Methods: We used the 2003 French Decennial Health Survey of a representative sample of the general population-including 22,620 adult subjects who completed the SF-36 questionnaire-to test various socio-demographic, health status and QoL variables as potential predictors of missingness. We constructed logistic regression models for each SF-36 item to identify independent predictors and classify them according to Little and Rubin (“”missing completely

at random”", “”missing at random”" and “”missing not at random”").

Results: The type of missingness was missing at random for half of the items of the SF-36 and missing not at random selleck inhibitor for the others. None of the items were missing completely at random. Independent predictors of missingness were age, female sex, low scores on the SF-36 subscales and in some cases low educational level, occupation, nationality and poor health status.

Conclusion: This study of the SF-36 shows that imputation

of missing items is necessary and emphasizes several factors for missingness that should be considered in prevention strategies of missing data. Similar methodologies could be applied to item missingness in other QoL questionnaires.”
“Turkey is not only the main apricot (Prunus armeniaca) producer and exporter in the world, but it also has a wide variety of apricot germplasms, owing to its close proximity KPT-8602 solubility dmso to the centers of apricot origin. However, there is little or no genetic information on many apricot cultivars that are extensively cultivated in Turkey. We examined the genetic relatedness of 25 Turkish and four exotic apricot cultivars using SSR (simple sequence repeat) markers that were either previously developed for apricot, or for peach (P. persica), a close relative of apricot. Allele diversity (with an average allele number of 6.37) at the SSR loci and the heterozygosity rates (with an average Ho value of 0.648) of these cultivars were found to be higher than in previous studies that used the same loci for apricot. This fact might be

attributed to the analysis of different numbers of accessions in the different studies. No correlations were found between the genetic relatedness and the geographical distributions of these cultivars. The IPI 145 data reported here will assist in the prevention of confusions in the apricot propagation and breeding in Turkey. The findings can also be directly compared with other studies that used the same SSR markers on apricot.”
“The prevalence of renal insufficiency in hypertensive participants without comorbidities affecting renal function is unknown. The objective of this study was to assess the prevalence and predictors of renal insufficiency in general hypertensive population. We examined 994 hypertensive participants aged 45-70 years without previously diagnosed diabetes, cardiovascular disease or chronic kidney disease.