ExposureBlog

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.