Hi Urban Air Quality Research.!.

Hi Urban Air Quality Research.!.

For the past 40 years, NILU has been at the forefront of developing and adopting the most modern methods in air quality research. The institute offers a comprehensive program for surveying and planning for air quality in cities and towns.

Click Here To Download Annual Report 2007 Or View & Download Below;

Air pollution has the potential to affect the environment, human health and ecosystems at all scales. It can cause adverse health effects, local and regional environmental damage and global problems such as climate change, loss of biodiversity and deterioration of the ozone layer.

In Europe it is estimated that the lifespan of individuals who live in urban areas has been shortened by one year because of particulate air pollution. An individual’s lifespan may be reduced by as much as three years in the most polluted areas of the world. In China, for example, 700,000 people are expected to die prematurely each year due to air pollution.

Norway also faces its own challenges related to air quality, albeit not at the same scale as more polluted regions of the world. Bergen, Oslo, Trondheim and other Norwegian cities experience days where pollution levels are high, often for extended periods. Bergen and Oslo in particular have been subjected to repeated wintertime exceedances of air pollution limits.

Since it was first established, NILU has studied problems related to local and regional air pollution. This research covers everything from the development of management systems for urban air quality, to systems that make the connection between greenhouse gas emissions and local air pollution, to studies of how indoor and outdoor air quality may affect artefacts that make up our shared cultural heritage.

Methane measurement cruise

09/04/2014

The week before Easter NILU scientists Adam Durant and Ove Hermansen are on board the research vessel "RV Helmer Hanssen" of UiT - The Arctic University of Norway, as part of the MOCA project. The purpose of the trip is to install and test for measuring methane in the atmosphere over the Arctic Ocean, in preparation for a summer campaign to determine if gas emissions from methane hydrates at the ocean floor are reaching the atmosphere. Follow the vessel here.

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The worlds’ health is declining due to air pollution

26/03/2014

Globally 7 million people died attributable to the joint effects of indoor and outdoor air pollution in 2012, according to WHO. NILU's air quality management programmes in urban areas around the world seek solutions aimed at reducing the health burden of people.

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Hi Economy Patterns! - "Iran’s economy could grow six to eight per cent, according to IHS report."

Hi Economy Patterns! - "Iran’s economy could grow six to eight per cent, according to IHS report."

Iran’s economy could grow six to eight per cent, according to IHS report:

Wednesday, April 16 - 2014 @ 11:53 

Iran’s economy could see six to eight per cent growth, according to a new economic scenarios report released today by IHS.

Report author Bryan Plamondon, senior Middle East economist at IHS, highlighted three possible scenarios for Iran’s future as well as forecasts for Iranian crude production.

OPTIMISTIC SCENARIO: – "six to eight per cent growth."

If economic sanctions are lifted and Iran is allowed to engage in uninhibited trade and investment with industrial nations, Iran’s economy will likely grow six to eight per cent over the medium term. 

This is a strong jump from the average five per cent growth that we have seen from 2000 to 2010.

Under this scenario, Iranian crude production could jump to approximately four million barrels per day by 2020. 

Additionally, intra-regional trade would increase, with countries like the UAE restoring some previously lost trade relationships.

In this scenario, the government’s attitude towards foreign investment will mirror that of the Khatami era. 

Iran will have to partner with foreign firms to revitalise the country’s domestic technological capacity. 

However, the underlying assumption for this scenario is that the main bottleneck facing the Iranian economy is political and security risks, rather than a shortage of economic resources. 

DOWNSIDE SCENARIO: – "one to two per cent growth."

 

In a scenario where relations between Iran and the West again worsen, economic growth would actually slow down to a one to two per cent annual rate over the medium term. 

Economic imbalances would place further strain on the government and would likely lead to a severe economic shock. 

Iran could potentially see conditions in its oil and gas sector deteriorate, with production dropping to approximately two million barrels per day by 2020.

STATUS-QUO SCENARIO: – "two to three per cent growth."

