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McKeesport Area School District property owners to see slight tax hike
McKeesport Area School District property owners should expect to see a slight tax increase as a result of the 2014-15 budget.
School directors adopted a preliminary spending plan on May 21 with a .48-mill tax hike.
Business manager David Seropian said at Wednesday's workshop meeting the millage increase to 15.70 mills remains in the proposed final budget, which is slated for formal adoption at next Wednesday's regular meeting.
The budget is balanced at $62,403,163 and uses approximately $4.3 million of the district's $6.6 million fund balance.
The tax hike equates to roughly $30 more in real estate taxes for the average homeowner.
Seropian said the only thing that changed from last month is a $150,000 savings in personnel changes. Some staffers are retiring and resigning, and there are no plans to fill those positions.
"When we eliminate a position we try to recreate it in another way so that the students are still getting those educational programs that we feel are very important to the students," Superintendent Rula Skezas said.
No programs are being cut in the proposed budget.
School districts have to adopt a final budget by June 30 unless there are special circumstances.
Seropian said there was an amendment to the state school code years ago that allows districts to adopt a budget within 15 days of the state's budget adoption, provided the state fails to pass a budget by June 15.
He noted the state has not adopted its budget yet and it doesn't look like Pennsylvania lawmakers will come to an agreement any time soon to impact the district's plans.
"I don't think we're going to know anything else to be able to make any changes by next week, so unless something changes between now and next week, we're going to go with what we have right now," Seropian said. "It may go into July before they pass a budget, so to wait for that doesn't seem necessary ... If we don't adopt a budget it's going to affect our operations, our cash flow. We can't get our tax bills out. It's not worth the wait."
The biggest expenditure increases are $617,330 to charter schools, $1,205,560 in retirement contributions and $386,049 in debt service payments.
Skezas said her administration is working toward bringing cyber/charter school students back into the district to help reduce costs.
This is the first district budget for Skezas as superintendent. She succeeded Timothy Gabauer, who left the district to become superintendent at Mt. Pleasant Area on Nov. 1.
"It was very, very difficult," Skezas said about the budget process. "Especially the fact being a former teacher, being a principal in a couple of the buildings. I've worked with many of these people that we've had to make some decisions about with their programs and classrooms and class sizes. We really take a look at all of those things. Dr. Gabauer did a lot of this together."
Skezas lauded Seropian's efforts in crafting next school year's budget.
School directors spent at least 40 minutes debating change orders for Twin Rivers Primary/Intermediate School and Founders' Hall Middle School projects, primarily bleachers vs. storage space in the latter facility's gymnasium.
Most school directors were in favor of adjusting plans to design a storage space for gym classes while school director Christopher Halaszynski and vice president Joe Lopretto vehemently opposed removing bleachers commonly used by senior citizens and season ticket holders.
Halaszynski expanded upon his comments following the meeting.
"Fourteen million dollars into the Sixth Grade Academy and gymnasium and no one could think of adding storage for volleyball equipment?" Halaszynski said. "Now we're gonna kick out our seniors, families and handicapped fans out of those end bleachers. Not only is the majority of the board going to raise our taxes next week, but now take away some convenience of seating to those that come to the games. I'm very disappointed I couldn't convince the board the importance of those end bleachers to our elderly and handicapped fans."
School director Scott Smith regularly has his eye on district finances, particularly capital improvement projects and change orders.
Smith said he is for the storage space, and would reserve comment about the budget until it's voted on next week.
Michael DiVittorio is a staff writer for Trib Total Media.


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Category: Media Gallery
The goal of our Friends of Num-Ti-Jah program is to celebrate and highlight talented local artists, and share in the beauty of Bow Lake and it's surroundings.
Num-Ti-Jah Lodge has a rich history dating back to the 1920s. The original founder, Jimmy Simpson, arrived from England to Canada in 1896 as a teenager. In less than ten years he was guiding scientists, mountaineers, big game hunters and notable artists through the little-explored Rocky Mountains. His wild character, quick wit, and tall tales of the trail have made him one of Canada's most eccentric pioneers.
Num-Ti-Jah is located on Bow Lake, thirty minutes north of Lake Louise on Icefields Parkway (#93) in the heart of the Rockies. Num-Ti-Jah remains one of the last authentic Canadian lodges. Set in a location with unparalleled beauty, our 16-room Lodge provides a quiet, unique experience for guests.
Celebrating the legends of the Rockies and cultivating the legends of tomorrow
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Click on the following links to check room
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subset: commoncrawl


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Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham (Hindi: कभी ख़ुशी कभी ग़म translation: Sometimes Happiness, Sometimes Sadness) is a Bollywood film released in India and countries with large NRI populations on December 14, 2001. It features Amitabh Bachchan, Jaya Bachchan, Shahrukh Khan, Kajol, Hrithik Roshan, Kareena Kapoor and Rani Mukerji in a guest appearance. It is director Karan Johar\s second movie (after Kuch Kuch Hota Hai). Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham was the highest grossing Indian film overseas till 2006, when its record was broken by Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna. It climbed up to 3rd place in the British box office within two weeks of release, and maintained its place for over 3 weeks. The film was also thought to have broken the American Box Office Top 10, but this remains uncertain due to a lack of confirmed figures from the distributors. The film was the first Bollywood
Who do you think is Bollywood's most glamorous actress?


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My MSN account has been hacked? How to recover it
Are you struggling with this problem: "My MSN account has been hacked?" If yes, MSN technical support can help you recover your hacked account.
There are numerous ways in which you can recover your msn account, if it has been hacked—at least you think it has been hacked. Let us see what those different ways are.
Perform the following steps to find your MSN email account:
1. Visit your secondary email account (if you have one). Enter the terms MSN email in the Search bar of the account to get the relevant results. This may work because when you set up an MSN email account, MSN needs you to provide another email account; MSN sends the login credentials for your new account to that account. Therefore, you may get access to your login password.
2. Visit the official MSN email website at www.hotmail.com, if you have not been able to find the needed information for your MSN email account at other places.
3. Click Forgot Password that is below the login screen. The next screen appears with the Forgot log in link. Click that link.
4. Enter the relevant details including your first name and last name, security question's answer, and others when MSN asks the same. Once you have been able to provide the same answers or details that are recorded or are on file, you will receive your log in and password information.
Perform the following steps to recover your MSN email account:
1. Reset or change your password: ensure to create a strong password consisting of special symbols, lowercase and uppercase letters, and numbers. Use the Password Checker provided by Microsoft to test the new password before using the same. Don't use common dictionary words in your password, as that can be exploited by hackers quite a lot.
2. Change your account settings: go to Options. Click Your email accounts in Managing your account, Reply-to address in Writing email, Sending automated vacation replies in Managing your account, and Email forwarding in Managing your account. Click Save to save the settings made.
3. Remove all malware and viruses before resetting your password: ensure to switch to the latest version of the antivirus program that is installed on your system. Scan your whole computer system and clean your PC from all viruses and malware. Most hackers get access to your login credentials by means of malware installed on your computer system.
4. Restore deleted contacts and emails: go to Outlook.com, and select the Deleted folder. In addition, select recover deleted messages located at the bottom of the window. This puts your recovered messages in the Deleted folder; however, any messages not recovered are lost forever.
5. Prevent future hacks: to prevent any future hacks occurring within your account, obtain specific information from MSN technical support.
Further, contact MSN technical support for receiving more solutions on the problem: "My MSN account has been hacked?" You can talk to professionals for getting troubleshooting instructions as well.


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United States of Tara recently started its second season on Showtime. Toni Collette plays the title character, who is the mother and wife of a seemingly typical suburban family. Except that she suffers from Dissociative Identity Disorder. Tara is sometimes teenager T, perfect housewife Alice, redneck trucker guy Buck, therapist Shoshanna, and a weird subhuman creature that likes to pee on people. In Collette's hands, this surprisingly all works—I have never had a moment watching the show where I did not believe in Tara's transformations.
The supporting cast is also excellent. John Corbett plays Tara's husband. He's one of those actors who I always like to watch. Ever since Northern Exposure, he's made everything he's in better—see My Big Fat Greek Wedding and Sex and the City for examples. Rosemarie Dewitt steals all her scenes as Tara's long-suffering sister. Keir Gilchrist and Brie Larson are the teenagers in the household who each are perpetually on the edge of their own meltdowns. (And I also enjoy occasional walk-on Patton Oswalt as Corbett's buddy and Dewitt's once and future love.)


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Homemade Masks
By thomas | May 20, 2009
In Japan, when people get even a little bit sick they wear a mask. If you ride the train everyday, you're likely to see at least one person wearing a mask everyday.
If there's a bug going around, some people will wear masks in an attempt to avoid getting sick.
If there's a fear of some sort of epidemic, people will go to the drug stores and buy up all the masks.
Recently, Japan has been making a lot of noise about the swine flu. People are getting checked for flu symptoms at the airport. People are being quarantined. Schools are closing across Japan!!! And drug stores are running out of masks.
I happen to live in Hyogo, which is where the schools are closing. We must be out of masks, because I got this hilarious handout on my desk at work today (click to enlarge):
It's easy to make your own mask using stuff lying around the house. All you need is gauze, tissue and rubber bands.
