Newborn hearing-screening project using transient evoked otoacoustic emissions: western sicily experience

Abstract OBJECTIVE: To study the incidence of congenital sensorineural hearing loss in all newborns introducing a screen test with a protocol no expensive, with a good "screen sensitivity" that could let an earlier identification of hearing impairment beginning early intervention by 2 months of age and increasing the probability of having language development within the normal range of development. METHODS: The study was conducted in Sciacca hospital from the beginning of 2003 to our days and was carried out with transient evoked otoacoustic emission using the criteria for PASS or RETEST and considering eventual prenatal and perinatal risk factors. All the newborns were divided into four groups each one with its personal secondary step program. RESULTS: In the years 2003-2004 the number of the newborns in Sciacca hospital was: 538 for 2003, 653 for 2004 with a total of 1191; all these infants were divided in three groups: resident in Sciacca, resident in the Sciacca borderlands and resident out of the district of Sciacca. The coverage (percentage of the target population who undergo the screen) was of 90% in the 2003 (483 newborns) and of 90% in the 2004 (585 newborns) with two cases of congenital sensorineural hearing loss identified. The incidence of sensorineural hearing loss, in the District of Sciacca, was estimated to be 2.07/1000 in 2003 and 1.70/1000 in 2004. CONCLUSIONS: The higher incidence of sensorineural hearing loss in our study is due to a high prevalence of consanguineous marriage in Sicily that was shown to be linked with hearing impairment. The "sensitivity value" was 95% at the first step but became 99% after the second step with a few number of false positive (0.74%). All the infants with a diagnosis of sensorineural hearing loss began a rehabilitation program before the age of 5 months and they have a good speech development and speech intelligibility

Clinical evolution of asthma from early childhood to development age

The aim of study was to conduct evaluation over twenty years on patients with relapsing wheezing breathing since their early years of life. The research included a period of observation started in 1978 up to 2002. The follow-up included 381 patients. The enrolment was carried out during the first 15 years, after being evaluated during outpatient or/ and hospitalization the children with a clinical picture resembling asthma (at least three episodes of dyspnea for a year, at least 2 years prior to our first observation). During follow-up the rhole of some risk factors in childhood able to affect the persistency of asthma in adulthood was considered. An early onset of symptoms resulted to be a favourable prognostic sign. At the end of study 294 (77.16%) patients at 18 year of age already had a remission of the disease. Patients with normal IgE levels and negative Rast and Prick skin tests presented a higher clinical remission: the rate were statistically significant. A symptomatic and preventive therapy practised regularly resulted to be a favourable factor for remission. The severity of symptoms result to be an unfavourable prognostic factor. In conclusion, if asthma is recognized precocity can mitigate and remove symptoms and so improved adulthood lifestyle

The Pricing Performance of Market Advisory Services in Corn and Soybeans Over 1995-2004

The purpose of this research report is to evaluate the pricing performance of market advisory services for the 1995-2004 corn and soybean crops. Marketing assumptions applied to advisory program track records are intended to accurately depict “real-world” marketing conditions facing a representative central Illinois corn and soybean farmer. Several key assumptions are: i) with a few exceptions, the marketing window for a crop year runs from September before harvest through August after harvest, ii) on-farm or commercial physical storage costs, as well as interest opportunity costs, are charged to post-harvest sales, iii) brokerage costs are subtracted for all futures and options transactions and iv) Commodity Credit Corporation (CCC) marketing loan recommendations made by advisory programs are followed wherever feasible. Based on these and other assumptions, the net price received by a subscriber to market advisory programs is calculated for the 1995-2004 corn and soybean crops. Market and farmer benchmarks are developed for the performance evaluations. Two market benchmarks are specified in order to test the sensitivity of performance results to changing benchmark assumptions. The 24-month market benchmark averages market prices for the entire 24-month marketing window. The 20-month market benchmark is computed in a similar fashion, except the first four months of the marketing window are omitted. Given the uncertainties involved in measuring the average price received by farmers, two alternative farmer benchmarks for central Illinois are specified. The market and farmer benchmarks are computed using the same assumptions applied to advisory program track records. Five basic indicators of performance are applied to advisory program prices and revenues over 1995-2004. Results show that advisory program prices fall in the top-third of the price range relatively infrequently. There is limited evidence that advisory programs as a group outperform market benchmarks, particularly after considering risk. The evidence is somewhat more positive with respect to farmer benchmarks, even after taking risk into account. For example, the average advisory return relative to the farmer benchmarks is 8 to $12 per acre with only a marginal increase in risk. Even though this return is small and mainly from corn, it nonetheless represents a non-trivial increase in net farm income per acre for grain farms in central Illinois. Test results also suggest that it is difficult to predict the year-to-year pricing performance of advisory programs based on past pricing performance. However, there is some evidence that performance is more predictable over longer time horizons, particularly at the extremes of performance rankings. The results raise the interesting possibility that even though advisory services do not appear to “beat the market,” they nonetheless provide the opportunity for some farmers to improve performance relative to the market. Mirroring debates about stock investing, the relevant issue is whether farmers can most effectively improve marketing performance by pursuing “active” strategies, like those recommended by advisory services, or “passive” strategies, which involve routinely spreading sales across the marketing window.Agricultural Finance, Financial Economics,

A Multifactorial pattern for the understanding of the psychological development of the child with impaired hearing and its clinical-therapeutic implications

The Authors propose a multifactorial pattern for the understanding of the psychological development of the child with impaired hearing. According to this pattern the psychological development is determined by a variety of factors that can be regrouped intothree categories: • family features • aspects concerning the rehabilitation and the acoustic prosthesis • social and socio-environmental factors. In order to apply an effective action it is necessary to consider the interaction of the different factors and to adapt the therapeutic plan to that particular situation

PORTFOLIOS OF AGRICULTURAL MARKET ADVISORY SERVICES: HOW MUCH DIVERSIFICATION IS ENOUGH?

Agricultural market advisory services offer specific advice to farmers on how to market their commodities. Farmers can subscribe to one or more of these services and follow their advice as a way of managing price risk. According to portfolio theory, a combination of these services may have risk/return benefits compared to individual services. This report analyzes the potential risk reduction gains from naïve diversification among market advisory services for corn and soybeans. Results show that increasing the number of (equal-weighting) services reduces portfolio expected risk, but the marginal decrease in risk from adding a new service decreases rapidly with portfolio size. The risk reduction benefits of naïve diversification among advisory services is relatively small compared to the results obtained in previous studies for stock portfolios, and this is mainly because advisory prices, on average, are highly correlated. A one service portfolio has only a 20%, 16% and 32% higher expected standard deviation than the minimum risk naïve portfolio for corn, soybeans and 50/50 revenue, respectively. Most risk reduction benefits are achieved with small portfolios. For instance, a four service portfolio has only 5%, 4% and 9% higher expected standard deviation than the minimum risk naïve portfolio for corn, soybeans and 50/50 revenue, respectively. Based on these results, there does not appear to be strong justification for farmers adopting portfolios with a large number of advisory services. Farmers may well choose portfolios with as few as two or three programs, since the relatively high total subscription costs associated with larger portfolios can be avoided while obtaining most of the benefits from diversification.Marketing,

Advisory Service Marketing Profiles for Corn in 2001

Agricultural Finance,