If there is a continuation of the current situation, the economy will continue on its growth rate path of one to three per cent per year, with a high degree of macroeconomic instability and uncertainty.

Iran will remain under moderate economic and financial sanctions, which have had an adverse effect of its foreign trade and limited access for foreign investment. 

Key sectors of the economy will be deprived of private capital and a large share of the government’s economic resources will be devoted to consumer and producer subsides to sustain economic activity. 

Under this constant case scenario, crude production would flat line at its present level of approximately 2.8 million barrels per day.

1.5 percent growth forecast, $270 billion lost due to sanctions:

Rapprochement with the West will help to stabilise Iran’s economy and IHS forecasts Iran’s real GDP will rise by 1.5 per cent in FY 2014/15, after two years of contraction. 

Signs of improved relations along with temporary and conditional sanctions relief have breathed life into the Iranian economy. 

The EU has suspended its ban on insurance coverage for Iranian oil shipments, $4.2bn in oil revenues has been unblocked and current restrictions on imports of crude will be held steady for the six countries still purchasing oil from Iran.

However, Iran is not out of the woods yet. 

External and fiscal balances will remain under pressure, inflation will continue to run at high double-digit rates and trade and current account balances have been cut sharply due to sanctions.

IHS estimates that since 2011, Iran’s economy has shrunk by more than $270bn due to sanctions.

Hi Event! - "Utility Energy Storage Europe.!"

Hi Event! - "Utility Energy Storage Europe.!"

Hi Factual Struggle, Why are engineering firms struggling to recruit graduates?!

Hi Factual Struggle, Why are engineering firms struggling to recruit graduates?!

Reports of a graduate engineer shortage are 

common yet competition for jobs remains 

fierce. 

Our roundtable panel proposed 

some potential solutions to the industry’s 

graduate problem.

The Engineer’s graduate skills panel picked 

apart the industry’s recruitment problem.

Britain is being held back by a major shortage of science and engineering students, or so we are told on what seems like an increasingly frequent basis. Yet ask most recent graduates whether they’ve found it easy to get a job in engineering and they’ll probably tell you that competition is fierce. 

To explore what’s really going on in graduate recruitment and to try to identify some possible solutions, The Engineer convened a roundtable panel from across the engineering community. 

The discussion covered the reasons behind the skills mismatch what can be done to address it, but began with an examination of how widespread the problem actually is.

The picture that quickly emerged was of an uneven jobs market, in which large, well-known firms have both the natural pull and the marketing budgets to attract huge numbers of applications, leading many graduates to end up fighting over the same few jobs. 

The smaller companies, meanwhile, especially those in more rural locations and less well-understood product areas, struggle to get enough applicants just to fill their roles, let alone compete for the best engineers.

‘It’s a huge problem,’ said Bob Gregory, training manager for medium-sized precision manufacturer HepcoMotion. 

‘We are in a fairly rural and remote part of Devon and there’s a lot of reluctance among graduates to relocate to where we are.’

The problem is even more severe when it comes to more specialised skills such as nuclear engineering, where the problem also starts to affect the larger firms. 

Geoff McFarland, group engineering director of Renishaw, explained how the company was forced to divest its acquired MRI equipment division after failing to find people with the right expertise to take it forward. ‘The only ones available were from overseas,’ he said.

"Airbus is among the big firms with the budgets to reach out to graduates - but SMEs struggle for publicity."

However, despite a few comments about graduates missing certain technical skills and the difficulty SMEs have in offering additional training, there was a general consensus that the skills issue was more about quantity than quality of candidates and an acceptance that young people at the start of their careers would inevitably be inexperienced. 

‘The ones that we do get are of high quality and they learn quickly,’ said Gregory. ‘We don’t expect them to come to us with a good working knowledge of SolidWorks or any other 3D modelling software. It’s merely a supply problem.’

In fact, the number of science and engineering graduates is low enough to worry even the biggest firms, which are currently able to fill their vacancies without trouble but are acutely aware of the competition from other sectors.

