OBJECTIVE: This study estimates the prevalence of absenteeism due to voice disorders among teachers and investigates individual and contextual factors associated with it. METHODS: The study involved 1,980 teachers from 76 municipal schools. The response rate was 85%. The survey was carried out between May 2004 and July 2005 using ...

PURPOSE: This study aimed to identify speech information processed by a hearing aid (HA) that is additive to information processed by a cochlear implant (CI) as a function of signal-to-noise ratio (SNR). METHOD: Speech recognition was measured with CI alone, HA alone, and CI+HA. Ten participants were separated into two ...

This report describes a 63-year-old woman with Parkinson's disease showing loss of intelligibility of speech and severely impaired handwriting, despite undergoing physical and speech therapies. As the patient had sufficient residual motor abilities and adequate cognitive function and motivation, a computer-based communication aid with a software program for word prediction ...

Purpose: People with aphasia struggle to keep up with today's text-based communication, because of their reduced ability to comprehend and compose written messages. Therefore, the communication gap between people with aphasia and the communities around them continues to grow. The purpose of this article is to highlight the literature regarding ...

OBJECTIVES: This randomized case-control study compares teachers with self-reported voice problems to age-, gender-, and school-matched colleagues with self-reported voice health. The self-assessed voice function is related to factors known to influence the voice: laryngeal findings, voice quality, personality, psychosocial and coping aspects, searching for causative factors of voice problems ...

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Division of HIV/AIDS Prevention (DHAP) conducted outcome monitoring studies on evidence-based interventions (EBIs) provided by CDC-funded community-based organizations (CBOs). Critical to the success of outcome monitoring was the ability of CBOs to recruit and retain clients in evaluation studies. Two EBIs, Video ...

Aims: This study evaluated the prevalence of voice problems in kindergarten teachers and investigated some background factors affecting vocal health. Methods: One hundred and nineteen female kindergarten teachers volunteered by responding to an Internet questionnaire on voice habits, voice symptoms, and the amount of negative impact various working conditions may ...

Community participation by people with lifelong disability is not a new concept. Yet, within the field of disability there is ongoing debate about the barriers to participation and how these can be solved. At a practical level, participation remains an issue that is often misunderstood by many who seek to ...

Bilateral hydrosalpinx with asynchronous tubal torsion is an extraordinary event in young girls. This report describes the problems associated with misdiagnosis, therapeutic approach, and the risk of suboptimal treatment of this rare clinical entity in a 13-year-old girl.

There is a concern about negative cognitive effects of systemic chemotherapy. We prospectively explored self-reported cognitive problems in testicular cancer patients (TCPs) treated with and without chemotherapy. One hundred and twenty-two TCPs were interviewed about concentration and memory problems shortly after orchidectomy but before any additional treatment (baseline), and then ...

Previous findings have suggested that a familiar pattern and the features within it are perceived better than an unfamiliar pattern. In Experiments 1 and 2, access to within-pattern colors in Stars and Stripes flags was equally efficient in the normal and the inverted orientations, thus suggesting that familiarity does not ...

An algorithm that operates in real-time to enhance the salient features of speech is described and its efficacy is evaluated. The Contrast Enhancement (CE) algorithm implements dynamic compressive gain and lateral inhibitory sidebands across channels in a modified winner-take-all circuit, which together produce a form of suppression that sharpens the ...

The poor quality and quantity of data collected in tribal communities today reflects a lack of true community participation and commitment. This is especially problematic for evaluation studies, in which the needs and desires of the community should be the central focus. This challenge can be met by emphasizing indigenous ...

Almost all people with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) experience a motor speech disorder, such as dysarthria, as the disease progresses. At some point, 80 to 95% of people with ALS are unable to meet their daily communication needs using natural speech. Unfortunately, once intelligibility begins to decrease, speech performance often ...

The aim of the present study was to explore four individuals' perspective of the way their speech and communication changed as a result of subthalamic nucleus deep brain stimulation treatment for Parkinson's disease. Interviews of two men and two women were analyzed using qualitative content analysis. Three themes emerged as ...

Abstract Previous studies have shown that males who have AIDS are more frequently affected by infectious diseases than females. The esophagus is the organ in the digestive tube that is more commonly affected by opportunistic infections during the syndrome. The aim of this study was to assess the influence of ...

In the combined antiretroviral therapy (cART) era, non-acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS)-defining malignancies account for more morbidity and mortality in human immunodeficiency virus-infected patients than AIDS-defining malignancies. However, conflicting data have been reported on the relationship between immunodeficiency and the development of some non-AIDS-defining malignancies. A total of 14,453 patients from ...

