BACKGROUND Many patients suffer from recurrent Staphylococcus aureus infections, but there are few data examining recurrence predictors. METHODS We followed adults and children after treatment for S. aureus skin infections and their household contacts in Los Angeles and Chicago. We surveyed subjects for S. aureus body colonization, household fomite contamination, and behavioral and clinical f...

Rainwater itself is free from pathogens and contamination levels of stored rainwater are generally low if tanks are well protected with covers or lids but obvious sources of contamination of the rainwater runoff can originate from faecal matter deposited by birds, frogs, possums, rodents, and dead animals and insects, either on the roofs or in the gutters, or in the water tank itself. A number ...

This article is the second of a three-part series that investigates the application of the ventilation equations to designing and testing cleanrooms. This part is concerned with the decay equation. The recovery test, described in ISO 14644-3 (2005) is discussed, and improvements recommended. The application of the decay equation to the ‘clean up’ requirement given in the EU GGMP (2008) is also ...

The flow of transgenes into landraces and wild relatives is an important biosafety concern. The case of transgene flow into local maize varieties in Mexico (the center of origin of maize) has been intensively debated over the past 15 years, including legal, political, and environmental disputes fanned by the existence of a significant scientific controversy over the methods used for the detecti...

This study examined the specificity of disgust sensitivity in predicting contamination-related anxiety and behavioral avoidance. Participants high (n=26) and low (n=30) in contamination fear completed self-report measures of disgust sensitivity, contamination cognitions (overestimation of the likelihood and severity of contamination from everyday objects), anxiety, and depression. They then com...

Although core, animal-reminder, and contamination disgust are viewed as distinct "types" of disgust vulnerabilities, the extent to which individual differences in the three disgust domains uniquely predict contamination-related anxiety and avoidance remains unclear. Three studies were conducted to fill this important gap in the literature. Study 1 was conducted to first determine if the three t...

Agricultural pesticides are known to significantly impact the composition of communities in stream ecosystems. Moreover, agricultural streams are often characterised by loss of physical habitat diversity which may impose additional stress resulting from suboptimal environmental conditions. We surveyed pesticide contamination and rates of leaf litter decomposition in 14 1st and 2nd order Danish ...

It is well known that the bioavailability of artifical radionuclides such as Sr, Cs and Pu in contaminated soils depends on the source term origin of the contamination. Altough the behaviour of the mentioned radionuclides in the soil is also influenced by the time passed from the contamination event and the characteristics of the contamination receiving soils. The objective of the present work ...

Particulate contamination deposited on silicon wafers is typically the dominant reason for yield loss in VLSI manufacturing. The transformation of contaminating particles into defects and then electrical faults is a very complex process which depends on the defect location, size, material, and the underlying IC topography. An efficient defect macromodeling methodology based on the rigorous two-...