BACKGROUND / OBJECTIVE The availability and use of abdominal ultrasonography and computed tomography for diagnostic purposes has led to frequent detection of asymptomatic renal cysts. Recent evidence suggests their association with hypertension. The aim of our study was to evaluate the presence of simple renal cysts in patients with hypertension and prehypertension. METHODS In a hospital base...

What is the nature of the problem domains in which expert systems are likely to succeed and those in which they will not? Are there domains in which their use might be dangerous? How will their performance compare with that of human experts in the domain? Are there different facets of expertise that are not amenable to programming? How can human and machine expertise best be combined? To what e...

Software architecture is taking a bad rap with many agile proponents; big up-front design, massive documentation, smell of waterfall, it is pictured as a non-agile practice, something we do not want to even consider; though everybody want to be called an architect. However, certain classes of system, ignoring architectural issues too long “hit a wall” and collapse by lack of an architectural fo...

Despite the increasingly digital nature of society there are some areas of research that remain firmly rooted in the past; in this case the laboratory notebook, the last remaining paper component of an experiment. Countless electronic laboratory notebooks (ELNs) have been created in an attempt to digitise record keeping processes in the lab, but none of them have become a 'key player' in the EL...

Accidents cause 10,000 children to attend Melbourne's Royal Children's Hospital Casualty Department each year. Most of these children sustain trivial injuries, which apart from some initial pain, cause no long term effects. About 1,000 of these children are admitted to hospital, many being discharged within a day or so with minimal upset to their way of life. However, some of these children suf...

i A r r c a i Cognitive errors of omission and commission are unoubtedly the most common types of medical errors. There re 2 types of such errors: those due to a lack of knowledge nd those caused by the misuse, or the lack of use, of nowledge. The question is, can these mental activities be ealt with in such a manner that medical errors are diminshed? The answer is maybe. This being true, this ...