper presents a new beneficial use alternative for contaminated dredged material, which is to use dredged material as a feedstock in the conventional manufacture of Portland cement. The paper demonstrates the efficacy of the process at the bench and pilot scales, and presents a summary of practical and economic considerations. A bench scale manufacture was carried out with feedstock mixtures containing 1–12% dredged material from the New York/New Jersey (NY/NJ) harbor. The clinkers were quantitatively analyzed with X-ray powder diffraction and differences in phase concentrations were observed in the clinker samples manufactured with dredged material (decreased alite and increased belite) suggesting that additional burn time was needed to account for the quartz present in the sediments. The free chloride concentrations in the clinker samples were below ACI limits for cement used with reinforcing steel; however, the chloride in the dredged material remains a manufacturing concern and is expected to increase annual maintenance costs. A pilot scale manufacture was carried out in a batch rotary kiln; X-ray diffraction analysis and ASTM tests for strength, soundness, and setting time suggested that with better optimized burning conditions, dredged material can be successfully incorporated into full scale manufacture.

Recovered materials from the transportation sector or secondary or by-product materials from the industrial, municipal, or mining sector can be used as substitutes for natural materials in the construction of highway infrastructure. The environmental impact of traditional and newer secondary materials needs to be determined for the conditions of their expected use. The purpose of this paper is to introduce a probabilistic framework for evaluating the environmental acceptability of candidate secondary materials based on the risk of soil and groundwater contamination from leached metals and organics from the pavement. The proposed framework provides a structured guidance for selecting the appropriate model, incorporating uncertainty, variability, and expert opinion, and interpreting results for decision making. This new approach is illustrated by a probabilistic analysis of arsenic leaching from Portland cement concrete and asphalt concrete materials that were constructed using virgin and secondary products.

International audience; With the goal to move society toward less reliance on fossil fuels and the mitigation of climate change, there is increasing interest and investment in the bioenergy sector. However, current bioenergy growth patterns may, in the long term, only be met through an expansion of global arable land at the expense of natural ecosystems and in competition with the food sector. Increasing thermal energy recovery from solid waste reduces dependence on fossil- and biobased energy production while enhancing landfill diversion. Using inventory data from pilot processes, this work assesses the cradle-to-gate environmental burdens of plasma gasification as a route capable of transforming construction and demolition (C&D) derived biomass (CDDB) and forest residues into electricity. Results indicate that the environmental burdens associated with CDDB and forest residue gasification may be similar to conventional electricity generation. Land occupation is lowest when CDDB is used. Environmental impacts are to a large extent due to coal cogasified, coke used as gasifier bed material, and fuel oil cocombusted in the steam boiler. However, uncertainties associated with preliminary system designs may be large, particularly the heat loss associated with pilot scale data resulting in overall low efficiencies of energy conversion to electricity; a sensitivity analysis assesses these uncertainties in further detail.

Background Methylchloroisothiazolinone/methylisothiazolinone (MCI/MI), a common preservative in some brands of moist toilet paper (baby wipes and moist towelettes), has been reported to be a cause of allergic contact dermatitis. However, few cases have been reported in the United States. Observations We report the cases of 4 adult patients with severe perianal and perineal allergic contact dermatitis seen at our institution during a 6-month period. With patch testing, we identified allergy to MCI/MI, and we determined that all 4 patients were using moist toilet paper. The dermatitis resolved after use of the moist toilet paper was discontinued. Conclusion This study highlights that the MCI/MI in moist toilet paper can be a cause of perianal and perineal allergic contact dermatitis.

The incorporation of roadways into a regionpsilas industrial ecology is an ideal method of managing some of the industrial by-products (IBPs) that may be generated. Current management of these industrial by-products is through beneficial use (for certain types of materials), but also stockpiling or landfilling, which have economic and environmental implications. IBPs (coal ash, foundry sand and slag) are compared here to virgin aggregate for use in the sub-base of roadway construction and/or repair in an optimization analysis to minimize the transportation impacts in the greater Pittsburgh urban region. The life cycle impacts associated with the choice of material (virgin or IBP) are also evaluated in this paper, and it is shown that IBP usage results in lower life cycle impacts in all categories. Additionally the transportation costs are 25% less for the IBP usage than for the use of virgin aggregates due to the closer proximity to the IBP source materials. The combination of reduced economic and environmental costs provide a strong argument for state transportation departments to develop symbiotic relationships with large IBP producers in their regions to minimize impacts associated with roadway construction and maintenance with the additional benefit of improved management of these materials.

