The purpose of this study was to assess the extent of cadmium (Cd) contamination in agricultural soil and its potential risk for people. Soils, rice, and vegetables from Chenzhou City, Southern China were sampled and analyzed. In the surface soils, the 95% confidence interval for the mean concentration of Cd varied between 2.72 and 4.83 mg/kg (P < 0.05) in the survey, with a geometric mean conc...

The Upper Silesian Coal Basin (USCB) is located within the Vistnla and Oder basins in the southern part of Poland. The coal seams in the USCB are exploited by the underground mining of average depth of 650 m, up to 1200 m. Studies on hydrogeochemical environment showed a normal vertical and horizontal hydrogeochemical zonation in the whole of USCB. As a general trend the level of groundwater mi...

Through-the-Earth (TTE) communication systems require minimal infrastructure to operate. Hence, they are assumed to be more survivable and more conventional than other underground mine communications systems. This survivability is a major advantage for TTE systems. In 2006, Congress passed the Mine Improvement and New Emergency Response Act (MINER Act), which requires all underground coal mines...

The goal of this thesis is to design algorithms that run with better complexity when compiling or parallelizing loop programs. The framework within which our algorithms operate is the polyhedral model of compilation which has been successful in the design and implementation of complex loop nest optimizers and parallelizing compilers. The algorithmic complexity and scalability limitations of the...

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The objective in this case is not only to be realistic, but also to provide new and intelligible ways of model representation. This raises new issues in data perception. The question of perception of complex data, especially regarding visual feedback, is an open question, and it is the subject of this work. This PhD thesis studied the human perception in Immersive Virtual Environments of comple...

OBJECTIVE To determine whether the prevalence of coal workers' pneumoconiosis (CWP) or progressive massive fibrosis (PMF) among United States underground miners is associated with mine size. METHODS We examined chest radiographs from 1970 to 2009 of working miners who participated in the National Coal Workers Health Surveillance Program for the presence of small and large opacities consistent...

In all over the world, mining is considered as a high-risk activity that is pregnant with serious disasters not only for miners, engineers, and other people into it, but also for people who live near the mines. In this article, our main purpose is to examine some major mine disasters and safety in mines and the case study is a coal mine in Turkey. Safety in mines is one of the most important is...