Staff time required to demonstrate the intervention and monitor patients under the low use scenario was estimated to be one hour per day at the national annual average medical assistant salary of $14.61 per hour obtained from the web site of the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, increased by 26.2% for fringe benefits and an additional 44.8% for administrative overhead.
Information on the exposures of interest, average railway and traffic noise during day (0600 hr to 2200 hours) and night (2200 hr to 0600 hours), was obtained from SONBASE, the national databank on noise pollution in Switzerland, developed by the FOEN (BAFU 2009a, 2009b).
Sixty-two 24-hours serum profiles (6 samples/24 hours) were obtained from 44 healthy boys (ages; 7.2 18.6 years) during their pubertal development, classified into five stages: prepuberty (testis, 1 2 mL), early (testis, 3 6 mL), mid (testis, 8 12 mL), late-1 (testis,15 25 mL, not reached final height) and late-2 (testis,15 25 mL, reached final height).
The information on weekly working hours was obtained from the WSWT unless the worker considered the surveyed week to be unusual, in which case their hours derived from a direct question (How many hours do you work per week?), asked of those whose employment contract specified the number of working hours.
Radiation data, geographic latitude, altitude, vapor pressure, and sunshine hours were obtained from the China National Meteorological Information Center.
Intern self-reported data on continuous work hours were obtained from the residency program.
Demographic, clinical, imaging, and analytical parameters (at admission, 24, 48, and 72 hours) were obtained from the hospital clinical reports and recorded, at discharge, in a database.
Ten ml were used for CMV Ag assay and processed within 4 hours; plasma obtained from the remaining blood was used for CMV PCR assay.
Temperature, relative humidity, and wind speed from 0800 to 1000 hours were obtained from a local fixed and validated measuring station (42R801) located 2 and 3 km from the examination locations.
Human fetal pancreases at 18-21 gestational weeks and cold ischemia time within 12-24 hours were obtained from Advanced Bioscience Resource, Oakland, CA. Tissue procurement was done in accordance with Institutional IRB regulations.
