Physician practice variation under orthopedic bundled payment.

Objectives: To describe the extent of and longitudinal changes in physician practice variation with respect to implant costs, institutional postacute care (PAC) provider utilization, and total episode payments, as well as to evaluate the association between physician volume and quality and these outcomes.

Study Design: Observational study.

Methods: We combined claims and internal hospital cost data for 34 physicians responsible for 3614 joint replacement episodes under bundled payment at Baptist Health System (BHS).

Impact of audiovisual biofeedback on interfraction respiratory motion reproducibility in liver cancer stereotactic body radiotherapy.

Introduction: Irregular breathing motion exacerbates uncertainties throughout a course of radiation therapy. Breathing guidance has demonstrated to improve breathing motion consistency. This was the first clinical implementation of audiovisual biofeedback (AVB) breathing guidance over a course of liver stereotactic body radiotherapy (SBRT) investigating interfraction reproducibility.

A pre-Late Devensian pollen site from Camp Fauld, Buchan, north-east Scotland.

Recent investigations at Camp Fauld in Buchan, Scotland have yielded two peat deposits of pre-Late Devensian age. Percentage pollen diagrams are presented. One peat is radiocarbon-dated to 34-39 ka DP, which prompts correlation with the Hengelo-Denekamp sequence of NW continental Europe, but the pollen evidence, revealing the presence of a birch-pine woodland, suggests an earlier stage.