Approaching Safety through Quality: Factors Influencing College Student Perceptions.

Quality management practices have been identified by previous literature as a factor that could potentially reduce the level of safety incidents and hazards in agricultural work environments. The present study used multivariate analysis to examine the effect of independent variables such as quality and safety awareness, work experience, safety and quality management experience, and the perceived importance of safety and quality on the role of quality management practices as a mitigating factor for safety hazards and incidents in agriculture. Variables were measured on a five-point scale using a survey questionnaire. Data were collected from approximately 900 undergraduates enrolled in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at a large land grant university in the U.S. The level of student work experience and student perceptions of the importance of quality explained a significant amount of the variance in student views of quality management practices as a mitigating factor for safety hazards and incidents. The findings of this study provide further evidence for using quality management practices as a basis for safety interventions targeted at the agricultural workforce.

Development of a safety decision-making scenario to measure worker safety in agriculture.

Human factors play an important role in the management of occupational safety, especially in high-hazard workplaces such as commercial grain-handling facilities. Employee decision-making patterns represent an essential component of the safety system within a work environment. This research describes the process used to create a safety decision-making scenario to measure the process that grain-handling employees used to make choices in a safety-related work task. A sample of 160 employees completed safety decision-making simulations based on a hypothetical but realistic scenario in a grain-handling environment. Their choices and the information they used to make their choices were recorded. Although the employees emphasized safety information in their decision-making process, not all of their choices were safe choices. Factors influencing their choices are discussed, and implications for industry, management, and workers are shared.

Measurement of worker perceptions of trust and safety climate in managers and supervisors at commercial grain elevators.

The safety climate of an agricultural workplace may be affected by several things, including the level of trust that workers have in their work group supervisor and organizational management. Safety climate has been used by previous safety researchers as a measure of worker perceptions of the relative importance of safety as compared with other operational goals. Trust has been linked to several positive safety outcomes, particularly in hazardous work environments, but has not been examined relative to safety climate in the perennially hazardous work environment of a commercial grain elevator. In this study, 177 workers at three Midwest grain elevator companies completed online surveys measuring their perceptions of trust and safety at two administrative levels: organizational management and work group supervisors. Positive and significant relationships were noted between trust and safety climate perceptions for organizational managers and for work group supervisors. Results from this research suggest that worker trust in organizational management and work group supervisors has a positive influence on the employees' perceptions of safety climate at the organizational and work group levels in an agricultural workplace.

Management of safety and quality and the relationship with employee decisions in country grain elevators.

Human factors play an important role in the management of safety and quality in an agricultural work environment. Although employee actions and decisions have been identified as a key component of successful occupational safety programs and quality management programs, little attention has been given to the employees' role in these types of programs. This research explored two safety relationships that have theoretical connections but little previous research: the relationship between safety climate and quality climate, and the relationship of the safety and quality climates between the organizational level and the group level within a workplace. Survey data were collected at three commercial grain handling facilities from 177 employees. Employees also participated in safety and quality decision-making simulations. Significant positive predictions were noted for safety and quality climate. Decision-making predictions are also discussed. This research suggests that organizational safety is an important predictor of group safety. In addition, recognizing the larger role that supervisors play in group workplace behavior, more should be done to increase employee perceptions of group-level involvement in quality climate to promote more quality-oriented decision-making by employees.

The determination of interfacial transfer constants using side-by-side diffusion cells.

A side-by-side diffusion cell setup has been used to determine the pH 7.4 buffer-octanol interfacial transfer constants for twelve compounds. The compounds are a diverse selection of pharmaceuticals, amino acids, and small organics which covers a log distribution coefficient (K) range of -3 to 2. A model based on the resistance summation approach, which deals explicitly with the various barriers, involves in the transport process, was used to derive transfer constants from the transport data for each compound. The model gave constants that were well behaved in a published model describing the correlation of the forward and reverse transfer constants to equilibrium K values (r2 = 0.999). These studies demonstrate the utility of side-by-side diffusion cells for the determination of interfacial transfer constants. This type of setup offers the advantages of controlled interfacial area, measurable hydrodynamic effects, and a commercially available apparatus.

Photoreactivity of LY277359 maleate, a 5-hydroxytryptamine3 (5-HT3) receptor antagonist, in solution.

Compound LY277359 maleate undergoes a photoinduced solvolysis reaction in water to generate the corresponding hydroxylated product and release chloride. Attempts to stabilize a parenteral formulation of the compound led to an investigation of possible reaction mechanisms. The data are consistent with a mechanism involving homolytic cleavage of the aryl-chloride bond followed by electron transfer to give an aryl cation intermediate. The cation thus formed reacts with surrounding nucleophiles to give the substituted product. A kinetic expression for reaction rate was derived from the mechanism, and various components of the rate constant were evaluated experimentally. The reaction is slowed with the addition of chloride, presumably via a common ion effect (enhanced retroreaction). In the absence of added chloride, the reaction can be described kinetically by an initiation term. An inner filter effect is also observed, where increasing amounts of the hydroxylated product slow the reaction. Experimental data for observed rate constants as a function of starting concentration and light intensity are fit with good correlation to an equation describing the filter effect. Additional studies evaluated the effects of various structural features of the parent compound on the rate of the reaction in glass containers. It was determined that reactivity was dependent on two features: (1) the ortho positioning of the carboxyl and ether groups, which shifted an absorption band above the container cutoff; and (2) the para orientation of the chloro group to the ether, which is para activating in the photoexcited state.

