Pseudomonas aeruginosa is an opportunistic pathogen that rarely causes pneumonia in otherwise healthy patients. We describe a case of community-acquired P. aeruginosa pneumonia in a previously healthy individual who likely acquired the infection from a home humidifier.

A microbiological survey was undertaken on the eight patients in the Liverpool District who have a humidifier attachment on their oxygen concentrator. All but one of the humidifiers were contaminated with potentially pathogenic bacteria.

A key characteristic of the smart grid is its multi-directional flow of power and information and hence transformation of the demand side management to demand side integration philosophy at low level voltage. This implies that buildings must also provide service to the electrical smart grid in as much as it is also serviced by the latter. Consequently the phenomenon of active loads has become e...

OBJECTIVE To carry out an in vitro study of Boussignac CPAP valve performance with a new humidification method, using a heated humidifier. METHODS Two heated humidifiers were evaluated: Fisher & Paykel MR850, and Covidien Kendall Aerodyne 2000. Baseline measurements were taken in all experimental conditions without humidification. The Boussignac valve was adapted to the input of the humidific...

The demand for large antennas in future space missions has increasingly stimulated the development of deployable membrane antenna structures owing to their light weight and small stowage volume. However, there is little literature providing a comprehensive review and comparison of different membrane antenna structures. Space-borne membrane antenna structures are mainly classified as either para...

Manufacturers around the globe are competing for the identification of innovative value propositions to survive in the competitive and complex market. This paper is intended to investigate implementation of Value Engineering (VE) technique into the product design concept for necessary changes in design of the humidifier system in order to lower unnecessary costs and to increase quality of the p...

The humidification-dehumidification system is one of the desalination technologies that can utilize non-fossil thermal sources and requires insignificant input energy. This system is usually suitable for rural areas and places far from the main sources of energy. The purpose of this study is to obtain the most suitable working conditions and dimensions of this system. In this research, thermody...

We report a fatal case of community-acquired Legionnaires' disease in an infant aged under six months. Epidemiological and microbiological investigations suggested that a free-standing cold water humidifier using domestic tap water contaminated with Legionella pneumophila serogroup 1 served as a vehicle for infection. These findings were corroborated by sequence-based typing (SBT). Humidifier-a...

The impact of mass extractions and injections as a method for increasing the energetic performance of fixed-size humidification-dehumidification desalination systems is examined. Whereas previous studies of this problem have been restricted to thermodynamic models, the use of a more complete model that includes transport provides the ability to quantify the impact of mass extractions/injections...