Results Syndromic surveillance reporting Routine weekly surveillance bulletins are produced from each syndromic system: these reports present the current indicator trends and encapsulate the main summary findings from the weeks surveillance, providing a number of key messages for health professionals.1 Heatwave surveillance Syndromic surveillance plays an important part in assessing the health ...

Although water-cooled chillers are more energy efficient than air-cooled chillers, a majority of chilled water systems use air-cooled chillers. In cold weather climates, air-cooled chillers are capable of functioning in low ambient temperatures with few operational concerns, where as water-cooled chiller systems must be equipped to prevent cooling tower freezing. The integrated chiller system a...

After an unusually long winter in Europe and a very cold and wet spring that lasted until late May, many perennial plants have come late into leaf and flower. As such, 2013 will probably see a late harvest and possibly reduced yields, despite the hot weather that came later in July. This response by plants to a long cold period is a normal adaptation to adverse weather conditions, but this unus...

BACKGROUND Chilblains or perniosis is a moderately severe form of cold injury, localized to peripheral parts of the body, which occurs after exposure to non-freezing temperatures and damp conditions. Although inter-individual variations exist with respect to susceptibility to develop chilblains, no study has been carried out in this region to determine the role of different weather conditions e...

Background: This study aimed to assess the relationship between cold temperature and daily mortality in the Republic of Ireland (ROI) and Northern Ireland (NI), and to explore any differences in the population responses between the two jurisdictions. Methods: A time-stratified case-crossover approach was used to examine this relationship in two adult national populations, between 1984 and 2007....

We assessed the incidence and etiology of hyponatremia in the 100-mile (161 km) Iditasport ultramarathon. Subjects (8 cyclists, 8 runners) were weighed and serum sodium was measured pre- and post-race. Race diets were analyzed to determine fluid and sodium consumption. Subjects were split by post-race serum sodium concentration into hyponatremic and normonatremic groups for statistical analyses...

Freezing-thawing resistance is a very significant characteristic for concrete in severe environment (such as cold region with the lowest temperature below 0°C). In this study, ordinary-air-entrained (O-A-E) concrete was produced in a laboratory environment; the compressive strength, cubic compressive strength of C50, C40, C30, C25, and C20 ordinary-air-entrained concrete, tensile strength, and ...

BACKGROUND This study aimed to assess the relationship between cold temperature and daily mortality in the Republic of Ireland (ROI) and Northern Ireland (NI), and to explore any differences in the population responses between the two jurisdictions. METHODS A time-stratified case-crossover approach was used to examine this relationship in two adult national populations, between 1984 and 2007....

A retrospective study of 46 patients who presented with proved testicular torsion over five years at two Dublin hospitals showed that in 40 cases torsion had occurred when the temperature was under 2 degrees C; the incidence of torsion was higher during the cold months of the year. Both of these findings were statistically significant. These and other results suggest that the ambient temperatur...