The burden of legionnaires’ disease in Belgium, 2013 to 2017

Background: Legionnaires’ disease (LD) is a severe bacterial infection causing pneumonia. Surveillance commonly underestimates the true incidence as not all cases are laboratory confirmed and reported to public health authorities. The aim of this study was to present indicators for the impact of LD in Belgium between 2013 and 2017 and to estimate its true burden in the Belgian population in 2017, the most recent year for which the necessary data were available. Methods: Belgian hospital discharge data, data from three infectious disease surveillance systems (mandatory notification, sentinel laboratories and the national reference center), information on reimbursed diagnostic tests from the Belgian National Institute for Health and Disability Insurance and mortality data from the Belgian statistical office were used. To arrive at an estimate of the total number of symptomatic cases in Belgium, we defined a surveillance pyramid and estimated a multiplication factor to account for LD cases not captured by surveillance. The multiplication factor was then applied to the pooled number of LD cases reported by the three surveillance systems. This estimate was the basis for our hazard- and incidence-based Disability-Adjusted Life Years (DALYs) calculation. To account for uncertainty in the estimations of the DALYs and the true incidence, we used Monte Carlo simulations with 10,000 iterations. Results: We found an average of 184 LD cases reported by Belgian hospitals annually (2013–2017), the majority of which were male (72%). The surveillance databases reported 215 LD cases per year on average, 11% of which were fatal within 90 days after diagnosis. The estimation of the true incidence in the community yielded 2674 (95% Uncertainty Interval [UI]: 2425–2965) cases in 2017. LD caused 3.05 DALYs per case (95%UI: 1.67–4.65) and 8147 (95%UI: 4453–12,426) total DALYs in Belgium in 2017, which corresponds to 71.96 (95%UI: 39.33–109.75) DALYs per 100,000 persons. Conclusions: This analysis revealed a considerable burden of LD in Belgium that is vastly underestimated by surveillance data. Comparison with other European DALY estimates underlines the impact of the used data sources and methodological approaches on burden estimates, illustrating that national burden of disease studies remain essential

Indecomposability parameters in chiral Logarithmic Conformal Field Theory

Work of the last few years has shown that the key algebraic features of Logarithmic Conformal Field Theories (LCFTs) are already present in some finite lattice systems (such as the XXZ spin-1/2 chain) before the continuum limit is taken. This has provided a very convenient way to analyze the structure of indecomposable Virasoro modules and to obtain fusion rules for a variety of models such as (boundary) percolation etc. LCFTs allow for additional quantum numbers describing the fine structure of the indecomposable modules, and generalizing the `b-number' introduced initially by Gurarie for the c=0 case. The determination of these indecomposability parameters has given rise to a lot of algebraic work, but their physical meaning has remained somewhat elusive. In a recent paper, a way to measure b for boundary percolation and polymers was proposed. We generalize this work here by devising a general strategy to compute matrix elements of Virasoro generators from the numerical analysis of lattice models and their continuum limit. The method is applied to XXZ spin-1/2 and spin-1 chains with open (free) boundary conditions. They are related to gl(n+m|m) and osp(n+2m|2m)-invariant superspin chains and to nonlinear sigma models with supercoset target spaces. These models can also be formulated in terms of dense and dilute loop gas. We check the method in many cases where the results were already known analytically. Furthermore, we also confront our findings with a construction generalizing Gurarie's, where logarithms emerge naturally in operator product expansions to compensate for apparently divergent terms. This argument actually allows us to compute indecomposability parameters in any logarithmic theory. A central result of our study is the construction of a Kac table for the indecomposability parameters of the logarithmic minimal models LM(1,p) and LM(p,p+1).Comment: 32 pages, 2 figures, Published Versio

COVID-19 symptoms at hospital admission vary with age and sex: results from the ISARIC prospective multinational observational study

Background: The ISARIC prospective multinational observational study is the largest cohort of hospitalized patients with COVID-19. We present relationships of age, sex, and nationality to presenting symptoms. Methods: International, prospective observational study of 60 109 hospitalized symptomatic patients with laboratory-confirmed COVID-19 recruited from 43 countries between 30 January and 3 August 2020. Logistic regression was performed to evaluate relationships of age and sex to published COVID-19 case definitions and the most commonly reported symptoms. Results: ‘Typical’ symptoms of fever (69%), cough (68%) and shortness of breath (66%) were the most commonly reported. 92% of patients experienced at least one of these. Prevalence of typical symptoms was greatest in 30- to 60-year-olds (respectively 80, 79, 69%; at least one 95%). They were reported less frequently in children (≤ 18 years: 69, 48, 23; 85%), older adults (≥ 70 years: 61, 62, 65; 90%), and women (66, 66, 64; 90%; vs. men 71, 70, 67; 93%, each P < 0.001). The most common atypical presentations under 60 years of age were nausea and vomiting and abdominal pain, and over 60 years was confusion. Regression models showed significant differences in symptoms with sex, age and country. Interpretation: This international collaboration has allowed us to report reliable symptom data from the largest cohort of patients admitted to hospital with COVID-19. Adults over 60 and children admitted to hospital with COVID-19 are less likely to present with typical symptoms. Nausea and vomiting are common atypical presentations under 30 years. Confusion is a frequent atypical presentation of COVID-19 in adults over 60 years. Women are less likely to experience typical symptoms than men

Les Fonds alternatifs sont-ils réellement décorrelés des produits d'investissments classiques?

