We read with great interest the paper of Chang et al, published recently in Thorax. We totally agree with the fact that ‘cardiac involvement may be an important determinant of prognosis in COPD exacerbations’. In their study, Chang et al found that patients presenting with COPD exacerbation (defined as dyspnoea, cough or sputum purulence, respiratory failuredPo2<60 mm Hg or Pco2>45 mm Hgdor cha...

Pierre-Gerlier Forest and his colleagues make a strong argument for the need to expand policy capacity among healthcare actors. In this commentary, I develop an additional argument in support of Forest et al view. Forest et al rightly point to the need to have embedded policy experts to successfully translate healthcare reform policy into healthcare change. Translation of externally generated i...

A fast-growing theoretical literature on the political economy of reform has provided a sizable collection of models that have deepened our understanding concerning how distributional conflict manifests itself in the political process and can prevent efficiency-enhancing economic reform from taking place (see e.g., Allan Drazen [2000 Ch. 10, 13] for an insightful review). Unfortunately, systema...

9 Country Comparisons of Human Stroke Research Since 2001 A Bibliometric Study Kjell Asplund, MD; Marie Eriksson, PhD; Olle Persson, PhD (Stroke. 2012;43:830-837.)

Comparative Performance of Multi-view Stereoscopic and Mammographic Display Modalities for Breast Lesion Detection by Lincoln Jon Webb Medical Physics Graduate Program Duke University Date:_______________________ Approved: ___________________________ Ehsan Samei, Supervisor ___________________________ Joseph Lo ___________________________ Sua Yoo An abstract of a thesis submitted in partial ful...

substituted BiFeO3 epitaxial thin films at morphotropic phase boundaries Daisuke Kan, Ching-Jung Cheng, Valanoor Nagarajan, and Ichiro Takeuchi Department of Materials Science and Engineering, University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland 20742, USA Institute for Chemical Research, Kyoto University, Gokasyo Uji, Kyoto 611-0011, Japan School of Materials Science and Engineering, University of N...

The etiology of head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC) is multifactorial. Genetic factors, diet, occupational exposure, and life style have been implicated in the development of these cancers (Gillison, 2007). Although tobacco and alcohol consumption are traditionally considered the main risk factors in the majority of all HNSCC, infection with human papillomavirus (HPV) is thought to pl...

PURPOSE This study evaluates the extent to which bilingual children produce the same or overlapping responses on tasks assessing semantic skills in each of their languages and whether classification analysis based on monolingual or conceptual scoring can accurately classify the semantic development of typically developing (TD) bilingual children. METHOD In Study 1, 55 TD children (ages 4;0 [y...

O estudo de Trattinnickia burserifolia levou ao isolamento dos triterpenos conhecidos ursanos α-amirenona, α-amirina, 3-epi-α-amirina, 3α,16β-diidroxiurs-12-eno; oleananos β-amirenona, βamirina, 3-epi-β-amirina, 3α,16β-diidroxiolean-12-eno; tirucalanos ácidos 3α-hidroxitirucal-8,24dien-21-óico, 3α-hidroxitirucal-7,24-dien-21-óico, e 3-oxotirucal-8,24-dien-21-óico; damaranos dammarenediol-II e 3...