A search strategy for occupational health intervention studies

Background: As a result of low numbers and diversity in study type, occupational health intervention studies are not easy to locate in electronic literature databases. Aim: To develop a search strategy that facilitates finding occupational health intervention studies in Medline, both for researchers and practitioners. Methods: A gold standard of articles was created by going through two whole volumes of 19 biomedical journals, both occupational health specialty and non-occupational health journals. Criteria for occupational health intervention studies were: evaluating an intervention with an occupational health outcome and a study design with a control group. Each journal was searched independently by two of the authors. Search terms were developed by asking specialists and counting word frequencies in gold standard articles. Results: Out of 11 022 articles published we found 149 occupational health intervention studies. The most sensitive single terms were work*[tw] (sensitivity 71%, specificity 88%) and effect*[tw] (sensitivity 75%, specificity 63%). The most sensitive string was (effect*[tw] OR control*[tw] OR evaluation*[tw] OR program*[tw]) AND (work*[tw] OR occupation*[tw] OR prevention*[tw] OR protect*[tw]) (sensitivity 89%, specificity 78%). The most specific single terms were "occupational health"[tw] (sensitivity 22%, specificity 98%) and effectiveness[tw] (sensitivity 22%, specificity 98%). The most specific string was (program[tw] OR "prevention and control"[sh]) AND (occupational[tw] OR worker*[tw]) (sensitivity 47%, specificity 98%). Conclusion: No single search terms are available that can locate occupational health intervention studies sufficiently. The authors' search strings have acceptable sensitivity and specificity to be used by researchers and practitioners respectively. Redefinition and elaboration of keywords in Medline could greatly facilitate the location of occupational health intervention studies

Sparticle spectrum and constraints in anomaly mediated supersymmetry breaking models

We study in detail the particle spectrum in anomaly mediated supersymmetry breaking models in which supersymmetry breaking terms are induced by the super-Weyl anomaly. We investigate the minimal anomaly mediated supersymmetry breaking models, gaugino assisted supersymmetry breaking models, as well as models with additional residual nondecoupling D-term contributions due to an extra U(1) gauge symmetry at a high energy scale. We derive sum rules for the sparticle masses in these models which can help in differentiating between them. We also obtain the sparticle spectrum numerically, and compare and contrast the results so obtained for the different types of anomaly mediated supersymmetry breaking models.Comment: LaTeX, 20 pages, 6 figures. A few comments and a reference added; typos corrected; version published in Phys. Rev.

Dimensionless Coupling of Bulk Scalars at the LHC

We identify the lowest-dimension interaction which is possible between Standard Model brane fields and bulk scalars in 6 dimensions. The lowest-dimension interaction is unique and involves a trilinear coupling between the Standard Model Higgs and the bulk scalar. Because this interaction has a dimensionless coupling, it depends only logarithmically on ultraviolet mass scales and heavy physics need not decouple from it. We compute its influence on Higgs physics at ATLAS and identify how large a coupling can be detected at the LHC. Besides providing a potentially interesting signal in Higgs searches, such couplings provide a major observational constraint on 6D large-extra-dimensional models with scalars in the bulk.Comment: 20 page

Accelerated in vivo proliferation of memory phenotype CD4+ T-cells in human HIV-1 infection irrespective of viral chemokine co-receptor tropism.

CD4(+) T-cell loss is the hallmark of HIV-1 infection. CD4 counts fall more rapidly in advanced disease when CCR5-tropic viral strains tend to be replaced by X4-tropic viruses. We hypothesized: (i) that the early dominance of CCR5-tropic viruses results from faster turnover rates of CCR5(+) cells, and (ii) that X4-tropic strains exert greater pathogenicity by preferentially increasing turnover rates within the CXCR4(+) compartment. To test these hypotheses we measured in vivo turnover rates of CD4(+) T-cell subpopulations sorted by chemokine receptor expression, using in vivo deuterium-glucose labeling. Deuterium enrichment was modeled to derive in vivo proliferation (p) and disappearance (d*) rates which were related to viral tropism data. 13 healthy controls and 13 treatment-naive HIV-1-infected subjects (CD4 143-569 cells/ul) participated. CCR5-expression defined a CD4(+) subpopulation of predominantly CD45R0(+) memory cells with accelerated in vivo proliferation (p = 2.50 vs 1.60%/d, CCR5(+) vs CCR5(-); healthy controls; P<0.01). Conversely, CXCR4 expression defined CD4(+) T-cells (predominantly CD45RA(+) naive cells) with low turnover rates. The dominant effect of HIV infection was accelerated turnover of CCR5(+)CD45R0(+)CD4(+) memory T-cells (p = 5.16 vs 2.50%/d, HIV vs controls; P<0.05), naïve cells being relatively unaffected. Similar patterns were observed whether the dominant circulating HIV-1 strain was R5-tropic (n = 9) or X4-tropic (n = 4). Although numbers were small, X4-tropic viruses did not appear to specifically drive turnover of CXCR4-expressing cells (p = 0.54 vs 0.72 vs 0.44%/d in control, R5-tropic, and X4-tropic groups respectively). Our data are most consistent with models in which CD4(+) T-cell loss is primarily driven by non-specific immune activation

