171 research outputs found
Association entre la mortinatalite et lexposition aux produits chimiques pendant la grossesse
No full textThe objective of this research was to study the relationship between stillbirth and chemical exposure of pregnant workers.A case control study was conducted among women working in three sectors: Health, Personal services and Agriculture, and Manufacturing industries. Two hundred and twenty-seven (227) stillbirths aged 20 weeks of gestation or more, were matched to two hundred and twenty-seven (227) livebirths, for mother's age, gravidity and socio-economic status. Chemicals were divided into ten (10) groups. Exposure was assessed by visits to the workplaces, telephone calls or extrapolations. Conditional logistic regression analyses were done.Women working as hairdressers-beauticians (O.R. 0,01 (0,00-0,34)) and those working in the garment industry* (O.R. 0,24 (0,08-0,77)) had significantly less stillbirths while women working in metal-electrical-chemical industries* (O.R. 5,11 (0,99-26,37)) had a significant excess of stillbirth. Exposure to pesticides/germicides, irrespective of the level or frequency (O.R. 2,06 (1,15-3,68)), and occasional exposure to "miscellaneous" chemicals (other chemicals potentially fetotoxic)* (O.R. 12,07 (1,22-119,9)) showed a significant increased risk of stillbirth while exposure to a low level of metals (O.R. 0,28(0,10-0,83)) showed a significantly lower risk of stillbirth.Leatherworkers* (O.R. 2,59 (0,47-14,33)), women working in the textile industry (O.R. 2,55 (0,42-15,41)), agricultural workers* (O.R. 3,88 (0,47-31,88)), women exposed to a moderate (2) level of metals (O.R. 2,32 (0,59-9,10)) and those exposed to a high (3) level of solvents (O.R. 2,49 (0,47-13,30)) had a non significant (P 0,05) increased risk of stillbirth.The author proposes that ergonomic factors could be a confounder of the association between stillbirth and exposure to pesticides/germicides or metals. A study looking more closely at the association between stillbirth and ergonomic factors is therefore suggested. Because exposure of pregnant workers to elevated levels of chemicals is quite rare, further epidemiological studies should include more subjects. ftn: stillbirths aged 20 weeks of gestation or more. ftn*: stillbirths aged 28 weeks of gestation or more
De bereiding van trinatrium-nitrilo-triacetaat
No full textDocument(en) uit de collectie Chemische ProcestechnologieDelftChemTechApplied Science
Right to farm laws
No full textIn the lead up to the 2015 State election it was reported in The Land that the Coalition Government and NSW Farmers had entered into “an unprecedented” memorandum of understanding. Among the “key commitments” entered into were the reform of biodiversity laws and consideration of “proposals for a Right to Farm policy during 2015”.
In July 2014, at its annual conference, NSW Farmers passed a motion calling for “right to farm” legislation. Based on an article by Graham Brown, a NSW Farmers’ executive councillor, that argument seems to have two main aspects:
primarily, granting immunity to farmers from litigation involving nuisance complaints, in particular those arising from the interface between the “smelly, sometimes noisy” realities of farming and “expanding urban centres”; and
secondarily, providing protection from regulatory imposition by governments, State and local, referred to as “hindrances” to land use, including the placing by local councils of e-zones over agricultural property.
The article by Graham Brown concluded:
"In the face of extractive issues, expanding urban centres and red and green tape on-farm, protecting and promoting our farmers’ ability to conduct business, manage the landscape, provide environmental stewardship and grow food, must be supported in legislation."
The case was expressly adopted on 23 June 2015 by Robert Brown MLC of the Shooters and Fishers Party. He spoke in favour of “right to farm” policy and, calling for a parliamentary inquiry into the issue, Mr Brown argued that:
"The increasing trend of urban sprawl has presented some grim implications when the interests of agriculture clash with the lifestyle expectations of semi-rural property owners on the fringes of urban areas, or indeed in whole regions of New South Wales."
This e-brief discusses the history and purpose of “right to farm” laws and their application in the US and Canada. The position in Australia is also discussed, as is the question of the place of such laws in the broader context of the system of planning legislation. 
Variations in haematological and serum biochemical indices among White Fulani bulls, Ouda rams and West African Dwarf bucks
No full textVariations in haematological and serum biochemical indices among White Fulani bulls, Ouda rams and West African Dwarf (WAD) bucks were studied. Ten each of mature bulls, rams and bucks were used for the experiment. Blood was sampled from all the animals and analysed for haematology and serum was separated for serum biochemical analysis. The result showed that species had effect on some haematological and serum biochemical indices of White Fulani bulls, Ouda rams and WAD bucks. Packed cell volume, haemoglobin, white blood cells, red blood cells, monocytes and eosinophils were not significantly different among the species, while platelets, lymphocytes, and neutrophils counts were significantly influenced by specie differences. Platelets was significantly (p<0.05) lower in rams (93.20×103/μL) than in bulls (136.00×103/μL) and bucks (141.90×103/μL). Lymphocytes and neutrophils count was significantly (p<0.05) influenced by species differences. Serum biochemical parameters showed that there was no significant difference in the mean values for albumin, glucose, cholesterol, urea and Aspartate amino transferase, while the values obtained for total protein, creatinine and Alanine amino transferase (ALT) were significantly (p<0.05) different among the animal species. Total protein (7.21±0.52 g/dL) and creatinine (1.21±0.19 mg/dL) were significantly (p<0.05) higher in bucks than other species. The ALT was also higher (p<0.05) in bucks (20.83 iu/L) than in rams (7.59 iu/L) and bulls (6.27 iu/L). This study suggests that the effect of specie of an animal influences blood indices. The values obtained in this study can be used as references for haematological and serum biochemical assessment of indigenous male cattle, sheep and goat in Nigeria.
