\n\nConclusion: The modified RAND Delphi process resulted in 56 international face-validated quality indicators find more to measure and compare organizational aspects

of palliative care. These quality indicators, aimed to assess and improve the organization of palliative care, will be pilot tested in palliative care settings all over Europe and be used in the EU FP7 funded IMPACT project.”
“Introduction: Needle electromyography (EMG) of the diaphragm carries the potential risk of pneumothorax. Knowing the approximate depth of the diaphragm should increase the test’s safety and accuracy. Methods: Distances from the skin to the diaphragm and from the outer surface of the rib to the diaphragm were measured using B mode ultrasound in 150 normal subjects. Results: When measured at the lower intercostal spaces, diaphragm depth varied between 0.78 and 4.91 cm beneath the skin surface and between 0.25 and 1.48 LDC000067 cm below the outer surface of the rib. Using linear regression modeling, body mass index (BMI) could be used to predict diaphragm depth from the skin to within an average of 1.15 mm. Conclusions: Diaphragm depth from the skin can vary by more than 4 cm. When image guidance

is not available to enhance accuracy and safety of diaphragm EMG, it is possible to reliably predict the depth of the diaphragm based on BMI. Muscle Nerve49: 666-668, 2014″
“The species-area relationship (SAR) is one of the few generalizations in ecology. However, many different relationships are denoted as SARs. Here, we empirically evaluated the differences between SARs derived from nested-contiguous and non-contiguous sampling designs, using plants, birds and butterflies datasets from Great Britain, Sapitinib order Greece, Massachusetts, New York and San Diego. The shape of SAR depends on the sampling scheme, but there is little empirical documentation on the magnitude of the deviation between different types of SARs and the factors affecting it. We implemented a strictly nested sampling design to construct nested-contiguous SAR (SA(C)R), and systematic nested but non-contiguous, and random designs to construct non-contiguous species

richness curves (SA(S)Rs for systematic and SACS for random designs) per dataset. The SA(C)R lay below any SA(S)R and most of the SACs. The deviation between them was related to the exponent f of the power law relationship between sampled area and extent. The lower the exponent f, the higher was the deviation between the curves. We linked SA(C)R to SA(S)R and SAC through the concept of “effective” area (A(e)), i.e. the nested-contiguous area containing equal number of species with the accumulated sampled area (A(S)) of a non-contiguous sampling. The relationship between effective and sampled area was modeled as log(A(e)) = klog(A(S)). A Generalized Linear Model was used to estimate the values of k from sampling design and dataset properties.