How are code red days determined? What is a code purple day? How does the Baltimore area?s poor air quality affect our health? What are the sources of Baltimore's pollutants? What are the costs and benefits of environmental regulation? Is there a relationship between asthma attacks in children and high ozone days?

These and other questions about the science, public policy, economics and health issues affecting the air we breathe in Baltimore will be addressed in the Mosaic Roundtable at UMBC, an annual panel discussion sponsored by UMBC's Interdisciplinary Studies Program.

The roundtable, titled "Air Quality and Human Health in Baltimore," will be held Wednesday, April 23, 2003, from 1 to 3 p.m. in Room 312 of UMBC's University Center. This event is free and open to the public.

This year's panel is made up of UMBC faculty and Baltimore area researchers, including:

• Elissa Levine, Principal Investigator for NASA's Baltimore Children's Asthma Project

• Royce Hanson, Professor of Practice in Policy Sciences and Interim Director of the Center for Urban Environmental Research and Education

• Virginia McConnell, Professor of Economics and author of internationally-published research on environmental regulation and the auto industry.

• Ray Hoff, Professor of Physics and Director of the Joint Center for Earth Systems Technology at UMBC

"Regional air quality managers in Maryland have to worry not only about locally generated pollution, but also pollution from the Midwest carried here by weather patterns and possibly some natural sources," says Hoff. "We're doing the science to determine where these substances come from to help regulators protect Marylanders' health."

For more information on the 2003 Mosaic Roundtable, please call (410) 455-2004 or visit http://www.umbc.edu/mosaic.