An Assessment of the Effects of Increased Regulatory Enforcement on Occupational Hearing Loss Workers' Compensation gon 1984-1998

Hearing loss from occupational exposures has been found to be a common and serious problem affecting workers. This paper examines the effect that increasing legislative enforcement of existing regulations has on improving worker safety.

Disabling and Fatal Occupational Claim Rates, Risks, and Costs in the Oregon Construction Industry 1990-1997

Occupational research has demonstrated construction to be among the most dangerous of all occupational industries. This study examines 20,680 accepted workers' compensation claims filed by Oregon construction workers over the period of 1990-1997. Injury rate estimates for occupations were calculated using Oregon employment data from the Current Population Survey. The estimated annual rate of lost-time claims was 3.5 per 100 workers annually (95% CI=2.8-4.2) with insulators having the highest rate and supervisors the lowest. The majority of claims, 3,940, were filed by laborers. Over 52% of all claims were filed by workers under 35 years of age, and over half the claimants had less than 1 year of tenure at the time of injury. There were 52 fatalities reported, representing a rate of 8.5 per 100,000 workers (95% CI = 8.1-8.9), of which 32.7% resulted from falls. The most frequently recorded nature of non-fatal injury was listed as a "sprain," and the most common body part injured was the back. The total costs of all claims was $208,537,120, averaging$10,084 per claim, and the average indemnity time per injury was 57.3 days, with female claimants having longer indemnity periods than males. The highest percentage of claims by weekday occurred on Mondays (21.5%), and subsequent analysis showed the highest odds ratio for time of accident, relative to the first hour on the job, occurred on the third hour of work (OR = 2.456, 95% CI = 2.452-2.460.Construction; Workers' Compensation; Occupational Safety; Fatalities; Injuries; Musculoskeletal Disorders; Surveillance

Thermoregulation in rats: Effects of varying duration of hypergravic fields

The effects of hypergravitational fields on the thermoregulatory system of the rat are examined. The question underlying the investigation was whether the response of the rat to the one hour cold exposure depends only upon the amplitude of the hypergravic field during the period of cold exposure or whether the response is also dependent on the amplitude and duration of the hypergravic field prior to cold exposure. One hour of cold exposure applied over the last hour of either a 1, 4, 7, 13, 19, 25, or 37 hr period of 3G evoked a decrease in core temperature (T sub c) of about 3 C. However, when rats were subjected concurrently to cold and acceleration following 8 days at 3G, they exhibited a smaller fall in T sub c, suggesting partial recovery of the acceleration induced impairment of temperature regulation. In another series of experiments, the gravitational field profile was changed in amplitude in 3 different ways. Despite the different gravitational field profiles used prior to cold, the magnitude of the fall in T sub c over the 1 hr period of cold exposure was the same in all cases. These results suggest that the thermoregulatory impairment has a rapid onset, is a manifestation of an ongoing effect of hypergravity, and is not dependent upon the prior G profile

Occupational Vehicular Accidents: A Workers' Compensation Analysis of Oregon Truck Drivers 1990-1997

This study used workers' compensation data from Oregon from 1990-1997 to examine injuries due to vehicular accidents by truck drivers, and calculate rate estimates using baseline data derived from the U.S. Bureau of Census' Current Population Survey. During this period, 1,168 valid injury claims due to vehicular accidents were filed representing an accident rate of 50.3% (95% C.I. = 45.1-55.5) per 10,000 truck drivers annually. There were 19 work-related vehicular accident fatalities recorded in the data over the 8-year period. Of all claimants, males constituted the majority (80.7%), most were 35 years of age or younger (51.4%) and had less than 1 year of job tenure (51.0%). Truck driver injury rates due to vehicular accidents were lowest during the 6:00 A.M. - 12:00 P.M. period. The average amount of compensable lost workdays per injury claim was 57.8 days, of which male claimants lost an average of 60.5 days of work and females lost an average of 46.9 days of work. The amount of lost work days due to vehicular accident increased with the claimant's age. A total of $11,642,635 was paid in claims for vehicular accidents of truck drivers in Oregon over the period examined, averaging$9,966.01 per claim. Sprains were the most frequently cited injury experienced from vehicular accidents.vehicular accidents, driving, truck drivers, workers' compensation, public health, workplace safety

Effect of altered gravity on temperature regulation in mammals: Investigation of gravity effect on temperature regulation in mammals

Male, Long-Evans hooded rats were instrumented for monitoring core and hypothalamic temperatures as well as shivering and nonshivering thermogenesis in response to decreased ambient temperature in order to characterize the nature of the neural controller of temperature in rats at 1G and evaluate chronic implantation techniques for the monitoring of appropriate parameters at hypergravic fields. The thermoregulatory responses of cold-exposed rats at 2G were compared to those at 1G. A computer model was developed to simulate the thermoregulatory system in the rat. Observations at 1 and 2G were extended to acceleration fields of 1.5, 3.0 and 4.0G and the computer model was modified for application to altered gravity conditions. Changes in the acceleration field resulted in inadequate heat generation rather than increased heat loss. Acceleration appears to impair the ability of the neurocontroller to appropriately integrate input signals for body temperature maintenance