Step 1 – Prepare 1 piece of gauze, 1 tissue and 2 rubberbands.
Step 2 – Spread out your gauze (should be big enough to cover your face lengthwise [important detail!])
Step 3 – Fold your tissue in half and place it in the middle of the gauze.
Step 4 – Fold the top and bottom edges of the gauze down.
Step 5 – Tie the sides of your gauze up with the rubber bands
Step 6 – Mask complete!
I've read that masks have no effect in staving off swine flu. But they may make you feel safer, giving you a psychological edge in your war against sickness.Like this post? Give me the Thumbs Up!
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Topics: Japan Hacks | 9 Comments »
Newspaper hacks
By thomas | April 9, 2009
Kind reader Viljami Nykänen sent me this:
Hi Thomas,
I'm not sure if you can actually put these up on your site as they are from a Japan Times article, but here goes anyway.
Article link: http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/ek20090408a1.html
The last 3-4 paragraphs (cut-and-pasted below) contain some interesting hacks..
"For example, you'd be surprised at some of things that can be done with furushimbun (古新聞, old newspaper pages). They can be used as detergent-free window wipes. Newsprint contains glycerine and other oils great for getting rid of dust and grime. It also works wonders in preserving vegetables. Next time you want to save the end of your daikon, wrap it up in a copy of The Japan Times and it will last 10 days or more.
The older generation of Japanese like to fold the morning's newspaper into small, portable trash containers and distribute them all over the house. These are used to deposit tissues, candy wrappers and fruit peelings ― all the more oshare (お洒落, chic) if the print happens to be in English!
Oh, and how about the water left over from washing the rice? Called togijiru (研ぎ汁), it's great as a hand salve, and it also works as an eco-friendly fertilizer on household plants. A solution made up of togijiru and baking powder is extremely effective for cleaning metal surfaces and air-conditioner filters. Ieyasu himself liked to heat up togijiru to drink when he wasn't feeling well, and he frowned upon expensive medication."
In case you missed the link above, you read the whole Japan Times article here: Japan Times article
Thanks a lot Viljami!
If you have any hacks, send them in!Like this post? Give me the Thumbs Up!
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Topics: Japan Hacks | 3 Comments »
Banks and other places close for New Years, plus other stuff
By thomas | December 31, 2008
Just a reminder that banks close for New Years holidays. Don't get caught without cash. Grab a few extra ichimans today while you still can. Also, various stores will close and others will change their opening/closing times. If you need to, stock up on things like food, diapers, etc.
Also, be on the look out for New Years' fukubukoro and get a LOT of stuff for CHEAP. Seriously, if you don't know what these lucky bags are, check the link. Don't miss it! Even Mister Donut has fukubukuros (thanks Ken Y-N from whatjapanthinks!).
I also spotted Hassakus in the grocery store today. This is my favorite Japanese fruit, so if you haven't tried them yet, check it out.
Also, a request. I got an email recently that said this:
Hey Thomas,
I'm new to Japan and I've really been enjoying your site, though the shoes tip didn't quite work for me…yet. I'm sure my Japanese isn't good enough to truly work that one out. Anyways, I've been told that the day after New Years (or maybe New Years day) there are some great sales. I read your post on fukubukuro, but it doesn't really describe the same phenomenon. This was described to be as the "Japanese Black Friday." Being new here, we could really use some deals, but can't quite read the websites well enough for info. I would really appreciate a post on this topic, I'm sure you'd have some great input. To give you an idea, we're looking for small appliances; denki pot, rice cooker, vacuum, plasma TV, etc. ;) Also, we need some clothes, so basically ANY info you can provide will be beneficial. Thanks and have a great New Years!
[ed: To clarify: Black Friday is the day after Thanksgiving and is the busiest shopping day of the year in America. Everybody has the day off and all the stores have big sales.]
Does anybody know anything about this? I don't shop much, so I don't know anything about it. If you do, please leave a comment and help us out!Like this post? Give me the Thumbs Up!
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Topics: Japan Hacks | 4 Comments »
Mos Burger has jalepenos
By thomas | December 20, 2008
Jalepeno peppers are my favorite sandwich condiment. Whenever I'd go to Subway back in Texas, I'd always have them pile on the jalepenos. Sadly, Subway here in Japan doesn't offer jalepenos (at least not any Subway near me!). My import store doesn't even sell them! What can I do?
Mos Burger.
Not only is Mos Burger the best fast-food hamburger place around, not only does it have the best onion rings known to man, but they also have jalepenos! If you order a Spicy Mos Burger, the "Spicy" you taste comes from chopped jalepenos that they stick in your burger sauce blap stuff. Delicious! Even without the tilde.
If you like jalepenos, go to Mos Burger.
Do you have any fast food secrets? Let me know in the comments!Like this post? Give me the Thumbs Up!
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Topics: Japanese Food | 12 Comments »
Nothing says Japanese Christmas like Tsurushigaki (aka Looking Out My Window In Japan)
By thomas | December 14, 2008
If you were to look out my apartment window, this is what you'd see:
Yes, that's right. The apartment across the street! Not very exciting. But if you look a little to the left, you'll see this:
Some more apartments, some cars, a pair of rice fields and… tsurushi-gaki!
So wait, what's tsurushi-gaki? I'll tell you.
Japan has these fruits called "kaki". They have an English name too, persimmon, so some of you may know what they are. I never saw one back in Texas so they were new to me. Anyway, people around here grow them and so a lot of the time I'll get them as gifts. One problem though: I don't like them! The texture, the taste, the skin, the seeds. Not my favorite fruit. But there's something magical you can do to them to make them taste awesome. Turn them into tsurushi-gaki!
The word tsurushi-gaki comes from the verb 吊るす (tsurusu) which means "to hang, to suspend", and the word 柿 (kaki) which is the fruit. tsurushi-gakis are also called hoshi-gaki, from the verb 干す (hosu) "to hang outside". (umeboshi gets its name from this too).
Anyway, tsurushi-gakis are just kakis left hanging outside for a while until they become dried kakis. And they are delicious. The perfect Christmas treat in Japan! Here's how to make them:
- Get some kaki and get some string – sometimes they sell tsurushi-gaki kits like this one, but you can also just buy the individual fruits.
- Peel the kaki, or get someone you love to do it for you while you take a picture.
- Attach the kaki to your string. This can be tricky if you bought kaki that don't have their stems intact. Be creative.
- When you finish attaching all of your kakis, hold the string up and admire your work.
- Hang your kakis outside.
- Wait about one or two months. If it rains really hard, you might want to bring them in temporarily so they won't get soaked and spoil. When they are done they should look something like this:
- Enjoy your tsurushi-gakis. Eat it as is, add it to your cereal, whatever. Mmmmmm.. Delicious! Even more delicious by the Christmas tree.
Kaki usually show up in stores around mid-fall and continue on into the winter. If you get them early enough, you can put them out and they will be ready just in time for Christmas (too late now, I know, sorry. But act now and you can have tsurushi-gakis for Setsubun!). We make these every year and for me it's become one my images of Christmas in Japan (though Japanese people associate them more with New Years, but whatever).
Do you have a tip for making cool Japanese food snacks? Let me know!Like this post? Give me the Thumbs Up!
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Topics: Japanese Food, Winter | 11 Comments »
NihonHacks Breaks 1000 subscribers!
By thomas | December 12, 2008
I checked the front page today and saw this:
Wow! 1000 subscribers! I never imagined I would reach so many people, especially not this quickly. Thank you everybody for your continued support! I love you guys.
Now I have a favor to ask. Think of it as a Christmas present or a non-denominational winter gift or something. Let's spread the word! Please tell someone you know (preferably an English-speaking foreigner living in Japan) about Nihonhacks. More readers means more potential hacks, which means everyone benefits! お願いします!
Here's to 2000!Like this post? Give me the Thumbs Up!
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Topics: Site News | 8 Comments »
Free Book Alert: Japanese Gaming Centers!
By thomas | December 12, 2008
Shane over at The Nihon Sun is giving away a free book. In her words:
If you have ever been to a Japanese Game Center or want to learn more about the gaming scene in Japan then you need to read Arcade Mania!, The Turbo Charged World of Japan's Game Centers.
The book is filled with with great graphics and information about game centers, their popularity and history as well as interviews with game designers and top players in Japan. Written by Brian Ashcroft with Jean Snow, the book is as fun to read as it is to visit a game center in Japan and you can win a copy today!
The Nihon Sun, an online magazine covering Japanese travel & culture, is offering readers a chance to win a copy of this book. All you need to do is read the review of Arcade Mania! and answer a couple of fun arcade trivia questions from the book in order to enter.
Once again:
Review: click here.
Contest Details: click here
Now go win yourself a free book!
Are you holding a contest/giveaway on your Japan-themed blog? If so, drop me a line and I can help spread the word.Like this post? Give me the Thumbs Up!
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Topics: Contests and Giveaways | 4 Comments »
Rice Pancakes For Breakfast
By thomas | December 11, 2008
Reader Bob sends in this delicious hack:
I enjoy your nihonhacks site and I wish it had been available to us when we lived in Tokyo from 1988 to 1991 and again from 1996 to 1999.
