Selection Of Appropriate Indicators Research Articles

Environmental reporting in Italian thermal power plants: insights from a comprehensive analysis of EMAS environmental statements

The global energy sector heavily relies on fossil fuels, significantly contributing to climate change. The ambitious European emissions' reduction targets require sustainable processes and alternatives. This study presents a comprehensive analysis of 73 Italian thermal power plants registered to the European Eco-Management and Audit Scheme (EMAS) aimed at assessing EMAS effectiveness in addressing and quantifying the environmental impacts of this relevant industrial sector. The analysis was based on EMAS environmental statements, publicly disclosing verified and certified data, with the secondary objective of evaluating if EMAS could be an efficient tool to improve the plants’ environmental performances. An inventory of technical and environmental aspects, adopted indicators, and allocated budgets was based on 2023 data. A strong correlation was found between the significance of the environmental aspects and the number of adopted indicators. Gaps were observed in describing aspects like “biodiversity” and “local issues”. Improvement objectives and budget allocation showed discrepancies and lacked correlation with the significance of the related environmental aspects. “Energy production” accounted for 68% of the total allocated budget; “environmental risks”, “emissions to air”, “electricity consumption”, and “local issues” were also key focus areas. Insufficient information on emission control technologies and progress tracking of improvement objectives was detected. This study highlights the need for thermal power installations to improve the selection of appropriate indicators and to better relate allocated budget to improvement objectives when implementing EMAS. Such measures would facilitate the quantification of the effective environmental impacts of the energy production sector, supporting future research on this topic, allowing stakeholders a better comparison among plants, and driving industry-wide improvements.

Assessment of chemical integrity based on ecological thresholds in one of the largest basins in China

Chemical integrity plays a crucial role in maintaining the ecological integrity of aquatic ecosystems. Despite its significance, assessments of ecological integrity often prioritize biological evaluations, leading to infrequent and inadequate scrutiny of chemical integrity. Additionally, a comprehensive framework for separately assessing chemical integrity has not been established. To address this issue, we established a new index for evaluating chemical integrity, achieved through indicator screening, normalization, and weight assignment. Combined with the threshold indicator taxa analysis (TITAN) and Pearson correlation analysis, main evaluation indicators and their indicator species were identified and the corresponding response threshold was determined. These thresholds were then applied to improve the normalization method, with weights determined by indicator species proportions. This index was applied to evaluate the chemical integrity of the Huai River Basin, which is one of the largest basins in China. The results indicated that ammonia nitrogen (NH3-N), nitrate nitrogen (NO2-N), pH, and turbidity (Turb) were identified as the core parameters for evaluating chemical integrity. The conventional normalization method (max–min normalization) led to overestimation of the assessment results, whereas improved normalization method based on ecological threshold yielded better and more reasonable results. This study provided a reference for the selection of appropriate indicators and improvement of normalization method to better assess chemical integrity. And it would become a useful tool for monitoring and rehabilitating the chemical integrity in such basins.

A multi-indicator approach to compare the sustainability of organic vs. integrated management of grape production

Sustainable agricultural practices are increasingly becoming a strategic asset for global and national environmental policies and economy. A big challenge is the selection of appropriate indicators to describe the complexity of the agroecosystem management. In the present work, the sustainability of grape production, in vineyard trials of Pinot blanc and Rhine Riesling, managed with integrated (INT) and organic management (organic, with cattle manure ORG1 and organic with green manure ORG2), was compared using a multi-indicator approach. The experiment was set in 2011 (1.5 ha in Trento, Italy) and carbon footprint (CF), nitrogen footprint (NF), water footprint (WF), soil microbial diversity (alpha diversity of bacteria, fungi, oomycetes communities) and soil C stock change, were evaluated in 2018. The CF was 0.213—0.227 kg CO2-eq/kg in the INT, 0.144—0.168 kg CO2-eq/kg in ORG1 and 0.134—0.147 kg CO2-eq/kg in ORG2. The NF was around 1 g Nr/kg for the INT, 0.4 g Nr/kg for ORG1 and 0.5 g Nr/kg for ORG2. The WF, excluding the pesticides impact on grey water, was 666—708 L/kg for INT, 605—655 L/kg for ORG1 and 529—580 L/kg for ORG2. The impact of farming practices on soil microbial alpha diversity showed no significant difference among treatments for oomycetes and significantly higher indexes for fungi and bacteria in the ORG1, with INT and ORG2, being similar. No difference in bulk organic C were observed among treatments. Overall, the multi-indicator approach allowed to demonstrate that the organic management was more beneficial for most of the environmental spheres of the agroecosystem compared to integrated management, without affecting the grape yield.

