The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) provides access to information on a variety of topics related to the environment and strives to inform citizens of health risks. The EPA also has an extensive library network that consists of 26 libraries throughout the United States, which provide access to a plethora of information to EPA employees, scientists, and researchers. The EPA implemented a reorganization project to digitize their materials so they would be more accessible to a wider range of users, but this plan was drastically accelerated when the EPA was threatened with a budget cut. It chose to close and reduce the hours and services of some of their libraries. As a result, the agency was accused of denying users the “right to know” by making information unavailable, not providing an adequate strategic plan, and discarding vital materials. This case study explores the background of the digitization project, the practices implemented, and the critiques of the project.

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The Environmental Protection Agency

해외산업간호정보 - 미국 산업안전보건연구원(National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health) 소개

[1] The atmospheric chemistry of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in urban areas results in the formation of ‘photochemical smog’, including secondary organic aerosol (SOA). State-of-the-art SOA models parameterize the results of simulation chamber experiments that bracket the conditions found in the polluted urban atmosphere. Here we show that in the real urban atmosphere reactive anthropogenic VOCs (AVOCs) produce much larger amounts of SOA than these models predict, even shortly after sunrise. Contrary to current belief, a significant fraction of the excess SOA is formed from first-generation AVOC oxidation products. Global models deem AVOCs a very minor contributor to SOA compared to biogenic VOCs (BVOCs). If our results are extrapolated to other urban areas, AVOCs could be responsible for additional 3–25 Tg yr−1 SOA production globally, and cause up to −0.1 W m−2 additional top-of-the-atmosphere radiative cooling.

Secondary Organic Aerosol Formation from Anthropogenic Air Pollution: Rapid and Higher than Expected

https://escholarship.org/content/qt8mf445sh/qt8mf445sh.pdf?t=nu02or

Atmospheric composition change – global and regional air quality

Air pollution and health risks due to vehicle traffic.

Methods for estimating uncertainty in PMF solutions: Examples with ambient air and water quality data and guidance on reporting PMF results

. The EPA PMF (Environmental Protection Agency positive matrix factorization) version 5.0 and the underlying multilinear engine-executable ME-2 contain three methods for estimating uncertainty in factor analytic models: classical bootstrap (BS), displacement of factor elements (DISP), and bootstrap enhanced by displacement of factor elements (BS-DISP). The goal of these methods is to capture the uncertainty of PMF analyses due to random errors and rotational ambiguity. It is shown that the three methods complement each other: depending on characteristics of the data set, one method may provide better results than the other two. Results are presented using synthetic data sets, including interpretation of diagnostics, and recommendations are given for parameters to report when documenting uncertainty estimates from EPA PMF or ME-2 applications.

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Steven G. Brown

Papers

Methods for estimating uncertainty in PMF solutions: Examples with ambient air and water quality data and guidance on reporting PMF results

Methods for estimating uncertainty in factor analytic solutions

Source apportionment of VOCs in the Los Angeles area using positive matrix factorization

Source apportionment of volatile organic compounds measured in Edmonton, Alberta

Characterization of organic aerosol in Big Bend National Park, Texas