BACKGROUND In secondary care the Wells clinical decision rule (CDR) combined with a quantitative D-dimer test can exclude pulmonary embolism (PE) safely. The introduction of point-of-care (POC) D-dimer tests facilitates a similar diagnostic strategy in primary care.We estimated failure-rate and efficiency of a diagnostic strategy using the Wells-CDR combined with a POC-D-dimer test for excludin...

Computational technologies are changing rapidly due to fast and huge demand for computational power for variety of applications, societal factors and advances in science and technology. It is difficult to forecast exact nature of future computational technologies due to multiple and dynamic factors influencing technology advances. The paper focuses on computational technology trend from macro p...

In this study a modified entropy-based measure is presented for evaluating the serviceability level of water distribution networks in which the hydraulic uncertainties (flow rates in pipes) as well as the uncertainties due to mechanical parameters (failure probabilities of links) are considered simultaneously. In the proposed entropy calculation method, the connectivity order of the network dem...

The distributed computing scenario is rapidly evolving for integrating self-organizing and dynamic wireless networks. Unreliable failure detectors are classical mechanisms which provide information about process failures and can help systems to cope with the high dynamism of these networks. A number of failure detection algorithms has been proposed so far; nonetheless, most of them assume a glo...

The design of telecommunication network with capacity constraints of links, routers and ports of routers is considered in this paper. Specially, we limit each demand flow traversed through a pre-specified maximal number of links (called hops) under node failure scenarios in IP layer network. Such a design must be the most cost-effective and ensure that feasible flows continue to exist even when...

introduction heart failure is the second most common cause of ascites after cirrhosis. there are cardiac and noncardiac etiologies of ascites, and the multimodality imaging approach is a rich tool to redefine the final diagnosis. case presentation we present a case-series where 3 patients were referred to our hospital for further hepatology assessment due to severe abdominal ascites and liver f...

background : the cause of death is difficult to interpret in a road-traffic accident (rta) victim, because multiple injuries make it difficult to decide on the most fatal lesion, particularly when death is delayed by prompt medical intervention; and secondary haemorrhage, renal failure, fat embolism, systemic infections, myocardial or cerebral infarction – all comes under the potential differen...

A model was conceptualised to emulate the behaviour of coastal water during high and low tides and the impact of the pump failure in present and projected future scenarios was estimated on it. The model was validated before being used for failure scenario simulation. The study indicates that potential adverse effects on water quality are imminent in case of sewage pumping station failure and wa...

BACKGROUND Monitoring of HIV viral load in patients on combination antiretroviral therapy (ART) is not generally available in resource-limited settings. We examined the cost-effectiveness of qualitative point-of-care viral load tests (POC-VL) in sub-Saharan Africa. DESIGN Mathematical model based on longitudinal data from the Gugulethu and Khayelitsha township ART programmes in Cape Town, Sou...