Quality of rainwater and reclaimed water used in buildings and selection of appropriate indicators.

The use of alternative water sources such as rainwater or greywater (i.e., wastewater excluding water from toilets) for non-potable purposes may save water but, on the other hand, can also pose health risks to users. The main health risks come from microorganisms (such as bacteria, viruses, fungi, and protozoa). This work aims to analyse especially microbiological quality of rainwater and greywater used inside buildings in detail and to expand the existing knowledge about the potential health risks associated with these alternative water sources. It also considers methodological problems during E. coli and coliform bacteria detection. The final objective is to discuss requirements and appropriate indicators for monitoring recycled water quality. We examined 30 buildings with non-potable water systems in the Czech Republic and analysed a total of 137 samples of rainwater and 120 samples of greywater. From these 30 buildings, eleven, 5 of which used rainwater and 6 of which used greywater, were sampled regularly for 1-2 years for basic chemical parameters, various faecal indicators, C. perfringens, Legionella spp. and P. aeruginosa. Occasionally, samples were analysed also for the presence of environmental mycobacteria, amoebas, viruses, and selected pathogens. Nearly three quarters of rainwater samples contained the faecal indicators E. coli or enterococci, or both, and in samples from several buildings also Clostridium perfringens was repeatedly detected. Untreated and treated rainwater were in respect to microbiological quality similar, suggesting that treatment processes were not very efficient. In greywater samples, beside faecal indicators, also P. aeruginosa and thermotolerant amoebas were repeatedly detected. Treatment technologies used for greywater were more efficient than those for rainwater systems. Based on the results we evaluated appropriate indicators for monitoring recycled water quality and drafted the first Czech regulation for non-potable water.

Design and development of a forecasting tool for the identification of new target markets by open time-series data and deep learning methods

Globalization and rapid advancements in the IT sector brought new challenges and intensified competition between companies, strongly highlighting the demand for Business Intelligence and Analytics in decision-making and strategy development planning. Motivated by the analysis and forecasting capabilities offered by time-series data and its limited exploitation in marketing literature, this paper introduces a multidisciplinary framework, called MULTIFOR, which aims to synthesize and deliver profound knowledge about the macroeconomic environment and the attractiveness of new target markets. MULTIFOR main objective is to fully support interested parties (i.e., industries, SMEs, scholars, local and national authorities, etc.) in their decision-making and strategy planning tasks, by providing accurate forecasts and recommendations. The proposed framework along with its Web service offers a unique solution since it encapsulates: marketing fundamentals (PESTEL analysis), open data (time-series data from open Web databases) and deep learning methods (LSTM networks) for time-series analysis and forecasting. MULTIFOR has been tested and validated through a use case on elevator and escalator (E&E) industry, which is a strong industrial sector which has important impact worldwide, with studying its scope in European markets. The research findings revealed that LSTM networks, which according to the existing literature are superior to other forecasting models, when combined with macroeconomic theory can achieve greater forecasting accuracy in identifying new international markets. In the case of MULTIFOR, the improvement of LSTM networks performance was achieved through the selection of appropriate indicators and the pre-processing of time-series data exploiting PESTEL analysis. In particular, MULTIFOR achieved approximately 70% of the 900 time-series reduction of errors in the forecasting process in time-series derived from the PESTEL analysis for European countries. Moreover, the exploitation of MULTIFOR in the E&E industry, revealed the countries of northern Europe as the most attractive markets, of which Sweden and The Netherlands stand out.

