Forced-air warming devices are effective for the prevention of surgical hypothermia. However, these devices intake nonsterile floor-level air, and it is unknown whether they have adequate filtration measures to prevent the internal buildup or emission of microbial contaminants. We rated the intake filtration efficiency of a popular current-generation forced-air warming device (Bair Hugger model...

The potential for contamination of compounded products and the resulting infections are a serious threat to patient safety. Immediate use products are used frequently in the perioperative department, and perioperative nurses should be familiar with the guidelines and practices that aim to reduce the contamination that can occur during the sterile compounding process. Four common themes lead to ...

BACKGROUND Bacterial inclusion bodies are submicron protein clusters usually found in recombinant bacteria that have been traditionally considered as undesirable products from protein production processes. However, being fully biocompatible, they have been recently characterized as nanoparticulate inert materials useful as scaffolds for tissue engineering, with potentially wider applicability i...

Background: Considering the toxic effects of heavy metals and microbial pathogens in industrial wastewaters, it is necessary to treat metal and microbial contaminated wastewater prior to disposal in the environment. The purpose of this study is to assess the removal of heavy metals pollution and microbial contamination from a mixture of municipal and industrial wastewater using membrane bioreac...

foliar surface of plants is continuously exposed to the surrounding atmosphere and is, therefore, the main receptor of particulate pollutants. this physical trait can be used to determine the level of particulate pollution in the surroundings, as well as the ability of individual plant species to intercept and mitigate particulate pollutants. in the present study, leaf cuticle characters of fou...

background: the aim of study was to measure particle matter concentration (pm 1, pm 2.5 and pm 10 ) during normal, semi-dust and dust-event days. the impacts of some meteorological factors on particle matter concentrations were also investigated. methods: samples were collected by grimm aerosol technik (gmbh model 1/108 germany) from november 2011 to may 2012. temperature, humidity, wind speed ...

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...

Contamination of soils with depleted uranium (DU) from munitions firing occurs in conflict zones and at test firing sites. This study reports the development of a chemical extraction methodology for remediation of soils contaminated with particulate DU. Uranium phases in soils from two sites at a UK firing range, MOD Eskmeals, were characterised by electron microscopy and sequential extraction....

Globally, much weight is currently being placed on agriculture to provide food for the growing population as well as feedstock for the bioenergy industry. Unfortunately, the intensification of agricultural operations to satisfy these growing needs has been associated with a number of environmental and human health risks. A review of publications on the subject was conducted and emphasis was pla...

Several bacteria-based assays, notably Vibrio fischeri luminescence assays, are often used as environmental monitoring tool for toxicity in sediments that may serve as both sinks and secondary source of contamination in aquatic ecosystems. In this study, we used 30-s kinetic bioassays based on V. fischeri to evaluate the toxicity associated to sediments from five localities with different conta...