Corrigendum: Tell me where you live How the perceived entitativity of neighborhoods determines the formation of impressions about their residents.

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2022.821786.].

Tell Me Where You Live How the Perceived Entitativity of Neighborhoods Determines the Formation of Impressions About Their Residents.

The studies presented here apply the concept of entitativity in order to understand how belonging to a particular geographical area - neighborhood - can determine the way others organize information and form impressions about area's residents. In order to achieve this objective, three studies were carried out. The first study aims to verify if a neighborhood varies in terms of perceived entitativity, and identify the physical and social characteristics of the neighborhoods that are more strongly associated with the perception of entitativity. The Study 2 and 3 used an experimental paradigm to explore how people's perceptions of neighborhoods' entitativity influenced their impressions of residents. To activate stereotypes, Study 2 used the name of real neighborhoods, and Study 3 employed only a set of pictures of unknown neighborhoods. The results show that the neighborhoods vary significantly with the regard to the perception of entitativity, and a set of physical attributes of place were strongly related with entitativity. The results showed that, independent of stimuli, the neighborhoods perceived as highly entitative, the supposed residents were subject to more extreme and quicker trait judgments, supported by greater confidence on the part of perceivers. Study 3 also reported that in highly entitative neighborhoods, the perceivers transferred more traits from the group to individual members. These results provide strong evidence that physical structure of neighborhoods imply different entitatity judgments that influences the way in which residents are perceived.

Ionising radiation risk perception through mental models: towards radiological emergency preparedness.

In case of a chemical, biological, radiological, or nuclear emergency, there are recommended or required behaviours to be adopted by the public, e.g. go inside, stay inside, stay informed. The initial response can be crucial to outcomes, all the while recognising that changes may be needed as the emergency progresses. The recent coronavirus pandemic demonstrated how the course of action taken by authorities endorsing these protective behaviours early on can save thousands of lives. Factors that determine response success include public compliance with authorities' recommendations and cooperation between experts and rescuers. In particular, the way rescuers perceive the risks of ionising radiation hazards will influence their preparedness to respond in case of a radiological or nuclear emergency. Having found no previous studies on radiological hazard and risk perception amongst rescuers in Portugal, mental models were used as a descriptive approach. The target groups were firefighters and the military formally trained to deal with radiation hazard emergencies. Their representations of radiological hazards and risks were analysed in the light of an expert model built ad hoc. The results show several overlays between experts and rescuers on the understanding of radiation hazards and potential risks. We conclude that the main gap between radiation risk perceptions by rescuers and experts involves the concepts and mechanisms of radiation contamination and its spread among individuals, in particular, if persons exposed to radioactive sources may also become a radioactive source themselves. This gap can have practical implications for an emergency response.

Tiered Approach to Resilience Assessment.

Regulatory agencies have long adopted a three-tier framework for risk assessment. We build on this structure to propose a tiered approach for resilience assessment that can be integrated into the existing regulatory processes. Comprehensive approaches to assessing resilience at appropriate and operational scales, reconciling analytical complexity as needed with stakeholder needs and resources available, and ultimately creating actionable recommendations to enhance resilience are still lacking. Our proposed framework consists of tiers by which analysts can select resilience assessment and decision support tools to inform associated management actions relative to the scope and urgency of the risk and the capacity of resource managers to improve system resilience. The resilience management framework proposed is not intended to supplant either risk management or the many existing efforts of resilience quantification method development, but instead provide a guide to selecting tools that are appropriate for the given analytic need. The goal of this tiered approach is to intentionally parallel the tiered approach used in regulatory contexts so that resilience assessment might be more easily and quickly integrated into existing structures and with existing policies.

Community-Driven Hypothesis Testing: A Solution for the Tragedy of the Anticommons.

Shared ownership of property and resources is a longstanding challenge throughout history that has been amplifying with the increasing development of industrial and postindustrial societies. Where governments, project planners, and commercial developers seek to develop new infrastructure, industrial projects, and various other land-and resource-intensive tasks, veto power shared by various local stakeholders can complicate or halt progress. Risk communication has been used as an attempt to address stakeholder concerns in these contexts, but has demonstrated shortcomings. These coordination failures between project planners and stakeholders can be described as a specific kind of social dilemma that we describe as the "tragedy of the anticommons." To overcome such dilemmas, we demonstrate how a two-step process can directly address public mistrust of project planners and public perceptions of limited decision-making authority. This approach is examined via two separate empirical field experiments in Portugal and Tunisia, where public resistance and anticommons problems threatened to derail emerging industrial projects. In both applications, an intervention is undertaken to address initial public resistance to such projects, where specific public stakeholders and project sponsors collectively engaged in a hypothesis-testing process to identify and assess human and environmental health risks associated with proposed industrial facilities. These field experiments indicate that a rigorous attempt to address public mistrust and perceptions of power imbalances and change the pay-off structure of the given dilemma may help overcome such anticommons problems in specific cases, and may potentially generate enthusiasm and support for such projects by local publics moving forward.

