Search

In Canada, Environmental Effects Monitoring (EEM) programs exist within two regulations: the Pulp and Paper Effluent Regulations and the new Metal Mining Effluent Regulations under the Canadian Fisheries Act. EEM provides a biological, effects-based feedback loop to assess the effectiveness of technology-based regulations in protecting receiving environments. The promulgation of the Pulp and Paper Effluent Regulations, in 1992, represented a significant step forward in the Canadian regulatory approach by incorporating directly into a regulation a requirement to assess the effects of effluent discharges on receiving environments using proven scientific monitoring methodologies. Similarly, an assessment of the aquatic impacts of mines resulted in recommendations to amend the Metal Mining Effluent Regulations, recently promulgated in 2002, and includes an EEM program as a science-based feedback loop. As such, these regulations recognize the possibility that national, technology-based standards may not necessarily protect all receiving environments because of the diversity and variability of both discharges and receiving sites across the country. Since that time, EEM has improved its flexibility by considering both advances in science and the uniqueness of monitoring sites across Canada to allow the most appropriate and cost-effective monitoring approaches at each site while maintaining national consistency. This paper discusses the use of monitoring under two Canadian regulations to assess effects on aquatic ecosystems. As well, the National EEM approach to maintaining up-to-date scientific practices in a national regulatory program is discussed using examples.

Fatigue can cause human error, which is the main cause of accidents. In this study, the dynamic fatigue recognition of unmanned electric locomotive operators under high-altitude, cold and low oxygen conditions was studied by combining physiological signals and multi-index information. The characteristic data from the physiological signals (ECG, EMG and EM) of 15 driverless electric locomotive operators were tracked and tested continuously in the field for 2 h, and a dynamic fatigue state evaluation model based on a first-order hidden Markov (HMM) dynamic Bayesian network was established. The model combines contextual information (sleep quality, working environment and circadian rhythm) and physiological signals (ECG, EMG and EM) to estimate the fatigue state of plateau mine operators. The simulation results of the dynamic fatigue recognition model and subjective synchronous fatigue reports were compared with the field-measured signal data. The verification results show that the synchronous subjective fatigue and simulated fatigue estimation results are highly consistent (correlation coefficient r = 0.971**), which confirms that the model is reliable for long-term dynamic fatigue evaluation. The results show that the established fatigue evaluation model is effective and provides a new model and concept for dynamic fatigue state estimation for remote mine operators in plateau deep mining. Moreover, this study provides a reference for clinical medical research and human fatigue identification under high-altitude, cold and low-oxygen conditions., Competing Interests: Declarations. Competing interests: The authors declare no competing interests. Ethical approval: The study was conducted in accordance with the declaration of Helsinki guidelines and approved by the Institutional Review Board of the Northeastern University (23–2019-0105). Consent to participate declaration: Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study. Consent to publish declaration: Informed consent from all subjects for publication was obtained., (© 2025. The Author(s).)

Aided phytostabilisation uses metal-tolerant plants, together with organic or inorganic amendments, to reduce metal bioavailability in soil while improving soil quality. The long-term effects of the following organic amendments were examined as part of an aided phytostabilisation field study in an abandoned Pb/Zn mining area: cow slurry, sheep manure and paper mill sludge mixed with poultry manure. In the mining area, two heavily contaminated vegetated sites, showing different levels of soil metal contamination (LESS and MORE contaminated site), were selected for this study. Five years after amendment application, metal bioavailability (CaCl 2 extractability) along with a variety of indicators of soil microbial activity, biomass and diversity were analysed. Paper mill sludge mixed with poultry manure treatment resulted in the highest reduction of Cd, Pb and Zn bioavailability, as well as in stimulation of soil microbial activity and diversity, especially at the LESS contaminated site. In contrast, cow slurry was the least successful treatment. Our results emphasise the importance of the (i) long-term monitoring of soil quality at sites subjected to aided phytostabilisation and (ii) selection of the most efficient amendments and plants in terms of both reduction of metal bioavailability and improvement of soil quality., (© FEMS 2016. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com.)

