BACKGROUND Early identification of children <5 yrs with acute malnutrition is a priority. Acute malnutrition is defined by the World Health Organization as a mid-upper-arm circumference (MUAC) <12.5 cm or a weight-for-height Z-score (WHZ) <-2. MUAC is a simple and low-cost indicator to screen for acute malnutrition in communities, but MUAC cut-offs currently recommended by WHO do not identify t...

BACKGROUND An efficacious, reliable, and non-invasive route of administration for midazolam, a drug used for sedation and pre-anaesthetic medication, would have obvious advantages. This study compares two potential methods of administering midazolam by the nasal and nebulized routes. METHODS Midazolam (0.2 mg kg(-1)) was given by both nebulizer and nasally by liquid instillation to 10 healthy...

There has been a lot of research on testing based on formal specifications, especially in the area of communication protocols. Most approaches take as starting point some finite model of the required behaviours of the system under test, such as Finite State Machines. This paper discusses the problems that arise when the underlying model of the specification is not finite.

Relationships between cortisol responses to laboratory stress and cortisol output over the day have not been studied extensively. We tested associations between cortisol responses to a set of laboratory challenges (colour/word interference and mirror tracing) and three aspects of cortisol output over the day, namely total area under the curve (AUCday), the cortisol awakening response (CAR) and ...

Scaly-sided Merganser is a globally endangered species restricted to eastern Asia. Estimating its population is difficult and considerable gap exists between populations at its breeding grounds and wintering sites. In this study, we built a species distribution model (SDM) using Maxent with presence-only data to predict the potential wintering habitat for Scaly-sided Merganser in China. Area un...

Molecule formation in ultracold degenerate quantum gases is one of the central topics in the overall ACQAO program, due to the strong quantum correlations in these systems. An experimental program in ultra-cold molecule formation using fermionic Li near a Feshbach resonance is underway at the SUT node of ACQAO. The work described here provides theoretical support for possible experimental inves...

PURPOSE To evaluate cancer detection with targeted biopsy of the prostate performed on the basis of high-frequency Doppler ultrasonographic (US) imaging findings versus cancer detection with a modified sextant biopsy approach with laterally directed cores. MATERIALS AND METHODS Sixty-two patients were prospectively evaluated with gray-scale, color, and power Doppler transrectal US performed w...

The paper considers the application interface testing technology on the basis of probabilistic networks; it offers the criteria of reliability dependence measure for the different application modules sharing the same functionality; it proposes an expand criterion of the testing completeness by the measure of uncertainty of the modules reliability; it is shown how to use automated mechanism of t...

The pharmacokinetics of ceftizoxime was studied in six sheep before and after inducing hyperthermia using Escherichia coli endotoxin. Sheep implanted subcutaneously with cages of non-reactive material for collecting tissue cage fluid (TCF) were used to conduct two trials. In Trial 1 animals with normal basal temperature (normal sheep (NS)) were given intravenous (i.v.) and intramuscular (i.m.) ...

To produce better quality software at reasonable cost, we propose requirements-based testing, in which testing is driven directly from the requirements and faults that prevent the product from meeting its requirements are detected. Our approach makes use of requirements in the form of goals and scenarios. From these we generate test scenarios that drive the system under test through particular ...