BACKGROUND There is no agreed protocol for the prediction of low molecular weight (LMW) respiratory sensitizers. This creates challenges for occupational physicians responsible for the health of workforces using novel chemicals and respiratory physicians investigating cases of occupational asthma caused by novel asthmagens. AIMS To iterate the external validation of a previously published qua...

Humans can be exposed to a panoply of agents and actions including chemicals, nanomaterials, metals, and complex mixtures. The link between these exposures and possible clinical sequelae including cancer is often poorly understood. Historically, regulators have addressed such uncertainty by applying linear lowdose defaults when establishing cancer risk estimates for suspected or known carcinoge...

This paper presents a literature review on benzene in foods, including toxicological aspects, occurrence, formation mechanisms, and mitigation measures and analyzes data reporting benzene levels in foods. Benzene is recognized by the IARC (International Agency for Research on Cancer) as carcinogenic to humans, and its presence in foods has been attributed to various potential sources: packaging...

Date The final copy of this thesis has been examined by the signatories, and we find that both the content and the form meet acceptable presentation standards of scholarly work in the above mentioned discipline. The multiresolution estimator, originally a wavelet-based method for density estimation, was recently extended for estimation of hazard functions. The multiresolution hazard (MRH) metho...

Chemical substance exposure data from the Washington State Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) program were reviewed to determine if inspections conducted as a result of a report of a hazard from a complainant or referent may alert the agency to uncharacterized or emerging health hazards. Exposure and other electronically stored data from 6890 health inspection reports conducte...

The medical personnel are vulnerable to substance abuse and dependence due to ready access to substance of abuse. Addiction is considered as an occupational hazard for those involved in the practice of anaesthesia for the same reason. Substance abuse is defined as a psychosocial biogenetic disease, which results from dynamic interplay between a susceptible host and favourable environment. Accor...

Introduction The discussion of applications and development of safety indicators is interesting and important. The paper by Andrew Hopkins (2008) has triggered a number of reflections. Hopkins has taken major hazard facilities and the chemical industry as the field of discussion. However, the reasoning might well be valid also for other industries with a potential for large consequences such as...

The challenge for exposure science and the focus of this workshop were to address the current absence of innovative tools and approaches for assessing human exposures to chemicals. Fundamental and relevant assessment of the potential human health risks from chemicals depends on quality information about exposure as well as the hazards. However, to date, generation of information about chemical ...

We examine the performance of large credit markets subject to borrower moral hazard, when information on the past behavior of borrowers is subject to bounded memory constraints. Borrowers who default should be temporarily excluded in order to efficiently incentivize repayment. However, lenders have an incentive to lend to borrowers who are near the end of their exclusion period, undermining thi...

BACKGROUND Assessing adverse effects from environmental chemical exposure is integral to public health policies. Toxicology assays identifying early biological changes from chemical exposure are increasing our ability to evaluate links between early biological disturbances and subsequent overt downstream effects. A workshop was held to consider how the resulting data inform consideration of an ...