Public health education in Europe: old and new challenges

The purpose of this article is to discuss some of the current challenges faced by European schools of public health. Perhaps most remarkable on the continent is the diversity, the magnitude, and the rapidity of the developments in public health education since the Second World War. This article discusses its evolution, its main characteristics and the underlying rationale with several examples. Further, it addresses specific aspects of the future development, namely the collaboration of academic schools with practice-oriented institutions, as well as the interactions between the constituent disciplines of public health. The Bologna process on post-graduate education in Europe has had an important impact on the overall design of most schools. There is a willingness to develop public health in each country of the European region and there is a need to develop common strategies to reach high standards in teaching, training and researching in all disciplines related to public health.

Monuments and memorials.

This audio series describes the Monuments and Memorials on the exterior areas of the Capitol grounds. It Steve Person, Tour Guide, narrating. Craig Cronbaugh, Director of the Legislative Information Office, taped and edited these programs. These are the audio taken from the video for use on the OnCell program. OnCell is a tour that can be taken by computer, I-Pad, or smartphone either audio or video. The access number for the Legislative Services Agency OnCell system is: 515-802-3004.

Ebola Information for West Africans Living in the United States, November 14, 2014

West Africans in the United States may face negative responses from people in their community because of the current Ebola outbreak. People may say bad things about you, or try to stop you or your family from everyday activities like work, school, shopping, or spending time with friends. This is known as stigma. Stigma mostly occurs because of fear—people fear Ebola and the disease is linked with a specific region of the world. You are not more at risk for Ebola because of your specific race or country of origin.

Self-reported adherence and associated factors regarding antihypertensive medication in Seychelles

Introduction. Adherence to medication for asymptomatic disease is often low. We assessed factors associated with good adherence to medication for high blood pressure (HBP) in a country of the African region. Methods. A population-based survey of adults aged 25-64 years (N=1240 and participation rate=73%). Information was available in knowledge attitude and practice, SES and other variables. One question assessed adherence. Good adherence to treatment was defined as answering "I forget very rarely" vs "I forget on 1-2 days in a week" or "I forget on 3 or more days in a week". Results. In a univariate model adherence was strongly associated with belief that hypertension is a long-term disease (OR 2.6, p<0.001) and was negatively associated with concomitant use of traditional medicine (OR 0.36, p<0.005). The following variables tended to be associated with good adherence for HBP treatment: age, SES, BMI, belief that HBP is not symptomatic, going to government's clinics, medium stress level, controlled hypertension, taking statins. The following variables were not associated with good adherence for HBP treatment: education, higher BP, knowing people who had a stroke/MI, suffering from another chronic condition. In a multivariate model, pseudo R2 was 0.14. Conclusion. We built a multidimensional model including a wide range of variable. This model only predicted 14% of adherence variability. Variables associated with good adherence were demographics or related to knowledge attitude and practice. The latter one is modifiable by different type of interventions.

RFID-tekniikan käyttö betonielementtien tunnistamiseen

RFID on 2000-luvulla yleisesti saatavilla tullut tekniikka erilaisten kohteiden tunnistamiseen. RFID-tekniikassa tunnistamiseen käytetään pienikokoisia tunnisteita, joiden tietosisältö pystytään lukemaan langattomasti ilman näköyhteyttä tarkoitukseen soveltuvalla lukulaitteella. Tunnisteet ovat halpoja ja yksinkertaisia. Yleensä ne eivät sisällä omaa virtalähdettä, vaan ne toimivat ainoastaan lukulaitteen luoman kentän voimalla. Tässä työssä tutkitaan RFID-tekniikan soveltuvuutta betonista valmistettujen rakennuselementtien tunnistamiseen. Ympäristön vaikutukset tekniikan käyttöön tutkitaan ja selvitetään, mitkä ovat parhaat toimintatavat elementtien tunnistamiseen nämä vaikutukset huomioon ottaen. Työssä esitellään ensin RFID-tekniikan toimintaperiaatteet sekä tunnisteiden ja lukulaitteiden rakenne. Tunnisteiden jaottelu erilaisten ominasisuuksien perusteella käydään läpi ja sovellusalan kannalta tärkeimmät standardit esitellään. Käytännön osuudessa esitellään RFID-tekniikan soveltamista betonista valmistettujen rakennuselementtien tunnistamiseen. Työssä esitellään saavutetut mittaustulokset sekä betonielementtien tunnistamiseen ja tietojen hallintaan toteutetun järjestelmän rakenne.

Drosophila rely on learning while foraging under semi-natural conditions

Learning is predicted to affect manifold ecological and evolutionary processes, but the extent to which animals rely on learning in nature remains poorly known, especially for short-lived non-social invertebrates. This is in particular the case for Drosophila, a favourite laboratory system to study molecular mechanisms of learning. Here we tested whether Drosophila melanogaster use learned information to choose food while free-flying in a large greenhouse emulating the natural environment. In a series of experiments flies were first given an opportunity to learn which of two food odours was associated with good versus unpalatable taste; subsequently, their preference for the two odours was assessed with olfactory traps set up in the greenhouse. Flies that had experienced palatable apple-flavoured food and unpalatable orange-flavoured food were more likely to be attracted to the odour of apple than flies with the opposite experience. This was true both when the flies first learned in the laboratory and were then released and recaptured in the greenhouse, and when the learning occurred under free-flying conditions in the greenhouse. Furthermore, flies retained the memory of their experience while exploring the greenhouse overnight in the absence of focal odours, pointing to the involvement of consolidated memory. These results support the notion that even small, short lived insects which are not central-place foragers make use of learned cues in their natural environments.

