This article begins by reviewing selected past approaches to estimating the prevalence of a range of morbidities through the use of household or community-based interview surveys in developed and developing countries. Subsequently, it reviews epidemiological studies that have used a range of methods to estimate the prevalence of reproductive morbidities. A detailed review of recent community or...

Genome wide association studies (GWAS) have identified numerous single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) that are associated with a variety of common human diseases. Due to the weak marginal effect of most disease-associated SNPs, attention has recently turned to evaluating the combined effect of multiple disease-associated SNPs on the risk of disease. Several recent multigenic studies show poten...

There are numerous guides on Web design but for the most part, these are based on designers' intuition and common sense Ð with little theoretical or experimental validation. A major problem is that there is a general lack of cognitive guidelines for Web design. Of the few available theoretical guidelines for designing hypermedia documents, very little experimental research is available that tes...

In this paper we present a simple testbed for experimenting with C4ISR architectures (based on a “SCUD hunt” scenario), the FINC methodology for analysing C4ISR architectures, and some experimental results. The testbed allows us to explore different organisational architectures under a range of conditions. The FINC (Force, Intelligence, Networking and C2) methodology allows the calculation of t...

Availability of standardized metabolite panels and genome-wide single-nucleotide polymorphism data endorse the comprehensive analysis of gene-metabolite association. Currently, many studies use genome-wide association analysis to investigate the genetic effects on single metabolites (mGWAS) separately. Such studies have identified several loci that are associated not only with one but with mult...

Widespread prostate-specific antigen (PSA) -based screening and aggressive treatment of prostate cancer have reduced mortality rates substantially, but both remain controversial in large part because of high rates of overdiagnosis and overtreatment of otherwise indolent tumors. Active surveillance--or close monitoring of PSA levels combined with periodic imaging and repeat biopsies--is gaining ...

For several years, total intravenous anesthesia (TIVA) has demonstrated many advantages that allow consideration of propofol anesthesia as an interesting alternative in pediatric anesthesia. TIVA in children requires calculation and validation of pharmacokinetic (PK) models specifically adapted to the pediatric population. Several PK models based on a 3-compartment approach have been proposed i...

Epigenetics is believed to provide great chances for a better understanding of the development and treatment of many diseases where the analysis of genomic DNA has so far failed to provide conclusive answers. Methylcytosine is a frequently used quantitative marker of epigenetic studies. Since immediate analysis of sampled material is in most cases not possible, storage time and conditions are c...

In spite of decades of epidemiological research, the etiology and causal patterns for many common diseases, such as breast and colon cancer or neurodegenerative diseases, are still largely unknown. Such chronic diseases are likely to have an environmental origin. However, "environmental" risks have been often elusive in epidemiological studies. This is a conundrum for current epidemiological re...

Epigenetic mechanisms play an important role in regulating and stabilizing functional states of living cells. However, in spite of an increasing amount of experimental data, models of transcriptional regulation by epigenetic processes, in particular by histone modifications, are rather rare. In this article, we focus on epigenetic modes of transcriptional regulation based on histone modificatio...