Liability Rules for Health Information

The recent trend toward propertization of health data could pose significant challenges to biomedical research and public health. Property rule systems can result in sizable up-front costs in the acquisition of consent from individual data subjects, as well as the ongoing risk that data subjects will retract consent or object to unanticipated data uses, thus compromising existing data resources and analyses. We argue that property-based approaches to health data should be rejected in favor of liability rule frameworks for the protection of individual privacy interests. We demonstrate that liability rule frameworks for data governance are not only desirable from a theoretical standpoint but have been successfully implemented in the context of two valuable governmental data resources: the Utah Population Database (UPDB) and Statistics Denmark (DST). These case studies suggest that liability models should be considered more broadly for the governance of research using human health data

Liability (and) Rules for Health Information

The recent trend toward propertization of health data could pose significant challenges to biomedical research and public health. Property rule systems can result in sizable up-front costs in the acquisition of consent from individual data subjects, as well as the ongoing risk that data subjects will retract consent or object to unanticipated data uses, thus compromising existing data resources and analyses. Instead, we propose that research using individual health data should be subject to a regulatory regime, enforceable by government/public repositories, while at the same time permitting private enforcement actions to address particularized individual injury. Thus, while the physical collection of human tissue would continue to be subject to existing rules regarding informed consent, ex ante consent would not be required for the use of information derived from physical samples. Rather, rules regarding permissible research use and handling of health information would be put in place, and violations of those rules would be dealt with on an ex post basis, both through regulatory penalties and private liability actions. These recommendations are supported by two cases studies: the Utah Population Database and Statistics Denmark, both of which provide examples of successful health data repositories that are governed by regulatory systems. While these examples are drawn from governmental data resources, the approach that they exemplify can be extended to academic and other research environments. These case studies suggest that regulatory and liability models should be considered more broadly for the governance of research using human health data in lieu of property-based systems

Comparison between pine bark and coconut husk sorption capacity of metals and nitrate when mixed with sewage sludge

Waste products such as biosolids and wood wastes have been frequently used in container production of plants. The use of biosolids in agriculture is a beneficial mean of recycling the by-products of waste-water treatment. However, care must be taken to avoid environmental or human health problems via run-off and leaching. The objective of this work is to compare the retention capacity of cadmium, lead, zinc and nitrate between pine bark (PB) and coconut fibre (F) when mixed with increasing amounts of composted sewage sludge (CSS) (0%, 15% and 30% (v/v)). Substrates were packed into leaching columns and irrigated with deionised water every 2 days. Leachates were collected during 1 month, and nitrate, Zn, Cd, Pb, EC and pH were monitored along the experiment. PB columns leached lower amount of nitrate than the coconut fibre ones. The same trend was observed for Zn, Cd and Pb. It could be said, that in order to minimize the environmental risks of using sewage sludges our results indicate that it is preferred to mix the sludge with pine bark instead than with coconut husk

SROI in the Pay for Success Context: Are They at Odds?

The Pay For Success (PFS) and Social Impact Bond (SIB) movements to date have focused heavily on shorter-term outcomes that can be monetized and show clear savings to government entities. In part, this focus derives from the need to specify contract payments based on a narrow set of well measured outcomes (e.g., avoided days in jail and foster care, decreased use of behavioral health services). Meanwhile efforts to measure the social return on investment (SROI) of interventions have sought to expand the view of relevant outcomes to include domains that lend themselves less clearly to monetization. This paper explores the intersection between these two movements with illustrations from a SIB initiative underway focused on homeless families with children in foster care. Challenges and potential for SROI in a third-party payor environment will be discussed as well as opportunities to better leverage the strengths of both types of initiative

Application of the dual-luciferase reporter assay to the analysis of promoter activity in Zebrafish embryos

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The dual-luciferase assay has been widely used in cell lines to determine rapidly but accurately the activity of a given promoter. Although this strategy has proved very useful, it does not allow the promoter and gene function to be analyzed in the context of the whole organism.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Here, we present a rapid and sensitive assay based on the classical dual-luciferase reporter technique which can be used as a new tool to characterize the minimum promoter region of a gene as well as the <it>in vivo </it>response of inducible promoters to different stimuli. We illustrate the usefulness of this system for studying both constitutive (telomerase) and inducible (NF-κB-dependent) promoters. The flexibility of this assay is demonstrated by induction of the NF-κB-dependent promoters using simultaneous microinjection of different pathogen-associated molecular patterns as well as with the use of morpholino-gene mediated knockdown.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>This assay has several advantages compared with the classical <it>in vitro </it>(cell lines) and <it>in vivo </it>(transgenic mice) approaches. Among others, the assay allows a rapid and quantitative measurement of the effects of particular genes or drugs in a given promoter in the context of a whole organism and it can also be used in high throughput screening experiments.</p

THE EFFECT OF ROUNDING ON THE PROBABILITY DISTRIBUTION OF REGRADING IN THE U.S. PEANUT INDUSTRY

This article determines the effect of rounding (pointing-off) of grade percentages to the nearest whole number on the probability distribution of regrading in the peanut industry. Results show that rounding causes graders to have to regrade an extra 4% of samples even when they follow all directions and make no mistakes. When rounding was not used, the sample weight had little effect on the probability of regrading. With rounding, the probability of regrading was reduced by beginning with a larger than 500-gram sample. Thus, rounding provides an incentive to take overweight samples in order to avoid regrading. Overweight samples can overestimate the value of peanuts. A low-cost way to improve peanut grading accuracy would be to round to tenths rather than whole numbers.grading, normal-jump distribution, peanuts, regrading, rounding, Crop Production/Industries,

Gender-based violence against women with visual and physical disabilities

Violencia de género en mujeres con discapacidad física y visual. Antecedentes: investigaciones realizadas en distintos países señalan que las mujeres con discapacidad constituyen un grupo de mayor vulnerabilidad para sufrir violencia de género que las mujeres sin discapacidad. Método:un total de 96 mujeres adultas, 45 de ellas con discapacidad visual y 51 con discapacidad física, fueron entrevistadas para conocer la prevalencia de la violencia en este colectivo y su posible relación con factores socioeconómicos, sociodemográficos y relacionados con la discapacidad. Asimismo se analizaron las consecuencias que la violencia provoca en la salud y bienestar psicológico de las mujeres. Resultados: los resultados mostraron una mayor prevalencia de la violencia en esta muestra que el conocido para la población general de mujeres en España. Igualmente, aquellas que habían sido víctimas de violencia mostraron una peor situación económica, mayores niveles de dependencia física y mayores cargas familiares que las que no lo habían sido. Además, la violencia se asoció con peores niveles de bienestar emocional, salud psicológica, autoestima y apoyo social percibido en las mujeres entrevistadas, más allá de los atribuibles a su propia condición de discapacidad. Conclusiones: estos resultados se discutirán a la luz de algunos modelos que relacionan discapacidad y violencia de género