A Sense of Security: Carpentry Apprentices Handling Uncertain and Dangerous Work Tasks

ABSTRACT

This article explores how carpentry apprentices learn to handle uncertain and potentially dangerous situations in the working environment at construction sites. The analysis focuses on how these situations are negotiated at the workplaces in relation to bodily sensations of pain, relations with their co-workers and the importance placed on ‘getting the work done’. It shows that instead of working to eliminate potentially dangerous situations through the use of precautionary measures such as lifting equipment or personal protection gear, the apprentices learn to understand risk and uncertainties as a part of the job through general learning processes at the workplace.     

Potential sensitivity of pork production situations aiming at high-quality products to the use of entire male pigs as an alternative to surgical castrates

The perspective of a possible ban on surgical castration of male pigs in the EU is a real challenge for pork production systems aiming at (very) high-quality products. Information was collected from a total of 272 situations in 16 European countries, including 170 situations related to EU protected designations (Database of Origin & Registration (DOOR) database) and 102 other situations related to high-quality products or differentiated production systems, in order to evaluate their potential sensitivity to the use of entire male pigs along four dimensions: BT_Inc, likelihood of increased levels of boar taint compounds compared with conventional production of entire males; BT_Per, extent to which (some of) the associated pork product(s) are susceptible to perception of boar taint by consumers; FatQQ, likelihood that the quality of (some of) the related products is decreased due to the lower fat quantity and quality in entire males; Manag, increased likelihood of animal management and welfare problems compared with conventional production of entire males. Situations corresponding to EU protected designations (DOOR situations) were on average more sensitive to entire male production but 11% of the non-DOOR situations were highly potentially sensitive, whereas one-third of the DOOR situations had low potential sensitivity. In total, 37% of the situations where castration is not formally specified as mandatory exhibited high potential sensitivity to entire male production. Three main patterns of situations were identified via ascending hierarchical clustering. A first pattern including 31% of the DOOR situations and 74% of the other ones, had potentially no increased risk compared with conventional production of entire males. A second pattern including 28% of the DOOR situations and 16% of the other ones had a high, moderate and low potential sensitivity for FatQQ, BT_Inc and Manag, respectively. The third pattern including 41% of the DOOR situations and 11% of the other situations had high potential sensitivity for BT_Inc and FatQQ, associated with moderate to high sensitivity for Manag. The approach used to evaluate the sensitivity to entire male pig production from the limited information collected for this study has many limitations. More precise approaches using more specific information are needed to evaluate the actual sensitivity of individual situations to the use of entire male pigs. Still, the present study provides a first global insight on the capacity of European production systems aiming at high-quality products to use entire male pigs as an alternative to surgical castration.     

新型冠状病毒疫苗接种与疫情进展

新型冠状病毒肺炎(简称新冠)疫情仍在发展,新型冠状病毒变异株的出现致使其传染性和致病性增强,部分国家的政府和民众防控措施松懈导致某些地区疫情加剧。新型冠状病毒疫苗广泛使用后,接种情况会影响疫情发展。本文主要阐述新冠疫情与疫苗接种、病毒变异的关联性,接种疫苗存在的问题及其应对措施,并建议在加快疫苗接种的同时应做好各项新冠防控工作。     

Stressors and pain sensitivity in CFW mice. Role of opioid peptides.

Effects of several environmental situations on pain threshold were studied in CFW male mice. Immobilization induced significant and naloxone reversible analgesia. Isolation produced analgesia which was partially reversed by naloxone. One minute swimming in + 4 degrees C or + 42 degrees C water increased naloxone reversible analgesia. Isolation produced analgesia which was partially reversed by naloxone. One minute swimming in 4 degrees C or + 42 degrees C water increased naloxone irreversible pain threshold. Other situations: drinking 2% NaCl solution, disturbance of light-dark cycle or social aggregation did not produce analgesia. The role of these situations as stress-inducers, as well as the role of endogenous opioid peptides in stress-induced analgesia, were discussed.     