Structural changes induced by daily music listening in the recovering brain after middle cerebral artery stroke: a voxel-based morphometry study

Music is a highly complex and versatile stimulus for the brain that engages many temporal, frontal, parietal, cerebellar, and subcortical areas involved in auditory, cognitive, emotional, and motor processing. Regular musical activities have been shown to effectively enhance the structure and function of many brain areas, making music a potential tool also in neurological rehabilitation. In our previous randomized controlled study, we found that listening to music on a daily basis can improve cognitive recovery and improve mood after an acute middle cerebral artery stroke. Extending this study, a voxel-based morphometry (VBM) analysis utilizing cost function masking was performed on the acute and 6-month post-stroke stage structural magnetic resonance imaging data of the patients (n = 49) who either listened to their favorite music [music group (MG), n = 16] or verbal material [audio book group (ABG), n = 18] or did not receive any listening material [control group (CG), n = 15] during the 6-month recovery period. Although all groups showed significant gray matter volume (GMV) increases from the acute to the 6-month stage, there was a specific network of frontal areas [left and right superior frontal gyrus (SFG), right medial SFG] and limbic areas [left ventral/subgenual anterior cingulate cortex (SACC) and right ventral striatum (VS)] in patients with left hemisphere damage in which the GMV increases were larger in the MG than in the ABG and in the CG. Moreover, the GM reorganization in the frontal areas correlated with enhanced recovery of verbal memory, focused attention, and language skills, whereas the GM reorganization in the SACC correlated with reduced negative mood. This study adds on previous results, showing that music listening after stroke not only enhances behavioral recovery, but also induces fine-grained neuroanatomical changes in the recovering brain.

Quantile Estimation in Non-Stationary Streaming Data

We provide an incremental quantile estimator for Non-stationary Streaming Data. We propose a method for simultaneous estimation of multiple quantiles corresponding to the given probability levels from streaming data. Due to the limitations of the memory, it is not feasible to compute the quantiles by storing the data. So estimating the quantiles as the data pass by is the only possibility. This can be effective in network measurement. To provide the minimum of the mean-squared error of the estimation, we use parabolic approximation and for comparison we simulate the results for different number of runs and using both linear and parabolic approximations.

Investments and value creation Case pulp and paper industry

Tämä tutkimus analysoi 49 sellu- ja paperiteollisuusyrityksen investointistrategioiden ja yrityksen arvon välistä yhteyttä vuosien 1996 ja 2005 välillä. Teoriaosa luo katsauksen arvonmääritysmenetelmiin ja investointien vaikutuksesta yrityksen arvoon ja arvonluontiin. Empiirinen osa on sekä kuvaileva, että selittävä. Yrityksen arvon kehittyminen mitataan vuosittain lisäarvomallilla (EVA®). Toteutetussa analyysissa yritykset on ryhmiteltyjoko liiketoimintaorientaation tai maantieteellisen alueen mukaan. Yritysten investointistrategiat jaoteltiin kasvumallin mukaisesti T&K:hon käyttöomaisuusinvestointeihin ja yritysostoihin. Kasvumallin tulokset ovat raportoitu yritystasolla. Tulokset osoittavat, että harvat sellu- ja paperiteollisuusyritykset ovetpystyneet arvonluontiin. Arvonluonti riippuu merkittävästi talouden suhdanteista. Yritysten investointistrategiat ovat olleet hyvin identtisiä tarkastelujaksonaikana ja alan suurimpien yritysten investointistrategiat kuvaavat hyvin koko toimialan kehitystä. Pienempien yritysten investointistrategiat eroavat valtavirran toimista. Jatkoanalyysi osoitti, että investoinnit käyttöomaisuuteen parantavat kannattavuutta, mitattuna EBITDA-%:lla ja yritysostot heikentävät sitä. Mitattaessa arvonluontia EVA®:lla käyttöomaisuusinvestoinneilla on positiivinen vaikutus arvonluontiin, kun taas yritysostot tuhoavat arvoa. Havainnot tukevat aikaisempia empiirisiä tutkimustuloksia.

Single-trial multisensory memories affect later auditory and visual object discrimination.

