The objective of this study was to determine if disparities in hip and knee replacement surgery exist among osteoarthritis patients with AARP-branded Medicare supplement plan (ie, Medigap) coverage provided by UnitedHealthcare. Patients were selected into the study if they had 1 or more medical claims with a diagnosis of osteoarthritis from July 1, 2006 to June 30, 2007. Logistic regression ana...

BACKGROUND We examined the effect of adult weight change on risk for total hip replacement resulting from primary osteoarthritis, using a prospective study design. METHODS We linked data on body mass index and body weight from 3 screening surveys in 3 Norwegian counties (mean ages at screenings 34, 43, and 47 y; n = 38,868) with follow-up data on total hip replacement (n = 572). Mean age at t...

We consider the problem of modelling the failure-time distribution, where failure is due to two distinct causes. One approach is to adopt a two-component mixture model where the components correspond to the two di€erent causes of failure. However, routine application of this approach with typical parametric forms for the component densities proves to be inadequate in modelling the time to a re-...

OBJECTIVE To evaluate the clinical characteristics of left ventricular fat replacement. METHODS We identified 45 patients [28M/17F, mean age (51.9 ± 14.7) years] with left ventricular myocardial fat replacement (CT value ≤ -30 Hu) by cardiovascular CT. RESULTS Among 45 patients, 25 patients [20M/5F, mean age (61.2 ± 10.4) years]were diagnosed as coronary artery disease (CAD). There was 56%s...

BACKGROUND/AIMS Physiological growth hormone (GH) secretion and insulin-like growth factor-I (IGF-I) levels are greater in young compared to older adults. We evaluated IGF-I levels and predictors of IGF-I responses in young adults on GH replacement. DESIGN From the KIMS database, 310 young adults (age 15-26 years) with severe GH deficiency related to childhood-onset disease and commenced on '...

OBJECTIVES Many reports demonstrate improvements in cardiovascular risk factors during GH replacement (rhGH) in adult GH deficiency (GHD). However, it remains to be determined to what extent these changes translate into a reduction of increased cardiovascular morbidity and mortality. The aim of this study was to evaluate the effects of long-term rhGH replacement on the prevalence of the metabol...

An in vivo experiment was conducted to determine the effect of dietary betaine supplementation (Betafin) as a replacement for methionine on broiler performance and carcass characteristics. In a completely randomized design (CRD) with five treatments of betaine levels (at 0, 25, 50, 75, and 100% in replacement for methionine) and five replicates of 10 birds/replicate, two hundred fifty-day-old R...

An age-dependent repair model is proposed. The notion of the “age” of the product and the degree of repair are used to define the virtual age of the product. The virtual failure rate function and the virtual hazard function related to the lifetime of the product are discussed. Under a non-homogeneous Poisson process scenario the expected warranty costs for repairable products associated with li...

This scientific report describes the effect of feeding detoxified karanj seed cake as protein replacement of soya bean meal on immunity and pathology in growing lambs. Twenty-four male lambs, 4-6 months of age were divided into four groups of six each and fed with different levels of detoxified karanj seed cake (dKC 0%, dKC 25%, dKC 50%, dKC 75%) for 140 days. Effect on humoral and cell mediate...

The present work is a contribution of mathematical and operations research models that help in arriving at the best replacement strategies to determine an age of motor vehicle at which the replacement is most economical. Parameters like depreciation, money value, forecasted inflation, nominal interest rate and real interest rate are taken into consideration in model development and for various ...