Visual acuity of dentists under simulated clinical conditions

Objectives: This study examined the near visual acuity of dentists in relation to age and magnification under simulated clinical conditions. Materials and methods: Miniaturized visual tests were performed in posterior teeth of a dental phantom head in a simulated clinical setting (dental chair, operating lamp, dental mirror). The visual acuity of 40 dentists was measured under the following conditions: (1) natural visual acuity, distance of 300mm; (2) natural visual acuity, free choice of distance; (3) Galilean loupes, magnification of ×2.5; (4) Keplerian loupes, ×4.3; (5) operating microscope, ×4, integrated light; (6) operating microscope, ×6.4, integrated light. Results: The visual acuity varied widely between individuals and was significantly lower in the group ≥40years of age (p < 0.001). Significant differences were found between all tested conditions (p < 0.01). Furthermore, a correlation between visual acuity and age was found for all conditions. The performance with the microscope was better than with loupes even with comparable magnification factors. Some dentists had a better visual acuity without optical aids than others with Galilean loupes. Conclusions: Near visual acuity under simulated clinical conditions varies widely between individuals and decreases throughout life. Visual deficiencies can be compensated for with optical aids. Clinical relevance: Newly developed miniaturized vision tests have allowed, in a clinically relevant way, to evaluate the influence of magnification and age on the near visual acuity of dentist

Personal and environmental factors associated with active commuting to school in Switzerland

Objective. To assess whether prevalence of active commuting and regular car trips to school varies across communities and language regions in Switzerland and to determine personal and environmental correlates. Methods. During the school year 2004/2005, 1345 parental questionnaires (response rate 65%) of children attending 1st, 4th and 8th grades were completed, 1031 could be linked to a GIS environmental database. A German-speaking, a French-speaking and a bilingual study area were included. Usual mode of transportation and frequency of regular car trips to school were assessed. Associations with personal and environmental factors were evaluated with multivariate regression models. Results. Seventy-eight percent of the children actively traveled to school. Twelve percent were regularly driven at least once a week by car. Major road crossings and distance were significantly related to usual mode of transportation, but not to regular car trips. Age, daycare attendance, parental safety concerns, number of cars in the household and belonging to French-speaking population were significantly associated with increased regular car trips. Conclusion. Objective predictors are main deciding factors for active commuting to school as main mode of transport whereas personal and lifestyle factors are important factors associated with frequency of car use. Not only objective but also differing cultural attitudes should be considered when promoting non-motorized travel

Landslide reconstruction and monitoring in Brienz based on dendrogeomorphology

Mass movements such as landslides and rockfalls are driving forces in mountainous regions and pose a major threat to its people and infrastructure. The alpine village of Brienz in Switzerland is threatened by both an ongoing landslide and the danger of a major rockslide. Regular rockfalls also threaten the village. The entire area is therefore strictly monitored. The additional creation of a drainage system is intended to slow down or stop the landslide by reducing the water pressure in the mountain. While these approaches enable authorities to gain knowledge about the present state of the landscape and to plan on the future course of action, they do not give any information about the past development of the landslide. Dendrogeomorphology offers the possibility to reconstruct the time before the start of monitoring, by analysing the annual formed tree rings. In this Master’s thesis different methods are applied to gather information about past movement in a subarea of the Brienzer landslide. In addition, the approaches used, and the obtained results are compared to each other to assess their reliability. Furthermore, location and visual inclination of individual trees are discussed as indicator of the extent of disturbance to be expected. First, a visual inspection of all chronologies was used to get a basic impression of possible activity phases. Second, the chronologies of each tree were examined individually, and years of disturbance were noted manually. Third, using the eccentricity index with different thresholds (based on the average, median, and artificially set), the years of disturbance of each tree were also calculated. Fourth, an attempt was made to confirm identified event years by making thin sections and search for reaction wood. However, this was not successful, probably due to a too small sample size or errors in setting the cores. The results of tree-ring analyses showed that as far back as the tree rings went (~1820), the area was in motion and still is today. The sites experienced periods of activity, that were separated by resting phases in 1850-1875, 1945-1955, and 1975-1985. The comparison of the different methods has also shown that it is important to interpret the results with caution, as manual assessment and eccentricity index calculations sometimes identified different activity phases. One advantage of the eccentricity approach is that it is sensitive enough to notice the landslide increase, while the manual approach failed to do so. But this sensitivity is also a disadvantage. If the arbitrary threshold is set low, "false" events (noise) are detected, if it is set too high, events are ignored. The manual approach on the other hand is not dependent on a general threshold but on the estimation of each individual event by itself. Lastly, high numbers of disturbances in individual trees could often be associated with cracks in the soil in close proximity. On the other hand, both inclined trees and vertical trees show equally often high numbers of disturbances. Consequently, based on the results of this work, location appears to be a better disturbance indicator than visible damage on the tree. Tree ring analyses not only allow to record the history of a landslide dating back for several centuries, which is a great advantage compared to other monitoring methods, but also to monitor dynamics within a sliding area based on analysis of individual trees and their locations. Some predictions for the future might also be possible for example an acceleration of the slide if the tree ring analysis indicates an increase in event number per year. For all these reasons, the inclusion of dendrogeomorphology in the comprehensive monitoring of landslides should be considered

