Does fair trade certification improve farmworkers’ welfare and empowerment? Evidence from Nicaragua and Brazil

Fairtrade (FT) is one of the most well-known Alternative Trade Organizations (ATOs). FT originally aimed to create empowerment among small producers and improve their livelihoods. In 2011, FT USA started certifying coffee estates, in order to include also farmworkers into a new certification scheme, known as Fair Trade for All (FT4ALL). Through the data collected by the Centre for tropical agriculture (CIAT) in Brazil and Nicaragua, we conducted an analysis to answer the following questions: (1) what is the causal effect of FT4ALL on workers’ welfare? and (2) is FT4ALL effective at empowering farm workers? We measured the average treatment effect of the certification through the implementation of the OLS model, propensity score matching (PSM) and difference-in-differences. Our results suggest that the certification has an overall positive impact on both welfare and empowerment

Interaction of amiodarone and desethylamiodarone with solubilized nuclear thyroid hormone receptors

The mechanisms of action of the potent antiarrhythmic drug amiodarone are unknown. However, amiodarone and its abundant metabolite, desethylamiodarone, bear a striking structural resemblance to thyroid hormones. In addition, certain cardiac electrophysiologic effects of amiodarone treatment are similar to those of hypothyroidism. These facts suggest that amiodarone or desethylamiodarone could be acting, in part, by blocking thyroid hormone action. Because thyroid hormones are known to act through nuclear receptor prqteins, the binding of amiodarone and desethylamiodarone was measured to nuclear extracts derived from human lymphocytes, bovine atrium and ventricle and rat liver.The capacity of increasing concentrations of amiodarone and desethylamiodarone nuclear extracts to block receptor binding of radiolabeled triiodothyronine (T3) in a standard in vitro competition assay was tested. Nuclear extracts demonstrated only minimal binding to amiodarone. However, all receptor preparations had substantial affinities (KD) for the desethyl analog: lymphocyte, 8.6 μM; atrium, 35.0 μM; ventricle, 26.9 μM and liver, 8.6 μM. Desethylamiodarone accumulates in very large quantities in parenchymatous organs during long-term amiodarone treatment. Taking its usual therapeutic serum level (about 4 μMor 2.7 μg/ml) as an estimate of intranuclear concentration, desethylamiodarone would partially saturate nuclear thyroid hormone receptors in several different tissues, including the heart.Thus, amiodarone treatment may exert some of its electrophysiologic effects by metabolic conversion to desethylamiodarone. This metabolite may then exclude thyroid hormone from nuclear receptor sites within the myocardium

Competenze avanzate del Professionista Sanitario Esperto: un modello di alta formazione complementare applicato all’ecosonografia vascolare.

Introduzione Attualmente le indagini di ecosonografia vascolare sono eseguite prevalentemente da un ridotto numero di personale medico: la formazione di una figura professionale tecnico-specialistica dedicata (Sonographer) può contribuire ad ottimizzare i tempi di utilizzo delle apparecchiature, incrementare il numero delle procedure diagnostiche ultrasonografiche e ridurre sensibilmente le liste di attesa. A partire da queste considerazioni, il Legislatore italiano ha avviato un processo di iniziative legislative, finalizzato a qualificare ulteriormente e ad arricchire le competenze delle professioni sanitarie infermieristiche, ostetriche, tecniche sanitarie, della riabilitazione e della prevenzione, per poter ridurre le liste di attesa in ogni settore della pratica clinica e soddisfare le esigenze di salute dei cittadini. In coerenza con tale finalità, il comma 566 Legge di Stabilità 2015, ha demandato al Governo e alle Regioni, previa concertazione con le rappresentanze scientifiche, professionali e sindacali dei profili sanitari interessati, la definizione di ruoli, le competenze, le  relazioni  professionali e le responsabilità individuali e di equipe su compiti, funzioni e obiettivi da assegnare alle professioni sanitarie interessate. Materiali e Metodi Per l’istituzione di un Corso di Alta Formazione per l’acquisizione di competenze avanzate, p.e. in “Professionista Sanitario Esperto in Ecosonografia Vascolare”, è necessario individuare criteri comuni per il riconoscimento dell’equivalenza di percorsi formativi complementari regionali: il riferimento comune è costituito da un elenco con breve descrizione di circa 90 master universitari, approvati dall’Osservatorio delle Professione Sanitarie del Miur; fra i Master universitari specialistici elencati per l’acquisizione di competenze avanzate nel “core” pratica clinico-assistenziale, vi è quello interprofessionale denominato “Tecniche di ecografia cardiovascolare” rivolto ai Tecnici di Fisiopatologia Cardiocircolatoria e Perfusione Cardiovascolare e ai Tecnici Sanitari di Radiologia Medica; anche i Tecnici di Neurofisiopatologia possono acquisire competenze specialistiche in “Tecniche diagnostiche di ultrasonologia vascolare ed ecografia del nervo”. Risultati Con questo studio, si propone un percorso operativo per la realizzazione del corso di alta formazione per l’acquisizione di competenze avanzate per il “Professionista Sanitario Esperto in Ecosonografia Vascolare” che ha come riferimento il Documento approvato dalla Conferenza delle Regioni e delle Province autonome il 20 febbraio 2020. Conclusioni Il progetto curricolare del corso di alta formazione in “Professionista Sanitario Esperto in Ecosonografia Vascolare”, deve tener conto del concetto di pratica avanzata e di competenza avanzata che consiste nell’acquisizione e l’attuazione di pratiche specialistiche su specifici settori professionali e percorsi formativi dedicati. Il corso di alta formazione che si propone è finalizzato a far acquisire competenze avanzate per la conduzione dell’indagine ecosonografica vascolare (eco-color-Doppler vascolare), come estensione e in aggiunta alle tecniche diagnostiche tradizionali, in autonomia, su prescrizione medica, con modalità operative predefinite da protocolli e linee guida aziendali/nazionali/internazionali, nel rispetto degli standard di qualità

