BACKGROUND This retrospective study aimed to evaluate the ability of the delta neutrophil index (DNI) to predict histologically normal appendicitis preoperatively and to differentiate between simple and complicated appendicitis. METHODS The data from 650 patients were divided into positive and negative appendectomy groups (histologically normal appendicitis). The patients in the acute appendi...

Research in the area of predicting recidivism has produced several well-validated standardized risk assessment instruments. The question arises, which instruments best serve which purposes? The objective of this study was to evaluate and compare several actuarial and dynamic risk assessment instruments as to their predictive accuracy and their usefulness in forensic practice. The sample consist...

High concentrations of enterolignans in plasma are associated with a lower risk of acute coronary events. However, little is known about the absorption and excretion of enterolignans. The pharmacokinetic parameters and urinary excretion of enterodiol and enterolactone were evaluated after consumption of their purified plant precursor, secoisolariciresinol diglucoside (SDG). Twelve healthy volun...

BACKGROUND No studies have examined if mid-upper arm circumference (MUAC) can be an alternative screening tool for obesity in an international sample of children differing widely in levels of human development. OBJECTIVE Our aim is to determine whether MUAC could be used to identify obesity in children from 12 countries in five major geographic regions of the world. METHODS This observation...

BACKGROUND In this study, we compared the predictive accuracy of voluntary cough peak flow (V-CPF) and involuntary cough peak flow (IV-CPF) for re-intubation in mechanically ventilated subjects. METHODS Endotracheally intubated patients who passed a spontaneous breathing trial and assessment of readiness for extubation were enrolled. Before extubation, V-CPF and IV-CPF were measured. Re-intub...

Raltegravir is a novel human immunodeficiency virus-1 integrase inhibitor with potent in vitro activity (95% inhibitory concentration (IC95)=33 nM in 50% human serum). Three double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled, pharmacokinetic, safety, and tolerability studies were conducted: (1) single-dose escalation study (10-1,600 mg), (2) multiple-dose escalation study (100-800 mg q12 h x 10 days)...

BACKGROUND In present-day life-insurance medical underwriting practice the risk assessment starts with a standard health declaration (SHD). Indication for additional medical screening depends predominantly on age and amount of insured capital. From a medical perspective it is questionable whether there is an association between the level of insured capital and medical risk in terms of mortality...

The research on damages of structures that are supported by deep foundations has been quite intensive in the past decade. Kinematic interaction in soil-pile interaction is evaluated based on the p-y curve approach. Existing p-y curves have considered the effects of relative density on soil-pile interaction in sandy soil. The roughness influence of the surface wall pile on p-y curves has not bee...

Melatonin possesses potential efficacy in perinatal brain injuries, and has been proposed as adjunctive pharmacological therapy in combination with hypothermia in the clinical setting. However, the pharmacokinetics of melatonin in preterm and term newborns is still unknown. The aim of this study was to analyze the pharmacokinetics of melatonin after intragastric administration in preterm infant...

We have shown that with our enhanced representation, the ranking problem for given weights w reduces to the one in Joachims (2005) in the case of a fully-factored model. Here we show a similar result for the learning problem. Recall that our learning objective is defined as: min w λ 2 w 2 + 1 M m max z∈Z w ϕ(x m , z) + ∆ AU C (z, y m) − maxˆz∈Zˆz∼y m w ϕ(x m , ˆ z) (1) We would like to consider...