An Efficient Soft Set-Based Approach for Conflict Analysis

Conflict analysis has been used as an important tool in economic, business, governmental and political dispute, games, management negotiations, military operations and etc. There are many mathematical formal models have been proposed to handle conflict situations and one of the most popular is rough set theory. With the ability to handle vagueness from the conflict data set, rough set theory has been successfully used. However, computational time is still an issue when determining the certainty, coverage, and strength of conflict situations. In this paper, we present an alternative approach to handle conflict situations, based on some ideas using soft set theory. The novelty of the proposed approach is that, unlike in rough set theory that uses decision rules, it is based on the concept of co-occurrence of parameters in soft set theory. We illustrate the proposed approach by means of a tutorial example of voting analysis in conflict situations. Furthermore, we elaborate the proposed approach on real world dataset of political conflict in Indonesian Parliament. We show that, the proposed approach achieves lower computational time as compared to rough set theory of up to 3.9%.     

Situations in 140 Characters: Assessing Real-World Situations on Twitter

Over 20 million Tweets were used to study the psychological characteristics of real-world situations over the course of two weeks. Models for automatically and accurately scoring individual Tweets on the DIAMONDS dimensions of situations were developed. Stable daily and weekly fluctuations in the situations that people experience were identified. Predicted temporal trends were found, providing validation for this new method of situation assessment. On weekdays, Duty peaks in the midmorning and declines steadily thereafter while Sociality peeks in the evening. Negativity is highest during the workweek and lowest on the weekends. pOsitivity shows the opposite pattern. Additionally, gender and locational differences in the situations shared on Twitter are explored. Females share both more emotionally charged (pOsitive and Negative) situations, while no differences were found in the amount of Duty experienced by males and females. Differences in the situations shared from Rural and Urban areas were not found. Future applications of assessing situations using social media are discussed.     

Effect of host size on male fitness in the parasitoid wasp Dinarmus basalis

The effect of host size on male fitness was tested in the parasitoid wasp Dinarmus basalis (Hymenoptera, Pteromalidae) using hosts of different fresh weight. Fitness was measured as the sperm stock in seminal vesicles, and the ability to access females in single or competition situations. Both body size and sperm in seminal vesicles increased with host fresh weight. Males from small hosts had a reduced size and sperm stock compared to those from larger hosts. In single situations, males from both small and large hosts had similar reproductive capacities, whereas in multiple mating or competition situations, males from small hosts were at a disadvantage, inseminating fewer females and copulating less frequently. However, females did not appear to choose between males, and no effect on sperm stored in the spermatheca was observed. Being small does not prevent a D. basalis male mating and producing progeny in single situations, although more offspring could be expected from larger males because of their better competitive abilities.     

The times they’re a-changing: Effects of circadian desynchronization on physiology and disease

Circadian rhythms are endogenous and need to be continuously entrained (synchronized) with the environment. Entrainment includes both coupling internal oscillators to external periodic changes as well as synchrony between the central clock and peripheral oscillators, which have been shown to exhibit different phases and resynchronization speed. Temporal desynchronization induces diverse physiological alterations that ultimately decrease quality of life and induces pathological situations. Indeed, there is a considerable amount of evidence regarding the deleterious effect of circadian dysfunction on overall health or on disease onset and progression, both in human studies and in animal models. In this review we discuss the general features of circadian entrainment and introduce diverse experimental models of desynchronization. In addition, we focus on metabolic, immune and cognitive alterations under situations of acute or chronic circadian desynchronization, as exemplified by jet-lag and shiftwork schedules. Moreover, such situations might lead to an enhanced susceptibility to diverse cancer types. Possible interventions (including light exposure, scheduled timing for meals and use of chronobiotics) are also discussed.     

Moral concepts set decision strategies to abstract values

Persons have different value preferences. Neuroimaging studies where value-based decisions in actual conflict situations were investigated suggest an important role of prefrontal and cingulate brain regions. General preferences, however, reflect a superordinate moral concept independent of actual situations as proposed in psychological and socioeconomic research. Here, the specific brain response would be influenced by abstract value systems and moral concepts. The neurobiological mechanisms underlying such responses are largely unknown. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) with a forced-choice paradigm on word pairs representing abstract values, we show that the brain handles such decisions depending on the person's superordinate moral concept. Persons with a predominant collectivistic (altruistic) value system applied a "balancing and weighing" strategy, recruiting brain regions of rostral inferior and intraparietal, and midcingulate and frontal cortex. Conversely, subjects with mainly individualistic (egocentric) value preferences applied a "fight-and-flight" strategy by recruiting the left amygdala. Finally, if subjects experience a value conflict when rejecting an alternative congruent to their own predominant value preference, comparable brain regions are activated as found in actual moral dilemma situations, i.e., midcingulate and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. Our results demonstrate that superordinate moral concepts influence the strategy and the neural mechanisms in decision processes, independent of actual situations, showing that decisions are based on general neural principles. These findings provide a novel perspective to future sociological and economic research as well as to the analysis of social relations by focusing on abstract value systems as triggers of specific brain responses.     