Estimation and forecasting team strength dynamics in football : investigation into structural breaks

This PhD thesis studies the dynamics of team strengths in football. It investigates the presence of structural breaks, which occur when there is a change in parameters that govern dynamics in a time series. In football, such structural breaks occur because of events such as squad changes during transfer markets as well as managerial or ownership changes. Team strengths are estimated across seven seasons of the Premiership and Championship football leagues and then analysed through a time series perspective, based on the double Poisson model with an added dependence parameter for lower scores and an exponential decay factor that adds more weight to more recent matches. This weighting scheme means that a pseudo-likelihood is used to estimate strength parameters. A rolling window approach is used to obtain a time series for the attack and defence strengths of teams in order to investigate the presence of structural breaks. We show that structural breaks are present in the majority of the time series. These present a challenge for the prediction of match outcomes. By not taking parameter discontinuity into account, one is in essence forecasting team strengths for the next match using incorrect parameter values. We then carry out a forecasting exercise. This involves comparing the mean square error of the one-step ahead forecast of team strengths for all teams, using the two most recent seasons as the out-of-sample forecasting period. We find that different models have a smaller mean square error for different teams, but in particular two models stand out as the best ones: a simple random walk and forecasts made by model averaging. Even though the time-varying parameter model performs quite poorly according to the mean square error, it provides the best match predictions for one of our sub-samples. We conclude that different forecasting models that account for structural breaks can certainly improve forecast accuracy, although our findings are consistent with the econometrics literature that no one model forecasts best all the time. Given the prevalence of structural breaks in determining the dynamics of team strengths, this research has important implications for bookmakers and punters in the betting industry to take these matters into consideration when modelling football match outcomes

Open Science and Open Access Scientific Publishing: an essential combination. An analysis of the first 4 years of JBP activity

In July 2017, the Journal of Biomedical Practitioner (JBP) starts publications with its first number. Since its debut JBP would offer itself as a meeting place to health professionals, free to all and Open Access, without prejudices for experience exchanging between people that work in Biomedical Sciences with various purposes from welfare, diagnostic-therapeutic, rehabilitation and prevention, to the fields of basic and clinical research. JBP it’s a six-monthly publication, with double-blind peer review, written in Italian and English language. This editorial aims to analyze in deep the journal path in these 4 years, reporting the poster contents shown at 2° Congresso Nazionale della Federazione Nazionale Ordini dei Tecnici Sanitari Radiologia Medica e delle Professioni Sanitarie Tecniche, della Riabilitazione e della Prevenzione (FNO TSRM e PSTRP) that took place in Rimini on 19-21 november 2021. The improvement of quality standards offered will be highlighted, noting the fundamental role of the contribution of the auditors. The metadata analysis on the OJS/PKP platform, which is used by the journal and in turn it’s hosted by Sistema di Riviste Open Access (SIRIO@Unito) of the University of Turin, shows much interesting information about the article submitted: we received 90 article proposals and the 57% was published, of which the 16% was written in the two languages. The mean time needed was 62 days for the revision process and 110 days to get the article published. In each year were published a mean of 13 papers and 60% of them were written by authors from different professional areas. The fast access to the contents and the indexing of JPB on the main directories of Open Access Journals are the best reasons to choose this journal for publishing in the Biomedical Science areas