Physicochemical properties of surface sediments in the Taklimakan desert, northwestern China, and their relationship with oasis–desert evolution

Oasis and desert are the dominant landscapes in arid and semi-arid regions, especially in northwestern China where the oasis–desert evolution mechanisms are important for understanding modern surface processes and future environmental evolution of the region. Nevertheless, the response of the physicochemical indicators of surface sediments to oasis-desert evolution is poorly studied and it is unclear how reliable these indicators are for paleoenvironmental reconstruction. A spatio-temporal approach consisting of measurements of surface-sediment grain-size, nutrient contents and elemental ratios was used to characterize a series of modern stages of oasis-desert evolution in the Taklimakan desert. The applicability of the indicators to two sequences of alternating fluviolacustrine-wetland and aeolian sand deposits in the same region was evaluated. The results show that the oasis sediments are characterized by high contents of fine-grained particle (End-Member 1, EM1), TOC (Total organic Carbon), TN (Total Nitrogen), and MgO/SiO2, and low values of the eluvial coefficient (SiO2/(MgO + CaO + K2O + Na2O)). By contrast, the desert sediments are characterized by high values of coarse-grained particle (End-Member 3, EM3), low soil nutrients and MgO/SiO2, and an increased eluvial coefficient. In the two sedimentary sections, the physicochemical properties of the clay-silt layers resemble those of modern oasis sediments, especially washland, and the properties of the interbedded aeolian sand resemble those of modern desert deposits. The observed co-variation of grain size, soil nutrients and geochemical ratios of the surface samples shows that our approach can be used to determine the trends of past oasis-desert evolution. The reconstruction suggests that oasis formation largely depended on the development of a fluviolacustrine-wetland environment, whereas oasis degradation was closely related to strong aeolian activity. The findings provide new insights into the selection of appropriate indicators for analyzing oasis-desert sediments and for reconstructing the evolution of oasis-desert landscapes.

Comparing the pelvis of Tibetan and Chinese Han women in rural areas of China: two population-based studies using coarsened exact matching

This study aims to investigate the difference of pelvic size and shape between Tibetan and Chinese Han women. Data on pelvic dimension measures including interspinous diameter (IS), intercrestal diameter (IC), external conjugate (EC) and transverse outlet (TO) were acquired from two population-based studies amongst Tibetan women in Lhasa, and Chinese Han women in Shaanxi province in China. After coarsened exact matching, there was no statistical difference between any characteristics amongst Tibetan and Chinese Han women (p>.05). The generalised estimating equation models showed Tibetan women had significantly lower IS and IC means than Chinese Han women (IS: 24.39 cm vs. 24.77 cm, p<.001; IC: 26.35 cm vs. 26.93 cm, p<.001) but statistically higher in TO mean (9.12 cm vs. 9.03 cm, p<.001). This study showed Tibetan women have smaller pelvis compared to Chinese Han women. This should offer a useful literature on the comparison of pelvis between Tibetan and Chinese Han women although the difference is small. Impact Statement What is already known on this subject? Previous studies in China indicated different populations have different dimensions of pelvis, with the pelvis of Uighur women being bigger than Chinese Han women, and that of Zhuang and Tu women being smaller than Chinese Han women. Little research reports the specific size of Tibetan women’s pelvis. Living at high altitude, the Tibetan population have differentiated demographics and show local adaptions, such as unelevated haemoglobin, and significant catch-up growth for infants compared with Chinese Han infants. Therefore, there is a strong rationale for better understanding pelvic characteristics amongst this population. What the results of this study add? This study showed Tibetan women have smaller pelvises compared to Chinese Han women. Tibetan women have a smaller interspinous diameter and intercrestal diameter than Chinese Han women, which leads to relatively narrow hip. What the implications are of these findings for clinical practice and/or further research? This study provides useful comparative information on pelvic features between Tibetan and Chinese Han women although the findings of differences were small. In addition, during the formulation of women’s health policy, the results of this study can provide data to support the selection of appropriate indicators of obstetrics and gynaecology for different populations of pregnant women during antenatal care and delivery.

