A population based survey of trachoma and blindness was conducted in a rural Nile Delta hamlet. Trachoma remains hyperendemic in this region. Active trachoma was common among preschool children; over...Full Text Available
Objectives: To determine the community based prevalence of rheumatic heart disease (RHD) in the ruralpopulation of the district of Rahim Yaar Khan in Pakistan.Subjects...Full Text Available
AimTo estimate the prevalence and causes of blindness and visual impairment in the population aged 40 years and over in Muyuka, a rural district in the South West Province...Full Text Available
BackgroundThe complications of hypertension cause severe health problems in rural areas in China. We (i) screened the major factors inducing hypertensive complications and provided...Full Text Available
BackgroundIn 1988, the SPILI project was established in order to evaluate the cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk profile of the inhabitants of Spili, in rural Crete, Greece. The first...Full Text Available
A new prototype model system named AirGIS has been developed to support local authorities in air quality management for big Danish cities. The system is based on the Danish operational street pollution model (OSPM), technical and cadastral digital maps and Danish national administrative databases on buildings, cadastres and populations. It applies a geographic information system (GIS). AirGIS estimates ambient air pollution levels at high temporal and spatial resolutions. The model system enables mapping of traffic emissions, air quality levels and human exposures at residence addresses, at workplace addresses and in streets. Mapping and scenario results can be compared with air quality limits. Impact assessment of traffic air pollution abatement measures can also be carried out. (author)
Snakebites are common among the ruralpopulation of developing countries. The severity of venomous snakebites depends on several factors, including the location of the bite, the amount of venom injected,...Full Text Available
Addresses factors affecting rural education in Tasmania (Australia), including population trends, financial support, student enrollment, socioeconomic status of rural residents, and geographic isolation. Issues that need to be addressed include the status of small schools in Tasmania, costs associated with transporting students, staffing, low student retention, and limited availability of special services. (LP)
Purpose - After almost 60 years of water supply development in Nigeria, it is unfortunate that as many as 43 per cent of the population still lack access to safe water. The situation is worse in the rural areas. There is, therefore, the need to better understand the constraints and challenges of water supply, especially in the rural areas of the country. With this regard this study seeks to assess the extent to which stakeholders are willing and able to adopt and implement sustainable, cost-effective and environmentally friendly management options for water resources in selected rural areas of Oyo State, Nigeria. Design/methodology/approach - The study areas include three rural/semi-urban Local Government Areas (LGAs) of Oyo state. The three LGAs are Ibarapa, Afijio, and Lagelu. The choice...
During a study of the health status of children in rural Nigerian communities a gross lack of fit was observed between the sample and the growth attainment standards derived from local longitudinal...Full Text Available
Containing an epidemic at its origin is the most desirable mitigation. Epidemics have often originated in rural areas, with rural communities among the first affected. Disease dynamics in rural regions have received limited attention, and results of general studies cannot be directly applied since population densities and human mobility factors are very different in rural regions from those in cities. We create a network model of a rural community in Kansas, USA, by collecting data on the contact patterns and computing rates of contact among a sampled population. We model the impact of different mitigation strategies detecting closely connected groups of people and frequently visited locations. Within those groups and locations, we compare the effectiveness of random and targeted vaccinations using a Susceptible-Exposed-Infected-Recovered ...
BackgroundCharacterizing infectious disease burden in Africa is important for prioritizing and targeting limited resources for curative and preventive services and monitoring the...Full Text Available
High blood pressure (BP) is a major public health problem in India and its prevalence is rapidly increasing among urban and ruralpopulations. Reducing systolic and diastolic BP can decrease cardiovascular...Full Text Available
BackgroundMost maternal deaths in developing countries can be prevented. China is among the 13 countries with the most maternal deaths; however, there has been a marked decrease...Full Text Available
Energy is a critical factor which determines the progress of rural development. Energy is therefore an area of concern. The quality, availability and cost of conventional energies, plus the associated environmental effects are a growing problem - not only for the health infrastructure but also for agriculture and domestic life. This is true not only in developing countries where the fast growing industries and urban populations demand a soaring proportion of available energy at the expense of the rural communities, but also in the poorest countries with weak energy infrastructure. Renewable energies, much studied in the last 20 years, can meet the needs of rural health and education services and communities by providing high quality, low cost, non-polluting energy. Solar energy, in particular, has the flexibility to produce electricity, heat and cooling. Solar technologies, furthermore, are backed by an ...
Iron deficiency anaemia is highly prevalent among ruralpopulation of Northeast Thailand. The habitual diets are plant-based. Several herbal vegetables and spices such as lead tree leaves, ivy gourd, Thai basil, chilli peppers etc are consumed in a substantial in common Northeast dishes. High contents of phytate and polyphenol compounds including tannin in these herbs and spices may profoundly influence iron bioavailability in the northeast population
Aim: This paper aims to describe self-rated health (SRH) status among older adults in a rural community of Vietnam, and examine individual and household-level factors associated with good health rating among the study populations. Methods: The study was carried out in the Bavi district, a rural community located 60 km west of Hanoi, the capital, within the Epidemiological Field Laboratory of Bavi (FilaBavi) in Vietnam in 2006. All people aged 50 years and over who lived within the district were surveyed. Face-to-face household interviews were conducted by trained surveyors using standard World Health Organization/INDEPTH network questionnaire-summary version. A logistic multilevel modeling approach was applied to analyze the association between SRH and both individual and household-level f...
Most Danish windmill manufacturers have experienced a grave economic crisis during the last three years. In 1987, the total windmill industry in this country ran at a loss of 40 million Danish crowns where the turnover was 550 million crowns. Danish firms...
We investigated gathering and cultivating practices and how they complement each other in a ruralpopulation of Northwestern Patagonia. We analyzed plant diversity, species similarity, biogeographic origin, and plant use by means of semi-structured interviews and field visits. Pichi Leufu inhabitants used 173 species: 138 cultivated plants, mainly for edible purposes, and 45 wild species principally for medicinal use. Most cultivated species were exotic (91.3%), whereas gathered plants were both native and exotic. While locals maintained vegetable gardens, the adoption of greenhouses improved conditions for certain crops. The integration of novel practices with ancestral knowledge suggests resilient processes in this community, probably reflected in the dynamics of current horticultural an...
Lack of access to basic education leads to diminished individual and national capabilities, therewith furthering cycles of poverty. An equitable education system meeting basic learning needs represents not only a human right, but also a means for reducing poverty, promoting productivity, and sustaining development. The Government of China--the most populous developing nation, the majority of whose citizens live in rural areas--has been committed to universalizing nine-year compulsory education among school-aged children and eliminating illiteracy among youths and adults aged 15-45. This study examines lessons learned from China's efforts in these areas. It also reports on current challenges and trends in a new national initiative for achieving high-quality universal basic education by the year 2007.
The Danish windmill industry has become an international success. This book describes the historical development of the Danish windmill industry and technology and evaluates the innovation ability of these. (LG) 176 ref.
The failure of the standard Growth Approach to economic development to solve the problems of underdevelopment in LDCs has caused an alternative approach, Basic Needs Approach (BNA), to attain prominence in development thought. BNA emphasizes poverty-minimizing growth. Its strategy of direct attack on poverty has better potential for LDCs' development and fulfillment of their populations' basic needs than the trickle-down mechanism of the Growth Approach. BNA requires, among other things, (a) suitable rural financial markets (RFMs) as parts of the overall financial system, and (b) indigenous technological capabilities. The financial system, if it functions as a central element in an institutionalized technology policy, can link technology-related institutions that generate, evaluate, and promote appropriate technologies (ATs) with RFMs that can support adoption and diffusion of ATs in the agro-rural sector. ...
A few studies have found poor semen quality in sons whose mothers have received fertility treatment, but it is unknown whether the poor semen quality is related to the infertility treatment or to infertility per se, for example, whether it is caused by hereditable factors. Using data from a population-based, Danish follow-up study conducted in 2005-2006, the authors of the present study examined whether sons of subfertile couples who had not received fertility treatment had poorer semen quality than sons of fertile couples. Among the 311 participants, an inverse association between parental waiting time to pregnancy and both semen volume and total sperm count was observed (p trend = 0.04 and p trend = 0.046, respectively). Semen volume in sons of subfertile parents (pregnant after ?1 ye...
Describes general trends in the quality of rural education: equivalent rural and urban performance on national standardized tests and high school graduation rates but continuing rural deficits in college attendance and teacher qualifications. Discusses the below-average performance of southern rural schools, factors affecting rural students' college attendance, and the influence of changing labor markets. (SV)
As recently as 1950, 30% of the world's population lived in urban areas. By the year 2030, 60% of the world's population will live in cities, according to the United Nations 'World Population Prospects Revision Report' (2001). Urbanization is quickly transitioning communities from natural rural vegetation to man-made urban engineered infrastructure. This anthropogenic-induced change has manifested itself in microscale and mesoscale increases in temperatures in comparison to adjacent rural regions which is known as the Urban Heat Island Effect. The resultant change causes potentially adverse consequences for local and global communities. One of the great challenges facing our current generation of scientists and engineers is how to support the growth of new and existing urban centers in a sustainable manner. This is even more pronounced in arid ...
The Danish Energy Agency has prepared a report on the Danish geothermal resources and their contribution to the national energy potential.Environmental and socio-economic consequences of geothermal power systems implementation are reviewed. Organizational models and financing of geothermal-seismic research are discussed, and the Committee of the Energy Agency for Geothermal Energy recommends financing of a pilot plant as well as a prompt elucidation of concession/licensing problems. (EG).
The confluence of technology development and market readiness is opening up major business opportunities for photovoltaic (PV) systems throughout the developing world. The National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) and Sandia National Laboratories in Abuquerque (Sandia), working on behalf of the U.S. Department of Energy, have launched pilot projects in several countries throughout the world over the past 3 years. The focus of these pilot projects has been the development of in-country institutional capabilities necessary to deliver the promise of PV electricity to the ruralpopulations. In addition to country-specific activities, NREL is conducting several technology, information, and partnership projects focused on further accelerating the education, training, business, and technology developments necessary to bridge the gap between promise and reality. This paper summarizes these efforts.
Baobab fruit are harvested and used throughout Africa as an important source of food and are sold to generate income. Commercial use is increasing rapidly as derivatives of the fruit such as baobab seed oil and fruit pulp are being exported to Europe and North America. The cash derived from the sale of fruit support thousands of rural people. This study examines baobab fruit yields in an area being harvested for commercial use. It represents baobab populations and harvesting scenarios typically found in Southern Africa and is the first study in Africa to combine demographic and production data in determining baobab fruit yields. Fruit production was examined across five land-use types (nature reserves, rocky outcrops, plains, fields and villages) and over three consecutive years. Factors a...
Reliability has an impact on wind energy project costs and benefits. Both life test data and field failure data can be used for reliability analysis. In wind energy industry, wind farm operators have greater interest in recording wind turbine operating data. However, field failure data may be tainted or incomplete, and therefore it needs a more general mathematical model and algorithms to solve the model. The aim of this paper is to provide a solution to this problem. A three-parameter Weibull failure rate function is discussed for wind turbines and the parameters are estimated by maximum likelihood and least squares. Two populations of German and Danish wind turbines are analyzed. The traditional Weibull failure rate function is also employed for comparison. Analysis shows that the three-parameter Weibull function can obtain more accuracy on reliability growth of wind turbines. This work will be helpful in the understanding of the reliability ...
Resistance against anthelmintics is widespread, particularly in parasitic nematode populations of small ruminants. Several new techniques or supplements have been developed or are under investigation. Biological control (BC) is one of these new methods. The net-trapping predacious fungus Duddingtonia flagrans produces thick walled resting spores, chlamydospores, which are able to survive passage through the gastrointestinal tract of cattle, horses, sheep and pigs. Under Danish climatic conditions it has been shown that the number of parasite larvae on pasture and the worm burden of the grazing animals is significantly reduced when animals are fed spores during the initial 2-3 months of the grazing season. Work with D. flagrans in France, Australia, USA, and Mexico has confirmed the strong BC potential of this fungus. Today much work is going into development of suitable delivery systems for grazing livestock worldwide. Ultimately, BC should be ...
Since the 1970s, Danish electricity supply has been dependent on imported coal. This has lead to greater reliability of supply, as could be seen during the Gulf War when Danish electricity prices remained stable in contrast to conditions in other countries. The disadvantage is the air pollution caused by coal combustion. This is regulated, it is stated, by several international laws and agreements, and these are named here. The nature of this form of pollution is explained in relation to actual Danish power plants and their efforts to reduce emissions of sulphur dioxide and nitrogen oxides. Carbon dioxide, which is a greenhouse gas, is also emitted. Danish environmental policy concentrates on these problems. The efforts of the electric power companies to reduce air pollution are detailed, both nationally and internationally, and their positive consequences are described. Desulphurization and ...
Biogas, produced from anaerobic digestion of organic matter in domestic, industrial and rural wastewaters and residuals, represent an alternative and renewable source of energy, with growing use worldwide. In Brazil, high population and its spatial concentration and expressive agricultural and agricultural-industrial production indicate a substantial potential of biogas production. The results presented in this work show a potential of biogas production of almost 2 billion cubic feet a day of CH{sub 4}. Viability of biogas production and use depends substantially on project scale. Generally, biogas projects are viable from landfills and domestic wastewater treatment for populations higher than 50,000 inhabitants and swine and dairy farms with at least 5,000 and 1,000 animals, respectively. Biogas is also competitive when compared to fossil fuels used in industry and transport. Despite incentive mechanisms for biogas ...
Renewable energy systems have been suggested as appropriate technologies for developing countries for many years. But they are less attractive to low-income rural and urban populations for reasons of risk and initial capital outlay, and market penetration is usually small as a result. Technology transfer by outside intervention appears unlikely to deliver to enough people in Africa; only self propagating technologies have managed that to date. Unfortunately target populations in developing countries have little capital and are understandably reluctant to take risks. Outside interests see little likelihood of profit and have already demonstrated reluctance to invest in many developing countries. Benefit from technology relies on continued use after purchase and is rightly associated with reliability and availability. Mean time to repair may be a better measure of appropriateness than mean time between failures. Technology ...
This study on the role of energy in the development of rural areas was originally conducted in the spring and summer of 1985. It was intended to serve as a background paper for the preparation of a program plan for the Office of Energy of the United States Agency for International Development. As such it begins with a brief overview of how rural development fits into national development, then offers a comprehensive framework for thinking about rural development in particular and the energy implications of the various components of rural development. Agriculture naturally comes to mind when rural areas are mentioned, but industry is an important component of rural activity as well. Consequently, both agricultural and nonagricultural energy use is discussed. Modernization of rural areas will change household, as well as production, energy ...
To foster rural economic development and growth, Congress passed the Renewable Energy Systems and Energy Efficiency Improvements Program as Section 9006 of the 2002 Farm Bill. This program provides financial assistance to farmers, ranchers, and rural small businesses to purchase renewable energy systems or make energy efficiency improvements. The Rural Business and Cooperative Services of the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) administers this program. This conference poster provides an overview of Section 9006.
The study concludes that while the diversification into nonutility activities by the Rural Electric Cooperatives and the Rural Telephone Cooperatives has been expanding, the regulatory activities by the Rural Electrification Administration and the state public utility commissions have been inadequate to guard against cross-subsidization. In fact, there generally exist no data to identify and investigate illegal cross-subsidization activities of cooperatives. Increasing the regulatory functions of state public utility commissions and the REA was recommended.
This book contains the results of an architectural evaluation of building examples with integrated photovoltaic. Danish Building and Urban Research and Danish Technological Institute conducted the work within the framework of Solar Energy Centre Denmark. Seven examples are selected to inspire Danish architects and building owners to use PV in the building environment. The examples come from Denmark and countries (the Netherlands and Germany) with similar building traditions, climate and solar conditions. All the examples demonstrate architectural concepts that integrate photovoltaic as a natural part of the building envelope. (BA)
SUMMARY: Gastrointestinal helminths of Norway rat (Rattus norvegicus) from the Belgrade area were studied as a part of a wider ecological research of rats in Serbia (data on the distribution, population ecology, economic and epizoothiological-epidemiological importance, and density control). Rats were captured from May 2005 to July 2009 at both urban and suburban-rural sites. Of a total of 302 trapped rats 48% were males and 52% females, with 36.5% and 38.8% of juvenile-subadult individuals, per sex respectively. Intestinal helminth infection was noted in 68.5% of rats, with a higher prevalence in male hosts and in adult individuals. Higher numbers of infected juveniles-subadults were noted in suburban-rural habitats, while an opposite tendency was noted in adult rats. Seven helminth species were recovered, of which five were nematode (Heterakis spumosa, Nippostrongylus brasiliensis, Capillaria sp., Trichuris muns and ...
The use of renewable energy offers a range of exceptional benefits, including: a decrease in external energy dependence; a boost to local and regional component manufacturing industries; promotion of regional engineering and consultancy services specialising in the use of renewable energy; increased R and D, decrease in impact of electricity production and transformation; increase in the level of services for the ruralpopulation; creation of employment, etc. To achieve these benefits, a series of actions are required, among which the following are particularly important: creation of a suitable climate for performing R and D; training of technicians in design, production and maintenance of equipment; motivation for establishing a new market; proper financing; fostering of appropriate technologies; practical demonstration of results, etc. This article reviews the progress made in the Autonomous Community of Galicia in terms of the introduction ...
Population residing in the northern part of the Chelyabinsk oblast and the south eastern part of the Sverdlovsk oblast of Russia affected to accidental exposure since 1957. The territory (East Ural Radioactive Trace - EURT) was contaminated after explosion of container with highly radioactive wastes at the Mayak Production Association. Studies of health effects of exposure in the southern, head part of EURT are conducted in the Ural Research and Practical Center of Radiation Medicine (U.R.P.R.M.). In the 1990's U.R.P.C.R.M. formed a cohort of EURT within Chelyabinsk oblast (14,500 cases and 19,400 external controls). The cohort was followed in 1957-1987 and the results of the study are discussed by Crestinina et al. First results of study on exposure late health effects among ruralpopulation in the northern part of the EURT are presented in this paper. Firstly, or the period 1958-2000 a statistically significant ...
The aims of this study were (a) to assess blood cadmium (B-Cd) concentrations and to establish a tentative reference interval; (b) to identify significant determinants of B-Cd, in a population from Umbria, Central Italy, which was not occupationally exposed to cadmium (Cd). Four hundred and thirty-four healthy blood-donors volunteered to answer a questionnaire and provide a blood sample for B-Cd analysis, which was performed by graphite furnace atomic absorption spectrophotometry. Blood Cd concentrations ranged from non-detectable values, i.e. below 0.1 {mu}g/l up to 3.4 {mu}g/l and were not normally distributed. The median values and the 95th percentiles were 0.7 and 2.0 {mu}g/l, respectively. Concentrations of B-Cd were more than double in smokers than in non-smokers, median values being 1.1 {mu}g/l and 0.5 {mu}g/l, respectively. In current smokers, B-Cd values correlated with the number of cigarettes smoked daily (r{sub s}=0.40, P=0.0001) and with the cumulative ...
A few studies have found poor semen quality in sons whose mothers have received fertility treatment, but it is unknown whether the poor semen quality is related to the infertility treatment or to infertility per se, for example, whether it is caused by hereditable factors. Using data from a population-based, Danish follow-up study conducted in 2005-2006, the authors of the present study examined whether sons of subfertile couples who had not received fertility treatment had poorer semen quality than sons of fertile couples. Among the 311 participants, an inverse association between parental waiting time to pregnancy and both semen volume and total sperm count was observed (p trend = 0.04 and p trend = 0.046, respectively). Semen volume in sons of subfertile parents (pregnant after > or =1 years) was 19% lower in comparison with that in sons of parents whose waiting time to pregnancy was 0-6 months (p = 0.02). Additionally, sperm ...
A few studies have found poor semen quality in sons whose mothers have received fertility treatment, but it is unknown whether the poor semen quality is related to the infertility treatment or to infertility per se, for example, whether it is caused by hereditable factors. Using data from a population-based, Danish follow-up study conducted in 2005-2006, the authors of the present study examined whether sons of subfertile couples who had not received fertility treatment had poorer semen quality than sons of fertile couples. Among the 311 participants, an inverse association between parental waiting time to pregnancy and both semen volume and total sperm count was observed (p trend = 0.04 and p trend = 0.046, respectively). Semen volume in sons of subfertile parents (pregnant after > or =1 years) was 19% lower in comparison with that in sons ofparents whose waiting time to pregnancy was 0-6 months (p = 0.02). Additionally, sperm concentration ...
BackgroundRoad traffic crashes are considered by the WHO to be the most important global cause of death from injury. However, this may not be true for large areas of rural Asia where...Full Text Available
While most cancer survivors are at risk for being lost in the transition from treatment to survivorship, rural breast cancer survivors face special challenges that might place them at particular...Full Text Available
PURPOSE: The purpose of this qualitative study was to explore the causes and management of blindness and blinding eye conditions as perceived by rural dwellers of two Yoruba communities in Oyo State,...Full Text Available
The objectives of this study were to examine the association between dietary factors and underweight and overweight adult Vietnamese living in the rural areas of Vietnam. A cross-sectional study of...Full Text Available
OBJECTIVE: To measure the prevalence of urethritis due to Neisseria gonorrhoeae and Chlamydial infection trachomatis in rural Tanzanian men DESIGN: About 500 men aged 15-54 years were selected from...Full Text Available
This paper shows and describes the actions and methodologies adopted in commercialization of rural electrification projects in Parana State, Brazil. The actions evaluated aims to feasible the techniques to farm owners provides them properties with electric power. 7 figs., 2 tabs., 1 ref.
This work shows the influence of the consumer density (density/km) in rural electric networks implementation costs. The analysis of the costs aims the criteria definition for the calculation of the financial involving rates of the rural consumer density. 3 figs., 10 tabs.
