Apollo Lightcraft Project

This second year of the NASA/USRA-sponsored Advanced Aeronautical Design effort focused on systems integration and analysis of the Apollo Lightcraft. This beam-powered, single-stage-to-orbit vehicle is envisioned as the shuttlecraft of the 21st century. The five person vehicle was inspired largely by the Apollo Command Module, then reconfigured to include a new front seat with dual cockpit controls for the pilot and co-pilot, while still retaining the 3-abreast crew accommodations in the rear seat. The gross liftoff mass is 5550 kg, of which 500 kg is the payload and 300 kg is the LH2 propellant. The round trip cost to orbit is projected to be three orders of magnitude lower than the current space shuttle orbiter. The advanced laser-driven 5-speed combined-cycle engine has shiftpoints at Mach 1, 5, 11 and 25+. The Apollo Lightcraft can climb into low Earth orbit in three minutes, or fly to any spot on the globe in less than 45 minutes. Detailed investigations of the Apollo Lightcraft Project this second year further evolved the propulsion system design, while focusing on the following areas: (1) man/machine interface; (2) flight control systems; (3) power beaming system architecture; (4) re-entry aerodynamics; (5) shroud structural dynamics; and (6) optimal trajectory analysis. The principal new findings are documented. Advanced design efforts for the next academic year (1988/1989) will center on a one meter+ diameter spacecraft: the Lightcraft Technology Demonstrator (LTD). Detailed engineering design and analyses, as well as critical proof-of-concept experiments, will be carried out on this small, near-term machine. As presently conceived, the LTD could be constructed using state of the art components derived from existing liquid chemical rocket engine technology, advanced composite materials, and high power laser optics

Antiviral treatment for outpatient use during an influenza pandemic: a decision tree model of outcomes averted and cost-effectiveness

Background: Many countries have acquired antiviral stockpiles for pandemic influenza mitigation and a significant part of the stockpile may be focussed towards community-based treatment. Methods: We developed a spreadsheet-based, decision tree model to assess outcomes averted and cost-effectiveness of antiviral treatment for outpatient use from the perspective of the healthcare payer in the UK. We defined five pandemic scenarios– one based on the 2009 A(H1N1) pandemic and four hypothetical scenarios varying in measures of transmissibility and severity. Results: Community-based antiviral treatment was estimated to avert 14% to 23% of hospitalizations in an overall population of 62.28 million. Higher proportions of averted outcomes were seen in patients with high-risk conditions, when compared to non-high-risk patients. We found that antiviral treatment was cost-saving across pandemic scenarios for high-risk population groups, and cost-saving for the overall population in higher severity influenza pandemics. Antiviral effectiveness had the greatest influence on both the number of hospitalizations averted and on cost-effectiveness. Conclusions: This analysis shows that across pandemic scenarios, antiviral treatment can be cost-saving for population groups at high risk of influenza-related complications

THE LIBERAL PEACE: CHALLENGES TO DEVELOPMENT, DEMOCRACY AND SOFT POWER

The term “liberal” peace refers to the absence of fatal conflict between democratic nations, which are also economically interdependent. This chapter sketches the ideal and economic versions of the liberal peace theory. Policies promoting globalization may engender social conflict risks, as they produce inequality. In developed countries, we are witnessing the rise of populism, and the rolling back of the liberal aspects of democracy in developing countries. The avoidance of these problems requires careful management such that growth is broad-based, and policies promoting greater openness are sufficiently cushioned to protect losers. It is also necessary to manage globalization, and limit its negative impact on domestic social contracts, particularly when it comes to inequality, worker rights, and fiscal austerity

Toward a 21st-century health care system: Recommendations for health care reform

The coverage, cost, and quality problems of the U.S. health care system are evident. Sustainable health care reform must go beyond financing expanded access to care to substantially changing the organization and delivery of care. The FRESH-Thinking Project (www.fresh-thinking.org) held a series of workshops during which physicians, health policy experts, health insurance executives, business leaders, hospital administrators, economists, and others who represent diverse perspectives came together. This group agreed that the following 8 recommendations are fundamental to successful reform: 1. Replace the current fee-for-service payment system with a payment system that encourages and rewards innovation in the efficient delivery of quality care. The new payment system should invest in the development of outcome measures to guide payment. 2. Establish a securely funded, independent agency to sponsor and evaluate research on the comparative effectiveness of drugs, devices, and other medical interventions. 3. Simplify and rationalize federal and state laws and regulations to facilitate organizational innovation, support care coordination, and streamline financial and administrative functions. 4. Develop a health information technology infrastructure with national standards of interoperability to promote data exchange. 5. Create a national health database with the participation of all payers, delivery systems, and others who own health care data. Agree on methods to make de-identified information from this database on clinical interventions, patient outcomes, and costs available to researchers. 6. Identify revenue sources, including a cap on the tax exclusion of employer-based health insurance, to subsidize health care coverage with the goal of insuring all Americans. 7. Create state or regional insurance exchanges to pool risk, so that Americans without access to employer-based or other group insurance could obtain a standard benefits package through these exchanges. Employers should also be allowed to participate in these exchanges for their employees' coverage. 8. Create a health coverage board with broad stakeholder representation to determine and periodically update the affordable standard benefit package available through state or regional insurance exchanges

ARIA 2016 : Care pathways implementing emerging technologies for predictive medicine in rhinitis and asthma across the life cycle

