Infrastructures and productivity: an updated survey

The relationship between infrastructures and productivity has been the subject of an ongoing debate during the last two decades. The available empirical evidence is inconclusive and its interpretation is complicated by econometric problems that have not been fully solved. This paper surveys the relevant literature, focusing on studies that estimate aggregate production functions or growth regressions, and extracts some tentative conclusions. On the whole, my reading of the evidence is that there are sufficient indications that public infrastructure investment contributes significantly to productivity growth, at least for countries where a saturation point has not been reached. The returns to such investment are probably quite high in early stages, when infrastructures are scarce and basic networks have not been completed, but fall sharply thereafter. Hence, appropriate infrastructure provision is probably a key input for development policy, even if it does not hold the key to rapid productivity growth in advanced countries where transportation and communications needs are already adequately served.

How to improve the formal analytic reasoning and scientific motivation in the intellectual training of medical students

A review article of the The New England Journal of Medicine refers that almost a century ago, Abraham Flexner, a research scholar at the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, undertook an assessment of medical education in 155 medical schools in operation in the United States and Canada. Flexner’s report emphasized the nonscientific approach of American medical schools to preparation for the profession, which contrasted with the university-based system of medical education in Germany. At the core of Flexner’s view was the notion that formal analytic reasoning, the kind of thinking integral to the natural sciences, should hold pride of place in the intellectual training of physicians. This idea was pioneered at Harvard University, the University of Michigan, and the University of Pennsylvania in the 1880s, but was most fully expressed in the educational program at Johns Hopkins University, which Flexner regarded as the ideal for medical education. (...)

Research needs in allergy: an EAACI position paper, in collaboration with EFA.

In less than half a century, allergy, originally perceived as a rare disease, has become a major public health threat, today affecting the lives of more than 60 million people in Europe, and probably close to one billion worldwide, thereby heavily impacting the budgets of public health systems. More disturbingly, its prevalence and impact are on the rise, a development that has been associated with environmental and lifestyle changes accompanying the continuous process of urbanization and globalization. Therefore, there is an urgent need to prioritize and concert research efforts in the field of allergy, in order to achieve sustainable results on prevention, diagnosis and treatment of this most prevalent chronic disease of the 21st century.The European Academy of Allergy and Clinical Immunology (EAACI) is the leading professional organization in the field of allergy, promoting excellence in clinical care, education, training and basic and translational research, all with the ultimate goal of improving the health of allergic patients. The European Federation of Allergy and Airways Diseases Patients' Associations (EFA) is a non-profit network of allergy, asthma and Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disorder (COPD) patients' organizations. In support of their missions, the present EAACI Position Paper, in collaboration with EFA, highlights the most important research needs in the field of allergy to serve as key recommendations for future research funding at the national and European levels.Although allergies may involve almost every organ of the body and an array of diverse external factors act as triggers, there are several common themes that need to be prioritized in research efforts. As in many other chronic diseases, effective prevention, curative treatment and accurate, rapid diagnosis represent major unmet needs. Detailed phenotyping/endotyping stands out as widely required in order to arrange or re-categorize clinical syndromes into more coherent, uniform and treatment-responsive groups. Research efforts to unveil the basic pathophysiologic pathways and mechanisms, thus leading to the comprehension and resolution of the pathophysiologic complexity of allergies will allow for the design of novel patient-oriented diagnostic and treatment protocols. Several allergic diseases require well-controlled epidemiological description and surveillance, using disease registries, pharmacoeconomic evaluation, as well as large biobanks. Additionally, there is a need for extensive studies to bring promising new biotechnological innovations, such as biological agents, vaccines of modified allergen molecules and engineered components for allergy diagnosis, closer to clinical practice. Finally, particular attention should be paid to the difficult-to-manage, precarious and costly severe disease forms and/or exacerbations. Nonetheless, currently arising treatments, mainly in the fields of immunotherapy and biologicals, hold great promise for targeted and causal management of allergic conditions. Active involvement of all stakeholders, including Patient Organizations and policy makers are necessary to achieve the aims emphasized herein.