Increasing prosperity and population-growth in many developing countries are resulting in accelerated growth in population of vehicles and vehicle-kilometers traveled. In Pakistan also, the number of vehicles has jumped from 0.8 million to about 4.0 million within 20 years, showing an overall increase of more than 400%. Accordingly, the consumption of petrol (motor spirit) has increased from 828,670 metric tons to 1,189,042 metric tons. The high content of lead in petrol is a serious issue, as the end- product is the release of lead into the environment. In Pakistan, prior to July 2001, lead-content in petrol was reported to be as high as 0.35-0.84 gram per liter. The reported lead-levels in air (micrograms/cubic centimeter) in different cities of Pakistan are: Karachi (1980-81) 0.13-0.24; Peshawar (1994-95) 0.21-0.79; Lahore (1993-94) 0.15-8.36 and (1999-2000) 0.89-7.85 and Rawalpindi (1999-2000) 0.71-10.00, indicating the very alarming ...
This paper addresses the major issues beginning teachers face in their first postings to rural areas in Australia. The issues go beyond pedagogy. Beginning teachers need to understand social factors affecting rural communities so they can link lessons to the realities experienced by students. Geographic isolation affects the provision of education in terms of time taken to travel, cost, terrain, and technology. Rural communities have groups that are socially isolated from each other and from the staff in schools. In order to teach effectively, teachers need to be aware of the social context of the community in which they live and work. Teachers in rural areas suffer from professional isolation and often confront teaching situations for which they have had little formal preparation. Communities in remote places often move quickly to adopt technological means to overcome their isolation. Teachers in ...
New interest by Australians in the state of rural education requires new understanding of factors affecting rural education and its related issues. Educational programs have not been flexible enough to cope with rural diversity, a key element in the milieu. Standards such as "equality of opportunity" and "uniformity" have been misapplied to rural Australian education, which is made distinctive by the inter-relatedness of many factors. Three dimensions of isolation are discussed: (1) types of isolation (geographic, cultural, social, and professional isolation); (2) ways of coping with isolation (understanding isolation, developing a sense of community, developing awareness of options, training the isolated, application, and technology); and (3) conditions affecting educational changes in isolated communities (social and political climate, pedagogy, finance, and incentives for change). All these concerns ...
This paper presents results from one of the projects developed within the general framework of the international Programme 'CORE' (Cooperation for Rehabilitation in Belarus). The overall objective of the programme is to make sustainable improvements to the living conditions of the inhabitants of the territories affected by the Chernobyl disaster. The CORE Programme is currently developed in four contaminated districts of Belarus (Bragin, Cherchersk, Slavgorod and Stolyn) in the following four areas: economic and social development; health care and surveillance; education and culture; and radiological quality. The project that is presented here refers specifically to the field of 'radiological quality' and will last until the end of 2008. The project named 'implementation of an inclusive radiation monitoring system' was launched in April 2004 in the Bragin district, which is one of the most contaminated areas in Belarus. It is ...
The Anglo-Danish programme of research on materials for advanced vehicular transport and other storage batteries is about to enter its fifth year. Here, the results of the work to date on solid electrolytes, electrode materials and cell design are reviewed and discussed as a systematic programme of cell testing gets underway.
... uncertainty. The method is applied for the invasive shrub Rosa rugosa (Japanese rose) in Danish fixed dunes. The probability ... habitat code 2130). In 14 sites, the invasive shrub Rosa rugosa was recorde...
To elucidate problems with microfungal infestation in indoor environments, a multidisciplinary collaborative pilot study, supported by a grant from the Danish Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs,...Full Text Available
BackgroundIntegration of medical care across clinicians and settings could enhance the quality of care for patients. To date, there is limited data on the levels of integration in...Full Text Available
Risoe`s 40th anniversary was celebrated June 3, 1998 by a symposium held at Risoe. The interaction of research at Risoe with academia and industry was presented in both national and international perspective. Most of the presentations are in English, a few in Danish. (au)
In the rural areas, especially those located far enough from infrastructure facilities (highways and national roads, electricity and gas networks, etc.), energy supply (both quantitatively and qualitatively) is scarcer than in the urban ones. The purpose of this paper is to analyse the use of renewable energy hybrid systems in order to increase the quality and the quantity of energy supplied to the rural settlements. The paper is thus a guide of how to choose the appropriate energy source with higher potential and efficiency, minimal capital and operational costs and better comfort. (authors)
The installation and performance of a water source heat pump in Minnesota are discussed. The operating cost was found to be higher than expected. (MHR)
BackgroundBrucellosis is a zoonosis of veterinary, public health and economic significance in most developing countries. Human brucellosis is a severely debilitating disease that...Full Text Available
This report presents the Business Plan for the establishment of the Wind Turbine Component Centre (CWTC) to meet the objectives of performing theoretical research and experimental testing. The core idea of a CWTC is to support the Danish wind energy industry and research activities at the component level improving the competitive advantage of that industry. The CWTC will in itself operate its activities, including access to test and experimental facilities, on a semi commercial basis. The business model for the CWTC presented is based on revenues coming from component manufacturers as well as research grants, and will include membership fees as well as hourly payment and larger projects where payment is a limited project sum. The presented roadmap model clarifies the development path towards a fully developed CWTC, which will cover test of all important components along the drive-train as well as offering a comprehensive systematic understanding of the entire ...
... Tauris, 2005. 'Inclusions/exclusions in rural space', in Cloke, P., Marsdan, T and Mooney, P, eds, Handbook of Rural Studies, Sage, 2006, 401-410 people/dsibley/publications.html CURRICULUM VITAE people/dsibley/cv.html PRESENTATIONS people/dsibley/presentations.html TEACHING people/dsibley/teaching.html Homepage | Contacts | Site Map | Privacy Statement | Webmaster | Faculty of Environment | University of Leeds | Campusweb School of Geography, University of Leeds, Leeds LS2 9JT,...
Background:The validity of dementia diagnoses in the Danish nationwide hospital registers was evaluated to determine the value of these registers in epidemiological research about dementia. Methods: Two hundred patients were randomly selected from 4,682 patients registered for the first time with a dementia diagnosis in the last 6 months of 2003. The patients' medical journals were reviewed to evaluate if they fulfilled ICD-10 and/or DSM-IV criteria for dementia and specific dementia subtypes. The patients who were still alive in 2006 were invited to an interview. Results: One hundred and ninety-seven journals were available for review and 51 patients were interviewed. A registered diagnosis of dementia was found to be correct in 169 (85.8%) cases. Regarding dementia subtypes, the degree of agreement between the registers and the results of the validating process was low with a kappa of 0.36 (95% CI 0.24-0.48). Conclusion: The validity of dementia syndrome in the ...
Babcock and Wilcox Volund is a major European provider of energy producing plants based on biomass and waste materials, which was founded in 1898 and today employs about 400 persons with headquarters and manufacturing in Esbjerg, Denmark. The R and D staff is about 10 persons, concentrating on gasification and improvement of traditional products. The Company turnover is about 120 mio. Euro annually, of which about 80 % is exported (50 % outside Europe - mostly far East). In 2000 the Company was acquired by US Company Babcock and Wilcox. In 1988 Volund initiated the development of updraft wood-chips gasifier Technology, which led to the commissioning of the Harboore gasifier early 1994. The work was supported in part by the Danish ELKRAFT Power Utilities and the Danish Energy Agency. The development process was carried out until 2002 and Volund now just concluded a license agreement with the Japanese engineering Company JFE. The overall layout ...
The overall aim is to develope programme modules for a Danish integrated computer system for projecting buildings and to ensure that Danish programmes are compatible with international systems. The programmes to be integrated here were AutoCAD and SCRIBE-Models and the simulation programme tsbi3 for the calculation of indoor climate conditions, power demand and energy consumption in buildings. For the calculation of humidity and temperature conditions in constructions a certain amount of integration is carried out with the MATCH programme (Moisture And Temperature calculations for Constructions of Hygroscopic materials). The activities embodied in the pilot projects are described in this working report in addition to individual computer programmes and prototypes, and examples and diagrams are presented. The programmes described deal with handling design elements in relation to AutoCAD designs, and the formatting of a building`s data from ...
This article analyses the prevalent situation of the formal Financial Institutions (FIs) in rural India using data from National Sample Survey 54th Round (January-June, 1998). We use sample selectivity model to examine the sanction of the loan by the FIs as a two-stage process. We model the choice of the household's credit requirement using an unordered choice model, namely, a multinomial logit model. Our results reveal that the rural households are considerably credit constrained. The households who do not have an account in a FI have a lower chance of obtaining the loan and households who are credit constrained have relatively lower land holding and they do not possess livestock. Households who borrow for nonfarm purpose exhibit a lower chance of obtaining credit compared to those househ...
The Danish Ministry of Transportation has prepared a national plan of transportation, for the years until 2005. Official policy concerning land, maritime and air transport, personal and cargo transportation, investments and expenditures is outlined. Environmental impacts of energy consumption and air pollution abatement measures are considered. (EG)
Current European and the US experiences in waste management are reviewed in the perspective of sustainable development. This publication questions the validity of the current approach taken by the Germany at ``closing the loop`` based on the example of packaging and packaging waste. The product item focus of current German legislation is compared with Danish and US approaches that are based on an integrated policy which covers the whole of waste generation and handling and is not product/item oriented. 1 fig., 2 tabs.
Energy sector is relatively easy to evaluate economically. There have existed reliable statistics on energy systems and consumption and the planning has been based on them. However the environmental factors have been integrated into the Danish energy policy first in the nineties, and the new socio-economic evaluations have to take the pollution abatement measures into account. (EG)
Denmark has been one of the first countries in the world to commit itself to a sustainable energy development. This has been substantiated by two official action plans from 1990 and 1996 with emphasis on energy efficiency and supply systems based on renewable energy. In year 2005, renewable energy sources are planned to cover 12-14% and in year 2030 about 35% of total Danish energy demand. This paper reviews the experiences with implementation of renewable energy in Denmark with a focus on wind power and biomass.
The renewed interest for using wind energy commercially is not more than twenty-five years old. From an experimental stage of turning wind energy into electricity in the 1970s, a new industry for producing standardised windmills gained foothold in the beginning of the 1980s and since then it has developed rapidly through the 1980s and the 1990s. The Danish innovators of the new windmill technology have been the pioneers behind this development, and Denmark has succeeded in acquiring a first mover advantage on the world market. This position has been maintained and at present Denmark satisfies more than half of the world market's demand for windmills. There are at least two reasons for this pioneering position of the Danish windmill industry. First, Denmark is by nature very `abundant' in wind energy due to its geographical position at the nexus between the Gulf Stream and the European continent. The windy climate makes given ...
The renewed interest for using wind energy commercially is not more than twenty-five years old. From an experimental stage of turning wind energy into electricity in the 1970s, a new industry for producing standardised windmills gained foothold in the beginning of the 1980s and since then it has developed rapidly through the 1980s and the 1990s. The Danish innovators of the new windmill technology have been the pioneers behind this development, and Denmark has succeeded in acquiring a first mover advantage on the world market. This position has been maintained and at present Denmark satisfies more than half of the world market's demand for windmills. There are at least two reasons for this pioneering position of the Danish windmill industry. First, Denmark is by nature very 'abundant' in wind energy due to its geographical position at the nexus between the Gulf Stream and the European continent. The windy climate makes given technologies of ...
Rapid growth in economic development, coupled with the absence of an electric grid in large areas of the rural countryside, have created a need for new energy sources both in urban centers and rural areas in China. Environmental pollution from the increased use of coal-fired steam turbines to meet this capacity expansion is a concern. There is a growing interest in China to develop renewable-energy resources and technologies to meet energy demands and help mitigate pollution problems. In February 1995, Secretary Hazel O`Leary of the U.S. Department of Energy signed an Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy Protocol Agreement with the Chinese State Science and Technology Commission in Beijing, China. Under this agreement, projects using photovoltaics for rural electrification are being conducted in Gansu Province in western China and Inner Mongolia in northern China, providing the basis for much wider deployment and use of ...
BACKGROUND:Canadian chronic pain prevalence estimates range from 11% to 66%, are affected by sampling and measurement bias, and largely represent urban settings.OBJECTIVES:To...Full Text Available
BackgroundAgricultural practices such as the use of irrigation during rice cultivation, the use of ponds for fish farming and the storage of water in tanks for livestock provide...Full Text Available
BackgroundNorthern Uganda unlike other rural regions has registered high HIV prevalence rates comparable to those of urbanized Kampala and the central region. This could be due to...Full Text Available
In a community based study, height and weight increments of 441 Nepali children aged 0-6 years were measured before harvest and six months later and compared with centile standards derived from American...Full Text Available
BackgroundDiagnostic delay in patients with tuberculosis (TB) leads to ongoing TB transmission, higher mortality rates and increased patient and government health expenditure. Qualitative...Full Text Available
BackgroundThe diagnosis of typhoid fever is confirmed by culture of Salmonella enterica serotype Typhi (S. typhi). However, a more rapid, simpler,...Full Text Available
Surveys were conducted in one urban and two rural regions of the United Republic of Cameroon to estimate the annual incidence of paralytic poliomyelitis. Three different survey methods were used: a...Full Text Available
ObjectiveThe study aimed to examine the effect of household and community characteristics on financial catastrophe and impoverishment due to health payment in Western and Central...Full Text Available
This article presents a study identifying benefits and challenges of a novel hospital-to-hospital information technology (IT) outsourcing partnership (HHP). The partnership is an innovative response...Full Text Available
Health education and awareness involves providing knowledge about causes of illness and choices to promote a change in individual behaviour and, thus, improves survival of individuals. Studies have,...Full Text Available
A program was conducted to develop a pop-up artificial-foliage system compatible with the rural Maryland (summertime) background environment. The result of this Phase I effort was a self-expanding leaf module, a number of which are stored flat in a simple...
BackgroundEvolutionary life history theory predicts that, in the absence of contraception, any enhancement of maternal condition can increase human fertility. Energetic...Full Text Available
Context: The Balanced Budget Act (BBA) of 1997 allowed some rural hospitals meeting certain requirements to convert to Critical Access Hospitals (CAHs) and changed their Medicare reimbursement from prospective to cost-based. Some subsequent CAH-related laws reduced restrictions and increased payments, and the number of CAHs grew rapidly. Purpose: To examine factors related to hospitals' decisions to convert and time to CAH conversion. Methods: Eighty-nine rural hospitals in Iowa were characterized and observed from 1998 to 2005. Cox proportional hazards models were used to identify the determinants of time to CAH conversion. Findings: T-test and one-covariate Cox regression indicated that, in 1998, Iowa rural hospitals with more staffed beds, discharges, and acute inpatient days, higher operating margin, lower skilled swing bed days relative to acute days, and located in relatively high density counties were more likely to ...
The objective of this animation is to develop a QTL mapping population for locating and characterizing the genes responsible for resistance to tan spot disease of wheat.
Solid fuels such as coal, wood, and crop straw supply some fraction of household cooking and heating fuel for more than one billion people in China. As these fuels do not generally combust cleanly in household stoves, their use levies large health and environmental burdens, particularly in rural regions. Production of clean-burning fuels from agricultural residue offers one prospect for mitigating health and social burdens imposed by household use of solid fuels. This dissertation explores the question: how might production of clean-burning household fuels from agricultural residues affect human health and social conditions in rural China? I approach this question from three perspectives. First, a technically plausible but currently unproven village-scale energy technology is explored in a scenario bounded by natural resources and substantiated by engineering specifications, estimates of indoor exposures to air pollution, and epidemiological ...
Lyophilized human whole blood control material containing lead was prepared for internal and external quality assurance to evaluate and improve the analytical performance of lead. The samples were prepared in four different concentrations from outdated human whole blood stabilized with glucose and a citrate/phosphate buffer and provided under clean room conditions to avoid contamination. The lyophilized samples are easy to reconstitute with water. The materials were evaluated according to a statistical model. The lead concentrations in the specimens are close to blood lead levels usually following environmental and industrial exposure, particular in occupational health to the control of lead exposure at work regulations. The materials are available to the commercial as well as the scientific community. The Danish External Quality Assessment Scheme (DEQAS) for lead in blood is intended to complement the internal quality control for the Danish ...
The document gives statistics on the pollutive emissions from Danish power plants during the period 1987-1996, the main pollutants being sulphur dioxide, nitrogen oxides and carbon dioxide. Data on efficiency levels relative to the production of electricity and heating and on the power plants` contribution to the total emission of CO{sub 2}, NO{sub x}, and SO{sub 2} from energy consumption in Denmark, are presented, and also as corrected for the net import of electricity. Other data on the emission of each of these chemicals by power plants are presented as factual, and corrected in accordance with the net import of electricity, and as factual per consumed and produced energy unit at the power plants. Short notes on related Danish legislation are found in addition to information on sources, methods and definitions used as a basis for the production of this document. Emission from power stations is dependent on their energy consumption which is ...
The overall aim is to develope programme modules for a Danish integrated computer system for projecting buildings and to ensure that Danish programmes are compatible with international systems. The programmes to be integrated here were AutoCAD and SCRIBE-models and the simulation programme tsbi3 for the calculation of indoor climate conditions, power demand and energy consumption in buildings. For the calculation of humidity and temperature conditions in constructions a certain amount of integration is carried out with the MATCH programme (Moisture And Temperature calculations for Constructions of Hygroscopic materials). The activities embodied in the pilot projects are described in this working report in addition to the individual computer programmes and prototypes, and examples and diagrams are presented. The programmes included are a geometry programme for the calculation of areas, lengths and volumes, a programme for the calculation of heat ...
Seasonal traffic on intercity corridors often creates severe congestion at various bottlenecks, such as land-drops and drawbridges. A Traffic Simulation And Optimization model (TSAO) has been developed in order to 1) evaluate traffic impacts (including travel time, vehicle operating costs, accidents, air pollution and fuel consumption) of a given routing pattern on a network, and 2) determine the optimal flow pattern. In its latest version, the TSAO model uses: 1) a macroscopic simulation approach to trace vehicle platoons through a network; 2) Greenshield's equation to represent volume-speed relationship on freeways and multi-lane highways, and Highway Capacity Manual method for two-lane rural highways; 3) Lighthill's shockwave function to simulate queue propagation; 4) event-scan time management for simulation; 5) variable link capacity for two-lane rural highways or to stimulate incidents; 6) AASHTO Guideline for ...
Surveillance of a population, such as a weapon stockpile, is needed to discover manufacturing defects as well as deterioration as the population ages. This article considers the risks of sampling rates for surveillance from three perspectives: detection probability of defects in a proportion of a population with pass/fail data, detection of a trend in a defective proportion of the population with pass/fail data, and detection of a trend with quantitative degradation measurements. Understanding of these risks will help the decision maker choose a sampling rate to protect against such problems of a specified size at a tolerable risk.
Linkage disequilibrium (LD) between densely spaced, polymorphic genetic markers in humans and other species contains information about historical population size. Inferring past population size is of...Full Text Available
Biofuels may contribute to both rural economic development and climate change mitigation and adaptation. The Gota Verde Project in Yoro, Honduras, attempts to demonstrate the technical and economic feasibility of small-scale biofuel production for local use by implementing a distinctive approach to feedstock production that encourages small farm sizes, mixed cropping of biofuel feedstock from Jatropha and food crops, particularly corn and beans, grown side by side on the same farmland and the total involvement of small rural farmers. But is the project sustainable? Using EC-Assess, the Earth Charter ethics-based assessment tool, to assess the sustainability of this project, the author found that in some assessment categories the actions surpassed the intended objectives, showing that the project was achieving certain Earth Charter goals without specifically stating its intention to address them. (Contains 3 images, 3 figures and 2 notes.)
The European Commission recently authorized the import of baobab (Adansonia digitata L.) fruit pulp as a novel food. In rural West Africa the multipurpose baobab is used extensively for subsistence. Three hundred traditional uses of the baobab were documented in Benin, Mali, and Senegal across 11 ethnic groups and 4 agroecological zones. Baobab fruits and leaves are consumed throughout the year. The export of baobab fruits could negatively influence livelihoods, including reduced nutritional intake, change of power relations, and access rights. Capacity building and certification could encourage a sustainable and ethical trade of baobab fruits without neglecting baobab use in subsistence.
The information gathered as operating manager when implementing the first photovoltaic rural electrification and technology transfer program carried out to date in the world in French Polynesia from 1978 to 1990 are detailed. The technical developments of equipment and the work in progress at the GENEC Cadarache within French, European or IEA programs in order to improve some components or appliances and make up for certain deficiencies are presented. This involves accelerated aging tests, Standardization work, development of high efficiency equipment. Non technical barriers are often emphasized. Technical barriers also exists. Considerable work in many domains of small PV systems remains to be done so as to combine all the conditions required to implement successful large programs in developed as well as in developing countries.
The purpose of this research was to develop a methodology for sizing integrated renewable energy systems, useful for rural areas, using simulation and optimization tools developed in MATLAB 6.0. The sizing model produces a system with minimum cost and high reliability level, based on the concept of loss of power supply probability (LPSP) for consecutive hours. An optimization model is presented and three different sizing scenarios are calculated and compared, showing flexibility in the elaboration of different project conceptions. The obtained results show a complete sizing of the energy conversion devices and a long-term cost evaluation. (author)
The objective of this project is the development of a standard methodology for integrating non-food crops in rural areas with niche energy markets. This has involved a number of steps including (i) identification of 3 niche markets for energy crops which are of common interest to the partners, (ii) application of the standard costing methodology to investigate these three niche markets and (iii) comparison of the results from this work in three workshops (one for each market). Three tightly defined niche markets were identified; these were chosen following an examination of the national energy marekts in each of the partners countries (Ireland, Germany, Netherlands, UK, Greece and Portugal). This paper gives an overview of the national energy markets which were examined. The three niche markets are introduced and the reasons for their selection given. The application of the methodology to each of the niche markets is presented along with the conclusions of the ...
