Ensayo interlaboratorio : aislamiento de Mycobacterium bovis a partir de lesiones granulomatosas en bovinos

161-165Mycobacterium bovis es el agente etiológico de la tuberculosis bovina. La confirmación diagnóstica en el laboratorio se realiza a través del aislamiento bacteriológico. Los ensayos interlaboratorio permiten evaluar el desempeño de cada laboratorio participante comparándolo con otros de capacidades similares. El objetivo del presente estudio fue determinar la eficiencia en el aislamiento de M. bovis. Este estudio contó con la participación de 4 laboratorios, los cuales procesaron a ciego 25 muestras de tejidos con lesiones, seleccionadas previamente por aislamiento. El laboratorio A obtuvo la mayor proporción de aislamientos (68 por ciento), seguido del C (60 por ciento) y luego del B y D (ambos con el 52 por ciento). Las mayores concordancias se observaron entre los pares de laboratorios B-C y B-D (68 por ciento). Las diferencias pudieron deberse a factores propios de los procedimientos en cada laboratorio. Este tipo de análisis interlaboratorio permite evidenciar posibles errores en los procedimientos bacteriológicos e identificar puntos críticos del proceso para detectar M. bovis de manera eficiente

Climate policy and ancillary benefits : a survey and integration into the modelling of international negotiations on climate change

Currently informal and formal international negotiations on climate change take place in an intensive way since the Kyoto Protocol expires already in 2012. A post-Kyoto regulation to combat global warming is not yet stipulated. Due to rapidly increasing greenhouse gas emission levels, industrialized countries urge major polluters from the developing world like China and India to participate in a future agreement. Whether these developing countries will do so, depends on the prevailing incentives to participate in international climate protection efforts. This paper identifies ancillary benefits of climate policy to provide important incentives to attend a new international protocol and to positively affect the likelihood of accomplishing a post-Kyoto agreement which includes commitments of developing countries

Adherence issues related to sublingual immunotherapy as perceived by allergists

Objectives: Sublingual immunotherapy (SLIT) is a viable alternative to subcutaneous immunotherapy to treat allergic rhinitis and asthma, and is widely used in clinical practice in many European countries. The clinical efficacy of SLIT has been established in a number of clinical trials and meta-analyses. However, because SLIT is self-administered by patients without medical supervision, the degree of patient adherence with treatment is still a concern. The objective of this study was to evaluate the perception by allergists of issues related to SLIT adherence. Methods: We performed a questionnaire-based survey of 296 Italian allergists, based on the adherence issues known from previous studies. The perception of importance of each item was assessed by a VAS scale ranging from 0 to 10. Results: Patient perception of clinical efficacy was considered the most important factor (ranked 1 by 54% of allergists), followed by the possibility of reimbursement (ranked 1 by 34%), and by the absence of side effects (ranked 1 by 21%). Patient education, regular follow-up, and ease of use of SLIT were ranked first by less than 20% of allergists. Conclusion: These findings indicate that clinical efficacy, cost, and side effects are perceived as the major issues influencing patient adherence to SLIT, and that further improvement of adherence is likely to be achieved by improving the patient information provided by prescribers. © 2010 Scurati et al, publisher and licensee Dove Medical Press Ltd

Equity and justice in global warming policy

Many countries are implementing or at least considering policies to counter increasingly certain negative impacts from climate change. An increasing amount of research has been devoted to the analysis of the costs of climate change and its mitigation, as well as to the design of policies, such as the international Kyoto Protocol, post-Kyoto negotiations, regional initiatives, and unilateral actions. Although most studies on climate change policies in economics have considered efficiency aspects, there is a growing literature on equity and justice. Climate change policy has important dimensions of distributive justice, both within and across generations, but in this paper we survey only studies on the intragenerational aspect, i.e.., within a generation. We cover several domains including the international, regional, national, sectoral and inter-personal, and examine aspects such as the distribution of burdens from climate change, climate change policy negotiations in general, implementation of climate agreements using tradable emission permits, and the uncertainty of alternatives to emission reductions