Association for Information Science and Technology

Background/Aim Air pollution has detrimental consequences on the health of populations.. This study was to implement a Health Impact Assessment (HIA) in order to quantify the impacts of air pollution levels on the major health outcomes done in five hospitals in Abidjan with regard to air pollution concentration levels, which will provide new results. Methodology Both exposure concentrations (µg/m3) and health issues were measured. The relationship between the health outcomes and air pollution concentration were estimated using a Poisson Regression model. Results PM2.5 Concentrations from the waste burning and traffic sites were comparable with annual averages (28.51 µg/m3 and 29.69 µg/m3 ). For domestic fires, the annual average was drastically higher at 155.1 µg/m3. For persons living in Cocody, up to 22 emergency room visits could have been avoided for the rainy seasons alone, including 10 deaths. Further, 11 outpatient health center visits could have also been avoided during the rainy seasons. In Yopougon, respiratory visits to the outpatient health center could be reduced more significantly. In considering results for the entire year (26.5 avoided outcomes) and the rainy season (76.7 avoided outcomes), we obtain different results as the HIA for the rainy season was calculated using a different timeframe at a higher risk level. A further 30 outpatient visits for heart and skin problems could also be avoided during the rainy season, given an adherence to WHO recommended levels. Conclusion Using the number of visits to either an outpatient health center or an emergency room as a proxy for adverse health effects, an association was seen between PM2.5 concentration levels and respiratory, cardiological, dermatological symptoms as well as mortality in the metropolitan area of Abidjan. Overall, we estimate that 143 hospital visits could have been avoided during the rainy seasons of our study period.

Meeting held in October in Copenhagen, Denmark.It was our first Annual Meeting conducted outside North America, although we have held many IA Summits in Europe and co-sponsored many other events there.

Tese (doutorado)—Universidade de Brasília, Faculdade de Ciência da Informação Programa de Pós-Graduação em Ciência da Informação, 2015.

Abstract EDITOR'S SUMMARYAt its 9th annual symposium, ASIS&T Special Interest Group/Social Informatics (SIG/SI) explored information boundaries from a social informatics perspective. William Jones' keynote address focused on dissolving boundaries around personal information and practical approaches to managing appropriate access. Contributed papers examined boundaries of big data, the diverse forces shaping information boundaries and technology use in human service and barriers preventing equal information access for native Spanish speakers. Presenters discussed location‐based services' ability to overcome boundaries as convenient or creepy and museums' use of indigenous groups' artifacts as an insensitive boundary violation. Since social informatics spans many interest groups, SIG/SI looks forward to further stimulating cross‐topical research.

Thom Haller, our associate editor for information architecture, is this issue's guest editor for our annual information architecture (IA) issue. Thom has assembled a broad range of articles in the special section, from the theoretical to the practical and from the verbal to the visual. Each of us is bound to find a gem or two of interest. In addition, in his regular IA Column, Thom examines the impact of the existing landscape on how we go about our information architecture. In our features this issue, we return to the subject of research data access and preservation (RDAP). In her article “Sustainability: Scholarly Repository as an Enterprise,” Oya Rieger addresses a very important topic in the digital world: the requirements and plans to sustain a repository – in this case the pioneering subject archive, arXiv.com, now hosted at Cornell University. And then we have our own records to think about, too. As part of our ASIS&T 75th anniversary coverage, Kathryn La Barre offers timely guidance about accessing the ASIS&T archives at the University of Michigan and discusses the content of the archives. And, finally, in recognition of the increasing importance of research data access and preservation, we launch a new column in this issue. With the support of SIG/DL (Special Interest Group/ Digital Libraries) RDAP Review will join the IA Column as a regular contribution. Susan Wells Parham, head of scholarly communication & digital curation at the Georgia Tech Library, will coordinate the column on behalf of SIG/DL for the current academic year. Joined in her debut by her colleague, Chris Doty, she examines whether the data management plans submitted with National Science Foundation proposals from Georgia Tech mention its institutional repository, SMARTech, and, if so, what they say and what sources they probably used for their information.