The European sectoral social dialogue involves complex relationships between the players directly or indirectly involved, and between the European level and the member organizations in national industrial relations systems. This article proposes a synthetic analytical framework to highlight these relationships, showing that the sectoral social dialogue constitutes a very specific `system of action'.
Damage from occupational or accidental exposure to ionising radiation is often assessed by monitoring chromosome aberrations in peripheral blood lymphocytes, and these procedures have, in several cases, assisted physicians in the management of irradiated persons. Thereby, circulating lymphocytes, which are in the G0 stage of the cell cycle are stimulated with a mitogenic agent, usually phytohaemagglutinin, to replicate in vitro their DNA and enter cell division, and are then observed for abnormalities. Comparison with dose-response relationships obtained in vitro allows an estimate of exposure based on scoring: Unstable aberrations by the conventional, well-established analysis of metaphases for chromosome abnormalities or for micronuclei; So-called stable aberrations by the classical G-banding (Giemsa-Stain-banding) technique or by the more recently developed fluorescent in situ hybridisation (FISH) method using fluorescent-labelled probes for centromeres and chromosomes. Three factors need to be considered in applying such biological dosimetry: (1) Radiation doses in the body are often inhomogeneous. A comparison of the distribution of the observed aberrations among cells with that expected from a normal poisson distribution can allow conclusions to be made with regard to the inhomogeneity of exposure by means of the so-called contaminated poisson distribution method; however, its application requires a sufficiently large number of aberrations, i.e. an exposure to a rather large dose at a high dose rate. (2) Exposure can occur at a low dose rate (e.g. from spread or lost radioactive sources) rendering a comparison with in vitro exposure hazardous. Dose-effect relationships of most aberrations that were scored, such as translocations, follow a square law. Repair intervening during exposure reduces the quadratic component with decreasing dose rate as exposure is spread over a longer period of time. No valid solution for this problem has yet been developed, although, in theory, both deterministic damage and aberrations might be repaired to a similar degree; a comparison of aberrations following a linear dose relationship might also help when the doses have been sufficiently large. (3) Investigations might have been possible only a certain time after the exposure. The relatively rapid disappearance of lymphocytes carrying unstable aberrations limits their use in retrospective dosimetry, years after exposure. Scoring stable aberrations, thought to persist in the circulating lymphocytes, might appear more appropriate in such situations. However, the examination of a representative number of cells by G-banding is extremely laborious, and the FISH method is not only expensive but has not yet been fully validated in different laboratories. In conclusion, biological dosimetry has serious limitations exactly for situations where the need for information is most urgent. It renders its most useful results when an individual has been exposed to a rather homogeneous high-level radiation over a short time interval, i.e. accide...
Employment has been at the core of numerous bipartite and tripartite bargaining processes across Europe since the early 1990s. This focus on employment has caused changes in bargaining processes and in the content of collective agreements. This article examines the impact of the adoption of employment as a priority in collective bargaining in the Member States of the European Union. It argues that, in the context of the European integration, industrial relations play an increasing role in the regulation of employment issues, but that collective bargaining on these issues is more and more shaped by external political and economic constraints.
In the debates on the European social dialogue as a potential level of supranational industrial relations, the key questions of representations and mandates are often neglected. To what extent can the European sectoral social dialogue act for national constituencies across 27 Member States in the perspective of collective action by European associations? This article addresses this question by the means of three dimensions: the representation of heterogeneous members, the various degrees of national players' commitment in the European committees and finally, the definition of a common agenda among members.
The study aimed to investigate whether the determination of chromosome aberrations in circulating blood lymphocytes could be useful to assess whole-body exposure from radioactive iodine released accidentally. Ten patients treated with two doses of 1850 MBq of 131I given 24 h apart for thyroid cancer were studied for chromosome aberrations (dicentrics) in blood samples taken before and at various times after exposure. The increase in the yield of aberrations caused by the exposure to iodine was small but statistically significant. Compared to published values for whole-body doses after such treatment, this increase appears to be somewhat smaller than expected from dose-effect relationships obtained for an acute exposure of lymphocytes in vitro or in vivo, a fact which could be explained by the low dose rate of the 131I exposure. Thus, in situations where a population was exposed as a result of the release of radioactive iodine, a determination of chromosome aberrations in blood lymphocytes would not appear to be very useful to determine exposure from iodine.
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