Comparative, collaborative, and integrative risk governance for emerging technologies.

Various emerging technologies challenge existing governance processes to identify, assess, and manage risk. Though the existing risk-based paradigm has been essential for assessment of many chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear technologies, a complementary approach may be warranted for the early-stage assessment and management challenges of high uncertainty technologies ranging from nanotechnology to synthetic biology to artificial intelligence, among many others. This paper argues for a risk governance approach that integrates quantitative experimental information alongside qualitative expert insight to characterize and balance the risks, benefits, costs, and societal implications of emerging technologies. Various articles in scholarly literature have highlighted differing points of how to address technological uncertainty, and this article builds upon such knowledge to explain how an emerging technology risk governance process should be driven by a multi-stakeholder effort, incorporate various disparate sources of information, review various endpoints and outcomes, and comparatively assess emerging technology performance against existing conventional products in a given application area. At least in the early stages of development when quantitative data for risk assessment remain incomplete or limited, such an approach can be valuable for policymakers and decision makers to evaluate the impact that such technologies may have upon human and environmental health.

Mapping Exposure to Multi-Pollutants Using Environmental Biomonitors-A Multi-Exposure Index.

Atmosphere is a major pathway for transport and deposition of pollutants in the environment. In industrial areas, organic compounds are released or formed as by-products, such as polychlorinated dibenzo-p-dioxins and dibenzofurans (PCDD/F's). Inorganic chemical elements, including lead and arsenic, are also part of the pollutants mixture, and even in low concentrations may potentially be toxic and carcinogenic. However, assessing the spatial pattern of their deposition is difficult due to high spatial and temporal heterogeneity. Lichens have been used as biomonitors of atmospheric deposition, because these organisms encompass greater spatial detail than air monitoring stations and provide an integration of overall pollution. Based upon the ability of lichens to concentrate pollutants such as PCDD/F and chemical elements, the main objectives of this study were to develop a new semi-quantitative multi-pollutant toxicity exposure index (TEQ-like), derived from risk estimates, in an attempt to correlate several atmospheric pollutants to human exposure levels. The actual pollutant concentrations were measured in the environment, from biomonitors (organisms that integrate multi-pollutants), enabling interpolation and mapping of contaminant deposition within the region. Thus, the TEQ-like index provides a spatial representation not from absolute accumulation of the different pollutants, but from the accumulation weighted by their relative risk. The assessment of environmental human exposure to multi-pollutants through atmospheric deposition may be applied to industries to improve mitigation processes or to health stakeholders to target populations for a comprehensive risk assessment, epidemiological studies, and health recommendations.

The role of forest in mitigating the impact of atmospheric dust pollution in a mixed landscape.

Atmospheric dust pollution, especially particulate matter below 2.5 µm, causes 3.3 million premature deaths per year worldwide. Although pollution sources are increasingly well known, the role of ecosystems in mitigating their impact is still poorly known. Our objective was to investigate the role of forests located in the surrounding of industrial and urban areas in reducing atmospheric dust pollution. This was tested using lichen transplants as biomonitors in a Mediterranean regional area with high levels of dry deposition. After a multivariate analysis, we have modeled the maximum pollution load expected for each site taking into consideration nearby pollutant sources. The difference between maximum expected pollution load and the observed values was explained by the deposition in nearby forests. Both the dust pollution and the ameliorating effect of forested areas were then mapped. The results showed that forest located nearby pollution sources plays an important role in reducing atmospheric dust pollution, highlighting their importance in the provision of the ecosystem service of air purification.

Tracking the Spatial Fate of PCDD/F Emissions from a Cement Plant by Using Lichens as Environmental Biomonitors.