Another use for leftover rice that we enjoy is to make rice cakes for breakfast the next morning. Mix the rice with enough eggs to make a paste about the consistency of pancake batter. You can add a dash of vanilla extract but it's not necessary. Then fry pancake size portions just like you would make pancakes: a few minutes on one side then turn it over and a few minutes on the other side. Don't stir it up like you do for fried rice. Use a moderate to low heat to cook the rice mixture through without burning the surface. Then serve with butter and maple syrup, just like pancakes. A few rashers of bacon on the side is nice, too.
I learned this from my mother who used up leftover rice this way, but I've never seen this anywhere else. Hope you and your readers enjoy.
These sound so delicious that I'm going to cook some up this weekend, even if I have to use fresh rice. Thanks Bob!
Do you have any food saving tips? Send them in!Like this post? Give me the Thumbs Up!
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Topics: Japanese Food | 3 Comments »
Two hacks from Indonesia: soothe those burns
By thomas | December 10, 2008
A blog I subscribe to, David Goldsworthy's Indonesia Blog, has a cool post about curing two kinds of burns: skin burns and the burns you get from eating spicy food.
- To cure skin burns, put toothpaste on them (the white kind) and wait 20 minutes. No blisters.
- If you eat something spicy and its too much, cure the burning sensation with boiling (or almost boiling) water.
Here's the original post with more details: Toothpaste For Burnt Fingers; Boiling Water For a Hot Tongue Please visit the blog. It's a good one! It has cool posts and pictures like this one about Java Coffee.
Do you have any pain remedies you'd like to share? Post them in the comments.Like this post? Give me the Thumbs Up!
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Topics: Japan Hacks | 4 Comments »
December Hacks from the Past roundup
By thomas | December 8, 2008
Hacks from the Past is a series of posts that I will do monthly that will go over past hacks so that new readers don't have to bother digging through the archives.
Here are December's Hacks from the Past:
- How to find a Christmas Tree in Japan Part 1 – Name says it all. Are you celebrating Christmas? Want to know where to get a tree? Read here.
- How to find a Christmas Tree in Japan Part 2 – Same as above, but more options.
- Poor Man's Tea: Mugicha – Don't buy big tea jugs from the refrigerated section of the grocery store. Buy from the tea bag aisle and save lots of yen
That's all. Last December was a bit slow! Next year won't be though. I'm working hard this time! If you have any December Holiday Hacks, please don't hesitate to send them in!Like this post? Give me the Thumbs Up!
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« Previous Entries


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This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/).
The presence of toxic substances such as persistent organic pollutants (POPs) in the environment, and in organisms including humans, is a serious public health and environmental problem, even at low levels and poses a challenging scientific problem. The Stockholm Convention on POPs (SC) entered into force in 2004 and is a large international effort under the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) to facilitate cooperation in monitoring, modeling and the design of effective and fair ways to deal with POPs globally. This paper is a contribution to the ongoing effectiveness evaluation (EE) work aimed at the assessment and enhancement of the effectiveness of the actions undertaken under the SC. First we consider some aspects related to the monitoring of POPs in the environment and then briefly review modeling frameworks that have been used to simulate long range transport (LRT) of POPs. In the final sections we describe the institutional arrangements providing the conditions for this work to unfold now and some suggestions for it in the future. A more effective use of existing monitoring data could be made if scientists who deposited them in publicly available and supervised sites were rewarded in academic and professional terms. We also suggest the development of multi-media, nested, Lagrangian models to improve the understanding of changes over time in the environment and individual organisms.
The Stockholm Convention on POPs (SC) entered into force in 2004 and currently has 178 parties [
Due to their hydrophobic nature POPs tend to accumulate from the abiotic environment into organisms and concentrate along food webs [
The use of POPs as pesticides, industrial chemicals and the unintentional releases in combustion processes are spread all over the world in diffuse sources and products; consequently control measures cannot be limited to a few industrial sectors or activities. These differences with other environmental contaminants such as metals, ground level ozone, stratospheric ozone depleting substances and green house gases (GHG) mean that the measuring, modeling and control of POPs pose specific and new challenges to the international community of scientists, policy makers, regulators and the public at large.
Early restrictions of several POPs started around four decades ago, with the ban and control at a national or regional level of some substances (including Mirex, dieldrin, DDT, and Polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs)). Since then an increasing number of global, regional and national initiatives aiming at reducing and regulating the use and releases of POPs have been put in place. For instance, international monitoring of POPs was initiated in the North American Great Lakes in 1990 and by the Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Programme (AMAP) in 1993 [
Four sections are presented below. In the first section we introduce a few general ideas on monitoring and modeling, and their implications in terms of the practical questions concerning POPs that monitoring and modeling might help to address. In the second section we present a brief review of existing frameworks for modeling the long range transport and fate of POPs. In the third section we describe the institutional framework and how theoretical ideas, ongoing monitoring and modeling efforts can converge to increase knowledge on POPs and enhance the effectiveness of the SC. The fourth section presents some concluding remarks and a strategy for the further development of the EE process under the SC.
A number of international programs have measured POPs in air since the 1990s (see
Measuring and monitoring the environment is a dynamic, distributed and performative process where objects, ideas and gestures interact in a coordinated social effort by individuals and institutions to build knowledge (see for example detailed studies in China in [
Monitoring environmental quantities and modeling the physical world to describe and understand the observed features can be imagined as sequential operation of concepts and tools to construct registered point events. In the words of Jagjit Singh, [
Monitoring is the compilation of "point-events" where each point event has its list of registration marks, assigned by registration rules. Registration rules are different forms of measurement, or specification of point events that allow them to be located in their specificity and amalgamated into larger data clusters and models.
To analyze the composition of a given sample a number of laboratory instruments, techniques and chemical standards will be used. The results will be meaningful only if it can be shown that the analytical methodology has followed certain rules and procedures. In this sense measuring implies the application of a sequence of concepts and local models concerning the workings of instruments and procedures to gauge one aspect of the environment by taking and treating local samples according to agreed quality assurance/quality control (QA/QC) protocols. The written outcome of this is then related to data processing and large scale modeling with the intention of building operative knowledge. If we can say this piece of cloth is 1.3 m long or we have sampled 1 m3 of air this is the result of a long story of cooperation and invention linking individual performances and large scale cooperative work [
When a set of registered point events or measurements is studied, there are multiple strategies to explore the information in the data. These strategies can be based on inference, that is based on the observation of patterns in the data by statistically filtering out features of heuristic or predictive value. Alternatively they are devised to search in the data for observable behavior that agrees with a model parametrized to the local values. In practice it is always some combination of these approaches that operate (see for example [
Point enumeration rules include algorithmic methods, applying sequences of rules to the data to extract features and also axiomatic principles searching for data that fit predicted or expected patterns. Different point enumeration rules, that is different frameworks and sets of procedures for attributing registration marks, will result in models and disciplines working with atoms, molecules, organism, ecosystems. In the fields where those points are localized, registered, there will be trajectories and transformation rules the point trajectories in the field are identified (in space time or phase space) by changes in the registration numbers of points in successive frames.
The systems of differential equations that are used in models of flow and turbulence in gas liquid or solids are simulating, computing the transformations of point events in space time or phase space trajectories. Singh [
In atmospheric physics or oceanography many of the important features are scale invariant over a range of orders of magnitude and so tea cup eddies and oceanic currents share many dynamic features and can be described with the same basic model. One of the challenging complications of biology and ecosystems theory is that many important features are scale dependent, the conditions for their existence occur only at certain scale ranges, and certainly there are no bus sized bacteria or microscopic string orchestras.
The production and reproduction of local transient singularities such as macro molecules, cells, multi-cellular assemblages, organisms and ecosystems can be described as the present configuration of a continuous cascade of events. The sequences of events are confined by scale invariant limiting conditions and scale dependent forms of agency attached to and resulting of transient semi autonomous trajectory bundles. These bundles maintain and reproduce similar conditions at different scales and locations in space and time.
The occurrence of transient bundles at certain wavelengths in the overall turbulent flow is obvious in the sense that molecules, cells, organisms, populations and ecosystems can be observed, measured, classified by different criteria of similarity, described in registered point events and trajectories. The individual organism, enclosed in a skin and going, alone, through a life history plays an outsized role in the theory of ecology in models of foraging, niche, population and evolution. Individual organisms are obvious "point-events" but are not alone or isolated. Organisms and their assemblages exist as transient bundles navigating in a multiplicity of flows of matter and energy unfolding from cell metabolism to global bio geochemistry. There is an urgent need to integrate scale invariant theory of fluid dynamics and the concurrent operation of processes that are scale dependent and occur only at certain scales.
Scale dependent forms of agency or trajectory bundles prevalent in biology such as cells, organisms, populations and ecosystems, pose difficult problems to model on two counts: First they require scale specific probing, they are not invariant to a change in scale (if you want to understand bacteria you need to look at bacteria, you cannot deduce bacteria from your experience with tomatoes), and second, given the multiplicity of speeds at which perturbations propagate in different media, the outcome is local and stochastic and never exactly the same, and consequently the heuristic power, how much you can learn from the past, is limited. More limited, say, than if you study a set of balls on a flat table, a prism, a pipe, a mechanical device or an electric circuit.
