OBJECTIVE To compare the absolute risk (AR) screening approach to the current approach of risk adjusted to maternal age in patients undergoing first-trimester screening (FTS). MATERIAL AND METHODS Three-stage retrospective analysis of 3073 pregnancies that had FTS during 2006-2007. (1) Distribution analysis of AR as defined by (final FTS risk)/(risk by age). (2) Analysis of the screen-positiv...

BACKGROUND The objective of this study was to design and develop the Perception Scale of Barriers to Contraceptive Use (PSBCU) as a measurement tool for the qualitative assessment of the barriers and obstacles women perceived with regard to contraceptive use or low rates of contraceptive use in women using family planning services. METHOD The data for this methodological study were collected ...

BACKGROUND Treatment benefits and harms are often communicated as relative risk reductions and increases, which are frequently misunderstood by doctors and patients. One suggestion for improving understanding of such risk information is to also communicate the baseline risk. We investigated 1) whether the presentation format of the baseline risk influences understanding of relative risk changes...

The expansion of the settlement trough is an important factor in the risk assessment of the tunneling induced settlement. The increase of settlement trough requires buildings to be included in the impact zone, which causes damages. This paper conducts estimation of the settlement trough width (STW) using empirical approaches, field measurement data and numerical solutions. The credibility of th...

The further development and improvement of prediction models for crowd-induced vibrations footbridges requires detailed information on representative operational loading data. In this paper, an inverse method is used to estimate the parameters that govern human–structure interaction from resulting structural response. interest concern dynamic characteristics a mass-spring-damper (MSD) system, a...