Have you ever considered how many times in a day you make use of a battery? You pick up your mobile phone and it has a battery, you start you car and the engine fires up because of a battery, you’re at a work meeting and your laptop is running off a battery, you look at your Industrial Development Geography wristwatch and it has a battery – you may even have one in your razor or toothbrush. Batteries are ubiquitous sources of power in our lives and make our daily functioning easier and more convenient. They do also however need to be charged in order to be of use to us.
Count Alessandro Volta was the Italian physicist who bought the wonderful world of battery power to life. He created a simple battery in 1799 from zinc and silver metal plates and brine-soaked paper known as the voltaic pile that was the first device to emit a steady current. In recognition of Volta’s discovery the SI unit of electromotive force, electric Importance Of Communication In Service Sector potential and electric potential difference became known as the Volt. Voltages of commonly used items include car batteries 12 V, single, non-rechargeable alkaline batteries 1.5 V and household mains 230 V. To maximize the use of the electrical charge produced by a battery it must be connected to a load, for example a motor or an electric circuit.
Batteries require anodes, cathodes and electrolytes to produce a current involving an electrochemical reaction that moves electrons from negative to positive terminals and come in both non-rechargeable and rechargeable forms. To restore the charge in the rechargeable battery, energy must be supplied from an external source, for example via a battery charger, that moves the electrons in reverse from positive to negative terminals, thereby restoring the charge. Lithium-ion (LiOn), nickel-metal hydride (NiMH) and nickel-cadmium (NiCd) batteries are examples of rechargeable batteries. The charging process however is not a hundred percent efficient so gradually charge is lost and the battery will eventually cease to function.
Batteries are broadly divided into three categories namely industrial, automotive and portable types where the industrial types can be of any size but designed exclusively for industrial or professional use as opposed to portable types that are used in laptops, mobile phones and MP3 players. Industrial batteries can be used as a source of power in forklifts, golf carts, lighthouses, professional video equipment and mobility buggies. More interesting applications for batteries are in medical science, asset tracking equipment, uninterruptible power supplies and in the aerospace industry. Next time you have a moment, picture what our world would look like if we had to walk around with everything plugged into a socket.…
Tag: bringing
The Complexities In Bringing Medical Negligence and Industrial Disease Type Claims
Medical negligence claims and claims for occupation or industrial disease are notoriously complex and challenging claims primarily because of issues relating to causation. Causation is the area of law that seeks to establish what actually caused the injury suffered by a Claimant.
In a standard accident claim such as a car or motorbike accident, it’s normally very easy to establish what caused the injuries suffered by a Claimant. The lawyers can therefore simply focus on who was responsible for the accident.
The issue of causation in medical negligence and industrial disease claims by contrast, are more complicated particularly in circumstances where the injury could have more than one cause, which is an area of law that has occupied the attention of the House of Lords on several occasions.
Currently, there are two differing, and on the face of it, inconsistent tests on causation known as the “material contribution” test and the “but for” (or direct cause) test.
The rational of the “But For” test is that if the Claimant suffers injury that would not have occurred “but for” the Defendant’s negligence, then that negligence will be deemed to have caused the injury. The important point made is that the negligence need not be “the” cause as there may be other things that may be relevant and contributed to the injury.
The case Barnett -v- CK HMC is an example of the “but for” test. Three men attended hospital with clear symptoms of illness. The duty nurse called the casualty officer who did not see or examine the men but advised that they should go home and see their own doctors. Five hours later one of the men died from arsenic poisoning. Medical evidence was obtained which indicated that even if the deceased received prompt treatment it would not have been possible to save him. So even where the casualty officer was negligent, the hospital was not liable for the death because nothing could have been done for the man in any event.
The second test of “Material Contribution” is also known as the Bolam test after the case of Bolam v Friern HMC.
By way of illustration of the “Material Contribution” test, a Court of Appeal considered a claim involving a steel dresser who contracted pneumonconiosis as a result of exposure to silica dust from using both a pneumatic hammer and swing grinders. There was a statutory duty to provide extractor fans in respect of the use of swing grinders but not in Industrial Development Ppt relation to pneumatic hammer. The issue was whether the dust was caused by the grinders or the hammer. The Court of Appeal ruled that the Claimant only had to show the dust from the swing grinders had made a material contribution to the disease. The Claimant did not have to show that the dust from the grinders was the sole cause of the disease.
As can be seen from these two approaches, there lies some inconsistency, as the outcome of a case will be …