Self-assessment of health. How socioeconomic, functional, and emotional dimensions influence self-rated health among Italian nonagenarians

Self-Rated Health (SRH) is currently one of the most popular indicators of population health. Studies show that SRH has a strong association with physical functioning, well-being, and mortality across a variety of populations and ages. Despite its wide use, the different elements that act and interact when an individual assesses their own health are still not clear. To date, only one study has focused on the process of self-assessment of health among the oldest-old individuals. The aim of this paper is to explore direct and indirect effects of socioeconomic status, presence of disease, functional health, and emotional health on the good self-assessment of health among Italian nonagenarians. By applying Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) on Mugello Study data, we find a strong direct effect of both emotional and functional health on SRH, confirming their key roles in the process of self-assessment of health among the oldest-old individuals. Furthermore, we find indirect effects of socioeconomic status, presence of disease, and functional health on SRH. This is in line with existing literature on younger adults and elderly people

RPO, Second-order Contexts, and Lambda-calculus

First, we extend Leifer-Milner RPO theory, by giving general conditions to obtain IPO labelled transition systems (and bisimilarities) with a reduced set of transitions, and possibly finitely branching. Moreover, we study the weak variant of Leifer-Milner theory, by giving general conditions under which the weak bisimilarity is a congruence. Then, we apply such extended RPO technique to the lambda-calculus, endowed with lazy and call by value reduction strategies. We show that, contrary to process calculi, one can deal directly with the lambda-calculus syntax and apply Leifer-Milner technique to a category of contexts, provided that we work in the framework of weak bisimilarities. However, even in the case of the transition system with minimal contexts, the resulting bisimilarity is infinitely branching, due to the fact that, in standard context categories, parametric rules such as the beta-rule can be represented only by infinitely many ground rules. To overcome this problem, we introduce the general notion of second-order context category. We show that, by carrying out the RPO construction in this setting, the lazy observational equivalence can be captured as a weak bisimilarity equivalence on a finitely branching transition system. This result is achieved by considering an encoding of lambda-calculus in Combinatory Logic.Comment: 35 pages, published in Logical Methods in Computer Scienc

Independent verification of plutonium decontamination on Johnston Atoll (1992--1996)

The Field Command, Defense Special Weapons Agency (FCDSWA) (formerly FCDNA) contracted Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) Environmental Technology Section (ETS) to conduct an independent verification (IV) of the Johnston Atoll (JA) Plutonium Decontamination Project by an interagency agreement with the US Department of Energy in 1992. The main island is contaminated with the transuranic elements plutonium and americium, and soil decontamination activities have been ongoing since 1984. FCDSWA has selected a remedy that employs a system of sorting contaminated particles from the coral/soil matrix, allowing uncontaminated soil to be reused. The objective of IV is to evaluate the effectiveness of remedial action. The IV contractor`s task is to determine whether the remedial action contractor has effectively reduced contamination to levels within established criteria and whether the supporting documentation describing the remedial action is adequate. ORNL conducted four interrelated tasks from 1992 through 1996 to accomplish the IV mission. This document is a compilation and summary of those activities, in addition to a comprehensive review of the history of the project

Impact of HPV vaccination : health gains in the Italian female population

Abstract Background Human papillomavirus (HPV) is the leading cause of cervical cancer and other malignant and benign neoplastic lesions. HPV vaccination has three potential goals: to prevent transmission, infection, and disease. At present, there are no available data about health consequences of HPV immunization in Italy. The aim of this study is to evaluate the effect of current HPV vaccination strategy in Italy. Methods A multistate morbidity-mortality model was developed to estimate the infection process in a theoretical cohort of Italian women. The Markov process considered nine health states (health, anogenital warts, grade 1 and grade 2/3 cervical intraepithelial neoplasia, cervical cancer, anal cancer, death due to cervical cancer, anal cancer and other causes), and 26 transition probabilities for each age group. The model was informed with the available data in national and international literature. Effectiveness of immunization was assumed considering a literature review pertaining to models and vaccination coverage rates observed in Italy. Life expectancy (ex), Quality-Adjusted Life Years (QALYs), Disability-Adjusted Life Years (DALYs), and attributable risk (AR) were estimated for no intervention (cervical cancer screening) and vaccination strategies scenarios. Results The model showed that in a cohort of 100,000 Italian women the e0 is equal to 83.1 years. With current HPV vaccination strategy the e0 achieves 83.2 (+0.1) years. When HPV-related diseases are considered altogether, the QALYs increase from 82.7 to 82.9 (+0.2 QALYs) with no intervention and vaccination strategies respectively. DALYs decrease by 0.6 due to vaccination. Finally, AR is equal to 93 and 265 cases per 100,000 women in population and not vaccinated, respectively. Conclusion When mortality due to cervical cancer is considered, HPV vaccination seems to have a low impact on health unit gains in the Italian female population. Conversely, when several HPV-related and cancer morbidity conditions are included, the effect of vaccination becomes quite remarkable