In the framework of fluid dynamics where systems of differential equations describe the trajectories of registered point events the challenge is to develop models that are able to inscribe trajectory bundles and scale dependent forms of agency in the wider field of scale invariant fluid dynamics and turbulence.
The challenge, in theory and practice, to integrate trajectories in multiple media (gas, liquid, solid) interacting at multiple scales in operational models is relevant in scientific and in wider policy terms to model POPs pathways in the environment.
POPs are a serious problem and also good tracers [
What are the practical questions concerning the current status of POPs and the effectiveness of the measures undertaken that monitoring and modeling might help to address?
There are different kinds of data available for POPs and related compounds, including (a) regular and sporadic measurements in samples from the environment and organisms, (b) toxicology data from experiments and the field (for a very few POPs); (c) Chemical and biochemical information about many more substances; (d) Emission inventories (for a handful of substances); (e) transport and fate models; (f) effects models and (g) global and regional arrangements to handle the data and work on them. Some of the important challenges or questions today can be formulated as: (1) Baselines: what are the levels today or in the recent past and what changes can be observed (2) Mixtures: how to integrate information about multiple substances (3) Modeling of changes over time and effects of low doses.
In 2009 the first Global Monitoring Report was presented to the fourth meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Stockholm Convention (COP4) [
In this context the development of structures that give professionally effective credit to valuable monitoring contributions deposited in supervised public repositories could be very helpful. A further challenge is to maintain and develop agreements on what substances and what congeners are traced, can be traced, have been traced, which brings us the following point, the consideration of contaminant mixtures.
Most current monitoring, modeling and regulation are sequentially focused on individual target substances. However, the nature of the problem as well as the available analytical and computational tools, all indicate that more integrated models are feasible and meaningful. At one level for instance in active and passive air samples, the concentration values in a (active/passive) sample are difficult to compare in meaningful ways. Global scale air monitoring of POPs has become feasible through passive samplers. In a passive sampler an integrated sample is taken over a long period of time and it is difficult to know exactly what volume of air was sampled. In high volume active samplers the accuracy and precision of the air concentration estimate for the sampled period are much better, but there is a large uncertainty on the concentration between the limited sampling periods. On the other hand the composition of the sampled mixture of substances and congeners and its relative weights in a passive or active sample are quite legitimately comparable in quantitative ways. At another level, the work on emission inventories, on alternatives and Best Available Techniques/Best Environmental Practice a well as in estimating cost and benefits of control measures would certainly benefit from having better tools to monitor and model mixtures of pollutants including POPs from their release to transport in the environment to exposure and effects.
Adapted from Table A.2.1. (pp. 195–197) in Appendix A of Chapter 2 of UNECE (2010) [
|Monitoring Program
|Region of Interest
|Number of Sites
|Sampling Method
|Monitored Compounds *
|Arctic monitoring and assessment programme
|12 (includes 8NCP sites)
|PCBs, HCB, HCHs, chlordanes, DDTs Additional compounds at 8 NCP-operated sites (see below).
|Northern Contaminants Program (Canada) (part of AMAP)
|8 (part with AMAP)
|PCBs, DDTs, PAHs, PentaCB, mirex, chlordanes, HEPT, HEPX, PeCB, HCB, HCHs, endrin, aldrin DIEL, ENDO 2002–present:
|European Monitoring and Evaluation Programme
|Europe including Russia
|18 in 2007 (includes 3 AMAP sites)
|active/nondirectional (12 sites with air and precipitation measurements 6 sites with air only)
|As of 2007: PCBs, DDTs, chlordanes, HCB, PAHs, HCHs, HEPT, DIEL
|Global Atmospheric Passive Sampling network
|52 (current operation) 95 (since inception)
|Passive (PUF disk/XAD/sorbernt impregnated PUF (SE
|PCBs, chlordanes, DDTs, HEPT, HEPX, HCHs, DIEL, PBDEs, ENDO 2005: PCNs 2009 at 20 sites: PFCs
|Integrated Atmospheric Deposition Network (US&Canada)
|Great Lakes
|8 (3 in Canada, 5 in USA)
|active/non directional
|PCBs, chlordanes, ENDO, HCHs, DDTs, HEPT, HEPX, aldrin, endrin, DIEL, HCB, MIREX, PAHs; 2002–present:
|Integrated Atmospheric Deposition Network (US&Canada)
|Great Lakes
|8 (3 in Canada, 5 in USA)
|active/non directional
|PCBs, chlordanes, ENDO, HCHs, DDTs, HEPT, HEPX, aldrin, endrin, DIEL, HCB, MIREX, PAHs; 2002–present:
|Integrated Atmospheric Deposition Network (US&Canada)
|8 (3 in Canada, 5 in USA)
|active/non directional
|PCBs, chlordanes, ENDO, HCHs, DDTs, HEPT, HEPX, aldrin, endrin, DIEL, HCB, MIREX, PAHs; 2002–present:
|NationalAir Pollution Surveillance (Canada)
|Canadian Urban
|18 stations
|PCP, HCB, PAHs, PCBs, PCDD/Fs, PBDEs
|Monitoring Network in the Alpine Region for Persistent and other Organic Pollutants
|European Alpine regions
|3 active air monitoring stations (out of 40 sites)
|active/directional (3 stations); passive (SPMD)
|PCBs, DDTs, HCB HEPT, DIEL, aldrin, endrin, mirex, PCDD/Fs, HCHs, PAHs, PBDEs
|National Dioxin Air Monitoring Network (US EPA)
|active/non directional
|PCDD/Fs, co-planar PCBs
|New Jersey Atmospheric deposition Network
|active/non directional
|PCBs, PAHs, DDTs, HCHs, ENDO, aldrin, DIEL
|New Jersey Atmospheric deposition Network
|active/non directional
|PCBs, PAHs, DDTs, HCHs, ENDO, aldrin, DIEL
|Xarxa de Vigilància i Previsió de la Contaminació Atmosfèrica
|Catalonia (Spain)
|PCDD/Fs, 2003–present:PAHs, co-planar PCBs
|National POPs monitoring network (MONET)
|Europe, Asia, Africa, pacific Islands
|Total number of sites deployed to date 245
|passive (PUFdisk); active/nondirectional (at Kosetice)
|PAHs, PCBs, HCHs, DTs, HCB, PeCB, at selected sites/dates dioxins
|Chinese POPs Soil and Air Monitoring Program (SAMP), Phase I
|China rural, urban
|97 (4 background, 24 urban, and 69 rural)
|passive (PUFdisk)
|PCBs, chlordanes, DDTs, HEPT, HEPX, HCHs, DIEL, ENDO, PAHs, PBDEs
|Chinese POPs Soil and Air Monitoring Program (SAMP), Phase II
|China urban, rural, background
|12 urban and 4 background
|PCBs, chlordanes, DDTs, HEPT, HEPX, HCHs, DIEL, ENDO, PAHs, PBDEs
|Spanish Monitoring Programme on POPs
|12 EMEP sites 6 urban sites
|Passive (PUFdisk)
|PCDD/Fs, non-/monoortho-and majority PCBs, DDTs, HCB, HCH, PBDEs
|The UK Toxic Organic Micro Pollutants (TOMPs) programme
|PCDD/Fs, PCBs, PAHs
|National Dioxins Program (Australia)
|September 2002–August 2003
|PCDD/Fs, co-planar PCBs
Theoretical biology and ecosystem theory are active academic disciplines that have been working for many decades to formulate logical models to describe phenomena observed by biologists monitoring the field [
The space time scale specificity of certain types of singularities such as molecules, organism or ecosystems can be understood as the combined result of multiple, and limited, speeds of propagation of material perturbations within and between singularities. The propagation of perturbations in different media at different speeds results in a heterochronic landscape where multiple time frames coexist in a consonance of trajectories flowing in transient bundles. Transient bundles where local regional and global process interact. A particular example of such a singularity or bundle of trajectories is a person and her/his inventory of POPs at a point in time. That inventory is the result of exposure, intake, and metabolic intrinsic degradation rates over her/his lifetime [
It can also be argued that a person by her actions in the course of life contributes to a varying degree to the release of POPs to the environment and thus contributes to the POPs plume in the future. From the consumption of energy, agricultural and industrial products any individual is the source of a later plume as much as the composite result of the past one it has sampled. Developing models to understand better the impact of life styles and habits in the release of POPs, including product life cycle analysis, e-waste and illegal dumping shares many challenges with other international efforts in the task of monitoring and modeling releases, transport and exposure and degradation in a multiplicity of time frames and is of central importance to develop effective measures to decrease POPs in the environment.
We have briefly highlighted three issues, baselines, mixtures and time lags that we think are central in the development of further work in monitoring and modeling POPs and effective strategies to produce and share data and models. The existence of good quality data and models depends on the stable cooperation of many competent people motivated by different objectives in different institutional frameworks, geographical locations and scientific disciplines. It has been shown to be important in the development of effective international strategies to develop QA/QC procedures for monitoring work and organize regular inter comparison exercises to consolidate and maintain levels of QA/QC in the field and in the laboratory for listed monitoring programs and laboratories, including data management and access issues. The importance of keeping collections of samples for later analysis has been shown for several POPs (
Over the past three decades science based, legally binding environmental agreements (UNECE CLRTAP) and the Montreal Protocol on Ozone Depleting Substances (M ODSs) have shown their value in terms of advancing the scientific understanding of environmental problems and designing effective strategies to deal with them. Future work should take into account that the original designs, targets and ambitions of long term programs and agreements need to be realigned inside and between them with updated knowledge that was not available at the time of planning [
A central component of the effectiveness evaluation is a well developed and stable strategy that can argue for the scientific and policy value resulting from an active and inclusive monitoring and modeling community of practice.
