Recurrent neuroendocrine adenoma of the middle ear: A case report

Les historiens, qui sont rarement des oiseaux de très bon augure pour la vitalité des croyances qu’ils étudient, ont beaucoup écrit, depuis les années 1970, sur le purgatoire, ce troisième « lieu » de l’au-delà catholique, situé entre enfer et paradis. Support d’une dévotion très populaire, il a connu en Europe trois pics successifs de popularité, à la fin du Moyen Âge, au xviie et au xixe siècles. Le dogme et la croyance ont ainsi puissamment structuré dans la longue durée le rapport aux morts dans les sociétés de culture catholique, en leur conférant une « utilité » particulière, à la fois matérielle, institutionnelle, pastorale et anthropologique, que cet article s’efforce d’explorer.Historians are people who rarely contribute to the continued vitality of the beliefs they study. Since the 1970’s they have written a lot about purgatory, the third place in the catholic beyond. This is situated in between hell and paradise. The belief was the basis of a very popular cult which peaked in popularity in three different periods, one at the end of the Middle Ages, another in the seventeenth and a third in the nineteenth century. The dogma and the belief in purgatory have thus for long periods powerfully structured the relation to the dead in catholic cultures and have given these a particular “usefulness” whether this concerns material, institutional, pastoral or anthropological aspects. The paper attempts to explore these issues

Satisfying basic psychological needs among people with complex support needs:A self-determination theory-guided analysis of primary relatives' perspectives

Background: The fulfilment of basic psychological needs (BPNs) is seen as an integral part of human self-determination, subjective wellbeing, and overall quality of life. However, the meaning of these psychological constructs for individuals with the most extensive support needs remains elusive. Methods: Primary relatives of nine people diagnosed with severe or profound intellectual and multiple disabilities were interviewed about their perceptions of autonomy, competence, and relatedness regarding their family member with complex care needs, and about the ways in which they tried to support their family member in fulfilling specific BPNs. The interview analysis followed a grounded theory with the sensitizing concepts approach. Results: The relatives assigned important meaning to the BPNs, providing insights into their subtle nature, their implicit drivers, and how they were experienced. The relatives also identified serious challenges in detecting, clarifying, and creating opportunities for BPNs. Conclusions: The themes in the relatives’ perspectives can be summarized into a conceptual framework that may contribute to better mutual understanding between people with complex care needs, their relatives, and healthcare providers

Designing Efficient Taxi Pickup Operations at Airports

This paper provides a practical procedure for designing efficient taxi pickup operations at airports. How to do this effectively is an open question. Solutions are not available, and practices vary. They reflect different approaches to and lack of research on the subject. The solutions are often unsatisfactory. At many airports, passengers routinely suffer long waits outdoors, exposed to the elements, after a tiring journey. Such disagreeable experiences are avoidable. Designing efficient taxi pickup operations at airports is problematic. The peculiarities of the process preclude easy solutions. First, the process involves queuing, so system performance is a nonlinear function of the loads. Second, it features unstable transient situations, since travelers typically arrive in bulk over short periods. Third, traffic is significantly differentiated and consists of a wide variety of groups implying different service characteristics. Standard results from queuing theory thus do not have a useful application to this problem. The design process uses simulation that is based on detailed observation of local practices. It involves four steps: (a) detailed local measurements of the arrival of both travelers and taxis, and the service rates provided by taxis in different queuing positions; (b) creation and validation of a simulation model sufficiently detailed to account for these realities; (c) exploration of design alternatives to estimate the characteristics of the service they would provide; and (d) selection of a preferred design that properly balances efforts to minimize average and extreme wait times. The paper demonstrates the procedure through application to Lisbon International Airport, Portugal.SIMUL8 Corporatio

Fine structure in the off-resonance conductance of small Coulomb blockade systems

We show how a fine, multiple-peak structure can arise in the off-resonance, zero-bias conductance of Coulomb blockade systems. In order to understand how this effect comes about one must abandon the orthodox, mean-field understanding of the Coulomb blockade phenomenon and consider quantum fluctuations in the occupation of the single-particle electronic levels. We illustrate such an effect with a spinless Anderson-like model for multi-level systems and an equation-of-motion method for calculating Green's functions that combines two simple decoupling schemes.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figures, postscript file also available at http://www.pa.uky.edu/~palacios/papers/eom.ps One figure added. Discussion of results extende

HIV/AIDS, demography and development: individual choices versus public policies in SSA

Despite the increasing rate of diffusion of effective therapies, the battle against HIV/AIDS in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) is far from being over. Three main challenges are that the epidemics might paralyse or reverse the fertility transition, the expansion of the resources needed to finance the fight against HIV, and the emerging resistance to anti-retroviral treatments. This research proposes a UGT-like model showing the complexity of the interplay amongst the (macro)economy, the epidemics, their endogenous feedback on mortality and fertility and the central role of policy actions aimed to fight HIV. The disease-induced increase in adult mortality can hamper economic development by its upward pressure on the precautionary demand for children and downward pressure on education. This can dramatically reduce physical and human capital accumulation