BACKGROUND The purpose of this study was to determine the rate and type of inconsistencies between disclosures self-reported by physicians at a major academic meeting in the United States and industry-reported disclosures in the Open Payments database for a concordant time period. METHODS Disclosures for every first and last author from the United States with a medical degree of a podium or p...

Our objective was to describe a comprehensive obstetric patient safety program and its effect on reducing compensation payments and sentinel adverse events. From 2003 to 2009, we implemented a comprehensive obstetric patient safety program at our institution with multiple integrated components. To evaluate its effect on compensation payments and sentinel events, we gathered data on compensation...

BACKGROUND Oil palm phenolics (OPP) or Palm Juice (PJ), a water soluble extract from the palm fruit (Elaies guineensis) has been documented to have anti-carcinogenic activities in various cancer types. MATERIALS AND METHODS To investigate OPP effects in pancreatic cancer (PaCa) cells, two PaCa cell lines (PANC-1 and BxPC-3) were treated with different OPP doses. The anti-proliferative, apopto...

We evaluated the intention, implementation, and impact of Costa Rica's program of payments for environmental services (PSA), which was established in the late 1990s. Payments are given to private landowners who own land in forest areas in recognition of the ecosystem services their land provides. To characterize the distribution of PSA in Costa Rica, we combined remote sensing with geographic i...

In wide area measurement systems, PMUs are the main component measuring real time synchronized data from different buses. Installation of PMUs at all buses is a primary way to provide full observability of the power network. However, it is not practical in real networks due to the relatively expensive cost of PMUs and other technical limitations. Optimal PMU Placement (OPP) is an optimization p...

The order penetration point (OPP) defines the stage in the manufacturing value chain, where a particular product is linked to a specific customer order. Different manufacturing environments such as make-to-stock (MTS), assemble-toorder (ATO), make-to-order (MTO) and engineer-to-order all relate to different positions of the OPP. These may be considered as product delivery strategies, having dif...

OBJECTIVE To quantify the extent to which payments for laparoscopic and open colectomy are influenced by a surgeon's experience with laparoscopy. BACKGROUND Numerous studies suggest that healthcare costs for laparoscopic colectomy are lower than open surgery. None have assessed the importance of surgeon experience on the relative financial benefits of laparoscopy. METHODS We conducted a stu...