Generic optimality conditions for semi-algebraic convex programs

We consider linear optimization over a nonempty convex semi-algebraic feasible region F. Semidefinite programming is an example. If F is compact, then for almost every linear objective there is a unique optimal solution, lying on a unique \active" manifold, around which F is \partly smooth", and the second-order sufficient conditions hold. Perturbing the objective results in smooth variation of the optimal solution. The active manifold consists, locally, of these perturbed optimal solutions; it is independent of the representation of F, and is eventually identified by a variety of iterative algorithms such as proximal and projected gradient schemes. These results extend to unbounded sets F.

Access to information in Switzerland : From secrecy to transparency

Access to information legislations are now present in over 50 countries world-wide. Lagging behind some of its own Cantons, the Swiss Federal government was until recently one of the few hold outs in Europe. But, in December 2004, the Confederation voted the 'Loi sur la Transparence de l'administration' or Law on Transparency (LTrans) a Law that came into effect in July 2006. This paper presents an overview of the new Law and underlines the main institutional challenges to its introduction in Switzerland.

Cytological Findings Suggesting Sexuality in Phytomonas davidi (Protozoa: Kinetoplastida)

On few occasions, Phytomonas davidi (McGhee & Postell isolate) cultures in LIT (liver infusion-tryptose) medium around 27oC presented, as seen in Giemsa-stained smears, a set of peculiar morphological features, among them being noticeable the pairs of apposed cells attached by their posterior ends, where occurred a stained line and/or a dilatation, usually bulb-like in shape; sometimes this dilatation could occupy one of the cells or hold both together. In some pairs, the nucleus of each parasite seemed migrating towards the other, entering into such dilatation; in others, both nuclei were inside it, sometimes in close proximity or seeming fused; peculiar chromatin arrangements involving both nuclei were occasionally observed. Several mono or binucleate round forms bearing one or two flagella, as well as flagellate slender cells without nucleus were concomitantly seen there. In some instances, an intriguing small stained body occurred beside a single large nucleus, either in pairs presenting the bulb-like structure or in round cells. These cytological findings seemed steps of a dynamic process suggesting sexuality, since in several of them nuclear interactions following fusion of two parasites appeared to occur

Attenuation of colon inflammation through activators of the retinoid X receptor (RXR)/peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor gamma (PPARgamma) heterodimer. A basis for new therapeutic strategies.

The peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor gamma (PPARgamma) is highly expressed in the colon mucosa and its activation has been reported to protect against colitis. We studied the involvement of PPARgamma and its heterodimeric partner, the retinoid X receptor (RXR) in intestinal inflammatory responses. PPARgamma(1/)- and RXRalpha(1/)- mice both displayed a significantly enhanced susceptibility to 2,4,6-trinitrobenzene sulfonic acid (TNBS)-induced colitis compared with their wild-type littermates. A role for the RXR/PPARgamma heterodimer in the protection against colon inflammation was explored by the use of selective RXR and PPARgamma agonists. TNBS-induced colitis was significantly reduced by the administration of both PPARgamma and RXR agonists. This beneficial effect was reflected by increased survival rates, an improvement of macroscopic and histologic scores, a decrease in tumor necrosis factor alpha and interleukin 1beta mRNA levels, a diminished myeloperoxidase concentration, and reduction of nuclear factor kappaB DNA binding activity, c-Jun NH(2)-terminal kinase, and p38 activities in the colon. When coadministered, a significant synergistic effect of PPARgamma and RXR ligands was observed. In combination, these data demonstrate that activation of the RXR/PPARgamma heterodimer protects against colon inflammation and suggest that combination therapy with both RXR and PPARgamma ligands might hold promise in the clinic due to their synergistic effects.

Counting the Cost of Diabetes on the Island of Ireland

A new report published by the Institute of Public Health in Ireland (IPH) and released on Monday 9 July 2007, predicts a 26% increase in diabetes in Northern Ireland and a 37% increase in the Republic over the ten year period (2005-2015). The new report entitled, Making Diabetes Count: What does the future hold? is the second such report from the authors - The Irish Diabetes Prevalence Working Group.

