Activity

The failure of the market and government to provide quality healthcare services have been the motivation to set up social health enterprise. However, the value for money associated with setting up a social health enterprise in sub-Sahara African countries has been relatively unexplored in the literature. The study presents the first empirical estimates of the mean willingness-to-pay (WTP) for setting up a social health enterprise that will simultaneously run a health center and provide health insurance scheme in an urban resource-poor setting and explores whether the benefits outweigh the costs. The contingent valuation method is used to estimate the mean WTP for the health insurance scheme proposed by the social health enterprise in Viwandani slum (Nairobi, Kenya). The survey was conducted between June and July 2018 on 300 households. We find that the feasibility of setting up a social health enterprise could be promising with 97 percent of respondents willing to pay about US$ 2 per person per month for a scheme that would provide quality healthcare services. More importantly, setting up the social health enterprise will yield a positive net profit, and investors could expect US$ 1.11 in benefits for each US$ 1 of costs of investment in setting up the social health enterprise. We, therefore, conclude that this health policy in this urban resource-poor setting could be a viable solution to reach the neglected urban households in the Kenyan slums.Metabolomics has been used for the analysis of meat samples for different applications. Using drip as a proxy for meat could offer an easy and non-invasive way of sampling meat, yielding a homogenous liquid sample easy to prepare for metabolomics analysis. There is currently no standard method for the preparation of drip samples for quantitative metabolomics. The aim of this study was to evaluate six different sample preparation methods for quantitative Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) metabolomics analysis of drip from a lamb leg with extended shelf life centrifugation, ultrafiltration, and solvent precipitation using four different solvents or solvent mixtures. The six methods were evaluated based on protein removal efficiency, ability to quantify metabolites, metabolite concentrations, reproducibility, speed and relative cost. Three methods (ultrafiltration, solvent precipitation with either acetonitrile/acetone/methanol or chloroform/methanol) resulted in excellent protein removal, high concentrations of metabolites and high reproducibility and are therefore recommended for preparation of extended shelf life lamb leg drip samples for NMR metabolomics.The effect of Agaricus bisporus (AB) mushroom as a fat replacer in beef burgers was evaluated. Four treatments were compared control (0% AB, 20% fat) and 3 treatments with partial fat replacement AB 5% (5% AB, 15% fat); AB 10% (10% AB, 10% fat); AB 15% (AB 15%, 5% fat). Mushroom addition increased moisture content and yield and decreased cooking loss and diameter reduction of the burgers. Formulations with the highest AB concentrations were lighter and redder than the control. AB incorporation affected texture, resulting in less hard and less chewy products. In general, lipid oxidation increased during the storage time, however the lowest values were observed in AB 15%, i.e. the lowest fat content and the presence of AB increased the oxidative stability. AB 10% and AB 15% had good overall liking and were sensorially characterized as juicy, tender and flavorsome burgers. The partial replacement of animal fat by AB is a promising strategy for developing a low-fat burger.

Studies looking at the effect of antiseizure medications (ASMs) on the sleep microstructure of subjects with epilepsy are scarce. This study aims to evaluate the impact of eslicarbazepine (ESL) as add-on therapy on the sleep microstructure in temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE).

Twelve patients affected by TLE were recruited to undergo overnight polysomnography and a subjective evaluation of nocturnal sleep utilizing the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI) and daytime somnolence through the Epworth Sleepiness Scale (ESS) before and after three months of treatment with ESL as add-on therapy. Ten healthy controls (HC) matched for age, sex and BMI were recruited. Scoring and analysis of sleep macrostructure and cyclic alternating pattern (CAP) parameters were performed.

Ten patients completed the study. The comparison between patients in basal condition (T0) and HC showed a significant lower sleep efficiency (p=0.049), REM percentage (p=0.002), higher REM latency (p=0.02), N2 (p=0.001) and WASO (p=0.01). Regard continuity as measured by CAP after ESL. These findings suggest that ESL may positively modulate sleep fragmentation in patients with TLE, and hence enhance sleep quality. Our results suggest a favourable sleep profile with the use of ESL.

Physical function (PF) is a core domain to be measured in randomized controlled trials (RCTs) of psoriatic arthritis (PsA), yet the discriminative performance of patient reported outcome measures (PROMs) for PF in RCTs has not been evaluated systematically. In this systematic review, we aimed to evaluate the clinical trial discrimination of PF-PROMs in PsA RCTs.

We searched PubMed and Scopus databases in English to identify all original RCTs on biological and targeted synthetic disease modifying anti-rheumatic drugs (DMARDs) conducted in PsA. We assessed quality in each article using the OMERACT good method checklist. Effect sizes (ES) for the PF-PROMs were calculated and appraised using a priori hypotheses. Evidence supporting clinical trial discrimination for each PF-PROM was summarized to derive recommendations.

