Biomedical subjects

R A Cote

Publications and source records attributed to R A Cote.

4 recordsLinked to original sources

PubMed2001

Quantitative goals for a 222Rn multimedia mitigation plan.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's revised proposed 222Rn in drinking water regulation gives states or individual community water systems the option of compliance with the maximum contaminant level or compliance with the higher, alternate maximum contaminant level accompanied by the implementation of a multimedia mitigation plan. If states or water suppliers choose to comply with the alternate maximum contaminant level, the health risk reduction achieved by multimedia mitigation programs must be equal to or greater than the health risk reduction that would be achieved by compliance with the maximum contaminant level rather than the alternate maximum contaminant level. We have developed a method to determine quantitative goals for mitigating existing homes and building new 222Rn-resistant homes to achieve a health risk reduction to the public equivalent to the health risk differential between alternate maximum contaminant level and maximum contaminant level compliance. This method can be applied to an entire state, a portion of a state, or to an individual water supplier. The method was applied to North Carolina, and it was concluded that, over time, the health risk reduction achievable from alternate maximum contaminant level compliance and the implementation of a multimedia mitigation program would be much greater than from compliance with the maximum contaminant level.

Radon↗

PubMed1999

Use of 222Rn-resistant techniques in new home construction.

The objective of this project was to assess the status of the use of 222Rn-resistant construction techniques in new home construction in the eight Zone 1 counties of North Carolina. Zone 1 counties have an average predicted indoor 222Rn screening potential greater than 148 Bq m(-3)(4 pCi L(-1)). To facilitate a response from builders, a brief survey form was designed and printed on the back of a self-addressed, postage-paid postcard. This survey form was mailed to 460 home builders in the Zone 1 counties. The response rate was 17%, which can be compared to the 4.9% response rate obtained in a national survey conducted by the National Association of Home Builders Research Center. In our survey, 62% of the responding builders reported that they had built some or many homes in 1996 "using construction techniques to reduce the entry of radon into homes," but only 10% of the builders reported using these techniques for many homes. The National Association of Home Builders survey determined that, nationally, 30% of homes built in Zone 1 counties had 222Rn venting features. There is the potential for bias in the results of our survey (as well as in the results of the National Association of Home Builders survey) since the response rates were low.

Construction Materials↗

PubMed1993

Developing a standard data structure for medical language--the SNOMED proposal.

The Systematized Nomenclature of Medicine, Third Edition, SNOMED International, is a comprehensive structured nomenclature of human and veterinary medicine, the terms of which are detailed, fine grained and semantically typed. Terms are assigned to eleven independent modules (fields), each of which is systematized. Terms may be linked to on another to represent complex entities or manifestations or alternately complex terms dissected into their elemental parts. Terms are illustrated utilizing a frame representation. Efforts are in progress to build both a conceptual graph and a frame-based semantic network encompassing each SNOMED term, effectively building a knowledge base. In this way, the knowledge contained in each alphanumeric representation is made explicit. SNOMED is a linked data structure capable of faithfully representing the activities, observations and diagnoses found in the medical record in a computer processable form.

Animals↗

PubMedDate not supplied

Toward representations for medical concepts.

The authors characterize the problems inherent to mapping across or combining terms from different vocabularies, focusing especially on MeSH and SNOMED. They also describe the exploration of the development of a frame-based representation of SNOMED.

Classification↗