Creating Sources of Inspiration through eCollage, the FEA Model, and a Future Visioning Concept Design Project

This article presents an approach to creating sources of inspiration through a collabora-tive concept design that was developed and observed during a future visioning concept design project concerning the theme of “performance wear,” which was conducted at the University of Helsinki for second-year textile student teachers. During the project, the stu-dents created future scenarios; used the functional, expressive, and aesthetic (FEA) con-sumer needs model for apparel design (Lamb and Kallal in Cloth Text Res J 10(2):42–47, 1992) when considering what performance wear could be like in a future scenario; and cre-ated digital collages (eCollages) to present their concepts. In the course that followed the concept design project, the students designed and made actual clothes using the concepts developed during the concept design project as one of their sources of inspiration. The outcomes of the process are described in this article through four research questions: (1) What type of future scenarios did the teams create, what types of eCollages did the teams make, and how did the teams use information and communication technologies (ICT) in their collages? (2) How did the use of eCollages enrich the concept presentations? (3) How were the three dimensions of the FEA model utilized and presented in the eCollages and team presentations? (4) How did the future visions of the concepts and the eCollages act as sources of inspiration in the students’ clothing designs? Five of the six teams studied created a global future scenario that envisioned the world as a dystopia. The high level of technical and visual executions of all the eCollages was surprising. The ECollages played an important role in every team presentation and enriched them considerably. The FEA model, on the other hand, both provided a supporting framework for the concepts and guided the students to direct their attention to apparel within their future scenarios, as well as to consider different dimensions of it. The concepts especially inspired students to create aesthetic elements to their design and to consider the expressiveness and functionality of the garments from the concept’s perspective. The students also challenged themselves to find technical solutions to design ideas they created through being inspired by the concepts. Furthermore, the students often described gaining inspiration from the story or atmosphere of the concept or other non-visual elements of it, and thereby it seems that our approach indeed succeeded in promoting multi-sensory inspiration.Peer reviewe

Collaborative Design Work in Technology Education

Peer reviewe

Sequencing and timing of strategic responses after industry disruption: evidence from post-deregulation competition in the U.S. railroad industry

This paper examines the sequencing and timing of firms’ strategic responses after significant industry disruption. We show that it is not the single strategic choice or response per se, but the sequencing and patterns of consecutive strategic responses that drive a firm’s adaptation and survival in the aftermath of a shift in the industry. We find that firms’ renewal efforts involved differential adaptability in finding balance at the juxtaposition of responding to demand-side pressures and choosing a path of new capability acquisition efficiently. Our study underscores the importance of taking a sequencing approach to studying strategic responses to industry disruption

The interplay between HQ legitimation and subsidiary legitimacy judgments in HQ relocation : a social psychological approach

This paper marks a departure from the focus on external stakeholders in much research on legitimacy and multinational corporations, adopting a social psychological approach to study how MNCs build internal legitimacy for controversial decisions with their subsidiaries. We explore this through a longitudinal, real-time qualitative case study of a regional office relocation, since office relocations represent rare yet significant strategic decisions. We analyze the interplay between the legitimation strategies of senior managers and subsidiary legitimacy judgments, based in instrumental, relational, and moral considerations, and how the relationship between the two develops over time. From this analysis, we derive inductively a process model that reveals the dynamics of building internal legitimacy with subsidiaries, and how an MNC moves on even in the absence of full legitimacy, when dealing with controversial MNC decisions. The model highlights two important dynamics. The first is a dynamic between legitimation strategies and legitimacy judgments and how this is influenced by local subsidiary contexts. The second is a temporal dynamic in how both the legitimation strategies and legitimacy judgments evolve over time. Our model contributes to research on legitimacy in MNCs, what we know about tensions that characterize MNC–subunit relationships, and research on headquarters relocation