EDITOR,—Meijers et al presented a very interesting study on mortality of Dutch coal miners. Most of the coal miners, 3367 out of 3790 (89%), had radiological manifestations of coal workers’ pneumoconiosis (CWP). All the coal miners had an increased mortality due to ischaemic heart disease (IHD) in all four periods of follow up when compared with the total male population in the Netherlands. The...

Modern cryptocurrency systems, such as Ethereum, permit complex financial transactions through scripts called smart contracts. These smart contracts are executed many, many times, always without real concurrency. First, all smart contracts are serially executed by miners before appending them to the blockchain. Later, those contracts are serially re-executed by validators to verify that the sma...

Hypotheses proposed to explain the evolution of cooperative behaviour typically require differentiation between either groups of conspecifics (e.g. kin/non-kin) or, more typically, individuals (e.g. reciprocal altruism). Despite this, the mechanismsthat facilitate individual orclass recognition have rarely been explored in cooperative species. This study examines the individual differentiation ...

n U anc^ unprejudiced investigation he has given during \v0r]!a^t twelve years to the subject of Miners' Nystagmus. His Sung' ^ did n?t lay the foundations, has built up most of the bef0]jrStructure ?f our knowledge of this malady. The book v?lurn U-S *S a handsome, well-printed, and well-illustrated repQ ,e' 111 which Mr. Snell's inquiries and experiments are inter 6 an^ ̂ is conclusions clearl...

Leaf miners typically show non-random distributions both between and within plants. We tested the hypothesis that leaf miners on two oak species were clumped on individual host trees and individual branches and addressed whether clumping was influenced by aspects of plant quality and how clumping and/or interactions with other oak herbivores affected leaf-miner survivorship. Null models were us...

OBJECTIVES To analyse the mortality patterns of former Dutch coal miners, focusing on coal workers' pneumoconiosis (CWP) and chronic obstructive pulmonary diseases (COPD) in relation to pre-existing impairment of lung function. METHODS 3790 selected miners, medically examined between 1952 and 1963, were followed up to the end of 1991 with the municipal population registries and the causes of ...

BACKGROUND Occupational exposure to coalmine dust consisting of coal particles and free silica eventually results in massive lung fibrosis. However, clinical observations of patients with coal workers' pneumoconiosis (CWP) suggest that airway dysfunction may be a predominant feature in the initial development of the disease. METHODS Forced expirogram, plethysmographic determination of lung vo...

INTRODUCTION To be used most effectively, pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) should be prioritized to those at high risk of acquisition and would ideally be aligned with time periods of increased exposure. Identifying such time periods is not always straightforward, however. Gaza Province in southern Mozambique is characterized by high levels of HIV transmission and circular labour migration to mi...

A series of 685 x-ray films of the cervical spine obtained in coal miners was analyzed to explore the occurrence of narrowed disc spaces and osteophytes in this occupational group, and to examine the association of x-ray changes with age, duration of employment, and duration of occupational exposure to hand-arm vibration. All data were extracted from individual medical files of coal miners exam...

BACKGROUND High radon exposure is a risk factor for squamous cell carcinoma, a major lung cancer histology observed in former uranium miners. Radon exposure can cause oxidative stress, leading to pulmonary inflammation. Interleukin-6 (IL-6) is a pro-carcinogenic inflammatory cytokine that plays a pivotal role in lung cancer development. OBJECTIVES We assessed whether single nucleotide polymor...