BACKGROUND In contrast to the considerable body of literature concerning the disabilities of the general population, little information exists pertaining to the disabilities of the farm population. Focusing on the disability issue to the insurants in the Farmers' Health Insurance (FHI) program in Taiwan, this paper examines the associations among socio-demographic characteristics, insured facto...

ortho-Phenylphenol (OPP) and its sodium salt, which are used as fungicides and antibacterial agents, have been found to cause carcinomas in the urinary tract of rats. To clarify the carcinogenic mechanism of OPP, we compared the DNA damage inducing ability of an OPP metabolite, phenyl-1,4-benzoquinone (PBQ) with that of another metabolite, phenylhydroquinone (PHQ). Pulsed field gel electrophore...

BACKGROUND Vascular insufficiency has been reported to be a cause of normal tension glaucoma (NTG). The aim of this study was to compare ocular perfusion pressure (OPP) and ophthalmic artery flow (OAF) between patients with NTG and those without glaucoma. METHODS We considered one eye each from 31 NTG and 15 non-glaucoma control patients. Blood pressure and intraocular pressure (IOP) were mea...

The formulation of trace quotient is shared by many computer vision problems; however, it was conventionally approximated by an essentially different formulation of quotient trace, which can be solved with the generalized eigenvalue decomposition approach. In this paper, we present a direct solution to the former formulation. First, considering that the feasible solutions are constrained on a G...

In this article, data are presented on trends in the use of and program payments for inpatient short-stay hospital services to Medicare beneficiaries. The data on the services used by aged and disabled Medicare beneficiaries are presented for the years 1972 through 1988. The discussion is focused on trends in utilization and program payments resulting from the implementation of the Medicare pro...

Background and Objectives: In May 2003, the government of British Columbia adopted an income-based pharmacare program, replacing the previous age-based program. Stated policy goals included improving the distribution of pharmaceutical payments across incomes. This analysis assesses the policy’s effect on the distribution across incomes of both private payments and public subsidy for prescriptio...

CONTEXT Osteopathic manual medicine (OMM) encompasses hands-on diagnosis and treatment as part of patient care. The area of osteopathic principles and practice (OPP) is considered a core competency for students and practitioners of this medical tradition. The Comprehensive Osteopathic Medical Licensing Examination-USA (COMLEX-USA) is a useful tool for assessing candidates' competency. OBJECTI...

AIM To compare subfoveal choroidal blood flow (ChBF) in sitting and supine positions in normal volunteers. METHODS ChBF was measured with laser Doppler flowmetry in 22 healthy volunteers of mean (SD) age 24 (5) years. Six independent measurements of ChBF were obtained in one randomly selected eye of each subject while seated. The subjects then assumed a supine position for 30 minutes and a ne...

OBJECTIVE To compare the effects of dorzolamide and timolol add-on therapy in open-angle glaucoma (OAG) patients previously treated with prostaglandin analogue (Pg), by evaluating fluctuations in the intraocular (IOP), blood (BP), ocular perfusion pressures (OPP) and retrobulbar blood flow (RBF) parameters. METHODS 35 OAG patients (35 eyes), 31 women (88.6%) age 63.3 (8.9) years were evaluate...