Statistique et mort industrielle : la fabrication du nombre de victimes de la silicose dans les houillères en France de 1946 à nos jours

La tardive reconnaissance de la silicose en 1945, en extension de la loi de 1919 sur les maladies professionnelles, a été conditionnelle au poste de travail, au secteur industriel, à la durée d’exposition. Les houillères nationalisées comme les autres entreprises ont ainsi pu relativiser les données issues de la radiologie et de l’épidémiologie, attribuer le mal à des maladies comme la tuberculose, imputer l’indemnisation à l’assurance-maladie ou aux autres assurances sociales. Le recours à l’immigration étrangère, aux emplois temporaires, aux rapatriements, a minimisé la morbidité et la mortalité observables. Le rôle de certains professeurs de médecine, la complicité du parti communiste à la Libération, la passivité des syndicats, l’impuissance de la sécurité sociale des mineurs, l’opacité statistique, l’obéissance à un système paternaliste, ont empêché la silicose de devenir une « cause ». Son histoire fournit une matrice de celle de l’amiante, des TMS ou des cancers professionnels aujourd’hui.The tardy recognition of silicosis in 1945, as a development of the 1919 law on occupational hazards, was related to the job, the industrial area, and the length of exposure. The nationalized coal basins like other companies were able to relativize radiology and epidemiology data, attribute the illness to tuberculosis, and impute indemnification to health or other social insurances. Recourse to foreign immigration, temporary jobs, and repatriation minimized the observable morbidity and mortality. The role of some professors of medicine, the complicity of the Communist Party at Liberation, the passivity of the trade unions, the weakness of miners’ social security, statistical opacity and being in thrall to the paternalist system prevented silicosis from becoming a “cause”. Its history provides a matrix for asbestos and professional RSI or cancers today

Exhaust emissions of regulated and unregulated pollutants of passenger cars

Exhaust emissions of VOC speciation, aldehydes and other carbonyl compounds, polyaromatics and regulated pollutants are measured using a vehicle bench on a sample of passenger cars. 30 diesel and gasoline cars are tested, complying with ECE 1504 to Euro 3 emission standards, according to 10 real-world driving cycles based on European driving behaviour, with some of them adapted to vehicle size. The emission results of this large-scale measurement campaign show the influence of vehicle technology and driving behaviour on the emission of 100 individual pollutants. In addition, the results are discussed per VOC group and compared with other studies. The influence of the successive emission standards on the emission factors is very positive in most of cases. However, whereas hot CO2 is almost stable, diesel hot NOx, diesel hot and cold VOC, and the 6 most carcinogenic gasoline PAH have increased with standards. Diesel vehicles are less pollutant for CO, HC, CO2, VOC, but more pollutant for NOx and PAH. The distribution of VOC species per molecular family highlights the fact that monoaromatics make up the biggest share (~88 and 62 % resp. for gasoline and diesel vehicles). The second family is the alkanes which contribute resp. 8 and 9% of the total mass of measured VOC. The majority of volatile PAH is observed in the gaseous phase, but the least volatile and the carcinogenic PAH are adsorbed more in particulate phase

On the Stratification of Turbulent Mixed Layers

The vertical distribution of density or temperature is studied in turbulent boundary layers stratified by either salt or temperature and driven in an annulus by a rotating screen. With rapidly growing boundary layers the buoyancy flux due to entrainment becomes sufficiently large that the boundary layer is no longer well mixed. Stratification in the boundary layer is largest near the entrainment interface, corresponding to extension of the density transition into the turbulent boundary layer. The stratification in the rest of the boundary layer is smaller and nearly independent of height. The mean boundary layer stratification and structure and integral properties of the density distribution are found to be strongly dependent on the ratio of the entrainment rate to the turbulent velocity scale

Neutron Inelastic Scattering Cross Section Measurements for 23Na

In March 2011 the final data from measurements for the 23Na(n,n'gamma) reaction were delivered to the CEA - Commissariat à l'Énergie Atomique, Cadarache, France in the context of the EURATOM-CEA collaboration agreement. This report documents that deliverable. The measurement campaign was initiated in response to a request expressed by the CEA at a meeting of the Joint Evaluated Fission and Fusion nuclear data library project in 2007. This meeting took place under the auspices of the Nuclear Energy Agency (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development). The CEA supports research for the advanced, Generation-IV type, sodium cooled fast reactor and is engaged in a project to develop a prototype: ASTRID - the advanced sodium test reactor for industrial development. Inelastic scattering cross sections for sodium are of interest to the development of sodium cooled fast reactors. A recent OECD-NEA subgroup analysed the sensitivity of reactor parameters to cross sections and accordingly determined target uncertainties for the nuclear data [1]. Comparing these target uncertainties with the current status of nuclear data uncertainties and covariance data resulted in a list of target priorities. Among these features sodium inelastic scattering for which a target uncertainty of 4% was established for the average cross section in the energy range from threshold to 1.35 MeV. This is approximately seven times as good as the uncertainty for current evaluated data files for this isotope (see OECD-NEA High Priority Request List [2]). At IRMM, the GAINS gamma-array for inelastic neutron scattering was developed with the purpose of measuring cross sections with uncertainties at or below the target uncertainties for nuclides like 23Na using the (n, n'g)-technique [3,4]. In response to the request, a measurement campaign of the 23Na(n,n¿g) reaction was conducted with the GAINS array during 2009-2010, using metallic Na discs of 99.8% purity. The sample and the measurements were made at the Institute for Reference Materials and Measurements in Geel making use of GELINA, the Geel linear electron accelerator that drives a pulsed white neutron source allowing measurements by the neutron time-of-flight technique. A preliminary report of this work was presented earlier [5]. For the experimental work a careful review was made of the gamma-efficiency calibrations and the flux normalization in order to investigate in detail the corrections and the final uncertainties that may realistically be achieved.JRC.DG.D.5-Nuclear physic

New-onset diabetic ketoacidosis in a 13-months old african toddler: a case report

Type 1 diabetes mellitus is very rare in infants and toddlers and is usually associated with high mortality when complicated with diabetic ketoacidosis (DKA). Toddlers in DKA are often missed in our typical African setting where there is low index of suspicion. Usually, the classical symptoms are not usually at the forefront and many infants and toddlers who develop DKA are mistreated for infections. The case of a 13-months old toddler with new-onset type 1 diabetes mellitus, complicated with DKA at diagnosis is reported in view of its rarity and elevated mortality even when diagnosed in our African setting. She was subsequently treated with intravenous insulin and was passed over to subcutaneous insulin after the eradication of ketones in urine. She continues follow-up at the out-patient children diabetes clinic at the Bafoussam Regional Hospital.Key words: Diabetic ketoacidosis, children, Africa, diabetes complicatio