This study focused upon the determination of physicochemical and microbial properties, including metals, selected anions and coliform bacteria in drinking water samples from hand-dug wells in the Kumasi metropolis of the Republic of Ghana. The purpose was to assess the quality of water from these sources. Ten different water samples were taken from different parts of Kumasi, the capital of the Ashanti region of Ghana and analyzed for physicochemical parameters including pH, electrical conductivity, total dissolved solids, alkalinity total hardness and coliform bacteria. Metals and anions analyzed were Ca, Mg, Fe, Mn, NO₃^–, NO₂^–, SO₄^2-, PO₄^2-, F^– and Cl^–. Bacteria analysed were total coliform and Escherichia coli.

The data showed variation of the investigated parameters in samples as follows: pH, 6.30-0.70; conductivity (EC), 46-682 µS/cm; PO₄^3-, 0.67-76.00 mg/L; F^–, 0.20-0.80 mg/L; NO₃^–, 0-0.968 mg/L; NO₂^–, 0-0.063 mg/L; SO₄^2-, 3.0-07.0 mg/L; Fe, 0-1.2 mg/L; Mn, 0-0.018 mg/L. Total coliform and Escherichia coli were below the minimum detection limit (MDL) of 20 MPN per 100 ml in all the samples. The concentrations of most of the investigated parameters in the drinking water samples from Ashanti region were within the permissible limits of the World Health Organization drinking water quality guidelines.

Ten plants indigenous to Sudan and of common use in Sudanese folk-medicine, were examined in vitro for antimalarial activity against schizonts maturation of Plasmodium falciparum, the major human malaria parasite. All plant samples displayed various antiplasmodial activity. Three plant extracts caused 100% inhibition of the parasite growth at concentrations of plant material ≤ 500 ug/ml. The two most active extracts that produced 100% inhibition of the parasite growth at concentration of plant material ≥ 50 µg/ml were obtained from the seeds of Nigella sativa and the whole plant of Aristolochia bracteolata. The ten plants were phytochemically screened for their active constituents. The two most active plants showed the presence of sterols, alkaloids and tannins.

Silicosis may be defined as the disease resulting from chronic occupational exposure to silica dust. Silica is primarily composed of quartz dust and has been classified since 2000 as a known human carcinogen by the U.S. government. Silicosis may lead to impairment of lung function resulting from fibrosis of the lungs. This may in turn lead to an increased susceptibility to the development of tuberculosis. Respirable particles are in the size range of less than one micrometer to as large as 30 micrometers. Silicosis is an untreatable, but preventable disease. This review explores the history of silicosis in the U.S. mining industry, including case studies of occupational silicosis.

Food safety is an important public health issue in the U.S. Eating at restaurants and other food service facilities increasingly has been associated with food borne disease outbreaks. Food safety training and certification of food mangers has been used as a method for reducing food safety violations at food service facilities. However, the literature is inconclusive about the effectiveness of such training programs for improving food safety and protecting consumer health. The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of food manger training on reducing food safety violations. We examined food inspection reports from the Toledo/Lucas County Health Department (Ohio) from March 2005 through February 2006 and compared food hygiene violations between food service facilities with certified and without certified food managers. We also examined the impact on food safety of a food service facility being part of a larger group of facilities.

Restaurants with trained and certified food managers had significantly fewer critical food safety violations but more non-critical violations than restaurants without certified personnel. Institutional food service facilities had significantly fewer violations than restaurants, and the number of violations did not differ as a function of certification. Similarly, restaurants with many outlets had significantly fewer violations than restaurants with fewer outlets, and training was not associated with lower numbers of violations from restaurants with many outlets. The value of having certified personnel was only observed in independent restaurants and those with few branches. This information may be useful in indicating where food safety problems are most likely to occur. Furthermore, we recommend that those characteristics of institutional and chain restaurants that result in fewer violations should be identified in future research, and efforts made to apply this knowledge at the level of individual restaurants.

The terms bioaccumulation and bioconcentration refer to the uptake and build-up of chemicals that can occur in living organisms. Experimental measurement of bioconcentration is time-consuming and expensive, and is not feasible for a large number of chemicals of potential regulatory concern. A highly effective tool depending on a quantitative structure-property relationship (QSPR) can be utilized to describe the tendency of chemical concentration organisms represented by, the important ecotoxicological parameter, the logarithm of Bio Concentration Factor (log BCF) with molecular descriptors for a large set of non-ionic organic compounds. QSPR models were developed using multiple linear regression, partial least squares and neural networks analyses. Linear and non-linear QSPR models to predict log BCF of the compounds developed for the relevant descriptors. The results obtained offer good regression models having good prediction ability. The descriptors used in these models depend on the volume, connectivity, molar refractivity, surface tension and the presence of atoms accepting H-bonds.

Fluorophenols are used as agrochemicals and released into environment as pollutants. Cultured marine microalga Amphidinium crassum (Gymnodinium) glucosylated 2-fluorophenol (1), 3-fluorophenol (2), and 4-fluorophenol (3) to the corresponding β-D-glucosides, ie, 2-fluorophenyl β-D-glucoside (4, 60 µg/g cells), 3-fluorophenyl β-D-glucoside (5, 20 µg/g cells), and 4-fluorophenyl β-D-glucoside (6, 40 µg/g cells). On the other hand, 2-, 3-, and 4-fluorophenols were efficiently converted by immobilized A. crassum in sodium alginate gel to give their β-D-glucosides in higher yields (4: 140 µg/g cells; 5: 60 µg/g cells; 6: 100 µg/g cells). In repetitive batch use, the immobilized cells of A. crassum maintained the potential for the glucosylation of the substrate fluorophenol after 5 times of usage.

The purpose of this study was to examine the influence of the gravitation of the Moon on the frequency of births in Kyoto, Japan. A retrospective cohort analysis of 1007 consecutive births without the use of the induction agents was conducted on a population of births in a private midwife hospital from January, 1966 to December, 2000. There was a significant increase in the cases of births, when the gravitation of the Moon to the Earth was less than 31.5 N. Results of this study suggest that the gravitation of the Moon has an influence on the frequency of births.