bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Lung function decline in laboratory animal workers: the role of sensitisation and exposure
Authors: Portengen L , Hollander A , Doekes G , de Meer G , Heederik D 
Published: October 2003

Background:Little is known about the relation between allergic sensitisation and subsequent long term lung function changes in working populations exposed to sensitising agents.Aims:To investigate whether exposure and work related sensitisation to laboratory animals are associated with lung function decline.Methods:The relation between exposure and sensitisation to laboratory animal allergens and changes in lung function was investigated in a longitudinal study (median follow up 2.0 years) among 319 laboratory animal workers. Subjects who had been working with laboratory animals for less than 4 years (n = 102) were analysed separately, since an earlier cross sectional analysis had suggested a strong healthy worker effect in more experienced workers.Results:In multiple regression analyses both sensitisation and exposure appeared to contribute independently to lung function decline in subjects who had been working with laboratory animals for less than 4 years, adjusting for gender, age, smoking, and atopy. Lung function decline was most pronounced in sensitised subjects who continued to be in contact with the animals to which they were sensitised, with estimated average excess declines in FEV1, FVC, and MMEF of 83 ml/y (p < 0.05), 148 ml/y (p < 0.01), and 7 ml/s/y (p = 0.9).Conclusions:We conclude that exposure to laboratory animals is a significant risk factor for accelerated lung function decline, and that sensitised workers are especially at risk.
NO2, as a marker of air pollution, and recurrent wheezing in children: a nested case-control study within the BAMSE birth cohort
Authors: Emenius G , Pershagen G , Berglind N , Kwon H-J , Lewné M , Nordvall S L , Wickman M 
Published: October 2003

Aims:To investigate the association between air pollution, including with NO2, and recurrent wheezing during the first two years of life.Methods:A birth cohort (BAMSE) comprised 4089 children, for whom information on exposures, symptoms, and diseases was available from parental questionnaires at ages 2 months, and 1 and 2 years. NO2was measured during four weeks in and outside the dwellings of children with recurrent wheezing and two age matched controls, in a nested case-control study (540 children).Results:Conditional logistic regression showed an OR of 1.60 (95% CI 0.78 to 3.26) among children in the highest quartile of outdoor NO2exposure in relation to those in the lowest quartile, adjusted for potential confounders. The corresponding OR for indoor NO2was 1.51 (95% CI 0.81 to 2.82). An interaction with environmental tobacco smoke (ETS) was indicated with an OR of 3.10 (95% CI 1.32 to 7.30) among children exposed to the highest quartile of indoor NO2and ETS. The association between NO2and recurrent wheezing appeared stronger in children who did not fulfil the criteria for recurrent wheezing until their second year.Conclusions:Although the odds of increased recurrent wheezing are not statistically significantly different from one, results suggest that exposure to air pollution including NO2, particularly in combination with exposure to ETS, increases the risk of recurrent wheezing in children.
Primary osteoarthritis and occupations: a national cross sectional survey of 10 412 symptomatic patients
Authors: Rossignol M , Leclerc A , Hilliquin P , Allaert F A , Rozenberg S , Valat J-P , Avouac B , Coste P , Savarieau B , Fautrel B 
Published: October 2003

Aims:To describe the age standardised prevalence of symptomatic osteoarthritis (OA) in a nationwide cross sectional survey of 10 412 patients in France, and their functional and work limitations.Methods:Cases in the survey were compared with their expected counterpart by age, gender, and occupational groupings using data from the 1998 French National Survey on Health Impairment and Disability.Results:Women represented 66.2% of the sample; mean age was 66.2 years. One third of patients had OA of the knee, 16% of the hip, and 12% of the hand; a third had multiple joint OA. Peak prevalence of symptomatic OA was in the 60–69 year category in women and in the 70–79 year category in men. Agricultural workers showed a significant excess prevalence of OA, with an observed to expected (O/E) ratio of 1.7 in women and 2.3 in men. Linear trends in prevalences between white collar, “mixed” collar, and blue collar workers were also significant, with odds ratios respectively of 1.0, 2.9, and 2.6 in women and 1.0, 1.2, and 1.7 in men. Specific excess prevalence was found in women among housekeepers (O/E 4.4), and in men among unskilled labour workers (O/E 10.3) and truck drivers (O/E 6.7). Total work disability was highest among blue collar workers and partial disability among agricultural workers.Conclusion:Results contribute to the mounting evidence that OA is potentially aetiologically linked to occupation in a sizeable segment of the population and that OA can no longer be considered an inevitable disease of ageing.
Does psychological distress influence reporting of demands and control at work?
Authors: Waldenström K , Lundberg I , Waldenström M , Härenstam A ,   MOA Research Group
Published: October 2003