Multi-stage oligopoly models with nested logit demand structures: A simplifying approach

Solving multi-stage oligopoly models by backward induction can easily become a com- plex task when rms are multi-product and demands are derived from a nested logit frame- work. This paper shows that under the assumption that within-segment rm shares are equal across segments, the analytical expression for equilibrium pro ts can be substantially simpli ed. The size of the error arising when this condition does not hold perfectly is also computed. Through numerical examples, it is shown that the error is rather small in general. Therefore, using this assumption allows to gain analytical tractability in a class of models that has been used to approach relevant policy questions, such as for example rm entry in an industry or the relation between competition and location. The simplifying approach proposed in this paper is aimed at helping improving these type of models for reaching more accurate recommendations.

Simultaneous B(0)- and B(1)+-map acquisition for fast localized shim, frequency, and RF power determination in the heart at 3 T.

High-field (>or=3 T) cardiac MRI is challenged by inhomogeneities of both the static magnetic field (B(0)) and the transmit radiofrequency field (B(1)+). The inhomogeneous B fields not only demand improved shimming methods but also impede the correct determination of the zero-order terms, i.e., the local resonance frequency f(0) and the radiofrequency power to generate the intended local B(1)+ field. In this work, dual echo time B(0)-map and dual flip angle B(1)+-map acquisition methods are combined to acquire multislice B(0)- and B(1)+-maps simultaneously covering the entire heart in a single breath hold of 18 heartbeats. A previously proposed excitation pulse shape dependent slice profile correction is tested and applied to reduce systematic errors of the multislice B(1)+-map. Localized higher-order shim correction values including the zero-order terms for frequency f(0) and radiofrequency power can be determined based on the acquired B(0)- and B(1)+-maps. This method has been tested in 7 healthy adult human subjects at 3 T and improved the B(0) field homogeneity (standard deviation) from 60 Hz to 35 Hz and the average B(1)+ field from 77% to 100% of the desired B(1)+ field when compared to more commonly used preparation methods.

Address by Michea¡l Martin to the Conference - Legislating for Tobacco Free Society

