BACKGROUND: Chronic leg ulcers remain a challenge to the treating physician. Such wounds often need skin grafts to heal. This necessitates a readily available, fast, simple, and standardized procedure for grafting.OBJECTIVES: The aim of this work was to test a novel method developed for outpatient transplant procedures.METHODS: The procedure employs a handheld disposable dermatome and a roller min

Objectives To describe the development, implementation and lessons learned of lifestyle intervention to promote appropriate gestational weight gain among Hispanic pregnant women. Design The intervention was informed by an empowerment oriented theoretical framework, and targeted women in the Pregnancy and Early Life Improvement Study. Methods The nutrition component consisted of recommendations for

Debattartikel om utredningsdirektiv för lagstiftning om hemlig dataavläsning. Artikeln diskuterar den principiellt viktiga frågan om hur långt man kan gå för att skydda ett öppet och fritt demokratisk samhälle med polisiära övervakningsbefogenheter innan det där fria och öppna börja tummas på av själva befogenheterna, och tar utöver den avvägningsproblematiken upp risken med att upprätthålla säker

Rivers transport similar to 6 x 10(12) mol yr(-1) of dissolved Si (DSi) from the continents to the oceans. They also carry amorphous silica (ASi), solid phases likely to dissolve in seawater. Unfortunately, the magnitude of this flux is poorly constrained at a global scale. We present 92 new ASi values from suspended particulate matter (SPM) from the Ganges basin. Bulk SPM is 1.2% ASi, and mean AS

Background: Recent evidence shows that arthroscopic partial meniscectomy (APM) offers no benefit over conservative treatment of patients with a degenerative meniscus tear. However, patients who report mechanical symptoms (sensations of knee catching or locking) may benefit from APM. Objective: To assess whether APM improves mechanical symptoms better than sham surgery. Design: Randomized, patient-

This paper discusses the ecological optimisation of municipal waste management systems. The purpose of this paper is to help local decision-makers in designing integrated waste management solutions that are ecologically optimal. The study uses life-cycle assessment (LCA) methodology to build a model and test different waste management scenarios in order to see whether the waste management hierarch

IF steel sheets were processed by conventional symmetric and asymmetric rolling (ASR) at ambient temperature. The asymmetry was introduced in a geometric way using differential roll diameters with a number of different ratios. The material strength was measured by tensile testing and the microstructure was analyzed by optical and transmission electron microscopy as well as electron backscatter dif

Among the known severe plastic deformation (SPD) techniques, one particular group can be defined as SPD processing of thin samples. Their distinctive feature is that one of the sample dimensions, namely the thickness, is much smaller than the other two dimensions. Examples include High Pressure Torsion and two recently developed techniques: the Cone-Cone Method and the High Pressure Tube Twisting.

The L23 x-ray-emission spectra of Cu and Zn have been recorded using tunable-synchrotron-radiation-excited fluorescence spectroscopy. The satellite structure was studied in detail by varying the excitation energy from threshold to several hundred eV above. Strong satellites are observed which can unambiguously be associated with the decay of multiply excited states. This disproves recent claims of

The paper focuses on selective investment incentives, which are aimed primarily to attract foreign direct investment, in the context of the new EU Member States, namely the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia. We discuss the issue within three closely related dimensions. We point to a potential conflict of interests between host country governments and multinational companies in promoting

Using data from the German Community Innovation Survey (CIS) from 2008, we analyze whether innovation partnering increases the risk of experiencing infringement of intellectual property (IP). The results show that depending on types of IP innovation, partnerships increase the risk of infringement by up to 37% compared with the average risk in the sample. The results suggest that this massive incre

Scientific performance is often evaluated by bibliometric indicators such as publication counts or citations. But this may neglect other relevant outputs from research units. An optimal evaluation would measure each dimension separately, but this would be costly. Luckily, cluster analyses show that units which specialise in other types of research activities (such as knowledge transfer or educatio

New Public Management (NPM) was the catch phrase of the reforms in the public research and higher education sector for the last decades. The postulated effect of the NPM reforms is increased efficiency in governmental resource spending on the public higher education and research institutions. Though backed by theoretical considerations, this hypothesis has hardly been tested empirically. Using a u

The state authorities in Germany used to fund public sector research without controlling the performance of the research units. This has changed during past decade, where the dominant mechanism by which formerly unconditional state funds are allocated nowadays is indicator-based performance measurement. The indicator sets used to measure the research-related performance in the German public scienc