2,017 research outputs found
Tinea pedis: diagnosis and management
No full textDermatophyte onychomycosis is a common condition, particularly in the elderly and immunosuppressed. As these sections of the population are set to increase, it is likely that the prevalence of dermatophytic nail infection will also increase. Advances in antifungal therapy, with the introduction of newer and safer drugs such as terbinafine and itraconazole, have improved out-comes significantly. However, around a quarter of patients will suffer reinfection or recurrence in the subsequent months. The possible reasons for this are considered. Data from recently published studies have demonstrated an increased mycological and clinical cure rate using a combination of topical and oral antifungal agents. This approach may be a cost-effective means of improving outcomes for patients with more resistant nail disease
Requirements-Based Test Generation: An Industrial Perspective
No full textThis paper discusses our experience with the deployment of requirements-based test generation within a large industrial setting. In doing so, we present an overview of our technologies and changes to the technical approach needed to aid deployment, especially the introduction of requirements validation
The treatment of verrucae pedis using Falknor’s needling method: a review of 46 cases
No full textHuman Papilloma Virus (HPV) related verrucae pedis persist, seemingly evading host immune surveillance, yet sometimes disappear with inflammation. The absence, or reduction, of a cellular immune response may explain why verrucae treatments are not uniformly successful and treatment can be difficult even in immune-competent individuals. Little investigation has been undertaken into the potential benefit and efficacy of needling verrucae, a treatment modality causing HPV infected keratinocyte destruction in addition to inducing an assumed enhanced immune response. A review of clinical practice is presented, reporting the treatment method and results of data collected from a retrospective review of 45 patients. Thirty-one (69%) cases demonstrated complete resolution of verrucae following needling treatment. Three patients demonstrated reduction in size and pain whilst 11 showed no improvement. No adverse events were noted. Needling may have a place in the management of verrucae pedis in an adult population but a large scale study utilising objective measures and a control intervention would provide more detailed efficacy data along with a greater understanding of the effects of this treatment on long term immunity
Development of a practical guide for the early recognition for malignant melanoma of the foot and nail unit
No full textBackground: malignant melanoma is a rare but potentially lethal form of cancer which may arise on the foot. Evidence suggests that due to misdiagnosis and later recognition, foot melanoma has a poorer prognosis than cutaneous melanoma elsewhere.Methods: a panel of experts representing podiatry and dermatologists with a special interest in skin oncology was assembled to review the literature and clinical evidence to develop a clinical guide for the early recognition of plantar and nail unit melanoma.Results: a systematic review of the literature revealed little high quality data to inform the guide. However a significant number of case reports and series were available for analysis. From these, the salient features were collated and summarised into the guide. Based on these features a new acronym "CUBED" for foot melanoma was drafted and incorporated in the guide.Conclusions: the use of this guide may help clinicians in their assessment of suspicious lesions on the foot (including the nail unit). Earlier detection of suspicious pedal lesions may facilitate earlier referral for expert assessment and definitive diagnosis. The guide is currently being field tested amongst practitioner
Detecting and resolving semantic pathologies in UML sequence diagrams
No full textScenario based requirements specifications are the industry norm for defining communicating systems. These scenarios are often captured in the form of UML/MSC sequence diagrams. Errors are often introduced at this stage of the development process, which are costly to resolve if they are not detected early. This paper is concerned with the automatic detection and resolution of semantic errors that can occur in such scenarios.The paper discusses a semantic interpretation of scenario-based requirements and various types of defects (or pathologies) that can be detected. The paper defines the semantics and defects within a partial order theoretic framework. We introduce a UML 2.0 profile that captures various domain specific communication semantics, which can be used to determine the relevance of detected pathologies when different underlying implementation assumptions are made. The paper also discusses how to automatically resolve pathologies by using this profile to adapt the communication architecture in the requirements model
Phase Semantics of MSC Traces
No full textSpecifications for wireless telecommunications systems are often only partially defined. It is also common for the specification to consist of a set of normative scenarios together with scenarios for some of the more important exceptional behaviours. A major challenge is to find effective means of detecting feature interaction conflicts contained in such specifications. Moreover the detected conflicts should be of value in debugging the specifications and should not be cluttered with inconsequential errors that are due to the incompleteness of the specifications. The paper describes a technique for constructing a phase automaton that can be used to statically analyse the specification scenarios in order to detect certain types of interactions between them, known as phase transition conflicts. There is anecdotal evidence to suggest that these kinds of inconsistency can account for a significant proportion of feature interactions. The phase automaton is intended primarily for the purpose of detecting these phase transition errors. This means the state space in the automaton only need include that part of the feature behaviour that is significant for those conflicts. This results in a small automaton that tends to make the conflict detection problem tractable
Clinical guidelines for the recognition of melanoma of the foot and nail unit
No full textMalignant melanoma is a life threatening skin tumour which may arise on the foot. The prognosis for the condition is good when lesions are diagnosed and treated early. However, lesions arising on the soles and within the nail unit can be difficult to recognise leading to delays in diagnosis. These guidelines have been drafted to alert health care practitioners to the early signs of the disease so an early diagnosis can be sought<br/
Model Synthesis from Imprecise Specifications
No full textThe paper defines a formal semantics for MSC scenarios that is a weakening of the state semantics from [6], whilst permitting some additional semantics in the spirit of Live Sequence Charts (LSCs) [4]. The semantics here differs from that of LSCs in that mandatory behaviour is defined dynamically within the domain of possible scenarios. This permits a semantics which uses domain knowledge to define when compositions of imprecise requirements are valid. This has been implemented by Motorola UK Research Labs, and is being used in a pilot study for a new telecommunications mobile 3G handset
Scenario Synthesis from Imprecise Requirements
No full textDiscovering faults in requirements specifications for distributed reactive systems is a challenging problem since many issues that need to be uncovered are a result of subtle component interactions that are implied by the requirements, but not explicitly described by them. A further difficulty is caused by the imprecise nature of industrial requirements specifications. This makes it difficult to construct valid models of the possible compositions between the requirements, which would be a valuable aid in uncovering such interactions. The paper defines a formal semantics that characterizes a particular type of imprecise compositional semantics derived from industrial case studies, and a process algebra that describes the valid requirements compositions for that formal semantics
Cutting and Pasting with Requirements Specifications Scenarios
No full textWireless Telecommunications requirements specifications tend to be defined as sets of normative scenarios. These frequently only provide partial coverage of the scenarios that are necessary to give a comprehensive specification. Standard model checking techniques have not been successful in analysing such protocol specifications, first because of the high degree of concurrency that is inherent in such systems, and secondly because the very partial nature of the specifications tends to cause many inconsequential defects to be reported that frustrate the process of identifying key issues that have to be addressed immediately. Typically the inconsequential defects are addressed by adding new scenarios to the requirements, whereas significant defects require structural changes to the design itself and are not solved by adding new scenarios. This paper describes a technique for synthesising tractable phase automata from Message Sequence Chart scenarios that describe major phase transitions in the specifications. These can be automatically analysed to detect certain types of significant interactions between the scenarios that will be invariant under the addition of new scenarios to the requirements specifications
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