5,834 research outputs found
NoTeb: NORDIC exploration of an early assessment framework in health care
Nordic Test Beds (NoTeB) is a Nordic Innovation funded project to strengthen Nordic health care cooperation. By joining Nordic university hospitals and innovation centers, its aim has been to provide a Nordic test bed cooperation ecosystem that includes templates and tools for early decisional support.
The objective of this study was to describe how the partners in the Nordic collaboration developed and agreed upon an early assessment framework in health care. The framework was also presented as a user guide with the aim of providing advisory guidelines accessible to health care institutions to support early assessment of health innovation. A co-creation process comprising all collaborating Nordic partners initiated by a workshop, sharing current practice and aligning needs and content of for a decision support tool.
Large Nordic variation in value assessment approaches were found. For the decision-making tools, two important features were emphasized; the need for a decision support rather than a decision-making tool and that the tool should be based on valid measures; HTA- methodology. For the user guide, it was emphasized that it should be easily available in an easy-to-read report format.
In conclusion, NoTeB was successful in uniting Nordic countries in a common objective to develop a decision-making tool and a user guide to assess health innovations. Although the tools and the guide are still to be tested, this is a first step in developing a standardized tool for innovation assessment among the Nordic countries.Nordic Test Beds (NoTeB) is a Nordic Innovation funded project to strengthen Nordic health care cooperation. By joining Nordic university hospitals and innovation centers, its aim has been to provide a Nordic test bed cooperation ecosystem that includes templates and tools for early decisional support.
The objective of this study was to describe how the partners in the Nordic collaboration developed and agreed upon an early assessment framework in health care. The framework was also presented as a user guide with the aim of providing advisory guidelines accessible to health care institutions to support early assessment of health innovation. A co-creation process comprising all collaborating Nordic partners initiated by a workshop, sharing current practice and aligning needs and content of for a decision support tool.
Large Nordic variation in value assessment approaches were found. For the decision-making tools, two important features were emphasized; the need for a decision support rather than a decision-making tool and that the tool should be based on valid measures; HTA- methodology. For the user guide, it was emphasized that it should be easily available in an easy-to-read report format.
In conclusion, NoTeB was successful in uniting Nordic countries in a common objective to develop a decision-making tool and a user guide to assess health innovations. Although the tools and the guide are still to be tested, this is a first step in developing a standardized tool for innovation assessment among the Nordic countries
Altered Expression of Antimicrobial Peptides in the Upper Gastrointestinal Tract of Patients with Diabetes Mellitus
Antimicrobial peptides (AMP) are essential components of innate immunity with a broad
range of antimicrobial activities against bacteria, viruses, and fungi. The aim of this study was to
investigate AMP expression in the upper gastrointestinal tract in normal and pathological metabolic
states in humans. Furthermore, we examined the correlation between vitamin D levels and AMP
expression in the same cohort. Serum concentrations of 25-hydroxyvitamin D3 were measured, and
mRNA expression of β-defensins HBD-1, -2, -3, -4, α-defensins HD-5 and -6 and cathelicidin in the
upper gastrointestinal tract epithelia were determined by quantitative RT-PCR in 31 individuals
(10 with type 2 diabetes, 10 with insulin resistance, and 11 healthy controls). The majority of the cohort
showed low vitamin D concentrations, which were negatively correlated with mRNA expression
levels of HBD-3 in corpus mucosa. HBD-1 and HBD-3 mRNA were expressed in corpus mucosa, with
the former significantly decreased in patients with diabetes. Hence, we conclude that type 2 diabetes
is associated with reduced AMP expression in the upper gastrointestinal tract, which might contribute
towards epithelial barrier dysfunction and increased bacterial translocation in these patients
Stability of rotating states in a weakly-interacting Bose-Einstein condensate
