Health care systems in Sweden and China: Legal and formal organisational aspects

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Sharing knowledge and experience internationally can provide valuable information, and comparative research can make an important contribution to knowledge about health care and cost-effective use of resources. Descriptions of the organisation of health care in different countries can be found, but no studies have specifically compared the legal and formal organisational systems in Sweden and China.</p> <p>Aim</p> <p>To describe and compare health care in Sweden and China with regard to legislation, organisation, and finance.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Literature reviews were carried out in Sweden and China to identify literature published from 1985 to 2008 using the same keywords. References in recent studies were scrutinized, national legislation and regulations and government reports were searched, and textbooks were searched manually.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>The health care systems in Sweden and China show dissimilarities in legislation, organisation, and finance. In Sweden there is one national law concerning health care while in China the law includes the "Hygienic Common Law" and the "Fundamental Health Law" which is under development. There is a tendency towards market-orientated solutions in both countries. Sweden has a well-developed primary health care system while the primary health care system in China is still under development and relies predominantly on hospital-based care concentrated in cities.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Despite dissimilarities in health care systems, Sweden and China have similar basic assumptions, i.e. to combine managerial-organisational efficiency with the humanitarian-egalitarian goals of health care, and both strive to provide better care for all.</p

Fluorescence spectroscopy for wastewater monitoring: A review

© 2016. Wastewater quality is usually assessed using physical, chemical and microbiological tests, which are not suitable for online monitoring, provide unreliable results, or use hazardous chemicals. Hence, there is an urgent need to find a rapid and effective method for the evaluation of water quality in natural and engineered systems and for providing an early warning of pollution events. Fluorescence spectroscopy has been shown to be a valuable technique to characterize and monitor wastewater in surface waters for tracking sources of pollution, and in treatment works for process control and optimization. This paper reviews the current progress in applying fluorescence to assess wastewater quality. Studies have shown that, in general, wastewater presents higher fluorescence intensity compared to natural waters for the components associated with peak T (living and dead cellular material and their exudates) and peak C (microbially reprocessed organic matter). Furthermore, peak T fluorescence is significantly reduced after the biological treatment process and peak C is almost completely removed after the chlorination and reverse osmosis stages. Thus, simple fluorometers with appropriate wavelength selectivity, particularly for peaks T and C could be used for online monitoring in wastewater treatment works. This review also shows that care should be taken in any attempt to identify wastewater pollution sources due to potential overlapping fluorophores. Correlations between fluorescence intensity and water quality parameters such as biochemical oxygen demand (BOD) and total organic carbon (TOC) have been developed and dilution of samples, typically up to ×10, has been shown to be useful to limit inner filter effect. It has been concluded that the following research gaps need to be filled: lack of studies on the on-line application of fluorescence spectroscopy in wastewater treatment works and lack of data processing tools suitable for rapid correction and extraction of data contained in fluorescence excitation-emission matrices (EEMs) for real-time studies

An integrative multi-omics analysis to identify candidate DNA methylation biomarkers related to prostate cancer risk.

It remains elusive whether some of the associations identified in genome-wide association studies of prostate cancer (PrCa) may be due to regulatory effects of genetic variants on CpG sites, which may further influence expression of PrCa target genes. To search for CpG sites associated with PrCa risk, here we establish genetic models to predict methylation (N = 1,595) and conduct association analyses with PrCa risk (79,194 cases and 61,112 controls). We identify 759 CpG sites showing an association, including 15 located at novel loci. Among those 759 CpG sites, methylation of 42 is associated with expression of 28 adjacent genes. Among 22 genes, 18 show an association with PrCa risk. Overall, 25 CpG sites show consistent association directions for the methylation-gene expression-PrCa pathway. We identify DNA methylation biomarkers associated with PrCa, and our findings suggest that specific CpG sites may influence PrCa via regulating expression of candidate PrCa target genes

The 5p15.33 Locus Is Associated with Risk of Lung Adenocarcinoma in Never-Smoking Females in Asia

Genome-wide association studies of lung cancer reported in populations of European background have identified three regions on chromosomes 5p15.33, 6p21.33, and 15q25 that have achieved genome-wide significance with p-values of 10−7 or lower. These studies have been performed primarily in cigarette smokers, raising the possibility that the observed associations could be related to tobacco use, lung carcinogenesis, or both. Since most women in Asia do not smoke, we conducted a genome-wide association study of lung adenocarcinoma in never-smoking females (584 cases, 585 controls) among Han Chinese in Taiwan and found that the most significant association was for rs2736100 on chromosome 5p15.33 (p = 1.30×10−11). This finding was independently replicated in seven studies from East Asia totaling 1,164 lung adenocarcinomas and 1,736 controls (p = 5.38×10−11). A pooled analysis achieved genome-wide significance for rs2736100. This SNP marker localizes to the CLPTM1L-TERT locus on chromosome 5p15.33 (p = 2.60×10−20, allelic risk = 1.54, 95% Confidence Interval (CI) 1.41–1.68). Risks for heterozygote and homozygote carriers of the minor allele were 1.62 (95% CI; 1.40–1.87), and 2.35 (95% CI: 1.95–2.83), respectively. In summary, our results show that genetic variation in the CLPTM1L-TERT locus of chromosome 5p15.33 is directly associated with the risk of lung cancer, most notably adenocarcinoma

An integrative multi-omics analysis to identify candidate DNA methylation biomarkers related to prostate cancer risk

Abstract: It remains elusive whether some of the associations identified in genome-wide association studies of prostate cancer (PrCa) may be due to regulatory effects of genetic variants on CpG sites, which may further influence expression of PrCa target genes. To search for CpG sites associated with PrCa risk, here we establish genetic models to predict methylation (N = 1,595) and conduct association analyses with PrCa risk (79,194 cases and 61,112 controls). We identify 759 CpG sites showing an association, including 15 located at novel loci. Among those 759 CpG sites, methylation of 42 is associated with expression of 28 adjacent genes. Among 22 genes, 18 show an association with PrCa risk. Overall, 25 CpG sites show consistent association directions for the methylation-gene expression-PrCa pathway. We identify DNA methylation biomarkers associated with PrCa, and our findings suggest that specific CpG sites may influence PrCa via regulating expression of candidate PrCa target genes

Вихретоковый анизотропный термоэлектрический первичный преобразователь лучистого потока

Представлена оригинальная конструкция первичного преобразователя лучистого потока, который может служить основой для создания приемника неселективного излучения с повышенной чувствительностью

Robust estimation of bacterial cell count from optical density

Optical density (OD) is widely used to estimate the density of cells in liquid culture, but cannot be compared between instruments without a standardized calibration protocol and is challenging to relate to actual cell count. We address this with an interlaboratory study comparing three simple, low-cost, and highly accessible OD calibration protocols across 244 laboratories, applied to eight strains of constitutive GFP-expressing E. coli. Based on our results, we recommend calibrating OD to estimated cell count using serial dilution of silica microspheres, which produces highly precise calibration (95.5% of residuals &lt;1.2-fold), is easily assessed for quality control, also assesses instrument effective linear range, and can be combined with fluorescence calibration to obtain units of Molecules of Equivalent Fluorescein (MEFL) per cell, allowing direct comparison and data fusion with flow cytometry measurements: in our study, fluorescence per cell measurements showed only a 1.07-fold mean difference between plate reader and flow cytometry data