Can I Get There? Can I Play? Can I Stay? Creating an Inclusive Playspace Guide in Australia.

Playspaces bring children and adults together for fun and social interaction but are rarely designed for the inclusion of all community members. In Australia, local government authorities (councils) are responsible for parks and playspaces. The New South Wales state government launched their inclusive playspaces policy in 2017. A guideline document was proposed but a guideline does not guarantee implementation. Consequently, an inclusive design process for developing the guide became the strategy. The task was to develop a guide that explained the concepts of inclusion and universal design within the playspace context. The project took an iterative and collaborative approach to the design of the guide. Intended users were those involved in creating playspaces, not playspace users per se. The participatory governance structure involved three levels of collaboration: a small steering group of experts, a larger group with key stakeholders, and a wider group of stakeholders and interested persons. This collegial and participative process consisted of a series of meetings and workshops which fostered learning and ideation for all participants. Through this process three underpinning concepts emerged: Can I get there? Can I play? Can I stay? The process educated and informed stakeholders, encouraged participants to contribute to the outcomes and provided community-led guidance for those contracted to design the guideline. The result was an inclusive playspace guide that recognized the design guidance required by council personnel in the context of universal design. The process and governance structure provides a good working model to build on. The success of the guideline was recognized with a national award from the Institute of Landscape Architects for Community Contribution. The purpose of this paper is not to comment on or evaluate the outcome of the guidelines. Rather, it is to document the inclusive and participatory governance structure and iterative process from a professional participant perspective

Using Predictive Model for Strategic Control of Multi-reservoir System Storage Capacity

AbstractThe paper will describe the algorithm based on adaptive optimization of multi reservoir control, which the medium-term water flow predictions into the reservoirs for several months ahead repeatedly use. Hydrological prediction model was created using ANN method and values of control outflows are searching by optimization based on evolutionary algorithms optimization technique. The objective function was descripted as the sum of squares deviations between required and actual controlled water outflow from reservoirs where objective function is minimized. The algorithm of adaptive control is applied to the operation storage control of selected reservoir system, which open water reservoirs Vir and Brno are created

