Hair as a specimen to document tetramethylene disulfotetramine exposure

Tetramethylene disulfotetramine (tetramine) is a rodenticide that has been banned for many years in China. Since 2005, inhabitants of a village in the Henan Province have been suffering from grand mal seizures. To investigate the possibility of tetramine as the cause, we developed a method to determine tetramine in human hair. Sample preparation involved external decontamination, frozen pulverization, and ultrasonication in 2 mL ethyl acetate in the presence of cocaine-d3 as an internal standard. The method exhibited good linearity; calibration curve was linear over a range of 0.1-20 ng/mg hair. The limit of detection for the assay was 0.05 ng/mg hair. Except for one subject (No. 4), all head and pubic hair samples were positive for tetramine. The concentrations of tetramine in pubic hair were significantly higher than those in the same subjects' head hair samples. Because of a long retention in body, segmental head hair analysis cannot provide an accurate exposure history of tetramine in the body.     

Whistleblower protection for nurses and other health care professionals

Because most employees in the United States, including health care professionals, are employed "at will" (which means their employment can be terminated for any reason or no reason, as long as the reason isn't illegal), retaliatory actions by employers toward employees who speak out (i.e., blow the whistle) are not uncommon. Additionally, the law protecting whistleblowing employees varies greatly depending on the state where the employee works or if he or she works for the federal government. This article examines when and under what conditions a nurse or other health care professional may be protected from having an adverse employment action taken against him or her for reporting such issues as patient safety violations or health care fraud. The authors offer issues a nurse or other health care professional should consider before making the decision to blow the whistle. Finally, the authors also discuss the remedies such as reinstatement, back pay, or other compensatory mechanisms that may be available to employees terminated for reporting wrongdoing.     

The age at death assessment in a multi-ethnic sample of pelvic bones using nature-inspired data mining methods

Recently published studies showed that age assessment methods are population specific. Authors analyse the senescence changes in pubic symphysis and sacro-pelvic surface of a pelvic bone using data mining methods. The multi-ethnic data set consists of 956 adult individuals ranging from 19 to 100 years of age derived from 9 different populations with known age and sex. The results show that accurate and reliable age assessment is possible to three age classes (less than 30, 30-60, 60 and more). The study confirms that population specificity of the methods exists and the variable "sex" is not important in age classification.     

A biomechanical study of the human vertebral artery with implications for fatal arterial injury

We studied the biomechanical behaviour of ring and strip specimens from along the length of 18 vertebral arteries taken from 16 subjects aged 28-90 years, in order to consider some of the factors which may play a role in vertebral artery rupture. The method was chosen to allow a comparison between circumferential distension (ring samples) and longitudinal extension, (strip samples). The samples were extended between the jaws of a tensile testing apparatus until the specimen broke and a number of biomechanical parameters were derived. These were the percentage extension to break, the tensile strength, Young's modulus and the peak load. There were a number of important findings. The vertebral artery was shown to be susceptible to longitudinal stretching with a number of strip samples breaking when extended by as little as 16-20%. The tensile strength and load at peak of the strip specimens were correspondingly lower than for the ring samples. Marked intersubject variations were shown for all these parameters and prominent changes in behaviour occurred along the vertebral artery. This study indicates that the artery may be susceptible to head and neck movements which cause the vessel to stretch, and intersubject variations in behaviour may be one important explanation for the marked differences in outcome which appear to exist in subjects who suffer broadly similar head and neck insults.     

《拉美危机面临的经济政策选择》

拉美决策者长期以来面临着以下争论:1.通货膨胀政策。拉美的通货膨胀率始终高于世界其他地区。在制定反通货膨胀政策的过程中,决策者面临着两种选择:正统的金融控制或非正统的休克疗法。有效的政策应该是合二为一。2.财政政策。这方面争论的核心是:利率应保持在什么水平上。换言之,实际利率(即名义利率减去通货膨胀率)应该是正还是负?低利率能鼓励投资,从而促进经济增长;     

“电子政府”和信息系统在美国地方政府管理中的应用

信息系统在美国地方政府管理中的应用经历前互联网和互联网两个时期,主要应用于财政管理、人事管理、土地管理、公共安全、市政工程等,改善了这些领域的服务。“地理信息系统”的出现和利用提高了工作效率,并逐渐成为公共管理领域的操作平台与支持决策工具。电子政府是指建立在信息技术上的政府运作过程,是高效率的政府过程。改进政府的运作程序是电子政府的实质所在。网络化和政府网络仅仅是电子政府内容的一部分,电子政府效果量化,这是目前值得研究的两个问题。     

Fatal attacks of zoo animals on humans--a case report

Media reports about fatal work accidents in zoos caused by zoo animals seem to appear in increasing numbers all around the world. In many cases the cause of such an accident can only be clarified by a detailed reconstruction of the event in combination with the autopsy results. This applies particularly in cases where no eyewitnesses were present. This report is about the case of a musk ox that killed its keeper, in which the fatal accident could be completely reconstructed.     

Psychiatric assessment after every six years of the TBS order in the Netherlands

Protecting the public from dangerous mentally ill offenders is an important issue in may countries. The UK, Scotland and Germany for example are looking for new ways to deal with this issue and some have looked at the Dutch system of first sending the offender to prison for a number of years and then for treatment to a secure clinical facility. Dutch law uses the term TBS: detention at the government's pleasure. Legal rights of the patient under the TBS-order are protected by regular evaluations to help the court determine if the patient still poses a danger to society. These evaluations take place every two years, at the end of each extension period. Every six years an extra assessment by independent experts is obligatory. In this same period other types of assessment occur too, such as for transferral to a long-stay unit. A complicated succession of experts may visit the patient, asking the same questions and using the same files, distracting his or her attention and motivation from the treatment process. This system is threatened by the qualitative and quantitative scarcity of properly qualified experts. Measures have been taken to counteract these difficulties, but will they suffice?