Long-term returns to local health-care spending

This paper investigates the effects of health-care spending on mortality rates of patients who experienced a heart attack. We relate in-hospital deaths to in-hospital spending and post-discharge deaths to post-discharge health-care spending. In our analysis, we use detailed administrative data on individual personal characteristics including comorbidities, information about the type of medical treatment and information about health-care expenses at the regional level. To account for potential selectivity in the region of health-care treatment we compare local patients with visitors and stayers with recent movers from a different region. We find that in regions with higher health-care spending mortality after heart attacks is substantially lower. From this we conclude that there are long-term returns to local health-care spending.</p

Long-term returns to local health-care spending

This paper investigates the effects of health-care spending on mortality rates of patients who experienced a heart attack. We relate in-hospital deaths to in-hospital spending and post-discharge deaths to post-discharge health-care spending. In our analysis, we use detailed administrative data on individual personal characteristics including comorbidities, information about the type of medical treatment and information about health-care expenses at the regional level. To account for potential selectivity in the region of health-care treatment we compare local patients with visitors and stayers with recent movers from a different region. We find that in regions with higher health-care spending mortality after heart attacks is substantially lower. From this we conclude that there are long-term returns to local health-care spending.</p

Preparation for Old Age and Ageing in the Time of the First Czechoslovak Republic: The Professional Discourse on Old Age at the Time

Old age and ageing are part of everyday life. Healthy ageing and population health have been essential issues throughout history. After the First World War, in the newly founded First Czechoslovak Republic, this topic was also important. This young republic had a lot of difficulties. It was a multi-ethnic state with substantial consequences of war. The republic\u27s infrastructure was damaged, the population’s health condition could have been better, the incidence of infectious diseases was very high while health literacy was very low. It was necessary to take care of the population’s health and adopt laws on health, old age and disability insurance. Basic and modern policies were developed in the First Czechoslovak Republic in 1918–1938, to advance the society\u27s development in virtually all areas of life. Interest in the quality of life of the state\u27s inhabitants, including the elderly, increased. Educational activities were implemented to improve the population’s knowledge and attitudes. The idea of proactive living and preparation for old age was essential for building a healthy society. The role of family members was also highlighted in the preparation for old age. In present-day Czech Republic, as in the past, we put an emphasis on pension insurance and taking responsibility for one’s health

Influence of geographic origin on post-stocking survival and condition of European grayling (Thymallus thymallus) in a small river

The post-release survival and condition of 1+ year old European grayling Thymallus thymallus reared in a local (Husinec) and two 250–300 km distant, hatcheries (Pardubice and Hynčice) were evaluated by the recapture of tagged fish five months after release into the Blanice River, Czech Republic, the fish population of which was depleted by cormorant predation during several previous winters. The fish were marked using Visible Implant Elastomer tags and released into six sites along the river in May 2014: 100 locally sourced fish and 100 of a strain from a distant source per site. Significantly higher recapture of Husinec (33%) than Pardubice (20%) was found at one site but was offset by results in the remaining two sites into which they were stocked. Significantly higher site fidelity was shown by Husinec (12%) than Hynčice (7%) fish in the three sites. Lower initial weight and condition factor of the Husinec fish was equal to or higher than fish from the distant hatcheries at recapture. Some differences in final weight, length, and condition factor were found among groups regardless of release site. Lower recapture rate, growth, and condition were displayed in fish released into the three downstream sites (Husinec 1 and Hynčice). The results indicated the potential for successful use of non-autochthonous stock for grayling population recovery

Effects of a red card on goal-scoring in World Cup football matches

We examine the effect of the sending-off of a player on the goal-scoring rates in FIFA World Cup matches in tournaments from 1998 to 2014. We use a hazard rate framework in which the effect of a red card is modeled as a shift in the goal-scoring rate. A red card may harm the team that receives a red card and may be beneficial for their opponent. Indeed, we find that the goal-scoring rate of the sanctioned team goes down, while the goal-scoring rate of the non-sanctioned team goes up

Care for children with physical disabilities in the First Czechoslovak Republic

Zdravotně sociální péče o tělesně postižené děti a mládež v době vzniku první Československé republiky (1918) byla na samém počátku svého rozvoje. Této oblasti péče byla v Rakousko-Uhersku věnována pozornost pouze okrajově. Cílem příspěvku je seznámit čtenáře se začátkem vývoje poskytování péče a zajištění vzdělávání tělesně postiženým dětem a mládeži v nové republice, která tehdy ještě zdaleka nepatřila k samozřejmým záležitostem tehdejší zdravotní péče. K naplnění cíle byla použita historická analýza převážně dobových sekundárních a primárních zdrojů k dané problematice.At the establishment of the First Czechoslovak Republic (1918–1938), the fields of health care, social care, and education for physically disabled children were in their infancy. These fields had received only marginal attention in the previous Austria-Hungary. This paper aims to acquaint the reader with the development of health and social care and the provision of education to physically disabled children during the First Czechoslovak Republic, which, at that time, was far from routine. The health and social care of disabled children, as well as their education, during the First Czechoslovak Republic, were analyzed using primary and secondary historical sources

Electron & Biomass Dynamics of Cyanothece Under Interacting Nitrogen & Carbon Limitations

