The Design and Application of a Health Behavioral Change (HBC) Roadmap.

Introduction: To assist in addressing medical readiness challenges, the DOD has established various Centers of Excellence to focus efforts to protect, treat, train, and educate service members concerning risks and potential injuries. Using the hearing health domain as a pilot, this effort used DOD methods to evaluate all facets of successful health behavior change (HBC) practices within a military environment and developed a framework and pathway for HBC.

Methods: The DOD uses the Joint Capabilities Integration and Development System (JCIDS) to ensure new DOD capabilities are identified and fielded in a manner that is interoperable, resilient, and supportables.

Personal attenuation ratings versus derated noise reduction ratings for hearing protection devices.

National and international regulatory and consensus standards setting bodies have previously proposed derating hearing protector ratings to provide a better match between ratings determined in a laboratory and the real-world measurements of attenuation for workers. The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health has proposed a derating scheme that depends upon the type of protector. This paper examines four real-world studies where personal attenuation ratings (PARs) were measured at least twice, before and after an intervention in earplug fitting techniques.

A unifying mathematical model of lipid droplet metabolism reveals key molecular players in the development of hepatic steatosis.

The liver responds to elevated plasma concentrations of free fatty acids (FFAs) with an enhanced uptake of FFAs and their esterification to triacylglycerol (TAG). On the long term, this may result in massive hepatic TAG accumulation called steatosis hepatitis. In hepatocytes, the poor water-soluble TAG is packed in specialized organelles: Lipid droplets (LDs) serving as transient cellular deposit and lipoproteins (LPs) transporting TAG and cholesterol esters to extra-hepatic tissues.

Individual fit-testing of earplugs: a review of uses.

Individual fit-testing of earplugs is an exciting new trend in hearing conservation. This article reviews how this technology is being used to protect noise-exposed workers. Earplug fit-testing systems are becoming more commercially available and more feasible for field use.