‘We do anticipate that with the economy strengthening we will have more challenges,’ said Richard Hamer, education director for BAE Systems. ‘When the City is demanding more numbers we’ll find more competition for graduates.’

Hi Sector competition:

So why aren’t more people entering the engineering profession? One key suggestion was that students don’t really understand the full range of opportunities available in the sector. ‘Engineering’s competing with so many other pulls from sectors that are a lot more vocal,’ said Keith Lewis, managing director of engineering recruitment agency Matchtech. 

‘People within engineering are very poor at promoting it and making lots of noise about it.’ It’s a particular problem for SMEs, he added, which tend to operate in niche areas but also have smaller marketing and recruitment budgets. 

‘Companies that can afford to are looking at where those people might be coming from and setting up small offices to capture them. 

SMEs can’t afford to do that.’

Rhys Morgan, director of engineering and education at the Royal Academy of Engineering, agreed that engineering firms weren't selling themselves well enough compared to other employers that target engineering graduates, such as financial and professional service firms.

 ‘The major [engineering] employers only go to the top 10-to-15 universities,’ he said. 

‘All the banks and all the accountancy firms are very visible on all the campuses and they make it very attractive for engineering graduates to think “I’ll go there”.’

"‘The major [engineering] employers only go to the top 10-to-15 universities,’ said Rhys Morgan (centre) of the Royal Academy of Engineering."

However, there is also a lack of understanding of what even the better-known companies actually do, which doesn't just put people off from applying but also disadvantages those who do wish to stay in the sector.

‘If people don’t know which area of engineering they want to go into, they won’t know which companies to apply to and what to put in their applications,’ said Rosie Tomlinson, a graduate mission systems engineer for Airbus Defence and Space (formerly Astrium). 

‘Some people apply for the top 10 companies, they don’t get a job so they give up.’

The wider perception of engineering may also have an impact. The panel had little support for the idea that people were put off by ‘low’ pay, given that engineering graduate jobs tended to offer considerably more than the average starting salary of £20,000, but agreed this fact wasn’t always well conveyed.

‘There’s a lot more we could do to sell that,’ said Hamer. ‘Sometimes in the press they exaggerate the small number of graduates who get jobs at Goldman Sachs earning £60,000 but the number who do that is minute. 

Whereas in our sector there are schemes where you can earn £30,000 or more as a starting graduate.’

There was also a recognition that more could be done to promote the possibilities for career development.

‘As careers progress the number of senior engineers with that title starts to diminish and they go into other roles: the fact that they're engineers starts being lost,’ said John Mitchell, director of the integrated engineering programme at University College London.

Hi Industry solutions:

Aside from increased marketing, one way to increase graduates’ awareness of engineering career options may be to widen the availability and take-up of industrial placements, which only a minority of students undertake.

Mitchell said universities also had a role in helping promote careers at SMEs. 

‘We've got very good relationships with the sorts of people who already have very well-developed schemes for attracting graduates but how we can help the smaller companies? 

A lot of the onus has been on supporting students if they make the first move but actually I'm not sure we've stepped up to the mark to put in enough real support.’

Another possibility would be for the larger firms to work more closely with their SME suppliers. Hamer said the aerospace industry was already looking at how big companies could pass on surplus job applicants. 

‘We've got an oversupply of candidates: why not train more of them — with government money — and then provide them to small companies?’ Bob Gregory of HepcoMotion agreed it was an idea he would like to explore. 

‘A lot of our customers are actually universities and it would supply an ideal network for that,’ he said.

"‘We've got an oversupply of candidates: why not train more of them and then provide them to small companies,’ said Richard Hamer (centre) of BAE Systems."

However, even if all these issues were addressed and 100 per cent of engineering graduates went into industry (a questionable aim in itself), we still wouldn't have addressed the skills shortage we’re told companies are facing.

 In short, we need more engineering students. And this can’t be addressed just by engaging more with young people, said Morgan.

