Isocyanates are a frequent cause of occupational asthma. Specific inhalation challenges are often required to confirm the diagnosis. The inhaled concentration has to be assessed during this procedure. However, the respiratory retention of di-isocyanate has not, to the authors knowledge, been evaluated in humans. The existence of a closed-circuit apparatus, designed to carry out these challenges...

RATIONALE Associations between oligomeric isocyanate exposure, sensitization, and respiratory disease have received little attention, despite the extensive use of isocyanate oligomers. OBJECTIVES To investigate exposure-response relationships of respiratory symptoms and sensitization in a large population occupationally exposed to isocyanate oligomers during spray painting. METHODS The prev...

BACKGROUND & OBJECTIVES Human development index (HDI) is extensively used to measure the standard of living of a country. India made a study progress in the HDI value. Extreme poverty is concentrated in rural areas of northern States while income growth has been dynamic in southern States and urban areas. This study was undertaken to assess the trends in HDI, human poverty index (HPI) and incid...

BACKGROUND The current study was conducted to estimate the integrated mean of Quality Of Life (QOL) of the general population of different countries around the world and to compare them on the grounds of the Human Development Index (HDI). METHODS Well-known international databases such as Medline, Scopus, Science Direct, Google Scholar & Google, and domestic databases including SID, IranMedex...

The aims of this study were to investigate the associations between work stress defined by the effort-reward imbalance (ERI) model and diet quality and to examine the potential role of over-commitment (OC) personality in ERI-diet relationships. A cross-sectional study was conducted in random population samples of 6340 men and 5792 women (age 45-69 years) from the Czech Republic, Russia and Pola...

By addressing several key features overlooked in previous studies, i.e. human disturbance, integration of ecosystem- and species-level conservation features, and principles of complementarity and representativeness, we present the first national-scale systematic conservation planning for China to determine the optimized spatial priorities for biodiversity conservation. We compiled a spatial dat...

In this paper, we propose a Bayesian factor analysis model with the purpose of serving as an alternate approach to calculating the UNDP’s Human Development Index, as well as providing a general methodology which can be used to augment existing indices or build new ones. In addition to addressing several potential issues of the official HDI, we also estimate an alternative “green HDI” index by a...

The paper reviews experience in advancing Human Development since 1970 by investigating behaviour among countries that made the largest improvements in HD, and those that made the least improvement. The three developing countries with the fastest growth in the HDI over the period are selected from initial low-HDI, middle HDIand high HDI country groupings, and their experience compared on a rang...

OBJECTIVE To investigate the direct and indirect cost differences associated with eating a 'healthy' or 'unhealthy' diet. DESIGN Analysis of data from a baseline postal questionnaire for the UK Women's Cohort Study, including a detailed food frequency questionnaire (FFQ), supplemented by a telephone interview on a sub-sample. SUBJECTS The first 15,191 women who responded to the questionnair...