Cooking Practices in the Kitchen—Observed Versus Predicted Behavior

Cross-contamination and undercooking are major factors responsible for campylobacteriosis and as such should be incorporated in microbiological risk assessment. A previous paper by van Asselt et al. ^{( 1 )} quantified cross-contamination routes from chicken breast fillet via hand, cutting board, and knife ending up in a prepared chicken-curry salad in the domestic kitchen. The aim of the current article was to validate the obtained transfer rates with consumer data obtained by video observations and microbial analyses of a home prepared chicken-curry salad. Results showed a wide range of microbial contamination levels in the final salad, caused by various cross-contamination practices and heating times varying from 2'44" to 41'30". Model predictions indicated that cooking times should be at least 8 minutes and cutting boards need to be changed after cutting raw chicken in order to obtain safe bacterial levels in the final salad. The model predicted around 75% of the variance in cross-contamination behavior. Accuracy of the model can further be improved by including other cross-contamination routes besides hands, cutting boards, and knives. The model proved to be fail-safe, which implies it can be used as a worst-case estimate to assess the importance of cross-contamination in the home.     

Countertransference reactions in therapeutic work with incestuous sexual abusers

The study was a qualitative investigation aimed at therapists' responses to working with a population of incestuous sexual abusers. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with nine therapists who were recruited from psychotherapy, psychology, and forensic psychology services in the National Health Service (NHS) in the UK. The predominant therapeutic model was psychodynamic; however, cognitive-behavioural and integrative approaches were practiced by some therapists. The data were analyzed using interpretative phenomenological analysis (Smith, 1996). Results suggested that the therapists experienced a considerable amount of negative and difficult feelings and that they tended to experience feeling controlled and deceived, which seemed to influence their ability to create and maintain the therapeutic relationship. It was suggested that the dynamics of incestuous sexual abuse played a part in these difficulties. The results are discussed with reference to the clinical therapeutic literature.     

Is Part‐time Employment Here to Stay? Working Hours of Dutch Women over Successive Generations

The Netherlands combines a high female employment rate with a high part‐time employment rate. This is likely to be the result of (societal) preferences as the removal of institutional barriers has not led to higher working hours. We investigate the development of working hours over successive generations of women using the Dutch Labour Force Survey 1992–2005. We find evidence of a strictly increasing propensity to work part‐time and a decreasing propensity to work full‐time for the generations born after the early 1950s. Our results are in line with results of studies on social norms and attitudes. It seems likely that without changes in (societal) preferences part‐time employment is indeed here to stay.     

Improbability of Igneous Intrusion Promoting a Critical Event in Spent Nuclear Fuel Disposed in Unsaturated Tuff

In their regulations, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission permit the omission of features, events, or processes with probabilities of <10(-4) in 10(4) yr (e.g., a constant frequency of <10(-8) per yr) in assessments of the performance of radioactive waste disposal systems. Igneous intrusion (or "volcanism") of a geologic repository at Yucca Mountain for radioactive waste is one disruptive event that has a probability with a range of uncertainty that straddles this regulatory criterion and is considered directly in performance assessment calculations. A self-sustained nuclear chain reaction (or "criticality") is another potentially disruptive event to consider, although it was never found to be important when evaluating the efficacy of radioactive waste disposal since the early 1970s. The thesis of this article is that the consideration of the joint event--volcanism and criticality--occurring in any 10,000-year period following closure can be eliminated from performance calculations at Yucca Mountain. The probability of the joint event must be less than the fairly well-accepted but low probability of volcanism. Furthermore, volcanism does not "remove" or "fail" existing hydrologic or geochemical constraints at Yucca Mountain that tend to prevent concentration of fissile material. Prior to general corrosion failure of waste packages, the mean release of fissile mass caused by a low-probability, igneous intrusive event is so small that the probability of a critical event is remote, even for highly enriched spent nuclear fuel owned by the U.S. Department of Energy. After widespread failure of packages occurs, the probability of the joint event is less than the probability of criticality because of the very small influence of volcanism on the mean fissile mass release. Hence, volcanism plays an insignificant role in inducing criticality over any 10(4)-yr period. We also argue that the Oklo reactors serve as a natural analogue and provide a rough bound on probability of criticality given favorable hydrologic or geochemical conditions on the scale of the repository that is less than 0.10. Because the product of this bound with the probability of volcanism represents the probability of the joint event and the product is less than 10(-4) in 10(4) yr, consideration of the joint event can be eliminated from performance calculations.     

