Work ability of Dutch employees with rheumatoid arthritis

OBJECTIVES: To (i) examine the association between fatigue, psychosocial work characteristics (job control, support, participation in decision making, psychological job demands), and physical work requirements on the one hand and work ability of employees with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) on the other, and (ii) determine the advice that health care professionals give to employees with RA on how to maintain their work ability. METHODS: Data were gathered from 78 employees with early RA (response = 99%) by telephone interviews and self-report questionnaires. RESULTS: Fatigue, lack of autonomy, low coworker/supervisor support, low participation in decision making, and high physical work requirements (i.e. using manual force) predicted low work ability. High psychological job demands, however, did not predict low work ability. The rheumatologist, occupational physician, occupational therapist, physiotherapist, and psychologist gave advice on how to cope with RA at work to 36, 30, 27, 26, and 17% of the employees, respectively. Advice was directed mainly at factors intrinsic to the employee. Employees expressed a positive attitude towards this advice. CONCLUSIONS: Fatigue, lack of support, lack of autonomy, lack of participation in decision making, and using manual force at work (e.g. pushing and pulling) threaten the work ability of employees with RA. According to the employees with RA, involvement of health care professionals from different disciplines and the implementation of organizational and technical interventions would help them to tackle these threat

Oxidation of organic compounds in a microstructured catalytic reactor

A microstructured catalytic reactor for the oxidation of organic compounds has been fabricated from aluminum alloy AlMgSiCu1 (6082 series, Al51st). The catalyst section was assembled of 63 microstructured plates with catalytic coating. In each plate of 416 µm thickness, 45 semi-cylindrical microchannels of 208 µm in radius with a distance in between of 150 µm were electrodischarge machined. A porous alumina layer of 29 ± 1 µm thickness was produced on the plates by anodic oxidation. The resulting coatings were impregnated with an aqueous solution of copper dichromate followed by drying and calcination at 450 °C to produce active catalysts. Kinetics of deep oxidation of organic compounds n-butane, ethanol, and isopropanol was studied in the reactor at 150–360 °C and of 1,1-dimethylhydrazine (unsymmetrical dimethylhydrazine, UDMH) at 200–375 °C. Intermediate reaction products in the reactions of alcohols and UDMH oxidation were identified. For UDMH, these are methane, dimethylamine, formaldehyde 1,1-dimethylhydrazone, and 1,2-dimethyldiazene. Nitrogen atoms from the UDMH and N-containing intermediates were shown to convert mainly to N2. Kinetic parameters of the reactions of n-butane and alcohols (rate constants and apparent activation energies) were calculated using kinetic modeling based on a modified method of quickest descent