Vision field testing in intoxicated individuals

PURPOSE: Law enforcement officers regularly conduct tests of physiological responses to assess impairment in drivers. Previous studies showed that visual field decreases with alcohol intoxication. We assessed visual fields at blood alcohol concentrations (BACs) around the per se limit, 0.08 g% for most states and Canada. We also propose a new test that officers may use in addition, or as an alternative, to other tests. METHODS: We tested 34 volunteer drinkers at baseline and at three intervals after starting drinking. All testing was done with both eyes open. Peripheral visual field was assessed with an arc perimeter, centered 30 cm from the bridge of the nose. The target was moved in from the periphery until the subject was able to identify it. Modified Confrontation Visual Field (MCVF) was assessed with the evaluator standing 60-80 cm from the subject, presenting 1, 2, or 5 fingers at 45 deg lateral angles with respect to midline. On each of three presentations on each side, the evaluator assessed the presence of head turn, incorrect count, saccade or fixation loss, and body sway. BAC was measured with a calibrated breath analysis instrument at each set of evaluations. RESULTS: Peripheral visual field, averaged over both eyes, decreased linearly with increasing BAC. On the MCVF test, body sway, fixation loss, and the presence of two or more clues all increased linearly with increasing BAC. The overall accuracy of the MCVF test at the 0.08 g% criterion level is 68.4%. CONCLUSIONS: We confirm the decrease in peripheral visual field with increasing BAC. We also demonstrate increasing difficulty in performing MCVF with increasing BAC. We believe these results will assist the law enforcement community to remove impaired drivers from the road

Bedforms Produced on a Particle Bed by Vertical Oscillations of a Plate

We describe a new mechanism that produces bedforms and characterize the conditions under which it operates. The mechanism is associated with pressure gradients generated in a fluid saturated particle bed by a plate oscillating in the water above it. These vertical pressure gradients cause oscillatory bed failure. This facilitates particle displacement in its interior and transport at and near its surface that contribute to the formation of a heap under the plate. Flows over erodible beds generally cause shear stresses on the bed and these induce bed failure. Failure driven by pressure gradients is different from this. We report on bedforms in a bed of glass beads associated with such fluctuating pressure gradients. We measure the development of the profiles of heaps as a function of time and determine the tangential and normal motion of areas on the beds surface and estimate the depth of penetration of the tangential transport. The measurements compare favorably with a simple model that describes the onset of failure due to oscillations in pressure

Falling Incapacity Benefit claims in a former industrial city: policy impacts or labour market improvement?

This article provides an in-depth study of Incapacity Benefit (IB) claims in a major city and of the factors behind their changing level. It relates to the regime prior to the introduction of the Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) in 2008. Glasgow has had one of the highest levels of IB in Britain with a peak of almost one fifth of the working age population on IB or Severe Disablement Allowance (SDA). However, over the past decade the number of IB claimants in Glasgow, as in other high claiming areas, has fallen at a faster rate than elsewhere, and Glasgow now has twice the national proportion of working-age people on IB/SDA rather than its peak of three times. The rise in IB in Glasgow can be attributed primarily to deindustrialisation; between 1971 and 1991, over 100,000 manufacturing jobs were lost in the city. Policy response was belated. Lack of local statistics on IB led to a lengthy delay in official recognition of the scale of the issue, and targeted programmes to divert or return IB claimants to work did not begin on any scale until around 2004. Evidence presented in the article suggests that the reduction in claims, which has mainly occurred since about 2003, has been due more to a strengthening labour market than to national policy changes or local programmes. This gives strong support to the view that excess IB claims are a form of disguised unemployment. Further detailed evaluation of ongoing programmes is required to develop the evidence base for this complex area. However, the study casts some doubt on the need for the post-2006 round of IB reforms in high-claim areas, since rapid decline in the number of claimants was already occurring in these areas. The article also indicates the importance of close joint working between national and local agencies, and further development of local level statistics on IB claimants

