Problems in the 2000 presidential election, especially in Florida, initiated a large-scale shift toward new voting technology. Using cross-sectional and longitudinal data, we report on the effects of changes in voting systems in Florida and Michigan. The variety of initial conditions and the numerous changes make these excellent case studies. We find that reforms succeeded in reducing the resid...

INTRODUCTION Little is known about the epidemiology, causes and outcomes of neonatal cholestasis in the Asian population beyond Japan and Taiwan. METHODS This was a prospective, observational study on patients with neonatal cholestasis who were referred to the University of Malaya Medical Centre, Malaysia, between November 1996 and May 2004. RESULTS Biliary atresia (BA) (29 percent) and idi...

BACKGROUND AND METHODS Aldosterone is important in the pathophysiology of heart failure. In a doubleblind study, we enrolled 1663 patients who had severe heart failure and a left ventricular ejection fraction of no more than 35 percent and who were being treated with an angiotensin-converting-enzyme inhibitor, a loop diuretic, and in most cases digoxin. A total of 822 patients were randomly ass...

The therapeutic results in acute myocardial infarction for two periods hnmediately preceding (pre-CCU) and after (post-CCU) establishment of a coronary care unit were compared. One hundred cases of proved myocardial infarction were selected at random from each time period. The coronary care unit reduced gross mortality from 33 percent (pre-CCU) to 16 percent (post-CCU). The reduction in mortali...

BACKGROUND In instrumented posterolateral fusion reduction of a spondylolisthesis is appealing on theoretical grounds since this may lead to indirect decompression of the entrapped nerve roots. However, there is no consensus in the literature whether a beneficial effect of reduction on outcome can be expected. The objective of the current study was to evaluate whether a correlation between the ...