Barriers to the development of palliative care in Western Europe

The Eurobarometer Survey of the <i>EAPC Task Force on the Development of Palliative Care in Europe</i> is part of a programme of work to produce comprehensive information on the provision of palliative care across Europe. Aim: To identify barriers to the development of palliative care in Western Europe. Method: A qualitative survey was undertaken amongst boards of national associations, eliciting opinions on opportunities for, and barriers to, palliative care development. By July 2006, 44/52 (85%) European countries had responded to the survey; we report here on the results from 22/25 (88%) countries in Western Europe. Analysis: Data from the Eurobarometer survey were analysed thematically by geographical region and by the degree of development of palliative care in each country. Results: From the data contained within the Eurobarometer, we identified six significant barriers to the development of palliative care in Western Europe: (i) Lack of palliative care education and training programmes (ii) Lack of awareness and recognition of palliative care (iii) Limited availability of/knowledge about opioid analgesics (iv) Limited funding (v) Lack of coordination amongst services (vi) Uneven palliative care coverage. Conclusion: Findings from the EAPC Eurobarometer survey suggest that barriers to the development of palliative care in Western Europe may differ substantially from each other in both their scope and context and that some may be considered to be of greater significance than others. A number of common barriers to the development of the discipline do exist and much work still remains to be done in the identified areas. This paper provides a road map of which barriers need to be addressed

Respuestas vegetativa, productiva y calidad del aceite a la aplicación foliar de P y K a olivos “Arbequinos” y “Picual”

A completed hedgerow of cv. Arbequina and a youth vase trained orchard of cv. Picual were fertilized with foliar applications of Phosphorus (P) or Potassium (K) throughout four seasons. The orchards were located near Valdepeñas in the dry area of La Mancha (Spain). Vegetative growth, yield and oil quality were evaluated. Foliar treatments did not increase P or K leaf concentration. Most of the evaluated parameters were not significantly affected by treatments. It was observed that the P treatment increased olive growth and oil yield in both orchards and in certain seasons due to an increment in fruit number. P and K application significantly increased ‘Arbequina’ olive and oil yield in 2008 when spring was wetter than the other years. Oil quality was not modified by fertilizer treatments in the ‘Arbequina’orchard. However, oxidative stability was negatively affected by P and K treatments in ‘Picual’. Oil extraction could be negatively affected by treatments because of the increase in the water content in the fruit obtained from both orchards.Un olivar en seto completamente formado de la variedad Arbequina y otro olivar en vaso joven de la variedad Picual fueron tratados vía foliar con Fósforo (P) y Potasio (K) durante cuatro años. Los olivares estuvieron localizados cerca de Valdepeñas, en la zona árida de La Mancha (España). Se evaluaron el crecimiento vegetativo, el rendimiento y la calidad del aceite. Los tratamientos foliares no aumentaron los niveles foliares de P y K. La mayoría de parámetros de crecimiento y producción evaluados no se vieron afectados por los tratamientos. En ambos olivares y en algún año del ensayo, el tratamiento con P incrementó el crecimiento y el rendimiento, debido al incremento en el número de frutos. Las aplicaciones de P y K aumentaron significativamente el rendimiento en aceituna y aceite en Arbequina en 2008, cuando la primavera fue más húmeda que el resto de años. Los tratamientos no modificaron la calidad del aceite obtenido en ‘Arbequina’. Sin embargo, en ‘Picual’ los tratamientos con P y K afectaron negativamente a la estabilidad oxidativa del aceite. La extracción del aceite podría verse perjudicada por los tratamientos, debido al incremento en el contenido de agua en el fruto obtenido en ambos olivares

