A Goal Unrealized: Patient Empowerment on Hand Hygiene- A Web-Based Survey from India.

Introduction: Each year, millions of patients around the world are affected by Health Care Associated Infections (HCAIs). Understanding and assessing the global burden of HCAI is one of the key areas of work to improve the hand hygiene.

Aim: To assess the patient empowerment and awareness on hand hygiene among online users.

Scuba diving injuries among Divers Alert Network members 2010-2011.

Background: Scuba diving injuries vary greatly in severity and prognosis. While decompression sickness (DCS) and arterial gas embolism can be tracked easily, other forms of diving injury remain unaccounted for.

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to assess rates of overall self-reported scuba-diving-related injuries, self-reported DCS-like symptoms, and treated DCS and their association with diver certification level, diving experience and demographic factors.

Per-capita claims rates for decompression sickness among insured Divers Alert Network members.

Decompression sickness (DCS) in recreational diving is a rare and usually self-limiting injury, but permanent disability can occur. Incidence rate estimates are difficult to establish because the number of divers at risk is usually unknown in population samples with well-documented DCS. We estimated the annual per-capita DCS incidence rates for 2000-2007 based on insurance claims submitted by members of the Divers Alert Network (DAN), Durham, N.

Scuba injury death rate among insured DAN members.

We calculated the annual rates of diving-related deaths among DAN-insured members in the period from 2000 to 2006 and investigated the effects of age and sex on death rate by logistic regression. We determined relative risks for divers < 50 and ≥ 50 years of age for drowning, arterial gas embolism, and cardiac incidents, the three most common disabling injuries associated with diving death. There were 1,141,367 insured member-years and 187 diving-related deaths.

Estimating ecological thresholds for phosphorus in the Everglades.

The Florida Everglades, a wetland of international importance, has been undergoing a significant shift in its native flora and fauna due to excessive total phosphorus (TP) loadings (an average of 147 t per annum from 1995to 2004) and an elevated mean TP concentration (69 microg L(-1) of TP in 2004) from agricultural runoff and Lake Okeechobee outflow despite the use of 16000 ha of stormwater treatment areas. Here, we present a Bayesian changepoint analysis of long-term experimental research and show that exceeding a surface water geometric mean TP threshold concentration of 15 microg L(-1) causes an ecological imbalance in algal, macrophyte, and macroinvertebrate assemblages as well as slough community structure. A phosphorus threshold for all trophic levels may be more realistic and protective when presented as a threshold zone (12-15 microg L(-1)) because estimates of uncertainty must be utilized to accurately define TP thresholds, which change with seasons and water depths.

Nutrient profiles in the everglades: examination along the eutrophication gradient.

We examined the concentration profiles of nutrients in the surface water, soil and pore water along the eutrophication gradient of the Water Conservation Area-2A (WCA-2A) in the northern Everglades. Phosphorus levels in the surface waters contributed by the agricultural runoff showed an exponential decrease downstream of the inflow structures attaining background values of 7-12, 7-9 and 5-6 micrograms l-1 of TP, TDP and PO4-P, respectively, at distances of 8-10 km. The pore water PO4-P concentration in the oligotrophic areas ranged between 5 and 10 micrograms l-1.