Practical lessons for dealing with inequalities in health impact assessment

This publication is a companion to Addressing inequalities through health impact assessment (Taylor et al., 2003a), which described what a focus on inequalities could achieve, offered case study examples, and outlined promising practice. This bulletin discusses recent publications and presents a further two case studies that attempt to address health inequalities through the use of HIA. .

Dix erreurs a ne pas commettre lors de la prise en charge d'une prothèse articulaire infectée en orthopédie [Ten errors to avoid while dealing with infected total joint arthroplasties].

Infections after total joint arthroplasty are rare but come with severe consequences. Timely, adequate and standardized treatment beginning at the onset of symptoms will have a major impact on the handling of this dreaded complication. In absences of clear guidelines, errors are often committed, with occasionally severe consequences for the patient. In this article, the 10 most frequent errors starting with diagnostics till antibiotic and surgical treatment will be discussed.

The overexpression of the trypanosomatid-exclusive TcRBP19 RNA-binding protein affects cellular infection by Trypanosoma cruzi

To characterise the trypanosomatid-exclusive RNA-binding protein TcRBP19, we analysed the phenotypic changes caused by its overexpression. Although no evident changes were observed when TcRBP19 was ectopically expressed in epimastigotes, the metacyclogenesis process was affected. Notably, TcRBP19 overexpression also led to a decrease in the number of infected mammalian cells. These findings suggest that TcRBP19 may be involved in the life cycle progression of the Trypanosoma cruzi parasite.

Dealing with Errors in QCA

This paper discusses five strategies to deal with five types of errors in Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA): condition errors, systematic errors, random errors, calibration errors, and deviant case errors. These strategies are the comparative inspection of complex, intermediary, and parsimonious solutions; the use of an adjustment factor, the use of probabilistic criteria, the test of the robustness of calibration parameters, and the use of a frequency threshold for observed combinations of conditions. The strategies are systematically reviewed, assessed, and evaluated as regards their applicability, advantages, limitations, and complementarities.

Moral hazard and non-exclusive contracts

This paper studies equilibria for economies characterized by moral hazard(hidden action), in which the set of contracts marketed in equilibrium isdetermined by the interaction of financial intermediaries.The crucial aspect of the environment that we study is thatintermediaries are restricted to trade non-exclusive contracts: theagents' contractual relationships with competing intermediaries cannot bemonitored (or are not contractible upon). We fully characterize equilibrium allocations and contracts. In thisset-up equilibrium allocations are clearly incentive constrainedinefficient. A robust property of equilibria with non-exclusivity isthat the contracts issued in equilibrium do not implement the optimalaction. Moreover we prove that, whenever equilibrium contracts doimplement the optimal action, intermediaries make positive profits andequilibrium allocations are third best inefficient (where the definitionof third best efficiency accounts for constraints which capture thenon-exclusivity of contracts).

Dealing with clients' diversity in test situations: Client categorisations in psychologists' accounts of their practices

Reducing a test administration to standardised procedures reflects the test designers' standpoint. However, from the practitioners' standpoint, each client is unique. How do psychologists deal with both standardised test administration and clients' diversity? To answer this question, we interviewed 17 psychologists working in three public services for children and adolescents about their assessment practices. We analysed the numerous "client categorisations" they produced in their accounts. We found that they had shared perceptions about their clients' diversity, and reported various non-standard practices that complemented standardised test administration, but also differed from them or were even forbidden. They seem to experience a dilemma between: (a) prescribed and situated practices; (b) scientific and situated reliability; (c) commutative and distributive justice. For practitioners, dealing with clients' diversity this is a practical problem, halfway between a problem-solving task and a moral dilemma.

Exclusive J/Psi electroproduction in a dual model

Exclusive J/Psi electroproduction is studied in the framework of the analytic S-matrix theory. The differential and integrated elastic cross sections are calculated using the modified dual amplitude with Mandelstam analyticity model. The model is applied to the description of the available experimental data and proves to be valid in a wide region of the kinematical variables s, t, and Q(2). Our amplitude can be used also as a universal background parametrization for the extraction of tiny resonance signals.

Systematic and exclusive use of intravascular ultrasound for endovascular aneurysm repair - the Lausanne experience.