Management of dredged contaminated sediments can be a contentious, difficult, and expensive task. Because the waterways from which sediments are dredged have multiple uses, competing interests are often brought to bear on any decision. No single best alternative is likely to emerge; different stakeholder groups will prefer different alternatives. This chapter investigates the utility of multicriteria decision analysis (MCDA) as a tool for incorporating stakeholder values into the decision process, for soliciting public participation, and analyzing novel technological alternatives. An outranking method called PROMETHEE is employed for three reasons. First, the emphasis placed on assessing new technologies — and especially beneficial reuse technologies — requires a method that facilitates introduction of new alternatives at any point during the analysis. Second, outranking methods are conducive to elucidating the contrasting value structures of different stakeholder groups. Third, they are more capable of handling semiquantitative scales (e.g., high, middle, low) than optimization methods such as MAUT or AHP. To illustrate the decision process under development, this chapter presents the results of a case study example involving stakeholders in Dover, New Hampshire concerned with the dredging of the Cocheco River.

Recycled materials, such as recovered materials from the transportation sector or secondary or by-product materials from the industrial, municipal, or mining sectors can be used as substitutes for natural materials in the construction of highway infrastructure. Trace metals in these recycled materials may leach out and contaminate the groundwater and soil posing a long-term environmental problem. Environmental risk assessments are necessary to evaluate which recycled material applications are acceptable. The first step for determining the environmental risk of using recycled materials is to characterize the source term. Estimates of contaminant release fluxes can then be used in a comparative risk assessment. This paper will give an example of a comparative, probabilistic approach for exposure assessment. Existing deterministic models for estimating contaminant release will be presented and incorporation of variability in these models will be discussed.

This project investigates the utility of Multicriteria Decision Analysis (MCDA) as a tool for testing stakeholder responses to and improving expert assessment of innovative contaminated sediments technologies. Within the broader context of environmental decision-making theory, this case study focuses on a planned dredging project in Dover, New Hampshire where sediments containing PAHs and heavy metals will be removed from 2.7 miles of the Cocheco River (a navigable estuary). Faced with limited alternatives for dredged material disposal, local officials decided to place the contaminated materials in a sealed and lined disposal cell in a riparian area. However, the decision process employed (process of elimination) may have been severely taxed by innovative technological alternatives. To assess the feasibility of innovative technologies in this case, a group of stakeholders with a vested interest in the materials management decision were queried about the basic criteria they would apply to assessing decision alternatives, experts at the Center for Contaminated Sediments Research (CCSR) at the University of New Hampshire provided performance estimates related to those criteria, and an MCDA outranking study identified those stakeholder groups likely be in conflict or willing to reach consensus. Of the three innovative technologies tested, one was found to be unsuitable for this site while two others were likely to have support from different stakeholder groups. Those groups with strongly held views were modeled with the greatest confidence while groups with less strongly expressed preferences may be satisfied by more than one alternative and have a greater willingness to compromise.

New technologies face high barriers to adoption compared to existing technologies for several reasons including a perceived sense of increased risk, a lack of experience with the new technologies among managers and/or regulators, or simply the fact that decision makers are not aware of the availability of the technology. Environmental technologies, however, may be especially difficult to move from innovation to commercialization. Partly this may be because environmental resources exist largely in the public domain where private industry may be unable to fully capture the economic benefits of novel technologies. But also, it may be because environmental projects often involve multiple stakeholder groups with competing or mutually exclusive interests. No single technology is likely to emerge which is perceived by all stakeholders as superior to all competing alternatives on all decision criteria. Therefore, novel technologies are likely to involve tradeoffs that engender both support and objections. This chapter provides a review of some of the difficulties in implementing novel contaminated sediments technologies in the marketplace. Brief descriptions of several technologies are provided, and the contrasting objectives and perspectives of different groups essential to environmental innovation are discussed.

This report summarizes the results of a workshop sponsored by the Department of Defense's (DoD) Strategic Environmental Research and Development Program (SERDP) and Environmental Security Technology Certification Program (ESTCP) that sought to determine the research and development needs for the in situ management of contaminated sediments.

