Clean Air Act Amendments of 1989 : hearing before the Subcommittee on Environmental Protection of the Committee on Environment and Public Works, United States Senate, One Hundred First Congress, first session ...

Item 1045-A, 1045-B (MF)

Essays on Personal Bankruptcy Law and Small Business Financing

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Washington, 2016-06

Hearing protectors: a dilemma involving acoustics and personal safety

This thesis is concerned with the optimising of hearing protector selection. A computer model was used to estimate the reduction in noise exposure and risk of occupational deafness provided by the wearing of hearing protectors in industrial noise spectra. The model was used to show that low attenuation hearing protectors con provide greater protection than high attenuation protectors if the high attenuation protectors ore not worn for the total duration of noise exposure; or not used by a small proportion of the population. The model was also used to show that high attenuation protectors will not necessarily provide significantly greater reduction in risk than low attenuation protectors if the population has been exposed to the noise for many years prior to the provision of hearing protectors. The effects of earplugs and earmuffs on the localisation of sounds were studied to determine whether high attenuation earmuffs are likely to have greater potential than the lower attenuation earplugs for affecting personal safety. Laboratory studies and experiments at a foundry with normal-hearing office employees and noise-exposed foundrymen who had some experience of wearing hearing protectors showed that although earplugs reduced the ability of the wearer to determine the direction of warning sounds, earmuffs produced more total angular error and more confusions between left and right. !t is concluded from the research findings that the key to the selection of hearing protectors is to be found in the provision of hearing protectors that can be worn for a very high percentage of the exposure time by a high percentage of the exposed population with the minimum effect on the personal safety of the wearers - the attenuation provided by the protection should be adequate but not a maximum value.

Personal learning artefacts: persistence, ownership and privacy

Traditional classrooms have been often regarded as closed spaces within which experimentation, discussion and exploration of ideas occur. Professors have been used to being able to express ideas frankly, and occasionally rashly while discussions are ephemeral and conventional student work is submitted, graded and often shredded. However, digital tools have transformed the nature of privacy. As we move towards the creation of life-long archives of our personal learning, we collect material created in various 'classrooms'. Some of these are public, and open, but others were created within 'circles of trust' with expectations of privacy and anonymity by learners. Taking the Creative Commons license as a starting point, this paper looks at what rights and expectations of privacy exist in learning environments? What methods might we use to define a 'privacy license' for learning? How should the privacy rights of learners be balanced with the need to encourage open learning and with the creation of eportfolios as evidence of learning? How might we define different learning spaces and the privacy rights associated with them? Which class activities are 'private' and closed to the class, which are open and what lies between? A limited set of set of metrics or zones is proposed, along the axes of private-public, anonymous-attributable and non-commercial-commercial to define learning spaces and the digital footprints created within them. The application of these not only to the artefacts which reflect learning, but to the learning spaces, and indeed to digital media more broadly are explored. The possibility that these might inform not only teaching practice but also grading rubrics in disciplines where public engagement is required will also be explored, along with the need for consideration by educational institutions of the data rights of students.

La protection de la vie privée au temps de la biosécurité

Cette thèse s’intéresse à la protection de la vie privée informationnelle dans le contexte de la biosécurité. La biosécurité se définit comme le processus qui vise à prendre en charge, dans une optique de sécurité nationale, les menaces et dangers que représentent les épidémies de maladies infectieuses pour la santé des populations humaines et la sécurité de l’État. Notre projet remet en question l’idée selon laquelle la conduite des activités de surveillance de la santé publique implique nécessairement une diminution de la protection offerte aux renseignements personnels sur la santé. Nos recherches tendent à démontrer que la conciliation de la surveillance de la santé et la protection de la vie privée est non seulement possible, mais qu’elle est surtout nécessaire. Nous portons plus précisément notre attention sur le cas de la collecte et de l’utilisation de renseignements dépersonnalisés sur la santé par les systèmes de surveillance syndromique. Bien calibrée et soigneusement réglementée, cette forme novatrice et particulière de surveillance offrirait le double avantage de réduire les risques d’atteintes à la vie privée des individus et d’augmenter de manière considérable l’efficacité des capacités étatiques en matière de détection des épidémies.

