Signaling through the cyclic adenosine monophosphate-dependent protein kinase [protein kinase A (PKA)] is an important and widely studied area of signal transduction research. This signaling pathway is commonly investigated through the use of the pharmacological PKA inhibitors H89 and KT 5720. Both of these compounds are thought to block PKA actions through competitive inhibition of the adenosi...

A 54-year-old Spanish woman sought medical advice at the outpatient clinic of our institution for diarrhoea and abdominal pain that began on her return from Cambodia and Laos ten days earlier. On examination, she had neither fever nor skin lesions. Laboratory tests showed haemoglobin, hepatic enzymes and a leucocyte count within normal range. No eosinophilia was detected. The patient was diagno...

Evidence is beginning to emerge that music therapy can improve the mental health of people with depression. We examine possible mechanisms of action of this complex intervention and suggest that music therapy partly is effective because active music-making within the therapeutic frame offers the patient opportunities for new aesthetic, physical and relational experiences.

Medical protocols are widely recognised to provide clinicians with high-quality and up-to-date recommendations. A critical condition for this is of course that the protocols themselves are of high quality. In this paper we investigate the use of critiquing for improving the quality of medical protocols. We constructed a detailed formal model of the jaundice protocol of the American Association ...

BACKGROUND Multivitamin/multimineral (MVM) supplements are commonly consumed by the general population, but little is known regarding their composition and compliance with local regulations. We assessed the composition and compliance with regulations [no indication in the label of vitamin/minerals amounting <15% of the acceptable daily intake (ADI)] of MVM available in Switzerland. METHODS Th...