Social Preferences and the Efficiency of Bilateral Exchange

Under what conditions do social preferences, such as altruism or a concern for fair outcomes, generate efficient trade? I analyze theoretically a simple bilateral exchange game: Each player sequentially takes an action that reduces his own material payoff but increases the other player’s. Each player’s preferences may depend on both his/her own material payoff and the other player’s. I identify necessary conditions and sufficient conditions on the players’ preferences for the outcome of their interaction to be Pareto efficient. The results have implications for interpreting the rotten kid theorem, gift exchange in the laboratory, and gift exchange in the field

Authority Tools for Audiovisual and Music Catalogers: An Annotated List of Useful Resources

The Subcommittee on Authority Tools designed this list to bring together, in one place, descriptions of information sources that are useful when developing authorized headings to support audiovisual and music catalog records. Work began on this project in 1999, and the list was released in 2001. It became a historical OLAC document in 2020. Please note that links in this document were active in 2001 and may no longer exist currently

Structures of the CCR5 N Terminus and of a Tyrosine-Sulfated Antibody with HIV-1 gp120 and CD4

The CCR5 co-receptor binds to the HIV-l gp120 envelope glycoprotein and facilitates HIV-l entry into cells. Its N terminus is tyrosine-sulfated, as are many antibodies that react with the co-receptor binding site on gp120. We applied nuclear magnetic resonance and crystallographic techniques to analyze the structure of the CCR5 N terminus and that of the tyrosine-sulfated antibody 412d in complex with gp120 and CD4. The conformations of tyrosine-sulfated regions of CCR5 (α-helix) and 412d (extendedloop) are surprisingly different. Nonetheless, a critical sulfotyrosine on CCR5 and on 412d induces similar structural rearrangements in gp120. These results now provide a framework for understanding HIV-l interactions with the CCR5 N terminus during viral entry and define a conserved site on gp120, whose recognition of sulfotyrosine engenders posttranslational mimicry by the immune system

Structures of the CCR5 N Terminus and of a Tyrosine-Sulfated Antibody with HIV-1 gp120 and CD4

The CCR5 co-receptor binds to the HIV-l gp120 envelope glycoprotein and facilitates HIV-l entry into cells. Its N terminus is tyrosine-sulfated, as are many antibodies that react with the co-receptor binding site on gp120. We applied nuclear magnetic resonance and crystallographic techniques to analyze the structure of the CCR5 N terminus and that of the tyrosine-sulfated antibody 412d in complex with gp120 and CD4. The conformations of tyrosine-sulfated regions of CCR5 (α-helix) and 412d (extendedloop) are surprisingly different. Nonetheless, a critical sulfotyrosine on CCR5 and on 412d induces similar structural rearrangements in gp120. These results now provide a framework for understanding HIV-l interactions with the CCR5 N terminus during viral entry and define a conserved site on gp120, whose recognition of sulfotyrosine engenders posttranslational mimicry by the immune system

The Impossibility of a Perfectly Competitive Labor Market

Using the institutional theory of transaction cost, I demonstrate that the assumptions of the competitive labor market model are internally contradictory and lead to the conclusion that on purely theoretical grounds a perfectly competitive labor market is a logical impossibility. By extension, the familiar diagram of wage determination by supply and demand is also a logical impossibility and the neoclassical labor demand curve is not a well-defined construct. The reason is that the perfectly competitive market model presumes zero transaction cost and with zero transaction cost all labor is hired as independent contractors, implying multi-person firms, the employment relationship, and labor market disappear. With positive transaction cost, on the other hand, employment contracts are incomplete and the labor supply curve to the firm is upward sloping, again causing the labor demand curve to be ill-defined. As a result, theory suggests that wage rates are always and everywhere an amalgam of an administered and bargained price. Working Paper 06-0

Thermal Conversion of Methane to Acetylene

This report describes the experimental demonstration of a process for the direct thermal conversion of methane to acetylene. The process utilizes a thermal plasma heat source to dissociation products react to form a mixture of acetylene and hydrogen. The use of a supersonic expansion of the hot gas is investigated as a method of rapidly cooling (quenching) the product stream to prevent further reaction or thermal decomposition of the acetylene which can lower the overall efficiency of the process