The Impact of Increasing Fuel Costs on Future Outdoor Recreation Participation

Exact date of working paper unknown

HIV / AIDS prevalence testing - merits, methodology and outcomes of a survey conducted at a large mining organisation in South Africa

Objectives: To determine the HIV prevalence rate at Anglo Platinum, a large, multinational organisation operating in South Africa (Gauteng, Limpopo and North-West), and to assess the merits, methodology and outcomes of the survey. Methods: A sample of 11 339 individuals, representing 18.4% of the organisation's employees, were tested for HIV. HIV prevalence was determined using the Wellcozyme HIV 1+2 GACELISA test (oral fluid assay), and variables such as age, site, grade and gender were analysed. Results: The overall prevalence rate was 24.6% (95% confidence interval (CI): 20.4 - 28.8), translating into approximately 15 167 HIV-infected individuals. Interestingly, there was considerable variation in prevalence between sites within the same geographical regions, highlighting the limitations of using data obtained from antenatal HIV surveillance surveys. As an example, the prevalence at sites in Limpopo province ranged from 9.8% to 19%, with the same basic demographic data in terms of race, age and gender. Conclusions: The survey data enabled the organisation to plan resource allocation appropriately for each business unit following their commitment to the treatment of infected employees with antiretroviral therapy. These baseline prevalence data also provide an opportunity for monitoring of proposed interventions using cross-sectional surveys at designated intervals in the future. South African Medical Journal Vol. 96(2) 2006: 134-13

Air Monitoring Modeling of Radioactive Releases During Proposed PFP Complex Demolition Activities

This report is part of the planning process for the demolition of the 234-5Z, 236-Z, 242-Z, and 291-Z-1 structures at the Plutonium Finishing Plant (PFP) facilities on the Hanford Site. Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) supports the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and the CH2M HILL Plateau Remediation Company (CHPRC) demolition planning effort by making engineering estimates of potential releases for various potential demolition alternatives. This report documents an analysis considering open-air demolition using standard techniques. It does not document any decisions about the decommissioning approaches; it is expected that this report will be revisited as demolition plans are finalized

A framework for understanding the factors influencing pair programming success

Pair programming is one of the more controversial aspects of several Agile system development methods, in particular eXtreme Programming (XP). Various studies have assessed factors that either drive the success or suggest advantages (and disadvantages) of pair programming. In this exploratory study the literature on pair programming is examined and factors distilled. These factors are then compared and contrasted with those discovered in our recent Delphi study of pair programming. Gallis et al. (2003) have proposed an initial framework aimed at providing a comprehensive identification of the major factors impacting team programming situations including pair programming. However, this study demonstrates that the framework should be extended to include an additional category of factors that relate to organizational matters. These factors will be further refined, and used to develop and empirically evaluate a conceptual model of pair programming (success)

A model to estimate the impact of changes in MMR vaccine uptake on inequalities in measles susceptibility in Scotland

In 1998 an article published by Andrew Wakefield in The Lancet (volume 351, pages 637-641) led to concerns surrounding the safety of the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine, by associating it with an increased risk of autism. The paper was later retracted after multiple epidemiological studies failed to fnd any association, but a substantial decrease in UK vaccination rates was observed in the years following publication. This paper proposes a novel spatio-temporal Bayesian hierarchical model with accompanying software (the R package CARBayesST) to simultaneously address three key epidemiological questions about vaccination rates: (i) what impact did the controversy have on the overall temporal trend in vaccination rates in Scotland; (ii) did the magnitude of the spatial inequality in measles susceptibility in Scotland increase due to the MMR vaccination scare; and (iii) are there any covariate effects, such as deprivation, that impacted on measles susceptibility in Scotland. The efficacy of the model is tested by simulation, before being applied to measles susceptibility data in Scotland among a series of cohorts of children who were aged 2-4, in the years 1998 to 2014