725 research outputs found
Negotiating safety practice in small construction companies
AbstractSmall construction companies have high rates of work related injuries and pervasive challenges in preventing them. This article examines safety practice from the employee perspective, taking into account the role of the owner–manager and interactions with customers in everyday work settings. Data were derived from a qualitative multi-case study of ten small construction companies (carpentry/plumbing/masonry) involving one or two-man work crews. The analytic approach is phenomenological, based on thematic content analysis of interviews and participant-observations. The employees’ general approach to safety was “to take care of oneself”, which, in addition to standardized rule-based knowledge, drew on individual feelings, personal experience and the balancing of various concerns in different work settings, e.g. workflow, customer satisfaction, good work relations and safety issues. In the context of small companies, safety practice was negotiated in the tension between owner–manager decisions and employees’ self-administration, which also was reflected in the way safety was communicated and learned within the companies as a matter of professionalism and individual mastering. Safety was rarely in explicit focus among employees in the small construction companies. It was an intrinsic part of their craftsmanship, established and negotiated in work situations and in interactions, in particular with customers. Safety issues were rarely shared or communicated as a common issue within the company. Consequently owner–managers had limited impact on the employees’ daily safety practices. Injury prevention approaches should take into account the limited impact that owner–managers had on the day-to-day safety practices, as well as the importance of the employees’ relationships with the customers
String-like behaviour of 4d SU(3) Yang-Mills flux tubes
We present here results on the fine structure of the static q\bar q potential
in d=4 SU(3) Yang-Mills theory. The potential is obtained from Polyakov loop
correlators having separations between 0.3 and 1.2 fermi. Measurements were
carried out on lattices of spatial extents of about 4 and 5.4 fermi. The
temporal extent was 5.4 fermi in both cases. The results are analyzed in terms
of the force between a q\bar q pair as well as in terms of a scaled second
derivative of the potential. The data is accurate enough to distinguish between
different effective string models and it seems to favour the expression for
ground state energy of a Nambu-Goto string.Comment: 9 pages in LaTeX with 2 figures and 2 tables in JHEP style. Replaced
to match with shortened published versio
An intercomparison of sampling techniques among five European laboratories for measurements of radiocaesium in upland pasture and soil
Soft X-ray resonant scattering study of single-crystal LaSrMnO
Soft X-ray resonant scattering studies at the Mn - and
the La - edges of single-crystal LaSrMnO are
reported. At low temperatures, below K, energy scans
with a fixed momentum transfer at the \emph{A}-type antiferromagnetic (0 0 1)
reflection around the Mn -edges with incident linear
and polarizations show strong resonant enhancements. The
splitting of the energy spectra around the Mn -edges may
indicate the presence of a mixed valence state, e.g., Mn/Mn. The
relative intensities of the resonance and the clear shoulder-feature as well as
the strong incident and polarization dependences strongly
indicate its complex electronic origin. Unexpected enhancement of the charge
Bragg (0 0 2) reflection at the La -edges with
polarization has been observed up to 300 K, with an anomaly appearing around
the orbital-ordering transition temperature, K,
suggesting a strong coupling (competition) between them.Comment: Accepted by European Physical Journal
Molecular detection of Strongyloides sp. in Australian thoroughbred foals
Background
Strongyloides westeri is found in the small intestine of young horses, mainly in foals up to about 16 weeks of age. The main source of infection for foals is through transmammary transmission, and foals can develop acute diarrhoea, weakness, dermatitis and respiratory signs. The epidemiology of S. westeri in Australia is largely unknown. Further, molecular techniques have never been employed for detection of S. westeri in horses. This pilot study aimed to assess the utility of a molecular phylogenetic method for the detection of S. westeri in the faeces of foals.
Methods
Faecal samples were collected from a foal of less than 2 months of age, and eggs of Strongyloides sp. were detected using the modified McMaster technique. DNA was extracted from purified eggs, and a partial fragment of the small subunit of the nuclear ribosomal DNA (18S) was characterised using polymerase chain reaction, DNA sequencing and phylogenetic methods.
Results
Microscopic examination of faeces revealed small ellipsoidal eggs typical of Strongyloides sp. The 18S sequence generated by PCR in this study revealed 98.4% identity with that of a reference sequence of S. westeri available from GenBank. Phylogenetic analyses revealed a polyphyletic clustering of S. westeri sequences.
Conclusion
This is the first study reporting the detection of DNA of Strongyloides sp. in faeces of a foal using a molecular phylogenetic approach targeting the variable region of 18S rDNA. It is anticipated that this study will allow future molecular epidemiological studies on S. westeri in horses
Comparative studies on faecal egg counting techniques used for the detection of gastrointestinal parasites of equines: A systematic review
Faecal egg counting techniques (FECT) form the cornerstone for the detection of gastrointestinal parasites in equines. For this purpose, several flotation, centrifugation, image- and artificial intelligence-based techniques are used, with varying levels of performance. This review aimed to critically appraise the literature on the assessment and comparison of various coprological techniques and/or modifications of these techniques used for equines and to identify the knowledge gaps and future research directions. We searched three databases for published scientific studies on the assessment and comparison of FECT in equines and included 27 studies in the final synthesis. Overall, the performance parameters of McMaster (81.5%), Mini-FLOTAC® (33.3%) and simple flotation (25.5%) techniques were assessed in most of the studies, with 77.8% of them comparing the performance of at least two or three methods. The detection of strongyle, Parascaris spp. and cestode eggs was assessed for various FECT in 70.4%, 18.5% and 18.5% studies, respectively. A sugar-based flotation solution with a specific gravity of ≥1.2 was found to be the optimal flotation solution for parasitic eggs in the majority of FECT. No uniform or standardised protocol was followed for the comparison of various FECT, and the tested sample size (i.e. equine population and faecal samples) also varied substantially across all studies. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first systematic review to evaluate studies on the comparison of FECT in equines and it highlights important knowledge gaps in the evaluation and comparison of such techniques
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