Thank you Chairman I would like to extend a warm welcome to our keynote speakers, David Byrne of the European Commission, Derek Yach from the World Health Organisation, and Paul Quinn representing Congressman Marty Meehan who sends his apologies. When we include the speakers who will address later sessions, this is, undoubtedly, one of the strongest teams that have been assembled on tobacco control in Europe. The very strength of the team underlines what I see as a shift – a very necessary shift – in the way we perceive the tobacco issue. For the last twenty years, we have lived out a paradox. It isn´t a social side issue. I make no apology for the bluntness of what I´m saying, and will come back, a little later, to the radicalism I believe we need to bring – nationally – to this issue. For starters, though, I want to lay it on the line that what we´re talking about is an epidemic as deadly as any suffered by human kind throughout the centuries. Slower than some of those epidemics in its lethal action, perhaps. But an epidemic, nonetheless. According to the World Health Organisation tobacco accounted for just over 3 million annual deaths in 1990, rising to 4.023 million annual deaths in 1998. The numbers of deaths due to tobacco will rise to 8.4 million in 2020 and reach roughly 10 million annually by 2030. This is quite simply ghastly. Tobacco kills. It kills in many different ways. It kills increasing numbers of women. It does its damage directly and indirectly. For children, much of the damage comes from smoking by adults where children live, study, play and work. The very least we should be able to offer every child is breathable air. Air that doesn´t do them damage. We´re now seeing a global public health response to the tobacco epidemic. The Tobacco Free Initiative launched by the World Health Organisation was matched by significant tobacco control initiatives throughout the world. During this conference we will hear about the experiences our speakers had in driving these initiatives. This Tobacco Free Initiative poses unique challenges to our legal frameworks at both national and international levels; in particular it raises challenges about the legal context in which tobacco products are traded and asks questions about the impact of commercial speech especially on children, and the extent of the limitations that should be imposed on it. Politicians, supported by economists and lawyers as well as the medical profession, must continue to explore and develop this context to find innovative ways to wrap public health considerations around the trade in tobacco products – very tightly. We also have the right to demand a totally new paradigm from the tobacco industry. Bluntly, the tobacco industry plays the PR game at its cynical worst. The industry sells its products without regard to the harm these products cause. At the same time, to gain social acceptance, it gives donations, endowments and patronage to high profile events and people. Not good enough. This model of behaviour is no longer acceptable in a modern society. We need one where the industry integrates social responsibility and accountability into its day-to-day activities. We have waited for this change in behaviour from the tobacco industry for many decades. Unfortunately the documents disclosed during litigation in the USA and from other sources make very depressing reading; it is clear from them that any trust society placed in the tobacco industry in the past to address the health problems associated with its products was misplaced. This industry appears to lack the necessary leadership to guide it towards just and responsible action. Instead, it chooses evasion, deception and at times illegal activity to protect its profits at any price and to avoid its responsibilities to society and its customers. It has engaged in elaborate ´spin´ to generate political tolerance, scientific uncertainty and public acceptance of its products. Legislators must act now. I see no reason why the global community should continue to wait. Effective legal controls must be laid on this errant industry. We should also keep these controls under review at regular intervals and if they are failing to achieve the desired outcomes we should be prepared to amend them. In Ireland, as Minister for Health and Children, I launched a comprehensive tobacco control policy entitled “Towards a Tobacco Free Society“. OTT?Excessive?Unrealistic? On the contrary – I believe it to be imperative and inevitable. I honestly hold that, given the range of fatal diseases caused by tobacco use we have little alternative but to pursue the clear objective of creating a tobacco free society. Aiming at a tobacco free society means ensuring public and political opinion are properly informed. It requires help to be given to smokers to break the addiction. It demands that people are protected against environmental tobacco smoke and children are protected from any inducement to experiment with this product. Over the past year we have implemented a number of measures which will support these objectives; we have established an independent Office of Tobacco Control, we have introduced free nicotine replacement therapy for low-income earners, we have extended our existing prohibitions on tobacco advertising to the print media with some minor derogations for international publications. We have raised the legal age at which a person can be sold tobacco products