Does betulinic acid inhibit superoxide anion-mediated impairment of endothelium-dependent relaxation in rat aortas?
These results indicate that BA reduces the impairment of EDR in rat aortas exposed to exogenous superoxide anion, which may closely relate to the reduction of oxidative stress and activation of eNOS-NO pathway.
Physician fee programs seem to provide the most direct and robust incentives to enhance hospital efficiency under a fee-for-service regime like that in Taiwan. Because of time-lagged effects, hospitals that implemented the total quality management programs were more efficient but only when the programs had been implemented for at least 2 years. The responsibility centers system can also be effective when the system was associated with formal incentive schemes. The results indicate the importance of having both the individual-based and team-based incentives in place. Finally, the hospital-physician integration strategies appear to be effective individually, but the results change significantly when they are evaluated simultaneously, together with other control variables, in the tobit model. This indicates the importance of investigating hospital-physician integration strategies as a portfolio instead of a single tool.