US Geological Survey, 12201 Sunrise Valley Drive, MS 956, Reston, VA 20192, U.S.A. Department of Immunology, Clinical Laboratory No.1, Pta. E. Murgu No.2, RO-1900 Timisoara, Romania Florida Community College at Jacksonville, Jacksonville, FL 32256,U.S.A. Department of Environmental & Toxicologic Pathology, Armed Forces Institute of Pathology, 14th and Alaska Ave. N.W., Washington, D.C. 20306-60...

1Department of Clinical and Experimental Medicine, Faculty of Health Sciences, Linköping University; Department of Surgery, County Council of Östergötland, 58185 Linköping, Sweden 2CNR c/o Dipartimento di Biologia e Patologia Cellulare e Molecolare, Istituto di Oncologia Sperimentale “G. Salvatore”, Università Federico II, 80131 Napoli, Italy 3Universitätsklinik und Poliklinik für Allgemein-, V...

The VALG project is introducing e-voting to municipal and county elections to Norway. Part of the e-voting system is a mix-net along the lines of Puiggalí et al. a mix-net which can be efficiently verified by combining the benefits of optimistic mixing and randomized partial checking. This paper investigates their mix-net and proposes a verification method which improves both efficiency and pri...

OBJECTIVES Chinese county hospitals have been excessively enlarging their scale during the healthcare reform since 2009. The purpose of this paper is to examine the technical efficiency and productivity of county hospitals during the reform process, and to determine whether, and how, efficiency is affected by various factors. SETTING AND PARTICIPANTS 114 sample county hospitals were selected ...

Implementation issues in chemistry and transport models S. E. Strahan and B. C. Polansky University of Maryland, Baltimore County Goddard Earth Science and Technology Center, 5523 Research Park Dr., Suite 320, Baltimore, MD, 21 228, USA Science Systems and Applications, Inc., 10210 Greenbelt Rd., Suite 600, Lanham, MD, 20 706, USA Received: 2 September 2005 – Accepted: 28 September 2005 – Publi...

BACKGROUND In China, public hospital reform has been underway for almost 5 years, and 311 pilot county hospitals are the current focus. This study aimed to assess the job satisfaction and active participation of medical staff in the reform. A total of 2268 medical staff members in pilot and non-pilot county hospitals in Hubei, China, were surveyed. METHODS Questionnaires were used to collect ...

BACKGROUND China has since the beginning of this millennium engaged in substantial Universal Health Coverage (UHC) reforms. This paper adds evidence on how equity in level of health service utilization changed after UHC reforms. METHODS Our study was based on household survey data from 30 counties in Sichuan province in 2004 and 2011. We introduce an unusual outcome variable, namely level of ...

OBJECTIVE To reduce tobacco consumption and exposure to passive smoking in China. METHODS Discussion consisting of 80 focus groups and 35 interviews were held in three rural intervention counties of Jiangxi, Henan, and Sichuan Provinces. Participants came from hospitals, schools, rural areas, and urban areas. RESULTS Tobacco use and exposure to passive smoking were widely prevalent in the i...

A study was conducted in Santa Cruz County to estimate the prevalence and distribution of the agents of Lyme disease, human granulocytic (HGE), and human monocytic (HME) ehrlichiosis in 1,187 adult ixodid ticks collected from eight public-use recreation areas over a 2-yr period. Borrelia burgdorferi, the causative agent of Lyme disease, was detected by a polymerase chain reaction (PCR) in 44 of...

Nakuru North sub-county is a peri-urban area which has both dry and wet seasons. Its residents rely mostly on untreated water sources for daily water needs due to unreliable water supply from the urban council. However, this water has not been evaluated on its quality despite residents solely depending on it. This study was aimed at determining the physico-chemical and bacteriological quality o...