Light is a key stimulus for biological function, controlling movement, gene expression, development, circadian clocks, and many other activities across virtually every form of life. This regulation is achieved by families of photosensory receptor proteins, each of which converts light of different wavelengths into biochemical signals that can control biological function. This conversion is well understood for photosensors sensitive to visible light (wavelengths λ = 400 to 700 nm), but far less is known about photoreception outside this range. On page 1492 of this issue, Christie et al. ( 1 ) elucidate the mechanism by which plant receptors detect light in the middle of the ultraviolet (UV) portion of the electromagnetic spectrum.

The Recycled Materials Resource Center (RMRC) was formed in, late 1998 as a partnership with the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) to help reduce barriers to the use of recycled materials in the highway environment. The Center has large research and outreach components to its mission. Ongoing research activities are introduced and outreach activities of interest to a European audience are summarized. The Center will be working diligently over the next five years to develop specifications and evaluation methods, transfer appropriate technology, and make information available to the highway community.

Prostate cancer (PCa) still ranks as the second most commonly diagnosed cancer and metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer (CRPC) is a leading cause of cancer death in men around the world. The common treatment for patients with CRPC is chemotherapy based on docetaxel. While there are currently seven agents approved for CRPC and four regimens have shown some survival benefit, those survival prolongations have been modest and unfortunately all patients will eventually progress. Thus, there is a need for new agents and regimens for this disease. 2-(2,4-Difluoro-phenyl)-4,5,6,7-tetrafluoro-1H-isoindole-1,3(2H)-dione (CPS49) is a member of a class of redox-reactive thalidomide analogs that show selective killing of leukemic cells by increasing intracellular reactive oxygen species (ROS) and targeting multiple transcriptional pathways. Flavopiridol is a semisynthetic flavonoid that inhibits cyclin dependent kinases and also provokes lethality against leukemic cells. We previously found that CPS49 and flavopiridol combination induced selective cytotoxicity associated with mitochondrial dysfunction and elevations of ROS in leukemic cells ranging from additive to synergistic activity at low micromolar concentrations. The goal of this study was to investigate the selectivity and efficacy of CPS49-flavopiridol combination in prostate cancer preclinical models. Our results showed that flavopiridol enhanced CPS49 cytotoxicity in all human prostate tumor cell lines analyzed (PC3, C4-2, LNCaP and 22RV1); however non tumor cell lines (293HEK and MCF10) were resistant to the tested doses. Furthermore, it was previously reported, high doses of flavopiridol (10 μM) or CPS49 (12 μM) were needed to inhibit tumor growth in PC3 xenograft mice compared with vehicle treated mice. Here, we demonstrated that combining these two agents, antitumor activity was synergistically enhanced with low doses. Injecting subcutaneously PC3 cells in nu/nu mice, we found that CPS49-flavopiridol administration reduced tumor volume approximately 83% after 2 weeks of co-treatment and 54% after 1 week of low dose flavopiridol pretreatment and 2 weeks of drug combination. In addition, we performed RT-qPCR array containing 26 genes from PC3 cells exposed to CPS49 and flavopiridol combination. We determined that this treatment shut down the expression of several genes involved in cell cycle, DNA damage and tumor progression. Histological analysis of xenograft PC3 tumor samples showed extensive areas of necrosis induced by the treatment. Furthermore, we assessed the efficacy of CPS49 in combination with paclitaxel (docetaxel analog). All the prostate tumor cell lines tested were highly sensitive to this combination. However, this combination did not reduce the tumor volume in PC3 xenografts. These results indicate that the CPS49 and flavopiridol is a promising new alternative for the treatment of CRPC. Citation Format: {Authors}. {Abstract title} [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 103rd Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research; 2012 Mar 31-Apr 4; Chicago, IL. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2012;72(8 Suppl):Abstract nr 2340. doi:1538-7445.AM2012-2340

Environmental decision making is becoming increasingly more information intensive and complex. Our previous work shows that multicriteria decision analysis (MCDA) tools offer a scientifically sound decision analytical framework for environmental management, in general, and specifically for selecting optimal sediment management alternatives. Integration of MCDA into risk assessment and sediment management may require linkage of different models and software platforms whose results may lead to somewhat different conclusions. This paper illustrates the application of 3 different MCDA methods in 2 case studies involving contaminated sediment management. These case studies are based on real sediment management problems experienced by the US Army Corps of Engineers and other stakeholders in New York/New Jersey Harbor, USA, and the Cocheco River Superfund Site in New Hampshire, USA. Our analysis shows that application of 3 different MCDA tools points to similar management solutions no matter which tool is applied. MCDA tools and approaches were constructively used to elicit the strengths and weaknesses of each method when solving the problem.