Malaria is well known in Georgia since ancient times, causing national disasters with associated significant mortality and economic losses. By 1970 Georgia managed to reach complete and sustained elimination of the disease as a result of comprehensive anti-malaria measures undertaken in the country. However from the mid-1990s, economic collapse following ...

Recent years have seen a remarkable increase in the number of publications dealing with the application of epifluorescence microscopy in cell biology. This can be widely attributed to the development of state-of-the-art image processing programs, as well as the development of new reagents/probes, which allow the labeling of most cell ...

Anemia is an important public health concern. Data from population-based surveys such as the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) are the gold standard, but are obtained infrequently and include only small samples from certain minority groups. We assessed whether readily available databases of blood donor hemoglobin values could ...

Sickle cell disease (SCD) is a collection of inherited blood disorders that affect a substantial number of people in the U.S., particularly African Americans. People with SCD have an abnormal type of hemoglobin, Hb S, which polymerizes when deoxygenated, causing the red blood cells to become misshapen and rigid. Individuals ...

Objective. Sickle cell disease is perhaps the most racialized condition in the history of modern medicine, yet very little research has focused on how racial perceptions influence social attitudes about the disease. Subsequently, the implications of these perceptions for public health prevention efforts and the provision of clinical care are ...

BACKGROUND: Compared with a maximum collective lead (Pb) estimate of ∼1811 metric tons (MT) in exterior paint on 86,000 New Orleans houses, Pb additives in gasoline were estimated at ∼12,000MT in New Orleans, yielding ∼9100MT Pb exhausted as aerosols from vehicles; ∼4850MT were particles >10μm and ∼4200MT were particles <0.25μm. ...

A national interdisciplinary body is urgently needed to manage the looming antimicrobial resistance crisis.

Efforts to identify alternative sources of energy have focused on extracting natural gas from vast shale deposits. The Marcellus Shale, located in western New York, Pennsylvania, and Ohio, is estimated to contain enough natural gas to supply the United States for the next 45 years. New drilling technology-horizontal drilling and ...

Objective:An appropriate neonatal resuscitation device for village midwives in Indonesia is chosen.Study Design:The study compared four neonatal resuscitation devices: Ambu neonate bag and mask, Topster bag and mask, Laerdal pediatric pocket mask and Tekno tube and mask. Functionality was tested by 40 village midwives who were also interviewed about ease ...

Cell & Bioscience welcomes the submission of your best work for rapid open access publication. This is the official journal of the Society of Chinese Bioscientists in America (SCBA).

The haemoglobinopathies and thalassemias represent the most common inherited monogenic disorders in the world. Beta-thalassaemia major is an ongoing public health problem in Malaysia. Prior to 2004, the country had no national policy for screening and registry for thalassemia. In the absence of a national audit, the true figure of ...

Over the past 10 years there has been increasing concern about the possible behavioural effects of mobile phone use. This systematic review and meta-analysis focuses on studies published since 1999 on the human cognitive and performance effects of mobile phone-related electromagnetic fields (EMF). PubMed, Biomed, Medline, Biological Sciences, PsychInfo, PsycARTICLES, Environmental ...

No study to date has analyzed the efficiency at which local health departments (LHDs) produce public health services. As a result, this study employs data envelopment analysis (DEA) to explore the relative technical efficiency of LHDs operating in the United States using 2005 data. The DEA indicates that the typical ...

The investigators sought to explore and compare the identification of cluttering vs stuttering in four different country samples. After reading lay definitions of the two fluency disorders in their own language, convenience samples of 60-90 adult respondents from Turkey, Bulgaria, Russia, and the US identified 51-119 children or adults who ...

Cytobank is a Web-based application for storage, analysis, and sharing of flow cytometry experiments. Researchers use a Web browser to log in and use a wide range of tools developed for basic and advanced flow cytometry. In addition to providing access to standard cytometry tools from any computer, Cytobank creates ...

The publication of the US FDA MIST guidance document in 2008 reignited the debate around the most appropriate strategies to underwrite metabolite safety for novel compounds. Whilst some organizations have suggested that the guidelines necessitate a paradigm shift to more thorough metabolite analysis during early development, an evaluation of historical ...

This paper measured the variations in performance of small municipalities in the State of São Paulo, Brazil, regarding the technical efficiency in the use of public funds in public primary health care actions concerning the funding profile, in a scenario of fiscal federalism. Technical efficiency is one of the parameters ...

