Clinicians should be aware of new developments to familiarize themselves with pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic characteristics of new anticoagulant agents to appropriately and safely use them. For the moment, cardiologists and other clinicians also require to master currently available drugs, realizing the mechanism of action, side effects, and laboratory monitoring to measure their anticoag...

1 Jensen R, Leyk M, Crapo R, et al. Quality control of DL,CO instruments in global clinical trials. Eur Respir J 2009; 33: 828–834. 2 Farré R, Navajas D. Quality control: a necessary, but sometimes overlooked, tool for improving respiratory medicine. Eur Respir J 2009; 33: 722–723. 3 ISO/IEC Guide 99:2007. International vocabulary of metrology – basic and general concepts and associated terms (...

This study reviews the instruments used for the clinical assessment of spasticity in children with cerebral palsy, and evaluates their compliance with the concept of spasticity, defined as a velocity-dependent increase in muscle tone to passive stretch. Searches were performed in Medline, Embase, and Cinahl, including the keywords 'spasticity', 'child', and 'cerebral palsy', to identify article...

BACKGROUND To provide the validated and standardized form of the Persian version of the Ages and Stages Questionnaires as an appropriate developmental screening tool for evaluation of Iranian children's development. METHODS This was a cross-sectional study. Translation and back-translation, content validity determination, cultural and lingual modifications, pilot study on 100 parents and inte...

Because flow cytometers are designed to measure particle characteristics, particles are the most common materials used to calibrate, control, and standardize the instruments. Definitions and cautions are provided for common terms to alert the reader to critical distinctions in meaning. This unit presents extensive background on particle types and cautions and describes practical aspects of meth...

Between-country comparisons of estimated dietary intake are particularly prone to error when different food composition tables are used. The objective of this study was to describe our procedures and rationale for the selection and adaptation of available food composition to a single database to enable cross-country nutritional intake comparisons. Latin American Study of Nutrition and Health (E...

There is a general assent on the key role of standards in Synthetic Biology. In two consecutive letters to this journal, suggestions on the assembly methods for the Registry of standard biological parts have been described. We fully agree with those authors on the need of a more flexible building strategy and we highlight in the present work two major functional challenges standardization effor...

Standardization of herbal drugs is essential to certify their quality and purity. Kshara (alkaline substance) of Apamarga (Achyranthes aspera Linn.) is an important constituent in many Ayurvedic formulations, but its standard manufacturing process (SMP) is not attempted till date. This study is aimed to establish SMP for Apamarga kshara. In pharmaceutical process; generally the sediments of ash...

In 1886, Max Jaffe discovered a reaction of creatinine with picric acid in an alkaline environment. Although the manuscript describes the nature of a precipitate and does not deal with an analytical assay, Jaffe's landmark paper elucidated the basic principles of the creatinine determination method (originally developed by Otto Folin), which became immensely popular and has easily withstood the...

Several instruments measuring social functioning have been developed in the last four decades, as a result of the increasing interest in community care of the chronic mentally ill. SCARF Social Functioning Index (SSFI) was developed to meet the pressing need for an instrument which was easy to administer and which could be used by all mental health professionals. The SSFI comprises four main se...