This article is based on a keynote presentation at the 12th Nordic Congress in General Practice in Trondheim, Norway in September 2002. The aim was to demonstrate the strengths and limitations of evidence-based medicine (EBM) in a primary healthcare setting. The presentation comprised two separate lectures discussing an authentic case history from everyday practice that had been presented to the a

Cubozoans differ from other cnidarians by their body architecture and nervous system structure. In the medusa stage they possess the most advanced visual system within the phylum, located in sophisticated sensory structures, rhopalia. The rhopalium is a club-shaped structure with paired pit-shaped pigment cup eyes, paired slit-shaped pigment cup eyes, and two complex camera-type eyes: one small up

Background. General practitioners need to play a more active role in the management of patients with breast cancer, specifically in screening programs, counseling, follow-up, palliative care, and psychosocial support. Special training is needed to meet these demands, Methods. An interactive training program resident on CD-ROM was developed. It includes nine cases designed according to the case met

This review presents the added value for diagnosis of acute ischemia/infarction of considering ST elevation in the 12 inverted leads (-I, -II, -II, -aVR, etc) of the standard electrocardiogram in addition to ST elevation in 12 positive leads. A small number of studies have been published showing substantial increases in sensitivity at the "cost of' slight decreases in specificity. One recent study

In a population of 956 women, attending for contraceptive advice, 131 (13.7%) were found to have BV acording to Amsel's criteria. Clue cells were detected in 200 (20.9%) women, a positive amine ('sniff') test in 191 (20.0%), a vaginal pH > or = 4.7 in 243 (25.4%) and a "characteristic" vaginal discharge in 104 (10.9%) women. Sensitivity, specificity, positive and negative predictive values in rela

Social capital is often operationalised as social participation in the activities of the formal and informal networks of civil society and/or as generalised trust. Social participation and trust are two aspects of social capital that mutually affect each other, according to the literature. In recent years there has been an increased attention to the fact that generalised trust decreases for every

In discussions on naturalism vs. stylization in the design of virtual pedagogical agents (VPAs), the smooth communication argument is one of the most central in favour of visual naturalism. Yet, this argument dissolves if we separate design into the levels of: (l) linguistic performance, where the support for naturalism is strong; (2) dynamic visual appearance, in the sense of bodily behaviour, wi

Identification of genes controlling complex diseases has proven to be difficult; however, animal models may pave the way to determine how low penetrant genes interact to promote disease development. We have dissected the Cia5/Eae3 susceptibility locus on mouse chromosome 3 previously identified to control disease in experimental models of multiple sclerosis and rheumatoid arthritis. Congenic strai

Introduction Amplification of the TNK2 gene in primary tumours correlates with poor prognosis. In accordance, TNK2 overexpression was shown to promote invasion of cancer cells - but the mechanism by which TNK2 mediates these effects is unresolved. TNK2 was suggested to regulate Cdc42-driven migration by activation of breast cancer antioestrogen resistance 1 (BCAR1); however, distinct from this eff

In this paper we present an object detection system for city environments. We focus on the problem of automatically detecting windows on buildings. Several possible applications for the detection system are given, such as recognition of buildings, pose estimation, rectification and 3D reconstruction. Experimental validations on real images are also provided. The system is capable of detecting wind

Dendritic cells (DCs) are highly specialized antigen-presenting cells that play a key role in the initiation and regulation of immune responses. The ability of DCs to process antigens and the outcome of their interaction with T cells are largely dependent on phenotype as well as maturation state of DCs. In this study, we generated DCs from rat bone marrow precursors. Bone marrow cells cultured in

Aims/hypothesis. Conformation-dependent autoantibodies directed against GAD65 are markers of Type 1 diabetes. In this study we aimed to determine whether the substitution of GAD65 with GAD67 amino acids would affect the binding of conformation-dependent GAD65 autoantibodies. Methods. We used PCR-based site-directed mutagenesis to generate a series of mutated GAD65 cDNA constructs in which specific

The solution structure is presented for the second family 4 carbohydrate binding module (CBM4-2) of xylanase 10A from the thermophilic bacterium Rhodothermus marinus. CBM4-2, which binds xylan tightly, has a beta-sandwich structure formed by I I strands, and contains a prominent cleft. From NMR titrations, it is shown that the cleft is the binding site for xylan, and that the main amino acids inte

There is a large, unutilised energy potential in agricultural waste fractions. In this pilotscale study, the efficiency of a simple two-stage anaerobic digestion process was investigated for stabilisation and biomethanation of solid potato waste and sugar beet leaves, both separately and in co-digestion. A good phase separation between hydrolysis/ acidification and methanogenesis was achieved, as

A genetic algorithm for optimal placement of optical fibers in arbitrary geometries for interstitial photodynamic therapy has been developed. Based on calculated fiber positions, the diffuse light distribution is simulated by solving the diffusion equation by means of the finite element method and the treatment time is calculated. Utilizing an instrument for interstitial photodynamic therapy that

Randomized clinical trials have established the role of third-generation aromatase inhibitors (AIs) (letrozole, anastrozole, and exemestane) as standard treatment for patients with hormone-sensitive metastatic breast cancer who have experienced disease progression with antiestrogen therapy. Significant gains in clinical efficacy and improved tolerability over progestins (megestrol acetate) and the

The combination between a protein separation technique and the PIXE method has a great potential for large surveys, including thousands of samples, in which multielemental analysis is required. Gel filtration with a Sephadex G-200 gel and a TRIS-acetate buffer was used for separating proteins in human serum. The fractions were doped with an yttrium/vanadium standard and then concentrated and pipet