BACKGROUND: During the two recent decades, advocacy has been a topic of much debate in the nursing profession. Although advocacy has embraced a crucial role for nurses, its extent is often limited in practice. While a variety of studies have been generated all over the world, barriers and facilitators in the patient advocacy have not been completely identified. This article presents the findings o

Both theoretical and experimental studies of pleural fluid dynamics and lung buoyancy during steady-state, apneic conditions are presented. The theory shows that steady-state, top-to-bottom pleural-liquid flow creates a pressure distribution that opposes lung buoyancy. These two forces may balance, permitting dynamic lung floating, but when they do not, pleural-pleural contact is required. The ani

In this paper, we propose a new dynamic and efficient bounding volume hierarchy for breakable objects undergoing structured and/or unstructured motion. Our object-space method is based on different ways to incrementally update the hierarchy during simulation by exploiting temporal coherence and lazy evaluation techniques. This leads to significant advantages in terms of execution speed. Furthermor

(1S, 4R, 6R)-6-Hydroxybicyclo[2.2.2]octan-2-one, (+)-1, is synthesized from its enantiomer in 6 steps using a combination of orthogonal protecting groups and red-ox chemistry.

Background: The role of water hardness as a risk factor for cardiovascular disease has been widely investigated and evaluated as regards regional differences in cardiovascular disease. This study was performed to evaluate the relation between calcium and magnesium in drinking water and diet and risk factors for cardiovascular disease in individuals living in hard and soft water areas with consider

The instantaneous response models the rapid part of the interaction between electromagnetic fields and materials. From a physical point of view the instantaneous response is non-observable and from a mathematical point of view it constitutes the principal part of the Maxwell equations. In this paper, it is shown that the instantaneous response is not uniquely determined from a given set of values

A search for sleptons, neutralinos, charginos, sgoldstinos and heavy stable charged sleptons in the context of scenarios where the lightest supersymmetric particle is the gravitino, is presented. Data collected during 2000 with the DELPHI detector at centre-of-mass energies from 204 to 208 GeV were analysed and combined with all the data collected from 1995 to 1999 at lower energies. No evidence f

The pK(a) of a C-13-enriched fatty acid probe, tetradecanoic acid, was investigated in a variety of sugar-derived (APG) surfactants by using C-13 NMR to monitor the chemical environment of the probe during titration with base. There was an increase of approximately 2 pK(a) units for the probe within the micellar systems compared to the value of acetic acid in water. Analysis shows that the interfa

A detailed analysis is presented of the diffractive deep-inelastic scattering process ep -> eXY, where Y is a proton or a low mass proton excitation carrying a fraction 1 - x(IP) > 0.95 of the incident proton longitudinal momentum and the squared four-momentum transfer at the proton vertex satisfies |t| < 1 GeV2. Using data taken by the H1 experiment, the cross section is measured for photon virtu

The fermentation characteristics of two strains of lactic acid bacteria (LAB), Lactobacillus brevis G-77 and Pediococcus damnosus 2.6 were compared in an oat-based, nondairy milk medium (Adavena® G40). Viscosity and ropiness were the main growth parameters studied. Both strains are reported to produce an exopolysaccharide (EPS) with a -glucan structure; in addition, the L. brevis strain produces a

We report on likely mixed paternity in a natural population of snow skinks (Niveoscincus mirolepidoms) from alpine Tasmania, Australia. This species is nonterritorial and males guard females after copulation, Suggesting that guarding behavior has evolved to prevent rival mating of still-receptive females. To what degree does this mate-guarding prevent rival copulations? We sampled gravid females a

The risk of seizure recurrence within the first year of life was evaluated in infants with neonatal seizures diagnosed with a combination of clinical signs, amplitude-integrated electroencephalogram (EEG) monitoring, and standard EEG. Fifty eight of 283 (4.5%) neonates in tertiary level neonatal intensive care had seizures. The mortality in the infants with neonatal seizures was 36.2%. In 31 survi

For a class of non-selfadjoint h-pseudodifferential operators in dimension 2, we determine all eigenvalues in an h-independent domain in the complex plane and show that they are given by a Bohr-Sommerfeld quantization condition. No complete integrability is assumed, and as a geometrical step in our proof, we get a KAM-type theorem (without small divisors) in the complex domain.

The Scandinavian part of the NICHD study of successive small-for-gestational-age (SGA) births included 5722 parous women from Trondheim and Bergen (in Norway) and Uppsala (in Sweden). Study enrollment took place from January 1986 through March 1988. The aim of the main study was to investigate factors associated with inhibited intrauterine growth. This paper reports on the fetal, perinatal, and ne

Popular Abstract in Swedish Denna avhandling behandlar matematik, finans och dator simuleringar. I matematiska termer handlar den om tillämpad sannolikhetsteori och från ett finansiellt perspektiv handlar den om derivatprissättning. Avhandlingen är organiserad som följer. De två första kapitlen presenterar derivatprissättning och levy processer. Kapitel 3 beskriver och undersöker en simulerings mThis thesis contributes to mathematics, finance and computer simulations. In terms of mathematics this thesis concerns applied probability and Lévy processes and from the financial point of view the thesis concerns derivative pricing. Within these two areas several simulation techniques are investigated. The thesis is organized as follows. The first two chapters are to be considered as reviews on

The kinetic response of an L-3 (sponge) phase formed in the C12E5-n-decane-brine system is studied using the Joule-heating temperature jump (JHTJ) technique. The equilibrium state of the spongelike membrane is instantaneously perturbed, and the kinetic response is monitored using a multi-angle light scattering setup. These measurements yield a time-dependent scattering intensity as a function of t