Selecting Indicators for Assessing Neighbourhood Sustainability: The Metropolitan Lagos Workflow

Neighbourhood Sustainability Assessment Frameworks (NSAFs) are increasingly touted as crucial in planning and designing sustainable urban neighbourhoods. Ostensibly, NSAFs ensure that sustainability concerns are duly addressed following the recognition that neighbourhoods are key building blocks of urban areas. While the NSAF discourse has largely involved developed countries, the selection of appropriate indicators to use in an NSAF has remained a problem often because of little robust evidence to support the selected indicators. Also, as develoing countries are largely absent in this discourse, this paper presents an exemplar approach and workflow for selecting NSAF indicators for a Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) context. Positivist techniques (weighted average, co-efficiency of variation, and content validity in ratio) are used to rank the significance of the stakeholders’ indicated perceptions and preferences collected using questionnaire surveys from metropolitan Lagos. This paper’s significance lies in showcasing the robust methodological approach and sound evidence-base for selecting the indicators based on input form diaparate stakeholders: including data requirements and workflow that SSA countries can easily adopt.

АНАЛІТИЧНЕ ЗАБЕЗПЕЧЕННЯ ОЦІНЮВАННЯ ЕКОНОМІЧНОЇ БЕЗПЕКИ БУДІВЕЛЬНОГО ПІДПРИЄМСТВА

The article is devoted to the formation of analytical assessment of economic security of a construction company. It is noted that the analysis and assessment of economic security of the enterprise are the most important elements of economic security management of enterprises, regardless of the national economy in which the enterprise operates. It is established that the management of economic security should be based on a careful assessment of threats to the enterprise and the results of its operation. The essence of such concepts as danger, threat and security is specified and the relationship between them is established. The definition of analytical support of indicative assessment of economic security of the enterprise is specified, which includes a set of interconnected analytical processes for appropriate processing of input information for threat assessment, forecasting their impact on the level of economic security of the enterprise. The requirements to the analytical support of economic security assessment as a necessary resource for its implementation are determined. It is established that the purpose of the indicative assessment, its components are presented. The sequence of formation of methodical tools of indicative assessment of economic security of the enterprise is developed. At each step of the developed sequence the corresponding methods of formation of analytical maintenance are established. The list of tools for strategic evaluation of performance results and tools for operational evaluation to identify threats to the safe operation of the enterprise is presented. Methods and tools that form the methodological tools of indicative assessment of economic security are considered in terms of strategic and operational assessment and the corresponding projections of the enterprise. The procedures of analytical processing of information on strategic and operational aspects of economic security of the enterprise are specified. The principles of assessment of threats and results of the enterprise operation and the principles of formation of strategic assessment and selection of appropriate indicators are formulated. The factors on which the system of economic security assessment using an indicative approach largely depends are given. It is determined to which guidelines the process of choosing strategic and operational indicators should be directed to the attention of management staff. The necessity of coordination of indicators of assessment of threats to safe functioning of the enterprise and indicators of assessment of results of its activity among themselves is established.

