Abstract Multiple myeloma (MM) is a relatively rare malignant hematological disease, which is characterized by multicentric proliferation of plasma cells in the bone marrow. It is typically a disease of adults, with men being affected slightly more often than women. The median age at diagnosis is between 60 and 70 years, and it is rarely diagnosed before the age of 40.  Although any bone ...

IN 1962 the New York Academy of Sciences arranged a conference on Comparative Virology. During this conference Hildegard Plagerl read an interesting paper on 'The Coxsackie Viruses'. These viruses have been subdivided into two groups, A and B. Infections caused by B viruses include epidemic pleurodynia. She started the epidemiological part of her paper in this way: 'The first description of epi...

Prevalence studies on dementia generally show a higher risk in women than in men. American studies reported equal rates whereas European ones showed higher rates in women. Observational studies on hormone replacement therapy showed that treated women had a lower risk than untreated ones. Two large clinical trials in menopausal women did not find any protective effect of therapy with oestrogens ...

Moyamoya is a descriptive term for the cerebral angiographic finding of large arterial vessel occlusions and a telangiectatic vascular network involving the collateral circulation, usually in the area of the basal ganglia. The term was first used by Suzuki & Takaku (1969) in describing the angiographic findings in a group of young Japanese patients with acute hemiparesis the term Moyamoya indic...

Cannibalism has been documented as a possible disease transmission route in several species, including humans. However, the dynamics resulting from this type of disease transmission are not well understood. Using a theoretical model, we explore how cannibalism (i.e. killing and consumption of dead conspecifics) and intraspecific necrophagy (i.e. consumption of dead conspecifics) affect host-pat...

To make qualified decisions when extrapolating results from a survey sample with imprecise tests requires careful handling of uncertainty. Both the imprecise test and uncertainty introduced by the sampling have to be taken into account in order to act optimally. This paper formulates an influence diagram with discrete and continuous nodes to handle an example typical for animal production: a ve...

Predicting the occurrence of disease outbreaks in aquacultural farms can be of considerable value to the long-term sustainable development of the industry. Prior research on disease prediction has essentially depended upon traditional statistical models with varying degrees of prediction accuracy. Furthermore, the application of these models in sustainable aquaculture development and in control...

Lobar pneumonia in 75 per cent of instances is due to specific types of pneumococci possessed of a high degree of pathogenicity. Although pneumococci occur in the mouths of 60 per cent of normal individuals, such organisms are readily distinguishable from the highly parasitic types of pneumococcus responsible for the severe forms of lobar pneumonia, a convincing proof that infection in this dis...