‘Universities are almost at capacity,’ he said.

 ‘So even if we did get more students coming through to study STEM [science, technology, engineering and maths] subjects, we’re not going to have the capacity. There’s a real timebomb coming up.’

Given the current state of public finances, one solution may be a greater roll-out of higher apprenticeships, which all the employers on the panel already use. 

These offer a work-based route to a degree through part-time, employer-supported study and could be particularly useful to those employers not located near big university cities or that have very specific skill requirements. 

‘If we've taken on someone who’s been through that programme they're actually more likely to stay with us than jump ship,’ said Renishaw’s Geoff McFarland. 

‘Whereas engineers who've studied in, say, Newcastle and join us in Gloucestershire have already moved once and there’s nothing to stop them moving again.’

However, the panel concluded that if the government was serious about addressing the skills issue, it needed to help universities invest the necessary money to expand. 

‘We need more students to recognise that if they’re doing an engineering degree there’s a really interesting, exciting, creative, design-focused valuable lifelong career in engineering for them that they'll be so stimulated by, much more so than working in the financial sector,’ said Morgan. 

‘But we also need to be very clear to government that we need it to invest in engineering higher education to increase capacity.’

Hi Toxicity Alert! An OSHA Article Publication Focusing On Integration Of Information On Crystalline Silica Dust!.

Hi Toxicity Alert!  An OSHA Article 

Publication Focusing On Integration Of 

Information On Crystalline Silica Dust!.

Hi; What is Crystalline Silica?

Respirable crystalline silica – very small particles at least 100 times smaller than ordinary sand you might encounter on beaches and playgrounds – is created during work operations involving stone, rock, concrete, brick, block, mortar, and industrial sand. Exposures to respirable crystalline silica can occur when cutting, sawing, grinding, drilling, and crushing these materials. These exposures are common in brick, concrete, and pottery manufacturing operations, as well as during operations using industrial sand products, such as in foundries, sand blasting, and hydraulic fracturing (fracking) operations in the oil and gas industry.

OSHA Forms Alliance with Georgia Organizations to Reduce Worker Exposure to Silica in the Construction Industry.

1. Click Here Or Image Above To Visit OSHA Topic Homepage.

Source: U.S. Department of Labor Occupational Safety & Health Administration (OSHA); Click Link Here To Visit Publisher Source Website. 

Publication Date: April 15, 2014.

Alliance signing ceremony held April 15 in Atlanta

ATLANTA -- The U.S. Department of Labor's Occupational Safety and Health Administration has formed an alliance with several organizations in Atlanta to provide employers and workers in the construction industry with information, guidance and training to prevent overexposure to Crystalline Silica Dust.

2. Click Here Or Image Above To View OSHA Standards Homepage.

3. Click Here Or Image Above To View Health Effects Homepage. 

4. Click Here Or Image ABove To View Hazard Recognition Homepage. 

5. Click Here Or Image Above To View Control Measures Homepage. 

6. Click Here Or Image Above To View Additional Resources Homepage.

The agreement was signed by OSHA, the Georgia Tech Research Institute's Occupational Safety and Health Division, Brasfield & Gorrie LLC, the Georgia Local Section of the American Industrial Hygiene Association and the Georgia Chapter of the American Society of Safety Engineers on Tuesday, April 15.

'This alliance demonstrates the proactive commitment of federal, state and other partners to protect the safety and health of workers in the construction industry,' said Teresa Harrison, OSHA's acting regional administrator in Atlanta.

Inhalation of respirable crystalline silica particles has long been known to cause silicosis, a disabling, non-reversible and sometimes fatal lung disease. Leading scientific organizations, including the American Cancer Society, have also confirmed the causal relationship between silica and lung cancer.

Occupational exposure to crystalline silica often occurs as part of common workplace operations involving cutting, sawing, drilling and crushing of concrete, brick, block, rock and stone products. Processes historically associated with high rates of silicosis include sandblasting, sand-casting foundry operations, mining, tunneling, cement cutting and demolition, masonry work, and granite cutting.

