LRS56/GOODS 10.10.87

The industrial council agreement for Motor Transport Undertaking (Goods) in the Transvaal will be in force until 1990. Wages are negotiated annually, for implementation in January, but a compulsory arbitration provision comes into effect if there is a deadlock. This document is prepared to assist the Transport & General Workers Union in providing factual information to the arbitrator to back up the demand for a substantial wage increase. The union has rejected a final offer from the employers of an eight and a half percent increase in January 1988. Unfortunately, we have not received the wage demands of the union, so our report is not as focused as it should be

Experimental assessment of a pebble reflector and pebble flow in a small scale recirculating pebble bed.

The erosion behaviour of a pebble reflector was examined using small scale, three-dimensional, pebble-bed models and the split-bed technique. An exponential-type change in the reflector-fuel interface angle was indicated. The levelled value was about 13° after recirculation of 30 - 40 bed inventories. Data on downflow and upflow air tests with small-scale, recirculating pebble beds are also presented. These data indicated a variation in pebble discharge ratio of some 20 per cent relative to the non-airflow case

Impact of wear time criteria upon physical activity estimates in children

Paper presented at 14th meeting of the International Society of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity: Advancing Behavior Change Science, June 2015, EdinburghPurpose: Lack of compliance with accelerometer wear time requirements can potentially lead to selection bias within a study. In an attempt to maximize participant numbers researchers may be tempted to employ more lenient wear time criteria. However, this may lead to misclassification of physical activity (PA) and sedentary time (ST), both through reducing the monitoring period and through failure to capture distinct periods of the day, resulting in inaccurate estimates of PA and ST and masking of true relationships between PA, ST and health. The present study aimed to explore the misclassification that may occur using three distinct 10 hour periods across the day in comparison to 24 hour continuous wear in children. Methods: 149 children were asked to wear a GENEActiv accelerometer on their left wrist for 24 hours a day, for a period of 7 days. Including only children who complied with the full wear time protocol (n = 78), weekly average estimates of ST and time spent in light, moderate and vigorous PA were created for the full 24 hour criteria and for three 10 hour periods (8am – 6pm, 10am – 8pm, 12pm – 10pm) . Repeated Measures ANOVA were used to assess for significant differences across monitoring periods. Results: In comparison to complete observation (24hours), the 10 hour periods across the day resulted in an underestimation of time spend sedentary and in each activity intensity (ps < 0.05). ST was underestimated by an average of 269 minutes, whilst Moderate to Vigorous PA (MVPA) was underestimated by 30 minutes. Between the 10 hour periods, higher rates of ST were accumulated in the latest period (12pm – 10pm), whilst higher estimates of MVPA were apparent between 8am and 6pm. Conclusions: Time in PA and ST was underestimated with the use of shorter wear periods and researchers may be unknowingly misclassifying PA and ST by not accounting for which period of the day was measured. Future studies should use longer monitoring periods to gain accurate assessment of PA and to establish relationships with health variables

Seleção de touros jovens Nelore por meio de exames zootécnico e andrológico e da eficiência reprodutiva durante uma estação de monta

Objetivou-se selecionar touros jovens da ra&ccedil;a Nelore por meio dos exames zoot&eacute;cnico e androl&oacute;gico e da &nbsp;efici&ecirc;ncia&nbsp;reprodutiva numa esta&ccedil;&atilde;o de monta. Inicialmente, foram zootecnicamente examinados 98 touros jovens, com idade entre&nbsp;24 e 28 meses e apenas 85(86,73%) foram selecionados para o exame androl&oacute;gico. Ap&oacute;s este exame, 70 (82,35%) touros&nbsp;foram encaminhados para o teste de comportamento sexual durante 10, 15 e 20 minutos e, posteriormente, distribu&iacute;dos&nbsp;em quatro grupos, nas propor&ccedil;&otilde;es touro/vaca de 1:25, 1:40, 1:60 e 1:80 para avaliar a efici&ecirc;ncia reprodutiva. A&nbsp;avalia&ccedil;&atilde;o da libido foi satisfat&oacute;ria, uma vez que 20 (31,12%) dos touros foram classificados como excelentes. O aumento&nbsp;do tempo de 10 para 15 minutos na avalia&ccedil;&atilde;o da libido diminuiu a porcentagem de touros classificados como&nbsp;question&aacute;vel e bom, e aumentou a porcentagem de touros classificados como bom e excelente. N&atilde;o houve correla&ccedil;&atilde;o (P&nbsp;&gt; 0,05) entre a biometria testicular e as caracter&iacute;sticas f&iacute;sicas do s&ecirc;men. A taxa de gesta&ccedil;&atilde;o no final dos 90 dias da&nbsp;esta&ccedil;&atilde;o de monta foi de 86,4% (1:25), 84,0% (1:40), 85,3% (1:60) e 82,5% (1:80), n&atilde;o havendo associa&ccedil;&atilde;o entre os&nbsp;tratamentos (P &gt; 0,05). Os resultados permitem concluir que o per&iacute;metro escrotal n&atilde;o deve ser isoladamente utilizado&nbsp;como par&acirc;metro para selecionar touro jovem da ra&ccedil;a Nelore, que o tempo de 15 minutos &eacute; suficiente para avaliar a&nbsp;libido e que touros classificados como excelentes podem ser utilizados nas propor&ccedil;&otilde;es touro:vaca de 1:25, 1:40, 1:60 e&nbsp;1:80, porque n&atilde;o interfere na taxa de gesta&ccedil;&atilde;o do rebanho durante a esta&ccedil;&atilde;o de monta. &nbsp

Seleção de touros jovens da raça Nelore através do padrão racial, exame andrológico e comportamento sexual

