Suchergebnisse

BackgroundIn many African countries, access to antiretroviral treatment (ART) has been significantly scaled up over the last five years. Nevertheless, data on drug resistance mutation are scarce. The objective of the current study was to determine the predominant subtypes of HIV‐1 as well as to identify baseline mutations with potential drug resistance among ART‐naïve patients from Ethiopia.MethodsGenotypic drug resistance on the entire protease and partial reverse transcriptase (codons 1–335) regions of the pol gene was determined by an in‐house protocol in 160 ART‐naïve patients. Genotypic drug resistance was defined as the presence of one or more resistance‐related mutations, as specified by the consensus of the Stanford University HIV drug resistance database (HIVDB) available at http://hivdb.stanford.edu/ and the 2011 International AIDS Society (IAS) mutation list (http://www.iasusa.org/resistance‐mutations/).ResultsA predominance of HIV‐1 subtype C (98.7%) was observed. According to the IAS mutation list, antiretroviral drug resistance mutations were detected in 20 patients (13%). However, the level of drug resistance is 5.2% (8/155) when the most conservative method, HIVDB algorithms were applied. In both algorithms, none had major PI mutation and mutation‐conferring resistance to NRTI and NNRTI were not overlapping.ConclusionsThere is strong evidence for clade homogeneity in Ethiopia and low influx of other subtypes to the country. The level of transmitted drug resistance exceeds that of WHO estimates and indicates that many HIV‐infected individuals on ART are practicing risk‐related behaviours. The results also show that HIV drug resistance testing should be installed in resource limited settings.

The Alberta oil sands resource is vast; however, the amount that can be accessed via open-pit mining is limited. The process of extracting oil from bitumen via open-pit mining has now been going on for decades and could be considered a mature industry. Under Alberta law, plans for the suspension, abandonment, remediation and surface reclamation of each oil sands mine and associated processing plant must be in place before the government allows mining to take place. Each operator must also provide some form of financial security to the Government of Alberta to ensure that funding will be in place to pay for suspension, abandonment, remediation and surface reclamation liabilities, in the event that the Approval Holder is unable or unwilling to do so. As a mine approaches its end-of-life, the Approval Holder must increase the amount of financial security provided to Alberta Environment and Sustainable Resource Development, such that by the time the mine has less than six years of reserves left, the entire amount of the estimated clean-up cost is covered by financial security. One of the forms of financial security made available to oil sands operators, effective 2011, is a qualifying environmental trust (QET). The royalty regime in Alberta for operators of mature oil sands mines (known as the post-payout phase) is such that royalties paid by oil sands operators to the government are calculated based on revenue less 'allowed' costs. Abandonment, remediation and surface reclamation costs are considered allowed costs. However, an Approval Holder cannot deduct allowed costs from royalties after bitumen production is complete; thus any suspension, abandonment, remediation and surface reclamation costs incurred after production are not deductible. On the other hand, the funding of a QET to provide financial security for future suspension, abandonment, remediation and surface reclamation costs is immediately deductible for royalty and income tax purposes. For reasons detailed herein, we expect that as oil sands mines approach their end-of-life, the operators will establish QETs to avoid forfeiting the deduction of their suspension, abandonment, remediation and surface reclamation costs. The suspension, abandonment, remediation and surface reclamation liabilities that have accrued to the oil sands operators are now in the billions of dollars. If even a portion of these are funded by QETs, the effect on the amount of royalties and taxes flowing to the Government of Alberta will be in the hundreds of millions of dollars. Thus, understanding if and when oil sands operators will choose to use QETs is important for the forecasting of government revenues, particularly as oil sands royalties are now the single biggest contributor to Alberta's total royalty revenue. It should be noted that a QET provides a very strong form of financial security. Various versions of environmental trusts are available to mining companies in jurisdictions throughout the world. They are generally deductible for tax purposes; however, we find almost no use of them anywhere, including other jurisdictions within Canada. In this report we discuss why we believe that oil sands firms will use QETs as the reserves in their mines run down. This is done in the context of Alberta Environment and Sustainable Resource Development's Mine Financial Security Program, introduced in 2011, and the fact that the end-of-life of a number of oil sands mines are in the not too distant future.

