In many domains Case-Based Reasoning has become a successful technique for knowledge-based systems. So far in medicine it is not as successful yet. Since we believe that the main problem is the adaptation task, we have developed a task oriented adaptation model for therapeutic problems. This model is based on our experiences with therapeutic decision support programs in the endocrine domain.

Environmental sex determination has been documented in a variety of organisms for many decades and the adaptive significance of this unusual sex-determining mechanism has been clarified empirically in most cases. In contrast, temperature-dependent sex determination (TSD) in amniote vertebrates, first noted 40 years ago in a lizard, has defied a general satisfactory evolutionary explanation desp...

Exposure to ultraviolet (UV) radiation may cause the significant degradation of many materials. UV radiation causes photooxidative degradation which results in breaking of the polymer chains, produces free radical and reduces the molecular weight, causing deterioration of mechanical properties and leading to useless materials, after an unpredictable time. Polystyrene (PS), one of the most impor...

Thus said Matthew Prior, writing 300 years ago, and the aphorism is timeless. What has changed is the public cost of staying the Grim Reaper’s hand that extra day. Stephen Hall’s story concerns the immunotherapy of cancer, and a mesmerising read it is. His dramatis personae range from the wholly admirable to quite a number who one would not wish to meet in an alley on a dark night. The narrativ...

Today, the average consumer is comfortable browsing a web site using a desktop, laptop or kiosk computer. However, this is changing a rapid rate as more and more consumers access the same web content using a small screen device such as a mobile phone or personal digital assistant (PDA). Regardless of the consumers’ expertise with the mobile device, the experience is becoming frustrating as they...

This paper includes commentaries on outcomes of esophageal surgery, including the mechanisms by which fundoduplication improves lower esophageal sphincter (LES) pressure; the efficacy of the Linx™ management system in improving LES function; the utility of radiologic characterization of antireflux valves following surgery; the correlation between endoscopic findings and reported symptoms follow...

Three lessons can be learned from this: first, there is a need for a less invasive and preferably reversible technique for lung volume reduction. Secondly, there is a need for prospective, randomized and (preferably sham) control of these techniques, and thirdly, there is a need for an a priori selection of patients, to predict the future. So, are there less invasive techniques out there? Inter...