ExposureBlog

It has been nearly five years since the World Trade Centers collapsed, producing dense clouds and exposing thousands of persons to toxic materials. Despite the fact that this was one of the most televised and infamous exposure events in recent history, estimates of the concentration of that cloud—in milligrams per cubic meter—have never been published.  We will explore the WTC exposure events of 9/11/2001 in a new series of posts beginning soon.

I can’t decide.

Results of a just-published study (read about it here, here and here) reminds us again that driving while drowsy is hazardous.  Also not recommended is driving while intoxicated, driving while talking on the cell phone, and driving while putting on makeup.  Or any combination of the above.  I’ve had a few safety cases involving long haul truckers and I always suggest taking a look at the driving logs, then applying MapQuest and Excel to see how fast they would have had to drive to comply with their records. 

While there is a substantial amount of research on the driving while drowsy (here, here and here) there are surprisingly few books on the subject.  The classic for the general audience is probably Stanley Coren’s Sleep Thieves.  Recommended.

Several links added today, including Microsoft Academic Search.  According to Microsoft, the site will allow one to search through peer-reviewed science journals for the following subjects: “computer-related, physics, electrical engineering and related subject areas.” I tried it and found an article about the energy consumption of the Apple Macintosh.

A report today issued by the Centers for Disease Control noted that the cost of injuries in the United States—in a single year—top $406 billion.  Read about it here.

In an earlier post I mentioned *readibility* and noted that Hemingway wrote at the fifth grade reading level.  That wasn’t just the opinion of some bored consultant.  Hemingway honestly wrote at the fifth grade reading level.  It’s been quantitatively verified (which means you can take that statement to the bank.)  Okay. So how do we know that? you might ask. 

“Readibility score” I reply. 

And while there are some great sites out there that will explain readability scores, here’s the history:

The year 1992 was an innocent time. A B&W Mac cost several thousand bucks, nobody used the Apple /// anymore, DOS was getting smarter and smarter, and all the cool writers on the planet used something called WordPerfect 5.1. 

That was when Grammatik 5 was released by a company called Reference Software International, based in San Francisco. It cost a hundred bucks (serious money in those days) and installed, took up about a megabyte of space.  Good thing it wasn’t bigger, given that most hard drives at the time, stored only 40 megabytes soaking wet.

Anyway, GK5 would scan your WP 5.1 file and tell you the readability score, or more accurately, the *Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level*.  As a bonus it also reported the Flesch Reading Ease score AND the Gunning’s Fog Index–which, according to the manual (page 101) was a “measure of the approximate grade level a reader must have achieved to understand the document.”

For writers, the idea was: the lower the score, the more people will understand it.

The Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level score was calculated using the following formula:

0.39 x (average number of words per sentence) + 11.8 x (average number of syllables per word). Total - 15.59 = Grade Level.

The *Flesch Reading Ease* score was just as complicated:

1.015 x (average number of words per sentence) + 0.846 x (number of syllables per 100 words); then, 206.835 - Total = Flesch Reading Ease Score.. . Where:

90-100 = Very Easy (4th Grade)

80-90 = Easy (5th Grade)

70-80 = Fairly Easy (6th Grade)

60-70 = Standard (7th-8th Grade)

50-60 = Fairly Difficult (Some High School)

30-50 = Difficult (High School-College)

0-30 = Very Difficult (College Level and up)

Lastly, there was the appropriately-named *Gunning’s Fog Index*.

The formula: (Average number of words per sentence) + (number of words of 3 syllables or more). ; Total x 0.4 = Fog Index.

Unfortunately, the Grammatik 5.0 manual didn’t include a Fog Index range, so the user really wasn’t able to properly determine what the scores meant.  It was a serious flaw.  

But we all make mistakes. 

Moving on: The WordPerfect Corporation, back when it really was the WordPerfect Corporation and not Novell or Corel or Microsoft or Sams Club, bought Grammatik and incorporated it into Wordperfect 6.x. Unfortunately, WP 6.x was that legendary hybrid software that was so complicated no one could use it: the program included a toggle between DOS and Windows, and was seriously slow—even on those 33 MHz towers that included the big red (occasionally, yellow) turbo button. Press that button and a yellow LED would flash and the machine would become a veritible computational rocket.  (Side query: Back in those days did anyone ever NOT use their computer in turbo mode?)

Naturally, Microsoft then incorporated a feature in it’s Microsoft Word program that did essentially the same thing as the WordPerfect-subsumed Grammatik 5.0. Now, all anyone had to do was to request the document in Microsoft Word and then check it using the readability function—a procedure which I recommend for anyone who receives a report from a consultant.

And here’s why:

Report readability is important in most cases, and in some cases it is the most important thing.   Because if the consultant can’t explain his position on paper so an eighth grader can understand it, it’s doubtful that the jury will be able to figure it out when he has to explain it on the witness stand.

