OBJECTIVE Although extensive work has been done on cigarette smoking and its effects on pulmonary function, there are limited number of studies on water-pipe smoking. The effects of water-pipe smoking on health are not widely investigated. The aim of this study was to determine the effects of water-pipe smoking on pulmonary permeability. METHODS Technetium-99m DTPA inhalation scintigraphy was...

ed from Turner, J.A.M.; Sillett, R.W.; and McNichol, M.W.Effect of carboxyhaemoglobin and plasma nicotine concentrations inprimary pipe and cigar smokers and ex-cigarette smokers. BritishMedical Journal, 2:1387-1387, 1977. ©1977, British Medical Jour-nal. Reproduced by permission. *Primary pipe and cigar smokers are those who have never been regu-lar cigarette smokers. Secon...

The incremental solution building capability of ant algorithm is exploited in this paper for the efficient layout and pipe size optimization of sanitary sewer network. Layout and pipe size optimization of sewer networks requires that the pipe locations, pipe diameters and pipe slopes are optimally determined. This problem is a highly constrained mixed-integer nonlinear programming (MINLP) probl...

The outlet feeder pipe thinning in a PHWR (Pressurized Heavy Water Reactor) is caused by a high pressure steam flow inside the pipe, which is a well known degradation mechanism called a FAC (Flow Assisted Corrosion). In order to monitor the degradation, the thickness of the outlet bends close to the exit of the pressure tube should be measured and analyzed at every official overhaul. This paper...

In a random sample of 25,129 Swedish men who responded to a questionnaire on smoking habits in 1963 the cause specific mortality was followed through 1979. In the cohort, 32% smoked cigarettes, 27% a pipe, and 5% cigars. There were clear covariations (p less than 0.001) between the amount of tobacco smoked and the risk of death due to cancer of the oral cavity and larynx, oesophagus, liver, pan...

structural health monitoring of cracked structures is one of beloved subject of researchers recently. consider of crack behavior in the water and energy pipeline is important because of environmental problems. in this paper consider of crack parameters in the underwater pipe subjected to mechanical transient load is investigated. for this purpose, three- dimensional parametric model of cracked ...

BACKGROUND Crack pipe sharing can increase health risks among people who use drugs, yet the reasons for sharing these pipes have not been well described. Therefore, we sought to identify the prevalence and correlates of crack pipe sharing among a community-recruited sample of people who use illicit drugs in Vancouver, a setting where crack pipes are provided at low or no cost. FINDINGS Data f...

Liquid Natural Gas (LNG) processing facilities contain large complex networks of pipes of varying diameter and orientation intermixed with control valves, processes and sensors. Regular inspection of these pipes for corrosion, caused by impurities in the gas processing chain, is critical for safety. Popular existing non-destructive technologies that used for corrosion inspection in LNG pipes in...

Probabilistic incremental program evolution (PIPE) is a novel technique for automatic program synthesis. We combine probability vector coding of program instructions, population-based incremental learning, and tree-coded programs like those used in some variants of genetic programming (GP). PIPE iteratively generates successive populations of functional programs according to an adaptive probabi...

Infrastructure systems of many U.S. cities are in poor condition, with many assets reaching the end of their service life and requiring significant capital investments. One primary requirement to optimize the allocation of investments in such systems is an effective assessment of the physical condition of assets. This paper addresses the physical condition assessment of drinking water distribut...