to eighteen years. We have invested substantially more funds in health promotion activities and we have mounted sustained information campaigns. We have engaged in sponsorship arrangements, which are new and innovative for public bodies. I have provided health boards with additional resources to let them mount a sustained inspection and enforcement service. Health boards will engage new Directors of Tobacco Control responsible for coordinating each health board´s response and for liasing with the Tobacco Control Agency I set up earlier this year. Most recently, I have published a comprehensive Bill – The Public Health (Tobacco) Bill, 2001. This Bill will, among other things, end all forms of product display and in-store advertising and will require all retailers to register with the new Tobacco Control Agency. Ten packs of cigarettes will be banned and transparent and independent testing procedures of tobacco products will be introduced. Enforcement officers will be given all the necessary powers to ensure there is full compliance with the law. On smoking in public places we will extend the existing areas covered and it is proposed that I, as Minister for Health and Children, will have the powers to introduce further prohibitions in public places such as pubs and the work place. I will also provide for the establishment of a Tobacco Free Council to advise and assist on an ongoing basis. I believe the measures already introduced and those additional ones proposed in the Bill have widespread community support. In fact, you´re going to hear a detailed presentation from the MRBI which will amply illustrate the extent of this support. The great thing is that the support comes from smokers and non-smokers alike. Bottom line, Ladies and Gentlemen, is that we are at a watershed. As a society (if you´ll allow me to play with a popular phrase) we´ve realised it´s time to ´wake up and smell the cigarettes.´ Smell them. See them for what they are. And get real about destroying their hold on our people. The MRBI survey makes it clear that the single strongest weapon we have when it comes to preventing the habit among young people is price. Simple as that. Price. Up to now, the fear of inflation has been a real impediment to increasing taxes on tobacco. It sounds a serious, logical argument. Until you take it out and look at it a little more closely. Weigh it, as it were, in two hands. I believe – and I believe this with a great passion – that we must take cigarettes out of the equation we use when awarding wage increases. I am calling on IBEC and ICTU, on employers and trade unions alike, to move away from any kind of tolerance of a trade that is killing our citizens. At one point in industrial history, cigarettes were a staple of the workingman´s life. So it was legitimate to include them in the ´basket´ of goods that goes to make up the Consumer Price Index. It isn´t legitimate to include them any more. Today, I´m saying that society collectively must take the step to remove cigarettes from the basket of normality, from the list of elements which constitute necessary consumer spending. I´m saying: “We can no longer delude ourselves. We must exclude cigarettes from the considerations we address in central wage bargaining. We must price cigarettes out of the reach of the children those cigarettes will kill.” Right now, in the monthly Central Statistics Office reports on consumer spending, the figures include cigarettes. But – right down at the bottom of the page – there´s another figure. Calculated without including cigarettes. I believe that if we continue to use the first figure as our constant measure, it will be an indictment of us as legislators, as advocates for working people, as public health professionals. If, on the other hand, we move to the use of the second figure, we will be sending out a message of startling clarity to the nation. We will be saying “We don´t count an addictive, killer drug as part of normal consumer spending.” Taking cigarettes out of the basket used to determine the Consumer Price Index will take away the inflation argument. It will not be easy, in its implications for the social partners. But it is morally inescapable. We must do it. Because it will help us stop the killer that is tobacco. If we can do it, we will give so much extra strength to health educators and the new Tobacco Control Association. This new organisation of young people who already have branches in over fifteen counties, is represented here today. The young adults who make up its membership are well placed to advise children of the dangers of tobacco addiction in a way that older generations cannot. It would strengthen their hand if cigarettes move – in price terms – out of the easy reach of our children Finally, I would like to commend so many public health advocates who have shown professional and indeed personal courage in their commitment to this critical public health issue down through the years. We need you to continue to challenge and confront this grave public health problem and to repudiate the questionable science of the tobacco industry. The Research Institute for a Tobacco Free Society represents a new and dynamic form of partnership between government and civil society. It will provide an effective platform to engage and mobilise the many different professional and academic skills necessary to guide and challenge us. I wish the conference every success.

