Injuries causing death: Their nature,external causes,and associated diseases

This article provides national data on the types of injuries reported on death certificates, the external causes of these injuries, and diseases that are frequently reported with them. Injuries were a factor in 11 % (213,366 deaths) of the deaths to residents of the United States in 1978. Of 11 broad categories of injuries, three (fractures, sprains, strains, and dislocations, intracranial injuries, and adverse effects) were mentioned on almost 50,000 deaths each. There was considerable variation in the distribution of injury types by age, sex, and race. The most notable example was fractures of the lower limb which were mentioned on 29% of the deaths involving an injury to 65 + year olds but no less than 5% of such deaths for all other age groups. For white females, the percentage with a fracture of the lower limb was 23 % compared to 12 % overall. In 25 % of the deaths involving an injury, the immediate cause was a motor vehicle accident. In 51 %, the immediate cause of the injury was a non-motor-vehicle accident. In 73 % of the deaths involving non-motor-vehicle accidents, disease conditions as well as injuries were a factor; and, 69% of the time, the disease condition was actually the underlying cause of the death with the injury being a contributing factor or complication. For example, over 14,000 deaths in 1978 involved a circulatory condition as the underlying cause of death which was complicated by an accidental fracture, sprain, or dislocation. Although diseases more often assumed the role of the underlying cause of death, they were also a nonunderlying cause in 24,000 non-motor-vehicle accident deaths. Over 12,000 of such deaths involved circulatory diseases.     

Cross-sectional mortality studies and air pollution risk assessment

The use of coefficients, derived from cross-sectional mortality studies, for air pollution risk assessment is quite controversial. In this study, the major limitations of cross-sectional studies are reviewed. The consistency of results from the major recent cross-sectional studies is examined, and the sensitivity of results to model specification is analyzed. Finally, the implications for risk assessment of our inquiries are discussed.     

The effects of pathway configuration, landmarks and stress on environmental cognition

The results of this study indicate that manipulations of the pathway grid configuration and landmark placement in a setting cause changes in environmental knowledge. These experimental manipulations were accomplished using a realistic, dynamic simulation technique at the Berkeley Environmental Simulation Laboratory. Measures of environmental knowledge include: memory for incidental information along the simulated urban route, accuracy of route maps, relocation memory for scenes along the route, and questionnaire measures. Data are also presented showing both positive and negative effects of stress from noise on the processes of environmental cognition.     

Do the earth's magnetic poles move?

Two distinct types of motion are commonly attributed to the geomagnetic poles — polar wander and dipole wobble. But two or three decades of intensive effort have failed to provide a sound understanding of either. Why? Polar wander is a very slow phenomenon associated with time scales of 10⁷ to 10⁸ years and thus intimately connected with the drift of the continents arising from plate tectonics. While there is no question of the validity of relative movements between the continents and the pole, the possibility of independent polar motion remains debatable. Dipole wobble is a more rapid phenomenon, most likely associated with time scales of 10⁶ years or less. Currently the geomagnetic axis diverges from the Earth's spin axis by 11 1/2°, but paleomagnetic data indicate that, when averaged over a million years or so, the two coincide. Dipole wobble is the supposed mechanism responsible. The main difficulty here is one of isolating any dipole effects from perturbations of similar magnitude arising from the non-dipole fraction of the geomagnetic field — the so-called secular variation. Recent studies have significantly advanced our understanding of the secular variation, but the dipole wobble remains enigmatic.     

First Jurassic Choristodera from Asia

Although choristoderes have a good Lower Cretaceous record in Asia, they have never previously been recorded from Jurassic deposits. Here we describe fragmentary vertebral material referable to Choristodera indet. from the Middle Jurassic Balabansai Svita of the Fergana Valley, Kyrgyzstan. This provides a significant range extension for the group in Asia and shows that choristoderes already had a Pan-Laurasian distribution in the Jurassic.     

The risk assessment-policy gap: an example from the UK contaminated land regime

Risk-based regulation assumes that risk assessment can evaluate risks against policy objectives. However, policy goals are often ambiguous and require risk assessors to interpret them for use in risk assessment. This risk assessment-policy gap stems partly from normative and imprecise policy language but is rooted more fundamentally in society's uncertain expectations for the environment. Until this uncertainty is resolved, the democratic and regulatory effectiveness of risk regulation will be undermined by ad hoc policy decisions abdicated to risk assessors.     

Evaluation of a population mobility,mortality, and birth surveillance system in South Kivu,Democratic Republic of the Congo

Prospective, community-based surveillance systems for measuring birth, death, and population movement rates may have advantages over the ‘gold-standard’ retrospective household survey in humanitarian contexts. A community-based, monthly surveillance system was established in South Kivu, Democratic Republic of the Congo, in partnership with a local implementing partner and the national ministry of health. Data were collected on the occurrence of births, deaths, arrivals, and departures over the course of one year, and a retrospective survey was conducted at the end of the period to validate the information. Discrepancies between the two approaches were resolved by a third visit to the households with discordant records. The study found that the surveillance system was superior in terms of its specificity and sensitivity in measuring crude mortality and birth rates as compared to the survey, demonstrating the method's potential to measure accurately important population-level health metrics in an insecure setting in a timely, community-acceptable manner.     

Chemical and physical partitioning in contaminated stream sediments in the River Ystwyth,Mid-Wales

This study investigates contemporary fluvial contamination of stream sediments by Pb, Zn and Cu from a mine near Aberystwyth, Wales. Of particular interest is the association between metal cations and particulate substrates and which is investigated using a selective extraction procedure. Emphasis is also placed on the difference between adsorptive phases depending on particle size. As particle size decreases the labile phase becomes dominant, with the easily and moderately reducible fraction being the major scavenging agent of soluble cations. Zinc and copper are largely held as residual rock or ore particles and are therefore expected to have a longer residence time in sediments. Recent floodplain development is difficult to interpret due to reworking of upstream metal-rich alluvium. However evidence is presented to suggest that once silt and clay size particles enter the main channel they are largely removed from the system.