La protection de la vie privée au temps de la biosécurité

Cette thèse s’intéresse à la protection de la vie privée informationnelle dans le contexte de la biosécurité. La biosécurité se définit comme le processus qui vise à prendre en charge, dans une optique de sécurité nationale, les menaces et dangers que représentent les épidémies de maladies infectieuses pour la santé des populations humaines et la sécurité de l’État. Notre projet remet en question l’idée selon laquelle la conduite des activités de surveillance de la santé publique implique nécessairement une diminution de la protection offerte aux renseignements personnels sur la santé. Nos recherches tendent à démontrer que la conciliation de la surveillance de la santé et la protection de la vie privée est non seulement possible, mais qu’elle est surtout nécessaire. Nous portons plus précisément notre attention sur le cas de la collecte et de l’utilisation de renseignements dépersonnalisés sur la santé par les systèmes de surveillance syndromique. Bien calibrée et soigneusement réglementée, cette forme novatrice et particulière de surveillance offrirait le double avantage de réduire les risques d’atteintes à la vie privée des individus et d’augmenter de manière considérable l’efficacité des capacités étatiques en matière de détection des épidémies.

Is the legal protection for the foetus adequate in clinical trials?

In 2009 and 2010, the major drug regulatory bodies, the European Medicines Agency and the Food and Drug Administration in the USA, issued requests for the generation of information relating to the absorption, distribution, metabolism, excretion, efficacy and safety of investigational drugs in pregnant women prior to approval. In the wake of thalidomide, research involving pregnant women other than for obstetric or gynaecologic purposes became rare, and studies of investigational drugs practically unknown. Consequently, none of the legislation applicable in the UK and few of the guidelines introduced in the last 40 years properly addresses the conduct of clinical trials of investigational drugs in this population. This thesis questions whether the legal protection for the foetus is adequate in clinical trials. The answer appears to be a qualified “no”. Arguments persist regarding the moral standing of the foetus, particularly regarding abortion. That will not be the intent of such trials, and a moral case is made for the conduct of clinical trials in this population by analogy with the neonate, and the pregnant woman’s autonomy. Legally, we already recognise the foetus has ‘interests’ which crystallise upon live birth, and that compensation is recoverable for harm inflicted in utero manifesting as congenital injury. The essence of research is quite different from medical practice, and the extent to which this is understood by trial participants is unclear. The approvals processes contain a number of inadequacies which have the potential to expose the foetus to harm and affect the consent of the pregnant woman. The recovery of compensation in the event of children born injured following clinical trials during pregnancy in many ways may be more complex than other personal injury cases.. The conclusions of this thesis are that the existence of a foetus does merit recognition by the law in this setting and that morally such studies are justifiable. However, the present legislation and approval processes potentially expose the foetus to avoidable risk and may not be appropriate to enable the recovery of compensation, thereby creating potential to deter future trial participants. A proposal is made regarding an approach to simplify the process for recovery of compensation, and thereby strengthen the approval and consent processes.

Ronald Reagan Rain

RONALD REAGAN RAIN is a collection of poems that explore the wildness and terror lurking beneath the surface of contemporary suburban landscapes in a largely imagined America. Images of menacing policemen, bears, fast food restaurants, and dead film stars appear as substantive figures that embody loss and a preoccupation with aging, money woes, and a failed national confidence. Influenced by Russel Edson and Georg Trakl, poets whose work is characterized by Hermeticism and Expressionism, the poems in RONALD REAGAN RAIN suggest a similar dual need for autonomy and compromise in both highly charged poetic fragments and longer prose passages that examine issues of civil and personal estrangement as the outside world calls for constant introspection and reassessments of identity.

The issue of data protection and data security in the (pre-Lisbon) EU third pillar

The key functional operability in the pre-Lisbon PJCCM pillar of the EU is the exchange of intelligence and information amongst the law enforcement bodies of the EU. The twin issues of data protection and data security within what was the EU’s third pillar legal framework therefore come to the fore. With the Lisbon Treaty reform of the EU, and the increased role of the Commission in PJCCM policy areas, and the integration of the PJCCM provisions with what have traditionally been the pillar I activities of Frontex, the opportunity for streamlining the data protection and data security provisions of the law enforcement bodies of the post-Lisbon EU arises. This is recognised by the Commission in their drafting of an amending regulation for Frontex , when they say that they would prefer “to return to the question of personal data in the context of the overall strategy for information exchange to be presented later this year and also taking into account the reflection to be carried out on how to further develop cooperation between agencies in the justice and home affairs field as requested by the Stockholm programme.” The focus of the literature published on this topic, has for the most part, been on the data protection provisions in Pillar I, EC. While the focus of research has recently sifted to the previously Pillar III PJCCM provisions on data protection, a more focused analysis of the interlocking issues of data protection and data security needs to be made in the context of the law enforcement bodies, particularly with regard to those which were based in the pre-Lisbon third pillar. This paper will make a contribution to that debate, arguing that a review of both the data protection and security provision post-Lisbon is required, not only in order to reinforce individual rights, but also inter-agency operability in combating cross-border EU crime. The EC’s provisions on data protection, as enshrined by Directive 95/46/EC, do not apply to the legal frameworks covering developments within the third pillar of the EU. Even Council Framework Decision 2008/977/JHA, which is supposed to cover data protection provisions within PJCCM expressly states that its provisions do not apply to “Europol, Eurojust, the Schengen Information System (SIS)” or to the Customs Information System (CIS). In addition, the post Treaty of Prüm provisions covering the sharing of DNA profiles, dactyloscopic data and vehicle registration data pursuant to Council Decision 2008/615/JHA, are not to be covered by the provisions of the 2008 Framework Decision. As stated by Hijmans and Scirocco, the regime is “best defined as a patchwork of data protection regimes”, with “no legal framework which is stable and unequivocal, like Directive 95/46/EC in the First pillar”. Data security issues are also key to the sharing of data in organised crime or counterterrorism situations. This article will critically analyse the current legal framework for data protection and security within the third pillar of the EU.

