Financial Shortages Patterns - an Overview on Emerging Economies

The hereby paper tackles the onset and evolution of the global financial crisis, providing an overview of the partially foreseeable causes and extremely severe consequences. The aim of the paper is to analyze how the collapses of the US sub-prime mortgage market and the reversal of the housing boom in other industrialized economies led to a ripple effect on the world economy. In Europe, bankruptcy stroke and a number of major financial institutions collapsed, while others needed rescuing. The paper concludes that the global economy has proven to be extremely brittle and in need of coherent actions in order to insure recovery.economic crisis, financial stress

Financial Shortages Patterns - an Overview on Emerging Economies

The hereby paper tackles the onset and evolution of the global financial crisis, providing an overview of the partially foreseeable causes and extremely severe consequences. The aim of the paper is to analyze how the collapses of the US sub-prime mortgage market and the reversal of the housing boom in other industrialized economies led to a ripple effect on the world economy. In Europe, bankruptcy stroke and a number of major financial institutions collapsed, while others needed rescuing. The paper concludes that the global economy has proven to be extremely brittle and in need of coherent actions in order to insure recovery

A medico-legal view on the importance of the external examination of the traumatized patient

Abstract: Introduction. the correct registration of the external traumatic lesions is extremely important in the clinical management of the trauma, as well as in its forensic and judicial assessment. Nevertheless, the quantity and quality of the information registered in the observation charts may be suboptimal, thus significantly affecting the forensic assessment regarding the cause of death, the relationship between lesions and death, and therefore the judicial implications of the case. Material and method. We have conducted a study on a sample of 77 consecutive deaths by violence, all examined at the Institute of Legal Medicine in Iasi. A comparative analysis was conducted of the external lesions documentation in the observation chart and the forensic autopsy report, and a degree of consistency was established between the two. For each case a series of data was collected and then statistically analyzed in order to observe the existence of a correlation between the degree of accordance and of the two examinations and the registered parameters. Results. the present study has found 62.3% discordant cases. From the selected parameters, three were correlated to the degree of concordance, having the capacity to foretell whether an external lesion would be registered correctly in the observation chart: the biochemical analysis level -patients who received complete blood investigations were more frequently subject to complete skin examination in the clinic; the existence of a surgical intervention -concordance was higher in patients who suffered a surgical intervention during hospitalization; cause and context of death -patients who died as a result of burns or electrocution showed perfect concordance in 100 % of cases, while less than 3 % of patients who died in the context of aggression were recorded all types of injury. Conclusions. Better documentation of external injuries in hospital is many times essential for the medico-legal evaluation and the subsequent judicial implications. While there are factors that may explain the disregard of the registration of all traumatic marks, in the context of lack of time and the need for quick delivery of treatment, the importance of the observation sheet as a document of medico-legal and legal value must be recognized by all physicians

Biofilms Formed by Pathogens in Food and Food Processing Environments

This chapter presents the ability of some pathogenic (Listeria monocytogenes, Escherichia coli, Salmonella enterica, Campylobacter jejuni, Pseudomonas aeruginosa) and toxigenic bacteria (Bacillus cereus, Staphylococcus aureus) to form biofilms and contribute to the persistence of these microorganisms in the food industry. Particularities regarding attachment and composition of biofilms formed in food and food processing environments are presented and genes involved in biofilm production are mentioned. To give a perspective on how to fight against biofilms with new means, nonconventional methods based on bacteriocins, bacteriophages, disruptive enzymes, essential oils, nanoemulsions and nanoparticles, and use of alternative technologies (cold plasma, ultrasounds, light-assisted technologies, pulsed electric field, and high pressure processing) are shortly described

Do Changes in Welfare and Health Policy Affect Life Satisfaction of Older Citizens in Europe?

Objectives. Ageing of societies causes serious political concerns on well-being of old citizens and care for the (frail) old. These concerns increased with the economic crisis of 2008. In European countries policy measures were taken to deal with the consequences of this crisis. This study explores the possible effects of these measures on life satisfaction of older citizens. Methods. Life satisfaction was assessed through international surveys in 2007 and 2013 and changes in societal conditions, using eight indicators on demography, welfare, and health, are assessed in 31 European countries in 2006 and in 2014. Data are standardised and based on official, national surveys and statistics. Results. The former found that U-shape relationship between age and life satisfaction disappeared after the crisis. Negative changes in social protection and care arrangements, taken after the economic crisis, are related to low life satisfaction in old citizens. Conclusions. Various societal conditions deteriorated in 2014 as compared to 2006. Policy measures, taken due to the 2008 economic crisis, have changed societal conditions and affected life satisfaction of older citizens negatively. In countries with a rudimentary structure of health and welfare provisions old citizens could not cope with the imposed policy measures