This paper is a reverie on the wish to be invisible and how it is played out in psychoanalysis. Beginning with a brief clinical case and its countertransference manifestations, the paper touches on invisibility in various aspects of analysis, ranging from publication to supervision. It emphasizes the unconscious determinants of ...

Healthcare in Europe is increasingly influenced by European Union (EU) regulation enacted to harmonise heterogeneous practices through common safety standards. In many instances directives on safety issues evade public debate because they are seen as merely 'technical matters'. In this paper I analyse the implications at a national level in ...

Despite the wealth of publications on the topic of gastroesophageal reflux and its variants, there are still many unsettled questions before one accepts the prevalent cult of "reflux disease". This study is summarizing the results of the critical analysis of the literature, 436 articles,during the last 30 years. The golden ...

Although there are many publications related to technological or methodological developments of CEC, few focus on the analysis of natural products, especially phytochemical bioactive compounds. This review summarized the application of CEC in the analysis of phytochemical bioactive components, including flavonoids, nucleosides, steroids, lignans, quinones and coumarins, as well as ...

In this article, we present a new analysis of what is involved when individuals undergo significant public humiliation. We describe the structure of humiliation-that is, the factors that, taken collectively, render certain life events and circumstances humiliating; the most common destructive consequences of being subjected to them; and several personality ...

PURPOSE: Exploratory factor analysis is used to identify latent factors for public health interventions. The most popular factor retention criterion, the eigenvalue greater than one (EVG1) rule, leads to the retention of more factors than warranted. The use of parallel analysis (PA) as a factor retention criterion is recommended. DESIGN: ...

Genetic association studies report potentially conflicting findings which meta-analysis seeks to quantify and objectively summarize. Attributing cancer to a single gene variant requires large sample sizes, which may strain resources in a primary study. Properly used, meta-analysis is a powerful tool for resolving discrepancies in genetic association studies given the ...

ABSTRACT: The control efforts on Oncomelania hupensis, the intermediate snail host of Schistosoma japonicum, cannot be easily excluded from the integrated approach of schistosomiasis control in China. Application of chemical compounds, molluscicides, in snail habitats is a common method for snail control in addition to environmental modification. We conducted a ...

BACKGROUND: The roll out of HPV immunization programs across the United States was hindered by controversy. We tracked the debate in the United States through MySpace, then the most popular social networking site, in order to better understand the public's reaction to the vaccine. METHODS: We searched MySpace for all ...

Discriminatory genotyping methods for the analysis of Escherichia coli other than O157:H7 are necessary for public health-related activities. A new multi-locus variable number tandem repeat analysis protocol is presented; this method achieves an index of discrimination of 99.5% and is reproducible and valid when tested on a collection of 836 ...

Although adjunctive treatment with modern antiepileptic drugs (AEDs) is standard care in refractory epilepsy, it is unclear how much of the effect can be attributed directly to the AEDs and how much to the beneficial changes seen with placebo. Therefore, we performed a systematic review and meta-analysis of the evidence ...

The aim of this study was to examine the accuracy and reliability of a small group of facial imagery experts, and compare their abilities with members of the general public, to ascertain whether or not training and experience will affect the ability to identify faces from CCTV footage. A number ...

We analyze the time series associated with web traffic for a representative set of online businesses that have suffered widely reported cyber security incidents. Our working hypothesis is that cyber security incidents may prompt (security conscious) online customers to opt out and conduct their business elsewhere or, at the very ...

Chagas' disease is a major public health concern in most Latin American countries and its prevention is based on insect vector control. Previous work showed that in the Yucatan peninsula of Mexico, houses are transiently infested by adult Triatoma dimidiata, which then fail to establish sustained colonies. The present study ...

OBJECTIVE: To estimate the extent to which the practice of periodically updating meta-analyses causes inflation of the type I error and then to compare the estimate with the inflation caused by publication bias. We also present a simple method to adjust for the inflation associated with updating meta-analyses. STUDY DESIGN ...

The aim of this study was to use geographical analysis to determine the distribution of cutaneous leishmaniasis among the provinces of Turkey, as well as detection of the presence of any regional clustering in Turkey using spatial analyses. Geographic information systems based spatial analyses were performed on cutaneous leishmaniasis cases ...

