Six rainfall datasets are compared over the Amazon basin, Northeast Brazil, and the Congo basin. These datasets include three gauge-only precipitation products from the Climate Prediction Center (CPC), Global Precipitation Climatology Center (GPCC), and Brazilian Weather Forecast and Climate Studies Center (CLMNLS), and three combined gauge and satellite precipitation datasets from the CPC Merg...

PURPOSE To evaluate whether introducing rapid diagnostic testing in conjunction with implementing a stratification algorithm for testing eligibility would be an appropriate clinical and cost saving approach. METHOD An internal concurrent 4-month observational study was performed. Positive blood cultures continued to be worked up in accordance with standard of care. An additional call to the i...

AIM To present the solutions implemented in health care institution in the context of identification of patient's requirements, and evaluation of the level of patients' satisfaction in accordance with the requirements of ISO norm 9001:2008 based on the experience of GPCC. BACKGROUND The fundamental mechanisms behind the free market, such as competition, start applying also to the public healt...

The correspondence between five precipitation products, including CMORPH, GPCP-2, TRMM 3B43, GPCC, and ITPCAS, and ground-based measurements of precipitation were evaluated on annual, seasonal, and monthly scales during 2000-2014 in the Qinling-Daba Mountains over China, which is a significant area with vital value of climate and hydrology. Performances of the precipitation products in the rela...

Staphylococci are the leading cause of nosocomial blood stream infections. Fast and accurate identification of staphylococci and confirmation of their methicillin resistance are crucial for immediate treatment with effective antibiotics. A multiplex real-time PCR assay that targets mecA, femA specific for S. aureus, femA specific for S. epidermidis, 16S rRNA for universal bacteria, and 16S rRNA...

BACKGROUND We performed a clinical audit of preoperative rectal cancer treatment at two European radiotherapy centres (Poland and Spain). The aim was to independently verify adherence to a selection of indicators of treatment quality and to identify any notable inter-institutional differences. METHODS A total of 162 patients, in Catalan Institute of Oncology (ICO) 68 and in Greater Poland Can...

The NASA/JAXA Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) has been in operation for over 17 years since 1997. The length of TRMM is far shorter than those from ground observations, raising a question as to whether TRMM derived climatology products are good enough for research and applications. In this study, three climatologies derived from a blended product (the TRMM Multi-Satellite Precipitati...

the lack of reliable and updated precipitation datasets is the most important limitation in the study of many climatological and hydrological subjects, including climate change and temporal variability of precipitation in many data sparse areas around the globe. this is particularly valid for iran where vast areas of central-eastern country that host the iranian deserts, suffer from an inadequa...