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In this paper, we discuss methods to integrate ecological resources, ecosystem services, risk, and the transition to long-term stewardship on Department of Energy lands. Three types of information are required about ecological resources before decisions can be made about remediation, site transitions, and long-term stewardship: (1) the ecological resources and ecosystem functions (such as productivity) present on site and their spatial pattern, (2) the ecosystem services these resources provide to people, and (3) the risks from the interactions between people and these ecosystems. Once the ecological resources and ecosystem services are evaluated, then decisions about future land use, preservation, conservation, or protection of ecological resources within a designated land use can be implemented. Long-term stewardship requires both ecosystem protection in terms of biological resources and ecosystem function as well as biomonitoring to ensure minimal radiological or chemical risk and to inform future management. In some cases, protection of ecological resources may be preferable to cleanup that is physically disruptive, provided land use designation is consistent with ecological protection. In such instances, less site cleanup can prove preferable to more.

A recent National Research Council study estimates that there are now 217,000 contaminated sites in the United States (NRC, 2003a). The proliferation of hazardous contamination across the landscape is an unwelcome if unsurprising byproduct of industrialization during the past century and the ledger continues to grow despite billions spent on remediation. Both government and the private sector are culpable in the production and disposal practices that created these sites. Although most sites are small and privately owned, the largest, and the majority of the most hazardous sites, were created by government itself. This is particularly the case with respect to nuclear weapons production, development and testing, but is also the result of other defense-related activities. These sites collectively contain billions of cubic yards of soil and groundwater in need of remediation (NRC, 2003a). Many would threaten both the environment and human health in their current condition, if present-day management control were to be neglected or lost.

Service work is often differentiated from manufacturing by the interactive labor workers perform as they come into direct contact with customers. Service organizations are particularly interested in regulating these interactions because they are a key opportunity for developing quality customer service, customer retention, and ultimately generation of sales revenue. An important stream of sociological literature focuses on managerial attempts to exert control over interactions through various techniques including routinization, standardization, and surveillance. Scripting is a common method of directing workers’ behavior, yet studies show that workers are extremely reluctant to administer scripts, judging them to be inappropriate to particular interactions or because they undermine their own sense of self. This paper examines a panoptic method of regulating service workers, embodied in undercover corporate agents who patrol employee’s adherence to scripts. How do workers required to recite scripts for customers respond to undercover control? What does it reveal about the nature of interactive labor? In-depth interviews with interactive workers in a range of retail contexts reveal that they mobilize their own interactional competence to challenge the effects of the panoptic, as they utilize strategies to identify and adapt to these “mystery shoppers,” all the while maintaining their cover. The paper shows the limits on control of interactive workers, as they maintain their own socialized sense of civility and preserve a limited realm of autonomy in their work.

This chapter introduces the Person-in-Environment (PIE) framework, a research design and a nationwide empirical study, developed by the author, to measure the relative impacts of socio-structural and personal factors on individual-level information behaviours (IB) and outcomes. The IB field needs to tackle two questions: (1) In a particular situation, how much of an individual's IB is influenced by personal characteristics? and (2) How much of this behaviour is shaped by one's environment, such as socio-structural barriers? PIE is a beginning effort to address this agency–structure debate, which is a topic that confronts many social scientists. This chapter first outlines IB research relevant to agency–structure integration. It then presents six principles of the PIE framework. Personal characteristics (e.g. cognitive and affective factors) and socio-structural factors (e.g. information resources distribution) are conceptualised as interrelated. Thus, these need to be tested simultaneously. Previously, it was difficult to link individual- and societal-level datasets because their units of observation often vary. To overcome these methodological challenges, this author purposed a research design that employs secondary analysis, geographic information systems techniques and structural equation modelling. An empirical study of the library usage by 13,000 American 12th graders is presented to demonstrate PIE's applicability. Discussions on the future directions of PIE studies conclude the chapter. The PIE framework can contribute to conceptual and methodological development in IB research. It also offers scholars and policymakers a way to empirically assess the contributions of information services on an individual's life, while taking personal differences into account.