Over the past year there have been a number of recent advances in the fields of miniaturized reaction and separation systems, including the construction of fully integrated 'lab-on-a-chip' systems. Microreactors, which initially targeted DNA-based reactions such as the polymerase chain reaction, are now used in several other chemical and biochemical assays. Miniaturized separation columns are c...

The June 1982 supplement to the Current Population Survey obtained information from women concerning their childbearing to date as well as their future birth expectations. This report presents data based on this survey as well as showing trends in out-of-wedlock childbearing for women since 1947. The lifetime birth expectations of women aged 18 to 24 years are the same as for that same age gr...

The usefulness of an endpoint depends in part on its responsiveness to clinically important change. From existing randomized controlled trials, the responsiveness of endpoints currently employed in osteoporosis clinical trials were examined. The responsiveness is presented as the sample size per group needed to show a statistically significant difference. The large variation found means that ca...

A popular strategy currently employed for new product introductions is co-branding. Such a strategy allows a brand to innovate with the support of a partner brand. The present study investigates how consumers perceive a new product with two brands. Previous research focused on the logic of a brand combination by investigating the impact of the fit between both existing product categories (i.e.,...

Video quality as perceived by human observers is the ground truth when Video Quality Assessment (VQA) is in question. It is dependent on many variables, one of them being the content of the video that is being evaluated. Despite the evidence that content has an impact on the quality score the sequence receives from human evaluators, currently available VQA databases mostly comprise of sequences...

We explored the use of support vector machines (SVM) in order to analyze the ensemble activities of 24 postural and focal muscles recorded during a whole body pointing task. Because of the large number of variables involved in motor control studies, such multivariate methods have much to offer over the standard univariate techniques that are currently employed in the field to detect modificatio...

BACKGROUND Back problems and arthritis are common chronic conditions, while having back problems is a frequent reason for lost work time. The objective of this study was to investigate employment status amongst individuals who report having both back problems and arthritis, compared to having either condition alone. METHODS We analyzed data from the 2007/2008 Canadian Community Health Survey ...

In recent years the Open Data philosophy has gained a considerable momentum. In the public realm the free release of PSI datasets, besides enabling novel and promising forms of governmental accountability, paves the way to third-party developed products and services. Nevertheless, PSI re-use performed by private sector entrepreneurs is struggling to take-off due to the presence of numerous inhe...