Aims:To investigate whether self reporting of psychological demands and control at work is as valid for psychologically distressed subjects as for subjects with psychological wellbeing.Method:Self reported demands and control (according to the model of Karasek) were compared to expert assessments through direct observations of each subject’s work conditions concerning time pressure, hindrances, qualification for work tasks, and possibility of having influence. The comparison was made between respondents reporting and not reporting psychological distress as measured by the general health questionnaire with 12 questions (GHQ-12). The sample consisted of 203 men and women in 85 occupations.Result:No systematic differences between self reported and externally assessed working conditions for respondents reporting different levels of psychological distress were found.Conclusion:Over-reporting of work demands or under-reporting of work control is unlikely at the levels of psychological distress studied.
Repeated daily exposure to 2 ppm nitrogen dioxide upregulates the expression of IL-5, IL-10, IL-13, and ICAM-1 in the bronchial epithelium of healthy human airways
Authors: Pathmanathan S , Krishna M T , Blomberg A , Helleday R , Kelly F J , Sandström T , Holgate S T , Wilson S J , Frew A J 
Published: October 2003

Background:Repeated daily exposure of healthy human subjects to NO2induces an acute airway inflammatory response characterised by neutrophil influx in the bronchial mucosaAims:To assess the expression of NF-κB, cytokines, and ICAM-1 in the bronchial epithelium.Methods:Twelve healthy, young non-smoking volunteers were exposed to 2 ppm of NO2/filtered air (four hours/day) for four successive days on separate occasions. Fibreoptic bronchoscopy was performed one hour after air and final NO2exposures. Bronchial biopsy specimens were immunostained for NF-κB, TNF-α, eotaxin, Gro-α, GM-CSF, IL-5, -6, -8, -10, -13, and ICAM-1 and their expression was quantified using computerised image analysis.Results:Expression of IL-5, IL-10, IL-13, and ICAM-1 increased following NO2exposure.Conclusion:Upregulation of the Th2 cytokines suggests that repeated exposure to NO2has the potential to exert a “pro-allergic” effect on the bronchial epithelium. Upregulation of ICAM-1 highlights an underlying mechanism for leucocyte influx, and could also explain the predisposition to respiratory tract viral infections following NO2exposure since ICAM-1 is a major receptor for rhino and respiratory syncytial viruses.
The impact of a week of simulated night work on sleep, circadian phase, and performance
Authors: Lamond N , Dorrian J , Roach G D , McCulloch K , Holmes A L , Burgess H J , Fletcher A , Dawson D 
Published: October 2003

Aims:To investigate factors that may contribute to performance adaptation during permanent night work.Methods:Fifteen healthy subjects participated in an adaptation and baseline night sleep, directly followed by seven simulated eight-hour night shifts (2300 to 0700 hours). At the end of each shift they were taken outside and exposed to natural light for 20 minutes. They then slept from approximately 0800 hours until they naturally awoke.Results:There was a significant increase in mean performance on a visual psychomotor vigilance task across the week. Daytime sleep quality and quantity were not negatively affected. Total sleep time (TST) for each of the daytime sleeps was reduced, resulting in an average cumulative sleep debt of 3.53 hours prior to the final night shift. TST for each of the daytime sleep periods did not significantly differ from the baseline night, nor did TST significantly vary across the week. There was a significant decrease in wake time after sleep onset and sleep onset latency across the week; sleep efficiency showed a trend towards greater efficiency across the consecutive daytime sleeps. Hours of wakefulness prior to each simulated night shift significantly varied across the week. The melatonin profile significantly shifted across the week.Conclusions:Results suggest that under optimal conditions, the sleep debt that accumulates during consecutive night shifts is relatively small and does not exacerbate decrements in night-time performance resulting from other factors. When sleep loss is minimised, adaptation of performance during consecutive night shifts can occur in conjunction with circadian adaptation.
Does computer use pose an occupational hazard for forearm pain; from the NUDATA study
Authors: Kryger A I , Andersen J H , Lassen C F , Brandt L P A , Vilstrup I , Overgaard E , Thomsen J F , Mikkelsen S 
Published: October 2003

