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At least 487 records · Page 27Linked to original sources
PubMed1996

[Prevention during building construction against electromagnetic fields caused by high voltage electric lines--principles and risk evaluation].

A growing body of evidence by new risk assessments concerning permanent exposure to low level, extremely low frequency electric and magnetic fields shows, a moderate long-term risk. This possible long-term risk makes it necessary to think about prudent avoidance in city planning. There is no Federal German legislation to make prevention mandatory. The risk assessments are based on epidemiological investigations of a relationship between residential locations of children in the vicinity of power lines and incidence of leukemia. The study design of recent studies has been essentially optimised compared to previous ones. The investigations have been carried out independently. The overall conclusion is more in favour of a relationship than against it. In Hamburg a preventive practice was established several years ago. Safe distances between power lines and new apartment houses are taken into account. Other concepts of avoidance are presented. These may be guided by values of magnetic fields or can be expressed by security distances, as can be shown by international examples.

Air Pollution, Indoor↗
PubMed1996

NFPA 99-1996: changes for gas and vacuum systems.

Every three years, the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) updates its Standard for Health Care Facilities. The latest edition, commonly referred to as NFPA 99-1996, was published in February 1996. A number of the changes made to this edition affect the provisions covering gas and vacuum systems; we discuss these changes and provide some commentary below. In the inset on the next page, we address the international impact of NFPA 99's gas and vacuum system standards. (For a discussion of some of the changes made to the previous version of this standard, NFPA 99-1993, refer to our Standards article in Health Devices 22[8-9], August-September 1993.

Building Codes↗
PubMed1996

[Polychlorinated biphenyls (PCB) in caulking compounds of buildings--assessment of current status in Berlin and new indoor air sources].

Since 1990 in Berlin the building blueprints and potaining documents for public utility buildings, in particular schools and child-care centres, have been serutinised and/or buildings have been visited for the possibility of the presence of elastic sealants containing PCB. Pursuant to this, samples of the sealing material of suspected buildings were examined and air in the rooms was measured. Results of measurements (n = 410) in community rooms of schools and child-care centres were an average value of 114 ng/m3 (maximum 7.360 ng/m3) and a geometrical mean of 155 ng/m3. For measurements in schools (n = 308), the geometrical mean was 229 ng/m3, whereas in child-care centres (n = 102) it was 48 ng/m3. Within the framework of the procedural method described above regarding the investigation of suspected buildings, about 15% of the school buildings and 3% of the child-care centres had indoor air values of over 300 ng/m3 (value indicating need for taking precautions) and 5% of the school buildings had more than 3.000 ng/m3 (the value warranting an intervention, according to the now defunct Federal Health Office). No values over 3.000 ng/m3 have been measured up to now in the community rooms of child-care centres. The investigations carried out throughout the Berlin Borough of Tiergarten of all school and child-care centre buildings yielded the results that about 13% of the schools and about 4% of the child-care centres had rooms with air values above 300 ng/m3. Only one school (4%), but none of the child-care centres investigated had values of more than 3.000 ng/m3. We are of the opinion that this proves the need for the creation of an on-target survey of the concrete pollution situation and short-term adoption of exposure-reducing measures or renovations. In any case the exposure of children to this toxicologically suspect substance by this additional way of pollution must be kept as low as possible. In addition to the description of a recently concluded PCB renovation in a school building, another indoor source of pollution is presented which was unknown to date. This is sealing material containing PCB which insulates the pipes of a heating system laid as an insulating floorcover strip near the wall. In the 21 classrooms of the school building, the indoor air concentration in 16 classrooms was 1.000-3.000 ng/m3 and in 5 rooms it was greater than 3.000 ng/m3, with a maximum value of 8.000 ng/m3. In addition, it could be proved for the first time that sealing materials containing PCB were used in the external joints of residential buildings and resulted in indoor air pollution of up to 1.000 ng/m3. The fact that the PCB was also found in sealants which were proved to have been processed even at the beginning of the 1990s, may be of special importance. Up to now, such recent use had always been excluded. Within the framework of the search for contaminated buildings, the time limit regarding the date of construction of the building is no longer adequate. It can be seen from this case in an exemplary fashion, that the removal of waste of the sealants (containing PCB) for the purpose of environmental care is still associated with great problems.

Adult↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Structural codes and patient safety: does strict compliance make sense?

The authors of this Comment note recent trends rigidifying the enforcement of building and safety codes for health care facilities and compare the estimated costs (in terms of dollars spent) of those trends with their anticipated benefits (in terms of potential years of human life saved). They estimate that for each potential year of life saved, strict enforcement of the Life Safety Code of the National Fire Protection Association would cost $12.7 to $63.5 million for hospitals and $1.1 to $2.6 million for nursing homes, the latter figure based on Massachusett's experience. These figures are contrasted to the cost of routine kidney dialysis, which is generally acknowledged to be an extremely expensive technology, costing approximately $20,000 per potential year of life saved. The authors suggest that even if strict enforcement of the Code were fully effective (which, given the current structure of the Code, seems doubtful), a portion of the substantial financial resources expended from our limited national health care budget in hewing to the letter of the Code might be better spent on other activities with greater potential yield in improving the quality of life for patients in hospitals and nursing homes.

