4,278 research outputs found
Trend in primary caesarean delivery. A five-year experience in Abruzzo, Italy
Background: Primary caesarean section (PCS) rate is one of the main indicators of quality of care suggested by the Italian Government. Hospital rankings are usually based on it, therefore lower rates reflect more appropriate clinical practice. The aim of this study is to describe a five-year trend of PCS rate in Abruzzo region from 2009 to 2013 and to examine the medical indications for this mode of delivery. Methods: Forty-five thousand one hundred forty-nine deliveries occurring from 2009 to 2013 were collected from all hospital discharge records (HDR) and analyzed. Among them we found 12,542 PCS. Odds ratios (ORs) with 95% confidence interval (95% CI) were estimated using logistic regression methods to evaluate the relationship between maternal risk factors and PCS in hospital over 1000 delivery/yrs. Results: The five-year PCS rate was 28.9%, with a decreasing trend from 31.4% in 2009 to 26.1% in 2013. Vasto Civil Hospital shows the lowest PCS rate (17.9% in 2013) among hospitals with a maximum of 1000 deliveries per year, while Pescara Civil Hospital shows the lowest PCS rate (25.4% in 2013) among hospitals with over 1000 deliveries per year. Women with major risk factors for cesarean section delivered more frequently in maternity units over 1000 delivery/yrs. Logistic regression analyses showed as diabetes, hypertension, twin pregnancy, fetal distress and preterm delivery were significant risk factors to deliver in unit over 1000 delivery/yrs. The most frequent (overall 66.6%) discharge diagnosis recorded in Hospital discharge records (HDR) is "Caesarean Delivery Without Indication". 7.3% of PCS made in Abruzzo concerns women living in other Italian regions. 11.4% of PCS contains one of the indications to caesarean section (CS) that the Italian Guidelines consider appropriate. Conclusions: During the analyzed period, Abruzzo showed a decreasing, but still too high, PCS rate, compared to the limits fixed by the Italian Ministry of Health. Considering the limitation of this study, based on administrative data that are poor in clinical information, it is not possible to define the appropriateness of all caesarean sections
Self-control in decision-making involves modulation of the vmPFC valuation system
Every day, individuals make dozens of choices between an alternative with higher overall value and a more tempting but ultimately inferior option. Optimal decision-making requires self-control. We propose two hypotheses about the neurobiology of self-control: (i) Goal-directed decisions have their basis in a common value signal encoded in ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC), and (ii) exercising self-control involves the modulation of this value signal by dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC). We used functional magnetic resonance imaging to monitor brain activity while dieters engaged in real decisions about food consumption. Activity in vmPFC was correlated with goal values regardless of the amount of self-control. It incorporated both taste and health in self-controllers but only taste in non–self-controllers. Activity in DLPFC increased when subjects exercised self-control and correlated with activity in vmPFC
A common neural scale for the subjective pleasantness of different primary rewards.
When an economic decision is taken, it is between goals with different values, and the values must be on the same scale. Here, we used functional MRI to search for a brain region that represents the subjective pleasantness of two different rewards on the same neural scale. We found activity in the ventral prefrontal cortex that correlated with the subjective pleasantness of two fundamentally different rewards, taste in the mouth and warmth on the hand. The evidence came from two different investigations, a between-group comparison of two independent fMRI studies, and from a within-subject study. In the latter, we showed that neural activity in the same voxels in the ventral prefrontal cortex correlated with the subjective pleasantness of the different rewards. Moreover, the slope and intercept for the regression lines describing the relationship between activations and subjective pleasantness were highly similar for the different rewards. We also provide evidence that the activations did not simply represent multisensory integration or the salience of the rewards. The findings demonstrate the existence of a specific region in the human brain where neural activity scales with the subjective pleasantness of qualitatively different primary rewards. This suggests a principle of brain processing of importance in reward valuation and decision-making
Preference Transitivity and Symbolic Representation in Capuchin Monkeys (Cebus apella)
BACKGROUND: Can non-human animals comprehend and employ symbols? The most convincing empirical evidence comes from language-trained apes, but little is known about this ability in monkeys. Tokens can be regarded as symbols since they are inherently non-valuable objects that acquire an arbitrarily assigned value upon exchange with an experimenter. Recent evidence suggested that capuchin monkeys, which diverged from the human lineage 35 million years ago, can estimate, represent and combine token quantities. A fundamental and open question is whether monkeys can reason about symbols in ways similar to how they reason about real objects. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: Here we examined this broad question in the context of economic choice behavior. Specifically, we assessed whether, in a symbolic context, capuchins' preferences satisfy transitivity--a fundamental trait of rational decision-making. Given three options A, B and C, transitivity holds true if A > or = B, B > or = C and A > or = C (where > or = indicates preference). In this study, we trained monkeys to exchange three types of tokens for three different foods. We then compared choices monkeys made between different types of tokens with choices monkeys made between the foods. Qualitatively, capuchins' preferences revealed by the way of tokens were similar to those measured with the actual foods. In particular, when choosing between tokens, monkeys displayed strict economic preferences and their choices satisfied transitivity. Quantitatively, however, values measured by the way of tokens differed systematically from those measured with the actual foods. In particular, for any pair of foods, the relative value of the preferred food increased when monkeys chose between the corresponding tokens. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: These results indicate that indeed capuchins are capable of treating tokens as symbols. However, as they do so, capuchins experience the cognitive burdens imposed by symbolic representation
