Excess length of hospital stay due to healthcare acquired infections. Methodologies evaluation

BACKGROUND: Healthcare acquired infections (HAI) cause an increase of burden and in particular excess length of hospital stay (LOS) accounts for approximately up to 90% of total costs. Therefore accurate estimation of extra hospital stay due to healthcare acquired infections is very important. METHODS: The authors carried out a review comparing the principal methods internationally used for estimating the excess LOS attributable to healthcare acquired infections. RESULTS: The methods described and analysed are: 1) Implicit physician assessment; 2) appropriateness evaluation protocol; 3) unmatched case-control; 4) matched case-control; 5) regression analysis; 6) multistate model. The various methodologies are described underlining advantages and limits which researchers need to know before starting any economic analysis. CONCLUSIONS: Overall, studies taking into account the time-dependent nature of HAI show to give more precise and reliable results

Introduction to the TPLP special issue, logic programming in databases: From Datalog to semantic-web rules

Much has happened in data and knowledge base research since the introduction of the relational model in Codd (1970) and its strong logical foundations influence its advances ever since. Logic has been a common ground where Database and Artificial Intelligence research competed and collaborated with each other for a long time (Abiteboul et al. 1995). The product of this joint effort has been a set of logic-based formalisms, such as the Relational Calculus (Codd 1970), Datalog (Ceri et al. 1990), Description Logics (Baader et al. 2007), etc., capturing not only the structure but also the semantics of data in an explicit way, thus enabling complex inference procedures.This special issue contains three rigorously reviewed articles addressing problems that span from Query Answering to Data Mining. All these contributions have their roots in the foundational formalisms of Data and Knowledge Bases such as Logic Programming, Description Logic and Hybrid Logics, representing a clear example of the effort that the Database and the Semantic-Web communities are producing to bridge the various schools of thinking in modern Data and Knowledge Management

A bibliometric analysis of the scientific literature on Fairtrade labelling

Since its foundation, the Fairtrade movement has attracted the attention of consumers, practitioners, media and scholars. Discussing the role that Fairtrade can play on a global yet locally rooted scale is very complex, as research reports contrasting results about its usefulness and effectiveness. This study examines scientific research on Fairtrade over the last decades by conducting a bibliometric analysis of the literature published on the ISI Web of Knowledge Core Collection, which included 876 papers by 1,293 authors in 432 journals. Results show that despite this being a relatively recent field of study, Fairtrade has been approached from different disciplines with different methodologies and objectives. The structured quantitative study of the literature enabled us to inspect how research has evolved over the years in the light of the changes faced by Fairtrade, to explore its scope in the broader field of the global market, to detect current research schools and perspectives within the network and to identify hitherto unaddressed issues and unconnected subfields

Clinical significance of epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition in laryngeal carcinoma: Its role in the different subsites

Background: During epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition, cancer cells lose adhesion capacity gaining migratory properties. The role of the process on prognosis has been evaluated in 50 cases of laryngeal carcinoma. Methods: E-cadherin, N-cadherin, β-catenin, α-catenin, γ-catenin, caveolin-1, and vimentin immunohistochemical expression were evaluated using a double score based on staining intensity and cellular localization. Results: Cytoplasmic E-cadherin and α/γ catenin staining were associated with a decrease in survival, cytoplasmic β-catenin was associated with advanced stage, and N-cadherin and vimentin expression were associated with poor differentiation and tumor relapse. On the basis of cancer cells, epithelial or mesenchymal morphological and immunophenotypic similarity we identified 4 main subgroups correlated with a transition to a more undifferentiated phenotype, which have a different pattern of relapse and survival. Conclusion: The negative prognostic role of epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition has been confirmed and a predictive role in glottic tumors has been suggested, leading us to propose epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition as an additional adverse feature in laryngeal carcinoma

Which affects affect the use of new technologies? Italian adaptation of the Internet Motive Questionnaire for Adolescents (IMQ-A) and criterion validity with problematic use and body dissatisfaction

Given the negative role of problematic use of new technological devices (NTD) in behavioral and psychological domains, the aim of the study is the Italian adaptation and validation of the Internet Motive Questionnaire for Adolescents (IMQ-A) in order to understand the motivation for the use of NTD. A total of 769 students 10-19 aged (M = 13.22, SD = 1.56) completed the IMQ-A, the Collins Figures Rating Scale, and two measures regarding the problematic NTD use, focused on overuse during the night and during meals. The IMQ-A showed adequate internal consistency with regard to its four subscales: Coping (α = .84), Social (α = .80), Enhancement (α = .80), and Conformity (α = .68) motives. However, with regard to factorial structure, a threefactor model (excluding Conformity subscale) showed slightly better fit indices than the original model. Coping motive was correlated with problematic NTD use and succeeded in predicting higher scores in body dissatisfaction as evidence of criterion-related and external validity. The Italian adaptation of the IMQ-A can be useful in both research and clinical fields, in order to propose alternative strategies for coping to users and to improve emotion regulation facets

Trends of influenza B during the 2010–2016 seasons in 2 regions of north and south Italy: The impact of the vaccine mismatch on influenza immunisation strategy

Influenza A and B viruses are responsible for respiratory infections, representing globally seasonal threats to human health. The 2 viral types often co-circulate and influenza B plays an important role in the spread of infection. A 6-year retrospective surveillance study was conducted between 2010 and 2016 in 2 large administrative regions of Italy, located in the north (Liguria) and in the south (Sicily) of the country, to describe the burden and epidemiology of both B/Victoria and B/Yamagata lineages in different healthcare settings. Influenza B viruses were detected in 5 of 6 seasonal outbreaks, exceeding influenza A during the season 2012–2013. Most of influenza B infections were found in children aged ≤ 14 y and significant differences were observed in the age-groups infected by the different lineages. B/Victoria strains prevailed in younger population than B/Yamagata, but also were more frequently found in the community setting. Conversely, B/Yamagata viruses were prevalent among hospitalized cases suggesting their potential role in the development of more severe disease. The relative proportions of viral lineages varied from year to year, resulting in different lineage-level mismatch for the B component of trivalent influenza vaccine. Our findings confirmed the need for continuous virological surveillance of seasonal epidemics and bring attention to the adoption of universal influenza immunization program in the childhood. The use of tetravalent vaccine formulations may be useful to improve the prevention and control of the influenza burden in general population

Image-guided laser ablation in the treatment of recurrence of renal tumours : technique and preliminary results

Abdominal recurrences of renal cell carcinoma (RCC) after surgery might represent a challenge for treatment, often requiring difficult surgeries or anticipated systemic therapy. Our aim is to illustrate a novel application of laser ablation for the treatment of abdominal recurrences of RCC. Patients with abdominal recurrences of renal cancer were treated under ultrasound/computed tomography guidance with a diode laser inserted into the lesion through a thin 21-G needle. A fixed 3-W power protocol was used, changing the illumination time according to lesion dimension and shape. Also, technical success, technical efficacy, local tumour progression, and major and minor complications were retrospectively analysed. Three patients were treated with image-guided laser ablation for abdominal recurrences of RCC. In all cases, it was possible to perform ablation as preoperatively planned and all three nodules (size of 6, 8, and 12 mm) were completely ablated with no evidence of residual enhancement after 6 weeks at contrast-enhanced CT. No minor or major complications were observed. No local tumour progression was reported up to 12 months from ablation. Image-guided laser ablation holds the potential to offer a minimally invasive treatment to patients with abdominal recurrence of RCC. Further studies are needed to evaluate the clinical role of this technique