For the purpose of this paper, the existing models of POPs fate in the environment can be sorted into four large groups by two basic characteristics: Are they single media (only atmosphere, ocean) or multimedia? and are they Lagrangian or Eulerian? Lagrangian models describe the evolution of the trajectories of clouds of particles in the model space, Eulerian models define a partition of the model space in compartments or boxes and describe changes inside and between the homogeneous boxes.
Early single media atmospheric LRT models were developed in the late 19th and early 20th century in the context of chemical warfare, these models were applied in the 1950s to describe the atmospheric transport of radioactive isotopes and later in 1960s to air pollution, acidification and LRT of Sulfur and acidifying substance [
In 1984 the European Monitoring and Assessment Programme (EMEP) was established under CLRTAP. EMEP has provided over three decades publicly available emission inventories, continental Lagrangian and Eulerian operational transport and atmospheric chemistry models running with 6h meteorology for each year. EMEP also runs a network of some 150 air monitoring stations in Europe.
As described in [
The following paragraphs provide a brief description of regional and global POPs modeling frameworks and are based on the 2010 report of the Hemispheric Transport of Air Pollution task force [
Multimedia mass balance models describe the environment as a set of homogeneous boxes or compartments, each representing a specific medium, for example air, water, soil or biota. Concentrations of a chemical in each compartment are calculated by solving for each box and time step a mass balance equation that relates releases and the degradation, sequestration and inter compartment fluxes. Early multimedia mass balance models were developed in the 1970s and early 1980s, which is about a decade after the early air monitoring stations and campaigns unfolded and data were available on a few POPs [
The SimpleBox model is a well known example of a multimedia mass balance model than can be applied with steady state or dynamic equations. It is a multimedia fate model that describes the environment as ten compartments at four nested spatial scales, local, regional continental and global [
Many multimedia models envisage the environment as a set of spatially delimited and well mixed compartments, described by a set of constant values over an interval of time, the values are calculated from the equations at each iteration or interval, a useful and simple approximation to deal with multiple media and scale independent features of flow in organisms and ecosystems. Spatially resolved multimedia fate models have been developed since the 1990s [
Multi compartment chemistry transport models are general atmospheric circulation models that include atmospheric transport and chemistry modules, extended to global multicompartment chemistry transport models (MCTM) by including in air transport models the surface compartment and parametrization or surface exchange. These models can be Lagragian or Eulerian. The Meterological Synthesizing Center East under LRTAP/EMEP has worked for two decades on such a model [
Other multi compartment chemistry transport models in current use include MPI-MCTM [
LRT of POPs has also been studied using Lagrangian dispersion and trajectory models [
In evaluative applications models examine how LRT depends on different known factors included in the models such as chemical properties, weather conditions and information on releases. In simulative studies the goal is to contrast the simulation with empirical observations, and thus gauge gaps of the model with observed features and aim to advance in the understanding of POPs pathways [
Ocean transport is expected to be most important for persistent substances that are highly water soluble and have low vapor pressure and Henry's Law constant [
Air-sea exchange of semi-volatile substances allows for multiple cycles through the atmosphere and ocean [
As it has been noted above, POPs present specific problems due to the fact that they can be released from products and these are transported over long distances from production to use to disposal, can be deposited on water or soil and be re-emitted after deposition. Consequently, to estimate emissions, more details are needed than for other pollutants. Furthermore given the large number of substances concerned complete inventories of all substances are not and will be not available. A number of efforts have been undertaken and have delivered the best available estimates for very few substances (e.g., a-HCH, PCB-28, PCB-153) [
Monitoring data can help to improve understanding source receptor relations in two ways: (1) in the context of models that use emission estimates, based on activity levels of different sectors and emission factors. Emission estimates are used as input in direct models of transport that estimate atmospheric concentrations or deposition fluxes, the calculated values can be compared with monitoring data. By changing the emissions, source receptor relations can be investigated. Alternatively (2) in the context of Lagrangian air mass back trajectory models (e.g., FLEXPART, HYSPLIT) that simulate flow backwards in time and space indicating the origin of air masses sampled at a given site [
The international cooperative efforts working on the deployment of passive air samplers [
Part of the difficulty in dealing with non steady state, dynamic responses and time lags come from the hypotheses of homogeneity, and instantaneous propagation embedded in the physical and chemical models of environmental pathways. The models assume inside the boxes that represent gas, liquid and solid media the properties of the medium are scale invariant, homogeneous and change simultaneously for the whole compartment.
One might ask here, how can ecosystem models help improve modeling POPs? and how could POPs models help ecosystem modeling? and a tentative answer is precisely in monitoring and modeling scale dependent features while keeping a view of the multimedia and multiscale nested nature of the processes.
Models in ecology apply different types of enumeration rules that identify monitored or modeled registered points and track the trajectory bundles in models of molecules, cells, multicellular organism and their skeletons and shelters, modes of foraging, reproduction, and dispersal in populations, lineages and ecosystems interacting in evolutionary games. These enumeration rules, made explicit in taxonomic or demographic frameworks, identify individuals and changes over space and time. Several kinds of models are applied to describe and predict dynamic features in biological assemblages. These include scale invariant models of the basic thermodynamic and stochiometric constraints in living pathways where autotrophic organisms, by photosynthesis or chemosythesis produce reduced carbon—carbon bonds, these energy rich bonds oxidized in the presence of oxygen and other electron acceptors release the metabolic energy that drives all biological flows. The net result of carbon inputs and losses in a system over a particular time (Net Ecosystem Carbon Balance), is intermittent and in words of Burke and Lauenroth [
The net carbon balance or net primary production in biological assemblages identified as: cells, multicellular assemblages or individuals, geographically dispersed populations, and ecosystems is intermittent at all scales. Recurrently short positive phases where foraging, reproduction and dispersal occur are followed by long phases where the accumulated materials are mixed back to the inorganic mineral pool. The development of multicellular organisms, colonies, microbial mats, canopies and other ecosystem structures are linked to the reproduction of these distinct time frames related to multimedia phase transitions.
One could envisage a model of populations (an array of registered point events) where the classic model of population dynamics tracking numbers of discrete individuals reproducing feeding and dying is replaced by models including transient bundles of converging and diverging trajectories (molecules, cells, organisms, ecosystems) in a cascade of nested Lagrangians. In this sense then for a number of scale ranges one can describe an external Lagrangian (e.g., trajectories in an air mass) and internal Lagrangians (e.g., trajectories in a pollen grain travelling for a while in that air mass). In the future one could imagine multimedia nested Lagrangian models of transport (MNLs) describing trajectory bundles over a range of coordinates in space, time and phase space at different scales including time lags and grain in ways that Eulerian box models can hardly do.
Time lags that are clearly relevant for current POPs modeling work include the long time it can take for a molecule to travel from its first release in to a free moving medium through a long multimedia trajectory to exposure, where it becomes part of the body of an organism. These time lags in the environment are mediated by the interaction of air with other media such as water, soil and sediment. Inside an organism a complicated hetero chronic landscape of flows and degradation rates integrate a long term exposure history into an instantaneous effective dose that might elicit negative effects. The consequences of those effects in turn can take long time, even several generations, to amplify or be perceptible.
A somewhat different but related kind of time lag that is relevant here are policy formulation and implementation time lags. Over the past decades from the early pesticide and PCB controls in the late 1970s, it has repeatedly been the case that it takes less than a decade to identify a problem (
Important issues when considering POPs monitoring and modeling are that (a) very low levels in the environment over time can yield significant exposures and harmful effective doses and thus need to be accurately measured and (b) any sample contains a complex mixture of POPs [
Monitoring and modeling have shown in recent decades to be at the base of successful environmental policies on a global scale such as LRTAP [
We have briefly reviewed theoretical and practical tools that are used for monitoring and modeling POPs in the environment, these tools exist and are used by individuals in the field, the laboratory or other location. As we have noted above when a quantitative statement is made about the environment (e.g., this sample contains 20 pg of PCB28) a number of events are taking place at the same time in multiple space time frames. Some of these events are very short term and local like the prevailing wind and the screws at the station when the sample was taken, or when the value is published in some report. Other frames are linked with the past and the future, embedded in the tools, the methods the expertise, and the communication lines, that make those measurements meaningful data, useful and trustworthy for other people.
