Both long-term and short-term exposure to fine particulate matter (PM2.5) has been shown to increase the rate of respiratory and cardiovascular illness, premature death, and hospital admissions from respiratory causes. It is important to understand what contributes to ambient PM2.5 level to establish effective regulation, and air quality model can provide guidance based on the best scientific understanding available. However, PM2.5 simulations in air quality models have often found performance less than desirable, particularly for organic carbon levels. Here, some of major shortcomings of current air quality model will be addressed and improved by using CMAQ, receptor models, and regression analysis. Detailed source apportionment of PM2.5 performed using the CMAQ-tracer method suggests that wood combustion and mobile sources are the largest sources of PM2.5, followed by meat cooking and industrial processes. Biases in emission estimates are investigated using tracer species, such as organic molecular markers and trace metals that are used in receptor models. Comparison of simulated and observed tracer species shows some consistent discrepancies, which enables us to quantify biases in emissions and improve CMAQ simulations. Secondary organic aerosol (SOA) is another topic that is investigated. CMAQ studies on organic aerosol usually underestimate organic carbon with larger than a 50% bias. Formation of aged aerosol from multigenerational semi-volatile organic carbon is added to CMAQ, significantly improving performance of organic aerosol simulations.

Pollution studies have sought to understand the relationships between adverse health effects and harmful exposures. Many environmental health studies are predicated on the idea that each exposure has both acute and long term health effects that need to be accurately mapped. Considerable work has been done linking air pollution to deleterious health outcomes but the underlying biological pathways and contributing sources remain difficult to identify. There are many statistical issues that arise in the exploration of these longitudinal study designs such as understanding pathways of effects, addressing missing data, and assessing the health effects of multipollutant mixtures. To this end this dissertation aims to address the afore mentioned statistical issues. Our first contribution investigates the mechanistic pathways between air pollutants and measures of cardiac electrical instability. The methods from chapter 1 propose a path analysis that would allow for the estimation of health effects according to multiple paths using structural equation models. Our second contribution recognizes that panel studies suffer from attrition over time and the loss of data can affect the analysis. Methods from Chapter 2 extend current regression calibration approaches by imputing missing data through the use of moving averages and assumed correlation structures. Our last contribution explores the use of factor analysis and two-stage hierarchical regression which are two commonly used approaches in the analysis of multipollutant mixtures. The methods from Chapter 3 attempt to compare the performance of these two existing methodologies for estimating health effects from multipollutant sources.

No description available.

No description available.

The European Commission on 16 March 2011 proposed a harmonized system for the tax base calculation of companies operating in the EU. The proposed Common Consolidated Corporate Tax Base (CCCTB) indicates that businesses would benefit from a "one-stop-shop" system for filing their tax returns and would be able to consolidate all the profits and losses they incur across the EU. Member States would maintain their full sovereign right to set their own corporate tax rate. However, many Member States are against this new system as they think that CCCTB does not meet principles of subsidiarity and proportionality and is not available to reach its goals. Therefore, the hypothesis of this Master Thesis was formulated that CCCTB is an appropriate way to reach company tax harmonization in the EU and abolish obstacles which arise because of 27 different taxation systems in EU. After comprehensive analysis of major company taxation obstacles in the first chapter, these main barriers were identified: double taxation, additional compliance cost, over-taxation which arise in cross-border activities. The main measures such as Parent-Subsidiary Directive, Merger Directive, Interest and Royalties Directive and Arbitration Convention designed to cope with these barriers were discussed and the main challenges needed to solve by CCCTB were formulated. Proposed Directive and main elements of CCCTB were investigated in the second chapter. As there is a disagreement between Member States regarding to... [to full text] / Europos Komisija 2011 m. kovo 16 d. pateikė pasiūlymą harmonizuoti pelno mokesčio bazės apskaičiavimą. Pasiūlyta Bendra konsoliduota pelno mokesčio bazė (BKPMB) reiškia, kad būtų taikomas „vieno langelio” principas pildant vieną deklaraciją ir įmonės galėtų konsoliduoti visą pelną ir nuostolius pagal bendras taisykles. Valstybės išlaikytų nepriklausomą teisę nustatyti apmokestinimo tarifus. Tačiau dauguma ES valstybių yra prieš šios sistemos įvedimą, jos savo prieštaravimus grindžia tuo, kad BKPMB pažeidžia subsidiarumo ir proporcingumo principus bei nėra pajėgi pasiekti savo tikslų. Dėl to buvo šiame darbe buvo iškelta hipotezė: BKPMB yra tinkamas būdas siekti įmonių apmokestinimo harmonizavimo ir panaikinti kliūtis, kurios kyla taikant 27 skirtingas apmokestinimo sistemas ES. Atlikus išsamią analizę pirmojoje dalyje šios pagrindinės kliūtys buvo nustatytos: dvigubas apmokestinimas, didelės mokestinių reikalavimų laikymosi sąnaudos bei tarpvalstybinės nuostolių užskaitos apribojimas. Taip pat buvo nagrinėjami pagrindiniai dokumentai: Direktyva dėl bendrosios mokesčių sistemos, taikomos įvairių valstybių narių patronuojančioms ir dukterinėms bendrovėms; Direktyva dėl bendros mokesčių sistemos, taikomos įvairių valstybių narių įmonių jungimui, skaidymui, turto perleidimui ir keitimuisi akcijomis; Direktyva dėl bendros apmokestinimo sistemos, taikomos palūkanų ir autorinių atlyginimų mokėjimams tarp skirtingų valstybių narių asocijuotų bendrovių; Konvencija dėl dvigubo... [toliau žr. visą tekstą]