An international conference on forestry research presented papers on topics including forest mensuration, growth and yield; growth/yield relationships; design, performance, and evaluation of experiments; forest resource inventory and monitoring techniques; forest management, planning, and managerial economics; forestry and rural development in developing countries; forestry in sustainable economic development; conceptual advances in multiple-use forestry evaluations; economic evaluation of forest damages; supply and demand of roundwood and forest industry products; forestry and rural development in industrialized countries; analysis and evaluation of forest policies; forest institutions and organizations; biological and economic considerations when harvesting young thinning stands; applied sector modelling; and structural changes of the forest sector in a global perspective. Separate abstracts have been prepared for 3 papers from this ...
... Jillian Kilby is a civil engineer and director of J L Kilby Pty Ltd based between Walgett and Brewarrina in North West NSW. Building an engineering company in rural NSW combines Jillianrsquo;s passions for quality projectengineering services, and rural communities. It is also testament to her determination to build a career no matter where she chose to live. Her company has a strong focus on improving ... Some of Jillianrsquo;s recent projects include involvement in an alternate inland highway feasibility study, a water study at Brewarrina, a multipurpose jetty tender in Wyndham, Western Australia, and project management of the SES yard development in Walgett. Jillian is involved in Engineers Australiarsquo;s Sydney Division. She was the chairman of the Civiland Structural Panel in 2009, is a current board member of the ...
This investigation of a brain cancer cluster in Missouri used two approaches to investigate associations with potential risk factors. In a case-control study in a rural town, we interviewed surrogates of cases and controls about potential risk factors. We found a statistically significant positive association of brain cancer with reported exposure to dental x-rays. Occupation was not associated with the cluster in the rural town. In a standardized proportional mortality study for the state of Missouri, we calculated the observed and expected proportion of brain cancers by occupation and industry in Missouri decedents. We found that motor vehicle manufacturers, beauty shop workers, managers and administrators, elementary school teachers, and hairdressers and cosmetologists had significantly elevated proportions of brain cancer. Brain tumors are inconsistently associated with occupation in the literature. Further study of brain cancer etiology ...
Agricultural sustainability is a vital parameter to be ascertained locally and globally if food security is to be achieved and maintained. Agricultural sustainability is the combined product of social, economic and ecological sustainability. It is also a function of temporal and spatial variations, a fact which indicates that area-specific sustainability indices need to be designed. We present here an Agricultural Sustainability Index (ASI) for rural eastern India and use it to calculate the ASI for 150 farms for three decades over a 60-year period, viz., 1950?1960, 1980?1990 and 2000?2010 for a representative Indian village of Gangapur (25?83?N, 85?65?E). The ASI was calculated using 30 variables, 10 each of social, economic and ecological sustainability. An extensive questionnaire-based ...
Feasibility of using sterile females for population suppression of Earias vittella (Fabricius) was evaluated by conducting studies on mating competitiveness of radiation sterilized females, both in individual pairs and in simulated large population conditions. Results showed that sterility induced by using a 10:1:1 ratio (sterile female: normal female: normal male) in single pair experiments and also in simulated large population conditions was more than 99.0 per cent. Release of radiation- sterilized females of E. vittella in natural populations has thus an excellent potential for population suppression. (author)
Removal Sampling is an easy-to-use Windows program which calculates population statistics from removal trapping experiment data. Using maximum likelihood methods it ... ...
PurposeTo describe the prevalence of cataract in older people in 2 areas of north and south India.DesignPopulation-based, cross-sectional study.ParticipantsRandomly...Full Text Available
Comparative Molecular Genetic Monitoring of Myxoviruses Circulating in Populations of Seals Phoca Caspia and Phoca Sibirica in Northern Caspian Region and Lake Baikal
Coral are symbiotic with photosynthetic dinoflagellates from the genus Symbiodinium. There are eight divergent clades (A-H) within the genus which each ... ...
Fungal and oomycete populations and their dynamics were investigated following the introduction of the biocontrol agent Pythium oligandrum into the rhizosphere of tomato plants grown...Full Text Available
Acquisition of detailed knowledge of the structure and evolution of Trypanosoma cruzi populations is essential for control of Chagas disease....Full Text Available
Presents a summary of research on key aspects of the indirect effects of expanding education from grade six through grade nine, followed by a comprehensive analysis of social rates of return to investment in all levels of education in Indonesia and underemployment in urban and rural areas. (three figures, nine tables, 33 references) (MLF)
This paper propose to show the technical and economic aspects of the implementation of small power distribution systems in small rural properties in some locations of Argentina. This paper presents a concrete methodology, with a rational cost composition and introduces project variables. 4 figs.
This paper shows some considerations about the cost of wood, steel and cement support pillars in rural power distribution systems. The life span, mechanical properties, cost estimation and general durability of each type of pillar was evaluated, aiming a better selection of the desired one. 6 figs., 8 tabs., 4 refs.
... The colored background is an isopleth map showing change in sulfate concentrations as measured by the CASTNET rural air quality monitoring network , leading to significant improvements in air quality and human health. Wet sulfate deposition decreased 43 percent in the Northeast and 44 percent in the ...
A project to demonstrate residential heating and cooling with a well-water source heat pump is documented. The system is schematically illustrated and described, and project experience is discussed. The system is capable of using source water as cool as 40/sup 0/F. Project expenses are accounted for. (LEW)
Biogas-Compost Technology is being experimented in several research centers in Burkina Faso. This technology is about putting up prototypes in order to allow the use of fermentation products. Research on how to operate such technology, no matter small irrigation or domestic energy, has enabled the evaluation of the biogas-compost production and consumption. The implementation of such technology has made possible the agronomic valorization of fermentation residues, the improvement of the process of gas production, and the decrease of installation costs.
Three existing organizational types that meet the decentralization criteria of local consumer ownership and control - cooperatives, Rural Electric Cooperatives, and municipal utilities - are examined. These three organizational precedents are analyzed in terms of their histories, structures, legal powers, sources of capital, and social and political aspects. Examples of related experiments with renewable energy technologies are given, and inferences are drawn regarding the organizations' suitability as vehicles for future implementation of decentralized renewable energy systems.
...Keeping chickens: a beginner's guide : Directgov - Environment and greener living chickens, feeding chickens, egg marking, registering a ...flock, battery hens Chickens; Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs; Registrations; Animals; Livestock; Local government; Local ...authorities A guide for people keeping chickens on the laws for registering and feeding them, and how to spot key diseases. A ...guide for people keeping chickens on the laws for registering and feeding them, and how to spot key diseases. Keeping chickens: ...
A self-selected sample of 417 urban and 379 rural preschool children attending the under-5s clinics was weighed in Sierra Leone. The individual weights were related to the weight-for-age Harvard 3rd...Full Text Available
The generation of thermal energy is the great importance for the agribusiness of dairy industry to conservation the quality of milk, taking into account that the electricity is the main source currently used for the thermal energy input. The small agribusiness dairy industry currently practiced in Brazil faces several problems related to the cost of electricity and the distance of rural properties of networks of power. In the current scenario of Brazilian dairy production, there is need for the generation of cold for the milk cooling, and also the heat for the production of hot water around 50 deg C to 60 deg C and also for cleaning of equipment used for milk production and processing. The main objective of this study is the modeling and simulation of integrated recovery process of solid waste, effluents and bioconversion. The specific project objectives are: comparison study of options and technological routes of low cost material for power generation using ...
I travelled to San Jose, Costa Rica on July 8, 1990 to evaluate all of the completed elements of the ongoing feasibility study for the San Lorenzo River hydroelectric project. The feasibility study is being supported by ORNL under the Renewable Energy Applications and Training Project. The project is being studied for implementation by CONELECTRICAS, a consortium of rural electric cooperatives and the study itself is being conducted by BEL Engineering, a Costa Rican consulting firm under contract to CONELECTRICAS, USAID/PIC and NRECA.
Parasites display considerable phenotypic plasticity in life-history traits such as, body size. Varroa destructor is an ectoparasitic mite of the western honey bee Apis mellifera. Several studies have reported that in V. destructor, there is a wide phenotypic plasticity within a population of mites. However, it is unknown if there are morphologic variations in V. destructor populations affecting different A. mellifera populations. A morphometric study of V. destructor populations was conducted to provide information concerned to the relationships among parasite populations found in different geographic locations from A. mellifera colonies of Argentina. The hypothesis tested was different morphotypes of V. destructor populations parasitizing different A. mellifera populations from Argentina...
Women treated of localised stages of cervix cancer have a very good prognosis. But do health care professionals have a tendency to underestimate the potential need for rehabilitation of this group? To be able to answer this question this study aimed to develop knowledge concerning these women's own perception of their health during a long period after surgical cancer treatment. A total of 398 women who underwent radical hysterectomy in the period from the 1 January 1983 to 31 December 2000 participated in the study at Aarhus University Hospital, Skejby in Denmark 2001-2003. All patients initially filled in an internally validated questionnaire. Subsequently a sample of 100 women filled in the questionnaires Short Form -36 and Sense of Coherence to evaluate their self-reported health. Analy...
Wind power is a maturing technology that in a number of countries is likely to contribute a major share to fully renewable energy systems. Denmark has a comparably long history of wind power development and is planning to continue expanding the existing capacity. If a large-scale penetration of wind power is to be achieved, an integrated framework is needed that can respond to the associated challenges. This paper argues for adopting an integrated macro perspective when evaluating and building frameworks to support wind power development. This macro perspective is applied to the case of Denmark, and more specifically to concrete wind power projects in the region of Northern Jutland. The results suggest although certain elements in the legislation have been improved, the feasibility of wind power projects cannot be guaranteed, and there is a tendency to exclude smaller turbines from the development.
Abstract Policy-makers are increasingly recognising that the promotion of more sustainable consumption patterns is an indispensable prerequisite for achieving sustainable development in the long term. Policy documents and action plans have been published, and a wide array of policy instruments has been implemented with the aim of reducing the environmental and social burdens of consuming goods and services. But what are the latest trends and innovative approaches in sustainable consumption (SC) policies? What could be learnt for future policy-making? Based on an overview of European policy instruments and several case studies, the paper discusses instructive examples of SC policy instruments, in particular the Danish information campaign "One Tonne Less", the Dutch tax incentive scheme "Gr...
Over 170 participants from 60 countries met for three days in Copenhagen from 7 to 9 June 1994 to discuss howe the aims of the United Nations Framework convention on Climate Change can be translated into practical action. The Conference was organised by the UNEP collaborating Centre on Energy and Environment (UCCEE), with financial support from the Danish International Development Agency (Danida), the Global Environment Facility (GEF), the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and Risoe National Laboratory, Denmark. The main objective of the conference was to identify common approaches to national mitigation analysis for countries to use in meeting their commitments under the FCCC, and in setting priorities for national actions. Although addressing a broader theme, the conference marked the completion and publication of the second phase on UNEP Greenhouse Gas Abatement Costing Study. (au)
Article. In Norway, a project is planned to evaluate the upgrading potential of the hydroelectric power sector. The article criticizes the authorities for not supporting the upgrading of hydroelectric power plants in their eager to promote the development of wind power. An important contribution of the planned project will be a book from which the utilities may get advice on measures of upgrading. Generators and control systems account for 80% of the faults and interruptions in the power utilities. The turbine technology has made important progress in the 1990s. By pure upgrading measures alone, the turbine efficiencies may be increased enough for an additional 3 TWh to be taken out from the Norwegian hydroelectric power system. Today, the price of imported carbon-based Danish power determines whether the utilities find it profitable to rehabilitate the hydroelectric plants. The energy potential of upgrading is estimated to be 5 TWh. This energy can be generated ...
Aims To study the effect of fish consumption on the risk of acute coronary syndrome (ACS) in healthy subjects. Methods and results This Danish follow-up study included 57 053 men and women between 50 and 64 years. Intake of lean and fatty fish was estimated from a detailed and validated food frequency questionnaire. Potential cases of ACS were identified through nationwide medical databases. A total of 1122 cases of ACS were verified during a mean follow-up period of 7.6 years. Among men, intake of fatty fish was associated with a lower risk of ACS. For men in the highest quintile of fish intake compared with the lowest quintile, the hazard ratio was 0.67 (95% confidence interval: 0.53-0.85). The inverse association was observed for intakes >6 g of fatty fish per day with no obvious additi...
A reduced grid model of a transmission system with a number of central power plants, consumption centers, local wind turbines and a large offshore wind farm is developed and implemented in the simulation tool PowerFactory (DIgSILENT). The reduced grid model is given by Energinet.dk, Transmission System Operator of Denmark (TSO) for Natural Gas and Electricity, to the Danish Universities and the Risoe National Laboratory. Its intended usage is education and studying of interaction between electricity-producing wind turbines and a realistic transmission system. Focus in these studies is on voltage stability issues and on the ride-through capability of different wind turbine concepts, equipped with advanced controllers, developed by the Risoe National Laboratory.
Native plant individuals often persist within communities dominated by exotics but the influence of this exposure on native populations is poorly understood. Selection for traits contributing to competitive ability may lead to native plant populations that are more tolerant of the presence of exotic invaders. In this way, long-term coexistence with an exotic may confer competitive advantages to remnant (experienced) native populations and be potentially beneficial to restoration. In past studies we have documented genetic differentiation within native grass populations exposed to the exotic invader Russian knapweed (Acroptilon repens). Here, we examine populations of a cool-season grass, needle-and-thread (Hesperostipa comata [Trin. & Rupr.]) and a warm season, alkali sacaton (Sporobolus a...
Populations living close to high-voltage transmission lines often have residential magnetic field exposures in excess of 1 [mu]T, and sometimes over 2 [mu]T. Yet, populations studied in most epidemiologic investigations of the association between residential magnetic field exposure and cancer typically have exposures below 1 [mu]T and frequently below 0.5 [mu]T. To improve statistical power and precision, it would be useful to compare high exposure populations with low exposure population. Toward this end, we have developed an automated method for identifying populations living near high-voltage transmissions lines. These populations likely have more highly exposed individuals that the population at large. The method uses a geographic information system (GIS) to superimpose digitized transmission line locations on U.S. Census block location ...
In this paper the authors describe the ways poststructuralist discourses assisted us to reading and reflection on data collected as part of a traditional survey-style research study. The study--generated in response to widespread concern about falling male enrolment rates at the authors' regional university--focused upon factors affecting rural male school-leavers' decisions about postschool destinations, and upon these students' attitudes to higher education. In the paper that follows, the authors contest the dominant discourses that are frequently drawn on to explain differences in male and female higher education enrolment trends. They then focus upon the features of two of the more dominant stories that students told to explain this 'difference': stories about 'real men', and stories about the value of the 'practical' over the 'theoretical'. In addition, they present another story that draws upon girls' views of higher education. Together, these stories ...
Many rural industries generate amounts of biomass waste, such as rice husks, sawdust, wood chips, nutshells and plant stalks that represent a substantial energy resource. However, most often these biomass wastes are not utilized and are dumped or burned in the open. This paper will show the whole project cycle of an installation and commissioning of a thermal configuration of a BG-Systems in Indonesia. These projects highlight the economic, operational and environmental benefits of the BG-Systems. BG-Systems are small fixed-bed downdraft gasifier systems being marketed by BG Technologies that convert biomass into a producer gas that is essentially free of tars and can be used reliably in a diesel engine or thermal combustor. (author)
The underlying theory and model of capacitive voltage substations and its associated problems are described. This system is intended to supply electricity to rural communities directly from high-voltage transmission lines. This technique leads to important cost reductions when compared with conventional alternatives. However, in several transient cases, some problems such as ferroresonance and overvoltages could occur in these substations. Using a developed capacitive substation model these transient cases are simulated. A suitable filter is designed to damp overvoltages clue to ferroresonance. Analytical aspects of filter design are presented and some computer simulation tests are provided to highlight the usefulness of the proposed filter. (author)
Computer simulations of agricultural finance and management may be helpful to students preparing for agricultural careers. Simulations would provide problem definition and problem solving in realistic interactions with complex and ambiguous situations similar to those encountered in farming. The paper describes a major financial problem for farmers, explores the implications of that problem for students, and outlines a computer-based simulation model which would give students experience in dealing with the problem. Data sources for simulations, potentials of interactive exercises among students, and advantages of using real data with existing ambiguities are described. The board game "AGRICULTURE" is discussed as a prototype for simulation. (LFL)
Skip to Content Cancer Control and Population Sciences Home Applied Research Home Risk Factor Monitoring and Methods Home Diet Usual Dietary Intakes: Background The NCI Method Details of the NCI Method Food Intakes, US Population, 2001-04 Selected Intakes
Skip to Content Cancer Control and Population Sciences Home Applied Research Home Risk Factor Monitoring and Methods Home Diet Usual Dietary Intakes: Background The NCI Method Details of the NCI Method Food Intakes, US Population, 2001-04 Selected Intakes
Objectives. This study determined to what extent lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) populations have been studied over the past 20 years of public health research.Methods....Full Text Available
A community health survey of 438 individuals was taken to detect health problems related to high voltage electrical transmission among an adjacent residential population. Results revealed no significant...Full Text Available
BackgroundDespite having the largest population in Africa, Nigeria has no accurate population based data to plan and evaluate eye care services. A national survey was undertaken...Full Text Available
This investigation will explore the effect that current timber extraction techniques have on plethadontid salamander populations in ... group selection, and two-age harvest. Broad scale timber extraction can d...
BackgroundSeverely disabling chronic pain in the adult population is strongly associated with a range of negative health consequences for individuals and high health care costs,...Full Text Available
This paper presents a new deformable model using both population and patient-specific statistics to segment the prostate from CT images. There are two novelties in the proposed method. First,...Full Text Available
ObjectivesMild Cognitive Impairment (MCI) case-finding criteria have low specificity in general population studies. The present study retrospectively identifies cases...Full Text Available
BackgroundAn abdominal aortic aneurysm (AAA) that is identified when the abdomen is imaged for some other reason is known as an incidental AAA. No population-based studies have...Full Text Available
Production of dissolved macromolecules by ambient autotrophic and heterotrophic microbial populations was measured in a eutrophic Florida reservoir by in situ labeling with various radioactive substrates....Full Text Available
An explicit proposal for experiments leading to abrupt transitions in spatially extended bacterial populations in a Petri dish is presented on the basis of an exact formula obtained through an analytic...Full Text Available
BackgroundLong-term vegetation changes in hyper-arid areas have long been neglected. Mortality, recruitment and change in populations of the ecologically and culturally important...Full Text Available
OBJECTIVES. In this study we tested the association between occupational stress--as measured by job demands, decision latitude, and job strain--and hypertension in a population of 1396 Black and White...Full Text Available
Background and AimsMany plants reproduce both clonally and sexually, and the balance between the two modes of reproduction will vary among populations. Clonal reproduction was characterized...Full Text Available
The selection due to the "healthy worker effect" was estimated from a random sample of the total Finnish population. The sample of 20 000 people was followed for changes in occupations from 1960 to...Full Text Available
Natural accumulations of skeletal material (death assemblages) have the potential to provide historical data on species diversity and population structure for regions lacking decades of wildlife monitoring,...Full Text Available
BackgroundBengal tiger Panthera tigris tigris the National Animal of India, is an endangered species. Estimating populations for such species is the main objective...Full Text Available
This is the first report of research for an ongoing study to evaluate the genetic effects of using hatchery-reared fish to supplement natural populations of chinook salmon and steelhead in the Snake River Basin.
AIMS: To examine the frequency of intraocular metastases in patients who had died of cancer, in an eye bank and necropsy population sample. METHODS: The first group included 302 cancer cases received...Full Text Available
Fibroblast cell population kinetics in the developing molar periodontal ligament was investigated in 10, 12, 16 and 20 days old mice by autoradiography after the administration of [3H]thymidine. Labelled...Full Text Available
The effective population size (Ne) is an important parameter in ecology, evolutionary biology and conservation biology. It is, however, notoriously difficult to estimate,...Full Text Available
The roles played by environmental factors in seasonal changes in microbial populations were investigated in the Tvärminne area, off the southern coast of Finland. Surface-layer samples were...Full Text Available
Recently reported technologies for DNA-directed organic synthesis and for DNA computing rely on routing DNA populations through complex networks. The reduction of these ideas to practice has been limited...Full Text Available
The extensive diversity of Plasmodium falciparum antigens is a major obstacle to a broadly effective malaria vaccine but population genetics has rarely been used to guide vaccine design....Full Text Available
BackgroundThis study examines the prevalence and nature of bereavement help-seeking among the population who experienced an "expected" death in the five years before their survey...Full Text Available
AimsTo develop a population pharmacokinetic model for maraviroc, a noncompetitive CCR5 antagonist, after oral administration of tablets to healthy volunteers and asymptomatic HIV-infected...Full Text Available
Schizophrenia and bipolar disorder are leading causes of morbidity across all populations, with heritability estimates of ∼80% indicating a substantial genetic component. Population genetics...Full Text Available
Variation for wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) grain yield and its component traits was documented in a `Cheyenne¿ x Cheyenne (`Wichita¿ 3A) recombinant inbred chromosome line population. In the present study, a population of 223 Cheyenne (Wichita 3A) recombinant inbred chromosome lines was used to map ...
Populations living close to high-voltage transmission lines often have residential magnetic field exposures in excess of 1 microT, and sometimes over 2 microT. Yet, populations studied in most epidemiologic...Full Text Available
Simple, one-zone models for inhomogeneous chemical evolution of the Galactic halo are used to predict the number fraction of zero-metallicity, Population III stars, which currently is empirically estimated at < 4e-4. These analytic models minimize the number of free parameters, highlighting the most fundamental constraints on halo evolution. There are disagreements of at least an order of magnitude between observations and predictions in limiting cases for both homogeneous Simple Model and Simple Inhomogeneous Model (SIM). Hence, this demonstrates a quantitative, unambiguous discrepancy in the observed and expected fraction of Population III stars. We explore how the metallicity distribution of the parent enrichment events f(z_0) drives the SIM and predictions for the Population III fraction. The SIM shows that the previously-identified "high halo" and "low halo" populations are consistent with a ...