To describe the epidemiology of HIV and AIDS by geographical origin in the EU,1999-2006. AIDS and HIV cases from the EU 27, Norway and Iceland reported to European Centre for Epidemiological Monitoring of AIDS were analysed. Of 75 021 AIDS reports over 1999-2006, 35% were migrants. Of 2988 heterosexual AIDS reports ...

Excess mortality has decreased among human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)-infected patients but without evidence of a decrease among patients with AIDS. We assessed temporal changes in excess mortality and elucidated risk factors for excess mortality in patients with AIDS diagnosed in the era of highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART). We included ...

Little is known about the incidence and risk factors for serious non-AIDS-defining events. The incidence of non-AIDS events (malignancies, end-stage renal disease, liver failure, pancreatitis, cardiovascular disease), and AIDS after January 1, 2001, was calculated; Poisson regression was used to investigate factors associated with non-AIDS and AIDS. Among 12,844 patients, ...

The success of restorative dentistry is determined on the basis of functional and esthetic results. To achieve esthetics, four basic determinants are required in sequence; viz., position, contour, texture and color. The knowledge of the concept of color is essential for achieving good esthetics. This review compiles the various aspects ...

BACKGROUND: The risk of cancer among Hispanics with Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) in the United States and Puerto Rico (PR) has not been well described. The purpose of this study was to determine the risk of AIDS related and non-AIDS related cancers among Hispanics with AIDS in PR. METHODS: ...

The objective of our study was to understand the trend of AIDS deaths and the impact of AIDS-related deaths on the local mortality rate in seven villages in Shangcai County, Henan Province. A retrospective study survey among all deaths was conducted through household visits from 1 January 1995 to 31 ...

Haitian-born persons have been historically stigmatized for introducing HIV to North America; however, no previous study has reported on the national HIV surveillance trends among this foreign-born group. Annual AIDS cases were estimated for adults and adolescents (aged >12 years) from all 50 US states and the District of Columbia ...

To investigate the relative predictive value of CD4(+) metrics for serious clinical endpoints. Observational. Patients (3012; 20 317 person-years) from control arms of ESPRIT and SILCAAT were followed prospectively. We used Cox regression to identify CD4(+) metrics (latest, baseline and nadir CD4(+) cell count, latest CD4(+)%, time spent with CD4(+) ...

Since record linkage errors can bias measures of disease occurrence and association, it is important to assess their accuracy. The aim of this study is to assess the accuracy of a multiple pass probabilistic record linkage strategy to identify deaths among persons reported to the Brazilian AIDS surveillance database. An ...

The aim of this study was to characterise the AIDS presenters diagnosed between 2000 and 2008 in Legnano (Italy), and describe their initial response to highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) and trends over time. Seventy-six (48.7%) of 156 patients diagnosed as having AIDS in the period 2000-2008 were AIDS presenters. ...

We examined specific causes of mortality in human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1)-infected patients who initiated antiretroviral therapy (ART) in Europe and North America from 1996 through 2006, and we quantified associations of prognostic factors with cause-specific mortality. We retrospectively classified all deaths among 39,272 patients enrolled in 13 HIV-1 ...

Among patients with HIV, the risk of death associated with different AIDS events has been quantified, but the risk of death associated with non-AIDS events has not been examined. We compared the risk of all-cause mortality following AIDS versus serious non-AIDS (SNA) events in the Strategies for Management of Antiretroviral ...

The objective of this work was to measure the apparent ileal digestibility (AID) and the apparent total tract digestibility (ATTD) of dietary fiber in different sources of distillers dried grains with solubles (DDGS) and to calculate hindgut fermentation of dietary fiber in DDGS fed to growing pigs. Diets, ileal digesta, ...

To evaluate the performance of a verbal autopsy (VA) expert algorithm (the InterVA model) for diagnosing AIDS mortality against a reference standard from hospital records that include HIV serostatus information in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Verbal autopsies were conducted for 193 individuals who visited a hospital under surveillance during terminal illness. ...

A mean of 9-10 years of human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) infection elapse before clinical AIDS develops in untreated persons, but this rate of disease progression varies substantially among individuals. To investigate host genetic determinants of the rate of progression to clinical AIDS, we performed a multistage genomewide association ...

Activation-induced cytidine deaminase (AID) is critically implicated in somatic hypermutation (SHM) and class switch recombination (CSR). AID is expressed as a native transcript and as several splice variants, with as yet undefined roles. Chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) leukemic B cells have also been shown to express AID transcripts, especially in ...

SETTING: Central Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. OBJECTIVE: To compare the impact of routine DOTS vs. enhanced DOTS (DOTS-Ampliado or DOTS-A) on tuberculosis (TB) incidence. DESIGN: Cluster-randomized trial in eight urban neighborhoods pair-matched by TB incidence and randomly assigned to receive either the DOTS-A or DOTS strategy. DOTS-A added intensive screening ...

