This study analyzed correlates of volunteer blood donation in two separate mass blood drives. It is based on data from 1.722 university students: 1,080 donors and 642 nondonors. Previous research on blood donor motivation has suggested that altruistic, humanitarian reasons are the chief motives for donation. Our study indicates virtually no association between donorship and altruism. Donors were more responsive to social pressure and incentives and less impeded by a free-rider tendency and the costs of giving than were nondonors.
An innovative strategy significantly increasing data density by introducing a flexible, problem-orientated, and cost-effective water quality monitoring approach is presented. Most current monitoring strategies produce water quality data based on fixed stations conducted on fixed dates throughout a defined period of time and, thus, often give a biased and insufficient picture of the water quality. Establishing a refined picture of water quality while not increasing monitoring costs clearly needs a change in monitoring strategy. The complexity of social-economic needs, environmental aspects and evolving legislative guideline values makes the design of a suitable innovative strategy challenging. The combination of investigative and risk-based monitoring with real-time monitoring of proxies (e. g., electrical conductivity (EC)) is a vital asset within this here proposed innovative strategy. For the former, organic micropollutants (e. g., pesticides, pharmaceuticals) are suggested in this article to be a powerful tool for source apportionment as they allow to determine and quantify the cause and impact of water quality impairments. This strategy was tested in a field campaign in which an area of elevated EC was investigated at Lake Garda, Italy. A radio-controlled boat was used for EC mapping and sampling. As no chemical indicators for significant anthropogenic sources could be detected, the elevated EC could be assigned to natural sources.
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