Effects of temporal variation in the risk of predation by least weasel (Mustela nivalis) on feeding behavior of field vole (Microtus agrestis)

Predation risk tends to vary in time. Thus prey animals face a problem of allocating feeding and antipredator effort across different risk situations. A recent model of Lima and Bednekoff (1999) predicts that a prey should allocate more feeding effort to low risk situations and more antipredator effort to high risk situations with increasing relative degree of risk in high risk situations (attack ratio). Furthermore when the proportion of time the prey spends in the high risk situation (p) increases, the prey have to eventually feed also in the high risk situations. However the increase in feeding effort in low risk situations should clearly exceed that in high risk situations as p increases. To test these predictions we measured feeding effort of field voles (Microtus agrestis) exposed to varying presence of least weasel (Mustela nivalis) and its feces in laboratory conditions. We generated quantitative predictions by estimating attack ratios from results of a pilot experiment. The model explained 15% of the observed variation in feeding effort of voles. Further analyses indicated that feeding effort was lower in high risk situations than in low risk situations at high attack ratio, but not at a lower one. Voles exposed to a presence of a weasel for extended periods showed signs of nutritional stress. Still we did not find any increase in feeding effort with increasing p. This was obviously due to the relatively low maximal p we used as we included only conditions likely to occur in nature.     

The Application of Hunter's Inequality in Simultaneous Testing

Using the inequality given by HUNTER (1976) critical limits are derived on the basis of bivariate distributions of the respective statistics for various situations of simultaneous hypothesis testing. The gain in power as compared to the widely used Bonferroni-inequality can be considerable if at least some of the simultaneously investigated test-statistics are highly correlated. In such situations, the loss in power as compared to the use of the exact critical limits might be negligible for practical purposes, the exact limits often being hardly accessible.     

转基因植物的研究概况及应用领域

就转基因技术在作物育种上的研究、应用状况、应用领域以及产生的经济、社会和环境效益几方面进行了概述。     

The Problem Realm and the World of Inner Experiences of Upper-Grade Students

In her chapter, the author understands ‘problems’ not as problems of solving learning tasks, but life situations which a young person has to solve. Such situations are often negative experiences. The author claims that problem situations can only be evaluated on the basis of ‘perezhivanie’ associated with them. This aspect is seldom present in psychological-pedagogical research. Most research starting from the 1920’s uses personal diaries or observations as the methods of studying life problems. But they are not able to reveal objectively relations between life problems and their ‘perezhivanie.’ The author introduces two new survey methods called “the world of perezhivanie” and “panorama of problems,” with which primary material is collected for further elaboration of the relation between problem domains and ‘perezhivanie.’ The chapter presents new methods of collecting data. Empirical results are published in other journals and books.     

Enzyme localization as a mechanism of apparent active transport

A model based on enzyme localization is developed which gives rise to an apparent active transport of a metabolite into or out of cells. The model is applied to three simple situations, using Fick's equation and the Rashevsky approximation. It is shown that the apparent efficiency can be made as large as desired if, for constant reaction, the outer cell region is made sufficiently small, or, for autocatalytic reaction, if the metabolite concentration in the outer region is sufficiently small. The physical limitations imposed by this mechanism are developed for all three situations.     

The role of activity in anticipating and confronting stressful situations.

This paper is an analytical review of studies comparing stress reactions in threatening situations during which the person can or cannot take action. The studies reviewed were conducted mainly in real-life situations and involved diverse forms of coping activities under various conditions of danger and distress. To achieve a better understanding of the effect of activity on stress reactions, several distinctions are made: between various types of stress reactions; between various indices and measurements of stress reactions; between activity which is directly related to the source of threat and activity which is not; and between various personality dimensions. The adaptive potential of activity in stressful situations is discussed in terms of: the sense of mastery and control provided by activity; activity as a means of attention diversion; and activity as a means of discharging energy generated by mobilization. It is suggested that taking action under stressful conditions, as opposed to remaining passive, is a powerful coping tool.     

Walking and take-off in Aphis fabae.