The work with the sample in the field, in the laboratory and the overall imaginary construction in which the individual worker performs her or his work have a social, anthropological and political dimensions [
In recent decades a number of initiatives focused on building science based policy instruments for protecting public health and the environment from pollutants have established international agreements and procedures. The work under these agreements has clearly been effective in increasing available knowledge on the issues and in number of cases (LRTAP, M ODSs, SC) provided fertile fields to establish scientific cooperation and reciprocal capacity building across disciplines and regions of the world. These efforts have implemented public health, environmental protection and air quality policies that can be shown to have been effective. It is possible for instance to simulate what the atmospheric load of ODSs and the stratospheric Ozone hole would be today if control strategies had not been implemented 20 years ago [
The SC includes several articles that indicate the engagement of parties to cooperate in monitoring and modeling among others, Article 7, Implementation plans, Article 8 Listing of Chemicals, Article 10 Public information, awareness and education, Article 11 Research, development and monitoring, Article 15 Reporting and Article 16 Effectiveness evaluation. This last article reflects the ambition of parties to develop a process to evaluate the effectiveness of the Convention. In order to facilitate such evaluation it established (2004) arrangements to provide comparable monitoring data on the presence of the chemicals listed in the convention as well as their regional and environmental transport under the Global Monitoring Plan (GMP). The conference of the parties also established (2009) a working group that developed a framework and a number of process and outcome indicators to carry out the effectiveness evaluation (EE) and identify ways to improve the effectiveness of the Convention as a whole. The draft EE framework was presented to the Conference of the Parties in 2011. The revised EE framework was adopted in 2013.
The EE primary objective is to identify if concentrations of POPs are decreasing in core media air and human tissue (milk and blood). The secondary objective is to attribute those changes, when possible, to identifiable causes, and ultimately based on this information identify actions that could improve the effectiveness of the SC.
The GMP has established a number of strategic partnerships with long term stable monitoring processes with well established QA/QC for the core media. For air these have included AMAP, LRTAP EMEP, NCP, IADN, TOMPS, GAPS, MONET among others (see
The EE framework adopted by the parties in 2013 states in paragraph 25: "To reduce data limitations it is important to increase the comparability of long-term global monitoring data in the core media and to provide support for developing countries and countries with economies in transition to participate in monitoring activities to address the gaps identified in the global monitoring plan report." This has been addressed trough a number of programs under UNEP, AMAP and other organizations. The adoption of passive air samplers in recent years has significantly improved air monitoring and provides a wealth of data to improve fate and transport models [
The EE framework of the SC is based on the assessment of three streams of information, monitoring data and assessments provided by the GMP, information on what actions and work plans countries have reported in their National Implementation Plans and Article 15 reports, and information from the Compliance procedure, that aims at facilitating the compliance by parties with their obligations under the treaty. The Compliance procedures are still under discussion and thus this information is not available yet.
The focus of the EE is to enhance and improve the effectiveness of the convention as a whole. This implies establishing agreed baselines, observing changes over time with agreed data and methods and working on the attribution of the observed changes in a modeling community of practice.
Two aspects have to be mentioned here in the context of facilitating the implementation of the SC EE. First the interest and advantage of enhancing the integration of GMP monitoring and modeling with global efforts (GAW&GEO, IGBP) and second the evolution from and learning of existing successful hemispheric and global monitoring and modeling efforts such as LRTAP and M ODSs.
On the first aspect the WMO GEO work is a good base including the GEO 2012-2015 Work Plan [
The synergies between the CLRTAP and the SC have a long history and play a central role in the implementation of both Conventions. The monitoring and modeling community that has matured under the CLRTAP could benefit from the SC expertise with POPs for the implementation of its POPs protocol in ECE countries and beyond and the SC could benefit from the networks, databases and methods of work CLRTAP has implemented over three decades to advance in its monitoring and modeling. In particular, EMEP/EBAS, HTAP and the Working Group on Effects [
The Vienna Convention for the Protection of the Ozone Layer and its Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer [
It has been recognized since the 1970s that a number of compounds emitted by human activities deplete stratospheric ozone. The Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer was adopted in 1987 to protect global ozone and, consequently, protect life from increased ultraviolet (UV) radiation at Earth's surface. Chlorine- and bromine-containing substances that are controlled by the Montreal Protocol are known as ozone-depleting substances (ODSs). ODSs are responsible for the depletion of stratospheric ozone observed in polar regions (for example, the "ozone hole" above Antarctica) and in middle latitudes. The severe depletion of stratospheric ozone observed in the Antarctic has increased UV at the surface and affected climate at southern high latitudes.
The Montreal Protocol and its Amendments and Adjustments have successfully controlled the global production and consumption of ODSs over the last two decades, and the atmospheric abundances of nearly all major ODSs that were initially controlled are declining. Nevertheless, ozone depletion will continue for many more decades because several key ODSs last a long time in the atmosphere after emissions end [
There are important differences between the problems posed by ODSs and POPs. ODSs are present primarily in the atmosphere, while POPs are distributed in all media. Short-term quantifiable effects of the reduction of ODSs such as the volume of the ozone layer and UV radiation can be observed, while it is very difficult to quantify effects on ecosystems and health effects of POPs mixtures over time. The later point being one of the reasons for the special importance of the precautionary principle to operate the SC properly.
Many of the monitoring and modeling challenges addressed in the context of ODSs, such as the multiplicity of process involved, time lags and potential confounding factors as well as what is done in the context of this Protocol to deal with these issues are a place to learn for the the design of monitoring and assessment tools to evaluate and enhance the effectiveness of the SC.
One outstanding element described in the 2010 Scientific Assessment of the M ODSs is the significant impact of the Montreal Protocol on Green House Gases concentration in the atmosphere: "The Montreal Protocol and its amendments and adjustments have made large contributions toward reducing global greenhouse gas emissions. In 2010, the decrease of annual ODSs emissions under the Montreal Protocol is estimated to be about 10 gigatonnes of avoided CO2-equivalent emissions per year, which is about five times larger than the annual emissions reduction target for the first commitment period (2008–2012) of the Kyoto Protocol."
These two agreements (LRTAP and M ODSs) have deployed a very effective institutional framework and work plan over a number of decades integrating monitoring and modeling to evaluate the effectiveness of the measures undertaken. Their experience is not immediately transportable to the SC due to multiple reasons, but there are a number of potential synergies and commonalities in theory and practice that we have tried to describe.
POPs are a public health and environmental problem and POPs are also good tracers of pathways and flows. Tracing POPs pathways through monitoring and modeling is important to deal with the problem their presence poses. Tracing POPs helps in advancing the understanding of atmospheric and oceanic long range transport, as well as ecosystem and organism scale biological process and flows.
The distributed process of monitoring and modeling POPs in the environment is based on the agreement of registration rules specified in field and in laboratory methods, instruments, taxonomies, and calendars. The use of these collectively developed institutions and rules produces registered point events that are then published or otherwise made available for data analysis and modeling. A multiplicity of academic disciplines and their respective enumeration rules of registered point events and trajectories are relevant for POPs, from molecular biology to atmospheric physics, many processes documented by data and models interact and need to be traced to formulate predictions and plan observations and measures [
Many new tools for work in the field and the laboratory are being developed and this will continue. In general they provide easier, more accurate and cheaper results. At the same time the move towards "open science" and "open data" and the development of visualization tools that can be used by the public will define the communication of science and the implementation of the SC.
From a theoretical perspective we suggest that some form of multimedia nested Lagrangian model of trajectory bundles in a turbulent flow could be helpful in exploring the interplay of scale invariant and scale dependent processes relevant to understand time lags and the impact of mixtures and low doses.
From a practical point of view we note that many valuable monitoring data on POPs are wasted and that better use of available data of POPs in the environment could result of developing procedures to credit, in academic and professionally effective terms, researchers who deposit detailed and documented data in public supervised data warehouses that can then be used for further research. We envisage a distributed network of data hubs that makes best use of analytical and computational innovations and provides open access services. The maintenance of such facilities relies on the existence of long term international agreements and a persuasive public demonstration that high quality monitoring data are necessary to develop effective public health and environmental strategies. The GMP under the SC EE framework establishes a long term process that can help to approach these objectives.
Monitoring an modeling POPs does not make any sense in isolation and much attention should be paid to potential synergies and co benefits resulting from a better integration across academic disciplines and environmental initiatives to improve transport and fate models. This integration can advance constructing better links between scale invariant multimedia multi substance models of fluid dynamics and scale dependent biological models of cells organisms and ecosystem pathways. It is also important to further develop monitoring and modeling in view of emerging scientific issues, such as the biogeochemical modulation of air chemistry in polar regions and the changing pathways and transformation rates in the environment, that were not on view in earlier stages of research.
We think it is important to underline the need to develop multiscale and multimedia models able to deal with the multiplicity of modes of propagation and interaction that can translate into long time lags between emission and exposure, exposure and effect. Having a better understanding of these time lags is central to evaluate and improve the effectiveness of policy measures undertaken to decrease the risk to humans and the environment from contaminants such as POPs. Multimedia nested Lagrangian models could provide useful insights into the bundles of trajectories that modulate the chemical landscape from cells to ecosystems.
RG has been involved over decades in POPs work with multiple academic institutions, the Government of Spain, UNECE LRTAP and UNEP SC. The views expressed here are his responsibility and do not represent in any way any official authority.
We thank the reviewers for their help.
The authors declare no conflict of interest.


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Extreme Teddy Bear Tossing [VIDEO]
The Utica College Pioneers Hockey team have a tradition of tossing teddy bears on the ice during the holiday season. The collected bears are distribted to local children's charities.
A similar Teddy Bear Toss is held in Calgary, Alberta, at Calgary HitMen games. Here's the video of this mega teddy bear toss.
