HEALTH Living Wills: Allow Pregnant Women and Patients in a Coma or Persistent Vegetative State to Have Life-Sustaining Measures Withheld or Withdrawn

The act expands the living wills provisions of the Georgia Code to allow the declarant of a living will to authorize the withholding or withdrawal of life-sustaining measures in the event that the declarant subsequently enters into a coma or persistent vegetative state. The Act also allows life-sustaining measures to be withheld or withdrawn from a pregnant woman as long as her fetus is not viable when the question arises as to whether to withhold or withdraw such life-sustaining measures. The Act further allows health care facilities to provide patients with forms for living wills in accordance with federal law

HEALTH Living Wills: Allow Pregnant Women and Patients in a Coma or Persistent Vegetative State to Have Life-Sustaining Measures Withheld or Withdrawn

The act expands the living wills provisions of the Georgia Code to allow the declarant of a living will to authorize the withholding or withdrawal of life-sustaining measures in the event that the declarant subsequently enters into a coma or persistent vegetative state. The Act also allows life-sustaining measures to be withheld or withdrawn from a pregnant woman as long as her fetus is not viable when the question arises as to whether to withhold or withdraw such life-sustaining measures. The Act further allows health care facilities to provide patients with forms for living wills in accordance with federal law

Bilateral Asymmetry in the Single Leg Step Down among Young Healthy Adults

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How Good a Deal Was the Tobacco Settlement?: Assessing Payments to Massachusetts

We estimate the increment in Massachusetts Medicaid program costs attributable to smoking from December 20, 1991, to 1998. We describe how our methods improve upon earlier estimates of analogous costs at the national level. Current costs to the Massachusetts Medicaid program approximate the payments to Massachusetts under the tobacco settlement of November 1998. Whether these payments are viewed as appropriate compensation for Medicaid costs over time depends upon the rate of increase in future health care costs, the rate of decline in smoking, the proportion of smoking that should be attributed to the actions of the tobacco companies and the liklihood that state would have prevailed at trial. The costs to the Medicaid program are dwarfed by the internal costs to smokers themselves.

Bilateral Asymmetry in the Forward Lunge Exercise

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Comment on "Evidence for Neutrinoless Double Beta Decay"

We comment on the recent claim for the experimental observation of neutrinoless double-beta decay. We discuss several limitations in the analysis provided in that paper and conclude that there is no basis for the presented claim.Comment: A comment written to Modern Physics Letters A. 4 pages, no figures. Updated version, accepted for publicatio

Principles And Practices Fostering Inclusive Excellence: Lessons From The Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Capstone Institutions

Best-practices pedagogy in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) aims for inclusive excellence that fosters student persistence. This paper describes principles of inclusivity across 11 primarily undergraduate institutions designated as Capstone Awardees in Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s (HHMI) 2012 competition. The Capstones represent a range of institutional missions, student profiles, and geographical locations. Each successfully directed activities toward persistence of STEM students, especially those from traditionally underrepresented groups, through a set of common elements: mentoring programs to build community; research experiences to strengthen scientific skill/identity; attention to quantitative skills; and outreach/bridge programs to broaden the student pool. This paper grounds these program elements in learning theory, emphasizing their essential principles with examples of how they were implemented within institutional contexts. We also describe common assessment approaches that in many cases informed programming and created traction for stakeholder buy-in. The lessons learned from our shared experiences in pursuit of inclusive excellence, including the resources housed on our companion website, can inform others’ efforts to increase access to and persistence in STEM in higher education

Restenosis after excellent angiographic angioplasty result for chronic total coronary artery occlusion--Implications for newer percutaneous revascularization devices

The incidence of restenosis after coronary angioplasty for treatment of chronic total coronary occlusion is unacceptably high.1 The pathophysiology of restenosis after coronary angioplasty may be conceptually divided into an exuberant myointimal proliferation,2 and a residual partial obstruction that serves as a platform for atheroma regrowth and may potentiate that process by augmenting blood flow turbulence and platelet deposition. The techniques of atherectomy or laser ablation3 may lessen the likelihood of restenosis by minimizing the residual stenosis, although currently each may require supplemental balloon angioplasty to achieve this result. However, the effect of these techniques on later myointimal proliferation in human beings is largely unknown. The concept that intracoronary stenting4 may reduce restenosis is based largely on the supposition that, by forcing and maintaining the obstructive atheroma out of the normal arterial lumen, turbulence and hence platelet deposition would be reduced5 and a large amount of myointimal proliferation would be required to recreate an obstruction of physiologic consequence.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/27757/1/0000150.pd

A survey of statistics in three UK general practice journal

Background Many medical specialities have reviewed the statistical content of their journals. To our knowledge this has not been done in general practice. Given the main role of a general practitioner as a diagnostician we thought it would be of interest to see whether the statistical methods reported reflect the diagnostic process. Methods Hand search of three UK journals of general practice namely the British Medical Journal (general practice section), British Journal of General Practice and Family Practice over a one-year period (1 January to 31 December 2000). Results A wide variety of statistical techniques were used. The most common methods included t-tests and Chi-squared tests. There were few articles reporting likelihood ratios and other useful diagnostic methods. There was evidence that the journals with the more thorough statistical review process reported a more complex and wider variety of statistical techniques. Conclusions The BMJ had a wider range and greater diversity of statistical methods than the other two journals. However, in all three journals there was a dearth of papers reflecting the diagnostic process. Across all three journals there were relatively few papers describing randomised controlled trials thus recognising the difficulty of implementing this design in general practice

Radio-Frequency Spectroscopy

Contains reports on four research projects