The GSD must be considered as a quantity by means of which the risk in a given population can be described exclusively in terms of genetic risk. In cases of a simultaneous increase in the rate of examinations, the GSD may lead to a misinterpretation of the population exposure, suggesting a decreasing trend, although there is an actual increase in the somatic radiation exposure. It is recommended to indicate not only the GSD but also the amount of somatic radiation exposure of the population for each specific source when comparing and evaluating radiation exposures from different sources. Although the somatically significant dose formally would be suited as a complement to the GSD, it is recommended to use the effective per caput dose equivalent. It must be pointed out that the application of the concept of effective dose equivalent is only appropriate for comparative evaluations of the population ...
A good knowledge of medfly population dynamics is necessary to control it. Population dynamics are being studied by means of the Jackson trap with trimedlure attractant (male, sex-pheromone). Weekly sampling of wild medfly populations was started in June at Aabde and in August at Sour and Jbeil. Trap surveys of medfly density will be carried for at least one year before sterile males releases are started against a long-established infestation. Since populations can vary with season and in different parts of an infested area. Knowledge of this variation is needede to determine when releases should start, because they should begin, just after or during a population decline. Field evaluation will include, ecological data on medfly population distribution number, host preference, and medfly overwintering. Surveys of medfly adults and larvae, host species, and ...
The genetically significant dose (GSD) is an index variable which exclusively allows to describe the genetic risk in the progeny of a population due to the application of ionizing radiation and radioactive substances in one part of this population. It may result in wrong interpretation of population exposure at increasing incidence of examinations in a population involving ionizing radiation and radioactive drugs at simultaneously increasing application of alternative methods in children and adolescents owing to the fact that it indicates a downward trend although somatic exposure of this population has increased. Therefore, it is recommended to state both the GSD and the level of somatic radiation exposure of the population taken from the individual sources for the comparison and assessment of radiation exposure from various sources in future. Although the ...
An ambitious development programme culminated in late 1989 with the most modern diesel train available today entering commercial service. At the root of its development lay an overall concept which aimed at meeting the present-day and future requirements of railway administrations. Higher passenger revenues, lower operating costs and reduced maintenance are the result. An IC trainset is 58.8 m long and consists of three cars: Two identical power cars and one intermediate car. Each three-car trainset has 144 seats, 16 of which are reserved for first class. Up to five three-car trainsets can be coupled rogether to form a 15-car trainset. Four air-cooled 8-cylinder diesel engines with a combined rating of 294 kW power each three-car trainset, i.e. there are two engines installed in each of the power cars. The train has a maximum speed of 180 km/h. (orig.).
Over a 5-year period (1976-1980) 499 patients with non-seminomatous testicular germ cell tumours were included in the Danish Testicular Carcinoma Study (DATECA). The 3-year crude survival for patients in clinical stages I, II and III was 91, 77 and 45 per cent, respectively. In stage I the relapse-free survival for patients given radiation combined with bleomycin and vincristine was significantly higher than that for patients given radiation alone. No difference in the crude survival for patients given radiation combined with bleomycin and vincristine was significantly higher than that for patients given radiation alone. No difference in the crude survival was observed. For stage II patients maintenance chemotherapy following radiation combined with bleomycin and vincristine did not improve relapse-free or crude survival. The survival of patients with non-seminomatous tumours improved significantly during the 5-year period. This improvement was probably due to the ...
Over a 5-year period (1976-1980) 499 patients with non-seminomatous testicular germ cell tumours were included in the Danish Testicular Carcinoma Study (DATECA). The 3-year crude survival for patients in clinical stages I, II and III was 91, 77 and 45 per cent, respectively. In stage I the relapse-free survival for patients given radiation combined with bleomycin and vincristine was significantly higher than that for patients given radiation alone. No difference in the crude survival for patients given radiation combined with bleomycin and vincristine was significantly higher than that for patients given radiation alone. No difference in the crude survival was observed. For stage II patients maintenance chemotherapy following radiation combined with bleomycin and vincristine did not improve relapse-free or crude survival. The survival of patients with non-seminomatous tumours improved significantly during the 5-year period. This improvement was probably due to the ...
Sequence stratigraphic interpretation of paralic successions is complicated by the complex interfingering of marine and continental strata. The successions may also include terrestrial extensions of marine parasequences and completely independent lacustrine parasequence analogues. Failure in recognizing the possible interbedding of these two independent parasequence types may lead to construction of sequence stratigraphic schemes based on incompatible data sets. We have studied a Lower Jurassic paralic section from the Baltic island of Bornholm. The Hettangian-Sinemurian Sose Bugt Member (Ronne Formation) of Bornholm includes lacustrine, fluvial and restricted marine, estuarine deposits reflecting the basin-margin position. Biostatigraphic resolution is poor and a sequence stratigraphic interpretation of the paralic succession is far from straightforward. A multidisciplinary approach including facies analysis, recognition and lateral tracting of key surface, palynostratigraphy, ...
OBJECTIVES: The authors examine the rationale and efficacy of pre-travel hepatitis B immunization strategies based on itinerary and presumed on-travel risk behaviour. METHODS: A large survey among 26,640 Danes survey provided data on journey lengths and destinations, immunization coverage, risk behaviour and knowledge. RESULTS: The estimated cumulative lifetime stay in endemic areas outside Europe is 4.3 months. The majority of risk situations are involuntary and unforeseeable. The majority of risk situations occur on short-term journeys. 5% nonimmune and 5% short-term travellers experienced at least one risk situation such as injections/operations/tattoos on their journey. The level of knowledge of hepatitis A and B is low. CONCLUSIONS: The rationale and efficacy of current immunization strategies are challenged. Based on the results presented here and the availability of vaccines with long-lasting coverage, the authors find that recommendations of immunization should be based on ...
With regard to polybrominated diphenyl ether (PBDE), there is few scientific knowledge on the emission patterns into the environment and exposure pathways to humans, and basic information is insufficient to consider what measures effective are. For the purpose of promoting risk reduction of target substances more effectively and efficiently, it is desirable to comprehend accurately the causal chain from the target substances utilization to the risk intake, and to evaluate the measures covering the whole applications of target substances. As the existing researches on the PBDE emission inventory, there are EU risk assessment report (European Chemical Bureau 2000, 2002, 2003), Danish EPA (1999), Palm et al.(2002) and Alcock et al. (2003). In addition, emissions of DecaBDE are published in TRI (Toxic Release Inventory) of US EPA. However, the primary information of the previous inventories is often the same and estimations based on the measured values are few. In ...
Reactions of consumers to the appearance and taste of pork with and without information concerning outdoor production of pigs were tested in France, Denmark, Sweden and UK. Consumers in all four countries focussed on colour and fatness rather than marbling and drip to make their choice. Almost half of the British and Danish preferred the paler and the French the darker pork. Most people preferred the leaner pork. When information was provided in the form of labels, the vast majority of consumers preferred the pork labelled as originating from their own country as opposed to 'imported' and that labelled as pork from pigs 'raised outside' as opposed to 'inside'. There was no difference in the taste of grilled pork from indoor and outdoor production systems but pork labelled 'home produced' or 'outdoor' were more appreciated. Consumers' willingness to pay varied widely and was higher for those consumers who found more of the characteristics they sought. Consumers ...
Anaerobic digestion of slurry represents an environmental opportunity for both slurry management and renewable energy production in countries with high animal density. This study evaluated the environmental impacts of 4 biogas production alternatives in which slurry was the only input in the process, without supplementary addition of easily degradable carbon. This was achieved by exposing the slurry to different separation technologies. The biomass mixture input for biogas production included solid fraction from slurry separation as well as raw slurry, proportioned in order to achieve economical methane yield. The separation processes considered in this study were mechanical separation; mechanical separation combined with the addition of flocculants; and mechanical separation combined with a thermal treatment. Four biogas alternatives were compared to a reference slurry management scenario, notably to use the slurry as a fertilizer without prior treatment. The modelling was based on ...
This report describes the results of a large project conducted in a corporation between Statistics Denmark and the Danish National Environmental Research Institute. The main objective of the project has been to analyse the possibilities of prescribing the development in the Danish freight transport in a more appropriate and precise way than it is done by existing models. A secondary objective of the project was to develop a model based on the findings of the analysis. The intention was to be able to describe all areas of freight transport. The analysis has proven it impossible to improve the existing calculations in some areas of transport. Hence, the project has been narrowed down to focus exclusively on road freight transport. The developed model distinguishes itself from existing models by a much higher level of detail in the calculations. This enables the model to describe the structural relations between transport and economic activity, ...
In a recent survey of the stellar populations of LINERS and LINER/HII Transition Objects (TOs) we identified a numerous class of nuclei which stand out because of their conspicuous 10^8-9 yr populations. These objects were called ``Young-TOs'', since they all have TO-like emission line ratios. In this paper we investigate the radial variations of spectral properties in Low Luminosity AGN. Our analysis is based on high S/N, 3500-5500 A, long-slit spectra for 47 galaxies. The data probe distances of typically up to 850 pc from the nucleus with a resolution of ~ 100 pc and S/N ~ 30. Stellar population gradients are mapped by the radial profiles of absorption line equivalent widths and colours along the slit. These variations are further analyzed by means of a decomposition of each spectrum in terms of template galaxies representative of very young (<= 10^7 yr), intermediate age (10^8-9 yr) and old (10^10 yr) ...
In this paper, we consider the prey-dependent consumption predator-prey (natural enemy-pest) models with age structure for the predator, immature and mature natural enemies are released and pesticide is applied impulsively. We prove that, when the impulsive period is no longer than some threshold, the pest-eradication solution is globally asymptotically stable, or say, the pest population can be eradicated totally. But from the point of ecological balance and saving resources, we only need to control the pest population under the economic threshold level instead of eradicating it totally, so we further prove that, when the impulsive period is longer than the threshold, pest population and natural enemy population can coexist, i.e., the system is uniformly permanent. Considering population communities always are imbedded in periodically varying environments, and the parameters in ...
Examination of measurement invariance provides a powerful method to evaluate the hypothesis that the same set of psychological constructs underlies a set of test scores in different populations. If measurement invariance is observed, then the same psychological meaning can be ascribed to scores in both populations. In this study, the measurement model including core and supplementary subtests of the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale-Fourth edition (WAIS-IV) were compared across the U.S. and Canadian standardization samples. Populations were compared on the 15 subtest version of the test in people aged 70 and younger and on the 12 subtest version in people aged 70 or older. Results indicated that a slightly modified version of the four-factor model reported in the WAIS-IV technical manual provided the best fit in both populations and in both age groups. The null hypothesis of measurement invariance ...
This article identifies the key role of the sugar industry in the rural development of developing countries. The Indian sugar industry, already second largest among the country`s processing industries, shows even greater potential, according to the Plan Documents (shown in a table). The potential of waste heat in sugar processing plants, which produce white crystal sugar using the double sulphitation clarification process, is estimated at 5757.9 KJ/kg of sugar. Efficient waste heat recovery (WHR) systems could help arrest the trend of increasing production costs. This would help the sugar industry not only in India, but in many other countries as well. The innovative methods suggested and discussed briefly in this article include dehydration of prepared cane, bagasse drying, and juice heating using waste heat. These methods can reduce the cost of energy in sugar production by at least 10% and improve efficiency and productivity.
Radiation protection in medicine has unique aspects and is an essential element of medical practice. Medical uses of radiation occur throughout the world, from large cities to rural clinics. It has been estimated that the number of medical procedures using radiation grew from about 1.7 billion in 1980 to almost 4 billion in 2007. In spite of these large numbers, there are many parts of the world without adequate equipment, where the ability to perform additional medical procedures would likely result in a net benefit. Medicine accounts for more than 99.9% of the per caput effective dose from man-made sources. The goal in medical exposure is not to give the lowest dose, but to provide the correct dose to enable the practitioner to make the diagnosis or cure a tumour. Too little or too much ...
Abstract in english Six species of Leishmania are at present known to cause cutaneous and/or mucocutaneous leishamniasis in Brazil, and they are all to be found in the Amazon region of this country. The eco-epidemiology of each is discussed, with the observation that the Amazonian leishmaniases are all zoonoses, with their source in silvatic mammals and phlebotomine sandfly vectors. With man's destruction of the natural forest in southern Brazil, some sandfly species have survived by adapti (more) ng to a peridomestic or domiciliary habitat in rural areas. Some domestic animals, such as dogs and equines are seemingly now involved in the epidemiology of the disease. No such process has yet been reported in the Amazon region, but may well take place with the continuing devastation of its forest.
Diesel power technology has been utilized worldwide, especially in remote regions, because of its low initial capital cost. But it has negative effects on the surrounding environment and causes global warming. On the other hand, depleting oil and fuel resources has made it inevitable to seek alternative/renewable energy resources. In Iran, the cost of fuel is highly subsidized. If Iran removes the fuel subsidy, the cost of diesel fuel would increase and the photovoltaic (PV) or hybrid PV/diesel systems would become more attractive. Hybrid photovoltaic/diesel/battery (PV/diesel/bat) systems which use PV energy, combined with diesel generation power and battery bank storage are an excellent solution to decrease diesel generator costs, pollution, and electrification of remote rural areas. In ...
Invasive weeds have threatened the integrity of ecosystems throughout the world. They affect not only the species diversity of native areas but also their biological integrity. In India, a number of invasive exotic weeds have been reported but some viz. Parthenium hysterophorus, Lantana camara and Ageratum conyzoides, especially those from tropical America are troublesome and have caused adverse ecological, economic and social impact. These weeds can be seen growing in different landscapes but are luxuriantly localized in unattended forests and cultivated areas. Parthenium hysterophorus (Asteraceae, commonly known as congress grass) is perhaps the most troublesome and noxious weed of urban and rural India. Besides rapidly colonizing areas replacing the native vegetation, it is also known t...
Abstract Interest in soy foods has increased with consumer awareness of its health benefits, especially with soy-related ingredients being utilized as one of the major sources of high-protein fortification. The aim of the present study was to assess South African (SA) consumers' opinion of soy and soy products through different statements on consumption, taste, protein value and healthiness. The respondents (n = 3001) for this randomized cross-sectional study were randomly selected from metropolitan and rural areas in South Africa. Trained fieldworkers administered questionnaires by conducting face-to-face interviews. Fourteen statements from four sections of the questionnaire (consisting of 17 food-related topics in total), probing information on consumers' opinion on soy and soy products...
Seasonal and habitat calliphorid abundance and distribution were examined weekly for two years (2001-2003) in Santa Clara County, California, using sentinel traps baited with bovine liver. Of the 34,389 flies examined in three defined habitats (rural, urban, and riparian), 38% of the total catch represented Compsomyiops callipes (Bigot) and 23% represented Phormia regina (Meigen). Other flies collected in this survey included Calliphora vomitoria (Linnaeus), Calliphora latifrons (Hough), Lucilia sericata (Meigen), Lucilia cuprina (Wiedemann), and Lucilia mexicana (Macquart), which is a new record for the area. Multivariate MANOVA and ANOVA (P 0.05) analysis indicate significant seasonal habitat preference for all fly species examined. This information may be used to identify potentially fo...
Bungarus caeruleus (Indian common krait) bite during monsoons is common in Northwest India. This study was undertaken to find the effectiveness of neostigmine and polyvalent antivenom in improving neuromuscular paralysis following bite. All the consecutive patients admitted between June 2007 and December 2008 with common krait bite, identified either from brought snake or circumstantial evidence were studied. Ten vials of polyvalent antivenom and three doses of 2.5mg neostigmine at 30min intervals after administration of 0.6mg of atropine were administered I.V. and patients were assessed for any improvement in neuroparalysis. Seventy-two patients were admitted during the study period. All the patients except two came from rural areas and were brought between June and September. Sixty-two p...
Municipal power systems developed early in the Pacific Northwest, but a new dimension was added in the 1930s when the public utility district (PUD) concept combining urban and rural areas encited vigorous debate and the public rejected private-utility candidates. A favorable national climate developed for consumer-owned systems during the 1920s and 30s encouraging the passage of the Federal Water Power Act, the creation of the Tennessee Valley Authority, the building of Hoover Dam, and the establishment of the Bonneville Power Administration. This article reviews developments following the Public Utility Act of 1935, which authorized the Federal Power Commission and the uniform system of accounts. After tracing the record of investigations and policy trends during the Roosevelt era, it concludes that utilities benefited from accounting regulations. (DCK)
The chronology of installing solar power in a rural area of Ontario is described. The installation took all of seven years, and was characterized by a lot of joy, but also a lot of heartache and hardship, all of which are chronicled in this article. The project started with four solar modules generating 300 watts, nickel cadmium batteries of 225 Ah, an inverter of 600 watt, and a three-cylinder 6.5 Kw water-cooled propane generator. Today, nearly seven years later, the installation consists of 18 solar modules supplying 1350 watts of power, lead-acid batteries of 2770 Ah, a 2500 watt inverter, a one cylinder, 5.5 kw propane-gasoline generator, a heated, underground generator house, complete with an amp-hour meter and MPPT charge controller.
The history of the technical, economic, and financial performances of these four countries' power companies over the past two decades is recounted, and then interpreted as the result of the existing organizational models. The changes that have occurred can be understood in long-term perspective by comparing the performance of these companies to the characteristics, rules, and objectives used to define the models, which also helps explain the history of performance indicator variations. Two models are defined: one for the physical plant and one for the management. These correspond to two successive phases in the organization and operation of the electrical sector. Rural electrification and regional interconnection will be important factors in any new model or models developed for the future, because the forms they take is likely to modify the characteristics of these national power companies. 26 refs., 1 fig., 3 tabs.
The occurrence of persistent organochlorine pesticides (OCPs) in breast milk samples collected from mothers from twelve provinces in mainland China was investigated. Dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethanes (DDTs) were the most prevalent agent, followed by HCHs and HCB, whereas levels of chlordane compounds, drins and mirex were lower. The relatively lower DDE/DDT ratio in the Fujian rural area suggested more recent exposure to DDT than in other areas. The mean level of DDTs in breast milk from the southern China was higher than those from northern China (p < 0.05). A positive correlation was observed between concentration of DDTs in human milk and consumption of animal-origin food, suggesting that this parameter could play an important part in influencing OCPs burdens in lactating women. The mean...
This report presents the results of an investigation into currently used methods for installation of underground high voltage power transmission cable, and offers recommendations for potentially improving these methods. Suggested enhancements cover the emplacement of both high pressure oil filled (HPOPT) pipe type and self contained oil filled (SCOF) cable systems. Cost comparisons of conventionally installed cable systems versus systems using proposed techniques and equipment are developed for a specific site selected for study. The report also documents the test results of laboratory experiments conducted to demonstrate the feasibility of using interference fit pipe couplings in place of welded pipe joints. 10 refs., 31 figs., 15 tabs.
Aluminium phosphide ingestion is the most common agricultural poisoning in suburban and rural India and with a high mortality rate. Among survivors of acute poisoning there are recent sporadic reports of esophageal complications such as esophageal strictures and tracheo-esophageal fistula. The present study was carried out to determine the incidence, natural history, and treatment outcome of local esophageal complications in survivors of aluminium phosphide poisoning with complaints of dysphagia. All confirmed cases of poisoning with aluminium phosphide ingestion were admitted in Hamidia Hospital, Gandhi Medical College, Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh, India, from October 2007 to October 2008. Survivors with complaints of dysphagia underwent a barium study and upper gastrointestinal endoscopy to d...
Wood usage for cooking and heating is still very relevant in most developing countries especially those of sub-Saharan Africa and many parts of Asia. Therefore, sustainable means of generating it for this and other purposes are necessary bearing in mind the influence of indigenous knowledge/users perspective on any production method regarding success and sustenance. In conformity with this view, questionnaires were administered on 240 respondents in 8 rural communities of Akinyele and Ido Local Government Areas (LGAs) of Oyo State, Nigeria, to elicit information on species that can be used as fuelwood, preferred by the respondents for incorporation into and/or retention in agroforestry plots, out of which 179 (i.e. 75% of the total number of questionnaires administered) were successfully r...
This report presents the data and results of a site specific case study comparing costs of an overhead line with an underground circuit traversing the same route. The costs used for the overhead line are actual numbers for a line scheduled to be built by a utility. The underground circuit costs were developed using the same criteria of line rating, contingencies, and location. Often cost comparisons between overhead and underground lines are made using figures taken from studies with widely varying assumptions. This project attempts to provide a comparison by studying the costs of overhead and underground lines following the same route and using the same design assumptions. Caution must be used, however, in extending the results of this study beyond its original intent. It is site-specific and may be representative of only one area of the country. 9 refs., 23 figs., 18 tabs.
ObjectivesThe vision The Centre's vision is a rural transformation in the developing world where smallholder households massively increase their use of trees in agricultural landscapes to improve their food security, nutrition, income, health, shelter, energy resources and environmental sustainability. This vision is founded upon three basic tenets: 1. The growing importance of trees and treebased systems in sustaining livelihoods and agroecosystems; 2. The Centre's experience and comparative adv [continued...]DescriptionBackground: The International Council for Research in Agroforestry (ICRAF) was created in response to a visionary study in the mid-1970s led by forester John Bene of Canada's International Development Research Centre (IDRC). The study coined the term 'agroforestry' and called for global recognition of the key role trees play on farms. This led to the establishment of ICRAF in 1978 to promote agroforestry research in developing countries. Intended ...