Aims:To determine the occurrence of pain conditions and disorders in the forearm and to evaluate risk factors for forearm pain in a cohort of computer workers.Methods:A total of 6943 participants with a wide range of computer use and work tasks were studied. At baseline and at one year follow up participants completed a questionnaire. Participants with relevant forearm symptoms were offered a clinical examination. Symptom cases and clinical cases were defined on the basis of self reported pain score and palpation tenderness in the muscles of the forearm.Results:The seven days prevalence of moderate to severe forearm pain was 4.3%. Sixteen of 296 symptom cases met criteria for being a clinical forearm case, and 12 had signs of potential nerve entrapment. One year incidence of reported symptom cases was 1.3%; no subjects developed new signs of nerve entrapment. Increased risk of new forearm pain was associated with use of a mouse device for more than 30 hours per week, and with keyboard use more than 15 hours per week. High job demands and time pressure at baseline were risk factors for onset of forearm pain; women had a twofold increased risk of developing forearm pain. Self reported ergonomic workplace factors at baseline did not predict future forearm pain.Conclusion:Intensive use of a mouse device, and to a lesser extent keyboard usage, were the main risk factors for forearm pain. The occurrence of clinical disorders was low, suggesting that computer use is not commonly associated with any severe occupational hazard to the forearm.
The effect of sulphurous air pollutant exposures on symptoms, lung function, exhaled nitric oxide, and nasal epithelial lining fluid antioxidant concentrations in normal and asthmatic adults
Authors: Tunnicliffe W S , Harrison R M , Kelly F J , Dunster C , Ayres J G 
Published: October 2003

Aims:To explore the effects in normal and asthmatic adults of exposure to 200 ppb sulphur dioxide (SO2) and 200 μg/m3and 2000 μg/m3aerosols of ammonium bisulphate (AB) and sulphuric acid (SA) (MMD 0.3 μm).Methods:Exposures were placebo controlled, for one hour at rest, double blind in random order. ΔFEV1was the primary outcome; secondary outcomes included symptoms, ventilation, exhaled nitric oxide (NO) concentrations, and nasal lavage fluid ascorbic (AA) and uric acid (UA) concentrations.Results:There were no significant changes in spirometry or symptoms with any exposure in either group. SO2exposure was associated with an increased respiratory rate relative to air exposure in the asthmatic group (SO2: 958.9 breaths/hour; air: 906.8 breaths/hour) but the mean volume breathed did not differ significantly (SO2: 318.8 litres; air: 311.4 litres). AB exposures were associated with a significant rise in [NO] in the asthmatic (+1.51 ppb, and +1.39 ppb), but not in the normal group. Mean pre- and post-exposure [AA] tended to be higher in the normal than in the asthmatic group. Within each group, [AA] did not change significantly with any exposure. Post-exposure [UA] were greater than pre-exposure concentrations for all exposures, significantly so in the normal group for all exposures except SO2. There were no significant differences in the mean change in [UA] for any exposure relative to air.Conclusions:The pollutant exposure concentrations employed in this study were generally much greater than ambient. It is unlikely that short lived exposures at lower concentrations would show significant effects, but effects of longer term lower concentration exposures cannot be ruled out.
Orbifold Cohomology as Periodic Cyclic Homology
Authors: Baranovsky Vladimir 
Published: October 2003

