Research Notes: Determinate-Dt2 Effects on Soybean Characteristics.

Bernard (1972) studied a gene, Dt2, which hastened the termination of apical stem growth and decreased both plant height and number of nodes per plant. In a \u27Harosoy\u27 background, a Dt2 isoline had a 15% reduction in height and was three days earlier maturing but was similar in yield to Harosoy . There was some reduction in weight per seed associated with the Dt2 effect

Research Notes: Soybean Gene Resources Recently Received from China

Forty soybean cultivars were received from the Peoples Republic of China in a number of exchanges between June 1973 and June 1974. The first eight cultivars that we received were grown in row tests at Harrow, Woodslee and Ridgetown in 1975, along with \u27Harlen,\u27 \u27Harosoy 63,\u27 and \u27Harcar.\u27 These eight, plus the next seven that we received, had been tested in hill plots at Harrow in 1974, along with Hardome, Harlen, Harosoy 63, and \u27Harwood.\u27 The highest and lowest cultivar values are given for each of a number of characteristics within each group of cultivars as an indication of the potential value of the new germplasm

Public Reasoning and Health-Care Priority Setting: The Case of NICE

Health systems that aim to secure universal patient access through a scheme of prepayments—whether through taxes, social insurance, or a combination of the two—need to make decisions on the scope of coverage that they guarantee: such tasks often falling to a priority-setting agency. This article analyzes the decision-making processes at one such agency in particular—the UK’s National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE)—and appraises their ethical justifiability. In particular, we consider the extent to which NICE’s model can be justified on the basis of Rawls’s conception of “reasonableness.” This test shares certain features with the well-known Accountability for Reasonableness (AfR) model but also offers an alternative to it, being concerned with how far the values used by priority-setting agencies such as NICE meet substantive conditions of reasonableness irrespective of their procedural virtues. We find that while there are areas in which NICE’s processes may be improved, NICE’s overall approach to evaluating health technologies and setting priorities for health-care coverage is a reasonable one, making it an exemplar for other health-care systems facing similar coverage dilemmas. In so doing we offer both a framework for analysing the ethical justifiability of NICE’s processes and one that might be used to evaluate others

The central engine of GRB 130831A and the energy breakdown of a relativistic explosion

Gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) are the most luminous explosions in the universe, yet the nature and physical properties of their energy sources are far from understood. Very important clues, however, can be inferred by studying the afterglows of these events. We present optical and X-ray observations of GRB 130831A obtained by Swift, Chandra, Skynet, RATIR, Maidanak, ISON, NOT, LT and GTC. This burst shows a steep drop in the X-ray light-curve at $\simeq 10^5$ s after the trigger, with a power-law decay index of $\alpha \sim 6$. Such a rare behaviour cannot be explained by the standard forward shock (FS) model and indicates that the emission, up to the fast decay at $10^5$ s, must be of "internal origin", produced by a dissipation process within an ultrarelativistic outflow. We propose that the source of such an outflow, which must produce the X-ray flux for $\simeq 1$ day in the cosmological rest frame, is a newly born magnetar or black hole. After the drop, the faint X-ray afterglow continues with a much shallower decay. The optical emission, on the other hand, shows no break across the X-ray steep decrease, and the late-time decays of both the X-ray and optical are consistent. Using both the X-ray and optical data, we show that the emission after $\simeq 10^5$ s can be explained well by the FS model. We model our data to derive the kinetic energy of the ejecta and thus measure the efficiency of the central engine of a GRB with emission of internal origin visible for a long time. Furthermore, we break down the energy budget of this GRB into the prompt emission, the late internal dissipation, the kinetic energy of the relativistic ejecta, and compare it with the energy of the associated supernova, SN 2013fu.Comment: Accepted for publication by MNRAS. 21 pages, 3 figures, 8 tables. Extra table with magnitudes in the sourc

Public participation in decision-making on the coverage of new antivirals for hepatitis C.

Purpose - New hepatitis C medicines such as sofosbuvir underline the need to balance considerations of innovation, clinical evidence, budget impact and equity in health priority-setting. The purpose of this paper is to examine the role of public participation in addressing these considerations. Design/methodology/approach - The paper employs a comparative case study approach. It explores the experience of four countries - Brazil, England, South Korea and the USA - in making coverage decisions about the antiviral sofosbuvir and involving the public and patients in these decision-making processes. Findings - Issues emerging from public participation ac tivities include the role of the universal right to health in Brazil, the balance between innovation and budget impact in England, the effect of unethical medical practices on public perception in South Korea and the legitimacy of priority-setting processes in the USA. Providing policymakers are receptive to these issues, public participation activities may be re-conceptualized as processes that illuminate policy problems relevant to a particular context, thereby promoting an agenda-setting role for the public. Originality/value - The paper offers an empirical analysis of public involvement in the case of sofosbuvir, where the relevant considerations that bear on priority-setting decisions have been particularly stark. The perspectives that emerge suggest that public participation contributes to raising attention to issues that need to be addressed by policymakers. Public participation activities can thus contribute to setting policy agendas, even if that is not their explicit purpose. However, the actualization of this contribution is contingent on the receptiveness of policymakers.This is the author accepted manuscript. It is currently under an indefinite embargo pending publication by Emerald

