QUESTION A 34-year-old patient of mine is taking a 'statin' for hyperlipidemia. She is planning pregnancy and is worried about the safety of the drug. How should I advise her? ANSWER Limited evidence from animal and human studies indicates that statins should not be taken during pregnancy. If a patient is inadvertently exposed during pregnancy, however, termination does not appear to be medic...

Abstract : This paper describes a novel technique for scenario generation aimed at closed loop stochastic nonlinear model predictive control. The key ingredient in the algorithm is the use of vector quantization methods. We also show how one can impose a tree structure on the resulting scenarios. Finally, we briefly describe how the scenarios can be used in large scale stochastic nonlinear mode...

The EODES suite of electo-optical image simulation and performance prediction models are designed to provide tools for system design and analysis, tactical performance prediction for mine countermeasures (MCM) mission planning, and the generation of synthetic imagery for operator training and the development of automated target recognition systems. Since this three-year project only extended a ...

nitrogen oxides and carbon monoxide gases together with dust are known as the major pollutants arising during the blasting operations using the ammonium nitrate-fuel oil (anfo) explosive at the sungun surface mine, located in the northwest of iran. the pollutants were monitored during some blasting operations at the mine. it was concluded that the gases and dust clouds initially went up to the ...

QUESTION A 23-year-old patient of mine has been taking St John's wort for postpartum depression for about 2 years. She is now planning her second pregnancy. Is she or her fetus at risk if she continues to take the herbal therapy? ANSWER Despite the widespread availability and use of St John's wort and extensive research on the herb, there are almost no data on reproductive safety. At this sta...

The initial stages of the development of a computerised support system for mining engineers dealing with the management of mine water is described. The need for a software engineering methodology within the work group is discussed together with the perceived attractions of the socalled object model. The results of the preliminary analysis of the tasks necessary for the management of mine water ...

Shaft sinking is one of the main parts in underground mine planning. Shaft has various applications in underground mines e.g. minerals exiting flow, gases entrance or exit way, stope developments for exploitation etc. Considering that this section requires an abundance of expenses, management always following the election is the way that both terms have the technical considerations, economic co...

Truncated Gaussian Simulation (TGS) is a well-known method to generate realizations of the ore domains located in a spatial sequence. In geostatistical framework geological domains are normally utilized for stationary assumption. The ability to measure the uncertainty in the exact locations of the boundaries among different geological units is a common challenge for practitioners. As a simple a...

The prerequisite of maintaining an efficient and safe mining operation is the proper design of a mine by considering all aspects. The first step in a coal mine design is a realistic geometrical modelling of the coal seam(s). The structural features such as faults and folding must be reliably implemented in 3D seam models. Upon having a consistent seam model, the attributes such as calorific val...

This paper describes a generic technology for modeling in real time the various operations of surface mines. Based on various sensor fusion techniques and high-speed network, a virtual reality model of a mine capable of representing not only static infrastructures but also mobile equipment such as trucks and excavators is created. The modeling technique deal with a wide range of sensors such as...