3/6/2014· Warnings & Labels
Should Energy Drinks Have Warning Labels?
Earlier this month, the New York Times reported that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) had received claims that the drink 5-Hour Energy may have led to 13 deaths and 33 hospitalizations in the last four years. 5-Hour Energy is a highly caffeinated energy shot sold by Michigan-based Living Essentials (a unit of Innovation Ventures) in 2-ounce packages equivalent to drinking about two cups of coffee.
3/4/2014· Accident Investigation & Reconstruction
Buses and Motorcoaches: Jayne Mansfield and Mythology
By: Ned Einstein
For those readers who remember Jayne Mansfield, or even know who she was, this is not a story about her Hollywood exploits or bedroom acrobatics. It is a story about a common type of accident - a rear-ender involving an automobile striking a truck or bus - often referred to, in accident reconstruction circles, as "the Jayne Mansfield syndrome."
2/28/2014· Food & Beverage
By: Dr. Ewen Todd
In this article, the fifth in a series reviewing the role of food workers in foodborne outbreaks, background information on the routes of infection for food workers is considered. Contamination most frequently occurs via the fecal-oral route, when pathogens are present in the feces of ill, convalescent, or otherwise colonized persons. It is difficult for managers of food operations to identify food workers who may be excreting pathogens, even when these workers report their illnesses, because workers can shed pathogens during the prodrome phase of illness or can be long-term excretors or asymptomatic carriers.
2/26/2014· Elevators - Escalator - Automatic Doors
Automatic Door Injuries: High & Low Energy Automatic Doors
By: Michael Panish
Automatic doors are generally grouped into two major categories. Low energy and high energy doors. The difference between the two types of doors pertain to the ways that the doorways operate.
2/26/2014· Failure Analysis
Forensic Clues: Elderly Mobility Aids
A significant number of elderly persons experience falls every year. In 2010, 2.3 million nonfatal fall injuries involving elderly people were treated in emergency rooms around the country. In the same year, 21,700 elderly people died as the result of unintentional falls. Falls for elderly people are extremely hazardous as they may not recover from fractures and other injuries.
2/18/2014· Medical - Medicine
Pipe Ruptures Above Your CT Scanner - Now What?
By: Envista Forensics - Andrew Spetter and Mark Ewing
All is quiet at 10:30 pm until a nurse notices water on the 2nd floor hallway. Building maintenance is called and discovers a ruptured pipe fitting in a bathroom on the 2nd floor. The water is shut off at 10:45 pm but unfortunately the damage has been done. It is later discovered that water penetrated through perforations in the ceiling in the CT suite on the 1st floor exposing the 16-slice CT gantry and patient table to water.
2/14/2014· HVAC - Heating, Ventilation, Air Conditioning
Merging Carbon Monoxide Life Safety with Energy Conservation Methods
By: James Partridge
Residential indoor air quality, historically, has not been a major concern because the envelope and window leakage provided inhabitants with sufficient outdoor air. Older residential buildings are sufficiently leaky such that infiltration alone can meet the minimum outdoor air requirements for residential ventilation. In an increased environmentally conscious society, many individuals have become more aware of their resource consumption, and are implementing enclosure draftstopping, attic insulation, and window replacement.
2/14/2014· Accident Investigation & Reconstruction
Automated Retrieval System Failure Results in Catastrophic Fire at Storage Facility
By: Bill O'Donnell
The largest storage rack/ retrieval system, larger than two football fields and eighty feet wide was constructed to store 108 million pounds of paper products. On July, 2002, after two months of use, the facility collapsed and sparked a fire that destroyed the entire structure and 45 million pounds of paper. Nearly 50 fire departments responded to the inferno, which burned for three weeks. The owner of the facility sued a number of companies that included the contractor that designed and built the structure, a subcontractor, and the company that supplied the 110 foot steel columns.
2/13/2014· Accident Prevention & Safety
Air bag control modules utilize complex algorithms to make air bag deployment decisions based on crash severity related to the change in vehicle speed or deceleration over time. Due to the proprietary nature of air bag deployment algorithms, the velocity, acceleration, or displacement thresholds for air bag deployment during a collision are not easily obtained; however, a range of frontal barrier impact speeds and corresponding deceleration and displacement threshold values for air bag deployment can be approximated using known vehicle stiffness-to-weight ratios.
2/10/2014· Finance
General Motors Joins Yogi Berra
Even with creative financing, accounting techniques and decreased profit margins, the American automobile industry appears unable to sustain itself and has suffered significant losses, especially in recent years. Given these realities, it would seem prudent to rely upon baseball and the one special feature they have enjoyed via compliments of a United States Supreme Court Decision in 1922, namely exemption under the Antitrust Laws, basically Sherman and Clayton Acts.
Dan Werdowatz PE SE, Sr. Princ. Struct. Engineer
