A 47-year-old African American man was admitted with 4 days of back pain, nausea and vomiting, and low urine output. There was no history of fever, dysuria, frequency, hesitancy, viral symptoms, trauma, rash, or constipation. Despite his past medical history of hypertension, diabetes mellitus, and hyperlipidemia he denied taking any medications for 18 months, including nonsteroidal anti-inflamm...

This paper describes an ontology-based organizational knowledge representation framework focused on the specification of a two kinds of ontologies: the top level ontology containing concepts characterizing the typical organizational background and COKE ontologies representing so called core organizational knowledge entities. The framework constitutes an abstract representation of organizational...

The main activity of the Houillères du Bassin de Lorraine (Lorraine Collieries), employing 23,000 operatives and executives, is coalmining. The coke production is carried out by two coke oven plants with a workforce of respectively 747 and 552 workers. The coal coking process entails the emission of noxious products such as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH) from the ovens. The influence of...

AIMS To evaluate the incidence risk of lymphohaematopoietic cancers for the 1986-94 period in Cornigliano, a district of Genoa (Italy), where a coke oven is located a few hundred metres from the residential area. METHODS The whole of Genoa and one of its 25 districts (Rivarolo) were selected as controls. The trend of risk around the coke oven was evaluated via Stone's method, while the geogra...

The blast-furnace process consists of a large number of processes that are physicochemical, thermal and mechanical interconnected processes. In addition to main processes consisting of iron oxides reduction, pig iron and slag melt creation, also realised are fuel combustion, gas flow, charge and melt flow, dissociation and other reactions in the solid and liquid phases. Inputs to the blast-furn...

DNA repair is an essential mechanism for cells to maintain their genomic integrity under endogenous or exogenous assault. Reduced DNA repair capacity (DRC) is associated with increased risk for several environmentally related cancers. The micronucleus in peripheral lymphocytes has been validated as a biomarker of chromosomal damage, increasing cancer risk in human populations. We hypothesized t...

OBJECTIVES This study evaluated the levels of exposure to polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) and their relationship with oxidative DNA damage among Vietnamese coke-oven workers. METHODS We collected urine from 36 coke-oven workers (exposed group) at the beginning and end of the shift on 2 consecutive days. We also collected urine from 78 medical staff (control group). Information was col...