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2007. / Includes bibliographical references. Also available online.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Wisconsin--Madison, 1967. / Typescript. Vita. eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 241-254).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2007. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

Atmospheric aerosols have been shown to have a significant impact on air quality and health in urban environments. Organic aerosols (OA) are one of the main constituents of submicron particulate matter. They are composed of thousands of different chemical species, which makes it challenging to identify and quantify their sources. OA sources have been previously studied; however quantitative knowledge of aerosol composition and their processes in urban environments is still limited. The results presented here investigate OA, their chemical composition and sources as well as their interaction with gases. On-line measurements of species in the particle and the gas phase were performed both from field-based and laboratory studies. Aerosol Mass Spectrometers (AMS) were used together with the Chemical Ionisation Mass Spectrometer (CIMS) and the Filter Inlet for Gases and AEROsols (FIGAERO). Two ambient datasets were analysed to develop methods for source apportionment, using the Multilinear Engine (ME-2), in order to gain new insights into aerosol sources in Manchester and London. Long-term measurements in London allowed the opportunity to perform seasonal analysis of OA sources and look into the relationship of hydrogen-like OA (HOA) and heavy- and light-duty diesel emissions. The seasonal analysis provided information about OA sources that was not possible to observe on the long-term analysis. During Bonfire Night in Manchester, with high aerosol concentrations, particularly biomass burning OA (BBOA), it was possible to identify particulate organic oxides of nitrogen (PON), with further identification of primary and secondary PON and their light absorbing properties. Through laboratory work, new insights into cooking organic aerosols (COA) were gained, a higher relative ion efficiency (RIEOA) value of around 3.3 for OA-AMS compared with the typical RIEOA of 1.4 was determined, which implies COA concentrations are overestimated when using the RIEOA value of 1.4. Dilution showed to have a significant effect on food cooking experiments, increasing both the gas/particle ratios and the O:C ratios. The data generated in this work, OA-AMS mass spectra and markers from both gas and particle phase identified with FIGAERO-CIMS, provide significant information that will contribute to the improvement of source apportionment in future studies. This work investigates OA, with a focus on primary organic aerosols originated from anthropogenic activities. These scientific findings increase our understanding of OA sources and can help to improve inventories and models as well as to develop plans and policies to mitigate the air pollution in urban environments.

O objetivo deste trabalho à identificar os custos envolvidos no gerenciamento de recursos hÃdricos no Estado do CearÃ, papel este de responsabilidade da Companhia de GestÃo dos Recursos HÃdricos. ApÃs o levantamento desses custos, discute-se sobre alguns mÃtodos de apropriaÃÃo de custos, identificando qual se adapta melhor ao cenÃrio do CearÃ. AtravÃs do rateio de custos, identificamos a alocaÃÃo adequada destes e se aplica um mÃtodo de tarifaÃÃo pelo uso da Ãgua. Neste valor de cobranÃa estÃo inclusos os custo de operaÃÃo, administraÃÃo e operaÃÃo e de infraestrutura, este Ãltimo, geralmente, ignorado nos mÃtodos utilizados para se calcular o valor da tarifa a ser cobrada. No levantamento de infraestrutura realizado neste trabalho, encontrou-se que no Estado do Cearà existe mais de 1 bilhÃo de reais investidos em obras voltados para o gerenciamento de recursos hÃdricos, sem contar os custos da transposiÃÃo do Rio SÃo Francisco. ApÃs o rateio de custos foi aplicado o MÃtodo da Tarifa MÃdia utilizada pelo ConsÃrcio Tahal â JP Meio Ambiente para calcular a Tarifa MÃdia por Setor (TMS) de cada bacia hidrogrÃfica. Como resultado, temos que o valor da tarifa cobrada atualmente està bem abaixa da tarifa necessÃria para cobrir os custos de operaÃÃo, administraÃÃo, manutenÃÃo e infraestrutura. / The objective of this study is to identify the costs involved in managing water resourcesin CearÃ, a role of responsibility of the Water Resources Management Company. After identifying these costs, some methods of settlement are discussed, identifying which is best suited to CearÃâs reality. Through cost sharing, we identify the appropriate allocation of these and apply a method of charging for water usage. In this valueare included the costs of operation, management, operation and infrastructure, the latter usually ignored in the methods used to calculate the value of the tariff to be charged. When learning about the infrastructure during this research, we found that there is more than a billion dollars invested in the state of Cearafocused on the management of water resources, not including the costs of thetransposition of SÃo Francisco River. After the cost sharing method, the Average Tariff used by the Consortium Tahal - JP Environment was applied to calculate the Average Tariff by Industry in each section. As a result, we have that the tariff charged is currently below the rate needed to cover operation costs, administration, maintenance and infrastructure.