The following ten evaluations were submitted by a COM 333 student during the Spring 2000 semester, and formed much of the research material for the student's final paper, which was about Nitrox scuba diving. Note that there is a web-based form to submit these evaluations.
http://www.naui.org/table.htm
This website has the NAUI (National Association of Underwater Instructors) dive tables. These tables allow scuba divers to determine a number of parameters about their dives, such as maximum dive time, residual nitrogen (how much nitrogen dissolves in their bodies during a single dive), and Residual Nitrogen Time (equal to the time a diver should consider having been at a given depth for a planned repetitive dive). I was trained and certified by PADI (Professional Association of Diving Instructors), so I was familiar with the PADI dive tables. Given this familiarity, it was very simple to figure out how to use the NAUI dive tables. Note that these tables assume that the divers are breathing compressed air (roughly 21% oxygen). This site has definitive data and is very useful.
http://www.nitroxdiver.com/tables.htm
This site has modified NAUI dive tables for divers using two different nitrox mixtures (32% and 36% oxygen, respectively). This site is part of the NitroxDiver.com website, and is very definitive. As it says on the homepage, “Since the launching of this site in May of 1998, more than 165,000 divers have visited our pages. Divers and instructors worldwide rely on this site as their resource for enriched air, trimix, wreck, technical diving training, information, and instructor listings. Stop back often as more and more gets added. We also invite you to submit articles for our library.” The most useful data on this site is a comparison of the maximum dive time when breathing different oxygen mixtures. For example, at a depth of 80 feet, the MDT with air is 35 minutes, with EAN 32% is 50 minutes, and with EAN 36% is 60 minutes.
http://www.searover.com/rca/scuba/scuba_index.shtml
This is a personal page of Randy Allen, of Houston, Texas. It has an incredible number of links to various scuba resources. One of the links is to:
http://www.searover.com/rca/scuba/opinions/scuba_opn_why_nitrox.shtml
This page, which is entitled “Why Nitrox?”, is a wonderful summary of the reasons to use Nitrox. This page alone could easily form the outline for my research paper! This would be a good page for anyone to read if they wanted a good overview of the reasons behind Nitrox diving.
http://www.gulftel.com/~scubadoc/nitrox.htm
This is part of a website maintained by “scubadoc” (Ern Campbell, MD), with a huge amount of resources in the area of Diving Medicine Online. There is a bulletin board, an e-mail listserv, and links to all sorts of medical issues related to diving on the main ~scubadoc page. The nitrox.htm page not only lists the advantages of Nitrox, it also lists the DISADVANTAGES. It also has a link to a page with 65 links to Nitrox diving [see next website evaluated].
http://www.gulftel.com/~scubadoc/nitroxlnks.html
This is the page with the 65 links to Nitrox diving. This is a great resource! I found several of them to be very useful background material. However, most of them were technical (specialized equipment for dive shop personnel to fill Nitrox tanks) or commercial (dive shops and dive trips which specialize in Nitrox diving). However, even some of the commercial sites, such as the site for “Best Maui Diving” (in Maui, Hawaii), has some good information about Nitrox diving. See:
http://members.tripod.com/divingnitrox/
http://www.teleport.com/~belize/nitrox08.htm
This is the personal page of Fred Good, of the St. George's Lodge in Belize. He is a diving instructor with over 2000 dives using Nitrox. As he states on this page, “In the course of planning my nitrox dives and teaching nitrox diving to my students, I have found easier ways to present the pertinent information.” So this page has very useful information about Nitrox diving. It has the best explanation of the Maximum Allowable Depth (MAD) that a person can reach when using various Nitrox mixtures.
http://www.scubacentral.com/links/ead.html
Scubacentral.com appears to be a commercial venture of an individual named Rick Williams. The page at ead.html is a very good reference about Nitrox diving, including references to several scientific journal articles (one dealing with the “Inert Gas Theory of Decompression Sickness”). This page also emphasizes some of the disadvantages of Nitrox diving.
http://209.203.202.229/index1.html
This is the homepage for IANTD (International Association of Nitrox and Technical Divers). As it says on this page, “IANTD Is The World's Largest Scuba Diving Training Organization Of Openwater, Nitrox, Enriched Air, Overhead Environment, Cave, Wreck, Rebreather, Trimix, Gas Blenders, Technical Scuba Divers, Instructors and Instructor Trainers.” The best part about this site are the links to the “Technical Diver Encyclopedia” and to the “Nitrox Diver Magazine”. One of the articles in the magazine is “Stress And Decompression Illness: Are They Related??? by Robert F. Millott, Ed.D., I#265, Milledge Murphey, Ph.D., Mary Beth Horodyski, Ph.D., and Neil Delude, Ph.D. Interesting reading! But this site has too much of a technical focus and really isn’t useful to me for my research paper.
http://www.rexdivecenter.com/about_nitrox.htm
This web page is part of the Rex Dive Center (Norwalk, CT) website. It has the text of a paper entitled “Recreational Nitrox Diving”, by R.W. Bill Hamilton, PhD and Joel Silverstein; reprinted with permission from: www.nitroxdiver.com. This is a really good article, which could easily serve as the outline for my research paper. At the bottom of the page, it states “This article is an adaptation from the introduction of: NAUI Nitrox: A Guide to Diving with Oxygen Enriched Air. This full color 14 chapter text is part of a comprehensive enriched air training program.” So this seems very credible and authoritative.
http://diver.ocean.washington.edu/nfaq.html
This site is maintained by Eric Lundquist, Systems Manager, School of Oceanography, and Michael Parker, Systems Manager, Dept. of Radiology, both of the University of Washington. This particular page has a FAQ with 24 questions and answers about Nitrox diving. This is a great resource! Very complete. Certainly one of the best online resources I found.