Groundwater resources of small coral islands are threatened due to short-term and long-term changes in climate. A significant short-term threat is El Niño events, which typically induce a severe months-long drought for many atoll nations in the western and central Pacific regions that exhausts rainwater supply and necessitates the use of groundwater. This study quantifies fresh groundwater reso...

Surface water samples of baseflow were collected from 20 headwater sub-watersheds which were classified into three types of watersheds (natural, urban and agricultural) in the flood, dry and transition seasons during three consecutive years (2010-2012) within a coastal watershed of Southeast China. Integrating spatial statistics with multivariate statistical techniques, river water quality vari...

INTRODUCTION We tested two treatment strategies to determine: treatment (a) prognosis (seizure frequency, mortality, suicide, and complications), (b) safety and adherence of treatment, (c) self-reported satisfaction with treatment and self-reported productivity, and policy aspects (a) number of required tablets for universal treatment (NRT), (b) cost of management, (c) manpower-gap and requirem...

The definition of a synthetic index for classifying the quality of water bodies is a key aspect in integrated planning and management of water resource systems. In previous works [1,2], a water system optimization modeling approach that requires a single quality index for stored water in reservoirs has been applied to a complex multi-reservoir system. Considering the same modeling field, this p...

Interacting with documents in the digital domain is challenging many of our notions about discourse and its boundaries. Hyperlinked documents on the World Wide Web defy easy categorization and evaluation — making the role and value of digital documents difficult to assess. Most importantly, in such fluid and complex environments it is difficult to understand the nature of the interaction betwee...

Objective In respect of the health and safety of the public, universal access to health care is an issue of the greatest importance. The geographic distribution of doctors is one of the important factors contributing to access to health care. The aim of this study is to assess the imbalances in the geographic distribution of neurosurgeons across Korea. Methods Population data was obtained fro...

After clarifying the distinction between mistakes of fact and mistakes of law, this article explores in detail an important distinction within the category of mistake of law, between mistake about the criminal law itself and mistake about noncriminal law norms that the criminal law makes relevant—for example, about the civil law of property (in a theft prosecution) or of divorce (in a bigamy pr...

The 900 consultant paediatricians in Britain might occasionally pause to reflect that they have about 30 000 paediatrician colleagues within the European Community (EC). The total number in greater Europe between Lisbon and the Urals must approach six figures. The geographic and political map of the continent has radically changed during the last year and it is likely that colleagues working in...

GOAL, SCOPE AND BACKGROUND Aquaculture activities are well known to be the major contributor to the increasing level of organic waste and toxic compound in the aquaculture industry. Along with the development of intensive aquaculture in China, concerns are evoked about the possible effects of ever-increasing aquaculture waste both on productivity inside the aquaculture system and on the ambient...

The objective of this study was to determine the extent and appropriateness of emergency department services usage by foreign workers. A prospective questionnaire survey of foreign workers who attended the Emergency Department (ED) of Tan Tock Seng Hospital was conducted from 30 December 1996 to 29 January 1997. A foreign worker was defined as a non-citizen, non-permanent resident working in Si...