The goal of the commission, launched in March 2005, is to strengthen health equity by catalysing policy and institutional change to address the social determinants of health.

The marine ornamental fish trade (MOFT) is a worldwide industry that targets a remarkable quantity and diversity of reef fish species and provides an important source of revenue for exporting countries, particularly developing nations in Southeast Asia. Here we provide, for the first time, an economic assessment of the MOFT to the European Union (EU), one of the key players of the marine aquarium trade, along with the USA and Japan. Data from EUROSTAT (the European Statistical System) was analysed for the MOFT between 2000 and 2011. Results show that this industry was not affected by the economic crisis and accounted for a total of 135 million Euros during the study period. Both the UK and Indonesia have been reinforcing their importance as leading importer and exporter countries, respectively. The long-term temporal pattern of the MOFT by EU and non-EU countries is described, as well as its diversity and evenness between importing and exporting countries. The present economic assessment also identifies the key players of this industry, and ultimately contributes to management and conservation practices that may enhance the sustainable use of world's coral reefs.

Surfactant‐enhanced aquifer remediation (SEAR) is currently under active investigation as one of the most promising alternatives to conventional pump‐and‐treat remediation for aquifers contaminated by dense nonaqueous phase organic liquids. An existing three‐dimensional finite‐difference enhanced oil recovery simulator is adapted to model the SEAR process. This simulator incorporates the complex chemistry and multiphase transport behavior of surfactant/water/organic mixtures in permeable media. Model governing equations and parameter requirements are discussed, and simulations are employed to illustrate some important issues potentially affecting SEAR performance at the field scale. Simulations suggest that the total time for remediation could be reduced by more than an order of magnitude over conventional remediation approaches by employing SEAR. The assumptions, approximations, and conditions required to achieve such a favorable result are identified, and the importance of modeling as a quantitative tool for the assessment of SEAR is highlighted.

Zones of dense, nonaqueous phase liquids (DNAPLs) are difficult to characterize as to their volume, composition, and spatial distribution using conventional ground‐water extraction and soil‐sampling methods. Such incompletely characterized sites have negative consequences for those responsible for their remedial design, e.g., the uncertainties in the optimal placement of ground‐water extraction wells and in the duration of remediation. However, the recent use of the partitioning interwell tracer test (PITT) to characterize DNAPL zones at sites in New Mexico [unsaturated alluvium] and in Ohio, Texas, and Utah [saturated alluvium] demonstrates that the volume and spatial distribution of residual DNAPL can be determined with accuracy. The PITT involves injection of a suite of tracers which reversibly partition to different degrees between the DNAPL and the ground water or soil air resulting in the chromatographic separation of the tracer signals observed at the extraction well(s). The design of a PITT requires careful consideration of the hydrostratigraphic, hydraulic, and certain geochemical properties of the alluvium being tested. A three‐dimensional, numerical model of a heterogeneous alluvial aquifer containing DNAPL has been developed for use with the UTCHEM simulator to demonstrate partitioning tracer testing and to address questions that are frequently raised in its application. The simulations include (1) the estimation of DNAPL volume for the simple case where only residual DNAPL is present in heterogeneous alluvium, (2) sensitivity studies to demonstrate the effect of increasingly low residual DNAPL saturation on the tracer signal, and (3) the effect of free‐phase DNAPL on the estimation of the volume of DNAPL present. Furthermore, the potential interference of sedimentary organic carbon as a DNAPL surrogate on the tracer signal is considered and shown to be readily resolved by the careful choice of tracers. Finally, a protocol for the use of PITTs in alluvial aquifers is presented.

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