Muscle weakness, health status and frequency of exacerbations in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.

Background: Multiple factors contribute to muscle weakness and reduced muscle mass in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and this impacts patients' quality of life. One factor implicated in this process is systemic inflammation, an accompaniment of acute exacerbations. Recurrent exacerbations are associated with lower health status.

Developing a real time sensing system to monitor bacteria in wound dressings.

Infection control is a key aspect of wound management strategies. Infection results in chemical imbalances and inflammation in the wound and may lead to prolonged healing times and degradation of the wound surface. Frequent changing of wound dressings may result in damage to healing tissues and an increased risk of infection.

Analytical model of peptide mass cluster centres with applications.

Background: The elemental composition of peptides results in formation of distinct, equidistantly spaced clusters across the mass range. The property of peptide mass clustering is used to calibrate peptide mass lists, to identify and remove non-peptide peaks and for data reduction.

Results: We developed an analytical model of the peptide mass cluster centres.

Spot urinary creatinine excretion in pervasive developmental disorders.

Background: Excretion of creatinine in urine represents the end-point of endogenous energy transfer from stored adenosine triphosphate in skeletal and cardiac muscle. Measurement of urinary creatinine is commonly used to correct for total urine concentration. Various quantitative measures of compounds suspected to be either pathological to, or indicative of, possible therapeutic interventions for Pervasive Developmental Disorders (PDD) have relied extensively on spot creatinine as a ratio quantity, although this important metabolite has not been exclusively studied within this population.

Investigation into postoperative endophthalmitis and lessons learned.

Purpose: To describe an approach to the investigation of a series of endophthalmitis cases to determine whether there was a true outbreak.

Setting: Outpatient facility, Sunderland, England.

Methods: Different approaches to statistical analysis of the probability of infrequent events being due to chance occurrence are described.