OSHA has recently proposed to update its current silica standard. Published in the Federal Register on Sept. 12, 2013, OSHA's Notice of Proposed Rulemaking on Occupational Exposure to Crystalline Silica aims to update the inconsistent and outdated permissible exposure limits for crystalline silica in general industry, construction and shipyards, as well as to establish other provisions to better protect workers. 

OSHA just concluded three weeks of hearings on the proposed rule and is now receiving post-hearing comments. 

Additional information on the proposed rule, including five fact sheets, is available at the OSHA Homepage By Clicking The Image Below;

The OSHA Fact Sheets are also available for download by clicking the link(s) below according to your selection; On Controlling Exposures in Construction While:

• Operating Handheld Masonry Saws [459 KB PDF*, 2 pages].
• Operating Stationary Masonry Saws [638 KB PDF*, 2 pages].
• Operating Handheld Grinders [374 KB PDF*, 2 pages].
• Operating Rotary Hammers [420 KB PDF*, 2 pages].
• Operating Vehicle Mounted Rock Drills [ 869 KB PDF*, 2 pages ].
• Jackhammering [456 KB PDF*, 2 pages].
• Tuckpointing/Mortar Removal [480 KB PDF*, 2 pages].

Companies and groups interested in learning more about OSHA's activities to improve employee safety and health may contact OSHA's representatives.

Through its Alliance Program, OSHA works with unions, consulates, trade and professional organizations, faith and community-based organizations, businesses and educational institutions to prevent workplace fatalities, injuries and illnesses. The purpose of each alliance is to develop compliance assistance tools and resources and to educate workers and employers about their rights and responsibilities. 

Alliance Program participants do not receive exemptions from OSHA inspections. For more information on the program, visit the Alliance Program homepage by clicking here or the image below.

"Exposure to silica can be deadly, and limiting that exposure is essential. Every year, many exposed workers not only lose their ability to work, but also to breathe. This proposal is expected to prevent thousands of deaths from silicosis – an incurable and progressive disease – as well as lung cancer, other respiratory diseases, and kidney disease. Workers affected by silica are fathers, mothers, sisters and brothers lost to entirely preventable illnesses. We're looking forward to public comment on the proposal."

- Dr. David Michaels Assistant Secretary of Labor for Occupational Safety and Health.

"Without proper engineering controls, workers can be exposed to harmful levels of respirable crystalline silica that can cause silicosis, lung cancer, and other lung and kidney diseases (below).";

Applying water to a saw blade when cutting materials that contain crystalline silica — such as stone, rock, concrete, brick, and block — substantially reduces the amount of dust created during these operations (below).";

"The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) is pleased to join with Dr. Michaels and our partners in labor and industry in OSHA's announcement of the notice of proposed rulemaking on occupational exposure to crystalline silica. NIOSH has a long history of research and recommendations on preventing worker exposure to respirable crystalline silica. Ensuring the health and safety of all workers is an important part of ensuring a strong economy and future economic growth."

- Dr. John Howard Director of the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health.

- "Contractors adopt innovative concrete drill jig to reduce silica exposures during concrete drilling operations". Click Link Here To View Original Source Publication & Read More.

This 1938 video YouTube format below features former Secretary of Labor, Frances Perkins (1933-1945), and describes both the hazards associated with silica exposure and the U.S. Department of Labor's early efforts to ensure safe and healthful working conditions for America's working men and women. Although tremendous progress has been made since this video was produced, evidence indicates that a substantial number of workers still suffer from silica-related diseases.

1938 "Stop Silicosis" Video

Visit OSHA Crystalline Silica Rulemaking Homepage To View The Source Of All This Information Gathered & Presented Here & To Obtain Further Details & Information & Gain Access To Documents Available & Browse The Article Source Archive & View Video's Available For Further Content & Information Accessibility.