Accident Prevention↗
PubMed2006

Mortality and Morbidity Liaison Committee--ISCS body mass index study.

OBJECTIVE: This study used the Impairment Study Capture System (ISCS) to examine the relationship between mortality and body mass index (BMI) in an insured population, particularly BMI in isolation from other risk factors. BACKGROUND: Large-scale studies of build in an insured population have traditionally been done on policies issued at standard premium rates. Insured mortality experience on elevated BMI is scarce or outdated. Increasingly competitive underwriting of build throughout the years has influenced what has been issued standard, and therefore, the relative experience of substandard to standard business. METHODS: We studied 241,966 policies submitted through the ISCS between 1989 and 2003 with actual height and weight and a code signifying abnormal build. Actual BMI were derived for these insureds. The average BMI was 35.0. Standardized mortality ratios (SMR) were computed using the 2001 Valuation Basic Table (VBT) as the expected basis. The average duration of exposure was 2.5 years. Results were stratified by underwriting factors of interest. RESULTS: Standardized mortality ratios rose quite modestly as BMI increased up until reaching severe obesity. Ratios for nonsmoker policies where elevated build was the only impairment saw SMR of 265% at BMI < 18.5, 130% at BMI 30.0-34.9, 160% at BMI 35.0-39.9 and 239% at BMI > or = 40.0. Ratios where other impairments were present tended to be higher in moderately obese ranges and lower at extremely obese ranges. No underwriting factor of significance impacted the pattern of ratios as BMI increased. CONCLUSIONS: While an average of 3 years may not be long enough to see the true manifestations of obesity, excess mortality is exhibited at low and high BMI ranges, especially when seen in isolation. The study is not a direct comparison of obese to non-obese subjects, but it is a point of reference for how obese insureds have fared vs standard issued policies. The relatively favorable experience may have more to do with the construction of the (standard) VBT table than any mitigating effect of modest obesity.

Adult↗
PubMed1996

Community residential care program and contract program for veterans with alcohol and drug dependence disorders--VA. Final rule.

This document updates the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) regulations concerning the Community Residential Care Program and the Contract Program for Veterans with Alcohol and Drug Dependence Disorders by incorporating by reference relevant portions of the latest editions of the National Fire Protection Association Life Safety Code entitled "NFPA 101, Life Safety Code" and "NFPA 101A, Guide on Alternative Approaches to life Safety." This is intended to ensure that buildings used for treatment and residential services for veterans meet appropriate fire and safety standards. Also, this document amends the regulations for such programs by delegating authority to each of the Veterans Integrated Service Network (VISN) Directors of the Veterans Health Administration to grant certain equivalencies or variances to building standards of the Life Safety Code. Further, this final rule does not adopt the portion of the proposed rule concerning the Adult Day Health Care Program since the Adult Day Health Care Program and the corresponding regulations are no longer in existence.

Adult↗
PubMed2003

Advanced modeling environment for developing and testing FES control systems.

Realistic models of neuromusculoskeletal systems can provide a safe and convenient environment for the design and evaluation of controllers for functional electrical stimulation (FES) prior to clinical trials. We have developed a set of integrated musculoskeletal modeling tools to facilitate the model building process. Simulink models of musculoskeletal systems are created using two software packages developed in our laboratory, Musculoskeletal Modeling in Simulink (MMS) and virtual muscle, in addition to one software package available commercially, SIMM (Musculographics Inc., USA). MMS converts anatomically accurate musculoskeletal models generated by SIMM into Simulink(R) blocks. It also removes run-time constraints on kinetic simulations in SIMM, and allows the development of complex musculoskeletal models without writing a line of code. Virtual muscle builds realistic Simulink models of muscles responding to either natural recruitment or FES. Models of sensorimotor control systems can be developed using various Matlab (Mathworks Inc., USA) toolboxes and integrated easily with these musculoskeletal blocks in the graphical environment of Simulink.

Computer Simulation↗
PubMed2005

Feature detection using spikes: the greedy approach.

A goal of low-level neural processes is to build an efficient code extracting the relevant information from the sensory input. It is believed that this is implemented in cortical areas by elementary inferential computations dynamically extracting the most likely parameters corresponding to the sensory signal. We explore here a neuro-mimetic feed-forward model of the primary visual area (VI) solving this problem in the case where the signal may be described by a robust linear generative model. This model uses an over-complete dictionary of primitives which provides a distributed probabilistic representation of input features. Relying on an efficiency criterion, we derive an algorithm as an approximate solution which uses incremental greedy inference processes. This algorithm is similar to 'Matching Pursuit' and mimics the parallel architecture of neural computations. We propose here a simple implementation using a network of spiking integrate-and-fire neurons which communicate using lateral interactions. Numerical simulations show that this Sparse Spike Coding strategy provides an efficient model for representing visual data from a set of natural images. Even though it is simplistic, this transformation of spatial data into a spatio-temporal pattern of binary events provides an accurate description of some complex neural patterns observed in the spiking activity of biological neural networks.

