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Background Most health service utilisation studies are of people with specific diagnoses or demographic characteristics, and rarely of specific chronic symptoms. The aim of this study was to establish whether population-level health service utilisation increases in people with chronic breathlessness. Methods A cross-sectional analysis was carried out of the South Australian Health Omnibus Survey 2
Following the idea originally proposed during the ESO-Workshop The Very Large Telescope in 2030, the concept of a high resolution spectrograph for the VLT has been further explored, both for the science and technological aspects. Such an instrument will fill a gap in capabilities amongst the landscape of future instrumentation planned for the next decade. Its key characteristic will be high spectr
Background: Summary statistics often hide individual patients' suffering, thereby impeding quality improvement efforts. Objectives: We aimed to show the experience of a population with health care toward the end of life while preserving the experience of the individual. Design: We developed a data display method called per-patient illness trajectory analysis. We tested it using a demonstration coh
Rationale: According to the Global Initiative for Obstructive Lung Disease (GOLD), the FEV1/FVC ratio is used to confirm the presence of airflow obstruction in the diagnosis of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), whereas FEV1 percent predicted normal value (FEV1%pred) is used for grading its severity. The STaging of Airflow obstruction by the FEV1/FVC Ratio (STAR), and its prediction of
Objectives: Dyspnea, or breathlessness, is a frequent and distressing symptom among patients with heart and lung diseases, particularly in advanced cancer stages, where it affects up to 90% of lung cancer cases. This symptom considerably diminishes quality of life, leading to physical deconditioning, increased levels of anxiety and depression, repeated hospitalizations, and elevated mortality rate
This study contributes to the sparse literature on differences between public and private primary care practices (PCCs). The purpose was to explore if differences in performance and characteristics between public and PCCs persist over time in a welfare market with patient choice and provider competition, where public and private providers operate under similar conditions. The analysis is based on
Svarar på frågor om defekta implantat
The as-built geometry and material properties of parts manufactured using Additive Manufacturing (AM) can differ significantly from the as-designed model and base material properties. These differences can be more pronounced in thin strut-like features (e.g., in a lattice structure), making it essential to incorporate them when designing for AM and predicting their structural behaviour. Therefore,
In this paper, we argue that information researchers should use images as a source of data. The information systems field is overwhelmingly visual in nature. Not only is the Internet crammed with images, but also almost every detail observed during fieldwork in different research settings can be captured in the form of digital images. Yet, we rarely engage with those images. Except for sporadic vi
BACKGROUND: The ubiquitously expressed dipeptidyl peptidase 3 (DPP3) is involved in protein metabolism, blood pressure regulation, and pain modulation. These diverse functions of DPP3 are attributed to the degradation of bioactive peptides like angiotensin II. However, because of limitations in currently available assays for determination of active DPP3 in plasma, the exact physiological function
I review formation channels for blue stragglers. I consider how they may be produced via collisions between two single main-sequence stars, or via collisions during encounters involving binary stars. Further, I discuss how blue stragglers may be produced via the evolution of isolated binaries. Observations of globular clusters suggest that both mechanisms are contributing.
A variety of pathogenic bacteria can infect humans and the increase in bacteria resistant to common antibiotics is a large threat to human health worldwide. This work presents a method, based on optical DNA mapping (ODM) in nanofluidic channels, that can detect the type of bacterial present in a sample by matching the obtained maps of large DNA molecules to a database of fully assembled bacterial
Background: Increased inflammation is reported in Major Depressive Disorder (MDD), which may be more pronounced in suicidal subjects. Vitamin D deficiency may drive this pro-inflammatory state due to vitamin D's anti-inflammatory effects. Methods: We quantified plasma 25-hydroxyvitamin D (25(OH)D) and inflammatory markers interleukin (IL)-6 and tumor necrosis factor (TNF)-α, and other inflammatory
In the ActivAbles and STARR projects we are developing interactive training tools for stroke survivors. Our initial user studies pointed to balance being a key ability, therefore one of the developed tools is an interactive balance pad. Equipment exists for persons with good balance (eg. Wii), but most consumer games and exercises are less suited for many stroke survivors. The development process
Context: Software organizations working in a market-driven environment have to select requirements from a large pool to be prioritized and put into backlogs for the development organization. Objective: This paper proposes an approach based on study selection in systematic literature reviews and translates the concept to requirements engineering. The rational for doing so is that the selection proc
The use of interactive visualization techniques in Digital Humanities research can be a useful addition when traditional automated machine learning techniques face difficulties, as is often the case with the exploration of large volumes of dynamic—and in many cases, noisy and conflicting—textual data from social media. Recently, the field of stance analysis has been moving from a predominantly bin
In recent years the Swedish Police Force (SPF) have encountered greater demands on availability and 24/7 services when dealing with errands that are regarded as low priority compared to regular police work, e.g. collecting tips from the public. One attempt to meet these increasing demands was the development of a mobile communications platform that allowed the public to communicate easily with the
In order to reduce the vibration transmission in multi-storey wood buildings, it is common to insert viscoelastic elastomer materials between parts of the buildings. The studies presented here investigate to which extent different design choices for the elastomer layers affect the isolation of low-frequency vibrations (0-100 Hz). A finite element model of two storeys of a multi-storey wood buildin