The Social Dynamics of Technical Innovation in the Computing World*

The “computing world,” all those people and groups that collectively produce computers and computer-based services is an especially complex, dynamic and diffuse social world. Technical innovation is a dominant feature of the world. It is organized to provide a continuous flow of innovations from participants who specialize in innovation through many other participants to the final consumers of computer-based services. Technical innovations often flow across a large number of “markets” which are composed of only a few classes of participants such as “innovators” and “vendors” or of “users” and “consumers.” This paper identifies the major orientations taken on by participants in the computing world and examines some of the markets across which innovations are negotiated. The computing world is organized so that each market is biased in favor of innovations moving from suppliers to their customers. From this viewpoint, “innovation” is a dominant structural interest in computing around which participants organize their activities and to which they must continually adjust.     

Differences in Pharmacokinetics Between Children and Adults—II. Children''s Variability in Drug Elimination Half-Lives and in Some Parameters Needed for Physiologically-Based Pharmacokinetic Modeling

In earlier work we assembled a database of classical pharmacokinetic parameters (e.g., elimination half-lives; volumes of distribution) in children and adults. These data were then analyzed to define mean differences between adults and children of various age groups. In this article, we first analyze the variability in half-life observations where individual data exist. The major findings are as follows. The age groups defined in the earlier analysis of arithmetic mean data (0-1 week premature; 0-1 week full term; 1 week to 2 months; 2-6 months; 6 months to 2 years; 2-12 years; and 12-18 years) are reasonable for depicting child/adult pharmacokinetic differences, but data for some of the earliest age groups are highly variable. The fraction of individual children's half-lives observed to exceed the adult mean half-life by more than the 3.2-fold uncertainty factor commonly attributed to interindividual pharmacokinetic variability is 27% (16/59) for the 0-1 week age group, and 19% (5/26) in the 1 week to 2 month age group, compared to 0/87 for all the other age groups combined between 2 months and 18 years. Children within specific age groups appear to differ from adults with respect to the amount of variability and the form of the distribution of half-lives across the population. The data indicate departure from simple unimodal distributions, particularly in the 1 week to 2 month age group, suggesting that key developmental steps affecting drug removal tend to occur in that period. Finally, in preparation for age-dependent physiologically-based pharmacokinetic modeling, nationally representative NHANES III data are analyzed for distributions of body size and fat content. The data from about age 3 to age 10 reveal important departures from simple unimodal distributional forms-in the direction suggesting a subpopulation of children that are markedly heavier than those in the major mode. For risk assessment modeling, this means that analysts will need to consider "mixed" distributions (e.g., two or more normal or log-normal modes) in which the proportions of children falling within the major versus highweight/fat modes in the mixture changes as a function of age. Biologically, the most natural interpretation of this is that these subpopulations represent children who have or have not yet received particular signals for change in growth pattern. These apparently distinct subpopulations would be expected to exhibit different disposition of xenobiotics, particularly those that are highly lipophilic and poorly metabolized.     

Rate Capping and Local Government

This paper argues that rate-capping was an inevitable product of the government's determination to control both the aggregate expenditure of local government and that of all individual authorities. We set out the background to these developments before going on look in more detail at the mechanics of rate-capping and its likely effects on the services provided by "capped" authorities. We challenge the rationale underlying rate-capping, arguing that its motivation is largely political and that to be effective all (or most) authorities will have to be rate-capped. Finally we examine the resistance being offered by "capped" authorities, their chance of success and the implications for central-local relations.