Inadequate Rectal Pressure and Insufficient Relaxation and Abdominopelvic Coordination in Defecatory Disorders.

Background & Aims: Diagnostic tests for defecatory disorders (DDs) asynchronously measure anorectal pressures and evacuation and show limited agreement; thus, abdominopelvic-rectoanal coordination in normal defecation and DDs is poorly characterized. We aimed to investigate anorectal pressures, anorectal and abdominal motion, and evacuation simultaneously in healthy and constipated women.

Methods: Abdominal wall and anorectal motion, anorectal pressures, and rectal evacuation were measured simultaneously with supine magnetic resonance defecography and anorectal manometry.

Efficacy and residual activity of commercially available entomopathogenic nematode strains for Mediterranean fruit fly control and their ability to infect infested fruits.

Background: Entomopathogenic nematodes (EPN) show potential in controlling larvae of the Mediterranean fruit fly (medfly) Ceratitis capitate, but previous studies mainly concern species and strains that are not commercially available. The use of EPN for control of Mediterranean fruit fly is further hampered by the cost of using nematodes. In this study, the efficacy and residual activity of commercial strains of three EPN species, Steinernema carpοcapsae, S.

Implementation of HPV-based Cervical Cancer Screening Combined with Self-sampling Using a Midwifery Network Across Rural Greece: The GRECOSELF Study.

Self-sampling for human papillomavirus (HPV) testing is an alternative to physician sampling particularly for cervical cancer screening nonattenders. The GRECOSELF study is a nationwide observational cross-sectional study aiming to suggest a way to implement HPV-DNA testing in conjunction with self-sampling for cervical cancer screening in Greece, utilizing a midwifery network. Women residing in remote areas of Greece were approached by midwives, of a nationwide network, and were provided with a self-collection kit (dry swab) for cervicovaginal sampling and asked to answer a questionnaire about their cervical cancer screening history.

Sorption behavior of cesium on various soils under different pH levels.

In the present study we investigated the sorption behavior of Cs in four different soils (sandyloam, loam, clayloam and clay) by using batch experiment. Cs sorption characteristics of the studied soils were examined at 4 mgL(-1) Cs concentration, at various pH levels, at room temperature and with 0.01 M CaCl(2) as a background electrolyte.

Combining neural network models to predict spatial patterns of airborne pollutant accumulation in soils around an industrial point emission source.

Neural networks (NNs) have the ability to model a wide range of complex nonlinearities. A major disadvantage of NNs, however, is their instability, especially under conditions of sparse, noisy, and limited data sets. In this paper, different combining network methods are used to benefit from the existence of local minima and from the instabilities of NNs.