An empirical analysis of habit and addiction to antibiotics

Because of bacterial resistance, current antibiotic consumption is reinforced by past use, and future utility is lower. The purpose of this article is to provide evidence on habit and addictive behavior toward antibiotics by exploring variations in the average consumption of antibiotics across 20 Italian regions. Using a balanced panel data set (2000-2009), we estimate myopic and rational addiction models, in which antibiotic consumption depends upon demographic and socioeconomic characteristics of the population, the supply of health care in the community, antibiotic price, and the "capital stock” of endogenous bacterial resistance measured by past and future consumption. Our empirical evidence shows that past antibiotic consumption stimulates current consumption and is also consistent with the rational addiction hypothesis. The low price elasticity of antibiotic demand suggests that policy measures targeted at antibiotic co-payments may not be effective in controlling antibiotic consumption. There is scope for other policy interventions, such as incentives and information campaigns targeted at doctor

Geociências: As bases do desenvolvimento sustentável.

bitstream/CPACT-2009-09/11714/1/Artigo_Filip_geosust.pd

A importância dos Sistemas de Informação Geográfica para as políticas públicas.

bitstream/item/59543/1/SIG-Filippini-Cult.pd

Upper critical field in {Ba1−x_{1-x}Kx_xBiO3_3}: magnetotransport versus magnetotunneling

Elastic tunneling is used as a powerful direct tool to determine the upper critical field $H_{c2}(T)$ in the high-$T_c$ oxide Ba$_{1-x}$K$_x$BiO$_3$. The temperature dependence of $H_{c2}$ inferred from the tunneling follows the Werthamer-Helfand-Hohenberg prediction for type-II superconductors. A comparison will be made with resistively determined critical field data.Comment: 4 pages incl. 5 figure

Agroecology in the curricula of the Faculty of Agricultural Sciences of the UNCUYO : contributions to the territorial planning

Fil: Studer, P. M.. Universidad Nacional de Cuyo. Facultad de Ciencias Agrarias. Departamento de Ingeniería AgrícolaFil: Viani, M. . Universidad Nacional de Cuyo. Facultad de Ciencias Agrarias. Departamento de Ingeniería AgrícolaFil: Filippini, María Flavia. Universidad Nacional de Cuyo. Facultad de Ciencias Agrarias. Departamento de Ingeniería Agrícol

A Consistent Dark Matter Interpretation For CoGeNT and DAMA/LIBRA

In this paper, we study the recent excess of low energy events observed by the CoGeNT collaboration and the annual modulation reported by the DAMA/LIBRA collaboration, and discuss whether these signals could both be the result of the same elastically scattering dark matter particle. We find that, without channeling but when taking into account uncertainties in the relevant quenching factors, a dark matter candidate with a mass of approximately ~7.0 GeV and a cross section with nucleons of sigma_{DM-N} ~2x10^-4 pb (2x10^-40 cm^2) could account for both of these observations. We also comment on the events recently observed in the oxygen band of the CRESST experiment and point out that these could potentially be explained by such a particle. Lastly, we compare the region of parameter space favored by DAMA/LIBRA and CoGeNT to the constraints from XENON 10, XENON 100, and CDMS (Si) and find that these experiments cannot at this time rule out a dark matter interpretation of these signals.Comment: 8 pages, 6 figure

Measurement-based Energy Consumption Profiling of Mobile Radio Networks

Abstract —The exponential growth of mobile traffic is forcing operators to increase quickly the capacity of their network and extend it with new technologies and improved topologies, such as heterogeneous layouts with small cells. However, since revenues cannot grow at the same rate of traffic, the main challenge is to manage capacity expansion with reduced costs. In addi- tion to fixed costs for the new network infrastructures, operational costs are becoming critical, mainly for en- ergy bill component. Moreover, the carbon footprint of mobile access networks is considered one of the largest of the whole ICT (Information and Communications Technology) sector and its reduction is fundamental for the environmental sustainability of the Internet economy. Due to these reasons, improving the energy efficiency of the access network is crucial for mobile operators. In order to do that, monitoring the energy consumption of the network components and defining models of energy profile are valuable approaches for es- timating energy costs and identifying the most efficient configurations. In this paper, we present an energy consumption monitoring system that has been designed and im- plemented in three different countries using separate sensors for the radio and base-band components of second, third and fourth generation systems. We also propose an energy profiling approach that simplifies the characterization of the different components and allows the estimation of the energy efficiency based on traffic statistics