Are nonspecific practice guidelines potentially harmful? A randomized comparison of the effect of nonspecific versus specific guidelines on physician decision making.

Objective: To test the ability of two different clinical practice guideline formats to influence physician ordering of electrodiagnostic tests in low back pain.

Data Sources/study Design: Randomized controlled trial of the effect of practice guidelines on self-reported physician test ordering behavior in response to a series of 12 clinical vignettes. Data came from a national random sample of 900 U.

Is the quality of diabetes care better in a diabetes clinic or in a general medicine clinic?

Objective: To compare the quality of ambulatory diabetes care delivered by physicians in the diabetes clinic versus the general medicine clinic of a university-affiliated Veterans Administration medical center.

Research Design And Methods: This is a retrospective study that involved the review of medical records against predetermined process-of-care criteria. A total of 112 patients with diabetes were randomly selected, of whom 56 were cared for in the general medicine clinic and 56 in the diabetes clinic.

A major superfamily of transmembrane facilitators that catalyse uniport, symport and antiport.

Many transport proteins of bacteria and eukaryotes are thought to possess a common structural motif of 12 transmembrane-spanning alpha-helical segments. In this report we use statistical methods to establish that five families or clusters of these facilitators comprise a single superfamily. The five clusters include: (1) drug-resistance proteins, (2) sugar facilitators, (3) facilitators for Krebs cycle intermediates, (4) phosphate ester-phosphate antiporters and (5) a distinct group of oligosaccharide-H+ symporters.