Five years of experience with endovascular infrarenal aneurysm repair at our institution is reviewed. Implantation of endoprostheses in 88 patients has been performed by surgeons using exclusively intravascular ultrasound (IVUS) and fluoroscopy. IVUS identified the target site of deployment in all cases. In-hospital morbidity was 22% (19/88). Two percent mortality (2/88) and 5% early conversion (4/88) as a consequence of type I endoleaks were noted only in the first 53 patients with early devices (NS). Early endoleaks were present in 36% (32/88) including twenty-two type I, five type II and five type III endoleaks. Proximal endoleaks were associated with early devices (P<0.001), and technical difficulties with deployment. Tube grafts used in the beginning, performed poorly with 54% (7/13) type I endoleaks. Endoleaks diminished to 10% (9/88) by spontaneous closure and secondary endovascular procedures that were necessary in 24% (21/88) and consisted of coil embolization/cuff extension (9), late conversion (6), and limb recanalization or femoral cross-over bypass (6). Endovascular aneurysm repair using IVUS is a valid alternative technique. Improved devices and systematic use of bifurcated endoprostheses for infrarenal aneurysms reduce the occurrence of type I endoleaks.

Metal dealing at the origin of the Chordata phylum: The metallothionein system and metal overload response in Amphioxus.

Non-vertebrate chordates, specifically amphioxus, are considered of the utmost interest for gaining insight into the evolutionary trends, i.e. differentiation and specialization, of gene/protein systems. In this work, MTs (metallothioneins), the most important metal binding proteins, are characterized for the first time in the cephalochordate subphylum at both gene and protein level, together with the main features defining the amphioxus response to cadmium and copper overload. Two MT genes (BfMT1 and BfMT2) have been identified in a contiguous region of the genome, as well as several ARE (antioxidant response element) and MRE (metal response element) located upstream the transcribed region. Their corresponding cDNAs exhibit identical sequence in the two lancelet species (B. floridae and B. lanceolatum), BfMT2 cDNA resulting from an alternative splicing event. BfMT1 is a polyvalent metal binding peptide that coordinates any of the studied metal ions (Zn, Cd or Cu) rendering complexes stable enough to last in physiological environments, which is fully concordant with the constitutive expression of its gene, and therefore, with a metal homeostasis housekeeping role. On the contrary, BfMT2 exhibits a clear ability to coordinate Cd(II) ions, while it is absolutely unable to fold into stable Cu (I) complexes, even as mixed species. This identifies it as an essential detoxification agent, which is consequently only induced in emergency situations. The cephalochordate MTs are not directly related to vertebrate MTs, neither by gene structure, protein similarity nor metal-binding behavior of the encoded peptides. The closest relative is the echinoderm MT, which confirm proposed phylogenetic relationships between these two groups. The current findings support the existence in most organisms of two types of MTs as for their metal binding preferences, devoted to different biological functions: multivalent MTs for housekeeping roles, and specialized MTs that evolve either as Cd-thioneins or Cu-thioneins, according to the ecophysiological needs of each kind of organisms.

Prevalence of exclusive lower extremity metastases at 18F-NaF PET/CT

AbstractObjective:To evaluate the prevalence of exclusive lower extremity metastases, specifically in the femur and below the knee, observed at 18F-NaF PET/CT.Materials and Methods:One thousand consecutive PET/CT studies were retrospectively evaluated for the presence of exclusive uptake in lower extremities suggesting metastatic involvement. The presumptive diagnoses based on such uptakes were subsequently obtained by evaluation of other imaging studies.Results:No exclusive uptake suggestive of metastasis below the femur was observed in the present series. Exclusive uptake was observed in the proximal femur with a presumptive diagnosis of metastasis in two patients.Conclusion:The prevalence of exclusive metastasis below the femur is low and scanning from head to knees is appropriate in most cases.

On the interplay between Q^2 and t dependence in exclusive diffractive production of real photons and vector mesons in ep collisions

We show how the familiar phenomenological way of combining the Q2 (photon virtuality) and t (squared momentum transfer) dependences of the scattering amplitude in Deeply Virtual Compton Scattering (DVCS) [1, 2] and Vector Meson Production (VMP) [2] processes can be understood in an off-mass-shell generalization of dual amplitudes with Mandelstam analyticity [3]. By comparing different approaches, we managed also to constrain the numerical values of the free parameters.