In an area with multiple sources of air pollution, it is difficult to evaluate the spatial impact of a minor source. Here, we describe the use of lichens to track minor sources of air pollution. The method was tested by transplanting lichens from a background area to the vicinity of a cement manufacturing plant that uses alternative fuel and is located in a Natural Park in an area surrounded by other important sources of pollution. After 7 months of exposure, the lichens were collected and analyzed for 17 PCDD/F congeners. The PCDD/F profiles of the exposed lichens were dominated by TCDF (50%) and OCDD (38%), which matched the profile of the emissions from the cement plant. The similarity in the profiles was greatest for lichens located northeast of the plant (i.e., in the direction of the prevailing winds during the study period), allowing us to evaluate the spatial impact of this source. The best match was found for sites located on the tops of mountains whose slopes faced the cement plant. Some of the sites with highest influence of the cement plant were the ones with the highest concentrations, whereas others were not. Thus, our newly developed lichen-based method provides a tool for tracking the spatial fate of industrially emitted PCDD/Fs regardless of their concentrations. The results showed that the method can be used to validate deposition models for PCDD/F industrial emissions in sites with several sources and characterized by complex orography.

Declining trends of PCDD/Fs in lichens over a decade in a Mediterranean area with multiple pollution sources.

Lichens are one of the most useful environmental biomonitors, due to their ability to clearly reflect atmospheric deposition of pollutants. Dioxin and furan (PCDD/F) emissions have been reported to be decreasing in North European countries as a consequence of European regulations. This reduction has been perceptible across several environmental matrices, but it hasn't yet been shown in lichens as typical biomonitors of atmospheric pollution. In this work we compared concentrations of PCDD/Fs in two lichen species collected in a Mediterranean area with mixed land-uses, encompassing urban, industrial and natural areas, in 2009 and 2011 with the ones obtained in the same species collected in the same region in 2000. We found that PCDD/F concentrations in both lichen species have decreased approximately 70% since 2000 whereas industrial emissions have only decreased 25% for the same period. This substantial greater reduction observed in lichens may be due to several causes; after excluding fires as a possible explanation, we point out that possible causes could not only be the overall decrease in industrial emissions but also other causes such as traffic reduction and/or increase efficiency in the use of fuels. Capsule: PCDD/F concentrations in lichens have decreased 70% over the last decade, whereas industrial emissions have only decreased 25%.

Polychlorinated dibenzo(p)dioxin and furan (PCDD/F) congener profiles in cement kiln emissions and impacts.

Cement kilns are known to emit polychlorinated dibenzo(p)dioxins and furans (PCDD/Fs; "dioxins"), but estimates of the amounts and patterns of these emissions vary widely. These variations may stem from a combination of factors, including the design and operating conditions of the kiln, and the fuels and raw materials fed into the kiln. The goal of this study was to examine the patterns of dioxin emissions in a large set of stack-tests at two Portland cement kilns in Portugal that use a variety of fuels. A total of 152 stack-tests provided data on PCDD/F congener concentrations during which the kilns combusted a varied mix of fuels, including petroleum coke, coal, various "special" supplemental fuels, and refinery distillation ends, which are classified as hazardous wastes. The use of coal to fuel the kilns was found to generate significantly different emission-profiles relative to the use of petroleum coke, but the addition of hazardous wastes as a supplemental fuel did not significantly alter profiles. All of the kiln emission profiles were found to differ markedly from profiles in ambient air. However, the small absolute dioxin emission rates from the kilns suggested that kiln impacts would not be detectable via ambient air monitoring, even in rural settings.

Emissions of metals and polychlorinated dibenzo(p)dioxins and furans (PCDD/Fs) from Portland cement manufacturing plants: inter-kiln variability and dependence on fuel-types.

Emissions from Portland cement manufacturing facilities may increase health risks in nearby populations and are thus subject to stringent regulations. Direct testing of pollutant concentrations in exhaust gases provides the best basis for assessing the extent of these risks. However, these tests (i) are often conducted under stressed, rather than typical, operating conditions, (ii) may be limited in number and duration, and (iii) may be influenced by specific fuel-types and attributes of individual kilns. We report here on the results of more than 150 emissions-tests conducted of two kilns at a Portland cement manufacturing plant in Portugal. The tests measured various regulated metals and polychlorinated dibenzo(p)dioxins and furans (PCDD/Fs). Stack-gas concentrations of pollutants were found to be highly variable, with standard deviations on the order of mean values. Emission rates of many pollutants were higher when coal was used as the main kiln fuel (instead of petroleum coke). Use of various supplemental fuels, however, had little effect on stack emissions, and few statistically significant differences were observed when hazardous waste was included in the fuel mix. Significant differences in emissions for some pollutants were observed between the two kilns despite their similar designs and uses of similar fuels. All measured values were found to be within applicable regulatory limits.