For decades, carotid endarterectomy has been the golden standard for the management of severe carotid artery stenosis. However, several techniques have been proposed till date, and there has been a long-lasting debate concerning the proper method. Several research studies have been conducted not only evaluating the role of patch suturing versus that of primary carotid closure, but also comparin...

primary immunodeficiencies are rare diseases, characterized by an increased susceptibility to infections. early diagnosis and appropriate treatment are critical for reducing morbidity and mortality. given the rarity of these diseases, the awareness of these disorders by physicians is often insufficient, leading to delayed diagnosis and inappropriate treatment which are the major causes of sever...

EUROmediCAT Steering Group: Helen Dolk (Ulster University, United Kingdom), Lolkje de Jong-van den Berg (Groningen University, The Netherlands), Anna Pierini (Institute of Clinical Pysiology-National Research Council, Pisa, Italy), Joan Morris (Barts and the London School of Medicine and Dentistry, Queen Mary University of London, United Kingdom), Marian Bakker (University Medical Center Gronin...

Foreword These notes are a lightly edited revision of notes written for the course " Graph Partitioning and Expanders " offered at Stanford in Winter 2011 and Winter 2013. I wish to thank the students who attended this course for their enthusiasm and hard work. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author and do not necessarily re...

The Acute Dialysis Quality Initiative (ADQI) is an ongoing process that seeks to produce evidence-based recommendations for the prevention and management of acute kidney injury (AKI) and on different issues concerning acute dialysis. Our methods involve a combination of both expert panel and evidence appraisal, and this approach was chosen to achieve the best of both options. This approach has ...

OBJECTIVE To provide evidence-based guidance for the rational and safe prescription of biological therapies in children and adolescents with juvenile idiopathic arthritis (JIAs) considering the latest available evidence and the new licensed biologics. METHODS Rheumatologists and Pediatricians with expertise in Pediatric Rheumatology updated the recommendations endorsed by the Portuguese Socie...

Item recommendations calculated by recommender systems mostly in use today, only rely on item content description, user feedback and profile information. In modern mobile services, however, contextual information and semantic knowledge can play a significant role concerning the quality of these recommendations. Therefore, the SMART Recommendations Engine of Fraunhofer FOKUS is extended by the S...

OBJECTIVES There is a dearth of information on the long-term maternal effects of breastfeeding. The objective of this study was to examine adherence to breastfeeding recommendations of exclusive breastfeeding for ≥4 months and continuation of breastfeeding for ≥1 year and maternal weight retention 6 years after delivery. METHODS Using data from the Infant Feeding Practices Study II (IFPS II),...

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES The harmful effects of workplace noise pollution are well known and described in the literature. The effects of prolonged exposure to noise in areas demanding high level of concentration, such as operating rooms, depend on the variability of individual responses and intensity of different generation sources. The aim of this paper is to present a review of occupational ...