CONTEXT Prior research has faulted the US News and World Report hospital specialty rankings for excessive reliance on reputation, a subjective measure of a hospital's performance. OBJECTIVE To determine whether and to what extent reputation correlates with objective measures of research productivity among cancer hospitals. DESIGN A retrospective observational study. SETTING Automated sear...

BACKGROUND High pre-pregnancy body mass index (BMI) and inappropriate gestational weight gain (GWG) are associated with adverse short and long-term maternal and neonatal outcomes and may act as modifiable risk factors on the path to overweight/obesity, but their social patterning is not well established. This study investigates the association of education with BMI and GWG across two consecutiv...

We show that there exists a family of r-regular graphs of arbitrarily large excessive index for each integer r greater than 3. Furthermore, we answer a question in Bonisoli and Cariolaro (2007) [1] showing that all the positive integers can be attained as excessive classes of regular graphs. © 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Let G be a multigraph. We say that G is 1-extendable if every edge of G is contained in a 1-factor. Suppose G is 1-extendable. An excessive factorization of G is a set F = {F1, F2, . . . , Fr} of 1-factors of G whose union is E(G) and, subject to this condition, r is minimum. The integer r is called the excessive index of G and denoted by χ′e(G). Analogously, let m be a positive integer. We say...

BACKGROUND Optimal titration of inspired oxygen is important to prevent hyperoxia in mechanically ventilated patients in ICUs. There is mounting evidence of the deleterious effects of hyperoxia; however, there is a paucity of data about F(IO(2)) practice and oxygen exposure among patients in ICUs. We therefore sought to assess excessive F(IO(2)) exposure in mechanically ventilated patients wit...

In the past two decades, respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA)-an index of parasympathetic nervous system (PNS)-mediated cardiac control-has emerged as a reliable peripheral biomarker of emotion regulation (ER). Reduced RSA and excessive RSA reactivity (i.e., withdrawal) to emotional challenge are observed consistently among individuals with poor ER capabilities, including those with various forms...

abnormalities of blinking in childhood are not uncommon. to determine the characteristics and causes of excessive blinking, this prospective, non–comparative consecutive case series study was carried out. in outpatient clinics of ophthalmology and neurology of our hospital, 60 children aging 2-16 years old with excessive blinking were examined. detailed ophthalmologic and neurologic evaluation ...

A fund’s performance is usually compared to the performance of an index or other funds. If a fund trails the benchmark, the fund manager is often replaced. We argue that this may lead to excessive risk-taking if fund managers differ in ability and have the opportunity to take excessive risk. To match the benchmark, fund managers may increase the risk of their portfolio even if this decreases th...