Abstract. High concentration of fine particles (PM2.5), the primary concern about air quality in China, is believed to closely relate to China's large consumption of coal. In order to quantitatively identify the contributions of coal combustion in different sectors to ambient PM2. 5, we developed an emission inventory for the year 2013 using up-to-date information on energy consumption and emission controls, and we conducted standard and sensitivity simulations using the chemical transport model GEOS-Chem. According to the simulation, coal combustion contributes 22 µg m−3 (40 %) to the total PM2. 5 concentration at national level (averaged in 74 major cities) and up to 37 µg m−3 (50 %) in the Sichuan Basin. Among major coal-burning sectors, industrial coal burning is the dominant contributor, with a national average contribution of 10 µg m−3 (17 %), followed by coal combustion in power plants and the domestic sector. The national average contribution due to coal combustion is estimated to be 18 µg m−3 (46 %) in summer and 28 µg m−3 (35 %) in winter. While the contribution of domestic coal burning shows an obvious reduction from winter to summer, contributions of coal combustion in power plants and the industrial sector remain at relatively constant levels throughout the year.
Citizenship and Management in Public Administration is an exciting journey into the nexus between two separate but close worlds: citizenship orientations and citizenship behavior as reflected in political science theory on one hand, and organizational sciences, work studies, management, and public administration on the other. The authors have combined theoretical thinking with empirical findings to support their theories, and the data presented has been collected over almost a decade of field studies and surveys of public organizations.
Citizenship and Management in Public Administration is an exciting journey into the nexus between two separate but close worlds: citizenship orientations and citizenship behavior as reflected in political science theory on one hand, and organizational sciences, work studies, management, and public administration on the other. The authors have combined theoretical thinking with empirical findings to support their theories, and the data presented has been collected over almost a decade of field studies and surveys of public organizations.
Further work is needed to quantity the effect of outdoor air pollution on lung cancer
Lung cancer accounts for 1.2 million deaths yearly worldwide, exceeding mortality from any other cancer in the developed countries.1 The vast majority are caused by tobacco smoking, but environmental causes of cancer, including air pollution, have long been a concern also.2 Outdoor air pollution has received particular attention lately as research has proliferated linking exposure, even at low ambient levels, to a wide range of adverse health effects including increased mortality and morbidity from non-malignant cardiovascular and respiratory disease and lung cancer. In response, international agencies such as the World Health Organization and governments in Europe, the US and Canada have reviewed existing air quality standards and, in many cases, moved to strengthen them. In the developed countries, where air quality has generally improved in recent decades, the scientific basis and public health efficacy of these actions have been questioned by industries whose emissions are regulated and others. In this context, reports linking air pollution and lung cancer are likely to attract attention and generate controversy. The publication of the paper by Nafstad and colleagues in this issue of Thorax is an occasion to consider both the contribution of this study to the evidence linking air pollution and lung cancer and what additional research may be needed.3
Exposure to outdoor air pollution has been associated with small relative increases in lung cancer in studies conducted over the past four decades.4 The epidemic of lung cancer emerging in the 1950s in the US and Europe motivated early research on the role of air pollution, including studies of migrants and urban-rural comparisons but, as the role of cigarette smoking became increasingly clear, interest in air pollution waned. However, recent prospective cohort and case-control …
Forty-nine experts from 18 industrial and developing countries met on 6 September 2001 in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany, to discuss the economic and public health impacts of air pollution, particularly with respect to assessing the public health benefits from technologies and policies that reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Such measures would provide immediate public health benefits, such as reduced premature mortality and chronic morbidity, through improved local air quality. These mitigation strategies also allow long-term goals--for example, reducing the buildup of GHG emissions--to be achieved alongside short-term aims, such as immediate improvements in air quality, and therefore benefits to public health. The workshop aimed to foster research partnerships by improving collaboration and communication among various agencies and researchers; providing a forum for presentations by sponsoring agencies and researchers regarding research efforts and agency activities; identifying key issues, knowledge gaps, methodological shortcomings, and research needs; and recommending activities and initiatives for research, collaboration, and communication. This workshop summary briefly describes presentations made by workshop participants and the conclusions of three separate working groups: economics, benefits transfer, and policy; indoor air quality issues and susceptible populations; and development and transfer of dose-response relationships and exposure models in developing countries. Several common themes emerged from the working group sessions and subsequent discussion. Key recommendations include the need for improved communication and extended collaboration, guidance and support for researchers, advances in methods, and resource support for data collection, assessment, and research.
In early 1916 Moscow's Tretiakov Gallery found itself at the centre of a furious press debate, bitter art scandal and contentious legal inquiry as prominent Russian artists, journalists and politicians struggled over the rearrangement of the collection by the director of the Gallery, Igor Grabar. The Tretiakov was controversial because it stood at the intersection of several professional, cultural and political conflicts that all came to a head in the highly politicized public atmosphere of the Great War. Through it all, however, ran one prominent thread: a struggle over the place of modern art in Russian culture. The resolution of the Tretiakov Gallery dispute answered some long‐standing questions about the Gallery's mission and Russia's art‐historical canon, and it helped define the meaning of the Tretiakov Gallery, Russian art and modern art in Russian culture before the Revolution.
In the 1950s evidence of an ongoing epidemic of lung cancer in the United States and Western Europe led researchers to examine the role of outdoor air pollution, which was considered by some to be a likely cause. Although epidemiologic research quickly identified the central role of cigarette smoking in this epidemic, and despite progress in reducing outdoor air pollution in Western industrialized countries, concerns that ambient air pollution is causing lung cancer have persisted to the present day. This concern is based on the fact that known carcinogens continue to be released into outdoor air from industrial sources, power plants, and motor vehicles, and on a body of epidemiologic research that provides some evidence for an association between outdoor air pollution and lung cancer. This article reviews the epidemiologic evidence for this association and discusses the limitations of current studies for estimating the lung cancer risk in the general population. It also identifies research needs and suggests possible approaches to addressing outstanding questions.