Expert statement and assessment of medical impairment in work-related pulmonary disease

The Norwegian Societies of Thoracic Medicine and Occupational Medicine established a working group to standardise diagnostic procedures and evaluation of work-related respiratory disorders. In cases of suspected work-related diseases the physician may be asked by the National Insurance Administration or an insurance company to make a statement which will be one of the documents used to decide the patient's right to compensation benefit. We discuss the role of the physician as an independent expert. This is different from his role as clinician. The statement should include a balanced presentation of information from different sources, including health and occupational history, and the employer's information about the work environment (quantitative and qualitative exposure data). The statement must also include the results of a clinical examination and an assessment of functional status based on objective tests. The paper contains recommendations for evaluation of permanent impairment in light of the present Norwegian laws and regulations.     

Effects of crack size and weld metal mismatch on the has cleavage toughness of wide plates

The heat affect zone (HAZ) is in many cases considered to be the most critical part of a weldment. In this paper, the effect of crack size and weld metal mismatch on the HAZ cleavage toughness of wide plate specimens with X-groove has been investigated by the J-Q-M theories and a simple micromechanism for cleavage fracture. Two crack sizes have been studied (a/w = 0.1 and 0.3). In the analyses, the HAZ yield strength is assumed to be higher than the base metal. For each crack size, weld metal local overmatch and local evenmatch with respect to the HAZ are considered. For a given global strain, the results indicate that weld metal overmatch and evenmatch yield the same crack tip loading in terms of J-integral for a/w = 0.3. For a/w = 0.1, overmatch gives lower crack tip loading than evenmatch. For a given crack tip loading, weld metal local evenmatch in general results in less effective crack tip loading than the overmatch. Overmatch is detrimental to HAZ toughness, but this detrimental effect becomes less significant when the crack size decreases.     

A questionnaire study among 171 medical candidates enrolled in a PhD program. Three elements in the PhD education: supervision, research courses and international relations

One hundred and seventy-one medical doctors (median age 34 years) registered as Ph.D.-students at the Medical Faculty, University of Aarhus, were given a questionnaire concerning the Ph.D-program (91% reply rate). The Ph.D.-students had typically graduated four years before enrollment and had gained basic clinical experience. Eighty-four percent had been involved in research projects prior to their formal research education. In general, the Ph.D.-students found the supervision offered by senior researchers adequate, although, more Ph.D.-students in clinical than in preclinical departments would have liked their main supervisor to be more enthusiastic and have more specific expertise. By tradition, the Medical Faculty in Aarhus offers a broad introductory course on research methodology, this was appreciated by the Ph.D.-students. However, they found that too much time was allocated for this purpose. The Ministry of Education recommends that Ph.D.-students gain experience from international collaboration, preferably from a stay abroad. However, only 24% of Ph.D.-students had stayed at an international collaborating institution. Although the overall evaluation of the medical Ph.d.-program was positive, the Ph.D.-students pointed out weaknesses and conflicts requiring adjustment.     

Fe calculations of stress fields from cracks located at the fusion line of weldments

This paper investigates the stress fields for a crack located at the fusion line of a weldment. The strength mis-matching and the size of the HAZ were varied, and the corresponding distribution of the maximum principal stress was examined. The weld metal strength was globally overmatched with respect to the base material, but locally over- and undermatched with respect to the heat affected zone. Three cases of mis-match were compared, and it was found that reducing the strength of the HAZ lowered the maximum principal stresses.     

Analytical study of surface and bulk oxidation of Astroloy

Nickel-base alloys, such as Astroloy, used for aeronautical turbine disks, are sensitive to time-dependent cracking in environments containing oxygen. The mosaic structure of the alloy consisting islands (200 nm average size) surrounded by the -phase (100 nm thick) induces complex oxidation phenomena. Various analytical approaches allow the delineation of all the steps from segregation to oxidation occurring on the surface of such a duplex structure. The protection of Astroloy by its outer oxide layer against oxygen penetration was studied also, using alternative ¹⁶O₂ then ¹⁸O₂ oxidation. In association with STEM studies, it is shown that the outer oxide scale is not a real barrier against oxygen penetration and that inner precipitation of chronium (+ aluminium and titanium)-enriched oxides, takes place especially in the structure.     