With the emergence of the acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) in 1981, infectologists' care practices went through great changes. The objective of this study was to describe and analyze the experiences of infectologists in dealing with death and dying among their patients, over the course of the AIDS epidemic in the ...

BACKGROUND: Two biomolecular 3-D structures are said to be similar if the RMSD (root mean square deviation) between the two molecules' sequences of 3-D coordinates is less than or equal to some given constant bound. Tools for searching for similar structures in biomolecular 3-D structure databases are becoming increasingly important ...

Regular cycling has been shown to improve health and has a role in tackling the threats posed by obesity and inactivity. Cycle collisions, particularly those involving motorised vehicles, can lead to significant mortality and morbidity and are currently a barrier to wider uptake of cycling. There is evidence that the ...

As HIV-related deaths increase in a population the usual association between low socioeconomic status and child mortality may change, particularly as death rates from other causes decline. As part of a demographic surveillance system in northern Malawi in 2002-6, covering a population of 32,000, information was collected on socio-economic status ...

OBJECTIVE: Evaluating the association between TB and AIDS and estimating the determinant effects and factors for TB incidence rates in Brazilian metropolitan regions from 2001 to 2003. METHODS: A Poisson longitudinal multilevel model was fitted to the annual TB case number by municipality and year, including the population as an ...

Brazil accounts for approximately 70% of injection drug users (IDUs) receiving highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) in low-income/middle-income countries. We evaluated the impact of HAART availability/access on AIDS-related mortality among IDUs versus men who have sex with men (MSM). Nation-wide analysis on Brazilian IDU and MSM diagnosed with AIDS in ...

Although studies have shown reductions in mortality from AIDS after the introduction of combination antiretroviral treatment (cART), little is known about cause-specific mortality in low-income settings in the cART era. We explored predictors of AIDS and non-AIDS mortality and compared cause-specific mortality across high-income and low-income settings in the Asia-Pacific ...

To compare three ad hoc methods to estimate the marginal hazard of incident cancer acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS) in a highly active antiretroviral therapy (1996-2006) relative to a monotherapy/combination therapy (1990-1996) calendar period, accounting for other AIDS events and deaths as competing risks. Among 1,911 human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)-positive ...

Verbal autopsy is currently the only option for obtaining cause of death information in most populations with a widespread HIV/AIDS epidemic. With the use of a data-driven algorithm, a set of criteria for classifying AIDS mortality was trained. Data from two longitudinal community studies in Tanzania and Zimbabwe were used, ...

To evaluate the effect of drug-resistant cytomegalovirus (CMV) on survival among patients with CMV retinitis. Prospective cohort study during 1993 to 2003. We included 266 patients with AIDS and newly diagnosed CMV retinitis treated with either ganciclovir or foscarnet. Data on ganciclovir and foscarnet resistance were obtained from blood and ...

OBJECTIVES: To provide survival estimates of Italian people with AIDS (PWA) in the highly active antiretroviral therapy era and to identify prognostic factors at diagnosis and illnesses present at death. DESIGN: Longitudinal study with all-cause mortality as end point. METHODS: The vital status and illnesses present at death of the ...

OBJECTIVE: To assess whether immunodeficiency is associated with the most frequent non-AIDS-defining causes of death in the era of combination antiretroviral therapy (cART). DESIGN: Observational multicentre cohorts. METHODS: Twenty-three cohorts of adults with estimated dates of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) seroconversion were considered. Patients were seroconverters followed within the cART ...

OBJECTIVE: To determine risk factor for non-AIDS severe clinical events in HIV-infected patients on long-term combination antiretroviral therapy (cART). METHODS: A validation committee reviewed each severe clinical event that occurred in the APROCO/COPILOTE (ANRS CO8) cohort that enrolled 1281 patients in 1997-1999 at the initiation of cART containing protease inhibitor. ...

PURPOSE: We aimed to quantify the mortality reduction by which the early detection of Parkinson's disease (PD) within a community-based study could reduce the number of advanced cases. METHODS: Data used in this study were derived from two community-based surveys and from a clinical series of PD cases identified from ...

OBJECTIVE: To examine infectious disease and AIDS mortality among African migrants in Portugal, gender and socio-economic differences in AIDS mortality risk, and differences between African migrants to Portugal and to England and Wales. METHODS: Data from death registrations, 1998-2002, and the 2001 Census were used to derive standardised death rates ...

OBJECTIVE: To investigate changes in mortality following HIV and AIDS in Australia. METHODS: The results of a linkage between HIV/AIDS diagnoses and the National Death Index (NDI) to the end of 2003 were used to estimate mortality rates following HIV/AIDS. Standardised Mortality Ratios (SMRs) were calculated for deaths following HIV, ...