E-Health System for Medical Telesurveillance of Chronic Patients

The current common goal in medical information technology today is the design and implementation of telemedicine solutions, which provide to patients services that enhance their quality of life. Advances in wireless sensor network technology, the overall miniaturization of their associated hardware low-power integrated circuits and wireless communications have enabled the design of low-cost, miniature, and intelligent physiological sensor modules with applications in the medical industry. These modules are capable of measuring, processing, communicating one or more physiological parameters, and can be integrated into a wireless personal area network. This paper is dedicated to the most complex Romanian telemedical pilot project, TELEMON, which has as goals design and implementation of an electronic-informaticstelecommunications system, that allows the automatic and complex telemonitoring, everywhere and every time, in (almost) real time, of the vital signs of persons with chronic illnesses, of elderly people, of those having high medical risk and of those living in isolated regions. The final objective of this pilot project is to enable personalized medical teleservices delivery, and to act as a basis for a public service for telemedical procedures in Romania and abroad

A global experiment on motivating social distancing during the COVID-19 pandemic

Finding communication strategies that effectively motivate social distancing continues to be a global public health priority during the COVID-19 pandemic. This cross-country, preregistered experiment (n = 25,718 from 89 countries) tested hypotheses concerning generalizable positive and negative outcomes of social distancing messages that promoted personal agency and reflective choices (i.e., an autonomy-supportive message) or were restrictive and shaming (i.e., a controlling message) compared with no message at all. Results partially supported experimental hypotheses in that the controlling message increased controlled motivation (a poorly internalized form of motivation relying on shame, guilt, and fear of social consequences) relative to no message. On the other hand, the autonomy-supportive message lowered feelings of defiance compared with the controlling message, but the controlling message did not differ from receiving no message at all. Unexpectedly, messages did not influence autonomous motivation (a highly internalized form of motivation relying on one’s core values) or behavioral intentions. Results supported hypothesized associations between people’s existing autonomous and controlled motivations and self-reported behavioral intentions to engage in social distancing. Controlled motivation was associated with more defiance and less long-term behavioral intention to engage in social distancing, whereas autonomous motivation was associated with less defiance and more short- and long-term intentions to social distance. Overall, this work highlights the potential harm of using shaming and pressuring language in public health communication, with implications for the current and future global health challenges

Stroke genetics informs drug discovery and risk prediction across ancestries

Previous genome-wide association studies (GWASs) of stroke — the second leading cause of death worldwide — were conducted predominantly in populations of European ancestry1,2. Here, in cross-ancestry GWAS meta-analyses of 110,182 patients who have had a stroke (five ancestries, 33% non-European) and 1,503,898 control individuals, we identify association signals for stroke and its subtypes at 89 (61 new) independent loci: 60 in primary inverse-variance-weighted analyses and 29 in secondary meta-regression and multitrait analyses. On the basis of internal cross-ancestry validation and an independent follow-up in 89,084 additional cases of stroke (30% non-European) and 1,013,843 control individuals, 87% of the primary stroke risk loci and 60% of the secondary stroke risk loci were replicated (P < 0.05). Effect sizes were highly correlated across ancestries. Cross-ancestry fine-mapping, in silico mutagenesis analysis3, and transcriptome-wide and proteome-wide association analyses revealed putative causal genes (such as SH3PXD2A and FURIN) and variants (such as at GRK5 and NOS3). Using a three-pronged approach4, we provide genetic evidence for putative drug effects, highlighting F11, KLKB1, PROC, GP1BA, LAMC2 and VCAM1 as possible targets, with drugs already under investigation for stroke for F11 and PROC. A polygenic score integrating cross-ancestry and ancestry-specific stroke GWASs with vascular-risk factor GWASs (integrative polygenic scores) strongly predicted ischaemic stroke in populations of European, East Asian and African ancestry5. Stroke genetic risk scores were predictive of ischaemic stroke independent of clinical risk factors in 52,600 clinical-trial participants with cardiometabolic disease. Our results provide insights to inform biology, reveal potential drug targets and derive genetic risk prediction tools across ancestries

A multi-country test of brief reappraisal interventions on emotions during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The COVID-19 pandemic has increased negative emotions and decreased positive emotions globally. Left unchecked, these emotional changes might have a wide array of adverse impacts. To reduce negative emotions and increase positive emotions, we tested the effectiveness of reappraisal, an emotion-regulation strategy that modifies how one thinks about a situation. Participants from 87 countries and regions (n = 21,644) were randomly assigned to one of two brief reappraisal interventions (reconstrual or repurposing) or one of two control conditions (active or passive). Results revealed that both reappraisal interventions (vesus both control conditions) consistently reduced negative emotions and increased positive emotions across different measures. Reconstrual and repurposing interventions had similar effects. Importantly, planned exploratory analyses indicated that reappraisal interventions did not reduce intentions to practice preventive health behaviours. The findings demonstrate the viability of creating scalable, low-cost interventions for use around the world