In this article it is argued that feelings are all important to the function of literature. In contradiction to music that is concerned with the inwardness of humankind, literature has, because of language, the capacity to create fictional worlds that in many respects are similar to and related to the life world within which we live. One of the most important reasons for our emotional engagemen...

A personal impression of anorexia nervosa.

For the majority, work is mainly a source of income. And although a surprisingly high proportion are satisfied, or even very satisfied, with jobs which provide little intrinsic reward; most, in fact, expect little beyond the pay-packet. The minddeadening tedium of the assemblyline, the dull monotony of machineminding, the lack of any opportunity to use more than a part of potential skill and ab...

INTRODUCTION Allergic rhinitis is considered the most prevalent respiratory disease in Brazil and worldwide, with great impact on quality of life, affecting social life, sleep, and also performance at school and at work. OBJECTIVE To compare the efficacy and safety of two formulations containing mometasone furoate in the treatment of mild, moderate, or severe persistent allergic rhinitis afte...

BACKGROUND Postoperative sore throat (POST) is a frequent complication of tracheal intubation, particularly after surgery in the prone position. We designed this study to validate the non-inferiority of magnesium sulphate against dexamethasone for prevention of POST after lumbar spinal surgery. METHODS One hundred and forty-six patients were randomly allocated to receive either magnesium or d...

OBJECTIVES To compare the efficacy of the homeopathic Crataegus preparation Cralonin for non-inferiority to standard treatment for mild cardiac insufficiency. METHODS Multicentre non-randomised cohort study in patients aged 50-75 years in New York Heart Association class II. Patients received Cralonin (n=110) or ACE inhibitor/diuretics (n=102) for 8 weeks. To adjust for confounding by baselin...

Superiority is success demonstrated in some field of competition. The use of the word "superiority," which is a comparative term, implies the correlative concept of inferiority, and the superiority-inferiority relation appears only as the demonstrable result of some competitive event. If we wish to discover the superior members of a group, the simple way open to us is to set up some form of com...

OBJECTIVES: To compare the efficacy and safety of two filgrastim formulations for controlling chemotherapy-induced neutropenia and to evaluate the non-inferiority of the test drug relative to the originator. METHODS: This phase III non-inferiority study had a randomized, multicenter, and open-label design. The patients were randomized at a ratio of 1:1 with a follow-up period of 6 weeks for e...

Confirmatory clinical trials comparing the efficacy of a new treatment with an active control typically aim at demonstrating either superiority or non-inferiority. In the latter case, the objective is to show that the experimental treatment is not worse than the active control by more than a pre-specified non-inferiority margin. We consider two classes of group-sequential designs that combine t...