Examining the Coordination Between Green Finance and Green Economy Aiming for Sustainable Development: A Case Study of China

Green finance (GF) regards social responsibility and environmental protection interests as the core of development and has become a new growth point and a new engine for promoting the development of the green economy (GE). To more accurately grasp the coordination between GF and the GE, the selection of appropriate indicators and feasible methods is worth exploring. Aiming at sustainable development by evaluating the coupling coordination between GF and the GE by means of a comprehensive index system and an integrated approach, this study establishes a coupling coordination degree model based on panel data of 30 Chinese provinces over the period 2007–2016. Furthermore, it evaluates the spatial distribution difference and dynamic evolution trend of the coordination by introducing global/local spatial autocorrelation, a space Markov chain, and a local indicators of spatial association (LISA) Markov chain. According to the research results, the coupling coordination degrees of the provinces exhibit gradual upward trends, and most regions in China are in a barely coordinated state at present. The coordination degree of GF and the GE shows strong spatial dependence overall, and partially presents the characteristics of “high-high (HH)” and “low-low (LL)” clustering patterns. The forecast results show that the future coordination of GF and the GE will remain stable and be affected by the coordinated development of surrounding areas.

Comparison of land surface and air temperatures for quantifying summer and winter urban heat island in a snow climate city

The urban heat island (UHI) effect is an increasingly consequential problem that confronts cities. The accurate characterization and quantification of UHI are crucial for sustainable urban development. Few UHI studies, however, compare data source, spatio-temporal variations, and indicators for the same city in parallel. This study uses Changchun, a snow climate city in China, as an example and compares five different indicators of the UHI based on land surface temperature (LST) derived from Landsat 8 TIRS and hourly air temperature (AT) collected from 41 meteorological weather stations to conduct a more comprehensive comparative study of the UHI. The results show the following. (1) The relationships between LST and AT are all statistically significant, and the surface urban heat island (SUHI) intensity characterized by the LST is considerably stronger than that of AT both in summer and winter. (2) The SUHI intensity is significantly stronger in summer (6.83 °C) than in winter (1.55 °C) based on the morning LST, whereas the UHI intensity (0.27 °C in summer and 0.40 °C in winter) that is simultaneously quantified by the AT has an opposite result. The mean whole-day and daytime UHI intensity difference, which is quantified hourly by the AT between summer and winter, is not significant. The difference between nighttime and daytime UHI intensities is evident in both summer (1.26 °C) and winter (0.76 °C). Additionally, the high temperatures for both LST and AT have a more concentrated distribution in winter than in summer. (3) The values of UHI/SUHI intensity considerably vary based on different indicators. The different choices among land covers to represent “urban” and “rural” areas would significantly affect the values of UHI/SUHI intensity. The selection of appropriate indicators and data sources to quantify the UHI remains a problem that has to be resolved in future studies.

Land use changes and socio-economic development strongly deteriorate river ecosystem health in one of the largest basins in China

It is important to assess river ecosystem health in large-scale basins when considering the complex influence of anthropogenic activities on these ecosystems. This study investigated the river ecosystem health in the Haihe River Basin (HRB) by sampling 148 river sites during the pre- and post-rainy seasons in 2013. A model was established to assess the river ecosystem health based on water physicochemical, nutrient, and macroinvertebrate indices, and the health level was divided into “very poor,” “poor,” “fair,” “good,” and “excellent” according to the health score calculated from the assessment model. The assessment results demonstrated that the river ecosystem health of the HRB was “poor” overall, and no catchments were labeled “excellent.” The percentages of catchments deemed to have “very poor,” “poor,” “fair,” or “good” river ecosystem health were 12.88%, 40.91%, 40.15%, and 6.06%, respectively. From the pre- to the post-rainy season, the macroinvertebrate health levels improved from “poor” to “fair.” The results of a redundancy analysis (RDA), path analysis of the structural equation model (SEM), and X-Y plots indicated that the land use types of forest land and grassland had positive relationships with river ecosystem health, whereas arable land, urban land, gross domestic product (GDP) per capita, and population density had negative relationships with river ecosystem health. The variance partitioning (VP) results showed that anthropogenic activities (including land use and socio-economy) together explained 30.9% of the variations in river ecosystem health in the pre-rainy season, and this value increased to 35.9% in the post-rainy season. Land use intensity was the first driver of river ecosystem health, and socio-economic activities was the second driver. Land use variables explained 20.5% and 25.7% of the variations in river ecosystem health in the pre- and post-rainy season samples, respectively, and socio-economic variables explained 12.3% and 17.2% of the variations, respectively. The SEM results revealed that urban land had the strongest impact on water quality health and that forest land had the strongest impact on macroinvertebrate health. This study has implications for the selection of appropriate indicators to assess river ecosystem health and generated data to examine the effects of anthropogenic activities on river ecosystem health in a fast-growing region.

