This study aimed to quantify concentrations of fifteen perfluoroalkyl acids (PFAAs) in the plasma of American alligators (Alligator mississippiensis) inhabiting wetlands surrounding the Kennedy Space Center (KSC) in Florida, USA located at Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge (MINWR). Approximately 10 male and 10 female alligators (ntotal = 229) were sampled each month during 2008 and 2009 t...

fire is one of the most dangerous phenomena in the world which yields main damages, healthy and economical, and is thus a major threat to hospitals. since, most of the residents in hospitals are the individuals who cannot rescue themselves in such situations, fire in hospitals is more hazardous than any other public place; hence, it can endanger several sophisticated medical equipment. therefor...

Surging wildfires across the globe are contributing to escalating residential losses and have major social, economic, and ecological consequences. The highest losses in the U.S. occur in southern California, where nearly 1000 homes per year have been destroyed by wildfires since 2000. Wildfire risk reduction efforts focus primarily on fuel reduction and, to a lesser degree, on house characteris...

Nowadays, most business operations are supported by IT systems. Therefore, their availability is critical to keep business running smoothly and continuously. In order to provide high quality IT services, a well-managed data center is required to house computer servers, storage systems, network devices, and their associated components. Downtime of the data center can be costly resulting in produ...

1. Tropical montane forests house unusual and diverse biota and are considered highly vulnerable to climate change, particularly near the trade wind inversion (TWI) – the upper end of the cloud belt that defines tropical montane cloud forest (TMCF). The upper cloud belt has two possible futures: one hypothesis postulates a ‘lifting cloud base’, raising both the upper and lower ends of the cloud...

‘These fragments I have shored against my ruins’: T. S. Eliot’s metaphor in The Waste Land evokes the evanescent frailty of human existence and worldly endeavour with a poignancy that the Anglo-Saxons would surely have appreciated. Such a concept lies at the heart of Boethius’s De consolatione Philosophiae, and perhaps prompted King Alfred to include this work amongst those which he considered ...