OBJECTIVE To assess intra- and inter-observer reproducibility of a new point shear wave elastography technique (pSWE, S-Shearwave, Samsung Medison) and compare its accuracy in assessing liver stiffness (LS) with an established pSWE technique (Virtual Touch Quantification, VTQ). MATERIALS AND METHODS Thirty-three patients were enrolled in this Institutional Review Board-approved prospective st...

PURPOSE To evaluate the repeatability and reproducibility of a double-pass instrument (OQASII, Visiomereics SL, Spain), which objectively measures overall optical quality of the human eyes. METHODS The right eye of 119 healthy subjects with best corrected visual acuity of 20/25 or better was included in this prospective, comparative, observational study. Two separate tests with OQASII were co...

Sixty-six supine portable chest radiographs done on the day of bronchoscopy in 62 critical care unit patients suspected of having pneumonia were examined in a blinded fashion by two radiologists. Quantitative culture results obtained from protected brush catheter (PBC) specimens were compared with chest radiograph scores. For one observer, the sensitivity of the chest radiograph for predicting ...

Objectives To evaluate the intra- and inter-observer measurement variability of an existing osteoarthritis (OA) stifle scoring system. Methods Paired caudocranial and mediolateral canine stifle radiographs were selected randomly. A total of 15 assessment points were evaluated independently and graded twice (integer numeric scale: 1-4) at an interval of 2 weeks by three observers with different ...

In this paper a novel method is proposed for construction of an exponential observer for nonlinear system. The presented method is based on direct solution of dynamic error without any linearzing of nonlinear terms. Necessary and sufficient conditions for construction of direct observer are presented. Stability of the observer is checked using Lyapunov theorem. Also the ability of this observer...

PURPOSE To investigate the role of a supplemental imaging modality in postoperative assessment of acetabular fractures following open reduction and internal fixation. METHODS Postoperative axial computed tomographic (CT) scans were compared with plain radiographs of 20 patients with regard to their sensitivity for detecting articular fracture reduction in terms of gap displacement and step de...

Measuring range of motion (ROM) is the first step of a physical examination and functional evaluation of the shoulder joint. Digital inclinometers are available on the market; however, they are expensive, and hence will not come into wide use. In this study, we present a new method for the shoulder ROM measurement using the inclinometer application on a smartphone. We hypothesized that the meth...

OBJECTIVE To determine the reliability and internal validity of the Hypospadias Objective Penile Evaluation (HOPE)-score, a newly developed scoring system assessing the cosmetic outcome in hypospadias. PATIENTS AND METHODS The HOPE scoring system incorporates all surgically-correctable items: position of meatus, shape of meatus, shape of glans, shape of penile skin and penile axis. Objectivit...

Introduction: The assessment of arterial stiffness is increasingly used for evaluating patients with a wide range of cardiovascular diseases. Arterial stiffness can be noninvasively estimated by measuring pulse wave velocity (PWV), which is directly related to vessel wall elasticity. Several methods have been proposed for measuring PWV using velocity-encoded MRI, including transit-time (TT) [1]...