Coordinated care for patients with cirrhosis: fewer liver-related emergency admissions and improved survival.

Objectives: To compare the incidence of liver-related emergency admissions and survival of patients after hospitalisation for decompensated cirrhosis at two major hospitals, one applying a coordinated chronic disease management model (U1), the other standard care (U2); to examine predictors of mortality for these patients.

Design: Retrospective observational cohort study.

Setting: Two major tertiary hospitals in an Australian capital city.

Multidisciplinary team meetings appear to be effective in inflammatory bowel disease management: an audit of process and outcomes.

Background: Multidisciplinary team meetings (MDTM) have proven efficacy in cancer management. Whilst widely implemented in inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) care, their value is yet to be investigated. We reviewed the performance of MDTM for IBD patients.

Application of the hybrid ANFIS models for long term wind power density prediction with extrapolation capability.

In this paper, the suitability and performance of ANFIS (adaptive neuro-fuzzy inference system), ANFIS-PSO (particle swarm optimization), ANFIS-GA (genetic algorithm) and ANFIS-DE (differential evolution) has been investigated for the prediction of monthly and weekly wind power density (WPD) of four different locations named Mersing, Kuala Terengganu, Pulau Langkawi and Bayan Lepas all in Malaysia. For this aim, standalone ANFIS, ANFIS-PSO, ANFIS-GA and ANFIS-DE prediction algorithm are developed in MATLAB platform. The performance of the proposed hybrid ANFIS models is determined by computing different statistical parameters such as mean absolute bias error (MABE), mean absolute percentage error (MAPE), root mean square error (RMSE) and coefficient of determination (R2).

Electrospun scaffolds for tissue engineering of vascular grafts.

There is a growing demand for off-the-shelf tissue engineered vascular grafts (TEVGs) for the replacement or bypass of damaged arteries in various cardiovascular diseases. Scaffolds from the decellularized tissue skeletons to biopolymers and biodegradable synthetic polymers have been used for fabricating TEVGs. However, several issues have not yet been resolved, which include the inability to mimic the mechanical properties of native tissues, and the ability for long-term patency and growth required for in vivo function.