Occupational fatalities amongst farm workers in Ireland, 1992 – 2008

working paperBackground: Whilst occupational fatalities amongst farm workers have been studied internationally little research has been published concerning farm fatalities or the demography farm fatalities in Ireland. Aims 1) To establish the incidence of farm fatalities during the 1992 – 2009 period in Ireland, 2) to explore the changing age profile of those experiencing fatal injuries on farms in Ireland. Methods: An official dataset containing the details of every fatal farm accident during the 1992 – 2009 period is used to evaluate changes in the number and age profile of farm fatalities in Ireland. Results: There were 304 deaths on farms during the 1992 – 2009 period in Ireland. The average number of annual fatalities is declining having fallen by 16% from 18 to 16 per year during this time. The fatality rate has however increased from 15 to 22 per 100,000 workers. This has been driven by a reduction in the number of workers employed on farms and, it is hypothesised, rapid ageing of the farm workforce. The demographic profile of those killed on farms changed significantly over the period. There are fewer deaths amongst younger cohorts. Older farmers, those over 55 years of age, now account for the vast majority of all fatal accidents. Conclusion: These findings highlight the changing nature of fatal farm incidents over the 1993 – 2009 period in Ireland. The increasing number of fatalities amongst older farmers suggests that Ireland’s Farm Safety Partnership needs to place greater emphasis of raising awareness amongst older farmers of fatality risks

Implicit and Explicit Awareness of a Phonics Rule in the Word Recognition of Students With and Without Learning Disabilities

This study investigates the ability of students with and without learning disabilities to learn a phonics rule implicitly and the ability of these students to report accurately about the rule verbally. Many researchers have argued that implicit learning denotes a form of learning that occurs without intention and results in adequate performance, but is not available to consciousness and so not verbalizable (Reber, 1993). Others have suggested that this inability to verbalize may not be as definite as originally thought (Ericsson & Simon, 1993). This study examined the implicit learning and explicit knowledge capabilities of students between the ages of 10 and 12 with and without learning disabilities. Students acquired knowledge implicitly about the pronunciation of pseudo words that were governed by one of two phonics rules. They were then asked to verbalize explicitly about the acquired knowledge. Results indicate that implicit knowledge capabilities for all students were not significantly different. However, there were significant differences between students with and without learning disabilities on explicit knowledge scores.Cette étude analyse la capacité d'élèves avec et sans difficultés d'apprentissage à apprendre de façon implicite une règle de la méthode phonétique et ensuite d'en parier de façon adéquate. Plusieurs chercheurs maintiennent que l’apprentissage implicite constitue une forme d'apprentissage qui s'acquiert involontairement, qui entraine une performance adéquate, mais dont on ne peut être conscient et qu'on ne peut pas décrire (Reber, 1993). D'autres recherches proposent que cette incapacité à verbaliser n’est pas aussi nette qu'on l’avait cru (Ericsson & Simon, 1993). Les sujets de cette étude sur l’apprentissage implicite et sur les capacités explicites étaient des élèves âges d'entre 10 et 12 ans et qui avaient ou non des difficultés d'apprentissage. Les élèves ont acquis, de façon implicite, des connaissances sur la prononciation de logatomes régie par une de deux régies de la méthode phonétique. Par la suite, on leur a demande d'expliciter les connaissances qu'ils avaient acquises. Les résultats indiquent que la différence dans la capacité d'acquérir des connaissances implicites n'était pas significative d'un élève a Vautre. Par contre, la différence dans la capacité d'énoncer des connaissances explicites était significative entre les élèves avec des difficultés d'apprentissage et ceux qui n'en présentaient pas

Investigating the Relationships Between Canopy Characteristics and Snow Depth Distribution at Fine Scales: Preliminary Results from the SnowEX TLS Campaign

In temperate, mountainous regions across the world, upwards of 60% of seasonal surface water is stored in the snowpack. In forested areas, characterizing the effect of forest structure on the spatial distribution of snow can provide insight into hydrological modelling efforts, and forest management decisions. Just as snow drifts and scours correspond to underlying topography, wind redistribution can create patterns in snow distribution which reflect the surrounding canopy structure. Using variables derived from terrestrial laser scans collected in Grand Mesa, Colorado, the effect of forest structure and topography on snow depth is analyzed statistically

Ariel - Volume 10 Number 5

Executive Editors Madalyn Schaefgen David Reich Business Manager David Reich News Editors Medical College Edward Zurad CAHS John Guardiani World Mark Zwanger Features Editors Meg Trexler Jim O\u27Brien Editorials Editor Jeffrey Banyas Photography and Sports Editor Stuart Singer Commons Editor Brenda Peterso

