POSSIBILITIES FOR REDUCING HEALTH RISKS IN FOOD RETAIL

Managers of organic food stores – as regarding the influence on health – see reliable origin to be the most important criterion during their product selecting decision making process. In the case of traditional foods they find additive artificial materials and GMOs significant among health risks, in the case of organic foods they think that significant problems arise from the shortness of the "best before†period. Dangers coming from the market orientation are judged to be more serious in the case of traditional foods than in the case of organic foods. It is in connection with the mentality with that during their product selecting decision making they emphasize factors connected to safety (eg.: reliable origin) more than market considerations (eg.: fast circulation or it is included in the choice of the competitors). Healthy foods are expected to have a reliable origin, too. In connection with the reliable origin of the products I could throw light on the contradiction that they regard the reliability of producers and sellers important, at the same time the place of origin has little influence on how safe they regard a particular product. 50% of the shopmanagers looking for products with a reliable origin judge Hungarian foods to be safe, 19% of them judge import, 34% of them judge regional products to be safe. Based on these results I find it needed to make a research that gives the possibility to examine the profiles of differentiated products based on their places of origin, in respect of thier influence on health and their risk factors. In the case of imported products it would be crucial to make difference between products coming from more and coming from less developed countries than our country. In the case of organic foods it is especially reasonable because the major part of their choice is products from abroad, that come from West-Europe (mostly from Germany and Austria), but more and more cheaper eastern organic foods appear in their portfolio (eg.: Romanian). During checking the hypothesis it could be seen that the risks of food safety were sensed in the whole process of production by shop managers. But with their behaviour to reduce risk factors they want to filter the factors of inner ingredients (eg.: artificial additives, GMOs) that directly endanger health, and they do not pay attention to indirect sources of danger (eg.: place of origin). For this reason I think it is needed to analyze the supply chain of organic foods getting into the market from the point of view of safety, so that not only risks coming from inner ingredients are supported. This would provide a starting point for the managers of organic food stores to minimalize the whole circle of risk factors.organic food, food retail, perception of risks, Agribusiness, Environmental Economics and Policy, Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety,

A deterministic truthful PTAS for scheduling related machines

Scheduling on related machines ($Q||C_{\max}$) is one of the most important problems in the field of Algorithmic Mechanism Design. Each machine is controlled by a selfish agent and her valuation can be expressed via a single parameter, her {\em speed}. In contrast to other similar problems, Archer and Tardos \cite{AT01} showed that an algorithm that minimizes the makespan can be truthfully implemented, although in exponential time. On the other hand, if we leave out the game-theoretic issues, the complexity of the problem has been completely settled -- the problem is strongly NP-hard, while there exists a PTAS \cite{HS88,ES04}. This problem is the most well studied in single-parameter algorithmic mechanism design. It gives an excellent ground to explore the boundary between truthfulness and efficient computation. Since the work of Archer and Tardos, quite a lot of deterministic and randomized mechanisms have been suggested. Recently, a breakthrough result \cite{DDDR08} showed that a randomized truthful PTAS exists. On the other hand, for the deterministic case, the best known approximation factor is 2.8 \cite{Kov05,Kov07}. It has been a major open question whether there exists a deterministic truthful PTAS, or whether truthfulness has an essential, negative impact on the computational complexity of the problem. In this paper we give a definitive answer to this important question by providing a truthful {\em deterministic} PTAS

Lebensmitteleinzelhandel, Vermarktung von Bio-Produkten in Ungarn,Tschechien und Deutschland

Der Lebensmitteleinzelhandel spielt eine wichtige Rolle als Motor bei der Entwicklung heimischer Bio-Märkte. Mit welchen Strategien verkaufen Konzerne Bio-Produkte in den Ländern Mittel- und Osteuropas

Vergleich von Vermarktungsaktivitäten für Bio-Produkte im LEH: Ungarn, Tschechische Republik, Deutschland

The organic markets in Western European countries like Germany and Middle and Eastern European countries like Hungary and Czech Republic are at different levels of development. While in Germany the per capita consumption of organic food in 2002 was app. € 32 in the Czech Republic the corresponding value was app. € 0,50 and in Hungary app. € 0,39. The paper describes and analyses the results of store-checks conducted in outlets of selected retail chains in the named three countries. Main objective is to compare marketing activities of conventional retail chains, as main driving actor group for the market development, with regard to organic products

Bayesian Combinatorial Auctions

We study the following simple Bayesian auction setting: m items are sold to n selfish bidders in m independent second-price auctions. Each bidder has a private valuation function that specifies his or her complex preferences over all subsets of items. Bidders only have beliefs about the valuation functions of the other bidders, in the form of probability distributions. The objective is to allocate the items to the bidders in a way that provides a good approximation to the optimal social welfare value. We show that if bidders have submodular or, more generally, fractionally subadditive (aka XOS) valuation functions, every Bayes-Nash equilibrium of the resulting game provides a 2-approximation to the optimal social welfare. Moreover, we show that in the full-information game, a pure Nash always exists and can be found in time that is polynomial in both m and n . </jats:p

How does a cadaver model work for testing ultrasound diagnostic capability for rheumatic-like tendon damage?