This paper describes progress in several projects related to biomass power. These include switchgrass conversion development; switchgrass gasification development; production activities including soil studies, carbon studies, switchgrass production economics, watershed impacts, and prairie lands bio-products; information and education; and geographical information system. Attachments describe switchgrass co-firing test; switchgrass production in Iowa; cooperative agreements with ISU; Rathbun Lake watershed project; newspaper articles and information publications; Secretary of Agriculture Glickman`s visit; integration of technical aspects of switchgrass production in Iowa; and evaluation of an integrated biomass gasification/fuel cell power plant.
The paper describes, for the Hausa farmers of Gidan Jatau in northern Nigeria, the distinct ways in which they see and understand (a) their close and distant environment and (b) their bodies' anatomy and physiology. These ways result in 'another geography' - of both space and being - which, however, may no longer now have the resonance it had in the early 1970s when the author lived in Gidan Jatau for two years as a guest. At that time, the spiritual dimensions of daily life were deemed important to the health and prosperity of each person and to the farmstead as a whole. The argument is made that the urban-centred literature on the bori possession-cult neglects the ordinary, anonymous spirits of house and field. Any serious archaeology of the landscape will need insights into this 'altern...
The purpose of this work was to evaluate the quality of a rural area near Faenza (Italy) by using an active biomonitoring approach, i.e., by placing homogeneous individuals of the perennial shrub Rosa rugosa in different sites throughout the area. Further sites, within the city or its environs, were used for comparison. Soil and leaves of R. rugosa were analyzed for their heavy metal content. The total heavy metal pattern of leaves closely paralleled the pattern registered in soil, with the highest content (both in total and assimilable forms) at the site in the urban area, which is exposed to heavy traffic. Pollen quality (abortiveness and viability) was also tested as a potential indicator of pollution. Pollen abortiveness was strictly related to Pb levels in leaves, while viability was ...
Amphibians are considered reliable indicators of environmental quality. In the western United States, a general decline of frog populations parallels an apparent worldwide decline. The factors thought...Full Text Available
Parthenogenesis-inducing (PI) Wolbachia belong to a class of intracellular symbionts that distort the offspring sex ratio of their hosts toward a female bias. In many PI Wolbachia-infected species sex ratio distortion has reached its ultimate expression-fixation of infection and all-female populations. This is only possible with thelytokous PI symbionts as they provide an alternative form of reproduction and remove the requirement for males and sexual reproduction. Many populations fixed for PI Wolbachia infection have lost the ability to reproduce sexually, even when cured of the infection. We examine one such population in the species Trichogramma pretiosum. Through a series of backcrossing experiments with an uninfected Trichogramma pretiosum population we were able to show that the gen...
We determined the underlying aetiology of blindness for the registered blind population of the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador. In both 1981 and 1984 single-gene disorders accounted for 30% of...Full Text Available
PurposeTo describe etiologies and clinical characteristics of corneal opacities leading patients to seek cosmetic treatments.MethodsThe medical records...Full Text Available
BackgroundTo identify the differential tuberculosis (TB) characteristics within the immigrant population with respect to natives in Spain.Methodology/Principal...Full Text Available
IntroductionShoulder pain covers a wide range of problems and affects up to 20% of the population. It is not a specific diagnosis. Shoulder pain can be caused by problems with the...Full Text Available
BackgroundCharacterizing and comparing the determinant of cotinine concentrations in different populations should facilitate a better understanding of smoking patterns and addiction....Full Text Available
The resident bald eagles of the lower Columbia River have lower productivity and higher contaminant levels than other bald eagles of the Pacific Northwest. The primary population stressors are believed to be habitat loss, human disturbance, p,p{prime}DDE, PCBs, dioxins and furans. The primary effect of habitat loss is to reduce the carrying capacity of the region for nesting sites, and the primary effects of human disturbance and contamination by organic compounds are to reduce productivity. The purpose of this study was to quantitatively evaluate the effects of all of, these potential stressors on the bald eagle population dynamics. A model of the population dynamics was developed. The model structure includes a physiologically-based toxicokinetic (PBTK) submodel to estimate the degree of contamination, which is linked via a toxicology submodel to a population dynamics submodel. The PBTK submodel is ...
Age-related alterations in the cellular composition of the B lineage are a major cause of the poor antibody response to vaccination and to infectious agents among the elderly population. The mechanisms...Full Text Available
This paper focuses on the Internet as a tool for enhancing behavior and lifestyle changes to reduce the burden of cancer at a population level. The premise of this paper is that the Internet...Full Text Available
Despite advances in standard of living of the population, the condition of widows and divorced women remains deplorable in society. The situation is worse in developing nations with their unique social,...Full Text Available
BackgroundA large and increasing part of the European population has a history of migration. Germany, for example, is home to about 15 million people with migrant background, which...Full Text Available
The geographical arrangement of people on the surface of the earth is approximated by a mathematical equation of 361 terms. This is a convenient form for comparison with other distributions and for...Full Text Available
... in western DRC, at the Zaire River near Matadi (Brown 1994). (click map to view full version) ... is available to confirm this. The population of Matadi is increasin...
OBJECTIVE: This study evaluated, in a large, heterogeneous population, the outcome of open cholecystectomy as it is currently practiced. SUMMARY BACKGROUND AND DATA: Although cholecystectomy has been...Full Text Available
The binding energy parameter #lambda# plays an important role in common envelope evolution. Previous works have already pointed out that #lambda# varies throughout the stellar evolution, though it has been adopted as a constant in most of the population synthesis calculations. We have systematically calculated the binding energy parameter #lambda# for both Population I and Population II stars of masses 1-20 M _s_u_n, taking into account the contribution from the internal energy of stellar matter. We present fitting formulae for #lambda# that can be incorporated into future population synthesis investigations. We also briefly discuss the possible applications of the results in binary evolutions.
ABSTRACTOBJECTIVETo explore the prevalence and the demographic predictors of nonmedical use of opioid analgesics in the Canadian adolescent population.DESIGNData...Full Text Available
AIMSTo develop a population pharmacokinetic–pharmacodynamic model to describe the occurrence and severity of bleeding or bruising as a function of enoxaparin exposure.METHODSData...Full Text Available
BackgroundAs long-term nursing home care is likely to increase with the aging of the population, identifying chronic medical conditions is of particular interest. Although need factors...Full Text Available
Background and AimsIt is well known that genome size differs among species. However, information on the variation and dynamics of genome size in wild populations and on the early...Full Text Available
About a third of the population in the cities of developing countries live in slums and shanty towns. By the year 2000 it is estimated that this number will grow to 2200 million, and by 2025 about 57%...Full Text Available
Genetics, Genomics, and Molecular Biology USGS scientists develop and integrate new genetic and molecular techniques into systematic analyses to describe individuals and populations of fish .....
Behavioral responses to wind are thought to play a critical role in controlling the dispersal and population genetics of wild Drosophila species1,Full Text Available
BACKGROUND: Cuba's response to the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) epidemic has been to conduct mass testing of the population to ascertain seroprevalence, to enforce mandatory relative quarantine...Full Text Available
The study of genetic variability within natural populations of pathogens may provide insight into their evolution and pathogenesis. We used a Mycobacterium tuberculosis high-density...Full Text Available
Abstract: In many biological processes heterogeneity within clonal cell populations is an important issue. One of the most striking examples is a population of cancer cells in which after a common, identical death signal some cells die whereas others survive. The reason for this heterogeneity is intrinsic and extrinsic noise. In this paper we present a mechanistic multi-scale modeling framework for cell populations, in which the dynamics of every individual cell is captured by a parameter dependent stochastic differential equation (SDE). Heterogeneity among individual cells is accounted for by differences in parameter values, modeling extrinsic influences. Based on the statistical properties of the extrinsic noise and the SDE model for the individual cell, a partial differential equation (...
BackgroundMultiple myeloma is a hematologic malignancy associated with the development of a destructive osteolytic bone disease.ResultsMathematical...Full Text Available
Quality of education is a determining factor in a nation's competitiveness. Although Mexico has made tremendous progress toward achieving universal basic education, school quality has not kept pace with enrollment increases, especially in rural areas. Innovations at the federal and state levels to raise the quality of basic education in Mexico include decentralizing the education system, thereby giving the states more control over education, and creating the Carrera Magisterial, a program of incentives and professional development for teachers. The first part of this paper shows that early in their professional lives, teachers in basic public schools are better paid than other comparable groups. The second part of the paper analyzes determinants of student achievement. Findings show that short-term teacher posts had a negative impact on learning achievement. Pedagogical efforts and teacher answers to student questions were highly correlated with greater learning ...
In France, groundwater usage represents 40 per cent of volumetric use, outside of thermal power plants. Groundwater represents 60 per cent of domestic and public use, 40 per cent in the industrial sector, and is increasing in the agricultural sector where it accounts for 20 per cent. Groundwater withdrawal in France has slightly increased over the last twenty years and benefited the agricultural sector. Availability throughout the territory, the consistency of resupply and natural quality has rendered groundwater a prevailing source for drinking water. Water protection and management is important and led to the adoption of legislative and regulatory measures. The Mining Code (Code minier) allows for exploitation of underground resources starting at 10 metres. The Rural Code (Code rural) mandates the declaration of public utility for water collection for the public. Protection areas are to be provided under the Public Health Code (Code de sante ...
Calls for containers to transport compressed natural gas, and a ship or barge to house some 200 employees in the Terra Nova offshore oilfield while the oil field's floating production, storage and offloading (FPSO) system is undergoing a major overhaul, are attracting attention on Canada's east coast offshore oilpatch. The FPSO is located offshore, 350 km east of St. John's, Newfoundland. Petro-Canada, operators of the FPSO anticipate that by having all required personnel nearby, the total shutdown time for the overhaul could be minimized. The CNG container was designed by Trans Ocean Gas Inc. in response to an invitation by Husky Oil and Petro-Canada, the White Rose field partners. Trans Ocean Gas strongly believes that CNG will become the technology of choice for getting natural gas ashore and to markets from stranded hydrocarbon pools in Atlantic Canada and the rest of the world where pipeline systems would be too expensive to build and maintain. Trans ...
In the present work, the introduction of alternative energy of biogas in agricultural communities for the sustainable development was studied through exploitation of residual biomass and also getting as by-product the biological fertilizer. A fast composting of the domestic residue with the organic was made possible where part of this residue after processing was taken together with effluent to the biodigestor. The bibliographical research on the processes of generation of biogas, about composting and the equipment for processing had been carried through. The projects Engineering with the use of computational tools had been developed with the Software Super Pro 4,9 Design and ORC GPEC 2004 by our research group. Five case studies had been elaborated, where different scenes related with our innovation, that uses of the residue for the composting together with domestic effluent for digestion. Several economic parameters were obtained and our work proved the viability about the use of ...
Full text: Groundwater in rural agricultural area of South Korea is an important source of drinking and agricultural water. The study area is located in mid-western coastal parts and has fractured bedrock aquifers whose lithologies are composed of Jurassic granites, Paleozoic sedimentary rocks, Precambrian schists and gneiss. Bedrock groundwater was slightly alkaline and had electrical conductivity of 40 to 1570 #mu#S/cm with median values of 322 #mu#S/cm. Water types based on major ions showed that Ca-HCO_3 and Ca-CI types are dominant and Na-HCO_3 and Na-CI types are minor. Intense agricultural activities resulted in significant nitrate contamination of groundwater. 22% and 40% of wells have exceeded drinking water standards (DWS) for bedrock and shallow wells, respectively. In coastal areas, slightly saline groundwater is observed for both bedrock and shallow wells. Groundwater in granitic rocks may have higher concentrations of Rn, U and F. Most wells had ...
A community health survey of 438 individuals was taken to detect health problems related to high voltage electrical transmission among an adjacent residential population. Results revealed no significant or consistent relationships between exposure to a high voltage DC power line and the perceived health problems that were measured. The sample was not, however, large enough to draw statistically significant conclusions regarding possible health effects with a very low incidence.
The Ra, Th, and K-40 content of the most important phosphate fertilizers used and authorized in the FRG was determined by #gamma#-spectroscopy. The results, together with statistical data on the consumption and use of fertilizers, were used for an estimation of the contribution of #gamma#-radiation from phosphate fertilizers to the external population exposure in the FRG. (orig./AK).
Dwarf galaxies are generally faint. To derive their age and metallicity distributions, it is critical to optimize the use of any collected photon. Koleva et al., using full spectrum fitting, have found strong population gradients in some dwarf elliptical galaxies. Here, we show that the population profiles derived with this method are consistent and more precise than those obtained with spectrophotometric indices. This allows studying fainter objects in less telescope time.
The consumption of food products obtained in areas subjected to radioactive contamination as a consequence of a radiation accident appears to be the most significant source of irradiation for the population. At the same time, this route can be regulated very effectively. The regularities of contamination of agricultural production, peculiar features of internal dose formation in the population and the effectiveness of countermeasures in agriculture have been analysed using the experience of two major accidents in the former USSR - in the South Urals (Kyshtym accident) in 1957, and at the Chernobyl NPP in 1986. (Author).
The radiation burden of the people of the GDR in relation to biomedical radiography altogether as well as organ doses, gonad doses and genetically significant doses in detail are outlined. The concepts of radiation protection and standards of radiographic examination are demonstrated. Possibilities of influencing radiation exposure by scientifically based indication of X-ray examination, application of new and improvement of usual examination techniques are discussed with regard to quality assurance and control. Proposals concerning the reduction of radiation exposure of the GDR population are presented.
This report revises estimates of population exposure to external natural background made by D. T. Oakley in 1972. The revisions include more recent estimates of dose equivalents from cosmic rays, use of 1970 U.S. census data, and corrections for building shielding and for self-shielding in the body. The dose equivalents calculated are those from cosmic rays and terrestrial radiation, and do not include doses from natural radioactive materials in the body.
From the frequency of diagnostic radiologic examinations and their radiation dose delivered to the population the risk of cancer induction and genetic damage is calculated on the basis of the risk factors given by the ICRP. Thus 0.38 % and 3 % of the total mortality for cancer and leukemia, resp., can be attributed to X-ray diagnostics. Chest examinations alone result in 0.07-0.7 damages per 100,000 persons depending on the imaging technique applied. (author).
It is shown that observations of the lithium isotope ratio in high surface temperature Population II stars may be critical to cosmological nucleosynthesis models. In particular, decaying particle scenarios as derived in some supersymmetric models may stand or fall with such observations. 18 references.
Hematological deficiencies increase with aging leading to anemias, reduced hematopoietic stress responses and myelodysplasias. This study tested the hypothesis that side population hematopoietic...Full Text Available
The theoretical evolution of a horizontal branch star of Population II is followed through the helium burning in the core phase and is compared with the results given by other investigators. The m- fluence of different physics and interpolation schemes in the opacity tables is discussed. Some thoughts are given on the explanation of the erratic period variations observed in some of the RR Lyrae variables in the globular clusters. (auth)
Discussion is presented of world CO{sub 2} emissions and the effect rising population and population distribution has on this. Possible ways of decreasing emissions are presented, including potential for heat recovery, exhaust-air purification as an energy supply, shared power supply in industry, the use of cogeneration, and multiple use of heat in industry. 9 refs., 10 figs., 3 tabs.
The objective of the present study was to test the hypothesis that circulating levels of insulin-like growth factor-I (IGF-I) are inversely associated with inflammatory processes in an elderly background population.
Using QCT, we made a longitudinal, population-based assessment of rates of bone loss over life at the distal radius, distal tibia, and lumbar spine. Cortical bone loss began in perimenopause in women...Full Text Available
There are many sources of population exposures to power-frequency (50/60 Hz) electric and magnetic fields including household appliances and wiring, neighborhood distribution circuits, and high-voltage transmission lines. Bioeffects studies were unable to demonstrate that exposures to power-frequency fields can affect public health. Researcher have likewise been unable to show that the health effects of such exposures are negligible. State and federal regulatory agencies are, therefore, grappling with questions of whether and how to regulate the sitting or design of new extra high-voltage transmission lines so as to control the ground-level fields to which people are exposed. The purpose of this dissertation is to illuminate some of the exposure-related aspects of these question. A taxonomy of the relationship between field encounter and effect is developed to clarify the meaning of terms such as exposure and dose in the power-frequency context. The major inputs to ...
Annual medical examinations are conducted by Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL) for a population of Marshallese who were accidentally exposed to radioactive fallout in 1954, for a comparison population, and for all inhabitants of the atolls of Rongelap and Utirik. Disease surveillance includes analysis of serum samples. Elevated serum uric acid (SUA) levels are common along Pacific populations, and modifying environmental factors have been investigated as a cause for this finding. The authors have studied SUA levels of people living in the Marshall Islands, and have found elevated values similar to those reported for other Micronesian populations. The nearly Gaussian distribution of individual serum uric acid values for men, and for women less than or equal to45 years of age, indicates that the elevation is due to a regularized increase in serum uric acid rather than to a subpopulation that has ...
Biomonitoring of human populations for exposure to genotoxic/clastogenic agents in the environment or the workplace must depend upon statistical tests for elevations in the frequencies of the biological endpoints being monitored, usually chromosomal aberrations (CA), micronuclei (MN), or sister chromatid exchanges (SCE) in peripheral blood lymphocytes. Statistical tests are based, in turn, upon certain assumptions regarding the distribution of the test statistic. When they are often not recognized as such, tests of significance can be in error, and any conclusion drawn that there is or is not a statistically significant difference between one population sample and another maybe erroneous. In population monitoring this means either false negatives or false positives can result and it is hard to know which is worse. Furthermore, even the intelligent design of studies whose object is to test for an elevated level in an exposed ...
Female rats were given tritiated drinking water (3 microCi/ml) from 30 days before mating up to and throughout pregnancy. At this low dose, the course and the outcome of pregnancy were normal. The differences between newborn body and cerebral weights of the treated rats and those of control animals were on the borderline of significance. In contrast, cerebral DNA and cerebral protein were highly significantly lower. In 30-35% of the treated population the DNA and protein values were more than 2 standard deviations (SD) below the mean values for the control population. Thus the number of the progeny of the mothers exposed to tritiated water that were considered to have outstandingly low levels of DNA and protein was 14-17 times greater than in the control group. The irradiated population also had 3-5% of severely affected individuals with cerebral DNA and protein values more than 2 SD below the mean of the experimental ...
The windmill industry in Denmark is currently confronted with making a choice between competing technologies so that the role of the stimulus of state subsidies for research has lately increased in importance. The Ministry of Energy, it is claimed, must be aware of this as possibilities for making use of research results are dictated by the market and competition. The industry is not sympathetic to the idea of state research contracts with specified goals for which manufacturers must produce a technical solution. Consultancy firms should work towards solving general problems which could help the industry as a whole. Wind turbines which are cheap to produce and operate are of more interest to industry than those which are technologically advanced or of a lighter construction. It is not thought to be advantageous to concentrate the allocation of subsidies on one key project chosen by the Ministry itself, such as the current intense interest in turbine blades. Aerodynamics, noise ...
The windmill industry in Denmark is currently confronted with making a choice between competing technologies so that the role of the stimulus of state subsidies for research has lately increased in importance. The Ministry of Energy, it is claimed, must be aware of this as possibilities for making use of research results are dictated by the market and competition. The industry is not sympathetic to the idea of state research contracts with specified goals for which manufacturers must produce a technical solution. Consultancy firms should work towards solving general problems which could help the industry as a whole. Wind turbines which are cheap to produce and operate are of more interest to industry than those which are technologically advanced or of a lighter construction. It is not thought to be advantageous to concentrate the allocation of subsidies on one key project chosen by the Ministry itself, such as the current intense interest in turbine blades. Aerodynamics, noise ...
Analytical means have been developed to predict scour and accretion in sub-sea structures. Such structures can be very large and can have a large density of piping and structural members. They introduce a blocking and a shielding in the flow at the sea bottom leading to variable velocities and turbulence in the interior of the structure. This changes the transport capacity of the flow and result in general erosion where the transport capacity is increased and in accretion where the transport capacity is decreased. In addition there may occur the so-called tunnel erosion for structures built on concrete mats or similar. This type of erosion undermines the foundation of the sub-sea structure. Analytical models are developed and programmed to analyse the above phenomena. The internal flow variations are found by means of the LICengineering shielding programme and these are coupled to the transport formulae. The methodology is unstable if the starting conditions are too far away from the ...
Discussions regarding the use of wood fuels for commercial energy production in the Netherlands began in the 1990's. The main reasons for using wood fuel are: the political demand for using renewable energy, the need to reduce CO_2 emissions, and the lack of markets for surplus timber. Only 10 % of the area of Holland is forested. Therefore, early thinning and cleaning are important management tools for improving growth and producing better quality timber. The energy potential from early thinning and plantation cleaning could be between 400 000 and 570 000 dry tons annually. The Netherlands has not experience in harvesting energy wood. However, through the International Energy Agency/Bioenergy Agreement, knowledge gained in other countries, especially Denmark, Sweden and Finland, is being transferred to Holland. In 1996, there have been made field tests with Danish equipment. Although there are few technical barriers to wood fuel in the Netherlands, the economics ...
This article presents the results of analyses of large-scale integration of wind power, photo voltaic (PV) and wave power into a Danish reference energy system. The possibility of integrating Renewable Energy Sources (RES) into the electricity supply is expressed in terms of the ability to avoid excess electricity production. The different sources are analysed in the range of an electricity production from 0 to 100% of the electricity demand. The excess production is found from detailed energy system analyses on the computer model EnergyPLAN. The analyses have taken into account that certain ancillary services are needed in order to secure the electricity supply system. The idea is to benefit from the different patterns in the fluctuations of different renewable sources. And the purpose is to identify optimal mixtures from a technical point of view. The optimal mixture seems to be when onshore wind power produces approximately 50% of the total electricity ...
Now, more than ever, there are serious health concerns for obese and overweight children. Schools are the perfect setting for children to learn, and this influence can play an important role in preventing children from becoming obese and overweight. The study concerns the behaviors of Health Promoting School (HPS) according to a broad definition of HPS in World Health Organization (WHO), or dependent on schools own health promoting policies. The purpose of study research is to examine whether promoting physical activity among the children at schools in relation to a school health policy such as Food and Nutrition Policy (FNP). This was determined through the comparisons between the FNP based schools and non policy based schools. The study undertook surveys among school food coordinators in the selected Danish primary schools through a web-based questionnaire. The questions in the survey were more focused on physical activity in internal and external school ...