To Facilitate or Curb? The Role of Financial Development in China's Carbon Emissions Reduction Process: A Novel Approach.

With the Paris Agreement coming into effect, China, as the largest CO2 emitter in the world, will be facing greater pressure to reduce its carbon emissions. This paper discusses how to solve this issue from the perspective of financial development in China. Although many studies have analyzed its impact on carbon emissions, the conclusions are contradictory. A major criticism of the existing studies is the reasonability of the selection of appropriate indicators and panel estimation techniques. Almost all studies use only one or limited indicators to represent the financial development and ignore the cross-sectional dependence. To fulfil the gaps mentioned above, a financial development index system is built, and with the framework of the STIRPAT (Stochastic impacts by regression on population, affluence, and technology) model, this paper applies an ARDL approach to investigating the long-run relationship between financial development and carbon emissions and a dynamic panel error-corrected model to capture the short-run impact. The empirical results show that financial development can improve carbon emissions, and such impact not only shows a regional difference but also reflects the features of stage differences. Additionally, based on the discussion on seven specific aspects of financial development, our findings can be helpful for policy makers to enact corresponding policies to realize the goal of reducing carbon emissions in China.

The predictability of reported drought events and impacts in the Ebro Basin using six different remote sensing data sets

Abstract. The implementation of drought management plans contributes to reduce the wide range of adverse impacts caused by water shortage. A crucial element of the development of drought management plans is the selection of appropriate indicators and their associated thresholds to detect drought events and monitor the evolution. Drought indicators should be able to detect emerging drought processes that will lead to impacts with sufficient anticipation to allow measures to be undertaken effectively. However, in the selection of appropriate drought indicators, the connection to the final impacts is often disregarded. This paper explores the utility of remotely sensed data sets to detect early stages of drought at the river basin scale and determine how much time can be gained to inform operational land and water management practices. Six different remote sensing data sets with different spectral origins and measurement frequencies are considered, complemented by a group of classical in situ hydrologic indicators. Their predictive power to detect past drought events is tested in the Ebro Basin. Qualitative (binary information based on media records) and quantitative (crop yields) data of drought events and impacts spanning a period of 12 years are used as a benchmark in the analysis. Results show that early signs of drought impacts can be detected up to 6 months before impacts are reported in newspapers, with the best correlation–anticipation relationships for the standard precipitation index (SPI), the normalised difference vegetation index (NDVI) and evapotranspiration (ET). Soil moisture (SM) and land surface temperature (LST) offer also good anticipation but with weaker correlations, while gross primary production (GPP) presents moderate positive correlations only for some of the rain-fed areas. Although classical hydrological information from water levels and water flows provided better anticipation than remote sensing indicators in most of the areas, correlations were found to be weaker. The indicators show a consistent behaviour with respect to the different levels of crop yield in rain-fed areas among the analysed years, with SPI, NDVI and ET providing again the stronger correlations. Overall, the results confirm remote sensing products' ability to anticipate reported drought impacts and therefore appear as a useful source of information to support drought management decisions.