It is known from the work of Feigin–Tsygan, Weibel and Keller that the cohomology groups of a smooth complex variety X can be recovered from (roughly speaking) its derived category of coherent sheaves. In this paper we show that for a finite group G acting on X the same procedure applied to G-equivariant sheaves gives the orbifold cohomology of X/G.As an application, in some cases we are able to obtain simple proofs of an additive isomorphism between the orbifold cohomology of X/G and the usual cohomology of its crepant resolution (the equality of Euler and Hodge numbers was obtained earlier by various authors). We also state some conjectures on the product structures, as well as the singular case; and a connection with a recent work by Kawamata.
Non-Abelian Gauge Symmetry in the Causal Epstein–Glaser Approach
Authors: Hurth Tobias 
Published: October 2003

Non-Abelian gauge symmetry in (3 + 1)-dimensional space–time is analyzed in the causal Epstein–Glaser framework. In this formalism, the technical details concerning the well-known UV and IR problem in quantum field theory are separated and reduced to well-defined problems, namely the causal splitting and the adiabatic switching of operator-valued distributions. Non-Abelian gauge invariance in perturbation theory is completely discussed in the well-defined Fock space of free asymptotic fields. The LSZ formalism is not used in this construction. The linear operator condition of asymptotic gauge invariance is sufficient for the unitarity of the S matrix in the physical subspace and the usual Slavnov–Taylor identities. We explicitly derive the most general specific coupling compatible with this condition. By analyzing only tree graphs in the second order of perturbation theory we show that the well-known Yang–Mills couplings with anticommuting ghosts are the only ones which are compatible with asymptotic gauge invariance. The required generalizations for linear gauges are given.
Fusion of Twisted Representations
Authors: Gaberdiel Matthias R. 
Published: October 2003

The comultiplication formula for fusion products of untwisted representations of the chiral algebra is generalized to include arbitrary twisted representations. We show that the formulae define a tensor product with suitable properties, and determine the analogue of Zhu's algebra for arbitrary twisted representations. As an example we study the fusion of representations of the Ramond sector of the N = 1 and N = 2 superconformal algebra. In the latter case, certain subtleties arise which we describe in detail.
Geometrically Induced Gauge Structure on Manifolds Embedded in a Higher-Dimensional Space
Authors: Fujii Kanji , Ogawa Naohisa , Uchiyama Satoshi , Chepilko Nikolai Mikhailovich 
Published: October 2003

We explain in a context different from that of Maraner the formalism for describing the motion of a particle, under the influence of a confining potential, in a neighborhood of an n-dimensional curved manifold Mn embedded in a p-dimensional Euclidean space Rp with p ≥ n + 2. The effective Hamiltonian on Mn has a (generally non-Abelian) gauge structure determined by the geometry of Mn. Such a gauge term is defined in terms of the vectors normal to Mn, and its connection is called the N connection. This connection is nothing but the connection induced from the normal connection of the submanifold Mn of Rp. In order to see the global effect of this type of connections, the case of M1 embedded in R3 is examined, where the relation of an integral of the gauge potential of the N connection (i.e. the torsion) along a path in M1 to the Berry phase is given through Gauss mapping of the vector tangent to M1. Through the same mapping in the case of M1 embedded in Rp, where the normal and the tangent quantities are exchanged, the relation of the N connection to the induced gauge potential (the canonical connection of the second kind) on the (p - 1)-dimensional sphere Sp - 1 (p ≥ 3) found by Ohnuki and Kitakado is concretely established; the former is the pullback of the latter by the Gauss mapping. Further, this latter which has the monopole-like structure is also proved to be gauge-equivalent to the spin connection of Sp - 1. Thus the N connection is also shown to coincide with the pullback of the spin connection of Sp - 1. Finally, by extending formally the fundamental equations for Mn to the infinite-dimensional case, the present formalism is applied to the field theory that admits a soliton solution. The resultant expression is in some respects different from that of Gervais and Jevicki.
EPR Elements of Physical Reality in Quantum Mechanics
Authors: Thankappan V. K. , Menon Ravi K. 
Published: October 2003

