BACKGROUND: Health economic evaluations are increasingly used to make the decision to adopt new medical interventions. Before such decisions, various stakeholders have invested in clinical research. But health economic factors are seldom considered in research funding decisions. Cost-effectiveness analyses could be informative before the launch of clinical research projects, particularly when a ta

Abstract—The all spectrum absorption efficiency appears in the physical bounds on antennas expressed in the polarizability dyadics. Here, it is shown that this generalized absorption efficiency is close to 1/2 for small idealized dipole antennas and for antennas with a dominant resonance in their absorption. Also, the usefulness of this parameter is analyzed for estimation of antenna performance.

Autoantibody-mediated diseases comprise a heterogeneous group of disorders in which the pathogenic potential of autoantibodies has been clearly demonstrated. In general, their treatment relies on the long-term use of systemic corticosteroids and other immunosuppressants that are associated with considerable adverse reactions. EndoS, an endoglycosidase derived from Streptococcus pyogenes, specifica

Intermediate filament (IF)-like cytoskeleton emerges as a versatile tool for cellular organization in all kingdoms of life, underscoring the importance of mechanistically understanding its diverse manifestations. We showed previously that, in Streptomyces (a bacterium with a mycelial lifestyle similar to that of filamentous fungi, including extreme cell and growth polarity), the IF protein FilP co

Very low birth weight (VLBW) and prematurity have beenassociated with an increased risk of high blood pressure (BP). We comparedBP and salivary cortisol responses to a stressful situation between adolescents with a VLBW and controls.

This study presents the institutional experience of the use of vomer flap for early closure of hard palate during unilateral complete cleft-lip repair. The purpose of this study was to determine the survival rate of the vomer flap and to investigate its effect on the subsequent palatoplasty.

Low hemoglobin concentration is associated with increased mortality, but there is disagreement with regard to the clinical definition of anemia. We aimed to evaluate the prevalence, clinical correlates and association with total and cause-specific long-term mortality across the hemoglobin distribution and for previously proposed definitions of anemia. Blood hemoglobin concentration and mean corpus

Beta-hemolytic streptococci of groups C and G, designated as Streptococcus dysgalactiae (SD), can cause severe and recurring invasive infections. In this case-control study, we aimed to identify clinical and molecular risk factors for recurrence of SD bacteremia. Twenty-two cases of recurrent SD bacteremia were identified, and median time between episodes was 6 months. The most frequent clinical m

The growing complexities of energy systems, environmental problems, and technology markets are driving and testing most energy-economy models to their limits. To further advance bottom-up models from a multidisciplinary energy efficiency policy evaluation perspective, we review and critically analyze bottom-up energy-economy models and corresponding evaluation studies on energy efficiency policies

During the DENV-3 epidemic occurred in Havana in 2001-2002, severe disease was associated with the infection sequence DENV-1/DENV-3, whilst the sequence DENV-2/DENV-3 was associated with mild/asymptomatic infections. To determine the role of the virus in the increasing severity demonstrated during the epidemic serum samples collected at different point times were studied. A total of 22 full-length

Abstract Purpose: To investigate genotype-phenotype correlation and to analyze functional and structural changes in the retina of patients with von Hippel-Lindau (VHL) disease. Methods: Thirteen patients from four families (A, B, C and D) with known VHL disease and known mutations in the VHL gene were examined. All patients underwent clinical examination and optical coherence tomography (OCT). Ful

Large-scale bioethanol production from lignocellulosic biomass will require high solids loading in the enzymatic hydrolysis step. However, slurries of pretreated lignocelluloses are complex fluids due to the fibrous nature, especially at high concentrations of water insoluble solids (WIS). A prerequisite for dealing with transport issues and for developing efficient full-scale processes is a funda

Animals relying on a celestial compass for spatial orientation may use the position of the sun, the chromatic or intensity gradient of the sky, the polarization pattern of the sky, or a combination of these cues as compass signals. Behavioral experiments in bees and ants, indeed, showed that direct sunlight and sky polarization play a role in sky compass orientation, but the relative importance of

In this paper we present an improved algorithm for finding low-weight multiples of polynomials over the binary field using coding theoretic methods. The associated code defined by the given polynomial has a cyclic structure, allowing an algorithm to search for shifts of the sought minimum-weight codeword. Therefore, a code with higher dimension is constructed, having a larger number of low-weight

Repeated intra-articular bleedings in patients with haemophilia results in a crippling arthropathy for which no specific treatment is currently available. Recent studies have shown that neoangiogenesis is involved in the pathologic process. The aim of this study was to determine if angiogenesis is dysregulated in haemophilic joint disease (HJD).

The aim was to develop a new instrument for measuring length of sleep as well as television and computer habits in school-age children. A questionnaire was constructed for use when children visit the school health care unit. Three aspects of the validity of the questionnaire were examined: its face validity, content validity, and construct validity. Test-retest reliability was assessed by giving t

Photoinduced electron transfer processes in perylene-titanium dioxide dye-semiconductor systems are studied. In particular, the influence of saturated and unsaturated aliphatic spacer groups inserted between the chromophore and the semiconductor substrate is investigated. The study is based on a recently developed method that combines first-principles electronic structure calculations to character