The purpose of the project is to further develop a Danish natural gas reformer system including optimisation of subsystems and the overall system consisting of a natural gas reformer and fuel cell CHP generator. This will contribute to the evaluation of to what extend Denmark shall develop small reformer units for PEM fuel Cells. In the project a reformer system with a high degree of automatic control has been build that fulfils the CHP requirements to operation time, dynamics etc. This work, with a FP05 reformer unit, has given valuable results concerning the possibilities and limitations of the reformer technology for CHP usage. It is important that the reformer and fuel cell units are designed with matching yields to optimise efficiency, turn-down start-up time etc. The burner that delivers heat for the steam reaction shall be able to use natural gas as fuel. This gives the possibility of using existing burner technology. In addition this will improve the ...
The background for this paper is a growing interest during the past decade in Denmark in the concepts of ?situated learning?, ?social theory of learning? and ?learning in communities of practice? developed by the American social anthropologist Jean Lave and the Californian Research Scientist Etienne Wenger. The work by Jean Lave from 1988 (Lave, 1988) based on anthropological field studies in Brazil and Liberia as well as later works by Lave & Wenger (Lave and Wenger, 1991; Chaiklin and Lave, 1993; Wenger, 1998; Wenger, McDermott, R. and W. Snyder, 2002) on situated learning and social learning theory have provoked considerable response in anthropological studies, in learning theories as well asin considerations about practical implementation of concepts like ?lifelong learning? in Denmark in recent decades. The European concept of ?lifelong learning? has had a big impact on educational thinking, including teacher education. In addition to this, IT has been playing a continuously ...
There was a total bus strike in the Danish town of Esbjerg during the spring of 1995. It lasted for a very long period of time and was extremely disruptive. After this the number of bus passengers fell dramatically. As a result, a group of researchers in this field, employed at Aalborg University initiated an investigation of how former bus passengers solved their personal transport problems without the help of a bus service. Telephone interviews were carried out and 1485 persons agreed to take part in the investigation. The data collected in this way are presented in the paper and give information on the number of people who owned cars, how often members of a family availed themselves of bus transport, age groups, the alternative means of transport used generally or for conveyance to the place of work or school, amount of extra, or less, travel time, travel expenses, and other irritations experienced in connection with the strike. It is concluded that the ...
Abstract Absence of the palmaris longus muscle has been well documented in several populations at a prevalence rate ranging between 2.2 and 63.9% which varies according to race, sex, and side of the body. There is little documentation of the prevalence of absence of this muscle from populations in the Arabian Gulf region. We examined 1,043 subjects, 3 85 years old, from the Kingdom of Bahrain for the presence or absence of the palmaris longus muscle using the conventional test for the presence of this muscle. Statistical analyses investigated the association of muscle absence with sex, hand dominance, and laterality. The palmaris longus muscle was absent in 36.8% of subjects. Bilateral absence (19%) was more common than unilateral absence (17.9%) with preponderance in female subjects. The ...
In this article, we propose a model selection method, the Bayesian composite model space approach, to map quantitative trait loci (QTL) in a half-sib population for continuous and binary traits. In our method, the identity-by-descent-based variance component model is used. To demonstrate the performance of this model, the method was applied to map QTL underlying production traits on BTA6 in a Chinese half-sib dairy cattle population. A total of four QTLs were detected, whereas only one QTL was identified using the traditional least square (LS) method. We also conducted two simulation experiments to validate the efficiency of our method. The results suggest that the proposed method based on a multiple-QTL model is efficient in mapping multiple QTL for an outbred half-sib population and is more powerful than the LS method based on a single-QTL model. PMID:21487433
Abstract It is well established that ageing handicaps the ability of prey to escape predators, yet surprisingly little is known about how ageing affects the ability of predators to catch prey. Research into long-lived predators has assumed that adults have uniform impacts on prey regardless of age. Here we use longitudinal data from repeated observations of individually-known wolves (Canis lupus) hunting elk (Cervus elaphus) in Yellowstone National Park to demonstrate that adult predatory performance declines with age and that an increasing ratio of senescent individuals in the wolf population depresses the rate of prey offtake. Because this ratio fluctuates independently of population size, predatory senescence may cause wolf populations of equal size but different age structure to have d...
Phenotypic plasticity can facilitate reproductive strategies that maximize mating success in variable environments and lead to differences in sex allocation among populations. For simultaneous hermaphrodites with sperm competition, including Serranus tortugarum a small coral reef fish, proportional male allocation (testis in total gonad) is often greater where local density or mating group size is higher. We tested whether S. tortugarum reduced male allocation when transplanted from a higher density site to a lower density site. After 4?months, transplants mirrored the sex-allocation patterns of the resident population on their new reef. Transplants had significantly lower male allocation than representatives from their source population, largely as a result of reduced testis mass relative...
To determine the proportion of rheumatoid arthritis (RA) patients receiving preventive health care according to US Preventive Services Task Force recommendations compared with a community-based population sample, with emphasis on dyslipidemia testing, given the increased risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD) in RA patients. Patients with RA (ICD-9 code 714.0 at ?2 office visits with a rheumatologist) and a primary care physician (PCP) at the Geisinger Health System (GHS) were identified through electronic health records. The records were searched back from 3/31/08 for the length of time required to satisfy each outcome measure. Percentages were compared with population testing rates using the Pearson Chi-square test. Eight hundred and thirty-one RA patients were compared to 169,476 subjects...
Monocelis lineata is a complex of cryptic species (three in the Mediterranean and one in the Atlantic) widespread in midlittoral habitats. Throughout the range, populations with or without an ocular pigmented shield are found. We investigated the genetic structure of the North-East Atlantic populations with the aim of shedding light on their phylogeography and reconstructing possible patterns of recolonization after the Wrmian glaciation. Fourteen samples were investigated using cytochrome c oxidase subunit I (COI) and 13 by inter-simple sequence repeats (ISSRs). COI did not exhibit a clear pattern of decreased genetic diversity along a latitudinal gradient. Populations from Ferrol (Spain), Doolin (Ireland), and Helsingr (Denmark) showed a higher genetic variability, whereas a reduction in...
ABSTRACT New observations from the Hubble Ultra Deep Field suggest that the star formation rate at Formula Not Shown drops off faster than previously thought. Using a newly determined star formation rate for the normal mode of Population II/I (PopII/I) stars, including this new constraint, we compute the Thomson scattering optical depth and find a result that is marginally consistent with Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe 5 results. We also reconsider the role of Population III (PopIII) stars in light of cosmological and stellar evolution constraints. While this input may be needed for reionization, we show that it is essential in order to account for cosmic chemical evolution in the early universe. We investigate the consequences of PopIII stars on the local metallicity distribution fu...
Despite the many advances in scientific research over the last several decades, cutting edge technologies and therapeutics often take many years to find their way into widespread use. The dissemination and uptake of best practices into clinical care is sometimes a neglected component of research that is essential to improve the population?s health. Type 2 translational research, sometimes called ?Proof in Practice Research,? seeks to maximize the yield of what has been learned from the bench and from carefully controlled clinical trials and to extend those benefits to a larger population. One aspect of type 2 translational research, sometimes called evidence implementation or implementation science, applies what has been learned about clinical medicine to achieve best practices across prov...
The number of immigrants to Western Europe has been increasing, with immigration the subject of much controversy in contemporary Europe. In this article, we investigate the relationship between the size of the immigrant population, how natives perceive this size, and their anti-immigrant attitudes. We use data from the 2002/2003 European Social Survey covering 17 Western European countries, and we find that as a rule Western Europeans think that the immigrant population in their country is much larger than it actually is. The perceived size of an immigrant population has an impact on anti-immigrant prejudices, but the real size does not. Like many authors before us, we find that education reduces prejudice. However, we also find that around 10 percent of the total effect of education is a ...
Schools are key to achieving the goal of producing 20% of the nation's electricity demand. Most significantly, schools are training the scientists, technicians, businesspeople, decisionmakers, and teachers of the future. What students learn and believe about wind energy will impact the United States' ability to create markets and policy, develop and improve technology, finance and implement projects, and create change in all of our public and private institutions. In the nearer term, school districts have large facility costs, electrical loads, and utility costs. They are always in search of ways to reduce costs or obtain revenue to improve educational programs. Schools value teaching about the science and technology of renewable energy. They are important opinion leaders, particularly in rural communities. And their financial structures are quite different from other institutions (funding, incentives, restrictions, etc.). Learning objectives: The ...
The Utility PhotoVoltaic Group (UPVG), supported by member dues and a grant from the US Department of Energy, has as its mission the acceleration of the use of cost-effective small-scale and emerging large-scale applications of photovoltaics for the benefit of electric utilities and their customers. Formed in October, 1992, with the support of the American Public Power Association, Edison Electric Institute, and the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association, the UPVG currently has 90 members from all sectors of the electric utility industry. The UPVG's efforts as conceived were divided into four phases: Phase 0--program plan; Phase 1--organization and strategy development; Phase 2--creating market assurance; and Phase 3--higher volume purchases. The Phase 0 effort developed the program plan and was completed early in 1993. The Phase 1 goal was to develop the necessary background information and analysis to lead to a decision as to which strategies could be ...
The objective of this study was to assess the feasibility for propane as an automotive fuel in Manitoba, by comparing the overall performance and operating costs of a test fleet operating on propane with that of a control fleet operating on unleaded gasoline. The performance of gasoline and propane was compared by using two specific tests: general driveability and relative fleet fuel consumption were determined by driver surveys and gross fuel use data from normal urban and rural vehicle operation. Specific fuel consumption was determined by controlled chassis dynamometer tests on a series of selected vehicles utilizing representative driving cycles. Fleet drivers operating propane fueled vehicles were satisfied with vehicle operation and reported similar vehicle performance with either gasoline or propane. Although there was no significant difference in specific fuel consumption, the specific energy consumption of similar vehicles was lower when operated on ...
SummaryIntended Outputs: Documentation demonstrating an improved biophysical understanding of the role of forests on low flows in the arid zone regions of India through the development and outputs from hydrological models such as Hyluc and SWAT.A documented analysis of the impacts on the poor of historical and current water management policies, including the investigation through PRA techniques of people's perceptions and beliefs of land-use/hydrological interactions, and the implications o [continued...]ObjectivesTo establish a better understanding of forest impacts on low flows and the social impact of water resources management in arid zone regions of India, and to develop tools which allow this improved understanding to be disseminated directly to stakeholders.DescriptionProject Background: Reducing river flows and groundwater tables, especially during the dry season, constitutes a major problem causing great hardship to large numbers of rural and urban poor ...
In the first part of the symposium, experts reviewed the state of the art of decentralized waste water treatment in Europe. In the second part, exemplary solutions in Poland and the Czech Republic were presented. The final part was dedicated to future concepts and strategies. [German] Im Herbst letzten Jahres hat die Kommunale Umwelt-AktioN U.A.N. in einer Abfolge von drei Abwasserfachsymposien Expertenrunden zum Austausch ueber den aktuellen Stand des Wissens zum Thema dezentrale Abwasserbehandlung veranstaltet. Mit dem Internationalen Symposium 'Konzepte zur Abwasserbehandlung im laendlichen Raum Europas' in Celle hat das Projekt der U.A.N. seinen Abschluss gefunden. Der Konzeption des Projektes entsprechend haben im 1. Teil des Symposiums Experten ueber den Stand der Entwicklung auf dem Sektor der dezentralen Abwasserbehandlung in Deutschland berichtet. Im 2. Teil unserer Fachtagung wurden europaeische Beispiele fuer dezentrale Loesungen aus Polen und Tschechien ...
This study is part of a greater project from IPT (Sao Paulo's Institute of Technology), which foresaw an energetic use for elephant-grass (Pennisetum purpureum). Biomass gasification is an sustainable option for energy supply, which presents low pollutants emission rate and allows - through the global cycle of growing and consumption of feedstock (vegetables), a balance between consumption and production of carbonic gas, preventing an increase of the carbonic gas levels in the atmosphere. A gasifier was built with internal diameter of 400 mm and total height of 4600 mm . The equipment was tested for gasification of elephant-grass (Pennisetum purpureum) at a 100 kg/h rate. The equipment was tested and some constructive faults were detected. In the countryside, this biomass is commonly used for cattle feeding It was evaluated an adequate diesel-electric-generator. to work at hybrid regime, using 70% biomass gas and 30% diesel. With the equipment's construction costs, ...
Sufficient passing sight distance is an important control for two-lane rural highway design to minimize the possibility of a head-on collision between passing and opposing vehicles. Traditionally, passing zones are marked by checking passing sight distance that is potentially restricted by static sight obstructions. Such obstructions include crest curves, overpasses, and lateral objects along highways. This paper proposes a new concept of dynamic sight-distance assessment, which involves restricted passing sight distances due to the impeding vehicles that are traveling in the same direction. Using a finite-element model, the dynamic passing sight-distance problem was evaluated, and the writers analyzed the relationships between the available passing sight distance and other factors such as the horizontal curve radius, impeding vehicle dimensions, and a driver s following distance. It was found that the impeding vehicles may cause substantially insufficient passing ...
Full text.This paper is to investigate the potentials and possibilities of electrical generation via wind turbine. Special attention is directed to the interpretation of wind generation characteristics and parameters found in Lebanon and linking the electrical energy to the Lebanese slectric grid. Although much of the wind energy research is very well established and boomed globally (USA, Europe, India and China), in Lebanon is never used. At a time when climate scientists are increasingly concerned about carbon dioxide emissions from coal and diesel plants, and the nuclear industry is drying, the significance of a major new source os electricity is clear. there are many motives and feasibility criteria for qind power generation in Lebanon. They include the need for increasing the Lebanese electrical capacity, reducing air pollution, alternative energy sources and prices and availability of oil. The work will include literature survey on current wind energy development and application. ...
Radio interference and TV interference are being a problem in urban and rural areas. This interference is generated by high voltage transmission lines as well as distribution lines. The radio noise can be produced by polluted or damaged insulators, and by metal parts of the distribution lines. The corona effect on the surface of the dielectric material produces high frequency electromagnetic fields during the ionization and during the recombination period. Fields of different intensity are produced by positive voltage and negative voltage. The insulator flashover (leaking current) also produces electromagnetic fields. A new technique to measure these fields was developed. This technique measures the radiated fields on time domain and on frequency domain. This permits us to characterize the radiated field and thus identify the type of the source. Several measurements were done varying the type of the RF generator, i.e., new insulator and broken insulator. A ...
ObjectivesThe expected result of the proposed research will be a complete technique for taking the decision maker through the complex process of determining what type types of flexibly delivered public transport service - if any - suits their requirements, and what service characteristics are best adapted to the constraints of their operating environment. To summarise, the objectives are to:~%~ Investigate the various factors which influence the development of an appropriate public transport system for ar [continued...]DescriptionCurrently, many statutory authorities and public transport operators are experimenting with or considering flexibly delivered public transport systems, now generally referred to as Demand Responsive Transport (DRT) services, mainly with a view to improving social inclusion in rural and urban areas that are difficult to cover by conventional public transport. Statutory authorities may have some understanding of the areas which they feel are ...
All African Nations belong to the category of third world underdeveloped countries of the world. UNDP Human Development Index uses factors like per capita income, health of the people, and educational attainment to classify countries. Adult literacy and gross enrolment ratios are indicators of education status. This paper uses Nigeria, a typical African country, to illustrate the problems posed by adult illiteracy to national development. Statistical data are used to show the low levels of adult literacy with disparities between males and females; urban and rural areas, and between different zones of Nigeria and the continent. Enrolments and completion rate in adult literacy programmes are presented. Nigeria's policy on adult and non formal education as reflected in the Nigerian constitution (1999), National Policy on Education (2004 edition), Decree 17 on the National Commission for Mass Literacy, Adult and Non formal education (1990), and the Universal Basic ...
The purpose of this work was to evaluate the quality of a rural area near Faenza (Italy) by using an active biomonitoring approach, i.e., by placing homogeneous individuals of the perennial shrub Rosa rugosa in different sites throughout the area. Further sites, within the city or its environs, were used for comparison. Soil and leaves of R. rugosa were analyzed for their heavy metal content. The total heavy metal pattern of leaves closely paralleled the pattern registered in soil, with the highest content (both in total and assimilable forms) at the site in the urban area, which is exposed to heavy traffic. Pollen quality (abortiveness and viability) was also tested as a potential indicator of pollution. Pollen abortiveness was strictly related to Pb levels in leaves, while viability was inversely related to leaf Cr content. Our results suggest that R. rugosa has the potential to be a good biomonitoring system. - Rosa rugosa leaves and pollen are - to different ...
The purpose of this work was to evaluate the quality of a rural area near Faenza (Italy) by using an active biomonitoring approach, i.e., by placing homogeneous individuals of the perennial shrub Rosa rugosa in different sites throughout the area. Further sites, within the city or its environs, were used for comparison. Soil and leaves of R. rugosa were analyzed for their heavy metal content. The total heavy metal pattern of leaves closely paralleled the pattern registered in soil, with the highest content (both in total and assimilable forms) at the site in the urban area, which is exposed to heavy traffic. Pollen quality (abortiveness and viability) was also tested as a potential indicator of pollution. Pollen abortiveness was strictly related to Pb levels in leaves, while viability was inversely related to leaf Cr content. Our results suggest that R. rugosa has the potential to be a good biomonitoring system. - Rosa rugosa leaves and pollen are - to different ...
The somatically significant dose index can be considered as a measure for the somatic radiation risk to which the population is exposed. Figures are stated for conventional tomography of the skull and thorax. These are compared with the corresponding data for other x-ray examinations, especially computerised tomography. PMID:7134769
To evaluate the role of chronic inflammation in the development of gallstones and biliary tract cancer, we examined the risk associated with 62 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs), including...Full Text Available
Geographic information systems (GIS) are being used with increasing frequency in environmental epidemiology studies. Reported applications include locating the study population by geocoding addresses...Full Text Available
BackgroundExisting studies concerning the health care use of homeless people describe higher utilisation rates for hospital-based care and emergency care, and lower rates for primary...Full Text Available
Demographic and health surveillance (DS) systems monitor and document individual and group-level processes in well-defined populations over long periods of time. The resulting data are complex...Full Text Available
Ecological investigations were made of habitats containing natural populations of the snail Oncomelania hupensis quadrasi and of habitats free from the snail in the island of Leyte,...Full Text Available
Recent reports confirm that, due to the presence of long-lived, latently infected cell populations, eradication of human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) from infected patients by using antiretroviral...Full Text Available
OBJECTIVE--To assess the accuracy of the ten questions screen as a measure of childhood disability for epidemiologic studies in populations lacking resources for professional assessment of children's...Full Text Available
Ecological speciation is the process by which barriers to gene flow between populations evolve due to adaptive divergence via natural selection. A relatively unexplored area in ecological speciation...Full Text Available
BackgroundThe aim of the study was to examine the role that melatonin production plays in the regulation of sleep consolidation in a population of shiftworkers working and sleeping...Full Text Available
In a cross-sectional study of the pattern of isolated sleep paralysis among the entire population of nursing students at the Neuropsychiatric Hospital in Abeokuta, Nigeria (consisting of 58 males and...Full Text Available
BackgroundDuring the last ten years, major advances have been made in characterizing and understanding the evolution of mitochondrial DNA, the most popular marker of molecular biodiversity....Full Text Available
Chronic heart failure (HF) is a cardiovascular disease of cardinal importance because of several factors: a) an increasing occurrence due to the aging of the population, primary and secondary prevention...Full Text Available
Most of the general population is exposed to carbaryl and other contemporary-use insecticides at low levels. Studies of laboratory animals, in addition to limited human data, show an association between...Full Text Available
BackgroundEpidemiological studies have shown a J- or U-shaped relation between alcohol and type 2 diabetes and coronary heart disease (CHD). The underlying mechanisms are not clear....Full Text Available
BackgroundThe link between maternal factors and birth outcomes is well established. Substantial changes in society and medical care over time have influenced women's reproductive...Full Text Available
Background. For unknown reasons, the prevalence of thyroid autoimmune disorders is higher in patients with Down's syndrome than in the general population. The present case strongly...Full Text Available
BackgroundPublic information about prevention of zoonoses should be based on the perceived problem by the public and should be adapted to regional circumstances. Growing fox populations...Full Text Available
Gonadal, adrenal, and thyroid hormones affect the brain directly, and the sensitivity to hormones begins in embryonic life with the appearance of hormone receptor sites in discrete populations of neurons....Full Text Available
Goals of workThe goal of this study was to evaluate, at a population level, the association between specialized palliative care services (SPCS) and short- and long-term caregiver...Full Text Available
BackgroundPrevention of Chagas disease depends mainly on control of the insect vectors that transmit infection. Unfortunately, the vectors have been resurgent in some areas. It is...Full Text Available
The somatically significant dose index can be considered as a measure for the somatic radiation risk to which the population is exposed. Figures are stated for conventional tomography of the skull and thorax. These are compared with the corresponding data for other X-ray examinations, especially computerised tomography.
The somatically significant dose index can be considered as a measure for the somatic radiation risk to which the population is exposed. Figures are stated for conventional tomography of the skull and thorax. These are compared with the corresponding data for other X-ray examinations, especially computerised tomography. (orig.).
Background:Smoking cessation is an important strategy for reducing the harmful effects of tobacco, particularly in the prevention of lung cancer; however, prospective data on the...Full Text Available
Dental caries continues to be a common chronic disease among various population groups. Patient care can be improved with detection at the earliest stage. However, current techniques do not...Full Text Available
BackgroundLarge population growth surveys of children and adolescents aged 6 to 18 y were undertaken in Hong Kong in 1963 and 1993. The global epidemic of obesity is a major public...Full Text Available
Project ZEUS was designed to characterize the effects of long-term gamma irradiation on free-ranging meadow voles, and to determine the lowest level of radiation at which biological effects are discernible in the population. Behavioural tests are consider...
