Use of spirometry and recording of smoking habits of COPD patients increased in primary health care during national COPD programme

BACKGROUND: In Finland, a national programme for COPD prevention and treatment was developed in 1998. The main goals of the programme were to diagnose COPD as early as possible and to encourage people to quit smoking. The role of primary health care was emphasized in the programme. Our aim was to investigate the use of spirometry and recording of smoking habits of COPD patients in primary health care before and during the COPD programme. METHODS: We compared patients with respiratory symptoms or diseases visiting primary health care during 1997 (before programme) and 2002 (during programme). Patients with respiratory symptoms were divided into two groups: COPD patients and "others". Patient records were thoroughly investigated and data retrieved from them. RESULTS: There was a significant increase in the whole study group from 8.0% to 38.9% in the use of spirometry (p < 0.001). This increase was significant both in the COPD group (from 32.0% to 79.6%, p < 0.001) and "others" (from 5.6% to 32.8%, p < 0.001). Written information on smoking habits in patient records increased from 16.6% of all patients in 1997 to 53.2% in 2002 (p < 0.001), and in COPD group from 45.0% to 84.3% (p < 0.001). CONCLUSIONS: We observed a significant increase in the use of spirometry and knowledge of smoking habits in COPD patients, which may be a result of the Finnish national COPD programme

What makes mathematical word problem solving challenging? Exploring the roles of word problem characteristics, text comprehension, and arithmetic skills

In this study we investigated word-problem (WP) item characteristics, individual differences in text comprehension and arithmetic skills, and their relations to mathematical WP-solving. The participants were 891 fourth-grade students from elementary schools in Finland. Analyses were conducted in two phases. In the first phase, WP characteristics concerning linguistic and numerical factors and their difficulty level were investigated. In contrast to our expectations, the results did not show a clear connection between WP difficulty level and their other characteristics regarding linguistic and numerical factors. In the second phase, text comprehension and arithmetic skills were used to classify participants into four groups: skilful in text comprehension but poor in arithmetic; poor in text comprehension but skilful in arithmetic; very poor in both skills; very skilful in both skills. The results indicated that WP-solving performance on both easy and difficult items was strongly related to text comprehension and arithmetic skills. In easy items, the students who were poor in text comprehension but skilful in arithmetic performed better than those who were skilful in text comprehension but poor in arithmetic. However, there were no differences between these two groups in WP-solving performance on difficult items, showing that more challenging WPs require both skills from students.</p

Serum Phospholipases A2 in Patients Undergoing Panproctocolectomy Because of Severe Ulcerative Colitis

Peer Reviewe

Miocene semidiurnal tidal rhythmites in Madre de Dios, Peru

International audienceNew data from upper Miocene deposits in the Madre de Dios region, southern Peru, allow the delineation of tidal regime for the first time in western Amazonia and provide strong evidence of elevated tidal range and brackish-water influence. The results point out the insufficiency of the current depositional models and support the earlier hypothesis that western Amazonia was also connected to the Paranan Sea during the late Miocene. In this paper we present sedimentological, ichnological, and statistical (Fourier transformation) data from two selected outcrops containing rhythmite successions from an area that is traditionally considered as continental. The sediments are interpreted to represent tide-dominated, inner-middle estuarine deposits. The cyclic rhythmites display semidiurnal cyclicity. The results are significant because (1) they contradict recent interpretations of the area's paleoenvironmental history; (2) the evidence for tidal processes is persuasive; and (3) the delineated tidal regime and range provide a unique insight into the depositional dynamics of a system having many important paleogeographic implications