The origin of the early time optical emission of Swift GRB 080310

We present broadband multi-wavelength observations of GRB 080310 at redshift z = 2.43. This burst was bright and long-lived, and unusual in having extensive optical and near IR follow-up during the prompt phase. Using these data we attempt to simultaneously model the gamma-ray, X-ray, optical and IR emission using a series of prompt pulses and an afterglow component. Initial attempts to extrapolate the high energy model directly to lower energies for each pulse reveal that a spectral break is required between the optical regime and 0.3 keV to avoid over predicting the optical flux. We demonstrate that afterglow emission alone is insufficient to describe all morphology seen in the optical and IR data. Allowing the prompt component to dominate the early-time optical and IR and permitting each pulse to have an independent low energy spectral indices we produce an alternative scenario which better describes the optical light curve. This, however, does not describe the spectral shape of GRB 080310 at early times. The fit statistics for the prompt and afterglow dominated models are nearly identical making it difficult to favour either. However one enduring result is that both models require a low energy spectral index consistent with self absorption for at least some of the pulses identified in the high energy emission model.Comment: 24 pages, 12 figures, 12 tables. Accepted to MNRA

Building consensus about eHealth in Slovene primary health care: Delphi study

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Slovenia's national eHealth strategy aims to develop an efficient, flexible and modern health care informatics framework that would be comparable to the most successful EU countries. To achieve this goal, the gap between availability and usage of information and communication technology by primary care physicians needs to be reduced.</p> <p>As recent efforts show, consensus on information and communication technology purpose and usage in primary care needs to be established before any national information and communication technology solutions are developed.</p> <p>The aim of this study was to identify the most appropriate measures in implementation of Slovene national eHealth strategy and to suggest an appropriate model for success by using the three round Delphi study.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>An e-mail based, three-round Delphi study was undertaken to achieve consensus from a selected sample of nationally recognized experts from the fields of primary health care and medical informatics. The aim of this study was to identify the most appropriate measures and key obstacles in implementation of eHealth in Slovene primary health care by using the Delphi study.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>High levels of consensus on the majority of suggested measures were achieved among all study participants, as well as between the subgroups of experts from primary health care and medical informatics. All aims of the three-round Delphi study on eHealth implementation in Slovenian primary health care were achieved.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>The three round decision Delphi process has proven to be effective for developing outcomes, ranking key priorities in primary care eHealth development, and achieving consensus among the most influential experts in that field. This consensus is an important contribution to future national eHealth strategies in the field of primary health care.</p

Evidence Use and the Institutions of the State: The Role of Parliament and the Judiciary

This chapter explores the role of parliaments and the judiciary in shaping evidence use in health policy making. Most analyses of the role of scientific evidence focus on the executive, i.e. national governments and ministries of health, as the key state actors in health policy and health system governance. This chapter shifts attention to the other two powers within the state, the legislative and the judiciary. Using the examples analysed in this book the chapter examines how parliaments can use evidence to inform legislative processes and to hold governments to account, although there are substantial differences between countries and political systems. However, there was little suggestion that such approaches were undertaken systematically. In cases in which policies are brought to court, judges may have to deal with scientific evidence within a country’s legal and constitutional framework, again with significant differences between national legal practices

Evidence-informed capacity building for setting health priorities in low- and middle-income countries: : A framework and recommendations for further research

Priority-setting in health is risky and challenging, particularly in resource-constrained settings. It is not simply a narrow technical exercise, and involves the mobilisation of a wide range of capacities among stakeholders – not only the technical capacity to “do” research in economic evaluations. Using the Individuals, Nodes, Networks and Environment (INNE) framework, we identify those stakeholders, whose capacity needs will vary along the evidence-to-policy continuum. Policymakers and healthcare managers require the capacity to commission and use relevant evidence (including evidence of clinical and cost-effectiveness, and of social values); academics need to understand and respond to decision-makers’ needs to produce relevant research. The health system at all levels will need institutional capacity building to incentivise routine generation and use of evidence. Knowledge brokers, including priority-setting agencies (such as England’s National Institute for Health and Care Excellence, and Health Interventions and Technology Assessment Program, Thailand) and the media can play an important role in facilitating engagement and knowledge transfer between the various actors. Especially at the outset but at every step, it is critical that patients and the public understand that trade-offs are inherent in priority-setting, and careful efforts should be made to engage them, and to hear their views throughout the process. There is thus no single approach to capacity building; rather a spectrum of activities that recognises the roles and skills of all stakeholders. A range of methods, including formal and informal training, networking and engagement, and support through collaboration on projects, should be flexibly employed (and tailored to specific needs of each country) to support institutionalisation of evidence-informed priority-setting. Finally, capacity building should be a two-way process; those who build capacity should also attend to their own capacity development in order to sustain and improve impact