OBJECTIVE The incidence of propofol injection pain during induction of general anesthesia varies from 28% to 90%. This prospective, randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled study evaluated the effect of dexmedetomidine (DEX) for reducing the incidence and severity of propofol injection pain. METHODS Patients undergoing elective surgical procedures were randomly allocated into seven groups...

BACKGROUND Minimally invasive approaches to partial nephrectomy have been rapidly gaining popularity but require advanced laparoscopic surgical skills. Renal hilar tumors, due to their anatomic location, pose additional technical challenges to the operating surgeon. OBJECTIVE We compared the outcomes of robot-assisted partial nephrectomy (RPN) for hilar and nonhilar tumors in our large multic...

PURPOSE To compare hand-assisted laparoscopic donor nephrectomy and pure laparoscopic live donor nephrectomy techniques in live donor nephrectomy. METHODS In this retrospective study, we included all patients submitted to hand-assisted laparoscopic donor nephrectomy and pure laparoscopic live donor nephrectomy between May 2002 and December 2007. The operative data and post-operative courses w...

There has recently been an expansion of paraprofessional staff involved in the provision of care for the severely mentally ill. In this paper we shall evaluate the effects of a community support worker (CSW) service in South London. A sample of patients with severe mental illness receiving the service was assessed over a 6-month period in order to examine the effects of continuing use of CSWs o...

Diurnal human activity and domestic dogs in agro-forestry mosaics should theoretically modify the diurnal habitat use patterns of native carnivores, with these effects being scale-dependent. We combined intensive camera trapping data with Bayesian occurrence probability models to evaluate both diurnal and nocturnal patterns of space use by carnivores in a mosaic of land-use types in southern Ch...

Macroinvertebrate populations from constructed and natural vernal pools on the same land forms and in close proximity, were compared quantitatively to determine colonization and temporal trends. Population trends in the natural pools were used to establish the functional success criteria for constructed pools. Success was evaluated by the quantitative and qualitative similarities of the constru...

BACKGROUND Automatic systems for stabilizing blood pressure (BP) during dialysis are few and only control those variables indirectly related to BP. Due to complex BP regulation under dynamic dialysis conditions, BP itself appears to be the most consistent input parameter for a device addressed to preventing dialysis hypotension (DH). METHODS An automatic system (ABPS, automatic blood pressure...

Magnetocardiographic signals, as present outside the thorax and generated by the depolarization process within the ventricles of the human heart, have been computed by using a model that incorporates the uniform double layer as the exclusive primary source. The volume conductor effects are treated by using an inhomogeneous, multicompartmental model of the thorax, based on "tailored" geometry de...

BACKGROUND Children whose families are involved with child welfare services manifest disproportionately high levels of behavioral difficulties, which could be addressed in community-based organizations providing services to prevent out-of-home placement. Unfortunately, few evidence based practices have been successfully implemented in child welfare settings, especially those originally delivere...

The amoeboid organism, the plasmodium of Physarum polycephalum, behaves on the basis of spatio-temporal pattern formation by local contraction-oscillators. This biological system can be regarded as a reaction-diffusion system which has spatial interaction by active flow of protoplasmic sol in the cell. Paying attention to the physiological evidence that the flow is determined by contraction pat...