Continuous Membrane Emulsification with Pulsed (Oscillatory) Flow

This document is the Accepted Manuscript version of a Published Work that appeared in final form in Industrial and Engineering Chemistry Research, copyright © American Chemical Society after peer review and technical editing by the publisher. To access the final edited and published work see: http://dx.doi.org/10.1021/ie3020457Tubular micrometer pore sized sieve type membranes with internal diameter of 14 mm and length of 60 mm containing uniform pores of diameter 10 and 20 μm were used to generate emulsions of sunflower oil dispersed in water and stabilized by Tween 20 using oscillatory flow of the continuous phase. Drop diameters between 30 and 300 μm could be produced, in a controllable way and with span values of down to 0.4. By using pulsed flow it was possible to provide dispersed phase concentrations of up to 45% v/v in a single pass over the membrane, that is, without the need to recirculate the continuous phase through the membrane tube. It was possible to correlate the drop size produced with the shear conditions at the membrane surface using the wave shear stress equation. The oscillatory Reynolds number indicated flow varying from laminar to substantially turbulent, but the change in flow conditions did not show a notable influence on the drop diameters produced, over what is predicted by the varying wall shear stress applied to the wave equation. However, the 20 μm pore sized sieve type membrane appeared to allow the passage of the pressure pulse through the membrane pores, under certain operating conditions, which did lead to finer drop sizes produced than would be predicted. These through-membrane pulsations could be suppressed by changes in operating conditions: a higher dispersed phase injection rate or more viscous continuous phase, and they did not occur under similar operating conditions used with the 10 μm pore sized sieve type of membrane. Generating emulsions of this size using pulsed continuous phase flow provides opportunities for combining drop generation at high dispersed phase concentration, by membrane emulsification, with downstream processing such as reaction in plug flow reactors

Similarity of Perceived Health Between Household Members: The “Mutual Influences” Hypothesis

The specific objectives of this study are: • to provide an estimation of the magnitude of influence that the household has on self-perceived health, controlling for individual characteristics and the geographical context; • to gain a better understanding of the pathways through which the household affects the perceived health of its members

Confirmatory radiological survey of the Grand Junction Projects Office Remedial Action Project exterior portions, 1989-1995

The purpose of this independent assessment was to provide the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) with an independent verification (IV) that the soil at the Grand Junction Projects Office (GJPO) complies with applicable DOE guidelines. Oak Ridge National Laboratory/ Environmental Technology Section (ORNL/ETS) which is also located at the GJPO, was assigned by DOE as the Independent Verification Contractor (IVC). The assessment included reviews of the decontamination and decommissioning plan, annual environmental monitoring reports, data in the pre- and post-remedial action reports, reassessment reports and IV surveys. Procedures and field methods used during the remediation were reviewed, commented on, and amended as needed. The IV surveys included beta-gamma and gamma radiation scans, soil sampling and analyses. Based on the data presented in the post-remedial action report and the results of the IV surveys, the remediation of the outdoor portions of the GJPO has achieved the objectives. Residual deposits of uranium contamination may exist under asphalt because the original characterization was not designed to identify uranium and subsequent investigations were limited. The IVC recommends that this be addressed with the additional remediation. The IVC is working with the remedial action contractor (RAC) to assure that final documentation WM be sufficient for certification. The IVC will address additional remediation of buildings, associated utilities, and groundwater in separate reports. Therefore, this is considered a partial verification