Historical development of domestic army hand-to-hand combat as a sport

Objective of the study was to identify development trends in Russia of the military-applied sport "Army hand-to-hand combat

Species-specific, pan-European diameter increment models based on data of 2.3 million trees

ResearchBackground: Over the last decades, many forest simulators have been developed for the forests of individual European countries. The underlying growth models are usually based on national datasets of varying size, obtained from National Forest Inventories or from long-term research plots. Many of these models include country- and location-specific predictors, such as site quality indices that may aggregate climate, soil properties and topography effects. Consequently, it is not sensible to compare such models among countries, and it is often impossible to apply models outside the region or country they were developed for. However, there is a clear need for more generically applicable but still locally accurate and climate sensitive simulators at the European scale, which requires the development of models that are applicable across the European continent. The purpose of this study is to develop tree diameter increment models that are applicable at the European scale, but still locally accurate. We compiled and used a dataset of diameter increment observations of over 2.3 million trees from 10 National Forest Inventories in Europe and a set of 99 potential explanatory variables covering forest structure, weather, climate, soil and nutrient deposition. Results: Diameter increment models are presented for 20 species/species groups. Selection of explanatory variables was done using a combination of forward and backward selection methods. The explained variance ranged from 10% to 53% depending on the species. Variables related to forest structure (basal area of the stand and relative size of the tree) contributed most to the explained variance, but environmental variables were important to account for spatial patterns. The type of environmental variables included differed greatly among species. Conclusions: The presented diameter increment models are the first of their kind that are applicable at the European scale. This is an important step towards the development of a new generation of forest development simulators that can be applied at the European scale, but that are sensitive to variations in growing conditions and applicable to a wider range of management systems than before. This allows European scale but detailed analyses concerning topics like CO2 sequestration, wood mobilisation, long term impact of management, etcinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Imaging findings in noncraniofacial childhood rhabdomyosarcoma

Rhabdomyosarcoma (RMS) is the most common soft-tissue sarcoma of childhood. This paper is focuses on imaging for diagnosis, staging, and follow-up of noncraniofacial RMS

Spatial theory and human behavior

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/45971/1/10110_2005_Article_BF01952731.pd

Palliative radiation therapy for AIDS-associated Kaposi's sarcoma by using a single fraction of 800 cGy

A single radiation fraction of 800 cGy was used in the treatment of acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS)-associated Kaposi's sarcoma (KS). A total of 74 radiation treatments was given to a total of 31 patients. Of all 74 evaluable treatments, there were 25 objective major responses (6 complete, 19 partial) according to the WHO criteria, while 67 treatments resulted in subjective palliation of the main reason to treat (cosmetic discomfort, pain, or oedema). However, it appeared that the duration of these responses was rather short; in 23 of 36 radiation treatments with a follow-up of more than 4 months, progression of the tumour was seen within that time, while the palliative effect outlasted the survival of the patients in only four cases. It is concluded that a single dose of 800 cGy is an effective treatment for patients with a predicted survival of only a few months, and it should be determined whether a higher fractionated dose improves duration of responses, especially for patients with a good performanc

Fatigue and radiotherapy: (A) experience in patients undergoing treatment

Cancer patients undergoing radiotherapy frequently report fatigue. However, knowledge of the importance of fatigue for these patients and of the factors associated with their fatigue is limited. The aim of the current investigation was to gain more insight into fatigue as related to radiotherapy by answering the following questions. First, how is the experience of fatigue best described? Secondly, to what extent is fatigue related to sociodemographic, medical (including treatment), physical and psychological factors? Finally, is it possible to predict which patients will suffer from fatigue after completion of radiotherapy? Patients with different types of cancer receiving radiotherapy with curative intent (n = 250) were interviewed before and within 2 weeks of completion of radiotherapy. During treatment, patients rated their fatigue at 2-weekly intervals. Results indicate a gradual increase in fatigue over the period of radiotherapy and a decrease after completion of treatment. Fatigue scores obtained after radiotherapy were only slightly, although significantly, higher than pretreatment scores. After treatment, 46% of the patients reported fatigue among the three symptoms that caused them most distress. Significant associations were found between post-treatment fatigue and diagnosis, physical distress, functional disability, quality of sleep, psychological distress and depression. No association was found between fatigue and treatment or personality characteristics. Multivariate regression analysis demonstrated that the intensity of pretreatment fatigue was the best predictor of fatigue after treatment. In view of this finding, a regression analysis was performed to gain more insight into the variables predicting pretreatment fatigue. The degree of functional disability and impaired quality of sleep were found to explain 38% of the variance in fatigue before starting radiotherapy. Fatigue in disease-free patients 9 months after treatment is described in paper (B) in this issu

Risk of second malignancies in long-term survivors of childhood cancer

INTRODUCTION: Childhood cancer survivors are known to be at increased risk for second malignancies. PATIENTS AND METHODS: The risk of second malignancies was assessed in 1368 5-year survivors of childhood cancer treated in the Emma Children's Hospital AMC in Amsterdam. The median follow-up time was 16.8 years. RESULTS: Sixty two malignancies were observed against 5.4 expected, yielding a standardised incidence ratio (SIR) of 11.2 (95% confidence interval: 8.53-14.4; absolute excess risk: 3.2 per 1000 person-years). New observations were the strongly increased risks of meningiomas (SIR=40) and basal cell carcinomas (SIR=9). Patients whose treatment involved radiotherapy had a 2-fold increased second cancer risk compared to patients with chemotherapy alone. DISCUSSION: The relative risk of second malignancies does not decrease till at least 30 years of follow-up. With aging of the survivor cohort this results in a strong increase of the AER, due to the rising background risk of cancer with ag