ABSTRACT. A walking aphid ready to emigrate is directed by light, gravity and mechanical stimuli to the upper and outer parts of the plant. There, the new conditions enhance the probability of take-off, as a kinetic response, but the precise moment at which the aphid stops walking and takes flight does not depend on any new external ('releasing') stimulus. The probability of take-off, then, appears to depend partly on substrate stimuli received during walking. Aphids were tested either when suspended by the thorax (and carrying and walking on spheres or paper bands) or when walking on a treadmill with a variable surface structure and aspect relative to gravity. A variety of situations that stimulated faster walking (e.g. a 'cat-walk'), also delayed take-off. Other situations that retarded walking (e.g. being upside-down), similarly delayed taking off, and tended as well to induce probing of the surface. A common feature of these latter situations appeared to be that they elicited traction movements of the legs on the surface: a flexor reflex opposed to the leg extension that regularly precedes a take-off.     

Numerical calculation and measurement of 60-Hz current densities induced in an upright grounded cylinder

Power-frequency electric fields are strongly perturbed in the vicinity of human beings and experimental animals. As a consequence, the extrapolation of biological data from laboratory animals to human-exposure situations cannot use the unperturbed exposure field strength as a common exposure parameter. Rather, comparisons between species must be based on the actual electric fields at the outer surfaces of and inside the bodies of the subjects. Experimental data have been published on surface and internal fields for a few exposure situations, but it is not feasible to characterize experimentally more than a small fraction of the diverse types of exposures which occur in the laboratory and in the field. A predictive numerical model is needed, one whose predictions have been verified in situations where experimental data are available, and one whose results can be used with confidence in new exposure situations. This paper describes a numerical technique which can be used to develop such a model, and it carries out this development for a test case, that of a homogeneous right-circular cylinder resting upright on-end on a ground plane and exposed to a vertical, uniform, 60-Hz electric field. The accuracy of the model is tested by comparing short-circuit currents and induced current densities predicted by it to measured values: Agreement is good.     

Decoding of Baby Calls: Can Adult Humans Identify the Eliciting Situation from Emotional Vocalizations of Preverbal Infants?

Preverbal infants often vocalize in emotionally loaded situations, yet the communicative potential of these vocalizations is not well understood. The aim of our study was to assess how accurately adult listeners extract information about the eliciting situation from infant preverbal vocalizations. Vocalizations of 19 infants aged 5-10 months were recorded in 3 negative (Pain, Isolation, Demand for Food) and 3 positive (Play, Reunion, After Feeding) situations. The recordings were later rated by 333 adult listeners on the scales of emotional valence and intensity. Subsequently, the listeners assigned the eliciting situations in a forced choice task. Listeners were almost perfectly able to discriminate whether a recording came from a negative or a positive situation. Their discrimination may have been based on perceived valence as they consistently assigned higher valence when listening to positive, and lower valence when listening to negative, recordings. Ability to identify the particular situation within the negative or positive realm was substantially weaker, with only three of the six situations being discriminated above chance. The best discriminated situation, Play, was associated with high perceived intensity. The weak qualitative discrimination of negative situations seemed to be based on graded perception of negative recordings, from the most intense and unpleasant (assigned to Pain) to the least intense and least unpleasant (assigned to Demand for Food). Parenthood and younger age, but not gender of listeners, had weak positive effects on the accuracy of judgments. Our results indicate that adults almost flawlessly distinguish positive and negative infant sounds, but are rather inaccurate regarding identification of the specific needs of the infant and may normally employ other sensory channels to gain this information.     

Survey on Ethical Conduct Thresholds in Cardiologal Medical Practice in Argentina

The purpose of this study was to analyze the attitude of a group of cardiologists on the ethical conducts they would accept or adopt when encountered with different hypothetical situations of medical practice. Between August and September of 2011, 700 Argentine cardiologists were surveyed in situations which posed ethical dilemmas in the patient‐physician relationship, among colleagues or involving financial agreements with employers or the pharmaceutical industry. Ethical conflicts were evidenced in a series of inappropriate conducts such as differential fees, trips and meals sponsored by laboratories, splitting fees, overbilling, self‐referral, charging for patient referral, financial compensation for ordering medical procedures, and various situations derived from the relationship with employers. In general, financial compensation from the pharmaceutical industry was more accepted than the conflictive situations which directly involved patients, colleagues or employers. The rejection of these conducts, the physicians' deontological education and the improvement of financial and organizational conditions in medical practice will help to encourage better medical professionalism and avoid unseemly behaviors.