Atypical antipsychotic medications have assumed growing importance for the treatment of bipolar disorder, an illness that affects approximately 1.2%–3.7% of the general population in a given...Full Text Available
PurposeNocturnal rhythms of gene expression in the retina are known to be both darkness- and circadian clock-dependent, but their role and cellular location are not well defined....Full Text Available
Background:Parity has been linked to gallbladder cancer and gallstones, but the effects of other reproductive factors are less clear.Methods:We examined...Full Text Available
Quality reporting tools, integrated with ambulatory electronic health records, can help clinicians and administrators understand performance, manage populations, and improve quality. Report Central...Full Text Available
OBJECTIVE--The survey aimed at studying the associations between prevalent respiratory symptoms in an occupational population and sickness absence due to respiratory disorders. METHODS--A cross sectional...Full Text Available
OBJECTIVE--To examine the effect of a reduced sodium and increased potassium and magnesium intake on blood pressure. DESIGN--Randomised double blind placebo controlled trial. SETTING--General population...Full Text Available
Several different neuronal populations are involved in regulating energy homeostasis. Among these, agouti-related protein (AgRP) neurons are thought to promote feeding and weight gain; however, the...Full Text Available
BackgroundQuality of Life measurements are necessary tools for effectively evaluating health services. In the population of patients afflicted with war-related blindness in Iran,...Full Text Available
A quantitative trait locus (QTL) analysis designed for a multi-parent population was carried out and tested in oil palm (Elaeis guineensis Jacq.), which is a diploid cross-fertilising...Full Text Available
Testicular neoplasm accounts for about 1% of all cancers in men. Over the last 40 years, the incidence of testicular cancer has increased in northern European male populations for unknown reasons. When...Full Text Available
Forty species of anaerobes were screened for the ability to produce an ether-extractable mutagen which is present in the feces of 15 to 20% of individuals in populations at high risk for colon cancer....Full Text Available
A patient’s electronic medical record contains a large amount of unstructured textual information. As patient records become increasingly dense owing to an aging population and increased occurrence...Full Text Available
BACKGROUND: Although the effectiveness of influenza vaccination in high-risk groups has been proven, vaccine coverage continues to be less than 50% in The Netherlands. To improve vaccination rates,...Full Text Available
Plasmodium falciparum, the causative agent of human malaria, invades host erythrocytes using several proteins on the surface of the invasive merozoite, which have been proposed...Full Text Available
Factors potentially contributing to the lower incidence of Lyme borreliosis (LB) in the far-western than in the northeastern United States include tick host-seeking behavior resulting in fewer human...Full Text Available
... being reported (Kisseberth et al., 1984; Ma, 1989; Shore and Douben, 1994). Small mammals are useful indicator species because they have relatively small home ranges allowing a direct tie to the source of ...
Orthologous positions of 55 genes associated with height in four human populations were located on the bovine genome. Single nucleotide polymorphisms close to eight of these genes were significantly...Full Text Available
ObjectiveTo evaluate the association of physical activity with left ventricular structure and function in the general population in a community setting.Full Text Available
The sequence in the first hypervariable segment (HVS-I) of the control region has been used as a source of evolutionary information in most phylogenetic analyses of mtDNA. Population genetic inference...Full Text Available
Amphibian populations are declining globally at an alarming rate. Pesticides are among a number of proposed causes for these declines. Although a sizable database examining effects of pesticides on...Full Text Available
OBJECTIVEModerately preterm infants (30–34 6/7 weeks’ gestational age) represent the largest population of NICU residents. Whether their clinical...Full Text Available
BackgroundSeasonal influenza A infection affects a significant cohort of the global population annually, resulting in considerable morbidity and mortality. Therapeutic strategies...Full Text Available
Background. The Free Radical Theory of Aging mechanistically links oxidative stress to aging. Okinawa has among the world's longest-lived populations but oxidative stress in this...Full Text Available
BackgroundOral cancer is as prevalent as cervical and testicular cancer in the United Kingdom. Nursing staff provide the oral health care for the patient population in hospital....Full Text Available
Rapid changes in China over the past two decades have led to significant problems associated with population migration and changing social attitudes, including a growing sex industry and concurrent...Full Text Available
Marine ecosystems are suffering severe depletion of apex predators worldwide; shark declines are principally due to conservative life-histories and fisheries overexploitation. On coral reefs, sharks are strongly interacting apex predators and play a key role in maintaining healthy reef ecosystems. Despite increasing fishing pressure, reef shark catches are rarely subject to specific limits, with management approaches typically depending upon no-take marine reserves to maintain populations. Here, we reveal that this approach is failing by documenting an ongoing collapse in two of the most abundant reef shark species on the Great Barrier Reef (Australia). We find an order of magnitude fewer sharks on fished reefs compared to no-entry management zones that encompass only 1% of reefs. No-take zones, which are more difficult to enforce than no-entry zones, offer almost no protection for shark populations. Population viability ...
The evolution of drug resistant bacteria is a severe public health problem, both in hospitals and in the community. Currently, some countries aim at concentrating highly specialized services in large...Full Text Available
BackgroundIt is a priority to achieve an adequate nutritional status of iodine during pregnancy since iodine deficiency in this population may have repercussions on the mother during...Full Text Available
Listeria monocytogenes, isolated from outbreaks in either human or nonhuman primate populations, was administered orally at doses ranging from 106 to 1010 CFU....Full Text Available
Neurodegenerative and infectious disorders including Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, and stroke are rapidly increasing as population’s...Full Text Available
PurposeThe size of neuronal populations is modulated by gene variants that influence cell production and survival, in turn influencing neuronal connectivity, function,...Full Text Available
BackgroundRecent advances in the understanding of the maternal and paternal heritage of south and southwest Asian populations have highlighted their role in the colonization of Eurasia...Full Text Available
BackgroundIdentification of global livestock diversity hotspots and their importance in diversity maintenance is essential for making global conservation efforts. We screened 52...Full Text Available
Nutrient transport affinities of nutrient-starved microbial populations were measured as initial slopes of plots of limiting-nutrient transport rates versus extracellular limiting-nutrient concentrations....Full Text Available
BackgroundTwo planned trials of pre-exposure prophylaxis tenofovir in Cambodia and Cameroon to prevent HIV infection in high-risk populations were closed due to activist pressure...Full Text Available
Within the next 30 years, the proportion of urban dwellers will rise from under half to two thirds of the world’s population. Such a shift will entail massive public health consequences,...Full Text Available
Benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH) is the leading cause of lower urinary tract symptoms among the aging male population. Epidemiological, pathophysiological and clinical studies indicate that...Full Text Available
IntroductionNormal and neoplastic breast tissues are comprised of heterogeneous populations of epithelial cells exhibiting various degrees of maturation and differentiation. While...Full Text Available
We have exploited ``progeny testing'' to map quantitative trait loci (QTL) underlying the genetic variation of milk production in a selected dairy cattle population. A total of 1,518 sires, with progeny...Full Text Available
Dysregulation of the alternative pathway of complement activation, caused by mutations or polymorphisms in the genes encoding factor H, membrane co-factor protein, factor I or factor B, is associated...Full Text Available
The somatic sensory system responds to stimuli of distinct modalities, including touch, pain, itch, and temperature sensitivity. In the past century, great progress has been made in understanding the...Full Text Available
Kin form important political groups, which change in size and relative inequality with demographic shifts. Increases in the rate of population growth increase the size of kin groups but decrease their...Full Text Available
BackgroundThe maternally inherited, bacterial symbiont, parthenogenesis inducing (PI) Wolbachia, causes females in some haplodiploid insects to produce daughters...Full Text Available
Large population sizes, rapid growth and 3.8 billion years of evolution firmly establish microorganisms as a major source of the planet's biological and genetic diversity. However, up to 99% of the...Full Text Available
Major histocompatibility complex (MHC) genes are highly polymorphic components of the vertebrate immune system, which play a key role in pathogen resistance. MHC genes may also function as odour-related...Full Text Available
Populations of a common forage fish, red shiner Notropis lutrensis, were sampled from four localities on the Brazos River, Texas, affected by cold-water discharge from a hydroelectric dam and from unaltered sites in the same region. Polymorphism at the Mdh-B locus, encoding supernatant malate dehydrogenase, indicates that populations within 57 km of the dam are distinctive from other regional populations and possess a unique Mdh-B allele, have significantly higher levels of heterozygosity at the Mdh-B locus, represent a homogeneous set that have significantly different Mdh-B zygotic frequencies from other regional populations, and have significantly different Mdh-B zygotic proportions than would be expected under a Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium. Increased levels of heterozygosity in fish within 57 km of the dam were correlated with discharge-associated fluctuations in water temperature at sampling ...
A collaborative research effort by scientists in several states and in Canada has produced information to develop a formal risk assessment of the impact of Bt corn on monarch butterfly...Full Text Available
IntroductionPrevious observations suggest that active systemic juvenile idiopathic arthritis (sJIA) is associated with a prominent erythropoiesis gene-expression signature. The aim...Full Text Available
The Carassius auratus complex in natural populations includes diploid triploid and polyploidy individuals. Diploid individuals belong to the species Carassius auratus...Full Text Available
Epigenetic remodeling is a hallmark of cancer, with the frequent acquisition of de novo DNA methylation in CpG islands. However, the functional relevance of de novo...Full Text Available
... M. Taylor, T. Kurt Kyser. (2009) Feather isotope analysis discriminates age-classes of Western, Least, and Semipalmated sandpipers when plumage ... ...
Of 868 patients admitted with pancreatitis between 1971 and 1976, coexisting hyperbilirubinemia was noted in 125 (14%). The patient population was primarily composed of alcoholics (84%) with chronic...Full Text Available
BackgroundPopulation densities of many species throughout the world are changing due to direct persecution as well as anthropogenic habitat modification. These changes may induce...Full Text Available
Background:No recent data exist on human papillomavirus (HPV) infection in Beijing, People's Republic of China.Materials and methodWe interviewed...Full Text Available
We have developed a new strategy for immunization of wild rabbit populations against myxomatosis and rabbit hemorrhagic disease (RHD) that uses recombinant viruses based on a naturally attenuated field...Full Text Available
It is now widely accepted that novel infectious disease can be a leading cause of serious population decline and even outright extinction in some invertebrate and vertebrate groups (e.g., amphibians)....Full Text Available
Childhood cancer survivors often experience complications related to cancer and its treatment that may adversely affect quality of life and increase the risk of premature death. The purpose of this...Full Text Available
Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) are ecologically important root symbionts of most terrestrial plants. Ecological studies of AMF have concentrated on differences between species; largely assuming...Full Text Available
Background and objectives: Few studies have examined health literacy in patients with end stage kidney disease. We hypothesized that inadequate health literacy in a hemodialysis population is common...Full Text Available
High rates of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection among jail and prison inmates suggest that HIV prevention efforts should focus on incarcerated populations. Overcrowding, the high prevalence...Full Text Available
Every year nearly 200,000 men in the United States are diagnosed with prostate cancer (PCa), and another 29,000 men succumb to the disease. Within certain regions of the world population based...Full Text Available
A fundamental property of neuronal networks in Ammon’s horn is that each area is comprised of a single glutamatergic cell population and various types of GABAergic neurons. Here we describe...Full Text Available
BackgroundThe objective of the study was to analyse the evolution of Bordetella pertussis population and the influence of herd immunity in different areas of the...Full Text Available
With the advent of dense maps of human genetic variation, it is now possible to detect positive natural selection across the human genome. Here we report an analysis of over 3 million polymorphisms...Full Text Available
Giardiasis is recognized as a worldwide public health problem. Seroprevalence data from both the developing and developed world show high rates of carriage in populations at risk for fecal-oral transmission,...Full Text Available
Amphibian population declines and sudden species' extinctions began to be noted at the beginning of the 1980s. Understanding the causes of the losses is hampered by our poor knowledge of the amphibian...Full Text Available
Background and Aim: The purpose of this study was to establish for the first time reference curves for body fat levels in a Greek pediatric population aged 7-15y.Methods:...Full Text Available
The inflammatory and immune cell populations of the human lung parenchyma have not been characterized in detail. This report describes a novel and efficient procedure for their extraction. Histologically...Full Text Available
Forty-one Spanish families with polycystic kidney disease 1 (PKD1) were studied for evidence of linkage disequilibrium between the disease locus and six closely linked markers. Four of these loci--three...Full Text Available
There is increasing recognition of intraspecific diversity and population structure within marine fish species, yet there is little direct evidence of the isolating mechanisms that maintain it or documentation...Full Text Available
Quality research, requiring large numbers of participants, in the intensive care unit (ICU) population requires multicentre collaboration. Although logistically challenging, this methodology reduces...Full Text Available
In the period November 1, 1985 to January 31, 1986, 703 cases of giardiasis were reported in Pittsfield, Massachusetts (population 50,265). The community obtained its water from two main reservoirs...Full Text Available
AimsTo describe the pharmacokinetic–pharmacodynamic (PK–PD) characteristics of the direct thrombin inhibitor dabigatran in hip replacement patients by assessing coagulation...Full Text Available
The purpose of this study was to determine the effects of bovine leukemia virus (BLV) infection on production, reproduction and longevity in dairy cattle. The study population was a commercial Holstein...Full Text Available
Methyl fluoride is frequently used to specifically inhibit acetoclastic methanogenesis, thus allowing determination of the relative contribution of acetate versus H2/CO2 to total...Full Text Available
Dogs are domestic reservoir hosts of Trypanosoma cruzi, the etiological agent of Chagas disease. We evaluated the effect of deltamethrin-treated dog collars (DTDCs) over time...Full Text Available
Analysis of gestation length in an obstetric population of indigenous African women revealed a mean pregnancy duration of 274.8 days, which is similar to values recorded in women of African descent...Full Text Available
BackgroundStudies from various countries have observed worse population health in geographical areas with more income inequality. The psychosocial interpretation of this association...Full Text Available
Data from 8,032 Manitoba respondents to the 1996/97 Canadian National Population Health Survey were linked to the 1996 census to study whether measures of morbidity, both self-reported and objectively...Full Text Available
BackgroundLittle is known about differences in professional care seeking based on marital status. The few existing studies show more professional care seeking among the divorced...Full Text Available
Many pathogens colonize different anatomical sites, but the selective pressures contributing to survival in the diverse niches are poorly understood. Group A Streptococcus (GAS) is...Full Text Available
BackgroundDiet is considered an important factor for bone health, but is composed of a wide variety of foods containing complex combinations of nutrients. Therefore we investigated...Full Text Available
The association of dietary glycaemic index (GI) and glycaemic load (GL) with cardiovascular diseases has been examined in several populations with varying results. We tested the hypothesis that...Full Text Available
OBJECTIVES: To assess the subjective quality of life (QOL) of family caregivers of Sudanese type-1 and type-2 diabetic outpatients, using the WHO 26-item QOL instrument, compared with a general population...Full Text Available
In rats, damage to neuronal populations in some brain regions occurs in response to neonatal alcohol exposure coinciding with the period of rapid brain growth. These alcohol-induced defects...Full Text Available
The primary mode of transmission of Helicobacter pylori, a human pathogen carried by more than half the population worldwide, is still unresolved. Some epidemiological data suggest...Full Text Available
BACKGROUND AND AIMS:In view of increasing therapeutic efficacy, the delivery of hepatitis C virus (HCV) antiviral treatment is expected to increase. Yet practical experience reveals...Full Text Available
Will the aging of Canada's population bankrupt the health care system? In this issue (see pages 1555 to 1560) Dr. Marie Demers reports that the increase in physician service costs for elderly people...Full Text Available
Accurate prediction of the pathogenic effects of specific genotypes is important for the design and execution of clinical trials as well as for meaningful counseling of individual patients. However,...Full Text Available
ObjectivesThe objectives of this study were to describe the levels of daily spiritual experiences in community-dwelling older adults, to compare levels of spiritual...Full Text Available
Cystic dysplasia of the rete testis (CDT) is a very rare congenital benign testicular tumor that is often associated with ipsilateral genitourinary anomalies. It is usually found in the pediatric population...Full Text Available
Determine the degree to which different precautionary themes are dominant in various target populations and how these themes are acquired. Assess cultural signals of potential danger: are there different kinds of potential danger in different cultures. Do...
BackgroundBreast-feeding rates in the UK are known to vary by maternal socio-economic status but the latter function is imperfectly defined. We test if CTVB (Council Tax Valuation...Full Text Available
Post amputation pain can be debilitating for patients and families. Chronic pain is a common phenomenon after lower extremity amputation, occurring in up to 80% of this population. The purpose of this...Full Text Available
BackgroundAtrial fibrillation (AF) is the most common cardiac arrhythmia with a population prevalence of about 1%. Natriuretic peptide level is elevated in patients with AF with...Full Text Available
Parasite transmission generally exhibits some form of positive density dependence. Thus, as population density increases, so too does the per capita risk of becoming infected. Under...Full Text Available
Enterotoxigenic Escherichia coli (ETEC) is a leading cause of diarrhea in travelers to countries where the disease is endemic and causes a major disease burden in the indigenous population,...Full Text Available
ObjectiveFish consumption advisories are issued to warn the public of possible toxicological threats from consuming certain fish species. Although developing fetuses and children...Full Text Available
There is limited information about the true incidence of acute renal failure (ARF). Most studies could not quantify disease frequency in the general population as they are hospital-based and...Full Text Available
A cross sectional population based epidemiological survey of 899 adults aged between 15 and 59 was undertaken in two urban areas of demographic surveillance sites in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, using the...Full Text Available
In world Helminthes infections are the most widespread of all the infections in humans. The morbidity due to parasitic diseases has been increasing in our population. The gastrointestinal helminthes...Full Text Available
Calcium, vitamin D, exposure to sunshine, and vitamin D receptor (VDR) genotypes have been associated rectal cancer. We used data from 750 rectal tumors and 1,205 population-based...Full Text Available
Cancer stem cells (CSCs) have been identified in a number of solid tumors, but not yet in rhabdomyosarcoma (RMS), the most frequently occurring soft tissue tumor in childhood. Hence, the aim of this...Full Text Available
BackgroundLevels of brominated flame retardants are increasing in U.S. populations, yet little data are available on body burdens of these and other persistent hormonally-active...Full Text Available
Global hypomethylation has been shown to increase genome instability potentially leading to increased cancer risk. We determined whether global methylation in blood leukocyte DNA was associated...Full Text Available
The importance of algal and detrital food supplies to the planktonic food web of a highly disturbed, estuarine ecosystem was evaluated in response to declining zooplankton and fish populations. We assessed...Full Text Available
BK virus (BKV) is a polyomavirus that ubiquitously infects the human population. Following a typically subclinical primary infection, BKV establishes a lifelong persistent infection in the kidney...Full Text Available
Baldwin County is located on the Gulf of Mexico in Alabama and has a rapidly growing population. Almost 3,000 permits for septic systems are approved annually by by the Baldwin County Health Department. More than 50% of the county's residents rely on septic systems for their d...
Objective: Determine and compare the prevalence of known risk factors for cardiovascular disease among unselected individuals presenting with their first ever episode of...Full Text Available
... hearing protection since you play, sit or stand near loud instruments and speakers. Here are a few ... piper's calling you to join him" Led Zeppelin (Robert Plant), "Stairway to Heaven" "My ears are ringin' ...
Teleost gut associated lymphoid tissue (GALT) consists of leucocyte populations located both intraepithelially and in the lamina propria with no structural organization. The present study aims to assess...Full Text Available
The different radiation loads caused by natural and artificial radionuclides are compared in this paper. This examples will serve to illustrate that the problem of population exposure to radiation can only be solved in consideration of all components and to show which effects of the radiation from natural sources are of special importance in this connexion. (orig./AK).
Many species introduced by humans for social and economic benefits have invaded new ranges by escaping from captivity. Such invasive species can negatively affect biodiversity and economies. Understanding...Full Text Available
The distribution and activity of communities of sulfate-reducing bacteria (SRB) and methanogenic archaea in two contrasting Antarctic sediments were investigated. Methanogenesis dominated in freshwater...Full Text Available
A goal of our research is to identify biochemical factors that underlie the susceptibility of bone marrow cell populations to benzene metabolites so as to develop a mechanistically based chemoprotective...Full Text Available
BackgroundThe goat (Capra hircus) represents one of the most important farm animal species. It is reared in all continents with an estimated world population of...Full Text Available
BackgroundTraumatic pneumothoraces are common. Many are managed with tube thoracostomy. However, there is a high complication rate from chest tube placement, particularly in patients...Full Text Available
IntroductionMale circumcision is being promoted for HIV prevention in high-risk heterosexual populations. However, there is a concern that circumcision may impair...Full Text Available
Besides ethanol, acetic acid is produced in naturally fermenting sweet resources and is a significant environmental stress for fruit-breeding Drosophila populations and species. Although not related...Full Text Available
BackgroundChronic kidney disease and end-stage renal disease are major causes of morbidity and mortality that are seen far more commonly in the aged population. Interestingly, kidney...Full Text Available
BackgroundIn malarious areas of the world, a higher proportion of the population has blood group O than in non-malarious areas. This is probably due to a survival advantage conferred...Full Text Available
We describe the Phase II HapMap, which characterizes over 3.1 million human single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) genotyped in 270 individuals from four geographically diverse populations and...Full Text Available
AIM: To examine the determinants of maternal-neonatal transmission of hepatitis B virus (HBV).METHODS: A nested case-control study was conducted in Changsha, Hunan, People’s Republic...Full Text Available
A generalized Fisher equation (GFE) relates the time derivative of the average of the intrinsic rate of growth to its variance. The GFE is an exact mathematical result that has been widely used in population...Full Text Available
During the autumn of 1994 an investigation of foodstuffs has been accomplished to assess the average intake of {sup 137}Cs by the Swedish population due to the Chernobyl accident. A standardized food basket has been collected from two grocers in 10 localities, of which the majority came from areas with the highest fallout. The estimated maximum intake of {sup 137}Cs was 815 Bq/year in the inland of the county of Vaesterbotten. The population weighted average intake for the fallout affected counties was 435 Bq/year. The rest of the county received an intake of 235 Bq/year. The population weighted average of the intake for the whole county was estimated to 274 Bq/year. From this intake the calculated body burden would be 1.3 Bq/kg for the average citizen. Whole-body measurements of a sample of the population gave 2.0 Bq/kg. A plausible explanation would be that 40% of the intake of {sup 137}Cs can have ...
