We examined the original manuscripts of a French national survey conducted in 1933 on the state of common eelgrass Zostera marina beds along the French Atlantic coasts during the period when wasting disease struck the entire North Atlantic population in the 1930s. Based on GIS related techniques and old sets of aerial photographs, we present the first accurate mapping of the Z. marina beds befo...

INTRODUCTION A peritoneal loose body is a rare finding and is sometimes founded incidentally during laparotomy or autopsy. A giant peritoneal loose body, measuring more than 50mm, is very rare, and only a few cases of laparoscopic extraction of these giant bodies have been reported in the literature. PRESENTATION OF CASE A 70-year-old man presented for evaluation of urinary frequency. He had ...

Boolean Expression Diagrams (BEDs) is a new data structure for representing and manipulating Boolean functions. BEDs are a generalization of Binary Decision Diagrams (BDDs) that are capable of representing any Boolean circuit in linear space and still maintain many of the desirable properties of BDDs. This paper demonstrates that BEDs are well suited for solving the combinational logic-level ve...

INTRODUCTION The epidemiology of Clostridium difficile infection (CDI) has changed in the last two decades. There is a lack of information regarding incidence and severity of CDI, especially in the developing world. METHODS This was a retrospective and observational study from four hospitals of three Mexican cities. Patients were diagnosed with CDI when presented with loose stools and had at ...

BACKGROUND The purpose of the present study was to evaluate the inequality of geographical distribution of non-cardiac intensive care beds in Iran using the Gini coefficient. METHODS The population information of Iran's provinces in 2006 was obtained from The Statistical Center of Iran and the number of non-cardiac intensive care beds (including ICU, PostICU and NICU beds) in all provinces wa...

INTRODUCTION In order to improve health, hospital sources such as beds and staffing should be properly allocated and used. The aim of this study is reallocation of Shafa hospital beds in Kerman using a goal-programming model. METHODS This study was an applied cross-sectional study, which used the goal programming model and software WinQSB to optimize bed allocation. By review of the literatur...

BACKGROUND Equitable distribution of health system resources has been a serious challenge for long ago among the health policy makers. Conducted studies have mostly ever had emphasis on equality rather than equity. In this paper we have attempted to examine both equality and equity in resources distribution. METHOD This is an applied and descriptive study in which we plotted Lorenz and concen...

A total of 69 soil samples from 20 community gardens in New York City (New York, USA) were collected and analyzed for 23 polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) and black carbon. For each garden, samples were collected from nongrowing areas (non-bed) and from vegetable-growing beds, including beds with and without visible sources of PAHs. The sum of the US Environmental Protection Agency's 16 p...