Ghana has abundant mineral reserves in many of its regions, and gold mining remains one of the country's main sources of revenue. Given Ghana's current position in the global gold market, this review provides insight into the ASGM sector to give an understanding of the pertinent issues in the sector and its role in the socio-economic development of the country. This review assesses the effects of ASGM operations in economic, social, health, and environmental contexts to raise awareness of issues related to ASGM. It evaluates the measures taken to lessen the consequences of ASGM and maintain the sector's long-term viability. This review considers the foremost issues, including continued Hg use in ASGM, recent use of cyanide in ASGM, pollution of water bodies, and toxic metal contamination. It takes into account sustainable measures and remedial techniques that Ghana has implemented to alleviate the negative effects and support best mining practices. The primary factors influencing people to participate in ASGM are the need for quick sources of income, the scarcity of jobs in rural areas, the economic hardship, the need to supplement earnings from other activities like trading, and the comparatively meager profits from agricultural activities. Findings indicated that to gain more traction in addressing the challenges in the ASGM sector, the involvement of the community and direct stakeholders is essential to promoting responsible mining and environmentally sustainable practices. This review will increase awareness and pressure on decision-makers, researchers, and ASGM communities about the relevance of environmental conservation and sustainability., (© 2023. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.)

This paper explores the power of media in promoting lifelong learning in mobilising the citizenry against 'galamsey' activities in Ghana. 'Galamsey' connotes 'an illegal process of gathering mineral resources, especially gold, and selling them'. It is an activity engaged in by young adults resulting in destroying water bodies and posing water-related challenges to the citizenry. This qualitative study sought to ascertain what informed practitioners in the media space to mount a sustained lifelong learning drive against 'galamsey' in Ghana. The study used in-depth interview and focus group discussions to collect data from 15 participants purposively selected. Six male and female participants also shared their experiences on the 'galamsey' menace and the fight against it. Their thought, views and insightful ideas lie at the heart of this study. It emerged that the 'galamsey' activities were complex and engaged in by both Ghanaians and foreigners using heavy earth moving machines destroying forest vegetation cover and water bodies. The players involved bribe their way for protection. This paper recommends that the Government of Ghana and media houses involved in the fight against 'galamsey' sustain the lifelong learning drive to save water bodies, arable lands, and forest vegetation cover in Ghana.

The optimization of open pit mine production scheduling is not only a multistage decision-making problem but also involves space-time dynamic action among multiple factors, which makes it difficult to optimize production capacity, mining sequence, mining life, and other factors simultaneously in optimizing design. In addition, the production capacity is disorderly expanded, the calculation scale is large, and the optimization time is long. Therefore, this article designs a mobile capacity search domain method to improve computing efficiency without omitting the optimal production capacity. At the same time, taking the maximum net present value as the objective function, an enumeration method is used to optimize the possible paths in different capacity domains and calculate the infrastructure investment and facility idle cost required to meet the maximum production capacity on each possible path to control the disorderly expansion and violent fluctuation of production capacity. The research shows that the open pit mine production scheduling optimization algorithm proposed in this article can not only realize the simultaneous optimization of the three elements of production capacity, mining sequence, and mining life but also improve the computing efficiency by 200 times. Furthermore, the production capacity fluctuation is less than 1.4%. The mining life of the mine is extended by 13 years, and the overall economic benefit is increased by 18%., (© 2023. The Author(s).)

This paper was aimed at providing a perspective on the assessment of land-use dominant transition. Based on the transfer matrix of land-use type, the dynamic degree of dominant morphology transition was measured, and an active degree index was proposed. The spatiotemporal differentiation characteristics were assessed and analyzed by land use change characteristics in different phases. Our assessment resulted in three types of spatiotemporal differentiation of Hainan Province in China. The whole island can be divided into three regions with two parallel lines at 45° based on spatiotemporal differentiation characteristics. The "slow-type" was distributed in four eastern counties (cities), "steady-type" was distributed in 13 central and western counties (cities), and the "active-type" was distributed in four central counties (cities). Over three phases, namely 2010-2011, 2012-2015, and 2015-2018, four levels of spatiotemporal differentiation of the 21 counties (cities) were assessed, and they were relatively stable, leaping, declining, and unstable. Areas of new construction and fixed assets investments consumed by increased construction land were the positive factors of land-use dominant transition, while output values of secondary industries and area of industrial-mining per capita were the negative factors. Based on these results, a more informative examination of LULC was proposed, and all resulting land management policies will be more targeted and effective., (© 2022. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.)

Globally, employability is increasingly becoming an issue of concern in higher education due to demands from the labour market requiring work-ready graduates. In the Global South, particularly South Africa, universities are on a quest to develop competence and improve student employability. This paper is set to investigate the impact of work-integrated learning on employability for mining engineering undergraduates in South Africa. The research data were collected using the mixed methods approach and a case study design. Experiential learning was used to examine the impact of work-integrated learning on the employability of mining engineering students. The findings provide a description of perspectives for mining engineers, lecturers, and workplace supervisors concerning the enhancement of employability for mining engineering students. The findings revealed that professional associations play a crucial role in the development of professional skills. This article argues for strong partnerships with industry partners to nurture the employability of mining engineering students.

