Unlike all other engineering disciplines, safety engineering is consensus driven, not research dr... more Unlike all other engineering disciplines, safety engineering is consensus driven, not research driven. It is almost devoid of physical laws to guide its practitioners. Instead, rules of thumb dominate the behavior of manufacturers, designers, maintenance workers, operators, legislators and code writers. Because rules of thumb presently represent the foundation of safety engineering, it is important to develop a perspective on
one year, rollover impacts accounted for 9 percent of multiple-vehicle accident fatalities while ... more one year, rollover impacts accounted for 9 percent of multiple-vehicle accident fatalities while rollovers accounted for 51 percent of single-vehicle accident fatalities. Light-duty vehicles include passenger cars, pickup trucks, vans, and sport-utility vehicles. Although much attention has been given to the study of vehicle rollover stability and to rollover-accident avoidance, research has yet to conclusively uncover an individual vehicle characteristic
Confusion and misconceptions regarding the utility and safety of turf work trucks are addressed i... more Confusion and misconceptions regarding the utility and safety of turf work trucks are addressed in this paper. Sources of this confusion include media stories of related vehicles and advertisements. The maneuverability, including both turning ability and traction performance, as well as lateral- stability characteristics of three- and four-wheeled turf work trucks are evaluated based on experimental tests and mathematical models.
Bisphenol-A (BPA) is an endocrine disrupting chemical used in numerous consumer products, resulti... more Bisphenol-A (BPA) is an endocrine disrupting chemical used in numerous consumer products, resulting in universal exposure in the United States. Prenatal exposure to BPA is associated with numerous reproductive and developmental effects in animals. However, little is known about human fetal exposure or metabolism of BPA during midgestation. In the present study, we present a new liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry method to directly measure concentrations of BPA and two predominant metabolic conjugates-BPA glucuronide and BPA sulfate-in umbilical cord serum collected from elective second trimester pregnancy terminations. We detected at least one form of BPA in all umbilical cord serum samples: BPA (GM 0.16, range <LOD-52.26 ng/mL), BPA glucuronide (GM 0.14, range <LOD-5.41 ng/mL) and BPA sulfate (GM 0.32, range <LOD-12.65 ng/mL). Levels of BPA ranged from less than 1/100th to over 400 times higher than levels of BPA in conjugated form. Although levels of BPA in conjugated form exceeded BPA levels in about 3/4 of the samples, BPA levels were higher in samples with total BPA above the median. Our findings suggest universal fetal exposure to BPA in our study population, with some at relatively high levels, and we provide the first evidence of detectable BPA sulfate in midgestation fetuses.
Unlike all other engineering disciplines, safety engineering is consensus driven, not research dr... more Unlike all other engineering disciplines, safety engineering is consensus driven, not research driven. It is almost devoid of physical laws to guide its practitioners. Instead, rules of thumb dominate the behavior of manufacturers, designers, maintenance workers, operators, legislators and code writers. Because rules of thumb presently represent the foundation of safety engineering, it is important to develop a perspective on
one year, rollover impacts accounted for 9 percent of multiple-vehicle accident fatalities while ... more one year, rollover impacts accounted for 9 percent of multiple-vehicle accident fatalities while rollovers accounted for 51 percent of single-vehicle accident fatalities. Light-duty vehicles include passenger cars, pickup trucks, vans, and sport-utility vehicles. Although much attention has been given to the study of vehicle rollover stability and to rollover-accident avoidance, research has yet to conclusively uncover an individual vehicle characteristic
Confusion and misconceptions regarding the utility and safety of turf work trucks are addressed i... more Confusion and misconceptions regarding the utility and safety of turf work trucks are addressed in this paper. Sources of this confusion include media stories of related vehicles and advertisements. The maneuverability, including both turning ability and traction performance, as well as lateral- stability characteristics of three- and four-wheeled turf work trucks are evaluated based on experimental tests and mathematical models.
Bisphenol-A (BPA) is an endocrine disrupting chemical used in numerous consumer products, resulti... more Bisphenol-A (BPA) is an endocrine disrupting chemical used in numerous consumer products, resulting in universal exposure in the United States. Prenatal exposure to BPA is associated with numerous reproductive and developmental effects in animals. However, little is known about human fetal exposure or metabolism of BPA during midgestation. In the present study, we present a new liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry method to directly measure concentrations of BPA and two predominant metabolic conjugates-BPA glucuronide and BPA sulfate-in umbilical cord serum collected from elective second trimester pregnancy terminations. We detected at least one form of BPA in all umbilical cord serum samples: BPA (GM 0.16, range <LOD-52.26 ng/mL), BPA glucuronide (GM 0.14, range <LOD-5.41 ng/mL) and BPA sulfate (GM 0.32, range <LOD-12.65 ng/mL). Levels of BPA ranged from less than 1/100th to over 400 times higher than levels of BPA in conjugated form. Although levels of BPA in conjugated form exceeded BPA levels in about 3/4 of the samples, BPA levels were higher in samples with total BPA above the median. Our findings suggest universal fetal exposure to BPA in our study population, with some at relatively high levels, and we provide the first evidence of detectable BPA sulfate in midgestation fetuses.
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Papers by Jackie Schwartz