In 1981, NIOSH began investigating the potential reproductive health effects resulting from exposures to a class of organic solvents known generically as glycol ethers (GE). This research was begun as a result of the NIOSH criteria document development program which revealed little data available on the health effects of glycol ether exposure. Toxicologic research was begun by NIOSH and other r...

OPTIMIZER is an on-line application that optimizes the codon usage of a gene to increase its expression level. Three methods of optimization are available: the ‘one amino acid–one codon’ method, a guided random method based on a Monte Carlo algorithm, and a new method designed to maximize the optimization with the fewest changes in the query sequence. One of the main features of OPTIMIZER is th...

Lambda-lifting a functional program transforms it into a set of recursive equations. We present the symmetric transformation: lambda-dropping. Lambda-dropping a set of recur-sive equations restores block structure and lexical scope. For lack of scope, recursive equations must carry around all the parameters that any of their callees might possibly need. Both lambda-lifting and lambda-dropping t...

This article presents an overview of a strategy for assignment of hazard-specific skin notations (SK), developed by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH). This health hazard characterization strategy relies on multiple SKs capable of delineating systemic (SYS), direct (DIR), and immune-mediated (SEN) adverse effects caused by dermal exposures to chemicals. One advant...

The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) and European Norms (ENs) employ different test protocols for evaluation of air-purifying particulate respirators commonly referred to as filtering facepiece respirators (FFR). The relative performance of the NIOSH-approved and EN-certified 'Conformité Européen' (CE)-marked FFR is not well studied. NIOSH requires a minimum of 95 a...

AIM The aim of the study was to develop a computational module for the prediction of compressive force on the L4/L5 disc suitable for use in field settings. METHOD The value of compressive force is intended to be used as a proxy measure of the mechanical burden of low-back when performing work activities. The compressive force predicted by the module in a particular worker should be compared ...

In the light of data and speculation contained in the literature, and based on procedures illustrated in a previous research project in which the author described and evaluated occupational risk factors associated with work-related musculoskeletal disorders of the upper limbs (WMSDs), this paper proposes a method for calculating a concise index of exposure to repetitive movements of the upper l...

for the unknown column vector u(x , t) defined in some volume in space, V. Here, L is a linear partial differential operator in the spatial coordinate(s), x~, though the known continuous coefficients may be functions of t as well. For example, in a simple model for a single lifting rotor blade in forward flight, the dimensionless transverse displacement of the uniform blade satisfies the dimens...