Bone-marrow haematopoietic-stem-cell niches.

Adult stem cells hold many promises for future clinical applications and regenerative medicine. The haematopoietic stem cell (HSC) is the best-characterized somatic stem cell so far, but in vitro expansion has been unsuccessful, limiting the future therapeutic potential of these cells. Here we review recent progress in characterizing the composition of the HSC bone-marrow microenvironment, known as the HSC niche. During homeostasis, HSCs, and therefore putative bone-marrow HSC niches, are located near bone surfaces or are associated with the sinusoidal endothelium. The molecular crosstalk between HSCs and the cellular constituents of these niches is thought to control the balance between HSC self-renewal and differentiation, indicating that future successful expansion of HSCs for therapeutic use will require three-dimensional reconstruction of a stem-cell-niche unit.

New insights into the long-term evolutionary history of the avian MHC

SummaryGene duplication and neofunctidnalization are important processes in the evolution of phenotypic complexity. They account for important evolutionary novelties that confer ecological adaptation, such as the major histocompatibility complex (MHC), a multigene family with a central role in vertebrates' adaptive immune system. Multigene families, which evolved in large part through duplication, represent promising systems to study the still strongly depbated relative roles of neutral and adaptive processes in the evolution of phenotypic complexity. Detailed knowledge on ecological function and a well-characterized evolutionary history place the mammals' MHC amongst ideal study systems. However mammalian MHCs usually encompass several million base pairs and hold a large number of functional and non-functional duplicate genes, which makes their study complex. Avian MHCs on the other hand are usually way more compact, but the reconstruction of. their evolutionary history has proven notoriously difficult. However, no focused attempt has been undertaken so far to study the avian MHC evolutionary history in a broad phylogenetic context and using adequate gene regions.In the present PhD, we were able to make important contributions to the understanding of the long-term evolution of the avian MHC class II Β (MHCI1B). First, we isolated and characterized MHCIIB genes in barn owl (Tyto alba?, Strigiformes, Tytonidae), a species from an avian lineage in which MHC has not been studied so far. Our results revealed that with only two functional MHCIIB genes the MHC organization of barn owl may be similar to the 'minimal essential' MHC of chicken (Gallus gallus), indicating that simple MHC organization may be ancestral to birds. Taking advantage of the sequence information from barn owl, we studied the evolution of MHCIIB genes in 13 additional species of 'typical' owls (Strigiformes, Strigidae). Phylogenetic analyses revealed that according to their function, in owls the peptide-binding region (PBR) encoding exon 2 and the non-PBR encoding exon 3 evolve by different patterns. Exon 2 exhibited an evolutionary history of positive selection and recombination, while exon 3 traced duplication history and revealed two paralogs evolving divergently from each other in owls, and in a shorebird, the great snipe {Gallinago media). The results from exon 3 were the first ever from birds to demonstrate gene orthology in species that diverged tens of millions of years ago, and strongly questioned whether the taxa studied before provided an adequate picture of avian MHC evolution. In a follow-up study, we aimed at explaining a striking pattern revealed by phylogenetic trees analyzing the owl sequences along with MHCIIB sequences from other birds: One owl paralog (termed DAB1) grouped with sequences of passerines and falcons, while the other (DAB2) grouped with wildfowl, penguins and birds of prey. This could be explained by either a duplication event preceding the evolution of these bird orders, or by convergent evolution of similar sequences in a number of orders. With extensive phylogenetic analyses we were able to show, that indeed a duplication event preceeded the major avian radiation -100 my ago, and that following this duplication, the paralogs evolved under positive selection. Furthermore, we showed that the divergently evolving amino acid residues in the MHCIIB-encoded β-chain potentially interact with the MHCI I α-chain, and that molecular coevolution of the interacting residues may have been involved in the divergent evolution of the MHCIIB paralogs.The findings of this PhD are of particular interest to the understanding of the evolutionary history of the avian MHC and, by providing essential information on long-term gene history in the avian MHC, open promising perspectives for advances in the understanding of the evolution of multigene families in general, and for avian MHC organization in particular. Amongst others I discuss the importance of including protein structure in the phylogenetic study of multigene families, and the roles of ecological versus molecular selection pressures. I conclude by providing a population genomic perspective on avian MHC, which may serve as a basis for future research to investigate the relative roles of neutral processes involving effective population size effects and of adaptation in the evolution of avian MHC diversity and organization.RésuméLa duplication de gènes et leur néo-fonctionnalisation sont des processus importants dans l'évolution de la complexité phénotypique. Ils sont impliqués dans l'apparition d'importantes nouveautés évolutives favorisant l'adaptation écologique, comme c'est le cas pour le complexe majeur d'histocompatibilité

Action Cancer

The pharmacist will hold sessions with particpants to raise breast awareness in the Ardoyne and Shankill areas and provide information on health issues they want more detail on. Five essions were carried out by the pharmacist on women's health - mainly breast awareness with 53 women attending in total. The pharmacist gave health related information to the women and discussion followed. Each group attending were unique and each discussion brought up different concerns and interests. Cancer Lifeline a community group attended the session and have since made links with the pharmacist and Action Cancer.

A Survey of Employees Attitudes Towards Drug Testing in the Workplace

In light of the recent publication of the safety, Health & Welfare at Work Bill 2004, which is set to target the construction industry in particular, the number of Irish employers implementing drug testing programmes in the workplace is set to increase. Little is known, however, about attitudes of Irish workers towards various aspects of drug testing. In order to address this matter, the author presents the findings of a cross-sectional survey of 148 construction trade apprentices in relation to their attitudes towards aspects of workplace drug testing. The extent to which their attitudes varied according to their levels of illegal drug use and alcohol use was also investigated. The results indicate that under some circumstances, testing is approved of. However, attitudes towards most aspects of drug testing are characterised by extreme variability. For example, nearly items were rejected by some respondents and accepted by others. It can be concluded that even if an employer designed a drug testing programme based on elements viewed more favourably, a substantial proportion of employees would still be likely to hold negative views towards some aspects of the programme. Furthermore, self-reported frequency of alcohol and drug use, particularly cannabis use, was associated to more negative reactions towards drug testing. Implications for implementing drug testing programmes in the workplace are discussed. The results of this study are intended to give employers an increased understanding of workers' attitudes towards drug testing programmes and to aid the development of effective substance-abuse prevention services.This resource was contributed by The National Documentation Centre on Drug Use.