Keywords: Haematology, serum metabolites Ruminants blood variation, Bull, Ouda Ram, Male goa
The Representation of Nature in Zola's Ia Faute de l'Abbé Mouret
No full textA study of the representation of nature on Zola's la Faute de l'Abbé Mouret, showing that Zola's depiction of nature rather than establishing a mere décor for the action of the novel, constitution a personal myth by means of which the author exorcizes his innermost obsessions with sexuality and death.Master of Arts (MA
Embedding machine learning into passivity theory: A port-Hamiltonian approach.
No full textPassivity-based control (PBC) is a control methodology that achieves its control objective by rendering a system passive with respect to a desired storage function. A key feature of PBC is that it exploits structural properties of the system. In this thesis, the PBC of systems endowed with a special structure, called port-Hamiltonian (PH) systems, has been investigated. The geometric structure of PH systems allows reformulating the PBC problem in terms of solving a generally complex partial differential equation (PDE). Reinforcement learning (RL), on the other hand, is a learning control method that can solve complex nonlinear (stochastic) control problems without the need for a process model or explicitly solving a set of equations. In RL the controller receives an immediate numerical reward as a function of the process state and possibly control action. The goal is to find an optimal control policy that maximizes the cumulative long-term rewards, which corresponds to maximizing a value function. In this thesis, actor-critic techniques have been used, which are a class of RL methods in which a separate actor (the control law) and critic (a "memory") function are learned. A disadvantage of RL is that without having a process model it can be slow at learning and computationally expensive. In this thesis, the goal was to design a theoretical framework using PBC techniques subject to control saturation that incorporates knowledge about the PH system and learns (optimal) control policies using actor-critic reinforcement learning. Therefore, actor-critic reinforcement learning methods have been combined with different types of PBC, e.g. EB-PBC and IDA-PBC. The combination of EB-PBC with an actor-critic method, energy-balancing actor-critic (EBAC), showed its effectiveness in the pendulum swing-up problem, which was used as a benchmark test. The advantages of the method from a PBC perspective are that no PDE has to be explicitly solved, control saturation can be incorporated, the geometric structure of the PH system is preserved, (numerical) stability can be assessed using passivity theory and the learned controllers can be interpreted in terms of energy-shaping strategies. From a RL perspective, the learning is speeded up because model knowledge is available.Delft Center for Systems and ControlMechanical, Maritime and Materials Engineerin
De toekomst van de bioscoop: Onderzoek naar en ontwikkeling van een nieuw concept voor bioscopen
No full textIn het kader van mijn afstuderen aan de afdeling RE&H, onderdeel van de faculteit Bouwkunde aan de TU in Delft, is dit onderzoeksrapport geschreven. De titel van mijn afstudeeronderzoek is: "De toekomst van de bioscoop". Met dit onderzoek is getracht nieuwe concepten aan te bevelen voor de toekomstige bioscopen om hiermee de bioscopen voor de bezoekers aantrekkelijk te maken.Architectur
Иммуногистохимический анализ молекулярно-клеточных структур врожденного и адаптивногоиммунитета у больных псориазом в процессебиологической терапии
No full textThe author used the immunohistochemical method to study an effect of the biological modifier of immune reactions of
Infliximab on immunopathogenetic mechanisms directly in the affected skin of patients suffering from psoriasis.В настоящей работе иммуногистохимическим методом изучено влияние биологического модификатора иммунных
реакций инфликсимаба на иммунопатогенетические механизмы непосредственно в пораженной коже больных
псориазом
An analysis of Seasat-A altimeter data in the North-Sea area
No full textApproximately 1500 Seasat-A altimeter measurements have been analyzed to improve our knowledge of the geoid in the North-Sea area. First of all, the complete dataset (consisting of 13133 records) has been edited in order to eliminate bad o.r poor altimeter data. From these edited data, all data located in the North-Sea area were selected. After correcting them for the seasurface topography (obtained from the Institute of Oceanographic Sciences in Bidston, England) , the data were adjusted. The adjustment implied a least squares polynomial fit, relative to GEM-10, with crossover point constraints. There were 16 tracks with 31 crossovers.Civil Engineering and Geoscience
Правовий Статус Негласного Товариства (Stille Gesellschaft) В Австрійській Республіці
No full textThe article analyses the legal status of Silent Partnership. Particular attention is paid to participants’ responsibility, management of silent partnership and its termination. The author makes conclusions about the advantages of this form of legal entity in Ukrainian legislation.Автором аналізується правовий статус негласного товариства за законодавством Австрійської республіки. Особлива увага приділяється питанням управління, відповідальності його учасників, припинення діяльності товариства. Автор робить висновки щодо переваг даної організаційно-правової форми в сучасних економічних умовах України
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