An introduction to a UK scheme to help small firms control health risks from chemicals

The Control of Substances Hazardous to Health Regulations 1994 (COSHH), provide the main British legislation to protect against health risks arising from hazardous substances used at work. Under the regulations, employers have a duty to carry out a suitable and sufficient risk assessment and take steps to ensure exposure is adequately controlled. The paper by Topping et al. (1998) concluded that small firms need more basic, readily available advice on how to effectively control hazardous substances. To meet this need the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) and the Advisory Committee on Toxic Substances (ACTS) have developed a new scheme for the UK. It involves a simple system of generic risk assessments to identify appropriate control strategies and a series of control guidance sheets providing good-practice examples of those strategies for common operations. The approach builds on earlier industry risk banding schemes and HSE's general approach to risk assessment and risk management. To help ensure the advice reaches small firms, HSE is seeking to involve key intermediaries in its dissemination. This paper describes the rationale for the new UK scheme, how it sits in the legal framework, and proposals for its dissemination. The papers by Brooke (1998) and Maidment (1998) set out in detail the technical basis for the scheme.     

Acceptance into PhD programs in psychology: The new odds are at odds with the laws of probability.

In a previous paper by J. H. Korn (see record 1984-32529-001) on acceptance into PhD programs in psychology, Korn presented an optimistic outlook for admittance into such programs, an optimism based on a candidate/acceptance ratio that Korn computed for graduate programs in various areas of psychology. The present author suggests that Korn's computations offer an overtly optimistic picture of the probabilities of acceptance into graduate programs and that the calculations are based on an implicit but questionable assumption regarding the admissions process. The author reanalyzes Korn's data and offers what is believed to be a more accurate indication of the odds of a candidate being accepted into one of the graduate programs to which he/she has applied for admission. (4 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A UK scheme to help small firms control health risks from chemicals: toxicological considerations

The UK has developed a simple scheme to provide practical control advice to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), to assist them in their risk assessments and risk management decisions. This scheme makes use of toxicological hazard information indicated by R-phrases assigned under the European Union (EU) classification system, to assign substances to hazard bands. In the UK scheme, the allocation of substances to hazard bands according to R-phrases has taken into account three key factors: whether or not the toxicological endpoint has an identifiable dose threshold; the seriousness of the resultant health effect; and the relative exposure levels at which toxic effects occur. Based on all these considerations, R-phrases have been allocated to hazard bands within the scheme. An evaluation exercise has been undertaken, to compare the output of the scheme with established health-based occupational exposure limits, for more than 100 substances. The results of this exercise demonstrate that as far as possible, the scheme recommends control strategies which should provide adequate control. This scheme is potentially a very powerful means of helping SMEs adequately control chemical health risks in the workplace. Since it utilises the EU-agreed classification system, the scheme can be applied to any substance supplied and used in the workplace and it may also be used internationally.     

The mismatch effect: When testosterone and status are at odds.

Why do some people strive for high status, whereas others actively avoid it? In the present studies, the authors examined the psychological and physiological consequences of a mismatch between baseline testosterone and a person's current level of status. The authors tested this mismatch effect by placing high and low testosterone individuals into high or low status positions using a rigged competition. In Study 1, low testosterone participants reported greater emotional arousal, focused more on their status, and showed worse cognitive functioning in a high status position. High testosterone participants showed this pattern in a low status position. In Study 2, the emotional arousal findings were replicated with heart rate, and the cognitive findings were replicated using a math test. In Study 3, the authors demonstrate that testosterone is a better predictor of behavior than self-report measures of the need for dominance. Discussion focuses on the value of measuring hormones in personality and social psychology. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

建筑业农民工夜校的法制教育探讨

开办农民工夜校是提升农民工素质的有效途径.分析了建筑业农民工夜校开展法制教育的意义,阐述了建筑业农民工夜校法制课程教学应遵循的原则、教学内容的安排和教学手段、方法的选择.     

Fighting the odds in the UK

Caroline Richmond reports on miscellaneous winners and losers from the health care scene in the United Kingdom. The winners include a young patient who is holding her own against formidable medical odds after receiving heroic treatment for leukemia, and the country's osteopaths, who have won the right to compile a statutory register. The losers are the venerable St. Bartholomew's Hospital, which appears to have lost its battle to stay open, and a 32-year-old man who almost made it to medical school by posing as a teenager.     

Empathy and socialization in repeat offenders, first offenders, and normals.

Results of 2 experiments indicate that normal undergraduates and first offenders both differed significantly from repeat offenders but not from each other on empathy and socialization. R. Hogan's (1969) model of moral development and implications for future research in terms of differentiating between first and repeat offenders in prison groups are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

To use or not to use the odds ratio in epidemiologic analyses?

