Air Quality Legislation and Standards in the European Union: Background, Status and Public Participation

In order to improve air quality, the European Union introduced the New Air Quality Directive in 2008 and set its Member States strict targets on air pollution concentrations for the most harmful and challenging substances, such as fine particles. The law enforcement relies on a monitoring and reporting system to inform the European Commission and the public, for it is the citizens' right to be informed about harmful air quality. With sectoral measures, air quality could be improved in the past 20 years, but some emissions concentrations have stagnated in recent years and emissions temporarily exceed thresholds in nearly half of the Member States. The European Emission Inventory allows the commission to identify the substances, areas, and times of exceedances, and to implement sectoral measures leading to air quality improvements, all of which have to be made available publicly. This manuscript introduces the air quality legislation and reviews the quality of European air for recent years.

Public Policy Qualities and Training of New Engineering Talents in China-Based on the Practice and Enlightenment of EPP Professional Talent Training at Carnegie Mellon University

As a measure for higher engineering education in the new era to deal with a new round of scientific and technological revolution and industrial reform,China,s new engineering construction is an important strategic deployment to cultivate diversified and innovative engineering talents.In order to promote the new engineering construction in an all-rounded wa%talent training is the key.Compared with traditional engineering talents,new engineering talents need to have richer values and normative knowledge,especially public policy qualities,which is the ability that new engineering talents should have in this complex and changeable environment.The EPP(Engineering and Public Policy)professional training model at Carnegie Mellon University provides useful practical experience for the cultivation of public policy qualities of new engineering talents.

Key elements required to publish a good article:consensus among executive editors of Traditional Chinese Medicine and integrative medicine journals——a Delphi study

OBJECTIVE:To explore consensus among Traditional Chinese Medicine(TCM)/ integrative medicine(IM) journal executive editors in China regarding:(a)Their perceptions about the differences between papers published in Chinese/English journals;(b)the key elements required for publishing a good quality paper;(c) how editors manage and decide on the manuscripts submitted to their journals.METHODS:A three classic round Delphi was conducted with a purposive sample of TCIWIM Chinese journal executive editors.The key themes and items generated from six open ended questions in the first round were redistributed to the editors in two subsequent questionnaire rounds and scored on a five-point Likert scale.Consensus,reliability and stability of responses were assessed between the editors in the same round and between rounds.RESULTS:All ten editors initially agreeing to participate completed the three rounds,provided 60 comments in the first round,relating to 6 themes on:elements of publishing good quality article;differences between Chinese and English published articles;reasons for low quality of Chinese studies;maintaining the journal's good reputation;initiatives and strategies;and differences between Chinese and English versions of the same journal.High levels of consensus were reached for 97%items.Intra-class correlation(ICC) coefficient for agreement among editors was high in both second and third round and there was a good stability between the two rounds.CONCLUSION:High inter/intra-editor agreement was identified in the differences between TCM/IM research papers published in English and Chinese.Publishing standards and probity are keys in elevating the reputation of research.Editors' perspectives in maintaining and improving quality journal can be viewed as fundamental for editors and researchers in publishing any articles.