We investigate the lowest state of a rotating, weakly-interacting
Bose-Einstein condensate trapped in a harmonic confining potential that is
driven by an infinitesimally asymmetric perturbation. Although in an
axially-symmetric confining potential the gas has an axially-symmetric
single-particle density distribution, we show that in the presence of the small
asymmetric perturbation its lowest state is the one given by the mean-field
approximation, which is a broken-symmetric state. We also estimate the rate of
relaxation of angular momentum when the gas is no longer driven by the
asymmetric perturbation and identify two regimes of "slow" and "fast"
relaxation. States of certain symmetry are found to be more robust.Comment: 6 pages, RevTe
The Ellipticity and Orientation of Clusters of Galaxies from N-Body Experiments
In this study we use simulations of 128 particles to study the
ellipticity and orientation of clusters of galaxies in N-body simulations of
differing power-law initial spectra (P(k) \propto k^n ,n = +1, 0, -1, -2\Omega_0 = 0.2nD < 15 h^{-1}n-$dependent way.Comment: 22 pages, requires aaspp4.sty, flushrt.sty, and epsf.sty Revised
manuscript, accepted for publication in Ap
The Fire and Smoke Model Evaluation Experiment—A Plan for Integrated, Large Fire–Atmosphere Field Campaigns
The Fire and Smoke Model Evaluation Experiment (FASMEE) is designed to collect integrated observations from large wildland fires and provide evaluation datasets for new models and operational systems. Wildland fire, smoke dispersion, and atmospheric chemistry models have become more sophisticated, and next-generation operational models will require evaluation datasets that are coordinated and comprehensive for their evaluation and advancement. Integrated measurements are required, including ground-based observations of fuels and fire behavior, estimates of fire-emitted heat and emissions fluxes, and observations of near-source micrometeorology, plume properties, smoke dispersion, and atmospheric chemistry. To address these requirements the FASMEE campaign design includes a study plan to guide the suite of required measurements in forested sites representative of many prescribed burning programs in the southeastern United States and increasingly common high-intensity fires in the western United States. Here we provide an overview of the proposed experiment and recommendations for key measurements. The FASMEE study provides a template for additional large-scale experimental campaigns to advance fire science and operational fire and smoke models
Stability of a vortex in a small trapped Bose-Einstein condensate
A second-order expansion of the Gross-Pitaevskii equation in the interaction
parameter determines the thermodynamic critical angular velocity Omega_c for
the creation of a vortex in a small axisymmetric condensate. Similarly, a
second-order expansion of the Bogoliubov equations determines the (negative)
frequency omega_a of the anomalous mode. Although Omega_c = -omega_a through
first order, the second-order contributions ensure that the absolute value
|omega_a| is always smaller than the critical angular velocity Omega_c. With
increasing external rotation Omega, the dynamical instability of the condensate
with a vortex disappears at Omega*=|omega_a|, whereas the vortex state becomes
energetically stable at the larger value Omega_c. Both second-order
contributions depend explicitly on the axial anisotropy of the trap. The
appearance of a local minimum of the free energy for a vortex at the center
determines the metastable angular velocity Omega_m. A variational calculation
yields Omega_m=|\omega_a| to first order (hence Omega_m also coincides with the
critical angular velocity Omega_c to this order). Qualitatively, the scenario
for the onset of stability in the weak-coupling limit is the same as that found
in the strong-coupling (Thomas-Fermi) limit.Comment: 8 pages, RevTe
Weakly Interacting Bose-Einstein Condensates Under Rotation: Mean-field versus Exact Solutions
We consider a weakly-interacting, harmonically-trapped Bose-Einstein
condensed gas under rotation and investigate the connection between the
energies obtained from mean-field calculations and from exact diagonalizations
in a subspace of degenerate states. From the latter we derive an approximation
scheme valid in the thermodynamic limit of many particles. Mean-field results
are shown to emerge as the correct leading-order approximation to exact
calculations in the same subspace.Comment: 4 pages, RevTex, submitted to PR
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