BACKGROUND Nearly 20,000 patients per year in the UK receive total knee arthroplasty (TKA). One of the problems faced by the health services of many developed countries is the length of time patients spend waiting for elective treatment. We therefore report the results of a study in which the Salisbury Priority Scoring System (SPSS) was used by both the surgeon and their patients to ascertain w...

Effective and efficient Quality of Service (QoS) management is critical for a service grid to meet the requirements of both grid users and service providers. We introduce a scalable framework of service management in grid environment to guarantee the QoS of grid services. Several characters of our framework are 1) grid level resource reservation mechanism to use existing heterogeneous resource ...

In a procurement setting, this paper examines agreements between a buyer and one of the suppliers which would increase their joint surplus. The provisions of such agreements depend on the buyer’s ability to design the rules of the final procurement auction. When the buyer has no such ability, their joint surplus can be increased by an agreement which grants to the preferred supplier a right-of-...

On July 15, 1994, the Department of Justice brought a complaint against the Microsoft Corporation alleging violations of Sections 1 and 2 of the Sherman Act. The complaint alleged that Microsoft used exclusionary and anticompetitive contracts to market its personal computer operating system software and thereby unlawfully maintained its monopoly of personal computer (PC) operating systems and u...

Introduction. The purpose of this study was to determine the interand intra-observer reliability of a clinical radiographic scale for hallux rigidus. Methods. A total of 80 patients were retrospectively selected from the patient population of two foot and ankle orthopaedic surgeons. Each corresponding series of radiographic images (weightbearing anteroposterior, weight-bearing lateral, and obli...

OBJECTIVE To evaluate the responsiveness of the Shoulder Disability Questionnaire (SDQ). METHODS The study was conducted within the framework of an observational study on shoulder disorders in primary care. After first presentation of their complaints to the general practitioner and after one and six months, participants completed the SDQ, a single question on functional status (FSQ), and an ...

The relationship between osteoarthritic change and amyloid degeneration was studied in 116 joint capsules from osteoarthritic hip joints. Twenty-seven (23%) contained amyloid deposits. Twenty-eight joint capsules showed chondroid metaplasia in the fibrous part. Significantly more amyloid degeneration was found among these. Six joint capsules contained pyrophosphate crystals. Five of these were ...