in this study, concentrations of heavy metals in soils around a zn-smelter in qeshm island, iran, are investigated. calculated geoaccumulation index (igeo), contamination factor (cf), and contamination degree (cdeg) values indicate surface soil contamination by toxic metals (as, cd, pb, and zn). the results also indicate that most contaminated areas are located in the vicinity of the smelter an...

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES Health anxiety is characterized by a preoccupation with the possibility of having a serious health condition or disease. Contemporary conceptualizations of health anxiety have improved in recent years to incorporate a fear of acquiring an illness; however, there is limited experimental data demonstrating the presence of fear of contamination among health anxious indivi...

Otoliths are calcified structures in the head of fish that record environmental information about fish's life history. Gathering the elemental information from the core of an otolith corresponding to the juvenile period of fish's life is critical to discriminate the adult fish to their natal habitats reliably. A high resolution micromill has been used to isolate the otolith core from a whole ot...

A growing body of evidence indicates that toxic contamination, both indoor and outdoor, negatively affects sociocultural systems and that this in turn affects the social and psychological responses to the contamination. Using secondary case studies and primary survey, interview and observation data from three toxic contamination situations, this paper conceptualizes and summarizes the findings ...

Sensitive molecular methods, such as the PCR, can detect low-level contamination, and careful technique is required to reduce the impact of contaminants. Yet, some assays that are designed to detect high copy-number target sequences appear to be impossible to perform without contamination, and frequently, personnel or laboratory environment are held responsible as the source. This complicates d...

Purpose Colonic perforation is a lethal condition presenting high morbidity and mortality in spite of urgent surgical treatment. This study investigated the surgical outcome of patients with colonic perforation associated with retroperitoneal contamination. Methods Retrospective analysis was performed for 30 patients diagnosed with colonic perforation caused by either inflammation or ischemia...

DNA sample contamination is a serious problem in DNA sequencing studies and may result in systematic genotype misclassification and false positive associations. Although methods exist to detect and filter out cross-species contamination, few methods to detect within-species sample contamination are available. In this paper, we describe methods to identify within-species DNA sample contamination...

Recent research on mental contamination (internal, psychological feelings of dirtiness) has focused primarily on examining the experimental variables necessary to provoke contamination-related thoughts, feelings and behaviour; yet, relatively little is known regarding the individual differences among participants' mental contamination responses to these situational and experimental characterist...

This study evaluated the effects of blood contamination and decontamination methods during different steps of bonding procedures on the microtensile bond strength of two-step self-etch adhesives to dentin. Sixty extracted human molars were ground flat to expose occlusal dentin. The 60 molars were randomly assigned to three groups, each treated with a different two-step self-etch adhesive: Clear...