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Consumers Will Spend 260% More for Internet Entertainment in Five Years
by Jack Loechner on Jan 30, 7:45 PM
According to Digital Lifestyles: 2006 Outlook, from Parks Associates, U.S. consumer spending for online entertainment, including on-demand gaming, music and video services, will grow by 260% in the next five years. Driven by broadband usage and innovations in digital entertainment platforms and content services, revenues will grow from $2.4 billion in 2006 to nearly $9 billion in 2010.
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E-Commerce Fraud Highest in New York City, Miami and Los Angeles
by Jack Loechner on Jan 29, 7:55 PM
In a recently released fraud survey by CyberSource to determine where online orders were most likely made with stolen credit cards or other fraudulent payment, New York City topped the list with 18% of the respondents.
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Top Online Health, Fitness and Nutrition Destinations
by Jack Loechner on Jan 27, 3:00 AM
A drill-down to examine demographics, advertising, advertisers, ad sizes, types and delivery for online health, fitness and nutrition.
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Stern Swears Sirius Serious
by Jack Loechner on Jan 26, 3:00 AM
EMarketer writes that satellite radio had another big fourth quarter, consolidating a big year. The total number of subscribers for XM and Sirius reached over 9 million, more than double the number of paying listeners from the year before, says the report.
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Business Publication Editors Strive for Updated Editorial Ethics
by Jack Loechner on Jan 25, 3:00 AM
Robin Sherman, Associate Director, Newsletter Editor for the American Society of Business Publication Editors, recently reported on a new study from the ASBPE examining the attitudes and behavior surrounding editorial ethics. Roy Harris, senior editor of CFO magazine, said "Our study reflects ASBPE's need to base the revision of our own code on the needs that our members see. The current media environment invited a survey, too, with new controversy raging over product placement by advertisers and over activities among journalists at reputable news organizations that are questionable at best."
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Three-out-of-Five Marketing Executives Working With Bigger Budgets in 2006
by Jack Loechner on Jan 24, 3:00 AM
The BtoB online survey "2006 Marketing Priorities and Plans" of 366 senior marketing executives, conducted during the last week of November and the first week of December, found that 60.7% will be working with bigger budgets in 2006, reported Kate Maddox of BtoBOnline. 31.6% said their budgets would be flat. And only 7.7% said their budgets would decrease. The optimism is eleven points over last year.
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Information Technology Spending to Grow in 2006
by Jack Loechner on Jan 23, 3:00 AM
According to the IDC FutureScan, all the indicators depict an expectation of 5% growth in U.S. IT spending this year. The report says that buyer expectations come in with an index value of 1047 (4.7% expected growth), vendor revenue forecasts come in at 1045, and the macroeconomic indicator at 1059.
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Besides Christmas, Sports Played an Important Part In the Week of December 25th
by Jack Loechner on Jan 20, 3:00 AM
A deep drill-down into advertising, advertisers, viewer demographics, sites, ad types, sizes and technology for online sports and sports entertainment.
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Science Trumps Fad In New Year's Wellbeing Resolutions
by Jack Loechner on Jan 19, 3:00 AM
According to their recent report, visits to the Hitwise Health and Medical - Wellbeing category, which contains diet, health and fitness sites, increased by 8 percent in the final week of 2005 compared to the final week of 2004. Losing weight and getting in shape are among the most popular New Year's resolutions, and as seen in previous years, the Internet continues to play a pivotal role in providing guidance for slimming down and shaping up.
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Turnaround in Terrestrial Radio
by Jack Loechner on Jan 18, 3:00 AM
According to initial results from a continuing Audience Attrition project by Bridge Ratings & Research, audience erosion from terrestrial radio, due to less time spent with AM/FM radio and more time spent with a variety of digital media, including MP3 players (including iPods), Internet radio, and satellite radio, has returned somewhat in the 4th quarter of 2005.
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Ayr B and B Special Offers
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Oscar Orbos
Óscar M. Orbos is a Philippine TV personality and host of GMA Network's Debate with Mare and Pare.
Born in Bani, Pangasinan he completed his studies at the University of the Philippines with a degree of Bachelor of Arts in Economics in 1971. He received his degree in law in 1975. One of the 1988 TOYM Awardees for Public Service.
He became a legal assistant to the Paredes, Poblador, Nazareno, Azada and Tomacruz Law Firm from 1975 to 1976 and elevated to Associate Attorney in 1976. He became a Partner in 1980 and the firm was called the Poblador, Azada, Tomacruz, Paredes, Cacanindin and Orbos Law Firm. He resigned to the post in 1983 to help in the propaganda campaign to oust Ferdinand Marcos.
In 1987, Orbos ran and won as congressman and represented the first district of Pangasinan from November 1987 to December 1989. He was cited as one of the most active congressman in the 8th Philippine Congress. He was cited as one of the 1989 Ten Outstanding Young Men (TOYM) for Public Service and legislation.
On January 4, 1990, President Corazon Aquino appointed him as secretary of the Department of Transportation and Communications. As secretary, one of the most notable contributions was the yellow lane, where the two outermost lanes of 4-6 lane roads were allotted for public utility vehicles, mostly buses.
On December 21, 1990, Orbos was appointed by Aquino as her executive secretary. During that time, Iraq already occupied Kuwait and it had plans to make further attacks on Saudi Arabia. Orbos facilitated measures for the repatriation and communication to overseas Filipino workers working in the Middle East.
He resigned on July 1991 and returned to private life. He co-hosted GMA Network's Firing Line, a TV panel talk show with Teodoro Benigno, Mrs. Aquino's former press secretary. During the 1992 elections, he actively supported fellow Pangasinense Fidel Ramos to the presidency.
In 1995, he resigned as host of the TV program and ran for the position of governor of the province of Pangasinan. He won the election via landslide. As governor, he initiated the establishment of a Provincial Action Center to provide public direct access to all provincial and national government offices to respond to needs of his constituency. Orbos gained the highest public approval rating as governor.
Even if he was predicted to win a reelection as governor, he ran in the 1998 elections for the position of Vice President as a running mate of Renato de Villa. However, he was lost to Senator Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.
In late 1998, Orbos was offered by Menardo Jimenez, president of GMA Network to host an open debate program for TV. Jimenez is a native of Dasol, located in the first district of Pangasinan. As a good friend, he gladly accepted the offer and was paired with U.P. professor Solita (Winnie) Monsod. Debate with Mare and Pare became a phenomenal interactive and open talk show in the Philippines. The talk show was the only latetime TV program earning a high audience rating.
Despite offers to enter again to public office, he refuse so because he already called his current job "political". He earned the respect of the public for being neutral on most issues.
Oca or Pareng Oca, to whom he is often called, is married to Rosita Sioson.
External links
Original content from WikiPilipinas. under GNU Free Documentation License. See full disclaimer.


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Updated 13/06/2017
EU funding programmes
What's available?
Direct funding grants from the European Commission or its executive agencies for projects with specific objectives (environment, research, training, etc.).
Indirect funding from national and local intermediaries.
What conditions apply?
Grants provided directly by the Commission:
- serve as complementary financing, the EU does not finance projects up to 100%
- are meant to help projects break even financially; they cannot result in a profit for the grant beneficiary
- cannot be awarded retroactively for projects already completed
- are awarded on a one-grant-per-project basis.
Who is eligible?
Businesses or related organisations (business associations, business support providers, consultants, etc.) running projects that further the interests of the EU or contribute to the implementation of an EU programme or policy.
Projects should have a transnational character, be well thought out and offer added value.
Detailed criteria for eligibility are specified in the call for proposals.
How do I apply?
Calls for proposals are generally published on the Internet site of the responsible Commission Directorate‑General or executive agency. They may also be published in the Official Journal of the European Union - C series.
Public consultations
Contact a local business support partner
Local business support
Help & advice
Get in touch with specialised assistance servicesHelp & advice


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HIP HOP NEWS YOU NEED TO KNOW...GAME: To Donate $10,000 for the Funeral of Murdered 6-Year-OId
Game is showing his charitable side -- by helping out the family of a six-year-old girl who was fatally shot during a family gathering in Moreno Valley, California on Sunday.
Tiana Ricks was standing outside with her father, Tyrell Ricks Junior, when two men ran up to them and opened fire. Tiana later died at the hospital. Her dad is back home after being hospitalized.
According to TMZ, Game is donating $10,000 to help cover Tiana's funeral costs. Her mother Marquia Macklin says, "Game told me that he heard about my story and was really sorry. He said that he wanted to help out. It costs so much to bury her… Sadly, $10,000 only covers half of the casket and the plot."
The Game's donation to the Ricks family is a part of his Robin Hood Project -- in which he's vowed to give away $1 million of his own money to people around the world by Christmas. He's been documenting his charity via his Instagram page, but this is the first substantial donation he's made so far.
Police are still searching for suspects in the shooting of Tiana Ricks.


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Brand Consistency Counts: How to Implement a Cohesive Marketing Plan
A well-crafted marketing plan involves several vehicles for your messaging, such as print ads, social media marketing, email messages, and landing pages, that all must come to together seamlessly to form a cohesive brand identity for your business.
