Pilot Programs in Medical Research

In anaerobic digestion, the production of short-chain fatty acids (SCFAs) can be beneficial or harmful to the overall process, depending on the concentration of accumulated acids. Therefore, the accurate determination of the SCFA concentration in both fresh and stored sludge hydrolysates is importan …

The Improving Access to Psychological Therapies initiative has a reported 50 percent recovery rate. Recently, Scott published a scathing report asserting that 9.2 percent is the correct rate. This alarming assertion requires a closer look and further scrutiny of the Improving Access to Psychological …

We developed and evaluated a model for predicting the flow packing of nonrigid chromatographic resins. The model is based on elasticity theory and accounts for resin rigidity and column diameter. When a modulus determined from a standard mechanical compression (consolidation) test is used, the model …

In performing neurosurgical operation on peripheral nervous system, the most important first step is to robustly hold the target nerve, since the nerve-holding stability and reliability significantly affect the result of surgical operation. However it is not straightforward to robustly hold peripher …

Our findings indicate that biomedical researchers do encounter and anticipate encountering ethical and societal questions and concerns and a substantial proportion, especially clinical researchers, would likely use a consultation service if they were aware of it. These findings provide data to infor …

The Human Liver Proteome Project (HLPP) is the first initiative of the Human Proteome Organisation (HUPO) to target a human organ/tissue and aims at the establishment of a biological atlas of the liver to advance our understanding of liver functions and to provide the tools to develop new diagnostic …

The production of granules by wet granulation in a fluidized bed was assessed after the construction of a quality index based on a file of attributes (relevant factors). These attributes are combined by a methodology relying on Correspondence Analysis, as a discriminant procedure, using two extreme …

Impacts of individual behavior on personal exposure to particulate matter (PM) and the associated individual health effects are still not well understood. As outdoor PM concentrations exhibit highly temporal and spatial variations, personal PM exposure depends strongly on individual trajectories and …

Only about 20% of consultations with new patients resulted in a further face-to-face appointment. The majority of patients found the telelink acceptable. The data supported the continuation and possible expansion of the dermatology telemedicine service. However, improved image quality is desirable.

A successful pilot study of a videoconferenced multidisciplinary genitourinary tumor board involving 21 physicians over six geographic sites for a 6-month period is reported. The majority of cases presented at the tumor board were of prostate or bladder origin. Specific recommendations around manage …

Functional health pattern assessment may be useful for predicting accidents.

The effect of land cover change, from natural to anthropogenic, on physical geography conditions has been studied in Kayisdagi Mountain. Land degradation is the most important environmental issue involved in this study. Most forms of land degradation are natural processes accelerated by human activi …

Despite its abundant supply, tobacco stem has not been exploited as an energy source in large scale. This study investigates the combustion behaviours of tobacco stem in a thermogravimetric analyser (TGA) and a pilot-scale fluidized bed (FB). Combustion characteristics, including ignition and burnou …

This paper, the first of three, examines previous research undertaken in the area of self-administration of medicines and the reuse of patients' own medicine in hospital. Advantages of such schemes are discussed, and the Working Together with Medicines project, undertaken at Queens Medical Centre, N …

We describe a pilot project to standardize local laboratory test names to Logical Observation Identifier Names and Codes (LOINC) at five Indian Health Service (IHS) medical facilities. An automated mapping tool was developed to assign LOINC codes. The laboratory test names not mapped to LOINC by the …

Municipal solid waste (MSW) is one of the most important environmental problems arising from rapid urbanization and industrialization. The use of alternative fuels in rotary kilns of cement plants is very important for reducing cost, saving fossil fuels and also eliminating waste materials, accumula …

In this paper a method to determine the cycle time for sequencing batch membrane bioreactors (SBMBRs) is introduced. One of the advantages of SBMBRs is the simplicity of adapting them to varying wastewater composition. The benefit of this flexibility can only be fully utilised if the cycle times are …

A pilot study was conducted to evaluate the performance of the MetaMap Transfer (MMTx), a tool that extracts terms from free text and suggests matches to concepts in the Unified Medical Language System' (UMLS'). Five participants, including a content domain expert and a UMLS Expert, manually extract …

Cobalt-60 irradiators and soft X-ray machines are frequently used for research purposes, but the dosimetry is not always performed using the recommended protocols. This may lead to confusing and untrustworthy results within the conducted research. Postal dosimetry systems have already been approved …

Participatory design includes engaging in large-scale information-systems development where participatory design approaches have been applied throughout design and organizational implementation. The keynote suggest to extend the iterative prototyping approach by (1) emphasizing participatory design …

Biodiesel produced by esterification from molar ratio of methanol to free fatty acid (FFA) as 25:1 in presence of triglyceride was carried out with cation-exchange resin as a heterogeneous catalyst in three different scales of fixed bed reactors from minireactor (6.8 mm × 110 mm) to pilot scale reac …

Listeners were presented with two simultaneous tones of different frequencies (more than one octave apart) and asked to identify the tone that was amplitude-modulated while a tonal precursor was presented to cue the frequency of the lower frequency tone. Performance thresholds were estimated based o …

As radiology departments become filmless, they are discovering that some areas are particularly difficult to deliver images. Many departments have found that the operating room is one such area. There are space constraints and difficulty in manipulating the images by a sterile surgeon. This report d …