Multisensory memory traces established via single-trial exposures can impact subsequent visual object recognition. This impact appears to depend on the meaningfulness of the initial multisensory pairing, implying that multisensory exposures establish distinct object representations that are accessible during later unisensory processing. Multisensory contexts may be particularly effective in influencing auditory discrimination, given the purportedly inferior recognition memory in this sensory modality. The possibility of this generalization and the equivalence of effects when memory discrimination was being performed in the visual vs. auditory modality were at the focus of this study. First, we demonstrate that visual object discrimination is affected by the context of prior multisensory encounters, replicating and extending previous findings by controlling for the probability of multisensory contexts during initial as well as repeated object presentations. Second, we provide the first evidence that single-trial multisensory memories impact subsequent auditory object discrimination. Auditory object discrimination was enhanced when initial presentations entailed semantically congruent multisensory pairs and was impaired after semantically incongruent multisensory encounters, compared to sounds that had been encountered only in a unisensory manner. Third, the impact of single-trial multisensory memories upon unisensory object discrimination was greater when the task was performed in the auditory vs. visual modality. Fourth, there was no evidence for correlation between effects of past multisensory experiences on visual and auditory processing, suggestive of largely independent object processing mechanisms between modalities. We discuss these findings in terms of the conceptual short term memory (CSTM) model and predictive coding. Our results suggest differential recruitment and modulation of conceptual memory networks according to the sensory task at hand.

Évolutions des politiques publiques d'accueil d'événements sportifs

Depuis leurs premières conceptualisations, les politiques publiques d'accueil systématique d'événements sportifs (PASES) ont beaucoup évolué du fait de la transformation concomitante du sport et des événements, ainsi que l'émergence du concept de marketing territorial. Au cours des dernières décennies, ces politiques publiques se sont popularisées pour ne plus être simplement l'oeuvre de collectivités locales, mais également régionales, voire nationales. Cet article s'intéresse aux principales évolutions des PASES à la lumière de la ville de Lausanne et du canton de Vaud. Bien que la situation lausannoise soit particulière à bien des égards, dû notamment à la présence en Suisse et sur le territoire vaudois du siège de nombreuses fédérations sportives internationales (une soixantaine basée dans le pays, dont notamment le CIO, la FIFA, l'UEFA, etc.), des exemples sont également mobilisés pour d'autres territoires (Monaco, Doha, Londres, Danemark, Russie) afin de montrer que les évolutions lausannoises ne sont pas uniques. L'article entend ainsi donner un panorama des évolutions managériales actuelles qui transforment les PASES en SASES (stratégies d'accueil systématique d'événements sportifs), le cas lausannois servant de fil rouge pour présenter six grandes transitions observables. Abstract Since their first conceptualizations, systematic sports events hosting policies (SSEHP) evolved due to the simultaneous transformation of sport and sports events, as well as the emergence of territorial marketing. In the last decades, the popularity of SSEHP among territorial managers grew dramatically to move from purely local polices to regional and even national policies. This article focuses on the main evolutions of these SSEHP through the case of one city, Lausanne, and its canton, Vaud. Although, Lausanne's situation is particular in many ways, due to the presence throughout the country of many international sports federations (over sixty among which, the IOC, FIFA, UEFA, etc.), examples from other destinations (Monaco, Doha, London, Denmark, Russia) are also used to show that the evolutions observed in Lausanne are not unique. This article aims to give an overview of the major managerial evolutions which transform SSEHP into SSEHS (systematic sports events hosting strategies). The city of Lausanne is used through the article to underline the six significant evolutions.

Welfare spending and ethnic heterogeneity. Evidence from a massive immigration wave

[spa] En este trabajo se analiza la relación entre la heterogeneidad étnica y la redistribución, utilizando la reciente y masiva llegada de inmigrantes a España. En concreto, se estudia el efecto de los cambios en la densidad de inmigrantes, observada entre 1998 y 2006, sobre los cambios en el gasto social municipal. La densidad de inmigrantes se instrumenta utilizando los patrones de establecimiento por país de origen para asignar los flujos predichos de inmigrantes a cada municipio. Los resultados evidencian que el gasto social incrementó menos en los municipios con mayores incrementos en la densidad de inmigrantes. También se proporciona evidencia de la existencia de una relación positiva entre la densidad de inmigrantes y el porcentaje de voto obtenidos por los partidos de derecha. Por tanto, estos resultados son consistentes con las teorías que predicen una relación negativa entre la heterogeneidad étnica y la redistribución.

Welfare spending and ethnic heterogeneity. Evidence from a massive immigration wave

[spa] En este trabajo se analiza la relación entre la heterogeneidad étnica y la redistribución, utilizando la reciente y masiva llegada de inmigrantes a España. En concreto, se estudia el efecto de los cambios en la densidad de inmigrantes, observada entre 1998 y 2006, sobre los cambios en el gasto social municipal. La densidad de inmigrantes se instrumenta utilizando los patrones de establecimiento por país de origen para asignar los flujos predichos de inmigrantes a cada municipio. Los resultados evidencian que el gasto social incrementó menos en los municipios con mayores incrementos en la densidad de inmigrantes. También se proporciona evidencia de la existencia de una relación positiva entre la densidad de inmigrantes y el porcentaje de voto obtenidos por los partidos de derecha. Por tanto, estos resultados son consistentes con las teorías que predicen una relación negativa entre la heterogeneidad étnica y la redistribución.