Chlorinated organic contaminants in breast milk of New Zealand women.

Breast milk samples from 38 women in New Zealand were analyzed for organochlorine pesticides, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), polychlorinated dibenzo-p-dioxins (PCDDs), and polychlorinated dibenzofurans (PCDFs) as part of a World Health Organization collaborative study of breast-milk contaminants. The women were recruited from two urban areas (Auckland and Christchurch) and two rural areas (Northland and North Canterbury) in the North and South Islands of New Zealand. The best predictor of contaminant concentrations in breast milk was found to be the age of the mother. Regional differences were found for hexachlorobenzene, dieldrin, and pp-DDE, reflecting historical use patterns. Urban-rural differences were found for several PCBs, PCDDs, and PCDFs when contaminant concentrations were calculated on a whole-milk basis. However, these differences could be attributed to variation in breast-milk fat concentrations between urban and rural mothers. Urban mothers had about 50% more breast-milk fat than rural mothers. Evidence suggests that breast-milk consumption by babies is regulated by caloric intake. Almost all of the caloric content of milk is in the fat fraction. This suggests that breast-milk contaminant levels calculated on a whole-milk basis do not necessarily reflect the relative levels of exposure of infants to these contaminants. However, the factors that influence breast-milk fat concentration deserve further study

Liber

In this paper a cognitive model for visual attention is introduced. The cognitive model is part of the design of a software agent that supports a naval warfare officer in its task to compile a tactical picture of the situation in the field. An executable formal specification of the cognitive model is given and a case study is described in which the model is used to simulate a human subject's attention. The foundation of the model is based on formal specification of representation relations for attentional states, specifying their intended meaning. The model has been automatically verified against these relations. © 2006 IEEE

Milieu- en habitatpreferenties van Nederlandse zoetwatermacrofauna

Macrofauna speelt een belangrijke rol in het beoordelen van de ecologische kwaliteit van oppervlaktewateren, bijvoorbeeld voor de Europese Kaderrichtlijn Water. Daarnaast kan de samenstelling van de macrofauna informatie geven over kenmerken van of problemen met een water (diagnostische waarde). Na een rapport waarin van een groot aantal Nederlandse soorten de zeldzaamheid is aangegeven (Nijboer & Verdonschot red. 2001), was het achterhalen van de milieu- en habitateisen van de macrofaunasoorten een logisch vervolg. Deze milieu- en habitatkennis maakt het mogelijk om gegevens over macrofauna te gebruiken om de toestand van het oppervlaktewater te omschrijven. Dit biedt een belangrijke meerwaarde bij het gebruik van bestaande biologische parameters in het water- en natuurbeheer

Confidentiality and public protection: ethical dilemmas in qualitative research with adult male sex offenders

This paper considers the ethical tensions present when engaging in in-depth interviews with convicted sex offenders. Many of the issues described below are similar to those found in other sensitive areas of research. However, confidentiality and public protection are matters that require detailed consideration when the desire to know more about men who have committed serious and harmful offences is set against the possibility of a researcher not disclosing previously unknown sensitive information that relates to the risk of someone being harmed.</p

Does the risk of childhood diabetes mellitus require revision of the guideline values for nitrate in drinking water?

In recent years, several studies have addressed a possible relationship between nitrate exposure and childhood type 1 insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus. The present ecologic study describes a possible relation between the incidence of type 1 diabetes and nitrate levels in drinking water in The Netherlands, and evaluates whether the World Health Organization and the European Commission standard for nitrate in drinking water (50 mg/L) is adequate to prevent risk of this disease. During 1993-1995 in The Netherlands, 1,104 cases of type 1 diabetes were diagnosed in children 0-14 years of age. We were able to use 1,064 of these cases in a total of 2,829,020 children in this analysis. We classified mean nitrate levels in drinking water in 3,932 postal code areas in The Netherlands in 1991-1995 into two exposure categories. One category was based on equal numbers of children exposed to different nitrate levels (0.25-2.08, 2.10-6.42, and 6.44-41.19 mg/L nitrate); the other was based on cut-off values of 10 and 25 mg/L nitrate. We determined standardized incidence ratios (SIRs) for type 1 diabetes in subgroups of the 2,829,020 children with respect to both nitrate exposure categories, sex, and age and as compared in univariate analysis using the chi-square test for trend. We compared the incidence rate ratios (IRRs) by multivariate analysis in a Poisson regression model. We found an effect of increasing age of the children on incidence of type 1 diabetes, but we did not find an effect of sex or of nitrate concentration in drinking water using the two exposure categories. For nitrate levels > 25 mg/L, an increased SIR and an increased IRR of 1.46 were observed; however, this increase was not statistically significant, probably because of the small number of cases (15 of 1,064). We concluded that there is no convincing evidence that nitrate in drinking water at current exposure levels is a risk factor for childhood type 1 diabetes mellitus in The Netherlands, although a threshold value > 25 mg/L for the occurrence of this disease can not be excluded

Provinciality and the Art World: The Midland Group 1961- 1977

This paper takes as its focus the Midland Group Gallery in order to first, make a case for the consideration of the geographies of art galleries. Second, highlight the importance of galleries in the context of cultural geographies of the sixties. Third, discuss the role of provinciality in the operation of art worlds. In so doing it explicates one set of geographies surrounding the gallery – those of the local, regional and international networks that connected to produce art works and art space. It reveals how the interactions between places and practices outside of metropolitan and regional hierarchies provides a more nuanced insight into how art worlds operated during the sixties, a period of growing internationalism of art, and how contested definitions of the provincial played an integral role in this. The paper charts the operations of the Midland Group Gallery and the spaces that it occupied to demonstrate how it was representative of a post-war discourse of provincialism and a corresponding re-evaluation of regional cultural activity

Shifting perspectives on coastal impacts and adaptation

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reports reflect evolving attitudes in adapting to sea-level rise by taking a systems approach and recognizing that multiple responses exist to achieve a less hazardous coast.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio