Introduction. The association between the level of systemic inflammation and systemic hypertension (sHTN) among subjects with sarcoidosis has not been previously explored. Methods. A retrospective study was conducted to investigate the relation between the level of systemic inflammation in sarcoidosis, measured by various serum inflammatory markers, and sHTN. Results. Among a total of 108 cases...

BACKGROUND many instruments are available to identify frail older adults who may benefit from geriatric interventions. Most of those instruments are time-consuming and difficult to use in primary care. OBJECTIVE to select a valid instrument to identify frail older adults in primary care, five simple instruments were compared. METHODS instruments included clinical judgement of the general pr...

OBJECTIVE The aim of this study is to assess the efficacy of cervical interleukin-6 (IL-6) compared with cervical length and its association in the prediction of preterm delivery in symptomatic women. STUDY DESIGN Observational prospective study was performed at Hospital Universitario La Fe, Valencia (Spain). SAMPLE 100 women between 24 and 34 weeks gestational age, with threatened preterm ...

BACKGROUND Breastfeeding self-efficacy can be measured with the Breastfeeding Self-Efficacy Scale-Short Form (BSES-SF). Mothers with low BSES-SF scores stop exclusive breastfeeding prematurely, but specific interventions can prevent that undesirable outcome. Because those interventions can be expensive, often one must decide which mothers will receive them. For that purpose, a cut-off BSES-SF s...

Area under an ROC curve plays an important role in estimating discrimination performance – a well-known theorem by Green (1964) states that ROC area equals the percentage of correct in two-alternative forcedchoice setting. When only single data point is available, the upper and lower bound of discrimination performance can be constructed based on the maximum and minimum area of legitimate ROC c...

The paper presents a technique for construction of C interpolating rational Bézier spline curves by means of blending rational quadric Bézier curves. A class of polynomials which satisfy special boundary conditions is used for blending. Properties of the polynomials are considered. The constructed spline curves have local shape control that make them useful in such geometric applications as rea...

BACKGROUND Teenage pregnancy is a known social problem which has been previously described using a number of deprivation measures. This study aimed to explore the temporal patterns of teenage pregnancy in Aberdeen, Scotland and to assess the discriminating ability of three measures of socioeconomic status. METHODS This was a population-based study from 1950 to 2010, using data from the Aberde...

Hip arthroscopy is a technically demanding procedure that is currently characterized by a "steep" learning curve. Therefore, achieving an advanced technical level is often challenging, especially for the amateur hip arthroscopist. Hand laterality when training in hip arthroscopy is an aspect that has been omitted. In addition, the technical differences regarding the handling of the surgical ins...

The aging population calls for instruments to assess functional and cognitive impairment in the elderly, aiming to prevent conditions that affect functional abilities. Objective To verify the accuracy and reliability of the Pfeffer (FAQ) scale for the Brazilian elderly population and to evaluate the reliability and reproducibility of the translated version of the Pfeffer Questionnaire. Meth...

This review provides the basic principle and rational for ROC analysis of rating and continuous diagnostic test results versus a gold standard. Derived indexes of accuracy, in particular area under the curve (AUC) has a meaningful interpretation for disease classification from healthy subjects. The methods of estimate of AUC and its testing in single diagnostic test and also comparative studies...