Demanda y control de la tarea y presencia de síntomas de estrés y osteo-musculares en personal de una institución hospitalaria de IV nivel, Bogotá, 2016.

El ejercicio de labores asistenciales en el personal de la salud, las largas horas de trabajo y la responsabilidad en la ejecución de sus tareas, llevan consigo la exposición a riesgos psicosociales; que de no ser debidamente controlados pueden llevar al individuo a generar respuestas inadecuadas a nivel cognitivo, emocional e intelectual, las cuales se manifiestan en algunos casos con la aparición de sintomatología osteomuscular y/o asociada al estrés. OBJETIVO Identificar la relación entre las demandas de la tarea, el control sobre las mismas y la presencia e intensidad de síntomas de estrés y osteo-musculares en médicos, especialistas y personal de enfermería de una institución hospitalaria de IV nivel en Bogotá. Métodos Estudio de corte transversal en una muestra de 100 profesionales de la salud. Se utilizaron tres instrumentos: cuestionario Nórdico para la detección y análisis de síntomas músculo esqueléticos, cuestionario Karasek para identificar la percepción del trabajo y la relación del entorno profesional y el cuestionario de Estrés del Ministerio de la Protección Social validado para la población colombiana. Se obtuvo previa autorización del Comité de Investigaciones y Comité de Ética del Hospital. El análisis estadístico se realizó con el IBM SPSS Statistics versión 2.0 Resultados Se observó que los síntomas osteomusculares con mayor prevalencia estuvieron relacionados con afectaciones en espalda 43% y cuello 36%; no se observan diferencias estadísticamente significativas entre los distintos profesionales. En cuanto a presencia de sintomatología asociada al estrés, la mayor prevalencia se presentó en síntomas osteomusculares en cuello y espalda en el 84% de los casos, dolor de cabeza en el 74%, trastornos del sueño y cansancio en el 64% y percepción de sobrecarga laboral en el 63%. Para el análisis de prevalencia de los factores psicosociales laborales se utilizó la clasificación de la combinación de altas o bajas demandas y alto o bajo control, el resultado de estos teniendo en cuenta el modelo Demanda-control fue la siguiente: trabajo de alta tensión 34%; trabajo activo 40%; trabajo aburrido 13% y trabajo pasivo 13%. Se encontró una asociación entre la sintomatología y las variables toma de decisiones en médicos especialistas (OR 3,12; IC 95%: 2,80 – 3,49) lo que ratifica que este tipo de profesional tiene una mayor libertad para generar decisiones en su actuar médico y control sobre la tarea para especialistas (OR 3,23; IC 95%: 2,82 – 3,70) y enfermeros jefes (OR 3,36; IC 95%: 2,91 – 3,89); lo que permite inferir que cada uno de estos profesionales posee las herramientas para asumir las exigencias y dar respuesta a los distintos aspectos que están ligados a la tarea. Conclusiones: La presencia de síntomas osteo musculares en zonas como cuello y espalda son propios de la actividad del personal de la salud y se asocia a las posturas inadecuadas y el puesto de trabajo, así como al estrés. En cuanto a la sintomatología asociada al estrés se ratifica la presencia de sintomatología osteo muscular (cuello y espalda), como manifestaciones asociadas al cansancio, trastornos del sueño, sobrecarga laboral, dolor de cabeza y en menor porcentaje dificultades para relacionarse con otros. Respecto a los factores de riesgo psicosocial, se observó que el trabajo activo es la condición predominante en el personal de la salud, pero se observa además que un porcentaje importante experimenta episodios de tensión laboral, asociados a condiciones propias de las demandas psicológicas y el control sobre la tarea. Por lo anterior, se deben establecer acciones encaminadas a favorecer espacios saludables, y programas tendientes a la mejora de las condiciones de tal manera que disminuya la presencia de sintomatología osteomuscular y/o sintomatología derivada del estrés.