Marine diazotrophs are a diverse group with key roles in biogeochemical fluxes linked to primary productivity. The unicellular, diazotrophic cyanobacterium Cyanothece is widely found in coastal, subtropical oceans. We analyze the consequences of diazotrophy on growth efficiency, compared to NO3–-supported growth in Cyanothece, to understand how cells cope with N2-fixation when they also have to face carbon limitation, which may transiently affect populations in coastal environments or during blooms of phytoplankton communities. When grown in obligate diazotrophy, cells face the double burden of a more ATP-demanding N-acquisition mode and additional metabolic losses imposed by the transient storage of reducing potential as carbohydrate, compared to a hypothetical N2 assimilation directly driven by photosynthetic electron transport. Further, this energetic burden imposed by N2-fixation could not be alleviated, despite the high irradiance level within the cultures, because photosynthesis was limited by the availability of dissolved inorganic carbon (DIC), and possibly by a constrained capacity for carbon storage. DIC limitation exacerbates the costs on growth imposed by nitrogen fixation. Therefore, the competitive efficiency of diazotrophs could be hindered in areas with insufficient renewal of dissolved gases and/or with intense phytoplankton biomass that both decrease available light energy and draw the DIC level down

Increasing Incidence of Geomyces destructans Fungus in Bats from the Czech Republic and Slovakia

BACKGROUND: White-nose syndrome is a disease of hibernating insectivorous bats associated with the fungus Geomyces destructans. It first appeared in North America in 2006, where over a million bats died since then. In Europe, G. destructans was first identified in France in 2009. Its distribution, infection dynamics, and effects on hibernating bats in Europe are largely unknown. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: We screened hibernacula in the Czech Republic and Slovakia for the presence of the fungus during the winter seasons of 2008/2009 and 2009/2010. In winter 2009/2010, we found infected bats in 76 out of 98 surveyed sites, in which the majority had been previously negative. A photographic record of over 6000 hibernating bats, taken since 1994, revealed bats with fungal growths since 1995; however, the incidence of such bats increased in Myotis myotis from 2% in 2007 to 14% by 2010. Microscopic, cultivation and molecular genetic evaluations confirmed the identity of the recently sampled fungus as G. destructans, and demonstrated its continuous distribution in the studied area. At the end of the hibernation season we recorded pathologic changes in the skin of the affected bats, from which the fungus was isolated. We registered no mass mortality caused by the fungus, and the recorded population decline in the last two years of the most affected species, M. myotis, is within the population trend prediction interval. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: G. destructans was found to be widespread in the Czech Republic and Slovakia, with an epizootic incidence in bats during the most recent years. Further development of the situation urgently requires a detailed pan-European monitoring scheme

The CHK1 inhibitor MU380 significantly increases the sensitivity of human docetaxel-resistant prostate cancer cells to gemcitabine through the induction of mitotic catastrophe

As treatment options for patients with incurable metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer (mCRPC) are considerably limited, novel effective therapeutic options are needed. Checkpoint kinase 1 (CHK1) is a highly conserved protein kinase implicated in the DNA damage response (DDR) pathway that prevents the accumulation of DNA damage and controls regular genome duplication. CHK1 has been associated with prostate cancer (PCa) induction, progression, and lethality; hence, CHK1 inhibitors SCH900776 (also known as MK-8776) and the more effective SCH900776 analog MU380 may have clinical applications in the therapy of PCa. Synergistic induction of DNA damage with CHK1 inhibition represents a promising therapeutic approach that has been tested in many types of malignancies, but not in chemoresistant mCRPC. Here, we report that such therapeutic approach may be exploited using the synergistic action of the antimetabolite gemcitabine (GEM) and CHK1 inhibitors SCH900776 and MU380 in docetaxel-resistant (DR) mCRPC. Given the results, both CHK1 inhibitors significantly potentiated the sensitivity to GEM in a panel of chemo-naïve and matched DR PCa cell lines under 2D conditions. MU380 exhibited a stronger synergistic effect with GEM than clinical candidate SCH900776. MU380 alone or in combination with GEM significantly reduced spheroid size and increased apoptosis in all patient-derived xenograft 3D cultures, with a higher impact in DR models. Combined treatment induced premature mitosis from G1 phase resulting in the mitotic catastrophe as a prestage of apoptosis. Finally, treatment by MU380 alone, or in combination with GEM, significantly inhibited tumor growth of both PC339-DOC and PC346C-DOC xenograft models in mice. Taken together, our data suggest that metabolically robust and selective CHK1 inhibitor MU380 can bypass docetaxel resistance and improve the effectiveness of GEM in DR mCRPC models. This approach might allow for dose reduction of GEM and thereby minimize undesired toxicity and may represent a therapeutic o

SBML Level 3: an extensible format for the exchange and reuse of biological models

Systems biology has experienced dramatic growth in the number, size, and complexity of computational models. To reproduce simulation results and reuse models, researchers must exchange unambiguous model descriptions. We review the latest edition of the Systems Biology Markup Language (SBML), a format designed for this purpose. A community of modelers and software authors developed SBML Level 3 over the past decade. Its modular form consists of a core suited to representing reaction-based models and packages that extend the core with features suited to other model types including constraint-based models, reaction-diffusion models, logical network models, and rule-based models. The format leverages two decades of SBML and a rich software ecosystem that transformed how systems biologists build and interact with models. More recently, the rise of multiscale models of whole cells and organs, and new data sources such as single-cell measurements and live imaging, has precipitated new ways of integrating data with models. We provide our perspectives on the challenges presented by these developments and how SBML Level 3 provides the foundation needed to support this evolution