Adoption of open source software in software-intensive organizations – A systematic literature review

ContextOpen source software (OSS) is changing the way organizations develop, acquire, use, and commercialize software.ObjectiveThis paper seeks to identify how organizations adopt OSS, classify the literature according to these ways of adopting OSS, and with a focus on software development evaluate the research on adoption of OSS in organizations.MethodBased on the systematic literature review method we reviewed publications from 24 journals and seven conference and workshop proceedings, published between 1998 and 2008. From a population of 24,289 papers, we identified 112 papers that provide empirical evidence on how organizations actually adopt OSS.ResultsWe show that adopting OSS involves more than simply using OSS products. We moreover provide a classification framework consisting of six distinctly different ways in which organizations adopt OSS. This framework is used to illustrate some of the opportunities and challenges organizations meet when approaching OSS, to show that OSS can be adopted successfully in different ways, and to organize and review existing research. We find that existing research on OSS adoption does not sufficiently describe the context of the organizations studied, and it fails to benefit fully from related research fields. While existing research covers a large number of topics, it contains very few closely related studies. To aid this situation, we offer directions for future research.ConclusionThe implications of our findings are twofold. On the one hand, practitioners should embrace the many opportunities OSS offers, but consciously evaluate the consequences of adopting it in their own context. They may use our framework and the success stories provided by the literature in their own evaluations. On the other hand, researchers should align their work, and perform more empirical research on topics that are important to organizations. Our framework may be used to position this research and to describe the context of the organization they are studying.     

Development and Evaluation of a Nanoparticle Generator for Human Inhalation Studies with Airborne Zinc Oxide

In the EU there is an increasing need for regulatory agencies to derive health based threshold limits based on human inhalation studies with airborne particles. A necessary prerequisite for such projects is the development of a suitable generator system to produce nanoparticle test aerosols for human whole-body inhalation studies. We decided to use a generator with flame-based heating of aqueous precursor solutions. Validation of the test system was done by generating zinc oxide (ZnO) nanoparticles with minimal contamination of trace gases, i.e., nitric oxides or carbon monoxide that could confound the effects seen in exposed subjects. ZnO was selected based on the uncertainties surrounding its health effects after exposure at the workplace. The generation process of the developed flame generator yields ZnO nanoparticles with monomodal size distribution and very good temporal stability. The maximum target exposure mass concentration of 2 mg/m³ ZnO, with a resulting median particle diameter of 57 nm, is attainable in our human exposure laboratory. The morphological examination shows typical agglomerates and aggregates formed by high temperature processes. Overall, the performed experiments confirm that a constant exposure can be provided for all subjects at all times.

Copyright 2014 American Association for Aerosol Research     

Oxidative properties and chemical stability of fluoronanotubes in matrixes of binary inorganic compounds

The chemical stability of fluoronanotubes in selected solid inorganic matrixes has been studied by initially mixing and mechanically grinding the components and subsequently heating them at temperatures ranging from 35 to 600 degrees C. The inorganic compounds selected for matrixes included halides (KBr, KI, Lil, LiBr, LiCl, NaCl, Znl2), oxides (Li2O, Fe2O3, PbO, MnO), lithium peroxide (Li2O2), potassium superoxide (KO2), sulfides (Li2S and ZnS), zinc selenide (ZnSe), lithium nitride (Li3N), and aluminum phosphide (AIP). Solid products, resulting from the proceeding chemical reactions, were analyzed by X-ray diffraction, Raman spectroscopy, and SEM/EDX elemental analysis. Gaseous and volatile products were identified with the help of the TGA/MS technique. Experimental data presented in this paper provide clear evidence that fluoronanotubes are not chemically inert toward the solid matrixes studied and exhibit significant oxidative properties in the redox reactions occurring under various temperatures, depending on the nature of the inorganic compound.