Evaluating outcomes in planning: Indicators and reference values for Swiss landscapes

Evaluation of achievement of set targets is a necessary step in landscape planning in order to learn from the past, reassess implemented measures and enhance trust in public managers and institutions. Though it is commonly accepted that indicators play a major role in such evaluations, so far no accepted framework for evaluating planning outcomes exists. Furthermore, the selection of appropriate indicators and reference values to effectively assess conditions of landscapes and determine whether observed developments can be considered positive or negative remains challenging. Our study contributes to much-needed research on this topic with a proposed evaluation framework built on goals, indicators and reference values. We analyzed the landscape section of eight Swiss cantonal comprehensive plans to specifically address (1) whether currently tracked indicators suffice to evaluate landscape-planning goals; (2) what a minimal set of landscape indicators for regional planning might look like; and (3) how the ratified value approach could be operationalized to develop reference values for landscape indicators. All eight plans have a similar hierarchical goal system with six major landscape goals, up to 18 themes and 21–33 subordinate goals. The studied cantons track from 29 to 84 indicators. We found a considerable imbalance in the ratio between subordinate goals and indicators, with comparatively few indicators being tracked to assess visual and recreational landscape quality. Our proposed minimal indicator set is well balanced since it lists 5–7 indicators for each theme. The general procedure for modeling reference values is based on the assumption that the protection status of a landscape is a proxy for high societal appreciation of a place. Consequently, indicator values for these areas would reflect reference values (ratified values). We illustrate the procedure with the exemplary indicator impervious surface. The proposed indicators and maps are powerful tools for outcome evaluation and also facilitate benchmarking, i.e. interregional comparisons of landscape qualities, which could be very useful for landscape planning in Europe.

Guidance on the Selection of Appropriate Indicators for Quantification of Antimicrobial Usage in Humans and Animals.

An increasing variety of indicators of antimicrobial usage has become available in human and veterinary medicine, with no consensus on the most appropriate indicators to be used. The objective of this review is therefore to provide guidance on the selection of indicators, intended for those aiming to quantify antimicrobial usage based on sales, deliveries or reimbursement data. Depending on the study objective, different requirements apply to antimicrobial usage quantification in terms of resolution, comprehensiveness, stability over time, ability to assess exposure and comparability. If the aim is to monitor antimicrobial usage trends, it is crucial to use a robust quantification system that allows stability over time in terms of required data and provided output; to compare usage between different species or countries, comparability must be ensured between the different populations. If data are used for benchmarking, the system comprehensiveness is particularly crucial, while data collected to study the association between usage and resistance should express the exposure level and duration as a measurement of the exerted selection pressure. Antimicrobial usage is generally described as the number of technical units consumed normalized by the population at risk of being treated in a defined period. The technical units vary from number of packages to number of individuals treated daily by adding different levels of complexity such as daily dose or weight at treatment. These technical units are then related to a description of the population at risk, based either on biomass or number of individuals. Conventions and assumptions are needed for all of these calculation steps. However, there is a clear lack of standardization, resulting in poor transparency and comparability. By combining study requirements with available approaches to quantify antimicrobial usage, we provide suggestions on the most appropriate indicators and data sources to be used for a given study objective.

Research and Evaluations of the Health Aspects of Disasters, Part IX: Risk-Reduction Framework.

A disaster is a failure of resilience to an event. Mitigating the risks that a hazard will progress into a destructive event, or increasing the resilience of a society-at-risk, requires careful analysis, planning, and execution. The Disaster Logic Model (DLM) is used to define the value (effects, costs, and outcome(s)), impacts, and benefits of interventions directed at risk reduction. A Risk-Reduction Framework, based on the DLM, details the processes involved in hazard mitigation and/or capacity-building interventions to augment the resilience of a community or to decrease the risk that a secondary event will develop. This Framework provides the structure to systematically undertake and evaluate risk-reduction interventions. It applies to all interventions aimed at hazard mitigation and/or increasing the absorbing, buffering, or response capacities of a community-at-risk for a primary or secondary event that could result in a disaster. The Framework utilizes the structure provided by the DLM and consists of 14 steps: (1) hazards and risks identification; (2) historical perspectives and predictions; (3) selection of hazard(s) to address; (4) selection of appropriate indicators; (5) identification of current resilience standards and benchmarks; (6) assessment of the current resilience status; (7) identification of resilience needs; (8) strategic planning; (9) selection of an appropriate intervention; (10) operational planning; (11) implementation; (12) assessments of outputs; (13) synthesis; and (14) feedback. Each of these steps is a transformation process that is described in detail. Emphasis is placed on the role of Coordination and Control during planning, implementation of risk-reduction/capacity building interventions, and evaluation. Birnbaum ML , Daily EK , O'Rourke AP , Loretti A . Research and evaluations of the health aspects of disasters, part IX: Risk-Reduction Framework. Prehosp Disaster Med. 2016;31(3):309-325.

