Histopathological findings of the nose of Down syndrome abortuses

Recent reports of absent nasal bone in fetuses with Down syndrome have sparked much interest in the use of this finding for the screening of Down syndrome. We describe the histopathological findings of nasal bones of two fetuses with Down syndrome, one with absence and the other with normal ossification of the nasal bone. We propose that histopathological examination of the nasal bone could improve the accuracy of diagnosis of nasal hypoplasia among Down syndrome abortuses. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

卟啉作为人体早期砷暴露生物标志的研究

采用氢化物发生原子吸收分析了贵州省燃煤污染型砷中毒区和非砷中毒区（对照）居民尿样中砷浓度,采用高效液相色谱法分析了卟啉浓度,考察了燃煤污染造成的人体砷暴露与尿液中卟啉排泄改变的关系,寻求慢性砷中毒早期健康效应的生物标志物.结果显示,与对照组相比,砷暴露组尿卟啉Ⅲ（uroporphyrin-Ⅲ）和粪卟啉Ⅲ（coproporphyrin-Ⅲ）显著增高（P＜0.01,P＜0.01）,粪卟啉Ⅰ（coproporphyrin-Ⅰ）比对照组增高,但不显著;不同性别组间比较,对照组和暴露组的中龄（20～40岁）群体尿液中,尿卟啉Ⅲ的浓度在男性和女性群体之间呈显著性的差异（P<0.01）,其它年龄组中,这一指标在不同性别群体之间未见显著性差异;不同年龄分层比较,低龄组（＜20岁）尿卟啉Ⅲ和粪卟啉Ⅲ比对照显著增高（P＜0.01,P＜0.01）,中龄组（20～40岁）和高龄组（＞40岁）粪卟啉Ⅲ比对照显著增高（P＜0.05,P＜0.05）;此外,砷暴露组尿液中砷与总粪卟啉和总卟啉呈正相关（r=0.623,r=0.549）.结果表明,人体砷暴露会导致尿液中卟啉排泄的改变,提示卟啉有可能作为慢性砷中毒早期健康效应的生物标志.     

Yard waste prediction from estimated municipal solid waste using the grey theory to achieve a zero-waste strategy

Environmental Science and Pollution Research - Yard waste is one of the key components of municipal solid waste and can play a vital role in implementing zero-waste strategy to achieve sustainable...     

Quantification of solid waste management system efficiency using input–output indices

Journal of Material Cycles and Waste Management - The assessment of solid waste management systems is vital for continued improvement in the efficiency of waste management systems (WMSs). Many...     

Employee voice behavior: A meta‐analytic test of the conservation of resources framework

Although voice (i.e. expressing change‐oriented ideas and suggestions) has frequently been investigated as a way for workers to reciprocate to their employers for the positive treatment they receive, much less is known about how workers use voice to deal with stress. This study takes a conservation of resources perspective to examine the relationships among workplace stress, voice behavior, and job performance. We first examined the strength of relationships of three major groups of workplace stressors and strains (job based, social based, and organization based) with voice behavior. We then examined the relationships of voice behavior with performance variables (e.g. in‐role performance and creativity) to investigate how voice may help workers preserve or accumulate resources to enhance their performance. The meta‐analytic findings presented here provide support for a negative relationship between workplace stress and voice and a positive relationship between voice behavior and performance outcomes. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Risky driving and the perception of motorcycle accident causes among chinese motorcyclists in Hong Kong

Objective: The primary purposes of this study were to explore the relationship between risk-taking acts while driving motorcycles and perceived causes of motorcycle accidents, as well as their contribution to active involvement in traffic accidents among Chinese motorcyclists in Hong Kong. Active involvement means the riders was likely at fault for the crash. Methods: A total of 774 motorcyclists were recruited, of whom 292 had been involved in active motorcycle accident in the previous 3?years. All were asked to fill in a questionnaire, which was developed to assess their risk-taking acts while driving a motorcycle and perception of motorcycle accident causes. Results: The results of the study revealed 3 dimensions of accident causes, namely, driving-related, environment-related, and belief-related causes. These motorcycle accident causes were correlated with risk-taking acts while driving a motorcycle. A multivariate logistic regression analysis showed that risk-taking acts while driving motorcycles (adjusted odds ratio [OR]: 1.036, 95% confidence interval [CI]: 1.020-1.052), perception of driving-related cause (adjusted OR: 0.941, 95% CI: 0.916-0.967), and belief-related cause (adjusted OR: 1.134, 95% CI: 1.088-1.182) were significant factors contributing to involvement in active traffic accidents by motorcycle riders after controlling for concurrent demographic variables. Conclusions: The study highlights that perceived causes of motorcycle accidents are multidimensional, including those areas related to driving, the environment, and beliefs. It substantiates previous studies that a higher degree of driving-related risk perception is related to a lower degree of risk-taking acts while driving. Further research is needed to understand why belief-related causes, sometimes called superstitions, lead riders to believe that it is beyond their ability to affect accident causation and prevention.     

Inclusion of pressure hazards into NFPA 704 instability rating system

The lack of awareness in identifying potential hazardous reactions is commonly cited as a cause of accidents. One major problem is the lack of consensus to assign appropriate reactivity hazards ratings. NFPA 704 instability rating system is widely used throughout the chemical industry. However, this system does not take into account pressure hazards. Inclusion of pressure hazards into the NFPA 704 instability rating will provide a more comprehensive rating system, which will characterize hazards that may arise not only from exothermic reactions, but also from endothermic decompositions with gas evolution. In this work we present a proposed method for developing a simple methodology to include pressure and pressure rates into the assignment of instability ratings. The current NFPA 704 instability rating number for the systems studied does not show a trend between the pressures and pressure rates generated with the assigned rating. Therefore, arbitrary threshold values were chosen to rank the substances according to the pressure and pressure rate generated. Results obtained from a variety of systems with endothermic decompositions show that their pressure and pressure rates have magnitudes comparable to systems that decompose exothermically. So far, this method has been applied only to a limited set of data. However, assignment of arbitrary values for normalized maximum pressures generated and pressure rates, taking as reference the values obtained for the thermal decomposition of cumene hydroperoxide and di-terbutyl peroxide appears to give reasonable limits for the rating chemicals based on their relative pressure hazards.     

Gas permeability of biochar-amended clay: potential alternative landfill final cover material

Compacted biochar-amended clay (BAC) has been proposed as an alternative landfill final cover material in this study. Biochar has long been proposed to promote crop growth, mitigate odor emission, and promote methane oxidation in field soils. However, previous studies showed that soil-gas permeability was increased upon biochar application, which will promote landfill gas emission. The objective of the present study is to investigate the possibility of using compacted BAC as an alternative material in landfill final cover by evaluating its gas permeability. BAC samples were prepared by mixing 425-μm-sieved peanut shell biochar with kaolin clay in different ratios (0, 5, 10, and 15 %, w/w) and compacting at different degrees of compactions (DOC) (80, 85, and 90 %) with an optimum water content of 35 %. The gas permeability of the BACs was measured by flexible wall gas permeameter and the microstructure of the BACs was analyzed by SEM with energy-dispersive x-ray spectroscopy (EDX). The results show that the effects of biochar content on BAC gas permeability is highly dependent on the DOC. At high DOC (90 %), the gas permeability of BAC decreases with increasing biochar content due to the combined effect of the clay aggregation and the inhibition of biochar in the gas flow. However, at low DOC (80 %), biochar incorporation has no effects on gas permeability because it no longer acts as a filling material to the retard gas flow. The results from the present study imply that compacted BAC can be used as an alternative final cover material with decreased gas permeability when compared with clay.