CONTEXT: Early ERCP was reported to result in recovery from acute gallstone pancreatitis. To date, several RCTs comparing it to conservative treatment have yielded different results. OBJECTIVE: We conducted a meta-analysis to determine the effect of early ERCP on the morbidity and mortality of acute gallstone pancreatitis without cholangitis. METHODS: ...

This article analyzes a public breast flashing event that occurred during the women's ice hockey tournament at the OutGames/Western Cup Lesbigay athletic event in 2007. Employing a postfoundational perspective, I first contextualize the ice hockey subculture of the team called the Booby Orrs, outlining some of our history, norms, and ...

We answer several important questions concerning EEG. We also shortly discuss importance of nonlinear methods of contemporary physics in EEG analysis. Basic definitions and explanation of fundamental concepts may be found in my previous publications in NBP.It is a magnificent feeling to recognize the unity of complex phenomena which appear ...

BACKGROUND: Diarrhea is a major public health problem in Thailand. The Ministry of Public Health, Thailand, has been trying to monitor and control this disease for many years. The methodology and the results from this study could be useful for public health officers to develop a system to monitor and ...

In meta-analysis, the assessment of graphs is widely used in an attempt to identify or rule out heterogeneity and publication bias. A variety of graphs are available for this purpose. To date, however, there has been no comparative evaluation of the performance of these graphs. With the objective of assessing ...

We investigate the impact of implementing capitated-based Universal Health Coverage (UC) in Thailand on technical efficiency in larger public hospitals during the policy transition period. We measure efficiency before and during the transition period of UC using a two-stage analysis with Data Envelopment Analysis, bootstrap DEA, and truncated regressions. Our ...

The aim of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness and the safety of allopurinol in the prophylaxis of post-endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatography (ERCP) pancreatitis. METHODS:: We used the method recommended by the Cochrane Collaboration to perform a meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials (RCTs) of allopurinol in the prevention of post-ERCP ...

The purpose of this research was to investigate phosphorus (P) retention capacity and rejuvenation potential of electric arc furnace (EAF) steel slag from Quebec and New Zealand (NZ) iron melter slag (IMS). Columns filled with slag materials were fed with dairy effluent and subjected to two feeding and one resting ...

We present GIMSAN (GIbbsMarkov with Significance ANalysis): a novel tool for de novo motif finding. GIMSAN combines GibbsMarkov, our variant of the Gibbs Sampler, described here for the first time, with our recently introduced significance analysis. AVAILABILITY: GIMSAN is currently available as a web application and a stand-alone application on ...

AIMS: It is uncertain whether meta-analyses lead to changes in prescribing practices. We studied trends in the prescribing of glucose-lowering therapy before and after the publication of a meta-analysis suggesting harm from rosiglitazone. METHODS: We examined the prescription records of all residents of Ontario, Canada, aged > or = 66 ...

The ectomycorrhizae (EM) of Humaria and Genea, two closely related genera of the Pyronemataceae (Ascomycetes), were regularly found in different deciduous forests of Hungary. In the present paper, the morphology and anatomy of these EM are described in detail, including morphometric analyses. Identification of the EM was carried out by ...

The original publication can be found at www.springerlink.com

The original publication can be found at www.springerlink.com

Hiking trails have been growing in popularity in the health and well-being promotion. Consequently, the foot became an object of study in order to understand the discomfort and pain in the lower limb. The aims of the work were: 1) to detect tendencies for behaviour of maximum values of plantar ...

The analysis of different historic mauve samples--mauve salts and dyed textiles--was undertaken to establish the exact nature of the iconic dye produced by W. H. Perkin in the nineteenth century. Fourteen samples from important museum collections were analyzed, and it was determined that, in contrast to the general wisdom that ...

Recent work [Ecoscience (2000) vol. 7, 395-397] suggests that the burying beetle Nicrophorus pustulatus may have undergone a remarkable host shift, exploiting snake eggs rather than carrion as resources for breeding. We conducted behavioural and physiological experiments to examine the hypothesis of a host shift and to formulate hypotheses on ...

The task of standardizing chargemasters is huge, but so is the payoff. A standard chargemaster means improved charge capture and collections, uniform price and volume analysis, and reduced risk of payer audits and penalties, among other things. Having a central chargemaster team and adequate time and resources are essential to ...