Full-time Day Research Articles

Byssinosis in carpet weavers exposed to wool contaminated with endotoxin.

All the 303 full time day workers in a carpet weaving factory were submitted to a physical examination, chest radiography, and vitalograph test, and answered a respiratory questionnaire. Fifty four healthy non-exposed subjects served as controls. Dust concentrations and concentrations of bacterial endotoxin were measured. Of the 303 workers, 259 (85.5%) had airway symptoms and 62 (20.5%) had maximum mid-expiratory flow (MMF) values of less than 60% compared with 9.2% of the controls. The symptoms in 68 workers (22%) were compatible with byssinosis and 36 of these workers underwent vitalography before starting work and after four hours work on Mondays when significant reductions of their FEV1 and MMF were found. Twenty one of these 36 workers were tested on Tuesday and no differences in these measurements were found between measurements before work started and four hours later. The airborne dust concentrations in the factory were high and bacterial endotoxin was found. These findings suggest that a large number of workers in this carpet weaving factory suffer from a disease indistinguishable from byssinosis even though wool is used almost exclusively, the only cotton being the warp. The finding of endotoxin together with the absence of cotton confirms the theory that "byssinosis" is due to bacterial endotoxin rather than to cotton per se.

Trade union censorship

This article describes the author's experience of commisioned reseach, outlining its main findings and the response of the funding body to the final report. The research examined the effects of shiftwork on women. It was found that the sexual division of labour within the family in Britain makes it difficult for women to work certain hours, including the ‘normal’ full-time day hours, and so hours of work can discriminate against women with responsibility for young children. Protective legislation is not the cause of inequality in wages and affords some protection to women from certain hours of work in industries that are covered by these laws. Trade union attitudes and practices towards women at local level help to reinforce rather than transform the sexual divisions of labour within the workforce and within the family. The final report contained three pages specifically on trade unions and their attitude towards women and shiftwork. The trade union group at the evaluation colloquium demanded their exclusion from the final report, virtually accusing the researchers of fabrication.

The Yale Child Welfare Research Program: Implications for Social Policy

In the late 1960s, there were a large number of intervention projects undertaken to help disadvantaged families and children (Bronfenbrenner, 1975; Day & Parker, 1977; Ryan, 1974). While these programs differed widely in research design, methodological sophistication, intervention philosophy, and program format, a common denominator was the hope and assumption that intervening early in the lives of disadvantaged children would help them adjust more successfully to school and, hence, to adult life. This article will focus on one such comprehensive intervention project, the Yale Child Welfare Research Program, carried out at the Yale Child Study Center from 1967 to 1972. We will first outline some major concerns in the field of early intervention, in order to place the Yale project in historical perspective. After a brief description of the project's goals and methods, the principal short-term and long-term effects of the intervention will be reviewed. The article will close with discussion of the social policy implications that can be drawn from interventions such as the Yale Child Welfare Research Program. The fundamental issue in the early intervention literature has been the effectiveness of such massive programs. An important facet of this issue is the relative merits of center-based as opposed to home-based programs. Center-based programs ran the gamut from projects such as those of Heber (Garber & Heber, 1977) in Milwaukee, and the North Carolina Abecedarian program (Ramey et al., 1976), which provided full-time day care from infancy on, to programs such as that of Klaus and Gray (1968), which provided summer compensatory education programs. In his review of many programs, Bronfenbrenner (1975) concluded that IQ gains from center-based programs were not sustained beyond second or third grade and that programs with a strong The Yale Child Welfare Research Program, directed by Sally Provence, M.D., received its financial support from the U.S. Children's Bureau, Office of Child Development, Department of Health, Education and Welfare (No. PR900). A grant from the Ford Foundation, New York supported the work on data organization and analysis. The independent follow-up was supported by Grant PHS-90-C-912 from the Administration for Children, Youth, and Families, and Research Grant HD-08008-13 from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. The authors wish to thank the many dedicated people who worked in the Yale Child Welfare Research Program and the independent follow-up; the New Haven public schools for their cooperation; and the children and parents who shared their lives with

RECOLLECTIONS OF EARLY RESIDENT PHYSIOTHERAPY

The Physiotherapy staff establishment at the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital from 1933 until 1940 was one resident Chief Physiotherapist, two Junior Residents, and six full-time day staff (working a five and one-half day week). There was no Resident Staff at Royal North Shore Hospital during this period.

Part-Time Graduate Electrical Engineering Program in the San Francisco Bay Area

The San Francisco Bay area has been rapidly growing in size and stature as one of the national centers of the electronics industry. In particular, the growth has been in companies and laboratories with a strong emphasis on research and development, in contrast to volume production. Such industry needs and seeks opportunities for graduate education for its engineers. The manner in which such opportunities have developed in the San Francisco area, especially at Stanford where the great majority of the part-time students are enrolled, provides an interesting example of how the needs of industry can be served within the academic objectives of an educational institution which serves primarily the full-time day student.

Teaching of Technical Optics

IN the article under this title in NATURE of April 9, p. 654, in the reference made to the examinations held by the British Optical Association and the Spectacle Makers Company and to the schools recognized by the former body, it was stated that, outside London and Manchester, the attendance is “of the order of a dozen students in the session”. The Principal of the Bradford Technical College writes to point out that the number of evening students taking the technical optics course at the College has in the last eight years averaged upwards of forty students, and that fifteen students have attended the full-time day course in the last five years.

University and Educational Intelligence

AN Aitchison Memorial Scholarship, of the value of 36l. and tenable for two years in the full-time day course in technical optics, at the Northampton Poly technic Institute (London), is being offered to students of both sexes. The examination will be held on September 22 and 23. Particulars can be obtained from the Hon. Secretary and Treasurer, Mr. Henry Purser, 42 Grays Inn Road, London, W.C.I.

University and Educational Intelligence

A NUMBER of resolutions concerned with education were adopted last week at the Trade Union Congress held at Ipswich. Some called for the State maintenance of school children, for scientific physical education, and the development of the medical department of the Board of Education. Others demanded that secondary and technical education be an integral part of every child's education, and be secured by such a reform and extension of the scholarship system as would place a maintenance scholarship within the reach of every child, and thus make it possible for all children to be full-time day pupils up to the age of sixteen; and that the best intellectual and technical training be provided for the teachers of the children, that each educational district be required to train the number of pupil teachers demanded by local needs and to establish training colleges, preferably in connection with universities or university colleges. The interest in education thus manifested by the leaders of our working men may be regarded as a gratifying sign of the times. All who desire the welfare of the nation would welcome any real improvement in our system, of educating suitably the men upon whom the success of our industries largely depends; but many competent persons will doubt the wisdom of the great extension of our scholarship system demanded by the Trade Union Congress. In any system of awarding scholarships every care must be taken to ensure that each scholarship holder has shown by his previous record that he is mentally qualified to benefit by the secondary and technical education which the scholarship makes possible, and will complete the course at the school. It is important to educate every person to the full extent of his capabilities, but it is folly to imagine that every boy or girl who is made to attend a technical school must of necessity be able to benefit from such attendance.