INTRODUCTION Malnutrition is a frequent concomitant of surgical illness, especially in gastrointestinal cancer surgery. The aim of the study was to assess the prevalence of malnutrition in the GI cancer patients and its relation with clinical outcome. We also examined associations between the energy balance and clinical outcomes in these patients. METHODS Prospective study on 694 surgical pat...

High rate stimulations of the neuromuscular system, such as continuous whole body vibration, tonic vibration reflex and high frequency electrical stimulation, are used in the physiological research with an increasing interest. In these studies, the neuronal circuitries underlying the reflex responses remain unclear due to the problem of determining the exact reflex latencies. We present a novel...

PURPOSES To generate a nomogram to predict parotid gland (PG) overdose and to quantify the dosimetric benefit of weekly replanning based on its findings, in the context of intensity-modulated radiotherapy (IMRT) for locally-advanced head and neck carcinoma (LAHNC). MATERIAL AND METHODS Twenty LAHNC patients treated with radical IMRT underwent weekly computed tomography (CT) scans during IMRT....

The task of an airborne collision avoidance system is to continuously evaluate the risk of collision and in the case of too high risk initiate an evasive action. The traditional way to assess risk is to focus on a critical point of time. A recently proposed alternative is to evaluate the cumulated risk over time. It is the purpose of this contribution to evaluate the difference between these tw...

STUDY OBJECTIVES Cervical cancer incidence and mortality in NSW during 1972-1996 is examined under counterfactual assumptions to estimate the number of new cervical cancer cases averted and deaths avoided, with projections to 2006. SETTING Cervical cancer incident cases and deaths in NSW for 1972-96 were obtained from the NSW Central Cancer Registry, Sydney, Australia. DESIGN Data were anal...

Even before integrating into existing circuitry, adult-born neurons express receptors for neurotransmitters, but the intercellular mechanisms and their impact on neurogenesis remain largely unexplored. Here, we show that neuroblasts born in the postnatal subventricular zone (SVZ) acquire NMDA receptors (NMDARs) during their migration to the olfactory bulb. Along their route, neuroblasts are ens...

Average levels of interrater and intrarater reliability for job analysis data were investigated using meta-analysis. Forty-six studies and 299 estimates of reliability were cumulated. Data were categorized by specificity (generalized work activity or task data), source (incumbents, analysts, or technical experts), and descriptive scale (frequency, importance, difficulty, time-spent, and the Pos...

The fixation of heavy metals (Ba, Cu, Pb) in an alkali-activated matrix was investigated. The matrix consisted of fly ash and blast furnace slag (BFS). The mixture of NaOH and Na-silicate was used as alkaline activator. Three analytical techniques were used to describe the fixation of heavy metals-X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), scanning electron microscopy (SEM) equipped with energy di...

The incidence of cancer among 2023 male fertiliser workers has been investigated in a historical cohort study. Workers who had been employed for more than one year in work with possible exposure to dust containing nitrate between 1945 and 1979 were included. An individual cumulated exposure to dust expressed in level-years was calculated for each participant. The cohort was followed up from 195...

In this paper we provide a valuation formula for different classes of actuarial and financial contracts which depend on a general loss process, by using the Malliavin calculus. In analogy with the celebrated Black-Scholes formula, we aim at expressing the expected cash flow in terms of a building block. The former is related to the loss process which is a cumulated sum indexed by a doubly stoch...