Summary

Environmental science emerged from the fields of natural history and medicine during the Enlightenment. Today, it provides an integrated, quantitative, and interdisciplinary approach to the study of environmental systems. Environmental studies are incorporating more of the social sciences in order to understand human relationships, perceptions and policies towards the environment. This entry collection features information about design and technology for improving environmental quality in every aspect.

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Topic Review
Membrane Technologies in Dairy Industry
Membrane technologies can be used in the dairy industry for many applications, such as milk clarification or fractioning and a concentration increase in specific components or the separation of them, since they cover a huge range of pore sizes (from 0 to 2 μm) and MWCOs (from 1 to 100,000 Da). For instance, MF can be used for fat globule (10 μm) fractionation as well as bacteria and spore (1 μm) removal. UF can be used for casein micelles (100 nm) or serum protein (10 nm) separation, whereas NF and RO can be used for lactose (1 nm), salt (0.1 nm) and water recovery.
  • 707
  • 18 Nov 2021
Topic Review
Microplastics Contamination of the Yenisei River
This study is a pioneering attempt to count microplastics (MPs) in the Yenisei River system to clarify the role of Siberian Rivers in the transport of MPs to the Arctic Ocean. The average MPs content in the surface water of the Yenisei large tributary, the Nizhnyaya Tunguska River, varied from 1.20 ± 0.70 to 4.53 ± 2.04 items/m3, tending to increase along the watercourse (p < 0.05). Concentrations of MPs in bottom sediments of the two rivers were 235 ± 83.0 to 543 ± 94.1 with no tendency of downstream increasing. Linear association (r = 0.952) between average organic matter content and average counts of MPs in bottom sediments occurred. Presumably MPs originated from the daily activities of the in-situ population. Further spatial-temporal studies are needed to estimate the riverine MPs fluxes into the Eurasian Arctic seas. 
  • 588
  • 18 Nov 2021
Topic Review
Wind Speed Analysis of Hurricane Sandy
The database of the HWind project sponsored by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) for hurricanes between 1994 and 2013 is analysed. Moreover, the wind speed of Hurricane Sandy is studied.
  • 1.0K
  • 18 Nov 2021
Topic Review
Inequalities and Power in Digital Agriculture
There are several patterns of inequalities linked to the development and adoption of digital technologies in agriculture that can be observed across the globe: (1) in digital technology development; (2) in the distribution of benefits from the use of digital technologies; (3) in sovereignty over data, hardware and digital infrastructure; (4) in skills and knowledge (‘digital literacy’); and (5) in problem definition and problem-solving capacities. The existing inequalities are structural and represent expressions of corporate power. From such a perspective, digitalization in agriculture is not a ‘revolution’ per se; rather, digital technologies mirror and reproduce existing power relations. However, there are also emancipatory initiatives that are applying digital technologies to challenge existing inequalities and to advance alternative visions of agriculture. 
  • 967
  • 16 Nov 2021
Topic Review
Particulate Air Pollution and Risk of Neuropsychiatric Outcomes
There is evidence that the impact of particle pollution on the brain, the portals of entry, the neural damage mechanisms, and ultimately the neurological and psychiatric outcomes statistically associated with exposures. PM pollution comes from natural and anthropogenic sources such as fossil fuel combustion, engineered nanoparticles (NP ≤ 100 nm), wildfires, and wood burning. We are all constantly exposed during normal daily activities to some level of particle pollution of various sizes—PM2.5 (≤2.5 µm), ultrafine PM (UFP ≤ 100 nm), or NPs. Inhalation, ingestion, and dermal absorption are key portals of entry. 
  • 399
  • 16 Nov 2021
Topic Review
Bacillus cereus sensu lato
The potential presence of spore-forming bacteria related to the Bacillus cereus group in Mexican chili powder elaborated from Capsicum annuum L. is of commercial and clinical interest, because chili powder is an essential spice in the Mexican diet and in diets around the globe.
  • 683
  • 16 Nov 2021
Topic Review
Carbon Polygons and Carbon Offsets
The most important area of study concerning carbon polygons is the problem of assessing the reserves and trends in the stability of organic matter in the soil of natural ecosystems. An adequate assessment of these stocks should be based on verified methods for determining the content of organic matter (direct and indirect methods and the problem of the correlation of results) and on unified ideas about the depth and regularity of sampling within soil profiles and monitoring sites. This problem is particularly relevant to the development of a spatial network of carbon polygons in the Russian Federation.
  • 502
  • 17 Nov 2021
Topic Review
Blind Obedience to Environmental Friendliness
we borrow insights from the behavioral decision making literature on preference reversal to introduce an opposite phenomenon—that is, consumers buying an environmentally friendly product even though they do not evaluate it highly.
  • 575
  • 16 Nov 2021
Topic Review
Toxicity of Ageratina adenophora on Animals
Ageratina adenophora is one of the major invasive weeds that causes instability of the ecosystem. Research has reported that A. adenophora produces allelochemicals that inhibit the growth and development of food crops, and also contain some toxic compounds that cause toxicity to animals that consume it.
  • 587
  • 15 Nov 2021
Topic Review
Product Attributes, Evaluability, and Consumer Satisfaction
Consumer satisfaction is considered essential to long-term business success. Organizations have a need to produce products and services that yield highly satisfied and loyal consumers. Having loyal consumers reduces the costs for firms, since the expenses for acquiring new consumers are much higher than those for keeping existing ones. Studying the factors that determine consumer satisfaction is of vital importance for a company, as consumer satisfaction has been described as the best indicator of a company’s future profits. In addition, several studies have indicated that there are positive effects of consumer satisfaction on overall brand equity and its different aspects, i.e., retailer awareness, retailer associations, the retailers’ perceived quality, and retailer loyalty. Most studies of consumer satisfaction have been based on the overall satisfaction with a product as a whole, while only a few have related consumer satisfaction to the performance of product attributes. We aimed to study which type of product attribute leads to the most satisfaction, thus providing clues for providers to improve their products. We focused on attribute evaluability and analyzed the ease or difficulty in evaluating a product’s attribute. This was assumed to be related to consumer satisfaction Although evaluability has usually been manipulated experimentally, we studied evaluability as a consumer’s perceptions of product attributes. We aimed to show the effects of attribute evaluability on consumer satisfaction outside of the laboratory context, in a real consumer setting. This aim matched the endeavor in research to study the scaling-up of small-scale laboratory findings to larger markets and settings, as advocated by List.  Another basic process in the formation of consumer satisfaction is a judgment of product performance that is relative to the reference point of the product’s performance expectations. In general, the positive disconfirmation of expectations (the perceived realizations of performance exceeding expectations) will lead to consumer satisfaction, whereas negative disconfirmation (the perceived realizations of performance falling short of expectations) induces dissatisfaction. From prospect theory, it is known that negative deviations from a reference point are judged more negatively than their commensurate positive deviations are judged positively, thus indicating asymmetric effects of product evaluations.  A hitherto under-researched topic is whether consumer satisfaction differs when it is due to an attribute expectation disconfirmation of easy-to-evaluate versus difficult-to-evaluate attributes. This topic is theoretically interesting, because such differences may be driven by different psychological processes. Also, it is of practical significance, because it provides a clue to providers in regard to the type of product attributes for which negative expectation disconfirmation needs to be avoided. We consider attribute evaluability as a factor that moderates the effects of attribute disconfirmation on consumer satisfaction.
  • 1.1K
  • 15 Nov 2021
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