The Alberta oil sands resource is vast; however, the amount that can be accessed via open-pit mining is limited. The process of extracting oil from bitumen via open-pit mining has now been going on for decades and could be considered a mature industry. Under Alberta law, plans for the suspension, abandonment, remediation and surface reclamation of each oil sands mine and associated processing plant must be in place before the government allows mining to take place. Each operator must also provide some form of financial security to the Government of Alberta to ensure that funding will be in place to pay for suspension, abandonment, remediation and surface reclamation liabilities, in the event that the Approval Holder is unable or unwilling to do so. As a mine approaches its end-of-life, the Approval Holder must increase the amount of financial security provided to Alberta Environment and Sustainable Resource Development, such that by the time the mine has less than six years of reserves left, the entire amount of the estimated clean-up cost is covered by financial security. One of the forms of financial security made available to oil sands operators, effective 2011, is a qualifying environmental trust (QET). The royalty regime in Alberta for operators of mature oil sands mines (known as the post-payout phase) is such that royalties paid by oil sands operators to the government are calculated based on revenue less 'allowed' costs. Abandonment, remediation and surface reclamation costs are considered allowed costs. However, an Approval Holder cannot deduct allowed costs from royalties after bitumen production is complete; thus any suspension, abandonment, remediation and surface reclamation costs incurred after production are not deductible. On the other hand, the funding of a QET to provide financial security for future suspension, abandonment, remediation and surface reclamation costs is immediately deductible for royalty and income tax purposes. For reasons detailed herein, we expect that as oil sands mines approach their end-of-life, the operators will establish QETs to avoid forfeiting the deduction of their suspension, abandonment, remediation and surface reclamation costs. The suspension, abandonment, remediation and surface reclamation liabilities that have accrued to the oil sands operators are now in the billions of dollars. If even a portion of these are funded by QETs, the effect on the amount of royalties and taxes flowing to the Government of Alberta will be in the hundreds of millions of dollars. Thus, understanding if and when oil sands operators will choose to use QETs is important for the forecasting of government revenues, particularly as oil sands royalties are now the single biggest contributor to Alberta's total royalty revenue. It should be noted that a QET provides a very strong form of financial security. Various versions of environmental trusts are available to mining companies in jurisdictions throughout the world. They are generally deductible for tax purposes; however, we find almost no use of them anywhere, including other jurisdictions within Canada. In this report we discuss why we believe that oil sands firms will use QETs as the reserves in their mines run down. This is done in the context of Alberta Environment and Sustainable Resource Development's Mine Financial Security Program, introduced in 2011, and the fact that the end-of-life of a number of oil sands mines are in the not too distant future.

We investigate the interplay between party communication and media coverage in putting EU issues on the agenda during the 2014 European Parliamentary election campaigns in Austria, Germany and the United Kingdom. A temporal pattern analysis focuses on the dynamic perspective of media–parties' interactions based on a quantitative content analysis of (a) the press releases published by parties and (b) the coverage of two leading newspapers per country 12 weeks prior to the elections. We find that most public discourses are started by the media; however, political parties especially in Austria are also quite successful in initiating discussions about EU issues. Interestingly, once an issue has been placed on the agenda, only few parties take the chance of their issue ownership as response to the media agenda. On the other side, media react to publications of all party types, even radical ...

Abstract

Objectives
Despite a rise in automation, workers in the petroleum refining and petrochemical manufacturing industry are potentially exposed to various chemicals through inhalation while performing routine job duties. Many factors contribute to the degree of exposure experienced in this setting. The study objective was to characterize the impact of workplace conditions, anthropometric variability, and task orientation on exposure for a simulated routine operations task.


Methods
A chemical exposure laboratory simulation study was designed to evaluate the dependent variable of chemical exposure level in the breathing zone for methane and sulfur hexafluoride. The independent variables were (i) posture of the worker, (ii) worker anthropometry, (iii) process configuration, and (iv) gas density.


Results
Pipe height was a significant predictor of gas concentration measured in the breathing zone when located in a position that encouraged the gas to enter the breathing zone of the worker. Worker anthropometry had a major impact; tall worker's (male) chemical concentrations exceeded those of the short worker (female) for methane simulations but the opposite resulted for sulfur hexafluoride. Also, worker posture had a significant impact on gas exposure where nonneutral postures were found to have higher levels of chemical concentration.


Conclusions
The study findings indicate that the breathing zone location is altered by posture and worker height, which changes the exposures relative to the emission source depending on the gas density of the chemicals that are present. As a result, qualitative risk assessment cannot be performed accurately without accounting for these factors. Practically, controls may need to account for worker size differences and posture adaptations.

Abstract. The essential processes and mechanisms of the transport of contaminants from a river to a well field via a flood water retention area are presented. The transport is conceptualized as a succession of three phases: (1) contaminant entry into the retention area, (2) passage through the soil zone and (3) transport with the groundwater flow. Depending on the conditions of a given location and on the properties of the contaminants of interest, processes within each transport phase may reduce the concentration of the contaminants at the well field. For the Kastenwoert-Rappenwoert study area, the results of the described processes are shown by chemical and ecotoxicological analyses as well as by numerical modelling. Based on the results of the analyses, it is predicted that some contaminants in the study area will be completely detained along the transport path, while others will be transported as far as the well field, although in significantly reduced concentrations.