Teve-se o objetivo de selecionar touros da ra&ccedil;a Nelore, com idade entre 20 e 24 meses, para serem utilizados em&nbsp;esta&ccedil;&atilde;o de monta de 90 dias. Dos 98 touros submetidos &agrave; sele&ccedil;&atilde;o zoot&eacute;cnica, 85 (86,73%) deles foram submetidos&nbsp;ao exame androl&oacute;gico e os 70 (82,35%) considerados aptos para a reprodu&ccedil;&atilde;o foram testados quanto &agrave; libido por&nbsp;10, 15 e 20 minutos. Os touros com libido muito boa e excelente foram aleatoriamente distribu&iacute;dos em quatro&nbsp;grupos formados de acordo com a rela&ccedil;&atilde;o touro/vaca (G1 = 1:25, G2 = 1:40, G3 = 1:60 e G4 = 1:80). As formas de&nbsp;test&iacute;culo longo moderado (0,51 &ge; raz&atilde;o &le; 0,625), (60,0%) e longo (raz&atilde;o &le; 0,5), (28,5%), foram observadas com&nbsp;maior freq&uuml;&ecirc;ncia do que a forma longo oval (0,626 &ge; raz&atilde;o &le; 0,750), (11,4%), n&atilde;o sendo encontradas as formas&nbsp;oval/esf&eacute;rico (0,751 &ge; raz&atilde;o &le; 0,875), (0,0%) e esf&eacute;rico (raz&atilde;o &gt; 0,875), (0,0%). O prolongamento do tempo de&nbsp;avalia&ccedil;&atilde;o do teste da libido, de 10 para 15 minutos, reduziu o percentual de touros classificados como&nbsp;question&aacute;veis e bons e elevou o percentual de touros com libido muito boa e excelente. N&atilde;o houve correla&ccedil;&atilde;o (P &gt;&nbsp;0,05) entre as formas testiculares, o per&iacute;metro escrotal, as caracter&iacute;sticas f&iacute;sicas e morfol&oacute;gicas do s&ecirc;men e a libido&nbsp;dos animais. As taxas de prenhez foram de 86,4% (G1), 84,0% (G2), 85,3% (G3) e de 84,1% (G4), mostrando n&atilde;o&nbsp;haver associa&ccedil;&atilde;o entre os grupos (P &gt; 0,50). As rela&ccedil;&otilde;es touro/vaca de 1:25, 1:40, 1:60 e 1:80 n&atilde;o interferem sobre&nbsp;a taxa de gesta&ccedil;&atilde;o do rebanho numa esta&ccedil;&atilde;o de monta de noventa dias, podendo-se reduzir os custos com a&nbsp;aquisi&ccedil;&atilde;o e manuten&ccedil;&atilde;o dos touros na propriedade.&nbsp

Health impact of drainage and sewerage in poor urban areas in Salvador, Brazil.

The lack of environmental sanitation measures is a worldwide problem, especially in developing countries, and greatly facilitates the spread of disease. This thesis aims to contribute towards a better understanding of the effect on diarrhoea, nutritional status and intestinal nematode infections of drainage and sewerage in an impoverished urban environment. After an extensive literature review of some relevant aspects of the health impact of environmental sanitation, field research was designed and conducted in nine poor urban areas of the city of Salvador (pop. approximately 2.3 million), capital of Bahia State, in northeast Brazil. The study was targeted to a sample of children under 15 years old living in the poor urban areas of the city at the time of the field work (August 1989-November 1990). An extensive questionnaire was applied to collect information on each child and on the conditions of the family and the household, three stool examinations of the children 5-14 years old were performed (to measure nematode infection and reinfection), diarrhoea was monitored fortnightly, in children under 5 years old for one year, and anthropometric measurements taken every two months. The results showed that among children in neighbourhoods with unimproved community sanitation the incidence of diarrhoea was consistently higher and the nutritional status, expressed by the mean height-for-age z-score, was significantly lower throughout the study period as compared to those with improved sanitation. Regarding intestinal nematode infections, as the level of community sanitation improves, the following trends were noted: prevalence and intensity of infection and reinfection declined, risk factors for infection became more numerous and more significant, clustering of cases by house­ hold became more significant, predisposition of individuals to reinfection and to heavy infection became more marked, and infections with different species were increasingly aggregated in the same individuals. These results suggest that sewerage and drainage can have a significant effect on diarrhoea, nutritional status and intestinal nematode infections and that the evidence of the health impact was strongest for intestinal nematode infections. The interpretation of these epidemiological findings in the light of the Brazilian health, urban and social policies contributes to a comprehensive framework for the control of nematode infections, diarrhoea and malnutrition in poor urban areas of Salvador and elsewhere

Budget presentation to the Worker's College, May 1996

Budget presentation to the Worker's College, May 199

Social Responsibility Report For Unity Incorporation

A feature of the social responsibility research carried out by the Labour Research Service during the year to September 1994 has been an increased emphasis on the monitoring of companies previously assessed by the board of Unity Inc. This trend is expected to continue as the Community Growth Fund expands and more companies are approved

LRS47/ASSMANG 19.8.87

The Associated Manganese Mines of SA Ltd (called Assmang in this report) mine manganese and iron in the Northern Cape. This report is to assist the union in the first ever wage negotiations with this company. The union has 800 members in the mines at Black Rock, Gloria, Beeshoek and Kururnan. No information is presently available on the current wage rates for the workers. They ordinarily work a 48 hour, 5 day week at 9.6 hours per day. In 1986 a very small wage rise was given. Negotiations will begin on Monday 24 August for wages for the year July 1987 to July 1988