This paper argues that the use of the odds ratio parameter in epidemiology needs to be considered with a view to the specific study design and the types of exposure and disease data at hand. Frequently, the odds ratio measure is being used instead of the risk ratio or the incidence-proportion ratio in cohort studies or as an estimate for the incidence-density ratio in case-referent studies. Therefore, the analyses of epidemiologic data have produced biased estimates and the presentation of results has been misleading. However, the odds ratio can be relinquished as an effect measure for these study designs; and, the application of the case-base sampling approach permits the incidence ratio and difference measures to be estimated without any untenable assumptions. For the Poisson regression, the odds ratio is not a parameter of interest; only the risk or rate ratio and difference are relevant. For the conditional logistic regression in matched case-referent studies, the odds ratio remains useful, but only when it is interpreted as an estimate of the incidence-density ratio. Thus the odds ratio should, in general, give way to the incidence ratio and difference as the measures of choice for exposure effect in epidemiology.     

Using hypnosis to help deaf children help themselves: report of two cases

Angiogenesis is important to a variety of physiological and pathological processes. While a variety of factors have been determined to regulate angiogenesis, members of the CXC chemokine family can either promote or inhibit this process. This disparity in biological behavior is due to the presence or absence of a structural-functional domain--three amino acid residues (Glu-Leu-Arg: the "ELR-motif") that precede the first cysteine amino acid residue of the primary structure of these cytokines. The purpose of this study is to introduce the topic of angiogenesis and focuses on the CXC chemokine family, because these cytokines are a unique family of molecules that can behave in a disparate manner in the regulation of angiogenesis associated with either chronic inflammatory-fibroproliferative disorders or tumor growth.     

Confrontation with aggressive peers at school: Students' reluctance to seek help from the teacher .

Asking for assistance from a teacher is generally viewed by elementary school students as a way of avoiding rather than resolving peer conflict. However, there are situations when it is appropriate and perhaps necessary to seek help. This study investigated such situations. Vignettes that portrayed aggressive peer conflict at school were presented to 128 3rd and 4th graders, who were asked what they would do and why. Students' self-perceptions of peer relations also were measured. At Grade 3, boys and girls were equally likely to go to the teacher for help, whereas at Grade 4, girls were more likely than boys to do so. At Grade 4, girls showed greater interest than boys in resolving conflict and "getting things back to normal." At Grade 3, students interested in revenge tended to go to the teacher. At both grades, boys were more concerned than girls that help seeking might lead to hassles with the teacher or reprisals from classmates. Boys who perceived themselves as popular and girls who perceived themselves as unpopular were relatively likely to seek help. Relations between help seeking and children's grade level, gender, and self-perceptions are discussed in terms of goal and strategy components in a social-information-processing model of conflict resolution. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

People with learning disabilities as offenders or alleged offenders in the UK criminal justice system

Mathers and Schofield, from the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, review recent studies, including Australian research, on the health effects of unemployment and the mechanisms by which unemployment causes adverse health outcomes. The relationship is complex: ill-health also causes unemployment, and confounding factors include socioeconomic status and lifestyle. However, longitudinal studies with a range of designs provide reasonably good evidence that unemployment itself is detrimental to health and has an impact on health outcomes--increasing mortality rates, causing physical and mental ill-health and greater use of health services.     

To seek help or not to seek help: The risks of self-disclosure.

Investigations into the reasons why people seek counseling have, for the most part, focused on approach factors, those variables that are associated with a potential client's increased likelihood of seeking psychological services. The purpose of this research, however, is to explore the role of avoidance factors, those factors that are associated with a potential client's decreased likelihood of seeking services. Across 2 studies of primarily Caucasian college students (ns = 209 and 268, respectively). the results of simultaneous multiple regression analyses demonstrated that avoidance factors predict negative attitudes toward counseling as well as decreased intentions to seek counseling. Overall, results demonstrate that avoidance factors account for at least as much help-seeking variance as traditionally studied approach factors. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Interhemispheric integration in psychopathic offenders.

The goal of the present study was to determine whether a reduced capacity for interhemispheric integration can explain the attention deficits seen in psychopathic individuals under conditions that place substantial demands on left-hemisphere-specific resources. The present study examined the performance of 54 incarcerated psychopathic and nonpsychopathic male offenders on a same-different global-local paradigm that permits manipulation of both the magnitude of processing demands and the demand for interhemispheric coordination. Prior studies with similar paradigms have demonstrated that the cerebral hemispheres can function more efficiently as relatively independent processors on simple tasks, whereas communication between the hemispheres improves performance when processing demands are heavy. Analyses indicated that psychopathic offenders are not deficient in interhemispheric integration but provided additional evidence consistent with the left hemisphere activation hypothesis of psychopathy. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)