The research presented in this paper aims at creating a bilingual (sr-en), easily searchable, hypertext, born-digital, corpus-based terminological database of raw material terminology for dictionary production. The approach is based on linking dictionaries related to the raw material domain, both digitally born and printed, into a lexicon structure, aligning terminology from different dictionaries as much as possible. This paper presents the main features of this approach, data used for compilation of the terminological database, the procedure by which it has been generated and a mobile application for its use. Available (terminological) resources will be presented—paper dictionaries and digital resources related to the raw material domain, as well as general lexica morphological dictionaries. Resource preparation started with dictionary (retro)digitisation and corpora enlargement, followed by adding new Serbian terms to general lexica dictionaries, as well as adding bilingual terms. Dictionary development is relying on corpus analysis, details of which are also presented. Usage examples, collocations and concordances play an important role in raw material terminology, and have also been included in this research. Some important related issues discussed are collocation extraction methods, the use of domain labels, lexical and semantic relations, definitions and subentries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the adult learning dimensions of protestors as they participate in a campaign to stop coal seam gas exploration in Gippsland in Central Victoria, Australia. On a global level, the imposition of coal seam gas exploration by governments and mining companies has been the trigger for movements of resistance from environmental groups. They are concerned about the impact of mining on their land, food and water supplies. In central Gippsland a group of "circumstantial activists" comprised of farmers, tree changers and other local residents are campaigning against coal seam gas exploration. This unlikely coalition of environmental action groups has made effective use of a variety of community education strategies. This paper commences by outlining some of the key literature on learning and activism drawing on the education tradition of adult learning. We then draw on key concepts from Bourdieu's writing on "habitus" and "field" to analyse the data from this research. We outline some of the learning practices of activists; through their involvement in this campaign, and the knowledge and skills they gain as they develop a feel for the game of protest. We argue circumstantial activists learn both formally and informally in the social environment of campaigning. Of particular interest is the role of more experienced activists from Friends of the Earth (FOE), a non-government organisation (NGO), as they pass on knowledge, experience, tactics and strategies to the novice and less experienced activists in this community campaign. We explore some of the contradictions of the protestors' identification as activists using Bourdieu's concepts of "doxa" and "Ilusio". The paper concludes by arguing learning in activism is a rich tradition of adult education and practice. However, Bourdieu's writing on field and habitus makes an added contribution to interpreting the learning that occurs in the social space of a campaign or social movement.

This paper focuses on the educational experiences of pupils at 'Lillydown Primary', a state school for 3-11 year olds, located in a former mining community in the north of England. It mobilises Avery Gordon's notion of social haunting to illustrate how experiences of school are shaped not only by current socioeconomic circumstances but also by historical class-based relations and performances that remain embedded in certain working-class communities. Whilst the multiple forms of violence inflicted by the neoliberal state on places like Lillydown have caused profound and far-reaching social and economic harm, our data suggests that it is possible, at least in some circumstances, to reckon with and draw on the past to harness the 'goodness' of ghosts. In particular, the paper illustrates how historical relations, which have typically worked as an apparatus for creating and maintaining relations of solidarity, trust and equality underground and in community life more broadly, continue to be transmitted and retraditionalised within the School. These historical transmissions enable staff to develop encouraging relations with their pupils and connect with them in ways that locate contemporary experiences of education in a socio-historical framework that recognises the richness and heritage of working-class culture, as well as the pain and loss. The echoes and murmurs of the past that remain to haunt are reckoned with and harnessed by staff, we argue, through their shared working-class histories.

This paper proposes a real-time chain and a novel embedded Markovian queueing model with variable bulk arrival (VBA) and variable bulk service (VBS) in order to establish and assure a theoretical foundation to design a blockchain-based real-time system with particular interest in Ethereum. Based on the proposed model, various performances are simulated in a numerical manner in order to validate the efficacy of the model by checking good agreements with the results against intuitive and typical expectations as a baseline. A demo of the proposed real-time chain is developed in this work by modifying the open source of Ethereum Geth 1.9.11. The work in this paper will provide both a theoretical foundation to design and optimize the performances of the proposed real-time chain, and ultimately address and resolve the performance bottleneck due to the conventional block-synchrony by employing an asynchrony by the real-time deadline to some extent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]