Cette étude a pour objectif d'analyser en profondeur la corrélation qui existe entre les stratégies d'investissement alternatives communément appelées hedge funds et les produits d'investissement classiques. Nous procédons à une analyse en regroupant les fonds par stratégie d'investissement dans des indices composites et en les considérant de façon individuelle. De plus, nous procédons également à une analyse sur différentes sous-périodes afin d'analyser la constance des résultats obtenus. Nos résultats soulignent l'importance d'une dissociation des hedge funds par stratégie d'investissement car les résultats sont spécifiques aux stratégies et au fait que l'on considère les hedge funds en les groupant par stratégie ou de façon individuelle.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishe

Les Fonds alternatifs sont-ils réellement décorrelés des produits d'investissments classiques?

Cette étude a pour objectif d'analyser en profondeur la corrélation qui existe entre les stratégies d'investissement alternatives communément appelées hedge funds et les produits d'investissement classiques. Nous procédons à une analyse en regroupant les fonds par stratégie d'investissement dans des indices composites et en les considérant de façon individuelle. De plus, nous procédons également à une analyse sur différentes sous-périodes afin d'analyser la constance des résultats obtenus. Nos résultats soulignent l'importance d'une dissociation des hedge funds par stratégie d'investissement car les résultats sont spécifiques aux stratégies et au fait que l'on considère les hedge funds en les groupant par stratégie ou de façon individuelle.Hedge fund; alternative funds; corrélation; sub-period analysis; Hedge fund; fonds alternatifs; corrélation; analyse de sous-périodes

Is choice experiment becoming more popular than contingent valuation ? A systematic review in agriculture, environment and health Is choice experiment becoming more popular than contingent valuation? A systematic review in agriculture, environment and hea

Abstract: This paper provides a systematic review based on a large sample of articles published between 2004 and 2013 in economic journals and listed in ISI Web of Science. Results from descriptive statistics and regression models show that choice experiment (CE) is becoming more popular than contingent valuation (CV) in terms of number of publications and citations. Also, journals related to health economics and agricultural economics are more CE oriented than journals related to environmental economics. Finally, divergences across economic journals are found when comparing recent CE articles in terms of questionnaire design, econometric procedure, administration of questionnaire and type of participants. In particular, it is more standard to allow for unobserved taste heterogeneity in environmental journals than in health or agricultural journals

“External validity of WTP estimates: comparing preference and WTP-space model results”

International audienc

Effect of season and species on the nutritive value of leaves of high stem trees

In order to investigate their potential contribution to ruminant diets, the nutritive value of the leaves of five tree species was evaluated across the seasons. The sampling campaign was conducted on a French network of agroforestry paddocks implemented 25 years ago located in the north, the centre and the south of France. Tree leaves were collected on ash (Fraxinus excelsior), service tree (Sorbus domestica), sycamore tree (Acer pseudoplatanus), walnut (Juglans × regia × nigra) and wild cherry (Prunus avium). The nutritive value of the collected leaves was evaluated in June, August and October 2016 by analysing their protein and fibre contents and in vitro digestibility. Tree leaves composition exhibited large variations between species and between seasons. From spring to autumn, average DM varied from 288 to 450 g kg -1 , fibre content from 383 to 338 g kg -1 m and crude protein content from 160 to 110 g kg -1 . On the contrary, in vitro digestibility remained quite constant across the seasons (from 67.7 to 66.9%). This result contrasts with what is observed on grasses and herbaceous legumes in which in vitro digestibility decreases in autumn

Stated preferences: a unique database composed of 1657 recent published articles in journals related to agriculture, environment, or health

Numerous articles dealing with stated preferences are published every year in journals related to agriculture, environment, or health. Hence, it is not easy to find all the relevant articles when performing a benefit transfer, a meta-analysis, or a review of literature. Also, it is not easy to identify trends or common practices in these fields regarding the elicitation method. We have constructed and made available a unique database comprising 1657 choice experiment and/or contingent valuation articles published in journals related to agriculture, environment, or health between 2004 and 2016. We show that the number of choice experiment studies keeps increasing and the single-bounded dichotomous choice format is the most employed question format in contingent valuation studies. We also consider the new nomenclature proposed by Carson and Louviere and we show that the Bdiscrete choice experiment^ is more popular than the Bmatching method,^ especially in journals related to agriculture