Assessment of life saving appliances regulatory requirements — Human factors knowledge gaps
Life saving appliances are used throughout Canada and around the world every day by a large number of individuals who work or travel over open water. Personnel rely on these life saving appliances to help provide protection from harsh environments, and reduce the risk of injury or death in the event of a marine accident. Due to their importance in helping to save lives at sea, life saving appliances are built and tested according to specific standards and regulations to ensure that they provide the level of performance required. Unfortunately, life saving appliances do not always perform as expected which can lead to unexpected injuries or loss of life. Given that life saving appliances must meet specific performance goals as prescribed by standards and regulations, it is often these goals that fall short of what is actually needed during a marine accident. A knowledge gap is created when the testing conditions, as outlined in a standard or regulation, do not accurately reflect those conditions found during a marine accident. As a result, a life saving appliance will often meet performance goals that are below those required to prevent an injury or loss of life during an actual marine accident. The Canadian regulation: “Life Saving Equipment Regulations” C.R.C., c. 1436 was reviewed and possible knowledge gaps with respect to human factors were identified. The goals and requirements for life saving appliances in the regulation were compared against existing work done in the area of marine safety to determine if what was prescribed adequately reflected what could be found during a marine accident. There were many gaps identified in the regulation, commonly caused by prescriptive wording specifying conditions not commonly found during a marine accident. These knowledge gaps will widen as conditions become more severe than what is prescribed in the regulations possibly leading to even further decrease in life saving appliance performance than what is already measured.
Prediction of survival time at sea based on observed body cooling rates.
The prediction of survival time (ST) of individuals stranded at sea is particularly difficult since reliable controlled data are unavailable. An individual's rate of body cooling is governed by the difference between heat loss and heat production. It has been suggested that the rate of deep body cooling can be extrapolated to estimate ST. The observed linearity of this cooling rate against water temperature is consistent with the predictions of an independently-developed mathematical model of ST. This model has been extended to simulate conditions of partial immersion and wet clothing, and subsequently calibrated against observed human cooling rates. The resultant modification allows a much broader range of ST predictions involving calm and rough seas, and non-immersion wet conditions. Predictions are presented for lean vs. fat individuals, a "worst" case scenario where shivering is absent, and partial immersion. While these predictions must be considered speculative and subject to change as better information becomes available, the model can be useful as a decision aid. It would be prudent, however, to consider the predictions in a relative vs. absolute sense; i.e., for comparative purposes.
New records of Grania (Clitellata, Enchytraeidae) in the Northeast Atlantic (from Tromsø to the Canary Islands), with descriptions of seven new species
Previous northeast Atlantic records of Grania have been mainly from Germany, southern Scandinavia, and the Atlantic shores of France, Spain and Ireland. They were referred to eight species, with one, G. atlantica, reported from the continental slope. We have examined various unpublished collections from sources spanning from the Canary Islands to the Norwegian Arctic. Apart from new information on morphology, taxonomy, and distribution of known species, we describe seven new taxa (G. canaria, G. fortunata, G. mauretanica, G. aquitana, G. vikinga, G. torosa, and G. papillinasus). The collection of G. papillinasus from 2630-2885 m represents a new depth record for Enchytraeidae. Twenty-five of the now 57 Grania species occur in the North Atlantic. The North Atlantic drift moderates sea temperatures along the northeast Atlantic coasts, probably facilitating the wide latitudinal range of some taxa, as well as actual dispersal within the region. A "chaetal index" (chaetal length : chaetal foot length) is proposed to differentiate L-shaped chaetae at the species level. Complex relationships within the "type 6 group" of Grania suggest that groupings established using certain combinations of penial, chaetal and spermathecal patterns may not be monophyletic. For a better phylogenetic resolution, additional morphological details of these and other characters are needed.