35 articles from 31 RCTs were included. Four PF-PROMs had data for evaluation HAQ-Disability Index (DI), HAQ-Spondyloarthritis (S), and Short Form 36-item Health Survey Physical Component Summary (SF-36 PCS) and Physical Functioning domain (SF-36 PF). #link# As anticipated, higher ES values were observed for intervention groups than the control groups. Across all studies, for HAQ-DI, the median ES were -0.73 and -0.24 for intervention and control groups, respectively. Whereas for SF-36 PCS, the median ES were 0.77 and 0.23. For intervention and control groups, respectively.

Clinical trial discrimination was supported for HAQ-DI and SF-36 PCS in PsA with low risk of bias; and for SF-36 PF and HAQ-S with some caution. link2 More studies are required for HAQ-S.

Clinical trial discrimination was supported for HAQ-DI and SF-36 PCS in PsA with low risk of bias; and for SF-36 PF and HAQ-S with some caution. More studies are required for HAQ-S.

Systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) is a chronic disease characterised by autoimmunity and increased susceptibility to infections. COVID-19 is a systemic viral disease currently spreading as a pandemic. Little is known about the impact of COVID-19 in patients with SLE.

to acquire information on the impact of COVID-19 in SLE.

A 26-item anonymous questionnaire investigating demographics, SLE clinical features, COVID-19 diagnoses and changes in treatments and daily habits was administered to patients with SLE from three referral centres through http://www.surveymonkey.com over 10 days. Data from the survey were compared to those from published estimates about the general population.

Four-hundred-seventeen patients responded to the survey. More than 60% of subjects complained of symptoms that are also associated to COVID-19. Fourteen COVID-19 diagnoses (five confirmed by polymerase chain reaction) were reported, in contrast to a 0.73% prevalence of confirmed cases in Lombardy. One hospitalisation was reported. Feexcluded. Containment policies and behavioural preventive measures could have a major role in limiting the impact of COVID-19 in patients with SLE.

With the emerging technologies of the Internet and smartphones during the last decades, the gambling environment has undergone a massive transformation. In Sweden, and Europe in general, online gambling has more than doubled since 2007.

The paper studies online gambling venues (OGVs) as relational actors of addiction. By drawing on the actor-network theory (ANT) and assemblage thinking, we examine how OGVs, as actors in specific networks of attachment, enable the development of gambling addiction and facilitate its continuation. The data consists of life story interviews with 34 online gamblers.

Online gambling venues extend the scope of gambling opportunities through space, providing an easy portable 24-hours-a-day access to gambling online and on smartphones. This increases the spatial mobility of gambling to diverse contexts. By linking gambling to more unpredictably evolving patterns of relations, online gambling venues also increase gambling’s temporal mobility to intrude in the habitual trajectori tools to challenge simplistic and taken-for-granted explanations of gambling addiction and by allowing us to grasp the flux and changing nature of addiction as a relational pattern of heterogeneous contextual attachments, the actor-network theory can help us to understand the complexity and multiplicity of gambling problems. see more on what kinds of contextual attachments in diverse actor-networks enable harmful gambling and sustain unhealthy relations helps practitioners to focus treatment interventions especially on these contextual linkages and their configurations.An intimate interplay of the plasma membrane with curvature-sensing and curvature-inducing proteins would allow for defining specific sites or nanodomains of action at the plasma membrane, for example, for protrusion, invagination, and polarization. In addition, such connections are predestined to ensure spatial and temporal order and sequences. The combined forces of membrane shapers and the cortical actin cytoskeleton might hereby in particular be required to overcome the strong resistance against membrane rearrangements in case of high plasma membrane tension or cellular turgor. Interestingly, also the opposite might be necessary, the inhibition of both membrane shapers and cytoskeletal reinforcement structures to relieve membrane tension to protect cells from membrane damage and rupturing during mechanical stress. In this review article, we discuss recent conceptual advances enlightening the interplay of plasma membrane curvature and the cortical actin cytoskeleton during endocytosis, modulations of membrane tensions, and the shaping of entire cells.The skull base is the location of a wide variety of malignant tumors. Among them is sinonasal undifferentiated carcinoma (SNUC), a highly aggressive sinonasal neoplasm that was recently reclassified into subgroups of high-grade carcinomas with unique genomic events (e.g., SMARC-deficient carcinoma, nuclear protein in testis NUT carcinoma). link3 Other high-grade carcinomas in this location are neuroendocrine carcinomas, sinonasal adenocarcinomas, and teratocarcinosarcomas. Given the rarity of these tumors, little transcriptomic data is available. The aim of this study was to characterize the immune-oncology gene expression profile in SNUC and other high-grade sinonasal carcinomas. Next-generation sequencing was performed in 30 high-grade sinonasal carcinoma samples using the HTG EdgeSeq Precision Immuno-Oncology Panel. Ingenuity pathway analysis was performed to understand the immunobiology, signaling, and functional perturbations during tumor development. The samples were divided into 3 groups 21 SNUCs and SMARC-deficient sinonasal carcinomas; 5 high-grade neuroendocrine carcinomas (HGNECs), with small cell and large cell variants; and 4 high-grade sinonasal carcinomas (HGSNCs) of mixed histology (1 NUT carcinoma, 1 teratocarcinosarcoma, and 2 sinonasal adenocarcinomas).