1,720,965 research outputs found
Tuberculosis and cattle breeding : the case of an Egyptian milker
No full textOccupational health in breeding activities is strongly embedded with animal health. Tuberculosis (TB) – known for its critical progress and for the long duration of the drug treatment – has the specificity of a bi-directional infectious potential. Tuberculosis is still endemic in Africa, Asia and Balkan Area. Among these, the most risky regions for the disease are North Africa and India. In the Italian agricultural system, about 37000 migrants are legally employed, most of them in seasonal activities (e.g.: harvesting) but if we consider Northern Italy, we can easily find a significant presence of foreign workers also in animal breeding. In our experience, we have observed that people from India and North Africa are often involved in cattle breeding. Case-report This case report deals with a worker from Aegypt, employed as milker in an Italian enterprise since 1990. The worker, a 51 years old man, affected by chronic HCV, showed suddenly symptoms and signs suggesting lung TB (cough, haemoptysis, weight loss and thoracic pain). A diagnosis of lung TB was made in the past and the worker underwent a multidrug therapy. A re-activation of a silent lung TB due to the immunodepression linked to the chronic liver disease or to a new infection have been inquired with questionnaire. The diagnostic approach performed included BK search in the sputum, lung X-ray, Mantoux test, pulmonary evaluation. The worker was held temporarily not suitable for work. Consequences Preventive measures provide to perform Mantoux test to all milker’s colleagues and to perform tuberculin test to all animals reared. The occupational risk of TB to cattle breeders is discussed in light of bovine TB cases in Lombardy Region
Il medico del lavoro competente e la sorveglianza sanitaria in agricoltura
No full textDespite the underreporting of occupational diseases in agriculture, available data clearly show a significant health risk, and therefore the need of health surveillance at the workplace. The implementation of health surveillance programs for agricultural workers relies on the possibility of creating a system able to reach the workers at their workplaces, with the collaboration of employers’ associations, able to support enterprises in several issues, including risk assessment and management. The health surveillance program can be organized in a component common for all workers, based on physical examination, chemistry, electrocardiography, hearing and lung functions examinations, and on tests addressing specific risks, if present: vibration, physical overload, chemicals, biological agents, allergens. The frequency of examinations must be decided based on risk assessment and health surveillance outcome
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Immunologic status of agricultural workers in the region of Lombardy, Northern Italy
Full text linkPurpose. Farming is associated with a wide variety of hazardous exposures including physical, chemicals and biological agents. Animal farmers are exposed to dust which contains microorganisms, mycotoxins, endotoxins, animal feed particles, allergens and chemical agents. Organic dust exposure is known to cause allergic and non-allergic rhinitis, and organic dust toxic syndrome. This study was undertaken to evaluate the relationship between occupational health hazards and serum pro-inflammatory cytokines among agricultural workers, in particular we investigated whether animal breeders react differently to biological agents than non breeder farmers.
Methods. One hundred subjects working in agricultural enterprises in the region of Lombardy, were enrolled into the study in 2010. Serum cytokines including interleukin (IL)-6, IL-8, IL-10, IFNγ and tumor necrosis factor-α (TNFα) were measured. Cytokines were assessed by commercially available enzyme-linked-immunosorbent assay (ELISA).
Results of the study. Compared to control subjects, increased TNF-α, IL-8, and IL-10 levels were found in animal breeders, and a statistically significant relationship between type of job (breeder/non breeder workers) and increased serum pro-inflammatory cytokines. Results suggest that animal breeders might be at higher risk of occupational diseases and biological hazards than other farmers with less contact to animals
Basic occupational health services for rural workers : dream or reality?
No full textOnly part of the Italian agricultural workers is provided with occupational health surveillance. They have a lack of preventive activities and underreporting of occupational diseases and accidents. Typical characteristics of agriculture are small and family based enterprises, not covered by OHS legislation and health care facilities neither at the enterprise level nor in the territory. Since significant health and safety risks are present in the sector, actions addressed at improving and widening preventive activities are strongly needed. In this frame a project is running in the Region, addressed at the creation of BOHSs for agricultural workers. BOHSs will be spread in the territory, depending on local needs, and a complex body of activities will be there carried out; health surveillance with specific laboratory and instrumental examinations (electrocardiography; respiratory function examination; hearing function evaluation, biological specimen collection, vaccinations and education and training). Services should preferably be equipped also with occupational hygiene instruments, to fulfil any need of occupational risk assessment. Since very often Rural GPs are the only health care providers for agricultural workers, the BOHSs project anticipates some experimental activities of collaboration between Occupational Health Physician and Rural GPs. Collaboration will be based on information exchange, in some cases also through electronic files sharing. The possibility of creating BOHSs in selected rural GPs’ services and of asking Rural GPs to perform specific instrumental examinations will be explored. A further field of collaboration will be the conduction of health promotion activities, such as campaigns for the prevention of cardiovascular risk. The preliminary results of our experience show that providing rural and agricultural workers with health surveillance at the workplace is a fully reachable objective and that, where BOHSs exist and are active, notifications of occupational disease increases and workers are healthier
La dieta come elemento cardine della promozione della salute nei luoghi di lavoro nella ricerca scientifica e nella pratica : primi risultati del progetto EU FAHRE
Full text linkDIET AS A KEY ELEMENT OF HEALTH PROMOTION AT THE WORKPLACE IN SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH AND PRACTICE. FIRST RESULTS OF THE EU PROJECT FAHRE. The globalization of markets have led to rapid changes in diet and lifestyle in the developed countries, where living standards have improved, and availability and variety of food has increased while physical activity decreases have led to an augment in chronic diseases (obesity and diabetes mellitus), cardiovascular diseases and some specific cancers. In this context there is a need to develop health promotion activities. Workers represent a very appropriate group for such activities because they are relatively homogeneous, easily reachable because they can be found together in the same place and time and the occupational physician has good knowledge of the of health status of individual worker. In this scenario, a renew interest must be posed to the relationship between diet and health. In this context our Group is participating at the FAHRE project (Food and
Health Research in Europe). The project aims to establish the state of the art of research at the interface of nutrition and health in the European Union, identifying its strengths and weaknesses in order to propose strategies to increase coordination and improve its functioning as a European Research Area
Variations on the Author
Full text link“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Full text linkWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
Full text linkWe conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued
use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation
counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more
sophisticated methods
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