The Allergic Rhinitis and its Impact on Asthma (ARIA) initiative commenced during a World Health Organization workshop in 1999. The initial goals were (1) to propose a new allergic rhinitis classification, (2) to promote the concept of multi-morbidity in asthma and rhinitis and (3) to develop guidelines with all stakeholders that could be used globally for all countries and populations. ARIA-disseminated and implemented in over 70 countries globally-is now focusing on the implementation of emerging technologies for individualized and predictive medicine. MASK [MACVIA (Contre les Maladies Chroniques pour un Vieillissement Actif)-ARIA Sentinel NetworK] uses mobile technology to develop care pathways for the management of rhinitis and asthma by a multi-disciplinary group and by patients themselves. An app (Android and iOS) is available in 20 countries and 15 languages. It uses a visual analogue scale to assess symptom control and work productivity as well as a clinical decision support system. It is associated with an inter-operable tablet for physicians and other health care professionals. The scaling up strategy uses the recommendations of the European Innovation Partnership on Active and Healthy Ageing. The aim of the novel ARIA approach is to provide an active and healthy life to rhinitis sufferers, whatever their age, sex or socio-economic status, in order to reduce health and social inequalities incurred by the disease.Peer reviewe

Global, regional, and national incidence, prevalence, and years lived with disability for 354 diseases and injuries for 195 countries and territories, 1990-2017: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2017.

The Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries and Risk Factors 2017 includes a comprehensive assessment of incidence, prevalence, and years lived with disability (YLDs) for 354 causes in 195 countries and territories from 1990 to 2017. Previous GBD studies have shown how the decline of mortality rates from 1990 to 2016 has led to an increase in life expectancy, an ageing global population, and an expansion of the non-fatal burden of disease and injury. These studies have also shown how a substantial portion of the world's population experiences non-fatal health loss with considerable heterogeneity among different causes, locations, ages, and sexes. Ongoing objectives of the GBD study include increasing the level of estimation detail, improving analytical strategies, and increasing the amount of high-quality data. METHODS: We estimated incidence and prevalence for 354 diseases and injuries and 3484 sequelae. We used an updated and extensive body of literature studies, survey data, surveillance data, inpatient admission records, outpatient visit records, and health insurance claims, and additionally used results from cause of death models to inform estimates using a total of 68 781 data sources. Newly available clinical data from India, Iran, Japan, Jordan, Nepal, China, Brazil, Norway, and Italy were incorporated, as well as updated claims data from the USA and new claims data from Taiwan (province of China) and Singapore. We used DisMod-MR 2.1, a Bayesian meta-regression tool, as the main method of estimation, ensuring consistency between rates of incidence, prevalence, remission, and cause of death for each condition. YLDs were estimated as the product of a prevalence estimate and a disability weight for health states of each mutually exclusive sequela, adjusted for comorbidity. We updated the Socio-demographic Index (SDI), a summary development indicator of income per capita, years of schooling, and total fertility rate. Additionally, we calculated differences between male and female YLDs to identify divergent trends across sexes. GBD 2017 complies with the Guidelines for Accurate and Transparent Health Estimates Reporting

Determining value in health technology assessment: Stay the course or tack away?

The economic evaluation of new health technologies to assess whether the value of the expected health benefits warrants the proposed additional costs has become an essential step in making novel interventions available to patients. This assessment of value is problematic because there exists no natural means to measure it. One approach is to assume that society wishes to maximize aggregate health, measured in terms of quality-adjusted life-years (QALYs). Commonly, a single 'cost-effectiveness' threshold is used to gauge whether the intervention is sufficiently efficient in doing so. This approach has come under fire for failing to account for societal values that favor treating more severe illness and ensuring equal access to resources, regardless of pre-existing conditions or capacity to benefit. Alternatives involving expansion of the measure of benefit or adjusting the threshold have been proposed and some have advocated tacking away from the cost per QALY entirely to implement therapeutic area-specific efficiency frontiers, multicriteria decision analysis or other approaches that keep the dimensions of benefit distinct and value them separately. In this paper, each of these alternative courses is considered, based on the experiences of the authors, with a view to clarifying their implications

Next-generation ARIA care pathways for rhinitis and asthma : a model for multimorbid chronic diseases

Background In all societies, the burden and cost of allergic and chronic respiratory diseases are increasing rapidly. Most economies are struggling to deliver modern health care effectively. There is a need to support the transformation of the health care system into integrated care with organizational health literacy. Main body As an example for chronic disease care, MASK (Mobile Airways Sentinel NetworK), a new project of the ARIA (Allergic Rhinitis and its Impact on Asthma) initiative, and POLLAR (Impact of Air POLLution on Asthma and Rhinitis, EIT Health), in collaboration with professional and patient organizations in the field of allergy and airway diseases, are proposing real-life ICPs centred around the patient with rhinitis, and using mHealth to monitor environmental exposure. Three aspects of care pathways are being developed: (i) Patient participation, health literacy and self-care through technology-assisted "patient activation", (ii) Implementation of care pathways by pharmacists and (iii) Next-generation guidelines assessing the recommendations of GRADE guidelines in rhinitis and asthma using real-world evidence (RWE) obtained through mobile technology. The EU and global political agendas are of great importance in supporting the digital transformation of health and care, and MASK has been recognized by DG Sante as a Good Practice in the field of digitally-enabled, integrated, person-centred care. Conclusion In 20 years, ARIA has considerably evolved from the first multimorbidity guideline in respiratory diseases to the digital transformation of health and care with a strong political involvement.Peer reviewe