Effects of environmental estrogens on reproductive biology of the fathead minnow

Since the early 1990s, environmental estrogens have been recognized as an important environmental threat. Wastewater of 10 aerated lagoon treatment facilities in Iowa was evaluated for estrogenic activity using a short-term caged fathead minnow exposure and a plasma vitellogenin (Vtg) assay. Plasma Vtg results indicated that wastewater entering the three-lagoon systems was estrogenic to male fish, but with serial passage through the lagoons, the estrogenic activity decreased to a level that was not sufficient to induce vitellogenesis. Wastewater retention time in the lagoons may have been a key treatment factor.;Feral fathead minnows captured at aerated lagoon wastewater treatment facilities (WWTFs) exhibited plasma Vtg trends similar to those of the caged fish. Incidence of ovotestes in feral fish was low (1 of 65; 1.5%) and similar to that of fathead minnows captured at a reference site (national wildlife refuge). The results of both the caged and feral fish studies indicate that effluents from aerated lagoon WWTFs are low in estrogenic activity, but that raw wastewater was estrogenic to fish. Thus, the potential exists for release of estrogenic effluents from these systems if the treatment is not complete.;The plasma Vtg response of male fish exposed to estradiol for 10 days was dose-dependent and predictable (R2 = 0.988) through the range of estradiol exposure concentrations tested. The lowest observed effects concentration (LOEC) for induction of plasma Vtg was 50 ng/L. The dose-response curve from this study may be used in conjunction with exposure of male fish to surface water or wastewater to estimate the magnitude of the estrogenic potency of the water in terms of estradiol equivalents. ;Atrazine did not cause overt reproductive toxicity to adult fathead minnows in a short-term reproduction assay. However, decreasing trends in relative testis weight, testis maturity, and percent embryo fertilization suggest that further investigation is warranted. Nearly all endpoints concerning fish exposed to estradiol (positive control) were significantly different from atrazine-exposed fish and control fish. The results suggest that atrazine did not have strong estrogenic effects and did not cause endocrine system disruption in fathead minnows at environmentally relevant concentrations

Uptake, accumulation and metabolization of the antidepressant fluoxetine by Mytilus galloprovincialis

Fluoxetine, a selective serotonin re-uptake inhibitor (SSRI) antidepressant, is among the most prescribed pharmaceutical active substances worldwide. This study aimed to assess its accumulation and metabolization in the mussel Mytillus galloprovincialis, considered an excellent sentinel species for traditional and emerging pollutants. Mussels were collected from Ria Formosa Lagoon, Portugal, and exposed to a nominal concentration of fluoxetine (75 ng L-1) for 15 days. Approximately 1 g of whole mussel soft tissues was extracted with acetonitrile:formic acid, loaded into an Oasis MCX cartridge, and fluoxetine analysed by liquid chromatography with tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MSn). After 3 days of exposure, fluoxetine was accumulated in 70% of the samples, with a mean of 2.53 ng g(-1) dry weight (d.w.) and norfluoxetine was only detected in one sample (10%), at 3.06 ng g(-1) d.w. After 7 days of exposure, the accumulation of fluoxetine and norfluoxetine increased up to 80 and 50% respectively, and their mean accumulated levels in mussel tissues were up to 4.43 and 2.85 ng g(-1) d.w., respectively. By the end of the exposure period (15 days), both compounds were detected in 100% of the samples (mean of 9.31 and 11.65 ng g(-1) d.w., respectively). Statistical analysis revealed significant accumulation differences between the 3rd and 15th day of exposure for fluoxetine, and between the 3rd and 7th against the 15th day of exposure for norfluoxetine. These results suggest that the fluoxetine accumulated in mussel tissues is likely to be metabolised into norfluoxetine with the increase of the time of exposure, giving evidence that at these realistic environmental concentrations, toxic effects of fluoxetine in mussel tissues may occur. (C) 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved

Differences in weight status and energy-balance related behaviors among schoolchildren in German-speaking Switzerland compared to seven countries in Europe

BACKGROUND: Overweight in children and adolescents have increased significantly and are a major public health problem. To allow international comparisons, Switzerland joined the European study 'ENERGY' cross sectional survey consortium that investigated the prevalence of overweight and obesity as well as selected dietary, physical and sedentary behaviors of 10--12 years old pupils across seven other countries in Europe. The aims of the present study was to compare body composition and energy-balance related behaviors of Swiss schoolchildren to those of the seven European ENERGY-countries and to analyze overweight and energy-balance related behaviors of Swiss children according to socio-demographic factors. METHODS: A school-based cross-sectional study among 10--12 year old children was conducted in Switzerland and seven other European countries using a standardized protocol. Body height, weight and waist-circumference were measured by trained research assistants. Energy-balance related behaviors - i.e. selected dietary, physical activity and screen-viewing behaviors were assessed by questionnaires. Weight status and behaviors in Switzerland were compared to the seven European ENERGY countries. Within the Swiss sample, analyses stratified by gender, parental education and ethnicity were performed. RESULTS: Data of 546 Swiss children (mean age 11.6+/-0.8y, 48% girls) were obtained and compared to the EN