Optimal reinsurance of dependent risks

We analyse the problem of nding the optimal combination of quota-share and stop loss treaties, maximizing the expected utility or the adjustment coecient of the ce- dent, for each of two risks dependent through a copula structure. By risk we mean a line of business or a portfolio of policies. Results are obtained numerically, using the software Mathematica. Sensitivity of the optimal reinsurance strategy to several factors are investigated, including: i) the dependence level, by means of the Kendall's tau and the dependence parameter; ii) the type of dependence, using dierent copulas describing dierent tail behaviour; iii) the reinsurance calculation principles, where expected value, variance and standard deviation principles are considered. Results show that dierent dependence structures, yield signicantly dierent optimal solu- tions. The optimal treaty is also very sensible to the reinsurance premium calculation principle. Namely, for variance related premiums the optimal solution is not the pure stop loss. In general, the maximum adjustment coecient decreases when dependence increases..info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

The influence of coronal EUV irradiance on the emission in the He I 10830 A and D3 multiplets

Two of the most attractive spectral windows for spectropolarimetric investigations of the physical properties of the plasma structures in the solar chromosphere and corona are the ones provided by the spectral lines of the He I 10830 A and 5876 A (or D3) multiplets, whose polarization signals are sensitive to the Hanle and Zeeman effects. However, in order to be able to carry out reliable diagnostics, it is crucial to have a good physical understanding of the sensitivity of the observed spectral line radiation to the various competing driving mechanisms. Here we report a series of off-the-limb non-LTE calculations of the He I D3 and 10830 A emission profiles, focusing our investigation on their sensitivity to the EUV coronal irradiation and the model atmosphere used in the calculations. We show in particular that the intensity ratio of the blue to the red components in the emission profiles of the He I 10830 A multiplet turns out to be a good candidate as a diagnostic tool for the coronal irradiance. Measurements of this observable as a function of the distance to the limb and its confrontation with radiative transfer modeling might give us valuable information on the physical properties of the solar atmosphere and on the amount of EUV radiation at relevant wavelengths penetrating the chromosphere from above.Comment: 19 pages, 11 figures (pre-print format). Accepted for publication in Ap

Channeling 5-min photospheric oscillations into the solar outer atmosphere through small-scale vertical magnetic flux tubes

We report two-dimensional MHD simulations which demonstrate that photospheric 5-min oscillations can leak into the chromosphere inside small-scale vertical magnetic flux tubes. The results of our numerical experiments are compatible with those inferred from simultaneous spectropolarimetric observations of the photosphere and chromosphere obtained with the Tenerife Infrared Polarimeter (TIP) at 10830 A. We conclude that the efficiency of energy exchange by radiation in the solar photosphere can lead to a significant reduction of the cut-off frequency and may allow for the propagation of the 5 minutes waves vertically into the chromosphere.Comment: accepted by ApJ

Systematic comparative study of Polyacrylamide Co-polymers for EOR at High Salinity Conditions

Polymer flooding is the more successfully and mature chemical EOR technique (Manrique, 2007), The success of polymer flooding as a method of oil recovery has been attributed to a profile control mechanism between polymer solution and oil during water flooding. Two important parameters are important on this process: Mobility Ratio (M) and Capillary Number (Nc) (Thomas, 2007, Karpan, 2011). As polymers are injected in the reservoir, they are exposed to chemical, physical and mechanical degradation that affect their performance in sweeping the crude oil trapped in the porous medium. The effect is critical under high salinity brine with divalent ions Ca2+ and Mg2+. The object of this research was to study the effect of flow behaviour of HPAM (hydrolysed poly-acrylamide) of different molecular weight (MW) and special co-polymers PAM as chemical flooding of sandstones core rocks under high salinity conditions, and under harsh conditions of brine composition existing in the North Sea

Comparative Study of Polyacrylamide Co-polymers for EOR at High Salinity Conditions “Laboratory and Simulation"

