BACKGROUND Urine samples of known urothelial carcinoma were independently graded by 3 pathologists with (MS, MR) and without (AO) fellowship training in cytopathology using a modified version of the 2004 2-tiered World Health Organization classification system. By measuring interobserver and intraobserver agreement among pathologists, compared with the gold standard of biopsy/resection, specime...

In this study, interobserver agreement on intravascular ultrasound data obtained before and after balloon angioplasty (PTA) of the superficial femoral artery was assessed. Two observers analyzed intravascular ultrasound cross-sections from 38 patients. Interobserver agreement was good for soft and hard lesions, dissection and vascular damage (kappa values 0.61, 0.67, 0.69 and 0.66, respectively...

The most common measure of agreement for categorical data is the coefficient kappa. However, kappa performs poorly when the marginal distributions are very asymmetric, it is not easy to interpret, and its definition is based on hypothesis of independence of the responses (which is more restrictive than the hypothesis that kappa has a value of zero). This paper defines a new measure of agreement...

The accuracy of genotypic resistance to levofloxacin (gyrA mutations) and its agreement with treatment outcomes after levofloxacin-based therapy have not been reported. We aimed to assess the correlation. Helicobacter pylori strains isolated from patients who received levofloxacin-based and clarithromycin-based triple therapies in a previous randomized trial were analyzed for point mutations in...

Nasal diseases are very common in dogs and rhinoscopy is often required for a definitive diagnosis. Rhinoscopy, while superficial in nature, can guide the clinician to the final diagnosis. In this study, rhinoscopy was performed on 54 dogs with symptoms of chronic nasopharyngeal disease. The endoscopic diagnosis of neoplasia or chronic nasal inflammation was validated with histological examinat...

Cellular Ca2+ buffers determine amplitude and diffusional spread of neuronal Ca2+ signals. Fixed Ca2+ buffers tend to retard the signal and to lower the apparent diffusion coefficient (D(app)) of Ca2+, whereas mobile buffers contribute to Ca2+ redistribution. To estimate the impact of the expression of specific Ca2+-binding proteins or the errors in Ca2+ measurement introduced by indicator dyes...

The aim of this study is to provide an easy tool to identify patients with a high cardiovascular risk, especially those qualifying for lipid-lowering treatment. The decision to treat with lipid-lowering drugs was assessed with five new risk algorithms. The Five Risk algorithm (5R) takes into account male gender, high systolic blood pressure, high total cholesterol, smoking and high blood sugar ...

Hyperspectral reflectance of normal and lodged rice caused by rice brown planthopper and rice panicle blast was measured at the canopy level. Over one decade broadand narrow-band vegetation indices (VIs) were calculated to simulate Landsat ETM+ with in situ hyperspectral reflectance. Principal component analysis (PCA) was utilized to obtain the front two principal components (PCs). Probabilisti...