Forced-air-warming (FAW) is an effective and widely used means for maintaining surgical normothermia, but FAW also has the potential to generate and mobilize airborne contamination in the operating room.We measured the emission of viable and non-viable forms of airborne contamination from an arbitrary selection of FAW blowers (n=25) in the operating room. A laser particle counter measured parti...

CARAMEL (Contamination And Reliability Analysis of MicroElectromechanical Layout) is a CAD tool for MEMS fault model generation. It is based on the integrated circuit contamination analysis tool CODEF [1] and is capable of analyzing the impact of contamination particles on the behavior of microelectromechanical systems. CARAMEL’s simulation output indicates that a wide range of defective struct...

Hydrophobic sand is a relatively new method of urine collection in the rodent, comparable to the established method using a metabolic cage. Urine samples are often used in rodent research, especially for biomarkers of health changes after internal contamination from embedded metals, such as in a model of a military shrapnel wound. However, little research has been done on the potential interfer...

Testate amoebae (TA) associated with terrestrial mosses are increasingly used in ecological and ecotoxicological studies. The TA community is sensitive to changes in its environment (climate change, metal or gas pollution). In this study, a “bryophyte-TA” microsystem was investigated as an indicator of dry particulate deposition and NO2 atmospheric concentration over an 8-month period in rural,...

In 2006, organotins pollution were investigated in the coastal environment of Xiamen, China. Six species of organotin compounds including tributyltin, triphenyltin and their degradation compounds were quantified in the dissolved and particulate phases of the water, and in the sediment using GC-FPD. The concentrations of organotin compounds ranged from 2.2 to 160 ng (Sn) L(-1) dissolved in the w...

This Research Article describes a novel method for removal of particulate contamination, loosely referred to as dust, from solid surfaces using polymeric micropillars. In this Research Article, we illustrate for the first time that polymeric microfibrils of controlled interfacial and geometrical properties can effectively remove micrometric and submicrometric contaminant particles from a solid ...

Surface scattering measurement techniques can be adopted for use in spacecraft contamination control programs. A witness mirror measurement program was developed and implemented for the NASA Cosmic Background Explorer (COBE) spacecraft. Scattering measurements were obtained before and after a qualification level vibration test for several COBE prototype instruments. The measurements indicate a ...