Criteria For Expanding The Sales Tax Base: Services and Exemptions

This brief focuses on issues associated with the sales tax base and discusses the criteria and factors that should be considered in deciding which services to add to the sales tax base and which sales tax exemptions to eliminate or add

TraCE: Trajectory Counterfactual Explanation Scores

Counterfactual explanations, and their associated algorithmic recourse, are typically leveraged to understand, explain, and potentially alter a prediction coming from a black-box classifier. In this paper, we propose to extend the use of counterfactuals to evaluate progress in sequential decision making tasks. To this end, we introduce a model-agnostic modular framework, TraCE (Trajectory Counterfactual Explanation) scores, which is able to distill and condense progress in highly complex scenarios into a single value. We demonstrate TraCE's utility across domains by showcasing its main properties in two case studies spanning healthcare and climate change.Comment: 7 pages, 4 figures, appendi

Biliary atresia

Biliary atresia (BA) is a rare disease characterised by a biliary obstruction of unknown origin that presents in the neonatal period. It is the most frequent surgical cause of cholestatic jaundice in this age group. BA occurs in approximately 1/18,000 live births in Western Europe. In the world, the reported incidence varies from 5/100,000 to 32/100,000 live births, and is highest in Asia and the Pacific region. Females are affected slightly more often than males. The common histopathological picture is one of inflammatory damage to the intra- and extrahepatic bile ducts with sclerosis and narrowing or even obliteration of the biliary tree. Untreated, this condition leads to cirrhosis and death within the first years of life. BA is not known to be a hereditary condition. No primary medical treatment is relevant for the management of BA. Once BA suspected, surgical intervention (Kasai portoenterostomy) should be performed as soon as possible as operations performed early in life is more likely to be successful. Liver transplantation may be needed later if the Kasai operation fails to restore the biliary flow or if cirrhotic complications occur. At present, approximately 90% of BA patients survive and the majority have normal quality of life

Nurses' perceptions of aids and obstacles to the provision of optimal end of life care in ICU

Contains fulltext : 172380.pdf (publisher's version ) (Open Access

A PROPOS DE DEUX ARTIFICES TECHNIQUES UTILES POUR LE TRAITEMENT CHIRURGICAL DES PERFORATIONS DE L'OESOPHAGE THORACIQUE

Perforation of the thoracic esophagus poses a difficult surgical challenge because suture and drainage are rarely sufficient by themselves. The authors describe 2 articles which are likely to help in such circmstances: endothoracic fundoplication and pediculated flap of the greater omentum; their use in 4 cases is reported.SCOPUS: ar.jinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishe

Use of a urea breath test versus invasive methods to determine the prevalence of Helicobacter pylori in Zaire

The prevalence of Helicobacter pylori infection in Zaire was determined by means of a [14C] urea breath test in 133 asymptomatic subjects, by culture and histological examination of biopsies in 324 consecutive endoscopy patients with chronic epigastric complaints, and by both the breath test and culture/histology in a subset of 92 patients. Sixty healthy Belgian students or hospital laboratory workers were also included for comparison. The prevalence of Helicobacter pylori was significantly higher in asymptomatic Zairian subjects (77.4%) than in the Belgians (30%; p < 10-6). Infection was also acquired much earlier in life in Africans, 66% of the children aged 5 to 9 years already being infected versus none of the Belgian subjects below the age of 20 years. In Zaire, however, the prevalence of Helicobacter pylori in patients with gastroduodenal disorders (87.5%) was similar to that in the group of asymptomatic subjects (77.5%) after adjustment for age and other epidemiological parameters (gender, place of residency, education level, smoking and drinking habits) in a multivariate analysis. The high rate of acquisition of Hericobacter pylori infection in Zaire emphasizes the need to consider the baseline prevalence of Helicobacter pylori in a defined population when studying its association with various diseases.SCOPUS: ar.jinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishe

Metronidazole resistance in Helicobacter pylori

SCOPUS: le.jinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishe