BACKGROUND Public hospitals have come under heavy scrutiny across the world owing to rising expenditures. However, much of the focus has been on cutting down costs to raise efficiency levels. Although not denying the importance of efficiency measures, this article targets a performance issue that is relevant to address the quality of services rendered in public hospitals. Thus, it is important ...

The Advanced Land Observing Satellite (ALOS) was successfully launched on Jan. 24, 2006, from Tanegashima Space Center, Japan. The objectives of ALOS are [1]: (1) to provide maps for Japan and other countries including Asia-Pacific region (Cartography), (2) to perform regional observation for "sustainable development", harmonization between Earth environment and development (Regional Observatio...

BACKGROUND Anterior lens opacities (ALO) are found in 3-14% of pediatric patients with cataracts. No clear guidelines exist in the management and treatment of these cataracts. OBJECTIVE To evaluate pediatric patients with anterior lens opacities and assess rate of amblyopia and need for surgery over time. METHODS A retrospective chart review was performed on patients with unilateral and bil...

This paper introduces the updated results of calibration for optical instruments of the Advanced Land Observing Satellite (ALOS, nicknamed “Daichi”), was successfully launched on January 24th, 2006, and it continuously working very well. ALOS has three mission instruments; an L-band Synthetic Aperture Radar called PALSAR, and two optical sensors called PRISM and AVNIR-2. PRISM stands for the Pa...

For optical images, cloud and cloud shadow is always a problem during image processing and interpretation. Landsat ETM+ images, as a kind of optical images, are affected by cloud too. On the other hand, microwave images such as ALOS PALSAR images, which depend on microwave, is not affected by cloud, thus they are cloud-free. The aim of this study is to develop a semi-automatic method for removi...

This study demonstrates the possibility of detecting the changes of growing stocks in mountainous forest stands derived from ALOS PALSAR and PALSAR-2 images. The ALOS PALSAR were obtained over the Kwangneung Experiment Forest (KEF, Korea) during the period of nineteen and a half months from the April 26, 2009 to December 12, 2010, whereas the PALSAR-2 data were acquired on the April 7, 2015. Th...

AIMS To evaluate the effectiveness of management of diabetic foot problems (DFP) by the National University Hospital (NUH) Multidisciplinary Diabetic Foot Team combined with a clinical pathway in terms of average length of stay (ALOS), readmission rates, hospitalisation cost per patient, major reamputation rate, and complication rate. METHODS 939 patients admitted to the Department of Orthopa...

Advanced Land Observing Satellite (ALOS) Phased Array L-band type Synthetic Aperture Radar (PALSAR) backscatter images with 50 m pixel size (strip images) at HV-polarization were used to map clear-cuts at a regional and national level in Sweden. For a set of 31 clear-cuts, on average 59.9% of the pixels within each clear-cut were correctly detected. When compared with a one-pixel edge-eroded ve...