1,126 research outputs found
MRSA: A Challenge to Norwegian Nursing Home Personnel
In Norway, methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) is increasing in primary healthcare, associated with imported cases and outbreaks in long-term care. According to Norwegian national guidelines, MRSA-exposed healthcare workers (HCWs) and patients are tested. Carriage of MRSA leads to exclusion from work in healthcare institutions. In this study, 388 staff members in 42 nursing homes in Oslo County responded to questions about personal experience with MRSA and of own attitudes to challenges associated with the control and treatment of MRSA patients. Half (52%) of the nursing staff were concerned of becoming infected with MRSA and the consequences of this would be for own social life, family, economy, and work restriction. The concern was associated with risk factors like old buildings not suitable for modern infection control work, low staffing rate (70% without specific training in healthcare and 32% without formal healthcare education), defective cleaning and decolonization, and lack of formal routines and capacity for isolation of MRSA patients. Since the Norwegian MRSA guideline permits patients with persistent MRSA infections to move freely around in nursing homes, the anxiety of the staff to become infected and excluded from job was real
The pros and cons of 'closer coöperation' within the EU. Argumentation and recommendations
Political Science; European Unio
Photo-desorption of H2O:CO:NH3 circumstellar ice analogs: Gas-phase enrichment
We study the photo-desorption occurring in HO:CO:NH ice mixtures
irradiated with monochromatic (550 and 900 eV) and broad band (250--1250 eV)
soft X-rays generated at the National Synchrotron Radiation Research Center
(Hsinchu, Taiwan). We detect many masses photo-desorbing, from atomic hydrogen
(m/z = 1) to complex species with m/z = 69 (e.g., CHNO, CHO,
CHN), supporting the enrichment of the gas phase.
At low number of absorbed photons, substrate-mediated exciton-promoted
desorption dominates the photo-desorption yield inducing the release of weakly
bound (to the surface of the ice) species; as the number of weakly bound
species declines, the photo-desorption yield decrease about one order of
magnitude, until porosity effects, reducing the surface/volume ratio, produce a
further drop of the yield.
We derive an upper limit to the CO photo-desorption yield, that in our
experiments varies from 1.4 to 0.007 molecule photon in the range ~absorbed photons cm. We apply these findings to a
protoplanetary disk model irradiated by a central T~Tauri star
Reliable Green Routing Using Two Disjoint Paths
Network robustness and throughput can be improved by routing each demand d via two disjoint paths (2DP). However, 2DP routing increases energy usage while providing lower linkutilization and redundancy. In this paper, we address an NP-complete problem, called 2DP-EAR, that aims to switch off redundant nodes and links while guaranteeing two constraints:traffic demands must be afforded 2DP, and maximum link utilization. We design an efficient heuristic, called 2DP by Nodes First (2DP-NF). We have extensively evaluated the performance of 2DP-NF on both real and/or synthetic topologies and traffic demands. As compared to using Shortest Path routing, on the GÉANT network, 2DP-NF can save around 20% energy by switching off links only with negligible effects on path delays and link utilization, even for MLU below 30%. Furthermore, 2DP-NF can obtain 39.7% power savings by switching off both nodes and links on the GÉANT network
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