A Quantification and Risk Analysis of Occupational Burns: Oregon Workers' Compensation Claims 1990-1997

This study examined all accepted Oregon workers' compensation claims for occupational burn injuries over 1990-1997 (n = 3,158). The Current Population Survey (CPS) was used to derive employee population baselines for establishing rate estimates. It was estimated that the average occupational burn claim rate was 2.89 per 10,000 workers (95% C.I. = 2.76-3.02). The majority of claimants (71.7%) were males, the largest proportion (32.6%) were aged 25 years or under, and almost half (48.7%) had less than 1 year of job tenure. Costs averaged over $1.6 million annually. The average indemnity period was 16 days. Higher relative risks were found for evening workers (2.97, 95% C.I. = 2.96-2.98) and night workers (2.13, C.I. = 2.12-2.13) compared to day shift workers. Kitchen workers had the highest burn rate of all occupations with 62.5 per 10,000.burns, occupational burns, employee safety, Oregon, workers' compensation

A Chiral Spin Theory in the Framework of an Invariant Evolution Parameter Formalism

We present a formulation for the construction of first order equations which describe particles with spin, in the context of a manifestly covariant relativistic theory governed by an invariant evolution parameter; one obtains a consistent quantized formalism dealing with off-shell particles with spin. Our basic requirement is that the second order equation in the theory is of the Schr\"{o}dinger-Stueckelberg type, which exhibits features of both the Klein-Gordon and Schr\"{o}dinger equations. This requirement restricts the structure of the first order equation, in particular, to a chiral form. One thus obtains, in a natural way, a theory of chiral form for massive particles, which may contain both left and right chiralities, or just one of them. We observe that by iterating the first order system, we are able to obtain second order forms containing the transverse and longitudinal momentum relative to a time-like vector $t_{\mu}t^{\mu}=-1$ used to maintain covariance of the theory. This time-like vector coincides with the one used by Horwitz, Piron, and Reuse to obtain an invariant positive definite space-time scalar product, which permits the construction of an induced representation for states of a particle with spin. We discuss the currents and continuity equations, and show that these equations of motion and their currents are closely related to the spin and convection parts of the Gordon decomposition of the Dirac current. The transverse and longitudinal aspects of the particle are complementary, and can be treated in a unified manner using a tensor product Hilbert space. Introducing the electromagnetic field we find an equation which gives rise to the correct gyromagnetic ratio, and is fully Hermitian under the proposed scalar product. Finally, we show that the original structure of Dirac'sComment: Latex, 61 pages. Minor revisions. To be published in J. Math. Phy

The Relationship of Authentic Leadership and Growth, Retention, and Productivity

Leadership has been heralded a critical component for the achievement of successful organizational outcomes. Recent financial, social, psychological, and environmental challenges that are being faced on a global scale have raised the call for new and effective leadership. Researchers and practitioners have expressed the need for the development of good leaders. Authentic leadership (AL) has been described as the root theory of all other forms of positive leadership and offers a way to describe and develop more effective leadership and drive veritable sustained superior performance. Authentic leaders are proposed to have greater self-awareness and self-regulated positive behaviors, seeking to develop themselves, and, by modeling these behaviors, developing followers as well. One of the factors that affect effective leadership is the climate in which leadership takes place. When operating in a highly developed organization, AL is posited to effect organizational performance positively. There are also those who question the need for AL and whether it can be truly effective. This quantitative study sought to answer these questions, in part, by comparing the leader’s AL from the followers’ perspectives to the specific organizational outcomes of growth, retention, and productivity. The setting for this study was 10 real estate offices located in south Florida. Data were collected using the ALIQ, summarized on an aggregated basis, and compared to the outcomes. The results of the study showed that all leaders were considered to have some AL, yet, they were inconclusive and indeterminate as to the relationship of AL with growth, retention, and productivity. Future research should be conducted, replicating this study across additional sites and over time. This was the first study of this kind and developed a model for future studies on a larger scale and on a longitudinal basis. The study also provided a tool to measure leadership development training programs that purported to increase AL and the components thereof

The faunal assemblage in freshwater crayfish burrows in sedgeland and forest at Lightning Plains, western Tasmania

The faunal assemblage of crayfish burrows was examined intensively at Lightning Plains in wesrern Tasmania, in sedgeland and adjacent forest, to determine variations in species occurrences and abundances both within one habitat type and between two habitats. Species -sample curves showed that over 90% of the species found in ten samples could be collected by taking only five. Despite the fact that the host crayfish species was the same, each habitat was found to display a characteristic assemblage. Variations between the assemblages are attributed to differences in soil conditions, vegetation structure and watertable behaviour