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During the processing and utilization of coal resources, some heavy metal elements will be enriched in the environment, which is harmful to the environment and the human body.In this study, low-ash, high-sulfur coal samples and high-ash, low-sulfur coal samples from Inner Mongolia were selected for float-and-sink test and flotation, and were analyzed by inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometer (ICP-MS), X-ray diffraction analysis, X-ray fluorescence analysis, and scanning electron microscopy energy spectrum analysis.Infrared spectroscopy and other test methods were used to study the occurrence form of heavy metal arsenic in coal and its migration and enrichment law during the processing.The experimental results show that the two coal samples demonstrates the highest proportion of arsenic present in the aluminosilicate bound state, reaching more than 50 %, but the types of aluminosilicate minerals are not the same, and the occurrence of arsenic has obvious differences.Flotation results show that arsenic in low-ash and high-sulfur coal sample is mainly associated with minerals and concentrated in the denser part, while high-ash and low-sulfur coal is mainly concentrated in the part with lower density and higher organic content; there are also differences in the migration law of arsenic in flotation.During the flotation, the arsenic in low-ash and high-sulfur coal migrates to the tailings, while the arsenic in the high-ash and low-sulfur coal migrates to the clean coal.The above findings show that it is feasible to remove arsenic from low-ash and high-sulfur coal sample by flotation but the effect is not so good for high-ash and low-sulfur coal sample, indicating that the removal of arsenic must consider the impact of coal type.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicade Services (CMS) initiated chronic care management (CCM) codes to reimburse clinicians for coordination activities, but little is known about uptake over time. We find that primary care clinicians drove increasing use over 4 years--a trend that may reflect either new coordination activities or new reimbursements for existing activities. That 5% of chronic care management was denied by Medicare underscores the need for future work evaluating facilitators and barriers to use. Such insight is especially vital given the large number of eligible beneficiaries that have not received chronic care management to date, as well as the limited number of clinicians who currently deliver these services. Key words: Medicare; primary care issues; care coordination; chronic care: disease management/care management, INTRODUCTION Nearly two-thirds of the 40 million Medicare fee-for-service patients nationwide live with multiple chronic conditions. (1,2) These individuals incur over 90% of all Medicare spending while frequently having care [...]

The alkali-acid combination leaching has the characteristics of reacting with most minerals from various grades coal and high safety but the removal of silicic minerals as quartz and aluminosilicate is very limited. To further remove quartz and aluminosilicate from coal, we optimized the samples size, alkali leaching concentration, temperature and contract times of leaching process, and designed a new demineralization process of flotation pretreatment followed by alkali-acid combination leaching. On leaching process the percentage demineralization was 86.81, but appending the flotation column pretreatment the percentage demineralization reached 94.51. To investigate the removal mechanism of quartz and aluminosilicate in coal, the mixture coal samples of quartz–coal and aluminosilicate–coal was carried out by combination leaching process. Leach samples characterization of raw coal, flotation pretreatment coal, and mixture coal were done by XRD, ICP-OES, and SEM-EDS analysis. The result of the analysis showed that production of quartz and aluminosilicate in alkali leaching tend to adsorb on the surface of coal, then these products form new impurities in acid leaching. Flotation removes part of the dissociated silicic minerals in advance, which reduces the adhesion of soluble silica-containing sodium salt produced by alkali leaching to the coal surface and thus leads to the reduction of ash content. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Building organizational capacity is critical for hospitals participating in payment models such as bundled payments and accountable care organizations, particularly "co-participant" hospitals with experience in both models. This study used a national survey of American Hospital Association member hospitals with bundled payment experience, with (co-participant hospitals) or without (bundled payment hospitals) accountable care organization experience. Questions examined capacity in 4 domains: performance feedback, postacute care provider utilization, care management, and health information technology. Of 424 hospitals, 38% responded. Both co-participant and bundled payment hospitals reported high capacity for performance feedback and risk stratification and predictive risk assessment using health information technology systems. The hospital groups did not differ in care management capacity, but bundled payment hospitals reported higher postacute care provider utilization capacity. Experience with multiple payment models may prompt hospitals to make different investments or adopt different strategies than hospitals with experience in a single model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A survey of dentists in the Northwest Practice-based REsearch Collaborative in Evidence-based DENTistry (PRECEDENT) was conducted to determine the methods used by dental practitioners to diagnose and treat dentin hypersensitivity. Findings indicate that dentists rely on patients to evaluate the severity of dentin hypersensitivity.

In this paper, the zeolite was synthesized from a combination of oil shale ash and coal fly ash and was used to remove heavy metals from aqueous solution. The structural characterization of product was conducted by XRD and SEM, which proved that the ashes can be converted into zeolite. The adsorption performance of synthetic zeolite for heavy metals was evaluated by the batch experiment. The results showed that the adsorption kinetic data conformed to the pseudo-second-order kinetics model, and the Langmuir isotherm model described well the isotherm data. Based on the equilibrium studies, the selectivity sequence was in following order: Pb2+ > Cr3+ > Cu2+ > Cd2+ > Zn2+. The results of XPS indicated that the mechanism of synthetic zeolite removal of heavy metals was ion exchange. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]