Urinary calcium excretion in healthy adolescents.

To establish normative data for urinary calcium excretion in healthy adolescents, we measured calcium-creatinine ratios (UCa/Cr) in urine samples collected from 222 middle school teenagers of diverse racial and socioeconomic backgrounds. Median UCa/Cr were: white girls, 0.23 mmol/L per mmol/L (0.08 as mg/dl per mg/dl); black girls, 0.14 (0.05); white boys, 0.14 (0.05); and black boys, 0.08 (0.03). The 95th percentile values for UCa/Cr were: white girls, 0.54 (0.19); black girls, 0.59 (0.21); white boys, 0.68 (0.24); and black boys, 0.50 (0.18). By nonparametric analysis, girls had significantly higher UCa/Cr than boys (p less than 0.01), and whites had significantly higher urinary UCa/Cr than blacks (p less than 0.01). No significant correlation was found between Tanner stage and UCa/Cr in either sex. This study provides data for detecting adolescents with high urine calcium excretion, which should be useful clinically and in studies designed to evaluate the significance of persistent hypercalciuria.

Pilocarpine prodrugs. II. Synthesis, stability, bioconversion, and physicochemical properties of sequentially labile pilocarpine acid diesters.

Various novel diesters of pilocarpic acid were synthesized and evaluated as prodrug forms for pilocarpine with the aim of improving the ocular delivery characteristics of the drug. The pilocarpic acid monoesters previously studied cyclized spontaneously to pilocarpine in aqueous solution and although they showed enhanced corneal permeability when compared with pilocarpine these monoesters suffered from poor solution stability. The present study shows that this problem can be totally overcome by blocking the free hydroxyl group in the monoesters. Diesters of pilocarpic acid were obtained by esterification of this group. Such compounds were found to possess a high stability in aqueous solution (shelf lives of more than 5 years at 20 degrees C were estimated) but at the same time were readily converted to pilocarpine under conditions simulating those occurring in vivo through a sequential process involving enzymatic hydrolysis of the O-acyl bond followed by spontaneous lactonization of the intermediate pilocarpic acid monoester. Rate data are given for the conversion of the diesters in human plasma and in various rabbit eye homogenates. The pH-solubility profile was derived for a diester and lipophilicity parameters were determined for the compounds. All diesters were markedly more lipophilic than pilocarpine and the corresponding pilocarpic acid monoesters. The results suggest that pilocarpic acid diesters may be potentially useful pilocarpine prodrugs as they combine a high solution stability with an adequate rate of conversion to pilocarpine under in vivo conditions.

Partial duplication of distal 17q.

A male propositus and an older sister had a similar pattern of congenital anomalies, including facial asymmetry with hypertelorism, frontal bossing and temporal narrowness, a broad nasal bridge, epicanthal folds, a wide mouth with a thin upper lip, micrognathia, webbed neck, low-set posteriorly angulated ears, and an abnormal hairline. There was also postaxial polydactyly, flexion contractures of the digits, hypotonia, and a congenital heart anomaly. The propositus also had renal anomalies whereas the sister did not, and the sister had a cleft lip and palate not present in her brother. The propositus and a subsequent fetus identified through genetic amniocentesis were determined to have a 46, XY, -18, +der(18),t(17;18)(q25.1;q23)mat chromosome constitution. Clinical findings are compared to those of other reported cases of dup(17q).

Pregnancy in a woman with the Brachmann-de Lange syndrome.

We present the first reported pregnancy in a woman with the Brachmann-de Lange syndrome. This 24-year-old primagravid woman was originally seen at 13 weeks of pregnancy with manifestations consistent with this diagnosis. High-resolution chromosome studies, performed on lymphocytes, showed a normal 46,XX chromosome constitution. Because of the stage of pregnancy at which she presented, a genetic amniocentesis was simultaneously performed for chromosome analysis on the fetal cells, which were also normal (46,XX). The uncomplicated pregnancy was monitored carefully and at 37 1/2 weeks of gestation she delivered a clinically normal-appearing female infant.

Partial deletion of distal 17q.

A newborn female was found to have a deletion of the terminal portion of 17q. Prominent manifestations included microcephaly, apparent hypertelorism, epicanthic folds, a broad nasal bridge with anteverted nostrils, posteriorly angulated ears, micrognathia, widely spaced nipples, arachnodactyly with proximal thumbs, and a coxa vara deformity. The unbalanced translocation was inherited from the mother, who had a reciprocal translocation involving the terminal portions of 2p and 17q. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first report of a liveborn infant with deletion of the distal portion of 17q with the exception of reports of patients with ring chromosome 17.

Newborn screening for phenylketonuria: predictive validity as a function of age.

Data from questionnaires were assembled for 109 infants with phenylketonuria (PKU) and 114 control infants to assess the predictive validity of newborn screening for PKU as a function of age. Patients with PKU had values of less than 4 mg/dL in cord blood and in samples from days 1, 2, and 4 through 7. The proportion of patients with PKU expected to fall below screening cutoffs of 2, 4, and 6 mg/dL was predicted for each age range. Using a cutoff of 4 mg/dL, approximately one third of patients with PKU would be missed by a sample taken from the neonate in the first 12 hours of life, and nearly 10% would be missed with a sample from the second 12 hours of life. This study shows that not all patients with PKU will be detected by newborn screening, and that the phenomenon of early nursery discharges must be considered in developing appropriate screening strategies.