The purpose of this note is to attach a name to a natural class of combinatorial problems and to point out that this class includes many important special cases. We also show that a simple problem of placing nonoverlapping labels on a rectangular map is NP-complete.

Clearly (1) has an SDR provided that |Ai| > i for all i = 1, · · · , n, in particular an SDR of (1) exists if |A1| = · · · = |An| > n or 0 < |A1| < · · · < |An|. Let G be an additive abelian group and A1, · · · , An its subsets. We associate any SDR (2) of (1) with the sum ∑n i=1 ai and set (4) S({Ai}i=1) = S(A1, · · · , An) = {a1 + · · ·+ an : {ai}i=1 forms an SDR of {Ai}i=1} . Of course, S(A1...

A small corps of 86 dedicated employees has become the most important “key” in the VA Prosthetic and Sensory Aids program. These men are our prosthetic representatives. Early in 1946, it was decided that some one person in each major field station must be given the specific job of carrying the new VA prosthetics program directly to disabled veterans. Such responsibility could not be given to th...

Technological advances and increased utilization of medical testing and procedures have prompted greater attention to ensuring the patient safety of radiation use in the practice of adult cardiovascular medicine. In response, representatives from cardiovascular imaging societies, private payers, government and nongovernmental agencies, industry, medical physicists, and patient representatives m...

In May 1999, 21 leaders and representatives from major medical education and professional organizations attended an invitational conference jointly sponsored by the Bayer Institute for Health Care Communication and the Fetzer INSTITUTE: The participants focused on delineating a coherent set of essential elements in physician-patient communication to: (1) facilitate the development, implementati...

P ho to b y C O LI N A N D E R S O N /T he I m ag e B an k M any executives of medical technology companies count on incentive compensation plans to align their sales representatives’ goals with the goals of the company, but this oftentimes isn’t the result. Some very common types of incentive plans, when coupled with poorly balanced sales territories, can actually hinder a medtech company’s ab...

It is becoming more apparent each day that despite a strong national commitment to excellence in health care, the resources and personnel are finite. It is, therefore, appropriate that the medical profession examine the impact of developing technology on the practice and cost of medical care. Such analysis, carefully conducted, could potentially impact on the cost of medical care without dimini...