OBJECTIVE To investigate the economics of lung volume reduction surgery. DESIGN Medical center and physician charges obtained from billing records. SETTING Academic health center. PATIENTS Twenty-three consecutive patients undergoing lung volume reduction surgery at a single institution who were discharged from the hospital prior to November 1, 1995. OUTCOME MEASURES Length of hospital ...

BACKGROUND Breast reduction is an increasingly common procedure performed by Canadian plastic surgeons. Recent studies in the United States show that use of the inferior/central pedicle inverted T scar method is predominant. However, it is unknown what the practice preferences are among Canadian plastic surgeons. OBJECTIVE The goal of the present study was to assess trends in breast reduction...

Pruning techniques based on partial order reduction and symmetry elimination have recently found increasing attention for optimal planning. Although these techniques appear to be rather different, they base their pruning decisions on similar ideas from a high level perspective. In this paper, we propose safe integrations of partial order reduction and symmetry elimination for cost-optimal class...