BACKGROUND 2002 marked the first time that the rate of hospital spending in the United States out-paced the overall health care spending rate of growth since 1991. As hospital spending continues to grow and as reimbursement for hospital expenses has moved towards the prospective payment system, there is still increasing pressure to reduce costs. Hospitals have a major incentive to decrease reso...

Treatment with radiotherapy x-rays at 6 MV energy produces a build-up effect whereby a smaller dose is delivered to the patient's skin compared to the tumour dose. With anterior fields, no material is normally placed over the patient's skin, thus providing the maximum skin sparing possible with the beam configuration used. A posterior beam normally passes through the treatment couch top and inc...

Cliff swallows (Petrochelidon pyrrhonota) are migratory birds that breed in colonies and frequently nest on highway structures. Protected by the Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918, swallows in their active nests cannot be harmed by nesting-control methods. This causes problems and delays in maintenance of structures by divisions of many departments of transportation. We evaluated 2 aversion stra...

The side openings of a shade structure have a direct influence on where the shade is located and the level of scattered UV in the shaded area. UV exposures were assessed for the decrease in scattered UV beneath specific shade structures by the use of two types of side-on protection, namely, polycarbonate sheeting and evergreen vegetation. Dosimetric measurements conducted in the shade of a scal...

A double-blind phase III malaria prevention trial was conducted in two refugee camps using pre-manufactured insecticide-treated plastic sheeting (ITPS) or untreated polyethylene sheeting (UPS) randomly deployed to defined sectors of each camp. In Largo camp the ITPS or UPS was attached to inner walls and ceilings of shelters, whereas in Tobanda the ITPS or UPS was used to line only the ceiling ...

Medical-grade silicone elastomers were subjected to accelerated aging in saline to verify the hydrolytic stability of the elastomer. Tensile strength, elongation at break, and the elastomer stress measured at 100% or 200% elongation did not change significantly for peroxide-cured sheeting aged in 37 degrees C or 100 degrees C saline for 45 h. Under similar condition, hydrosilylation cured sheet...

Lightweight steel concrete structures (LSCS) - an innovative energy-efficient building structure type that can be used both as load-bearing and enclosing one. They consist of profiled usually galvanized cold-bent filled with a monolithic foam 400kg/m 3 density fiber cement sheets sheathing. These in industrial civil buildings internal external bearing wall slabs, roof covering. According to the...

the paper describes an investigation about the application of the new multiple-impedance discontinuities model for optimizing profile diffuser barriers. the new multiple-impedance discontinuities model is much faster than the numerical method, thus it is used in an optimization process. the a-weighted insertion loss was used for the traffic noise spectrum. the result of optimization, which is d...

Abstract The shear–driven, bilayer flow of two immiscible liquids sandwiched between a moving planar and stationary corrugated plate, in parallel alignment under Stokes conditions, is explored. motivation, partly inspired by biomimetic considerations, the use surface texturing/topography to reduce friction wear while increasing load carrying capacity lubrication problems. starting point associa...