Action Potentials↗
PubMed2005

Reticular chemistry: occurrence and taxonomy of nets and grammar for the design of frameworks.

The structures of all 1127 three-periodic extended metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) reported in the Cambridge Structure Database have been analyzed, and their underlying topology has been determined. It is remarkable that among the almost infinite number of net topologies that are available for MOFs to adopt, only a handful of nets are actually observed. The discovery of this inversion between expected and observed nets led us to deduce a system of classification "taxonomy" for interpreting and rationalizing known MOF structures, as well as those that will be made in future. The origin of this inversion is attributed to the different modes with which MOF synthesis has been approached. Specifically, three levels of complexity are defined that embody rules "grammar" for the design of MOFs and other extended structures. This system accounts for the present proliferation of MOF structures of high symmetry nets, but more importantly, it provides the basis for designing a building block that "codes" for a specific structure and, indeed, only that structure.

Journal Article↗
PubMed1998

The role of computer software in the analysis of qualitative data: efficient clerk, research assistant or Trojan horse?

In the last 15 years there has been a proliferation of computer software packages designed to facilitate qualitative data analysis. The programs can be classified, according to function, into a number of broad categories such as: text retrieval; text base management; coding and retrieval; code-based theory building; and conceptual-network building. The programs vary enormously in the extent to which they can facilitate the diverse analytical processes involved. The decision to use computer software to aid analysis in a particular project may be influenced by a number of factors, such as the nature of the data and the researcher's preferred approach to data analysis which will have as its basis certain epistemological and ontological assumptions. This paper illustrates the way in which a package called NUD.IST facilitated analysis where grounded theory methods of data analysis were also extensively used. While highlighting the many benefits that ensued, the paper illustrates the limitations of such programs. The purpose of this paper is to encourage researchers contemplating the use of computer software to consider carefully the possible consequences of their decision and to be aware that the use of such programs can alter the nature of the analytical process in unexpected and perhaps unwanted ways. The role of the Computer Assisted Qualitative Data Analysis (CAQDAS) Networking Project, in providing up-to-date information and support for researchers contemplating the use of software, is discussed.

Humans↗
PubMed2004

Different numbers of rye B chromosomes induce identical compaction changes in distinct A chromosome domains.

In rye each B chromosome (B) represents 5.5% of the diploid A genome. Rye Bs have several nuclear to whole plant effects although they seem to bear no genes except for the ones that lead to their maintenance within a population. In this context, and considering that rye Bs are enriched in repetitive non-coding regions that build up heterochromatin (het), we investigated the influence of Bs on the organization of two chromatin fractions, namely the ribosomal DNA (facultative het) and satellite (non-het) domain of rye chromosome 1 by silver staining on root tip metaphase cells. The results show that rye Bs cause condensation both in the NOR and in the chromosome 1 satellite domain. Since the silver staining technique used is indicative of the transcriptional activity of the NORs, the condensation observed at those loci demonstrates that the rRNA gene arrays are down-regulated in the presence of Bs, regardless of their number per individual. Furthermore, the organizational changes of metaphase NORs find parallel with the interphase organization of ribosomal chromatin, since the frequency of cells with intranucleolar condensed rDNA regions increases drastically and nuclear matrix attachment pattern is altered in the presence of the Bs. Our results show an identical effect of the Bs on the organization of two distinct chromosome domains displaying a presence/absence dichotomy.

Chromosomal Instability↗
PubMed2006

Statistical analysis of a database of absorption spectra of phytoplankton and pigment concentrations using self-organizing maps.

We present a statistical analysis of a large set of absorption spectra of phytoplankton, measured in natural samples collected from ocean water, in conjunction with detailed pigment concentrations. We processed the absorption spectra with a sophisticated neural network method suitable for classifying complex phenomena, the so-called self-organizing maps (SOM) proposed by Kohonen [Kohonen, Self Organizing Maps (Springer-Verlag, 1984)]. The aim was to compress the information embedded in the data set into a reduced number of classes characterizing the data set, which facilitates the analysis. By processing the absorption spectra, we were able to retrieve well-known relationships among pigment concentrations and to display them on maps to facilitate their interpretation. We then showed that the SOM enabled us to extract pertinent information about pigment concentrations normalized to chlorophyll a. We were able to propose new relationships between the fucoxanthin/Tchl-a ratio and the derivative of the absorption spectrum at 510 nm and between the Tchl-b/Tchl-a ratio and the derivative at 640 nm. Finally, we demonstrate the possibility of inverting the absorption spectrum to retrieve the pigment concentrations with better accuracy than a regression analysis using the Tchl-a concentration derived from the absorption at 440 nm. We also discuss the data coding used to build the self-organizing map. This methodology is very general and can be used to analyze a large class of complex data.

Algorithms↗