Today I’ve added two new links.  One, to the great environmentalchemistry.com site and the other to its related weblog, environmental chemistry.blogspot.com. I used the information found in the environmentalchemistry.com site while researching radionuclides for a future tech book.  The info there is solid and some of the data I was unable to find anywhere else.  You can find Environmentalchemistry.com in the Research category and the related weblog under the Blogrolls.

Back while I was with OSHA I co-authored a paper regarding a cluster of glioblastoma multiforme that showed up in some Texas petrochemical refineries.  The investigation had begun with a phone call about a single case at one chemical plant and before it was over possibly 18 cases were uncovered. The study was ended and eventually turned over to a School of Public Health.  Later, after leaving OSHA I began work on a book about nuclear fallout.  It was around this time that I received a large package in the mail—a three volume set of an NCI publication titled US Cancer Mortality Rates and Trends 1950-1979. 

It had been sent to me by one of the co-authors, Thomas J. Mason, PhD.  I had spoken with Dr. Mason years earlier regarding another cluster investigation in the Missouri-Iowa area, and he was aware of our paper on glioblastoma in Texas. 

The books remained in my library for years, and when the National Cancer Institute published the 1997 I-131/thyroid cancer study I brought it out to compare fallout deposition levels with county-by-county cancer rates during the 1950s through 1970s.  Then, in 2000 while researching my series on Nuclear Testing, I decided to get a backup copy of the Rates and Trends book. I knew that the volumes were referenced at a number of sites, such as here, here and here—and that the series was found in a few isolated libraries such as this one.  But when I checked with Amazon.com, I discovered the series was out of print. 

So, last year, after I had finished up on my series on nuclear testing, I decided to republish the entire series. This involved going back over the pages one by one, removing highlighting, ink and notes.  By February of this year the entire series was ready to be sent to the printer.  Today, the first proof came back, and it looks pretty good.

The entire series will be published as a LEGIS Books imprint of 260Press, and ready for sale by mid-May, 2006.

Couple of things in the news that have to do with safety and health.  Latest published crash test results are out.  And here I learned that the van I drive was rated *poor.*

New car time. 

On the bright side, we shouldn’t worry about the mercury in those tooth fillings.  A government study concludes there’s no neurological damage associated with them.  Just don’t eat that barbecue .

Have contacts and use Bauch & Lomb ReNu with “MoistureLoc”?  Don’t do that anymore. . .it seems the stuff is associated with fungal keratitis, a disease that can cause permanent blindness.

Some time ago one of my clients asked me to review a report by opposing counsel’s expert.

The report began with a discussion of how the accident (made the basis of the lawsuit) was caused.  The rest of the report appeared to be an attempt to support that first sentence.  There were no references. Worse, some of the body of the report appeared to include material that had appeared elsewhere and under different circumstances. 

I was a little surprised.  The document wasn’t at all representative of the author, whom I knew was a smart guy and someone experienced in litigation support.  Perhaps his client asked him to make the report as brief as possible.  Maybe the report was just an example of his style. 

We all have our own style of writing, of course.  As an author of a history book I learned early to document everything.  Once I received a phone call from a copyeditor who worked for Macmillan (my publisher at the time).  She had read my account of the Cuban Missile Crisis and noted that I included the name of a small town near the coast of Cuba.  She couldn’t find it on the map.  I checked with a different Atlas.  Sure enough, it was there.  Twenty minutes later she called complaining that I had misspelled the word “Wurlitzer.”  The “u” needed an umlaut.

So, maybe I’m overly careful about referencing my reports.  Again, perhaps from my writing experience, I try to open up with a simple statement that includes a description of events based on what is known.  From there, I try to approach the event from the perspective of the witnesses.  In writing terms, this is referred to as a third person limited point of view.  After viewing the event from these different perspectives, a certain consensus began to emerge regarding how the accident event took place—the most likely scenario.  Some safety experts refer to this as the model.

Once the scenario/model has been established, I then usually discuss the responsibilities of each of the parties involved, and including other players (if any.)  Lastly, I discuss the event and responsibilities in view of violations of either established safety practices as reflected in the OSHA standards, Building Codes, local ordnances, etc.

Finally I write up the summary and conclusions.  If I’m successful, the report will show a progression from the event itself (or shortly before the event) on through to the eyewitness accounts (if any), on to responsibilities of all the parties, and finally to my conclusion discussing what I think happened and why.

All written at the eighth grade reading level.

Don’t laugh:  The Wall Street Journal is said to be written at the eighth grade level, and the great Ernest Hemingway generally wrote at the fifth grade reading level.

A low reading level score (lower is better) means that most everyone can understand it—my client, members of the jury and, of course, me.   There is nothing worse for an expert to be handed his or her own report while on the witness stand—and then being asked to translate it into Plain English.

Better it’s already in Plain English.