Propensity-score matching is increasingly being used to reduce the impact of treatment-selection bias when estimating causal treatment effects using observational data. Several propensity-score matching methods are currently employed in the medical literature: matching on the logit of the propensity score using calipers of width either 0.2 or 0.6 of the standard deviation of the logit of the pr...

Studies on the effectiveness of drug combina tions have intrigued pharmacologists for decades. Combinations of drugs have been used in attempts to attain enhanced biological effects. The range of pharmacological interests in which drug combina tions have been studied is diverse, including anal gesics, insecticides, fungicides, antibiotics, plant and animal hormones, cellular poisons, etc. The r...

OBJECTIVE The study aimed to determine the rates of functional remission and employment as well as the factors associated with functional remission among patients with Schizophrenia, receiving community psychiatric service in an urban setting in Malaysia. METHODS From a total of 250 patients randomly selected, 155 fulfilled the study requirement and were assessed on their functional remission...

OBJECTIVE Cushing's syndrome causes considerable harm to the body if left untreated, yet often remains undiagnosed for prolonged periods of time. In this study we aimed to test whether face classification software might help in discriminating patients with Cushing's syndrome from healthy controls. DESIGN Diagnostic study. PATIENTS Using a regular digital camera, we took frontal and profile ...

Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is a chronic and disabling polyarthritic disease, which affects mainly women in middle and old age. Extensive evidence based on the results of various microbial, immunological and molecular studies from different parts of the world, shows that a strong link exists between Proteus mirabilis microbes and RA. We propose that sub-clinical Proteus urinary tract infections a...

BACKGROUND Physician quality of work life is a key factor in career choice, satisfaction, and retention. The majority of physicians are currently employed by large health care organizations where physician loss of autonomy is common, yet some physicians have opened micropractices. There have been no previous studies comparing physician satisfaction between employed physicians and micropractice ...

BACKGROUND Northern Uganda suffered 20 years of conflict which devastated lives and the health system. Since 2006, there has been investment in reconstruction, which includes efforts to rebuild the health workforce. This article has two objectives: first, to understand health workers' experiences of working in public and private not-for-profit (PNFP) sectors during and after the conflict in Nor...

The present paper debates the need for specific methods for design research in one area, that of product analysis. Initially, on-going discussions on design research methods and product visualization are described. The relation of these to the debate at hand – namely on the possibility of visually assessing design differentiation in consumer products – is presented. The paper is informed by lit...

The parasite Trypanosoma cruzi causes Chagas disease, which remains a serious public health concern and continues to victimize thousands of people, primarily in the poorest regions of Latin America. In the search for new therapeutic drugs against T. cruzi, here we have evaluated both the in vitro and the in vivo activity of 5-hydroxy-3-methyl-5-phenyl-pyrazoline-1-(S-benzyl dithiocarbazate) (H2...

This brief article provides an independent derivation of a formula given by Kafadar and Eringen (1971) connecting two distinct Cosserat spins. The first of these, the logarithmic spin represents the time rate of change of the vector defining finite Cosserat rotation, whereas the second, the instantaneous spin, gives the local angular velocity representing the infinitesimal generator of that rot...