Banking union in historical perspective: the initiative of the European Commission in the 1960s-1970s
This article shows that planning for the organization of EU banking regulation and supervision did not just appear on the agenda in recent years with discussions over the creation of the eurozone banking union. It unveils a hitherto neglected initiative of the European Commission in the 1960s and early 1970s. Drawing on extensive archival work, this article explains that this initiative, however, rested on a number of different assumptions, and emerged in a much different context. It first explains that the Commission's initial project was not crisis-driven; that it articulated the link between monetary integration and banking regulation; and finally that it did not set out to move the supervisory framework to the supranational level, unlike present-day developments
The RIG-I agonist M8 triggers cell death and natural killer cell activation in human papillomavirus-associated cancer and potentiates cisplatin cytotoxicity
Although the activation of innate immunity to treat a wide variety of cancers is gaining increasing attention, it has been poorly investigated in human papillomavirus (HPV)-associated malignancies. Because these tumors harbor a severely impaired cGAS-STING axis, but they still retain a largely functional RIG-I pathway, another critical mediator of adaptive and innate immune responses, we asked whether RIG-I activation by the 5'ppp-RNA RIG-I agonist M8 would represent a therapeutically viable option to treat HPV+ cancers. Here, we show that M8 transfection of two cervical carcinoma-derived cell lines, CaSki and HeLa, both expressing a functional RIG-I, triggers intrinsic apoptotic cell death, which is significantly reduced in RIG-I KO cells. We also demonstrate that M8 stimulation potentiates cisplatin-mediated cell killing of HPV+ cells in a RIG-I dependent manner. This combination treatment is equally effective in reducing tumor growth in a syngeneic pre-clinical mouse model of HPV16-driven cancer, where enhanced expression of lymphocyte-recruiting chemokines and cytokines correlated with an increased number of activated natural killer (NK) cells in the tumor microenvironment. Consistent with a role of RIG-I signaling in immunogenic cell killing, stimulation of NK cells with conditioned medium from M8-transfected CaSki boosted NK cell proliferation, activation, and migration in a RIG-I-dependent tumor cell-intrinsic manner. Given the highly conserved molecular mechanisms of carcinogenesis and genomic features of HPV-driven cancers and the remarkably improved prognosis for HPV+ oropharyngeal cancer, targeting RIG-I may represent an effective immunotherapeutic strategy in this setting, favoring the development of de-escalating strategies
DigiCam - Fully Digital Compact Read-out and Trigger Electronics for the SST-1M Telescope proposed for the Cherenkov Telescope Array
The SST-1M is one of three prototype small-sized telescope designs proposed
for the Cherenkov Telescope Array, and is built by a consortium of Polish and
Swiss institutions. The SST-1M will operate with DigiCam - an innovative,
compact camera with fully digital read-out and trigger electronics. A high
level of integration will be achieved by massively deploying state-of-the-art
multi-gigabit transmission channels, beginning from the ADC flash converters,
through the internal data and trigger signals transmission over backplanes and
cables, to the camera's server link. Such an approach makes it possible to
design the camera to fit the size and weight requirements of the SST-1M
exactly, and provide low power consumption, high reliability and long lifetime.
The structure of the digital electronics will be presented, along with main
physical building blocks and the internal architecture of FPGA functional
subsystems.Comment: In Proceedings of the 34th International Cosmic Ray Conference
(ICRC2015), The Hague, The Netherlands. All CTA contributions at
arXiv:1508.0589
Using muon rings for the optical throughput calibration of the SST-1M prototype for the Cherenkov Telescope Array
Imaging Atmospheric Cherenkov Telescopes (IACTs) are ground-based instruments
devoted to the study of very high energy gamma-rays coming from space. The
detection technique consists of observing images created by the Cherenkov light
emitted when gamma rays, or more generally cosmic rays, propagate through the
atmosphere. While in the case of protons or gamma-rays the images present a
filled and more or less elongated shape, energetic muons penetrating the
atmosphere are visualised as characteristic circular rings or arcs. A
relatively simple analysis of the ring images allows the reconstruction of all
the relevant parameters of the detected muons, such as the energy, the impact
parameter, and the incoming direction, with the final aim to use them to
calibrate the total optical throughput of the given IACT telescope. We present
the results of preliminary studies on the use of images created by muons as
optical throughput calibrators of the single mirror small size telescope
prototype SST-1M proposed for the Cherenkov Telescope Array.Comment: In Proceedings of the 34th International Cosmic Ray Conference
(ICRC2015), The Hague, The Netherlands. All CTA contributions at
arXiv:1508.0589
Software design for the control system for Small-Size Telescopes with single-mirror of the Cherenkov Telescope Array
The Small-Size Telescope with single-mirror (SST-1M) is a 4 m Davies-Cotton
telescope and is among the proposed telescope designs for the Cherenkov
Telescope Array (CTA). It is conceived to provide the high-energy ( few TeV)
coverage. The SST-1M contains proven technology for the telescope structure and
innovative electronics and photosensors for the camera. Its design is meant to
be simple, low-budget and easy-to-build industrially.
Each device subsystem of an SST-1M telescope is made visible to CTA through a
dedicated industrial standard server. The software is being developed in
collaboration with the CTA Medium-Size Telescopes to ensure compatibility and
uniformity of the array control. Early operations of the SST-1M prototype will
be performed with a subset of the CTA central array control system based on the
Alma Common Software (ACS). The triggered event data are time stamped,
formatted and finally transmitted to the CTA data acquisition.
The software system developed to control the devices of an SST-1M telescope
is described, as well as the interface between the telescope abstraction to the
CTA central control and the data acquisition system.Comment: In Proceedings of the 34th International Cosmic Ray Conference
(ICRC2015), The Hague, The Netherlands. All CTA contributions at
arXiv:1508.0589
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