Improving hypertension management through pharmacist prescribing; the rural alberta clinical trial in optimizing hypertension (Rural RxACTION): trial design and methods

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Patients with hypertension continue to have less than optimal blood pressure control, with nearly one in five Canadian adults having hypertension. Pharmacist prescribing is gaining favor as a potential clinically efficacious and cost-effective means to improve both access and quality of care. With Alberta being the first province in Canada to have independent prescribing by pharmacists, it offers a unique opportunity to evaluate outcomes in patients who are prescribed antihypertensive therapy by pharmacists.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>The study is a randomized controlled trial of enhanced pharmacist care, with the unit of randomization being the patient. Participants will be randomized to enhanced pharmacist care (patient identification, assessment, education, close follow-up, and prescribing/titration of antihypertensive medications) or usual care. Participants are patients in rural Alberta with undiagnosed/uncontrolled blood pressure, as defined by the Canadian Hypertension Education Program. The primary outcome is the change in systolic blood pressure between baseline and 24 weeks in the enhanced-care versus usual-care arms. There are also three substudies running in conjunction with the project examining different remuneration models, investigating patient knowledge, and assessing health-resource utilization amongst patients in each group.</p> <p>Discussion</p> <p>To date, one-third of the required sample size has been recruited. There are 15 communities and 17 pharmacists actively screening, recruiting, and following patients. This study will provide high-level evidence regarding pharmacist prescribing.</p> <p>Trial Registration</p> <p>Clinicaltrials.gov <a href="http://www.clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT00878566">NCT00878566</a>.</p

Role of frontal cortex in memory for duration: an event-related potential study in humans

International audienceEvent-related potentials were recorded in order to determine how brain activity is lateralized during the encoding and the recognition of visual durations (700 and 2500 ms ranges). It is assumed in the Hemispheric Encoding Retrieval Asymmetry model that the encoding of words, faces and odours involves left frontal areas whereas their recognition involves right frontal areas. The present results indicate that, for temporal information, the hemispheric bias is different: a negativity developed over right frontal electrodes for both encoding and recognition, and for both duration ranges. Thus, the involvement of right frontal areas appears critical for time perception. Conversely to what was expected, contingent negative variation during recognition was large over both left and right frontal electrodes. These results suggest that the involvement of both hemispheres is necessary for recognition of temporal information

Mechanisms underlying the auditory continuity illusion: (Résumé)

cote interne IRCAM: Pressnitzer04kNone / NoneNational audienceMechanisms underlying the auditory continuity illusio

An Economic Analysis of Fair Value: The Evolution of Accounting Principles in European Legislation

En juillet 2002, le vote par le Parlement européen de nouvelles normes comptables entrant en vigueur le 1er janvier 2005 pour les sociétés cotées, a orienté la comptabilité européenne vers un nouveau principe, celui de la " juste valeur ". Jusqu'à présent, la réglementation européenne s'inspirait essentiellement de la logique du coût historique : l'évaluation des actifs au bilan se fondait ainsi sur leurs " coûts d'acquisition amortis ". L'introduction du principe de juste valeur impose la détermination de la valeur des actifs par l'estimation des flux de profits anticipés actualisés dont ces actifs pourraient être à l'origine. Il s'agirait donc d'établir la valeur de chaque actif selon sa contribution potentielle au profit de l'entreprise

An Economic Analysis of Fair Value: The Evolution of Accounting Principles in European Legislation

En juillet 2002, le vote par le Parlement européen de nouvelles normes comptables entrant en vigueur le 1er janvier 2005 pour les sociétés cotées, a orienté la comptabilité européenne vers un nouveau principe, celui de la " juste valeur ". Jusqu'à présent, la réglementation européenne s'inspirait essentiellement de la logique du coût historique : l'évaluation des actifs au bilan se fondait ainsi sur leurs " coûts d'acquisition amortis ". L'introduction du principe de juste valeur impose la détermination de la valeur des actifs par l'estimation des flux de profits anticipés actualisés dont ces actifs pourraient être à l'origine. Il s'agirait donc d'établir la valeur de chaque actif selon sa contribution potentielle au profit de l'entreprise

A MEG study. Proceedings of the Joint Congress: Is the auditory continuity illusion based on a change-detection mechanism

cote interne IRCAM: Pressnitzer04iNone / NoneNational audienceA MEG study. Proceedings of the Joint Congres

The “ticktock” of our internal clock: direct brain evidence of subjective accents in isochronous sequences

The phenomenon commonly known as subjective accent-ing refers to the fact that identical sound events within purely isochro-nous sequences are perceived as unequal. Although subjective accenting has been extensively explored using behavioral methods, no physio-logical evidence has ever been provided for it. In the present study, we tested the notion that these perceived irregularities are related to the dynamic deployment of attention. We disrupted listeners ’ expectancies in different positions of auditory equitone sequences and measured their responses through brain event-related potentials (ERPs). Signifi-cant differences in a late parietal (P3-like) ERP component were found between the responses elicited on odd-numbered versus even-numbered positions, suggesting that a default binary metric structure was perceived. Our findings indicate that this phenomenon has a rather cognitive, attention-dependent origin, partly affected by musi-cal expertise