OBJECTIVES--This case cohort study examines whether there is an association between exposure to electric and magnetic fields and suicide in a population of 21,744 male electrical utility workers from...Full Text Available
OBJECTIVE: To assess the association between erectile dysfunction (ED) and the long-term risk of coronary artery disease (CAD) and the role of age as a modifier of this association.PARTICIPANTS...Full Text Available
BackgroundInsurance coverage of tobacco cessation medications increases their use and reduces smoking prevalence in a population. However, uncertainty about the impact of this coverage...Full Text Available
Murine cytomegalovirus (MCMV) is an important animal model of human cytomegalovirus (HCMV), a β-Herpesvirus that infects the majority of the world's population and causes disease in neonates...Full Text Available
OBJECTIVESTo examine the association between α-blocker use and sexual dysfunction among men participating in a population-based cohort of...Full Text Available
"The focus of this study was to examine the structural, social, and attitudinal factors that influence an individual?s decision to choose an IT career. The findings revealed many differences among male and female high school students? attitudes and intentions. Although many stereotypes existed among the male and female students, perceptions appeared to be similar within the population. For boys, computer and technical skills had a stronger association with attitudes toward IT than for girls. For girls, social issues showed a strong association with attitudes toward IT. Overall, the intention to pursue IT as a career was most likely to prevail within the population of the high school boys."
Microbial population and moisture content of traditional herbal medicines contaminated with 3 kinds of aerobic microbes, packed in 5 kinds of plastic packaging materials, followed by irradiation at minimum dose of 5 kGy and stored for 6 months were investigated. The highest reduction of microbial counts during storage was observed on samples packed in polyethylene bags. All of packaging materials used were found to be impermeable to microbes and water vapour. Radiation and packaging materials used acted synergistically to inactivate microbes durind storage. The microbial counts decreased as much as 2 to 4 log cycles during storage. (author).
The author describes the history of the Soviet Unions nuclear weapons testing in Siberia from the first bomb on 29th August 1949 until the test-ban treaty of 1963. The effects of the weapons testing on the local population is only now becoming widely known. Levels of cancers and cataracts are significantly higher than in uneffected populations, and there are also high levels of some lung, bone, skin and digestive conditions. Perhaps the most important information relates to cataracts, previously thought to be caused by single large bursts of radiation. Regulatory authorities worldwide will need to tighten the safety limits for eye radiation exposure to these findings. (U.K.).
The author describes the history of the Soviet Unions nuclear weapons testing in Siberia from the first bomb on 29th August 1949 until the test-ban treaty of 1963. The effects of the weapons testing on the local population is only now becoming widely known. Levels of cancers and cataracts are significantly higher than in uneffected populations, and there are also high levels of some lung, bone, skin and digestive conditions. Perhaps the most important information relates to cataracts, previously thought to be caused by single large bursts of radiation. Regulatory authorities worldwide will need to tighten the safety limits for eye radiation exposure to these findings. (U.K.).
Background Atrial fibrillation (AF) is the most common sustained atrial arrhythmia and it is independently associated with an increased morbidity and mortality. As a result of the high prevalence of AF, the economic and clinical impact of the disease is substantial. This study describes the economic and clinical impact of AF in the Netherlands. Methods Epidemiological data on AF in the Netherlands were projected on population estimates of the Netherlands in 2009 and combined with data on the cost of AF and its interventions. Results Overall prevalence of AF in the Netherlands is 5.5% in the population over 55?years, corresponding to about 250,000 AF patients. The prevalence increases with age, and the mean age of AF patients is 69.3?years. Incidence of AF in the Netherlands varies with age...
A survey is presented of the consequences of the irradiation of the population with ionizing radiation. There is an increased incidence of leukemia in irradiated population groups. Among the inhabitants of Hiroshima and Nagasaki maximum death of leukemia was observed in the years 1951 to 1952. The results are summed up of the observation of carcinoma of the breast, lungs and bronchi, bones, and carcinoma of the thyroid. The effect of radiation on experimental animals is described. It was found that the scatter of the dependence of the incidence of various types of cancer on the dose equivalent apparently reflects differences in the biological mechanism of this incidence and that a proportional relationship cannot be expected between the primary damage of cells during irradiation and the actual manifestation of the disease. (E.S.).
The role of natural enemies in the regulation of populations is one of the major questions facing population ecologists. Simplification have led to two theoretical ways of incorporating the role of natural enemies in single ecological models: diffusion models and patch-type models. The predictions of the models are different because of the way variability is incorporated. Three equations are presented for diffusion models and one for patch models. Since the two types of models apply at different combinations of spatial and temporal scales, the right model(s) to choose for a particular study requires careful assessment. A continuing dialogue between experimentalists and theoreticians will lead to a better understanding of natural systems such as those that occur in biological control.
The development of Callossobruchus chinensis (L.) in different packaging materials were conducted with gram and lentil seeds under control temperature. The highest population rise was recorded in laminated jute bags and the weight loss of gram increased with the increase of the number of insects. A doses of 0.1 kGy inhibit all metamorphic stages of the beetle. The use of appropriate packaging materials can reduce the risk of re infestation in the post-irradiated food items. 9 refs., 1 fig., 2 tables (author).
A database has been compiled on human dietary intakes of trace elements by populations groups living in various countries. The main sources of information used were (1) publications in the open scientific literature, and (2) data submitted to the IAEA in response to a questionnaire. The database contains 1,758 intake values covering 35 elements and 47 countries. In this report the data are listed in various ways to facilitate identification of intake values for any specified country, element and population group. 4 refs, 5 tabs.
The genetically and leukemia-significant doses (GSD and LSD) were calculated from the average gonad and bone marrow doses caused by the most frequently applied radiopharmaceuticals in Bulgaria in 1976. Because of the lack of information about the age groups of the patients examined assumptions have been made which led to estimated values of 0.97 mrad for GSD and 2.0 mrad for LSD which must be considered as the upper limit of the real GSD and LSD. The influence of the different radiopharmaceuticals on the average radiation exposure of the population is discussed. (author).
Abstract The white sea bream, Diplodus sargus (Teleostei, Sparidae), is a species with a high commercial importance in Mediterranean aquaculture. There is currently little information available about the genetic characteristics of cultured populations. In this survey, we have developed eight polymorphic microsatellites for the white sea bream using an enriched genome library protocol. All of them were polymorphic in the 67 individuals tested, 32 of which were wild specimens, and 35 were individuals from a captive F1 broodstock. These markers can potentially be useful tools for use in population genetic studies.
Microbial dechlorination of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) often stops although a significant number of removable chlorines remain. To determine the reason for the cessation, we investigated the limitation of organic carbon, PCB bioavailability, and inhibition by metabolic products. Enrichment with carbon sources did not induce additional chlorination, indicating the plateau was not due to depletion of organic carbon. The bioavailability was not limiting, since a subcritical micelle concentration of the surfactant, which enhanced desorption without inhibiting dechlorinating microorganisms, failed to lower the plateau. Neither was it due to accumulation of metabolites, since no additional dechlorination was detected when plateau sediments were incubated with fresh medium. Similarly, dechlorination was not inhibited in freshly spiked sediment slurries. Dechlorination ended up at the same level with nearly identical congener profiles, regardless of treatment. These results indicate that ...
The population doses and risks of stochastic effects from occupational exposures in Japan in 1978 were estimated on the basis of a nation-wide survey. The survey was conducted on annual collective dose equivalents by sex, age group and type of radiation work for about 82,500 workers other than the workers in nuclear power stations. The data on the workers in nuclear power stations were obtained from the offitial publication of the Japan Nuclear Safety Commission. The total number of workers except for nuclear power stations was estimated to be about 170,000 persons. Radiation works were subdivided as follows: medical works including dental; nondestructive inspectional; non-atomic energy industrial; research and educational; atomic energy industrial and nuclear power industrial. The annual collective dose equivalents were estimated to be about 6,000 man rem for medical workers, 450 man rem for non-destructive inspectional, 450 man rem for non-atomic energy ...
Collective dose equivalent and population dose from occupational exposures in Japan, 1988 were estimated on the basis of a nationwide survey. The survey was conducted on annual collective dose equivalents by sex, age group and type of radiation work for about 0.21 million workers except for the workers in nuclear power stations. The data on the workers in nuclear power stations were obtained from the official report of the Japan Nuclear Safety Commission. The total number of workers including nuclear power stations was estimated to be about 0.26 million. Radiation works were subdivided as follows: medical works including dental; non-atomic energy industry; research and education; atomic energy industry and nuclear power station. For the determination of effective dose equivalent and population dose, organ or tissue doses were measured with a phantom experiment. The resultant doses were compared with the doses previously calculated using a chord ...
Collective dose equivalent and population dose from occupational exposures in Japan, 1988 were estimated on the basis of a nationwide survey. The survey was conducted on annual collective dose equivalents by sex, age group and type of radiation work for about 0.21 million workers except for the workers in nuclear power stations. The data on the workers in nuclear power stations were obtained from the official report of the Japan Nuclear Safety Commission. The total number of workers including nuclear power stations was estimated to be about 0.26 million. Radiation works were subdivided as follows: medical works including dental; non-atomic energy industry; research and education; atomic energy industry and nuclear power station. For the determination of effective dose equivalent and population dose, organ or tissue doses were measured with a phantom experiment. The resultant doses were compared with the doses previously calculated using a chord ...
We have developed refined statistical and modeling techniques to assess low-level uptake and urinary excretion of plutonium from different population group in the northern Marshall Islands. Urinary excretion rates of plutonium from the resident population on Enewetak Atoll and from resettlement workers living on Rongelap Atoll range from <1 to 8 {micro}Bq per day and are well below action levels established under the latest Department regulation 10 CFR 835 in the United States for in vitro bioassay monitoring of {sup 239}Pu. However, our statistical analyses show that urinary excretion of plutonium-239 ({sup 239}Pu) from both cohort groups is significantly positively associated with volunteer age, especially for the resident population living on Enewetak Atoll. Urinary excretion of {sup 239}Pu from the Enewetak cohort was also found to be positively associated with estimates of cumulative exposure to worldwide ...
In the case of a serious accident and as a precautionary measure, several protection actions can be implemented by the prefect during the emergency phase. In France the levels of intervention are given by a ministerial decree of the 13. october 2003, resuming recommendations of the International Atomic Energy Agency. The selected values are: an efficient dose of 10 mSv for the stake under cover and in the listening: the concerned persons have to put under cover in a building, any openings carefully closed and stay in the listening of the orders of the prefect; an efficient dose of 50 mSv for evacuation; an efficient dose to the thyroid of 100 mSv for the taking of stable iodine tablets. In order to help the authorities to choose between the keeping of populations at their place or immediate evacuation the decision criteria are: if the forecasted efficient dose of the first month is under 1 mSv, the populations stay in place; if the forecasted ...
Background: Anxiety disorders are known to be common in the general population. Previous studies with adults with intellectual disabilities (IDs) report a prevalence of general anxiety disorder ranging from less than 2% to 17.4%. Little is known about associated factors in this population. This study investigates point prevalence of anxiety disorders and determines the factors independently associated with them. Methods: Information was collected with 1023 adults with IDs who participated in a large-scale, population-based study. All had a comprehensive physical and mental health assessment. The point prevalence of anxiety disorders according to different diagnostic criteria was determined, as were independently associated factors by using logistic regression analysis. Results: Three point eight per cent (95% CI = 2.7-5.2%) of the cohort had an anxiety disorder at the time of assessment. Generalised anxiety disorder was the ...
During outbreaks, Microdiprion pallipes (Fall.) is the most destructive of the pine sawflies in Sweden. Its distribution includes most provinces, but damaging outbreaks have until recently occurred only in two inland areas in northern Sweden. These areas are characterised by high elevation, a harsh climate, and slow tree growth. The four recorded outbreak periods showed a 10 year periodicity. Outside these areas, a lesser outbreak occurred in 1988 to 1990, on the east coast (province of Uppland). Outbreak patterns, life history variation, and mortality factors were studied. Factors that may explain the distribution of outbreaks and the population patterns were identified.Experimental and observational evidence on the potential of various factors to influence fecundity, dispersal, and survival was evaluated. In the outbreak areas, there were few major population factors. Parasitism by Rhorus substitutor (Thunb.) was the largest cause of larval ...
The most important factor in assessing radiologic risk is ensuring scientific means for evaluation of the radioactive release impact upon humans and organisms. To evaluate quantitatively this impact not only knowledge of radioactivity distribution in these dynamical systems is necessary but also understanding the transfer mechanisms between ecosystem components is needed. Thus a complete radioecologic study appear to be very complex and needs defining the source term, dynamic description of radionuclides behavior in the ecosystem, estimation of radiation doses in the major components of the ecosystem and finally the effects of radiation doses upon different parts of the systems. A diagram of the steps implied in evaluation of the effects due to radioactive effluent release in the environment is presented and discussed. The following steps are described: - identification of radioactive sources, as well as their input rate. Presence of noxious materials such as heavy metals or some ...
Boxy and peanut-shaped bulges are seen in about half of edge-on disc galaxies. Comparisons of the photometry and major-axis gas and stellar kinematics of these bulges to simulations of bar formation and evolution indicate that they are bars viewed in projection. If the properties of boxy bulges can be entirely explained by assuming they are bars, then this may imply that their hosts are pure disc galaxies with no classical bulge. A handful of these bulges, including that of the Milky Way, have been observed to rotate cylindrically, i.e. with a mean stellar velocity independent of height above the disc. In order to assess whether such behaviour is ubiquitous in boxy bulges, and whether a pure disc interpretation is consistent with their stellar populations, we have analysed the stellar kinematics and populations of the boxy or peanut-shaped bulges in a sample of five edge-on galaxies. We placed slits along the major axis of each galaxy and at ...
(abridged) We present a study of stellar population of LAEs at z=4.86 in GOODS-N and its flanking field. With the publicly available IRAC data in GOODS-N and further IRAC observations in the flanking fields, we select five LAEs which are not contaminated by neighboring objects in IRAC images and construct their observed SEDs with I_c, z', IRAC 3.6micron, and 4.5micron band photometry. The SEDs cover the rest-frame UV to optical wavelengths. We derive stellar masses, ages, color excesses, and star formation rates of five LAEs using SED fitting method. Assuming the constant star formation history, we find that the stellar masses range from 10^8 to $10^{10} Msun with the median value of 2.5x10^9 Msun. The derived ages range from very young ages (7.4 Myr) to 437 Myr with a median age of 25 Myr. The color excess E(B-V) are between 0.1-0.4 mag. Star formation rates are 55-209 Msun/yr. A comparison of the stellar populations is made between three LAEs ...
The hazards of smoking in relation to lung cancer can never be over emphasized. In recent times shortly after Ebonyi State was created in 1996, the capital territory has increasingly been polluted by either quarry operators, motorcycle (Okada) riders or reckless cigarette smokers and bush burning. To investigate the havoc caused by all these on people, questionnaire was distributed among smokers and non smokers in various areas of specialization and habitations. In measuring the significance of association and the degree of association, a chi2 test and odds ratio method of analysis was employed. The result of the analysis showed that non-smokers do suffer lung cancer. It also revealed that the chances of a smoker to have lung cancer is 1.765 times higher than that of a non-smoker. Analysis also showed that lung cancer depends on age of smokers. It was later discovered that middle aged population are mostly affected, by the reason of chi2 partitioning. This research ...
We present new results from BRAVA, a large-scale radial velocity survey of the Galactic bulge, using M giant stars selected from the Two Micron All Sky Survey catalog as targets for the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory 4 m Hydra multi-object spectrograph. The purpose of this survey is to construct a new generation of self-consistent bar models that conform to these observations. We report the dynamics for fields at the edge of the Galactic bulge at latitudes b = -8 deg. and compare to the dynamics at b = -4 deg. We find that the rotation curve V(r) is the same at b = -8 deg. as at b = -4 deg. That is, the Galactic boxy bulge rotates cylindrically, as do boxy bulges of other galaxies. The summed line-of-sight velocity distribution at b = -8 deg. is Gaussian, and the binned longitude-velocity plot shows no evidence for either a (disk) population with cold dynamics or for a (classical bulge) population with hot dynamics. The observed ...
Men who have sex with men (MSM) have become one of the populations with severely HIV prevalence in China. However, very few genetic studies have been done on HIV-1 spreading in this population. In this study, the genetic characterization of HIV-1 strains prevalent in the MSM in Shijiazhuang, China, was analyzed basing on the HIV-1 full-length gag, pol, and partial env gene. 21 drug-naive HIV-1 sero-positive patients were enrolled into the study. Full length gag, pol, partial env genes and some near full length genomes were amplified with nest RT-PCR followed by sequencing. Multiple subtypes, including CRF01_AE (52.9%), subtype B (35.3%) and CRF07_BC (11.8%), were found in the population. Phylogenetic analysis showed close relationship between our strains with those from Beijing MSM but not...
In this 150-day study, chicken manure, kenaf, and white rot fungus were added to soil microcosms in an attempt to enhance the degradation of polychlorinated biphenyls. The soil was contaminated with commercial PCB mixtures. Dishes were ammended with 5% dry weight chicken manure, 1% dry weight kenaf, and 1% dry weight kenaf plus Phanerochaete chrysosporium inoculant. PCB concentrations were determined at 30 day intervals by soxhlet extraction and gas chromatography analyses. Preliminary results of microbial populations and PCB degradation are presented. At 90 days, the microcosms amended with chicken manure had significantly higher populations of bacteria, fungi, and actinomycetes. However, at 120 days, these soils underwent great reductions in actinomycete and bacterial populations. Through 60 days, the concentration of the PCBs Aroclor 1242 and 1248 had its greatest reduction in the kenaf amended soils. The concentration ...
Population doses from diagnostic and therapeutic uses of radiopharmaceuticals have been estimated on the basis of a nation wide survey data on the number of investigations and treatments used radiopharmaceuticals in the nuclear medicine and the annual amount of their activities. The gonad and marrow doses were calculated from published biokinetics data from humans, employing the MIRD method. The resultant annual genetically significant dose from diagnostic and therapeutic uses of radiopharmaceuticals was 0.36 and 0.02 mrad (3.6 and 0.2 #mu#Gy) per person, respectively, with a total 0.38 mrad (3.8 #mu#Gy) per person. The annual per Caput mean bone marrow dose was 2.3 mrad (23 #mu#Gy) for diagnosis and 0.2 mrad (2 #mu#Gy), for therapy. The resultant annual leukemia significant dose was 1.8 mrad (18 #mu#Gy) per person for diagnostic uses and 0.2 mrad (2 #mu#Gy) per person for therapeutic use, with a total of 2.0 mrad (20 #mu#Gy) per person. These ...
Blomqvist M, Ahadi S, Fernell E, Ek U, Dahllf G. Dental caries in adolescents with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder: a population-based follow-up study. Eur J Oral Sci 2011; 119: 381-385. 2011 Eur J Oral Sci This study tested the hypothesis that adolescents with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) exhibit a higher prevalence of caries than adolescents in a control group. Thirty-two adolescents with ADHD and a control group of 55 adolescents from a population-based sample, all 17-yr of age, underwent a clinical and radiographic dental examination. The mean--SD number of decayed surfaces (DS) was 2.0--2.2 in adolescents with ADHD and 0.9--1.4 in adolescents of the control group. Thirty-one per cent of the adolescents in the ADHD group had no new caries lesions (DS-=-0) co...
Naturally occurring radionuclides in building materials are a source of external and interal radiation exposure to essentially the entire US population. Although detailed data are not available, estimates are that the average contribution from such sources to the external dose equilvaent rate in brick and masonry houses is about 5 to 10 mrem/year. For critical population groups, values reported in the literature for the contribution from such sources range up to a hundred mrem/year or more. Dose equivalent rates to the lungs are even higher and, for abnormal situations, it would appear that control measures, either on a voluntary or mandatory (legislative) basis should be considered. Such measures include: (1) material substitution; (2) improved manufacturing standards; (3) changes in basic building designs; (4) application of surface sealants; and (5) increased ventilation accompanied by processes for the adsorption and/or filtration of ...
The role of intracellular Ca2+ (Ca2+i) on hematopoiesis was investigated in long term bone marrow cultures using cytokines and agonists of P2 receptors. Cytokines interleukin 3 and granulocyte/macrophage colony stimulator factor promoted a modest increase in Ca2+i concentration ([Ca2+]i) with activation of phospholipase Cgamma, MEK1/2, and Ca2+/calmodulin kinase II. Involvement of protein kinase C was restricted to stimulation with interleukin 3. In addition, these cytokines promoted proliferation (20 times) and an increase in the Gr-1(-)Mac-1+ population with participation of gap junctions (GJ). Nevertheless ATP, ADP, and UTP promoted a large increase in [Ca2+]i, moderate proliferation (6 times), a reduction in the primitive Gr-1(-)Mac-1(-)c-Kit+ population, and differentiation into macrophages without participation of GJ. It is likely that Ca2+i participates as a regulator of hematopoietic signaling: moderate increases in [Ca2+]i would be ...