Background When using Health-Related Quality of Life (HRQoL) in assessing outcomes of treatment, normative data for different diagnoses are needed to allow cross-comparisons of existing and future studies. We determined the SF-36 scores in patients with surgical lumbar spine problems. Methods This is a prospective observational study of consecutive surgical patients in one institution. In additi

Metallo-beta-lactamases are bacterial enzymes that may function with either one or two zinc ions bound in the active site. In this work, the binding of benzylpenicillin to mono-zinc metallo-beta-lactamase from Bacillus cereus has been investigated in a docking procedure applying a combined quantum mechanical/molecular mechanical method as the final step. It is demonstrated that the substrate can b

Objective-Several reports have shown that the direction of the postural responses induced by vestibular stimulation is affected by the positions of the neck and torso. The aim of this study was to investigate whether the postural responses to vibratory proprioceptive stimulation of the calf muscles are affected by the position of the head and thus by proprioceptive and vestibular information from

We address the problem of optimizing resource allocation for Perceptually based Unequal Packet Protection (PUPP) in a packet based voice carrying network. For that purpose, we design a novel real-time working Perceptually Based Classifier (PBC) optimizing the assignment of voice packets to either a Premium (Pch) or an Ordinary (Och) transmission Channel with regard to packet perceptual importance.

The dinoflagellates constitute a group within the protistan supergroup Alveolata, and can be referred neither to the plant nor the animal kingdom. They swim about using two flagella and orient using various stimuli. About half of the species are capable of oxygenic photosynthesis, but most of them complement this with capture of prey. Some live entirely by capturing small organisms, others are par

Various Helicobacter species have been isolated from the stomach, intestinal tract and liver of a variety of mammalian and some avian species, and Helicobacter DNA has been detected in human bile and liver samples. An immunoblot assay was established to analyse serum antibody responses to non-gastric Helicobacter species in patients with autoimmune liver diseases, in comparison with healthy indivi

This lecture focuses on the properties of synchrotron radiation. This subject is extensively treated in many excellent articles and textbooks. (See for instance [1, 2]). We have also excellent and user-friendly computer codes, as SPECTRA (Spring-8) and SRW (ESRF) which you can get on the net, so few of us are now actually using the analytic formulas to calculate radiation spectra. This lecture is

Objective: To compare the healthcare costs and effects of budesonide/formoterol in,a single inhaler with those of budesonide and formoterol monotherapies, and placebo, in a multinational study in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute (NHLBI)/WHO Global Initiative for Chronic Obstructive Lung Disease (GOLD) stages III or IV. Previous an

Abstract is not available

Studies have been made in 1407 patients of the causes, the organs involved and the outcome of injury to the abdomen in patients needing admission to hospital in an area of Southern Sweden, between 1950 and the end of 1979. The proportion of female patients and those aged over 60 increased significantly. The seasonal distribution of the injuries showed significant change, with a drop in the initial

Abstract. My main claim is that explanations are fundamentally about relations between concepts and not, for example, essentially requiring laws, causes, or particular initial conditions. Nor is their linguistic form essential. I begin by showing that this approach solves some well-known old problems and then proceeds to argue my case using heuristic analogies with mathematical proofs. I find that

Historically , the fire safety code systems now in force had to be written without actually stating their objective level of safety and, still far less , without any analytical measurement of the objectives involved. For this reason, there is an urgent need for future attempts to evaluate the levels of safety inherent in present local and national fire protection regulations. Lack of knowledge wit

Rotational bands have been found in Co-57 and Ni-57, using Gammasphere in conjunction with the Microball and 30 neutron detectors. The bands in Co-57, extending the mass 60 region of deformation down to Z = 27, are signature partner sequences. The quadrupole moments and dynamic moments of inertia of the new bands in both nuclei are similar to those of rotational sequences in the neighboring nuclei

Extractability of red pigment from red beetroot was investigated using pulsed electric field (PEF) treated tissue in a solid-liquid extraction process. Thin disks of the tissue were subjected to PEF at different intensities and, 3-4 min after the treatment, the release of red pigment and ionic species into an isotonic solution was measured in situ using a spectrophotometer and a conductivity meter