First, a couple of definitions and distinctions: "abuse" according to the American Psychiatric Association describes a pattern of use that causes impairment of social or occupational functioning. Compare that to "dependence," characterized by either tolerance (a need for increasing amounts of a drug, over time, to achieve the same effect) or withdrawal symptoms. "Addiction" is defined by compul...

BACKGROUND This study analyzed the association between the volume of heart surgeries and treatment outcomes for hospitals in the last five years. METHODS Hospitals that perform heart surgeries were chosen throughout Korea as subjects using from the Health Insurance Review and Assessment Service. The treatment outcome of the heart surgeries was defined as the mortality within 30 postoperative ...

Spatial patterns and temporal dynamics of light distribution were investigated using lacunarity analysis, a multi-scale measure of spatial heterogeneity, in three mesic grasslands with different disturbance regimes. Frequency distributions of relative light intensity (RLI) were similar for the two non-disturbed grasslands, despite different composition (forbs vs. caespitose grass) resulting fro...

Flowering patterns are defined by the timing, duration, and frequency of flowering. Plants, particularly in the tropics, vary enormously with respect to these main variables of flowering. We used data from 302 tree species in a wet tropical forest to test a series of predictions regarding timing, duration, and frequency of flowering and examined the effect of each variable on the other two. Bec...