The concept of elements of physical reality (e.p.r.) in quantum mechanics as defined by Einstein, Podolsky and Rosen (EPR) is discussed in the context of the EPR–Bohm and the EPR–Bell experiments on a pair of spin 1/2 particles in the singlet state. It is argued that EPR's definition of e.p.r. is appropriate to the EPR–Bell experiment rather than to the EPR–Bohm experiment, and that Bohr's interpretation of e.p.r. is also consistent with such a viewpoint. It is shown that the observed correlation between the spins of the two particles in the EPR–Bell experiment is just a manifestation of the correlation that exists between the wave functions of the particles in the singlet state and a consequence of the fact that a Stern–Gerlach magnet does not change the state of a particle but only transforms its wave function into a representation defined by the axis of the magnet. As such, the correlation is suggested to be an affirmation of Einstein's concept of locality, and not an evidence for nonlocality.
Emergent Chiral Symmetry: Parity and Time Reversal Doubles
Authors: Balachandran A. P. , Vaidya S. 
Published: October 2003

There are numerous examples of approximately degenerate states of opposite parity in molecular physics. Theory indicates that these doubles can occur in molecules that are reflection-asymmetric. Such parity doubles occur in nuclear physics as well, among nuclei with odd A ~ 219–229. We have also suggested elsewhere that such doubles occur in particle physics for baryons made up of cbu and cbd quarks. In this article, we discuss the theoretical foundations of these doubles in detail, demonstrating their emergence as a surprisingly subtle consequence of the Born–Oppenheimer approximation, and emphasizing their bundle-theoretic and topological underpinnings. Starting with certain "low energy" effective theories in which classical symmetries like parity and time reversal are anomalously broken on quantization, we show how these symmetries can be restored by judicious inclusion of "high-energy" degrees of freedom. This mechanism of restoring the symmetry naturally leads to the aforementioned doublet structure. A novel byproduct of this mechanism is the emergence of an approximate symmetry (corresponding to the approximate degeneracy of the doubles) at low energies which is not evident in the full Hamiltonian. We also discuss the implications of this mechanism for Skyrmion physics, monopoles, anomalies and quantum gravity.
A New Framework for Improving Software Development Process on Small Computer Systems
Authors: Sakai Makoto , Matsumoto Ken-Ichi , Torii Koji 
Published: October 2003

While small computer systems have provided us with a wide array of development and operational environments, implementation methods, and domains of the software to be developed, it has also made the software development more risky. This paper proposes a new framework for improving the software development process on small computer systems to reduce software development risks. The key idea of the proposed framework is that the solutions to the software development problems can be extracted by the project manager, with relatively low overload, from the development processes that were actually executed in order to reduce the development risks, and then be formalized and stored in a database. The formalized solutions can be used not only for process improvement, but also for devising new solutions if new problems should occur in the future. We believe that the proposed framework is capable of making up for the difficulties in implementing CMM on small computer systems, and it encourages us to apply CMM to such risky software development.
Knowledge Aspects of Resource Allocation Problems with Saturation
Authors: Cherenkov A. P. 
Published: October 2003

In this paper we consider some knowledge aspects which arise when investigating problems of optimal resource allocation with saturation. Among them we mention information state before resource allocation, utilization of lexicographical variables, space transformations, some principles used for finding solutions, finding quality form of solution on the basis of the necessary conditions of optimality, inner and outer parametrization, essential reduction of dimension of solved problems, reasons of solution non-uniqueness, utilization of continual problems for solution of analogous discrete problems. We shall try to show the mutual interplay between software engineering and knowledge engineering. Examples of problems solved with attraction of methods discussed in this paper exist in papers [1–10] and others.
The Stabilization Problem for Certain Class of Ecological Systems
Authors: Kirillov A. N. 
Published: October 2003

The stabilization problem for dynamical systems is to find control providing stability of some sets in phase space. This problem is not solved in general for nonlinear systems. The ecological systems are nonlinear, as usual, with restrictions on phase coordinates and controls. In this paper we consider piecewise constant control stabilization. Some general results are obtained. A new class of population dynamical systems is introduced, for which the constructive method of global stabilization and controllability is given. The set of attraction is found.