OBJECTIVES: Right ventricular heart rupture is a devastating complication associated with negative pressure wound therapy (NPWT) in cardiac surgery. The use of a rigid barrier has been suggested to offer protection against this lethal complication, by preventing the heart from being drawn up and damaged by the sharp edges of the sternum. The aim of the present study was to investigate whether a ri

The role of airway clearance in inhaled drug therapy is complex. Disease-induced bronchoconstriction results in a central drug-deposition pattern where mucociliary clearance is most efficient. When drug-induced bronchodilation is achieved, deposition and uptake becomes more peripheral, and because there is less mucociliary clearance in the periphery, this will lead to an unintentional increase in

In this paper we present some ideas for knowledge representation formalism suitable for rational agents which learn how to choose the best conditional, partial plan in any given situation. In our architecture, the agent uses an incomplete symbolic inference engine, employing Active Logic, to reason about consequences of performing actions — including information-providing ones. It utilises a simpl

The World Health Organization (WHO) tuberculosis (TB) symptom screening instrument (WHO-TB) can identify human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)-infected individuals at low risk of tuberculosis (TB); however, many patients report WHO-TB symptoms and require further TB investigations. We hypothesized that further clinical scoring could classify subjects with a positive WHO-TB screening result (WHO-TB(+)

ABSTRACT: BACKGROUND: It is well known that physicians' night-call duty may cause impaired performance and adverse effects on subjective health, but there is limited knowledge about effects on sleep duration and recovery time. In recent years occupational stress and impaired well-being among anaesthesiologists have been frequently reported for in the scientific literature. Given their main focus o

PURPOSE: Several inherited corneal disorders in humans result from mutations in the transforming growth factor beta induced gene (TGFBI), which encodes for the extracellular transforming growth factor beta induced protein (TGFBIp) that is one of the most abundant proteins in the cornea. We previously reported a significant amount of TGFBIp in plasma by immunoblotting using the only TGFBIp antiseru

BACKGROUND: The escalating global epidemic of obesity is of worldwide concern because of its association with several chronic diseases and premature mortality. Some subgroups seem to be more affected than others. The aim of this study was to examine whether the mean BMI (adjusted for age) and the prevalence of obesity (adjusted for all the explanatory variables) changed between 2000/01 and 2004/05

Epithelial to mesenchymal transition (EMT) of cancer cells involves loss of epithelial polarity and adhesiveness, and gain of invasive and migratory mesenchymal behaviours. EMT occurs in prostate cancer (PCa) but it is unknown whether this is in specific areas of primary tumours. We examined whether any of eleven EMT-related proteins have altered expression or subcellular localisation within the e

OBJECTIVE: To investigate the association between marital status and daily smoking, adjusting for economic conditions and trust. STUDY DESIGN: Cross-sectional study. METHODS: In total, 27,757 individuals aged 18-80 years answered a postal questionnaire, which represents 59% of the random sample. A logistic regression model was used to investigate the association between marital status and daily sm

Background The potential mutagenic effects of cancer therapies and the growing number of young male cancer survivors have given rise to concern about the health of their offspring. Methods We identified all singleton children born alive in Denmark between 1994 and 2004 and in Sweden between 1994 and 2005 (n = 1 777 765). Of the 8670 children with a paternal history of cancer, 8162 were conceived n