OBJECTIVE To assess capacity to provide essential surgical services including emergency, obstetric and anaesthesia care in Papua New Guinea (PNG) in order to support planning for relevant post-2015 sustainable development goals for PNG. DESIGN Cross-sectional survey. SETTING Hospitals and health facilities in PNG. PARTICIPANTS 21 facilities including 3 national/provincial hospitals, 11 di...

Setting: Ten hospitals managing drug-resistant tuberculosis (TB) in Pakistan. Objective: To assess the implementation of TB infection control (IC) practices and reasons for non-adherence to guidelines. Design: This was a descriptive study conducted between April and October 2016 with three components: 1) non-participant observation of service delivery areas (SDAs) (n = 82) in hospitals (n = 10)...

Compressed air energy storage (CAES) is a large-scale technology that provides long-duration energy storage. It is promising for balancing the large-scale penetration of intermittent and dispersed sources of power, such as wind and solar power, into electric grids. The existing CAES plants utilize natural gas (NG) as fuel. However, China is rich in coal but is deficient in NG; therefore, a hybr...

In this data article, we present a comprehensive dataset on electrical energy consumption in a university that is practically driven by Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs). The total amount of electricity consumed at Covenant University, Ota, Nigeria was measured, monitored, and recorded on daily basis for a period of 12 consecutive months (January-December, 2016). Energy readings...

Recent national focus on the value of increasing US supplies of indigenous renewable energy underscores the need for re-evaluating all alternatives, particularly those that are large and well distributed nationally. A panel was assembled in September 2005 to evaluate the technical and economic feasibility of geothermal becoming a major supplier of primary energy for US base-load generation capa...

So far, solar energy has been viewed as only a minor contributor in the energy mixture of the US due to cost and intermittency constraints. However, recent drastic cost reductions in the production of photovoltaics (PV) pave the way for enabling this technology to become cost competitive with fossil fuel energy generation. We show that with the right incentives, cost competitiveness with grid p...

The high cost, complexity and reliance on electricity, specialized equipment and supplies associated with conventional diagnostic methods limit the scope and sustainability of newborn screening for sickle cell disease (SCD) in sub-Saharan Africa and other resource-limited areas worldwide. Here we describe the development of a simple, low-cost, rapid, equipment- and electricity-free paper-based ...

The two common chromium oxidation states, Cr(III) and Cr(VI), differ greatly in their impacts on the environment and human health. Cr(III) in most common forms in the environment is normally not a major concern to public health because it is not very soluble and therefore poorly adsorbed by the body. In contrast, Cr(VI) in the form of chromates is usually readily soluble and, because of its oxi...

energy—enough to power the great oceanic and atmospheric currents, the cycle of evaporation and condensation that brings fresh water inland and drives river flow, and the typhoons, hurricanes, and tornadoes that so easily destroy the natural and built landscape. The San Francisco earthquake of 1906, with magnitude 7.8, released an estimated 1017 joules of energy, the amount the Sun delivers to ...

In this letter I compare two measures of energy quality, energy return on energy invested (EROI) and energy intensity ratio (EIR) for the fossil fuel consumption and production of the United States. All other characteristics being equal, a fuel or energy system with a higher EROI or EIR is of better quality because more energy is provided to society. I define and calculate the EIR for oil, natu...