Background: Clinically relevant reductions in exposure to cockroach allergen, an important risk factor for asthma in inner-city households, have proven difficult to achieve in intervention trials. Objective: This study investigated a method for the abatement of cockroach allergen in low-income, urban homes. The goal was to reduce mean Bla g 1 concentrations below the previously proposed thresho...

Aim The flora of northern Mesoamerica conventionally has been thought to be derived from taxa that emigrated from South America, but this view has recently been challenged as too simple. The dominance of limestone substrata in much of northern Mesoamerica, and its rarity in the rest of the continental Neotropics, may be one cause of the complexity of northern Mesoamerican floristics. Furthermor...

Walkway floors have a significant effect on cattle locomotion and claw health, as well as on animal behaviour and general cattle house hygiene; and affected both animals’ welfare and dairy farmers’ profit. There are several qualities floors should fulfil, which contemporary walkway floors do not completely do. From an animal point of view, the most favourable of present passageway floorings in ...

BACKGROUND An adequate dance floor is said to prevent injuries. On the basis of scientific research, numerous recommendations regarding an adequate dance floor have been developed. Up to the present, however, studies have still been lacking into how far these recommendations have already been implemented in theatres with regular dance productions and/or in-house dance ensembles. The aim of this...

Developing an autonomous intelligent vacuuming robot for household floors is not an easy task. The function of an autonomous vacuuming robot can be simply stated as to autonomously vacuum household floors while interacting appropriately with things one normally expects to find on floor such as furnitures, pets, trash, etc. However, underlying this simple job description are its numerous tough j...

Despite regular disinfection and decontamination of the hospital floors and surfaces, resistant pathogens from the hospital surfaces and their transmission to humans have been reported recently. The resistance of pathogens to the disinfectant agents or failed disinfection techniques have put the routine floor and non-critical surface disinfection done in hospitals into question with regard to t...