Why Consistency Is Important
Whether prospective buyers see your messages at your local store, online, through a print ad, or a combination of the three, the messages should be consistent. This consistency enables your potential customers to recognize and trust your brand, giving them a good reason to choose your business when they are ready to purchase. Also, a standardized communication style tells your customers that your business is organized, professional, and most important, trustworthy.
Unfortunately, small businesses run into problems with brand consistency when they rely on several different agencies to help them with individual pieces of their marketing plan. Because small businesses are so busy with the day-to-day operations of their companies, many small business owners turn to local marketing experts for help with website design, search engine optimization (SEO), pay-per-click advertising, local social media marketing, and more.
While these outside agencies provide value to the businesses they serve, it's important that small businesses work with a single marketing company that can meet all of their marketing needs. Working with several companies can lead your business to present a host of fragmented marketing messages that don't consistently reinforce your brand.
When it comes to advertising, the style, tone, and wording matter; even slight variations can confuse customers. If each piece of your marketing puzzle is produced by a separate company, unsurprisingly, it becomes disjointed and inconsistent, and you'll spend time and energy trying to tie all of the pieces together.
Find a Singular Voice
Whether you're working on your own or with an outside marketing company, it's important to establish your company's voice. Decide whether your style will be formal or informal, or if you're communicating to younger or older customers; consumers in each age bracket use drastically different terminology.
After you've found your singular voice, make sure you're implementing it across all of your marketing mediums. If you're using an outside marketing company for all of your pieces, they can help you to identify and correct any inconsistencies in your company's communication style.
Keep Your Visuals Consistent Too
The most effective marketing campaigns typically highlight one or two images that remain consistent across all channels. Even though your company will probably choose a different image for each campaign, you can create consistency by choosing images of a similar style for each of your campaigns. Try using images from the same photographer or from the same catalogue of images.
Because most businesses are actively involved in a variety of channels, brand consistency is more important than ever before. It's the surest way to build loyalty with your customers, who tend to choose the businesses that they can recognize easily thanks to cohesive branding.


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Clearly you've never seen a York City - Scarborough match. Shit gets real. Shame Scarborough were too rubbish to stay afloat.
Anyway, good luck to your lads against Ben Arfa, Jockie!
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Clearly you've never seen a York City - Scarborough match. Shit gets real. Shame Scarborough were too rubbish to stay afloat.
Anyway, good luck to your lads against Ben Arfa, Jockie!
Fortunately due to timing I have a safety net this year in that even if we do lose, a new FM has just released that will allow me to repeat the match fictitiously, until I manage to delude myself into believing that it is in fact the real result and the only one that matters.
You did indeed say Prem, I was mostly joking though. Think you're probably right, Newcastle v Sunderland is up there with the Merseyside derby. Helps when the teams are on a fairly even footing. Spurs v Arsenal has got my interesting in that respect but the fans aren't rowdy enough.
And I've been trying to tell myself I'm going to skip FM this year. Don't need it. Not sure who I'm kidding.
With regard to the Chris Kirkland thing, I mean forgetting the general wrongness of attacking anybody, what kind of idiot does it infront of dozens of TV cameras and thousands of fans?
I believe in steams playtime stats, of the top 6 the most recent FM's occupy 4 slots.
Does anyone know if the 'beta', like the demo in previous times, will allow you to carry on playing once the game proper comes out or will it not be backwards compatible, in which case I think I can resist.
From what I've read you can carry on your beta game into the full release. Which basically crumbles the last of my defences.
Never a red card in a million years.
Serbia should be banned from international football for a while.
So er, Roberto Di Matteo? Fuck me. I knew Abram was bad but I'm genuinely shocked. I probably shouldn't be given the history but wow, Roman didn't hang around. I thought Di Matteo got lucky winning the Champions League, so I don't view him as a particularly talented manager, but he's hardly messed things up beyond all repair. Chelsea have new young players that need time to settle in and work out a balanced team. Torres is a £50m flop bought by Abram, not Di Matteo. I just don't understand.
I guess Abram wants a bigger name manager for his pet club? Either that or he doesn't mind spending millions in every transfer window to prop up a club that's perpetually unstable.
Rafa Benitez, though. I dunno. He's probably the best currently unemployed manager, but is he that much of an upgrade?
Have to wonder what Rafa is thinking. Half a season of Chelsea wages and a nice pay-off isn't bad work I guess.
Benitez hasn't been trusted since he messed up at Inter so it's win win for him really, gets to strut his stuff on a big stage and even if he fucks it up, he gets a big pay-day. It will be interesting to see if he can get Torres back to anything approaching form again.
Guardiola just doesn't strike me as a good fit for Chelsea or Chelsea for him.
In American Throw-Ball news, my Denver Broncos are actually looking pretty good. I'd been readying myself for the Peyton Manning thing to prove an expensive mistake but my usually relentless pessimism has been won over. :)
Seriously, how many times has Hamilton retired from what was looking like a probable race win, or atleast podium finish, this season. Fair play to Seb, but if only McLaren had got their shit together in terms of race strategy, pitstops, and reliability, they really really had a car that should have won both championships. Plus it was the most sexeh.
Yeah, the McLaren was the most aesthetically pleasing car this year wasn't it? As it is I'm kind of glad Hamilton didn't win. Though it seemed that in the second half of the season he'd got over acting like a spoiled child and throwing tantrums at everything (to be fair he was justified in being angry on several occasions) but the whining of the last season or so turned me from indifference to hoping he'd not actually win.
Found myself in the unusual situation of cheering on Alonso (though never Ferrari!) as I felt he deserved it more, particularly for the performances early on in the season where he somehow kept getting on the podium despite having an inferior car to many.
Regarding Hamilton, yeh he seems to have grown up a lot this year. The "is it because I'm black" episode was just embarrasing. I wish Button could win the title but right now Hamilton is by far the best chance for a British winner so I have to stomach the petulance!
Also, get your Monty masks here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/sol/shared/spl...y_panesar.pdf#
It was nice to see Ferrari lose, I'm tired of their cheap tricks, even though I respect Alonso. But still, this was an amazing season, the first time I've really been into F1 for a long time. Hopefully next year will be comparable.


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Arthritis & Rheumatism, Volume 60,
October 2009 Abstract Supplement
The 2009 ACR/ARHP Annual Scientific Meeting
Philadelphia October 16-21, 2009.
Overexpression of Tristetraprolin Regulates Collagen Induced Arthritis
Jingu1, Takashi, Suzuki1, Takeshi, Sugihara1, Makoto, Suzuki2, Eiji, Kondo1, Yuya, Matsumoto1, Isao, Hayashi1, Taichi
University of Tsukuba, Tsukuba, Japan
Ohta-Nishinouchi Hospital, Koriyama, Japan
Takikawa city hospital, Takikawa, Japan
Tristetraprolin (TTP) is a widely expressed protein with two zinc finger domains that act as active RNA-binding sites. TTP is an immediate early response gene expressed in fibroblasts and other cells upon induction by a variety of stimuli. TTP is posttranscriptional regulation molecule that downregulates tumor necrosis factor-a (TNF-a) production by binding to AU-rich element on TNF-a mRNA, and promoting TNF-a mRNA degradation. TTP-knockout mice display an inflammatory phenotype characterized by inflammatory arthritis, dermatitis, cachexia, autoimmunity, and myeloid hyperplasia and this phenotype can be prevented by administration of anti-TNF-a antibodies. We developed transgenic mice overexpressing zinc finger (ZF-Tg DBA/1 mice), a part of TTP, and investigated TTP mRNA expression in several organs, TNF-a mRNA stability, and production by lipopolysaccharide (LPS) stimulation in vitro. Furthermore, we examined the development of collagen induced arthritis (CIA) in vivo.
(1) We investigated TTP mRNA distribution in joint, muscle, heart, thymus, lung, liver, small intestine, colon, spleen, and inguinal lymph nodes of ZF-Tg DBA/1 mice by RT-PCR. (2) We investigated TTP mRNA stability in the splenocytes of ZF-Tg DBA/1 mice. (3) We investigated TNF-a production in splenocytes of ZF-Tg DBA/1 mice after LPS stimulation by ELISA. (4) We induced CIA by immunization of type II collagen to DBA/1 mice and ZF-Tg DBA/1 mice at twice (day 0 and day 21), and monitored the clinical score of arthritis.
(1) TTP-ZF transgene mRNA was expressed in these all tissues. (2) TNF-a mRNA in ZF-Tg DBA/1 mice was more instable than DBA/1 mice. (3) TNF-a production in ZF-Tg DBA/1 mice was more decreased than DBA/1 mice. (4) The clinical score of arthritis in ZF-Tg DBA/1 mice was significantly suppressed.
We identified that the overexpression of zinc finger part of TTP caused the instability of TNF-a mRNA and the downregulation of TNF-a production, and resulting in the suppression of CIA. These findings open a new strategy for the regulation of autoimmune arthritis through TTP induction.
To cite this abstract, please use the following information:
Jingu, Takashi, Suzuki, Takeshi, Sugihara, Makoto, Suzuki, Eiji, Kondo, Yuya, Matsumoto, Isao, et al; Overexpression of Tristetraprolin Regulates Collagen Induced Arthritis [abstract]. Arthritis Rheum 2009;60 Suppl 10 :661
DOI: 10.1002/art.25741