Environmental justice scholars have suggested that because chemical plants and other hazardous facilities emit more pollutants where they face the least resistance, disadvantaged communities face a special health risk. In trying to determine whether race or income has the bigger impact on a neighborhood's exposure to pollution, however, scholars tend to overlook the facilities themselves and th...

A large number of facilities and parts of the infrastructure of offshore oil and gas reservoirs worldwide are approaching or have exceeded their original design life. The petroleum fields are still producing substantial levels of hydrocarbons which are recoverable and profitable if the field’s lifetime is extended. Thus, parts of this infrastructure are being considered for use beyond their pla...

This paper introduces a novel approach to enhance the general practice of layout planning of construction sites for producing the efficient utilization. In this work, a solution to the problem is attempted for unequal and irregular temporary facility using robust search and optimization capabilities of Ant Colony Optimization (ACO) algorithm, inspired by the foraging behaviour of real ants. The...

OBJECTIVES Intestinal carriage constitutes an important reservoir of antimicrobial-resistant bacteria, with some of the highest rates reported from Asia. Antibiotic resistance has been little studied in Laos, where some antibiotics are available without restriction, but others such as carbapenems are not available. PATIENTS AND METHODS We collected stools from 397 healthy children in 12 rando...

The periauricular percutaneous implantation of the Neuro-Stim System™ family of devices EAD, MFS, and BRIDGE is a procedure involving the use of a non-opiate, neuromodulation analgesic for relieving acute and chronic pain. It has been approved as a minimal-risk procedure by multiple governmental and institutional facilities. This retrospective report of findings will help quantify the incidence...

BACKGROUND In the mid-1990s, the prevalence rate of multidrug-resistant bacteria (MDRB) in French hospitals was high and control of MDRB spread then became a major priority in the national infection control programme (ICP). METHODS To evaluate the impact of the ICP, a national coordination of MDRB surveillance was set up in 2002. Data were collected 3 months a year in healthcare facilities (H...

Extended-spectrum β-lactamase (ESBL)-producing Escherichia coli and Klebsiella pneumoniae are the leading causes of hospital-associated infections, but community-acquired cases are increasingly being reported. This study determined the prevalence of ESBL-producing E. coli and K. pneumoniae carriers, their bla genes and risk factors of 452 patients admitted to the emergency room (ER) of Ramathib...

BACKGROUND Only a fraction of the microbial species used for anaerobic digestion in biogas production plants are methanogenic archaea. We have analyzed the taxonomic profiles of eubacteria and archaea, a set of chemical key parameters, and biogas production in samples from nine production plants in seven facilities in Thuringia, Germany, including co-digesters, leach-bed, and sewage sludge trea...

abstract background: monitoring internal exposure of individuals handling significant amounts of iodine-125 (i-125) for iodination is of great importance. these individuals are potentially exposed to external contamination, and internal contamination through inhalation, ingestion and intact skin absorption, to i-125. considering radiological toxicity of this radionuclide its monitoring in the w...