Use of the ‘Queuing Theory’ and Patient-Based Characteristics to Assess the Performance of a Paediatric Intensive Care Unit

The performance of an intensive care unit (ICU) is the prompt admission of patients with specific conditions and institution of appropriate management leading to expected outcomes within the expected time. Therefore, assessment of ICU performance generally involves selection of appropriate indicators in patient-, institutional- and environmental- based characteristics and their application in relevant mathematical models. Unfortunately, these models are often too complex and not easy to adopt in different situations. Here, a simple method using the 'queuing theory' and patient-based characteristics to gauge the performance of a Paediatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU) is described. This was a ten year retrospective study to determine the queuing nature and patient based characteristics in the PICU using records of patients who were prescribed antibiotics from January 1998 to December 2007. The daily arrival rates and length of stay were used in the queuing simulation formula to derive the appropriate parameters. It was established that 63% of the PICU was utilised by patients who stayed for 7.48 ± 6.8 days. The ICU admitted mainly children and infants of low body weight, with a variety of medical and surgical problems and experienced many complications while in the PICU. These patients were successfully managed, whereby most patients improved, leading to a low mortality rate of < 5%. In conclusion, the queuing theory was successfully used to evaluate the performance of the PICU (ICU utilisation, type of patients admitted, common conditions and length of stay) and to recommend appropriate remedial measures. The model is simple and can be used in other ICUs.

New method for benchmarking traffic safety level for the territory

Evaluation, monitoring and comparison of traffic safety in various territories presents a major challenge to the traffic safety researches. Recently a large number of studies are focused on finding an appropriate method for the calculation of the traffic safety level which uses a single numerical value for its assessment. For that purpose, traffic safety indicators are combined into a single numerical value by appropriate techniques in order to represent a grade of the traffic safety level. This paper contains, after the summary of contemporary tendencies in the evaluation of traffic safety levels, the analysis of methods used in the evaluation of traffic safety levels so far in Serbia with the emphasis on their values and deficiencies. Considering those analyses, this paper introduces a new method for traffic safety level evaluation the so called Benchmarked Traffic Safety Level (BTSL). BTSL implies selection of appropriate indicators, transformation of chosen indicators, assigning weights and aggregation. The proposed scale appliance enables traffic safety level to define for the territory, and also compares it with a similar one. BTSL provides a single numerical value so that to evaluate the traffic safety level for the territory, derived from the aggregation of previously transformed and ‘weighted’ three outcomes indicators and three safety performance indicators. First Published Online: 03 Apr 2013

Methodological Considerations in Screening for Cumulative Environmental Health Impacts: Lessons Learned from a Pilot Study in California

Polluting facilities and hazardous sites are often concentrated in low-income communities of color already facing additional stressors to their health. The influence of socioeconomic status is not considered in traditional models of risk assessment. We describe a pilot study of a screening method that considers both pollution burden and population characteristics in assessing the potential for cumulative impacts. The goal is to identify communities that warrant further attention and to thereby provide actionable guidance to decision- and policy-makers in achieving environmental justice. The method uses indicators related to five components to develop a relative cumulative impact score for use in comparing communities: exposures, public health effects, environmental effects, sensitive populations and socioeconomic factors. Here, we describe several methodological considerations in combining disparate data sources and report on the results of sensitivity analyses meant to guide future improvements in cumulative impact assessments. We discuss criteria for the selection of appropriate indicators, correlations between them, and consider data quality and the influence of choices regarding model structure. We conclude that the results of this model are largely robust to changes in model structure.