Legal capacities required for prevention and control of noncommunicable diseases

Law lies at the centre of successful national strategies for prevention and control of noncommunicable diseases. By law we mean international agreements, national and subnational legislation, regulations and other executive instruments, and decisions of courts and tribunals. However, the vital role of law in global health development is often poorly understood, and eclipsed by other disciplines such as medicine, public health and economics. This paper identifies key areas of intersection between law and noncommunicable diseases, beginning with the role of law as a tool for implementing policies for prevention and control of leading risk factors. We identify actions that the World Health Organization and its partners could take to mobilize the legal workforce, strengthen legal capacity and support effective use of law at the national level. Legal and regulatory actions must move to the centre of national noncommunicable disease action plans. This requires high-level leadership from global and national leaders, enacting evidence-based legislation and building legal capacities

Design and Implementation of Educational Data Warehouse Using OLAP

Educational Data Mining (EDM) is a method to support learning and teaching processes. Educational Intelligence (EI) is not wide spreading like a business Intelligence (BI). Data Warehouse (DW) technology aims to collect historical data from different kinds of Database (DB) and unifies them under single schema by using the most powerful tool as OLAP which helps the decision maker to make a right decision. Educational Intelligence system combines Educational records of students from two different sources in a single DW. The inputs of educational data warehouse can be in any format (such as reports...). Since the quantities are huge, they are almost meaningless, on the other hand the outputs mainly consist of reports and flowcharts and KPIs with meaning and effective factor for decision maker. The proposed DW is implemented based on two simulated databases of Computer Science Department in the College of Science, University of Basra for the last ten years and AL_IRAQ University for the last 4 years implemented by SQL Server 2014 and SQL Server Data Tool (SSDT) 2012

Celebrating Wisconsin Entrepreneurs: Lessons Learned From Wisconsin Entrepreneurs and Businesses, and Future Prospects for a Healthcare Sector that is Healthcare Reform

Wisconsin has a rich history of entrepreneurial activity, which is often not appreciated beyond its well-recognized strength in the beer and cheese industries. However, Wisconsin’s entrepreneurial nature has been called into question. Recently, Wisconsin was ranked fiftieth in the United States for startup activity by the Kauffman Foundation. In contrast, Wisconsin ranks at the top of the country for startups that are local and established business with more longevity. The first half of this article will review some of the challenges and opportunities that have faced Wisconsin entrepreneurs, and will provide an overview of over 150 Wisconsin companies (Table 1), with lessons learned from the entrepreneurial journeys taken by their founders. Multiple industry sectors will be reviewed, including food and beverage, manufacturing, biotechnology and healthcare. Resources (legal, regulatory, mentoring, seed funds) that are being created to improve Wisconsin’s entrepreneurial ecosystem will also be presented. The second half of the article will provide a deeper and forward-looking analysis of one industry sector, HealthTech (Table 2), which has significant growth potential, and potential to positively impact healthcare reform. However, the HealthTech industry also faces political, legal, regulatory, and business challenges that could block its growth—a growth that has potential to positively impact the healthcare industry. The history of the healthcare and HealthTech industry in Wisconsin will be reviewed, followed by a summary of the current status and a look forward for the industry. The status of healthcare in the United States, with its high cost and poor access, will be discussed in the context of the current political debate. It will be argued that this political debate is focused more on who is covered than on how to constrain cost and increase quality, and it does not provide a useful discussion of the relative value (and current implementation) of single payer versus competitive markets as a way to control cost and increase quality. A case will be presented that Wisconsin’s HealthTech entrepreneurs could provide lower cost and higher quality healthcare, via technology-enabled consumerization of care. Still, challenges exist that relate to privacy issues and barriers to market entry, which may extend beyond intellectual property-based monopoly-power (intended to foster innovation) into the realm of anti-competitive business practices that hinder market-driven improvements in healthcare delivery (e.g., consumer-driven value-based shopping; usage of medical centers of excellence; consumercentric integrated care). The promise of HealthTech-based consumerization tools that empower and educate consumers at the front-line of healthcare to provide higher quality care at lower cost is presented, along with the legal and regulatory challenges that may need to be addressed for HealthTech entrepreneurs to succeed in this goal

A note on void ratio of fibre-reinforced soils

This technical note extends the concept of void ratio, presented traditionally in soil mechanics, for fibre-reinforced soils. Phase relationships related to the void ratio of fibre-reinforced soils are presented along with their definitions. A simple analytical model verified with experimental data for estimating the void ratio of fibre-reinforced soils is developed which can be used to express the compressibility of fibre-reinforced soils in geotechnical engineering applications. The results indicate that the void ratio of fibre-reinforced soils is dependent on the volume ratio of fibre-soil solid

Will cool roofs improve the thermal performance of our built environment? A study assessing roof systems in Bahrain

A number of international campaigns have recently proposed the use of cool roofs worldwide in order to cope with the summer urban heat island (UHI) effect. This work investigates cool roof strategy and examines the potential of such a strategy for Bahrain. Full-scale measurement, meteorological modelling and thermal simulation of five standard roofs were performed during particular summer days due to the high intensity levels of solar irradiation. This work shows that the light tile roof and metal decking are relatively cooler and more comfortable than others and that the maximum reduction in heat gain occurs for a light tile roof with thermal insulation materials. Nevertheless, without insulation the cooling load is increased by only 1.3%. This percentage seems not to be cost-effective where economics and building construction are concerned. In contrast, the reduction percentage due to the use of thermal insulation in the case of dark tile roof, felt bitumen roof and screed roof increases to 5–7%, which is more cost effective. This work concludes that the cool roof strategy is the most cost-effective for the hot climate of Bahrain, which has a long cooling season. With the current levels of urban development in Bahrain, cool roofs can reduce UHI intensity and building cooling loads, lowering demand for electricity and greenhouse gas emissions from power plants. To avoid any negative consequences from using this strategy, however, trade-offs between urban mitigation and adoptation strategies and complementary technologies should be accounted for in future urban development plans

Cavernous sinus thrombosis complicated by carotid artery occlusion: A case report

Cavernous sinus thrombosis (CST) is a fatal phenomenon that requires clinical suspicion and emergent imaging for correct diagnosis. . However, only a few authors reported severe involvement of the internal carotid artery (ICA). Here we report an 11 year old girl diagnosed with Cavernous sinus thrombosis complicated by left internal carotid artery occlusion.

Minimally invasive osteotomy for distal radius malunion: A preliminary series of 9 cases

AbstractThe rate of malunion after distal radius fractures is 25% after conservative treatment and 10% after surgery. Their main functional repercussion related to ulno-carpal conflict is loss of wrist motion. We report a retrospective clinical series of minimally invasive osteotomies. The series consisted of 9 cases of minimally invasive osteotomies with volar locking plate fixation. All osteotomies healed. The average pain was 5.3/10 preoperatively and 2.1/10 at last follow-up. The mean Quick DASH was 55.4/100 preoperatively and 24.24/100 at last follow-up. Compared to the opposite side, the average wrist flexion was 84.11%, the average wrist extension was 80.24%, the average pronation was 95.33% and the average supination was 93.9%. With similar results to those of the literature, our short series confirms the feasibility of minimally invasive osteotomy of the distal radius for extra-articular malunion.TypeCase-series.Level of evidenceIV