Summary: The success of polymer flooding as a method of oil recovery has been attributed to a profile control mechanism of the displacing fluid (polymer solutions) related to the displaced fluid (crude oil), depending on properties such as polymer viscosity and its dependence with reservoir and flow conditions. The viscosity of polymer flow depends not only on the size of the molecules or molecular weight but it is further affected by salinity and divalent content on the brine used for the preparation of the polymer slug. The effect of salinity on polymer viscosity is more critical in presence of divalent ions Ca2+ and Mg2+ and high salinity conditions, which limits the use high salinity produced water for re-injection in polymer flooding processes where high salinity is involved. A series of salinity resistant polymers have been developed by incorporating co-monomers including hydrophilic and hydrophobic groups or combination of them along the chain of polyacrylamide which has made the viscosity behavior more complex and affected by ionic interactions both intra-molecular and inter-molecular. Therefore, an extensively screening process that includes evaluation of variables such as: stability of polymer solutions under salinity and ion composition, flow conditions and sensitivity analysis using simulation according to specific applications, is required for the selection of any specific system. A systematic comparative study of the screening of commercial partial hydrolysed polyacrylamide (PHPA), and co-polymers of acrylamide and hydrophobic modified Comb-polymers (HMPAM) under high salinity conditions is investigated. Synthetic high salinity and multi-component (with divalent ions) produced water from a North Sea reservoir was used on Bernheimer sandstone core samples using a crude oil from the North Sea with specific gravity 21 ºAPI. Results from core flooding and rheology were matched to obtain required mathematical correlations to simulate core flooding experiments numerically and compare the efficiency of the different polymers. While polymers PHPA and co-polymers AM-AMPS and AM-nVP showed typical Newtonian behavior at low shear rates and non- Newtonian at high shear rates, HMPAM polymers have shear thinning behavior. Newtonian behavior on PHPA-3 seems to support its higher recovery factor comparing with PHPA-6 (higher MW). Viscosity of HMPAM solutions is more sensitive to changes of the polymer concentration and more sensible to flow conditions. Additionally, ionic interactions and steric effects in the co-polymers contribute the efficiency of the oil recovery at high salinity. Therefore, their viscosity behavior needs to be evaluated

Features of spatial distribution of oscillations in faculae regions

We found that oscillations of LOS velocity in H-alpha are different for various parts of faculae regions. Power spectra show that the contribution of low-frequency modes (1.2 - 2 mHz) increase at the network boundaries. Three and five- minute periods dominate inside cells. The spectra of photosphere and chromosphere LOS velocity oscillations differ for most faculae. On the other hand, we detected several cases where propagating oscillations in faculae were manifest with a five-minute period. Their initiation point on spatial-temporal diagrams coincided with the local maximum of the longitudinal magnetic field.Comment: 6 pages, 4 figure

On the magnetic structure of the solar transition region

We examine the hypothesis that ``cool loops'' dominate emission from solar transition region plasma below temperatures of $2\times10^5$K. We compare published VAULT images of H L$\alpha$, a lower transition region line, with near-contemporaneous magnetograms from Kitt Peak, obtained during the second flight (VAULT-2) on 14 June 2002. The measured surface fields and potential extrapolations suggest that there are too few short loops, and that L$\alpha$ emission is associated with the base regions of longer, coronal loops. VAULT-2 data of network boundaries have an asymmetry on scales larger than supergranules, also indicating an association with long loops. We complement the Kitt Peak data with very sensitive vector polarimetric data from the Spectro-Polarimeter on board Hinode, to determine the influence of very small magnetic concentrations on our analysis. From these data two classes of behavior are found: within the cores of strong magnetic flux concentrations ($> 5\times10^{18}$ Mx) associated with active network and plage, small-scale mixed fields are absent and any short loops can connect just the peripheries of the flux to cell interiors. Core fields return to the surface via longer, most likely coronal, loops. In weaker concentrations, short loops can connect between concentrations and produce mixed fields within network boundaries as suggested by Dowdy and colleagues. The VAULT-2 data which we examined are associated with strong concentrations. We conclude that the cool loop model applies only to a small fraction of the VAULT-2 emission, but we cannot discount a significant role for cool loops in quieter regions. We suggest a physical picture for how network L$\alpha$ emission may occur through the cross-field diffusion of neutral atoms from chromospheric into coronal plasma.Comment: Accepted by ApJ, 9 May 200