Productivity: the impact of privatisation and liberalisation in public services.

This paper analyses the evolution of labour productivity and its sources in Electricity and Gas, Post and Telecommunication, Inland Transport and Health and Social Work sectors of Austria, Belgium, Germany, Poland, Sweden and the UK in the presence of privatisation and liberalisation process from 1970 to 2004. The results showed that although some degree of labour productivity growth achieved in all sectors and countries, there has also been significant employment decreases except for Health and Social Work sector. Productivity increase/employment decrease trend is even stronger in the privatisation and liberalisation era for most countries. Decomposition of labour productivity shows that higher productivity, to some extent, was gained at the expense of employment decrease. Although there have been productivity increases in both pre- and post-privatisation periods, the contribution of employment decrease to productivity growth turned out to be quite significant in the post-privatisation period. This brings about the necessity to question the presumption that privatisation brings about higher productivity

Prevalence and distribution of the fabella: a radiographic study in Turkish subjects

Background: The purpose of this study is to examine the plain knee radiographs in Turkish subjects in order to determine the prevalence of the fabella and analyse the differences between age, gender, laterality and its symmetry pattern. Materials and methods: Bilateral antero-posterior and lateral knee radiographs of 500 patients (250 male and 250 female subjects, 1000 knee radiographs) were randomly selected from the clinical database and retrospectively evaluated. Data on patient age, gender, and knee laterality (right–left) were evaluated from hospital records. The differences between the sesamoid bones at a particular location and the side, sex and age groups were analysed. Results: The overall prevalence of the fabella (unilateral or bilateral) was 22.8% (114 subjects). The fabella was present unilaterally in 38 (7.6%) subjects, while it was present bilaterally in 76 (15.2%) subjects. The prevalence of the fabella was similar between the body sides. The prevalence of the fabella was also similar between genders (unilateral or bilateral cases) and age groups. Conclusions: We examined the prevalence, symmetry pattern, age and gender differences in Turkish population. It is the first study performed on Turkish population with the largest sample in current literature. Prevalence of fabella is found to be 22.8% which is quite similar with other Caucasian ethnic populations

Isolation and structural elucidation of compounds from Pleiocarpa bicarpellata and their in vitro antiprotozoal activity

Species of the genus Pleiocarpa are used in traditional medicine against fever and malaria. The present study focuses on the isolation and identification of bioactive compounds from P. bicarpellata extracts, and the evaluation of their antiprotozoal activity. Fractionation and isolation combined to LC-HRMS/MS-based dereplication provided 16 compounds: seven indole alkaloids, four indoline alkaloids, two secoiridoid glycosides, two iridoid glycosides, and one phenolic glucoside. One of the quaternary indole alkaloids (7) and one indoline alkaloid (15) have never been reported before. Their structures were elucidated by analysis of spectroscopic data, including 1D and 2D NMR experiments, UV, IR, and HRESIMS data. The absolute configurations were determined by comparison of the experimental and calculated ECD data. The extracts and isolated compounds were evaluated for their antiprotozoal activity towards Trypanosoma brucei rhodesiense, Trypanosoma cruzi, Leishmania donovani, and Plasmodium falciparum, as well as for their cytotoxicity against rat skeletal myoblast L6 cells. The dichloromethane/methanol (1:1) root extract showed strong activity against P. falciparum (IC50 value of 3.5 microg/mL). Among the compounds isolated, tubotaiwine (13) displayed the most significant antiplasmodial activity with an IC50 value of 8.5 microM and a selectivity index of 23.4. Therefore, P. bicarpallata extract can be considered as a source of indole alkaloids with antiplasmodial activity

Increased risk of tuberculosis in health care workers: a retrospective survey at a teaching hospital in Istanbul, Turkey

BACKGROUND: Tuberculosis (TB) is an established occupational disease affecting health care workers (HCWs). Determining the risk of TB among HCWs is important to enable authorites to take preventative measures in health care facilities and protect HCWs. This study was designed to assess the incidence of TB in a teaching hospital in Istanbul, Turkey. This study is retrospective study of health records of HCWs in our hospital from 1991 to 2000. RESULTS: The mean workforce of the hospital was 3359 + 33.2 between 1991 and 2000. There were 31 cases (15 male) meeting the diagnostic criteria for TB, comprising eight doctors, one nurse and 22 other health professionals. Mean incidence of TB was 96 per 100,000 for all HCWs (relative risk: 2.71), 79 per 100,000 for doctors (relative risk: 2.2), 14 per 100,000 for nurses and 121 per 100,000 (relative risk: 3.4) for other professionals. The mean incidence of TB in Turkey between 1991 and 2000 was 35.4 per 100,000. Incidence of TB was similar in the Departments of Chest Diseases and Clinical Medicine but there were no TB cases in the Basic Science and Managerial Departments. CONCLUSION: HCWs in Turkey who work in clinics have an increased risk for TB. Post-graduate education and prevention programs reduce the risk of TB. Control programs to prevent nosocomial transmission of TB should be established in hospitals to reduce risk for HCWs

Commodification of public services, productivity and employment.

This paper analyses the evolution of labour productivity and employment in Electricity and Gas, Post and Telecommunication and Inland Transport sectors of Austria, Belgium, Germany, Sweden and the UK in the presence of commodification process from 1970 to 2004. The results showed that although some degree of labour productivity growth achieved in all sectors and countries, there has also been significant employment decreases. Productivity increase/employment decrease trend is even stronger in the privatisation and liberalisation era for most countries. Decomposition of labour productivity shows that higher productivity, to some extent, was gained at the expense of employment decrease. Although there have been productivity increases in both pre- and post-commodification periods, the contribution of employment decrease to productivity growth turned out to be quite significant in the post-commodification period. This brings about the necessity to question the presumption that commodification of public services brings about higher productivity

PRODUCTION OF MELT-SPUN Al-20Si-5Fe ALLOY AND BORON CARBIDE (B4C) COMPOSITE MATERIAL

In this study, metal matrix composite materials containing melt-spun Al-20Si-5Fe alloys and boron carbide was produced by high energy ball milling and then hot pressing at 200 MPa pressure and 450 degrees C. Mechanical and microstructural characterizations were performed by using an optical microscopy, X-Ray diffractometer, and dynamic microhardness tester. It was observed that boron carbide particles were homogenously distributed in the microstructure and values of microhardness and elastic modules were averagely 830 MPa and 42 GPa, respectively

The effect of convolutional encoder memory on the sphere decoding search radius in MIMO systems

In the new generation communication systems Multiple-Input-Multiple-Output systems are frequently used. The processing load of the Maximum Likelihood (ML) Detector which is the optimum detector for these systems, increases exponentially as a function of system dimension and memory due to testing all possible points. Sphere Decoding (SD) method which tests only the probable points, decreases the processing load dramatically. System memory changes by system dimensions and length of the convolutional encoder. This, in turn, affects the radius of the hyper sphere centered at the observation in the observation space at which SD attains the performance of the ML detector. This effect is investigated via simulation studies. In these simulations, it is observed that the radius of the SD is relatively smaller than the one in ML, and the ratio between the radius values varies from 6,61 in the case of memoryless 2×2 MIMO system to 1,02 in the case of 8x8 MIMO system with memory K=10 according to increased antenna numbers and system memory. In addition to these, it is observed that the radius of the hyper sphere is directly proportional to the memory of the encoder