We monitored pasture biomass on 20 permanent plots over 35 years to gauge the reliability of rainfall and NDVI as proxy measures of forage shortfalls in a savannah ecosystem. Both proxies are reliable indicators of pasture biomass at the onset of dry periods but fail to predict shortfalls in prolonged dry spells. In contrast, grazing pressure predicts pasture deficits with a high degree of accu...

to determine breath- holding spells (bhs) prevalence and risk factors in under 6- year- old children, we interviewed mothers of 400 children in a cross- sectional study in 5 health centers at south of tehran in autumn 1999. 33 children (8.25%) had history of bhs (male: 19, female: 14 25 cases were between 2-4 years old (mean: 40±17 months). seventy percent of cases (23) had onset of attacks aft...

Paroxysmal nonepileptic spells are often difficult to diagnose in pediatric patients owing to overlapping clinical features with epileptic seizures. A diagnosis of epilepsy is typically associated with pharmacologic and social sequelae, and an incorrect diagnosis can create an unnecessary burden highlighting the need for proper identification of paroxysmal nonepileptic spells. The adolescent po...

This paper uses panel and retrospective life history data from an important new data source the British Household Panel Survey to establish some stylised facts about the unemployment experiences of men. In particular we investigate the proportion of the sample who suffer from repeated unemployment spells, the origin and destination states of unemployment spells, some reasons for entering unempl...

An arrangement is described for manual workers of an oil refinery to certify their own short spells of sickness absence instead of obtaining a medical certificate. No serious abuse has been found, and these spells of absence are more evenly spread throughout the week than those certified by a doctor. This system can help to reduce both the work-load of practitioners and the lost time in industry.

BACKGROUND Accurate calculation of hospital length of stay (LOS) from the English Hospital Episode Statistics (HES) is important for a wide range of audit and research purposes. The two methodologies which are commonly used to achieve this differ in their accuracy and complexity. We compare these methods and make recommendations on when each is most appropriate. METHODS We calculated LOS usin...