This work deals with the observer siting problem in terrains represented by digital elevation matrices. This problem consists in minimize the number of observers needed to see (or cover) a given percentage of a terrain. Two heuristics are proposed to solve this problem and these heuristics are compared with a method described in literature. Tests show that the proposed heuristics generate solut...

Dr. Maxwell is a visiting scholar at the Center for International Studies at MIT and Director of the Center for Environment and Health at John Snow, Inc He received his Ph.D. in the field of Public Policy at MIT. He is currently supervising studies of siting in US and foreign countries, integration of environment and health in policy making, and environmental management practices in the automob...

Recently, there has been great interest in the integration of distributed generation units at the distribution level. The foreseeable large use of DG in the future requires the distribution system engineers to properly take into account its impact in the system planning. When considering DG impact the attention should be paid in the siting and sizing of DG units. This paper proposes the use of ...

[1] For the first time, global ocean usable wind power is evaluated for modern offshore turbine characteristics including hub height, usable portion of the wind speed distribution, and siting depth. Mean wind power increases by 30%, 69%, and 73% within the tropics and Northern and Southern Hemisphere extratropics, respectively, between hub heights of 10 m and 100 m. A turbine with a cut‐out spe...

The recent proliferation of facility-siting conflicts underscores the need for new analytical techniques in which the external effects associated with noxious facilities are considered explicitly. In general, in prescriptive facility-location models it is assumed that having populations "closer", as characterized by transport or accessibility advantages, is better for desirable facilities, but,...

There is little evidence on which to judge the optimal treatment for convulsive status epilepticus (CSE) in children. This study compares the effect of intravenous (iv) lorazepam with iv diazepam as the first line of treatment of CSE. We studied all children with prolonged seizures arriving in the Accident and Emergency (A&E) Department in two separate periods. In the first 6-month period iv di...

Nuclear hazards, linked to both U.S. weapons programs and civilian nuclear power, pose substantial environment justice issues. Nuclear power plant (NPP) reactors produce low-level ionizing radiation, high level nuclear waste, and are subject to catastrophic contamination events. Justice concerns include plant locations and the large potentially exposed populations, as well as issues in siting, ...

There has been little previous research on public attitudes about precaution and their significance for risk opinions and attitudes. The present case of application is that of the siting of a repository for spent nuclear fuel, a controversial issue in most countries. Data from a representative sample of the Swedish population were collected with a mailed questionnaire, which covered risk percep...