Running over timescales that span decades or centuries, the epidemiological transition provides the central narrative of global health. In this transition, a reduction in mortality is followed by a reduction in fertility, creating larger, older populations in which the main causes of illness and death are no longer acute infections of children but chronic diseases of adults. Since the year 2000...

OBJECTIVE The Surgical Care Improvement Project (SCIP) is a national initiative to reduce surgical complications, including postoperative surgical site infection (SSI), through protocol-driven antibiotic usage. This study aimed to determine the effect SCIP guidelines have had on in-hospital SSIs after open vascular procedures. METHODS The Nationwide Inpatient Sample (NIS) was retrospectively ...

In contrast to its immediate neighbors, for over a century Hungary has had a seriously declining birth rate. This paper aims to provide an overview of this anomaly through a historical perspective by considering the major findings of a series of demographic studies that identify the key factors behind falling levels of fertility. It does so by focusing on four major periods. The first period co...

The evolution of a system of cosmic strings is studied following an analytic model introduced by Kibble and developed in a previous paper. The properties of a scaling solution in the radiation dominated era are studied in detail, and it is shown that the conclusions of the previous paper are not sensitive to changes in the model for loop fragmentation. The scaling solution is also compared with...

Tamoxifen, a selective estrogen receptor (ER) modulator (SERM), remains a frontline clinical therapy for patients with ERa-positive breast cancer. However, the relatively rapid development of resistance to this drug in the metastatic setting remains an impediment to a durable response. Although drug resistance likely arises by many different mechanisms, the consensus is that most of the implica...

During recent years, great interest has grown within the operational weather community on the adaptable component of observational networks. Decisions regarding where to deploy new observations of special value under threatening weather, or regarding permanent changes in observational strategies need support from sensitivity studies that determine areas where the addition of observations would ...

It has often been suggested that the period of the Quasi-Biennial Oscillation (QBO) has a tendency to synchronize with the Semi-Annual Oscillation (SAO). Using 45 years of ERA-40 data of the equatorial stratosphere up to the stratopause, we demonstrate that this synchronization is not just a tendency but indeed holds quite well in the upper stratosphere. A QBO period starts when a SAO westerly ...

Computer-synthesized speech is emerging as a mainstream human-computer interface in post-PC devices. However, there is limited research on its effect on the user experience. We contribute to this emerging stream by focusing on online review persuasiveness. The current presentation standard is the text review accompanied by images and numeric ratings. We review the limited theory on the effect o...

The European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) provides global analyses of atmospheric humidity from the ground to the lower mesosphere. Unlike in the troposphere, in the stratosphere no humidity observations are assimilated. Humidity analyses here are essentially the results of a free-running model constrained by the ECMWF’s analysed wind fields. So far only the broad-scale fea...