To establish whether a cadaver model can serve as an effective surrogate for the detection of tendon damage characteristic of rheumatoid arthritis (RA). In addition, we evaluated intraobserver and interobserver agreement in the grading of RA-like tendon tears shown by US, as well as the concordance between the US findings and the surgically induced lesions in the cadaver model. RA-like tendon damage was surgically induced in the tibialis anterior tendon (TAT) and tibialis posterior tendon (TPT) of ten ankle/foot fresh-frozen cadaveric specimens. Of the 20 tendons examined, six were randomly assigned a surgically induced partial tear; six a complete tear; and eight left undamaged. Three rheumatologists, experts in musculoskeletal US, assessed from 1 to 5 the quality of US imaging of the cadaveric models on a Likert scale. Tendons were then categorized as having either no damage, (0); partial tear, (1); or complete tear (2). All 20 tendons were blindly and independently evaluated twice, over two rounds, by each of the three observers. Overall, technical performance was satisfactory for all items in the two rounds (all values over 2.9 in a Likert scale 1-5). Intraobserver and interobserver agreement for US grading of tendon damage was good (mean κ values 0.62 and 0.71, respectively), with greater reliability found in the TAT than the TPT. Concordance between US findings and experimental tendon lesions was acceptable (70-100 %), again greater for the TAT than for the TPT. A cadaver model with surgically created tendon damage can be useful in evaluating US metric properties of RA tendon lesions

Off-label use of rituximab for systemic lupus erythematosus in Europe

Objectives: Rituximab (RTX) is a biological treatment used off-label in patients with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE). This survey aimed to investigate the off-label use of RTX in Europe and compare the characteristics of patients receiving RTX with those receiving conventional therapy. Methods: Data on patients with SLE receiving RTX were taken from the International Registry for Biologics in SLE retrospective registry and complemented with data on patients with SLE treated with conventional therapy. For nationwide estimates of RTX use in patients with SLE, investigators were asked to provide data through case report forms (CRFs). Countries for which no data were submitted through CRFs, published literature and/or personal communication were used, and for European countries where no data were available, estimates were made on the assumption of similarities with neighbouring countries. Results: The estimated off-label use of RTX in Europe was 0.5%-1.5% of all patients with SLE. In comparison with patients with SLE on conventional therapy, patients treated with RTX had longer disease duration, higher disease activity and were more often treated with immunosuppressives. The most frequent organ manifestations for which either RTX or conventional therapy was initiated were lupus nephritis followed by musculoskeletal and haematological. The reason for treatment was, besides disease control, corticosteroid-sparing for patients treated with conventional therapy. Conclusions: RTX use for SLE in Europe is restrictive and appears to be used as a last resort in patients for whom other reasonable options have been exhausted

De novo implantation vs. upgrade cardiac resynchronization therapy: a systematic review and meta-analysis

Patients with conventional pacemakers or implanted defibrillators are often considered for cardiac resynchronization therapy (CRT). Our aim was to summarize the available evidences regarding the clinical benefits of upgrade procedures. A systematic literature search was performed from studies published between 2006 and 2017 in order to compare the outcome of CRT upgrade vs. de novo implantations. Outcome data on all-cause mortality, heart failure events, New York Heart Association (NYHA) Class, QRS narrowing and echocardiographic parameters were analysed. A total of 16 reports were analysed comprising 489,568 CRT recipients, of whom 468,205 patients underwent de novo and 21,363 upgrade procedures. All-cause mortality was similar after CRT upgrade compared to de novo implantations (RR 1.19, 95% CI 0.88-1.60, p = 0.27). The risk of heart failure was also similar in both groups (RR 0.96, 95% CI 0.70-1.32, p = 0.81). There was no significant difference in clinical response after CRT upgrade compared to de novo implantations in terms of improvement in left ventricular ejection fraction (DeltaEF de novo - 6.85% vs. upgrade - 9.35%; p = 0.235), NYHA class (DeltaNYHA de novo - 0.74 vs. upgrade - 0.70; p = 0.737) and QRS narrowing (DeltaQRS de novo - 9.6 ms vs. upgrade - 29.5 ms; p = 0.485). Our systematic review and meta-analysis of currently available studies reports that CRT upgrade is associated with similar risk for all-cause mortality compared to de novo resynchronization therapy. Benefits on reverse remodelling and functional capacity improved similarly in both groups suggesting that CRT upgrade may be safely and effectively offered in routine practice. CLINICAL TRIAL REGISTRATION: Prospero Database-CRD42016043747

The role of inflammation in epilepsy.

Epilepsy is the third most common chronic brain disorder, and is characterized by an enduring predisposition to generate seizures. Despite progress in pharmacological and surgical treatments of epilepsy, relatively little is known about the processes leading to the generation of individual seizures, and about the mechanisms whereby a healthy brain is rendered epileptic. These gaps in our knowledge hamper the development of better preventive treatments and cures for the approximately 30% of epilepsy cases that prove resistant to current therapies. Here, we focus on the rapidly growing body of evidence that supports the involvement of inflammatory mediators-released by brain cells and peripheral immune cells-in both the origin of individual seizures and the epileptogenic process. We first describe aspects of brain inflammation and immunity, before exploring the evidence from clinical and experimental studies for a relationship between inflammation and epilepsy. Subsequently, we discuss how seizures cause inflammation, and whether such inflammation, in turn, influences the occurrence and severity of seizures, and seizure-related neuronal death. Further insight into the complex role of inflammation in the generation and exacerbation of epilepsy should yield new molecular targets for the design of antiepileptic drugs, which might not only inhibit the symptoms of this disorder, but also prevent or abrogate disease pathogenesis