The Clinton Administration has implied that short-run failures to control health care costs may cause a reexamination of wage and price controls as elements of comprehensive health care reform. The most recent imposition of mandatory wage and price controls was the Economic Stabilization Program (ESP) of the early 1970s. We analyze trends in hospitals' economic behavior and utilization before, ...

Evolutionary algorithms have been applied with great success to the difficult field of multi-objective optimisation. Nevertheless, the need for improvements in this field is still strong. We present a new evolutionary algorithm, ESP (the Evolution Strategy with Probabilistic mutation). ESP extends traditional evolution strategies in two principal ways: it applies mutation probabilistically in a...

Some measures of re l ig iosity, bel ief in an after l i fe , and bel ief in psychic phenomena were included in eight forced-choice ESP experiments. Seven of the experiments consisted of 40 trials of clairvoyance as a computer game and 40 trials of precognition in a paper-and-pencil test for each subject; and in one experiment there were 80 trials of clairvoyance. A combined measure of religios...

A multiplex PCR for the simultaneous detection of five virulence genes (asa1, gelE, cylA, esp, and hyl) in enterococci was developed. The presence of these genes was investigated in 153 clinical and 118 fecal Enterococcus faecium isolates from inpatients at an increased risk of developing infections (such as patients in intensive care units and hematology wards) from 13 hospitals in eight Europ...

BACKGROUND Enterococcus faecalis is an opportunistic pathogen that causes most of the enterococcal infections. Among the different factors implicated in the pathogenesis of these organisms, biofilm formation and antibiotic resistance are the most important. The ability for biofilm formation has been attributed to the presence of some virulence genes. However, no definite correlation has been fo...

objective: soil salinity is one of the major worldwide environmental constraints affecting agricultural production in arid and semiarid regions. lack of proper management of water and soil resources lead to increase soil salinity and reduce soil fertility. on the other hand, it seems simple and cheap method of measuring soil salinity is necessary. the aim of this study was to determine the rela...

OBJECTIVE In this study, we assessed the efficacy of a new method (expansion sphincter pharyngoplasty [ESP]) to treat obstructive sleep apnea. STUDY DESIGN We conducted a prospective, randomized controlled trial. METHODS Forty-five adults with small tonsils, body mass index less than 30 kg/m2, of Friedman stage II or III, of type I Fujita, and with lateral pharyngeal wall collapse were sele...

background: fasciola hepatica is one of the most important helminthes parasites and triclabendazole (tcbz) is routinely used for treatment of infected people and animals. secreted protease enzymes by the f. hepatica plays a critical role in the inva-sion, migration, nutrition and the survival of parasite and are key targets for novel drugs and vaccines. the aim of study was to determine the pro...