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BACKGROUND Osteoporosis is a global disease burden for aging society. The role of quantitative ultrasound (QUS) in the prediction for osteoporosis in a dose-response manner is hardly addressed. AIM We aimed to show the dose-response of QUS measurement in the prediction for osteoporosis by a community-based study. DESIGN A prospective cohort study. METHODS Participants were recruited between 2000 and 2004. Demographic data and heel QUS measurement were collected at baseline. Diagnosis of osteoporosis was ascertained by the follow-up of this cohort over time. In order to reduce the imbalance of baseline characteristics in the observational study, we applied propensity score by using proportional odds regression analysis to match the quintiles of QUS T-score. RESULTS A total of 44 957 subjects composed of 17 678 men (39.3%) and 27 279 women (69.7%) were recruited. After adjustments for propensity score, an increase in one unit of QUB T-score led to 7% reduction in the risk for osteoporosis [adjusted odds ratio (OR) = 0.93, 95% confidence interval (CI): 0.89-0.96, P

The execution and the result of bank credit rating are closely linked with the bank's investment and loan policies which form the initial risk measurement. It is an important and a shouldn't ignored issue for bankers to set up a scientific, objective and accurate credit rating model in the field of customer relationship management. In this study, two classification methods, multiple discriminate analysis (MDA), CANDISC, and support vector machine (SVM) are applied to conduct a comparative empirical analysis using real world commercial loan data set. The result comes out that SVM model has reliable high classification accuracy under feature selection and therefore is suitable for bank credit rating. This study suggests the decision-making personnel to establish a decision-making support system to assist their judgment by using the classification model.

Orlistat is a gastrointestinal lipase inhibitor approved for use in obesity. So far, no evidence has been reported on the use of orlistat in obese patients with coronary artery disease (CAD).To investigate the effect of orlistat on body weight and lipid profiles in obese patients with CAD and hypercholesterolemia.Thirty non-diabetic patients with CAD, body mass index (BMI)or = 25 kg/m(2) and low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C)or = 2.6 and4.1 mmol/L were put on diet for 12 weeks. Those still having a BMIor = 25 kg/m(2) received orlistat 120 mg thrice daily for another 24 weeks.BMI was significantly reduced by 1.7% after 12 weeks of dietary treatment. The 24-week orlistat treatment resulted in further significant reduction in BMI (-2.8%) and LDL-C (-7.0%).Diet and orlistat treatment significantly reduced BMI and improved LDL-C in obese patients with CAD and hypercholesterolemia.

This paper proposes the InstantGrid framework for on-demand construction of grid points. In contrast to traditional approaches, InstantGrid is designed to substantially simplify software management in grid systems, and is able to instantly turn any computer into a grid-ready platform with the desired execution environment. Experimental results demonstrate that a 256-node grid point with commodity grid middleware can be constructed in five minutes from scratch.

Modern approaches to the growth of high quality gallium nitride (GaN) thin films have focused on the use of organometallic vapor phase epitaxy (OMVPE). One of the keys to obtain the high quality thin film was the use of a thin buffer layer between the sapphire substrate and the growth film. Thin films of GaN were successfully prepared by our atmospheric pressure OMVPE system using GaN buffer layer over basal plane (0001) sapphire substrates. The present study will discuss the role of buffer and the influence of the temperature and ammonia/trimethylgallium (NH3/TMG) mass flow ratio in controlling morphology of GaN thin films. Normarski differential interference contrast optical microscopy and scanning electron microscopy reveal the surface and cross-section morphologies of different growth conditions. To the best of our knowledge the `volcanic cone-like' hillock structure describe here is the first reported the morphology for single crystal GaN thin films.© (1996) COPYRIGHT SPIE--The International Society for Optical Engineering. Downloading of the abstract is permitted for personal use only.

The coronary artery is examined with angioscopy in addition to coronary arteriogram to evaluate the potential clinical benefit of angioscopy. Changes in the coronary artery can be visualized which might not have been recognized before.Coronary angioscopy was applied with Inoue coronary angioscope system, in cases with coronary artery disease. In case of angioplasty, a similar procedure was repeated after intervention.Twenty-one cases of coronary artery disease were examined with angioscopy. Successful visualization was obtained in 15 of them, with the rate to be 71.7%. The coronary angioscopy provided useful information about the coronary tree such as severity of atherosclerosis and integrity of endothelium and intraluminal thrombosis. Angioscopic change was even more remarkable after angioplastic intervention. Almost all cases had intimal abrasion. Damage to atheroma was observed in 77% of the cases, 38.5% had an intimal flap on dilatation site, and more thrombi were observed.Coronary angioscopic examination is valuable in the observation of coronary atherosclerosis and is especially helpful to evaluate cases of coronary angioplasty and to survey the results of therapy and severity of damage in the management of coronary artery stenosis.