Current evidence for a modulation of low back pain by human genetic variants

The manifestation of chronic back pain depends on structural, psychosocial, occupational and genetic influences. Heritability estimates for back pain range from 30% to 45%. Genetic influences are caused by genes affecting intervertebral disc degeneration or the immune response and genes involved in pain perception, signalling and psychological processing. This inter-individual variability which is partly due to genetic differences would require an individualized pain management to prevent the transition from acute to chronic back pain or improve the outcome. The genetic profile may help to define patients at high risk for chronic pain. We summarize genetic factors that (i) impact on intervertebral disc stability, namely Collagen IX, COL9A3, COL11A1, COL11A2, COL1A1, aggrecan (AGAN), cartilage intermediate layer protein, vitamin D receptor, metalloproteinsase-3 (MMP3), MMP9, and thrombospondin-2, (ii) modify inflammation, namely interleukin-1 (IL-1) locus genes and IL-6 and (iii) and pain signalling namely guanine triphosphate (GTP) cyclohydrolase 1, catechol-O-methyltransferase, μ opioid receptor (OPMR1), melanocortin 1 receptor (MC1R), transient receptor potential channel A1 and fatty acid amide hydrolase and analgesic drug metabolism (cytochrome P450 [CYP]2D6, CYP2C9)

Upper limits on the strength of periodic gravitational waves from PSR J1939+2134

The first science run of the LIGO and GEO gravitational wave detectors presented the opportunity to test methods of searching for gravitational waves from known pulsars. Here we present new direct upper limits on the strength of waves from the pulsar PSR J1939+2134 using two independent analysis methods, one in the frequency domain using frequentist statistics and one in the time domain using Bayesian inference. Both methods show that the strain amplitude at Earth from this pulsar is less than a few times $10^{-22}$.Comment: 7 pages, 1 figure, to appear in the Proceedings of the 5th Edoardo Amaldi Conference on Gravitational Waves, Tirrenia, Pisa, Italy, 6-11 July 200

Improving the sensitivity to gravitational-wave sources by modifying the input-output optics of advanced interferometers

We study frequency dependent (FD) input-output schemes for signal-recycling interferometers, the baseline design of Advanced LIGO and the current configuration of GEO 600. Complementary to a recent proposal by Harms et al. to use FD input squeezing and ordinary homodyne detection, we explore a scheme which uses ordinary squeezed vacuum, but FD readout. Both schemes, which are sub-optimal among all possible input-output schemes, provide a global noise suppression by the power squeeze factor, while being realizable by using detuned Fabry-Perot cavities as input/output filters. At high frequencies, the two schemes are shown to be equivalent, while at low frequencies our scheme gives better performance than that of Harms et al., and is nearly fully optimal. We then study the sensitivity improvement achievable by these schemes in Advanced LIGO era (with 30-m filter cavities and current estimates of filter-mirror losses and thermal noise), for neutron star binary inspirals, and for narrowband GW sources such as low-mass X-ray binaries and known radio pulsars. Optical losses are shown to be a major obstacle for the actual implementation of these techniques in Advanced LIGO. On time scales of third-generation interferometers, like EURO/LIGO-III (~2012), with kilometer-scale filter cavities, a signal-recycling interferometer with the FD readout scheme explored in this paper can have performances comparable to existing proposals. [abridged]Comment: Figs. 9 and 12 corrected; Appendix added for narrowband data analysi

Correlated long-range mixed-harmonic fluctuations measured in pp, p+Pb and low-multiplicity Pb+Pb collisions with the ATLAS detector

For abstract see published article

Performance of top-quark and W -boson tagging with ATLAS in Run 2 of the LHC

The performance of identification algorithms (“taggers”) for hadronically decaying top quarks and W bosons in pp collisions at √s=13 TeV recorded by the ATLAS experiment at the Large Hadron Collider is presented. A set of techniques based on jet shape observables are studied to determine a set of optimal cut-based taggers for use in physics analyses. The studies are extended to assess the utility of combinations of substructure observables as a multivariate tagger using boosted decision trees or deep neural networks in comparison with taggers based on two-variable combinations. In addition, for highly boosted top-quark tagging, a deep neural network based on jet constituent inputs as well as a re-optimisation of the shower deconstruction technique is presented. The performance of these taggers is studied in data collected during 2015 and 2016 corresponding to 36.1 fb −1 for the tt ¯ and γ+jet and 36.7 fb −1 −1 for the dijet event topologies