Opinia badanych pacjentów podstawowej opieki zdrowotnej dotycząca proponowanych rozwiązań w obszarze e-Zdrowia w świetle wybranych czynników społecznych

Wstęp. Wysoka jakość usług ochrony zdrowia oraz świadczenie usług medycznych spełniających oczekiwania pacjentów to priorytetowe zadanie, które stawia się placówkom medycznym w krajach Unii Europejskiej. Jest to zadanie coraz trudniejsze do realizacji i zmusza placówki ochrony zdrowia do podnoszenia jakości i wydajności swoich usług. Celem badań było poznanie opinii badanych pacjentów podstawowej opieki zdrowotnej na temat proponowanych rozwiązań w obszarze e-Zdrowia na terenie województwa świętokrzyskiego. Materiał i metody. Badania przeprowadzono w okresie od czerwca do grudnia 2011 roku obejmując w reprezentatywnej próbie pacjentów publicznych i niepublicznych zakładów opieki zdrowotnej. Zastosowano metodę losowania dwustopniowego, zespołowego ze stratyfikacją na typ placówki. Łącznie przebadano 422 pacjentów podstawowej opieki zdrowotnej z 20 placówek na terenie województwa świętokrzyskiego. Statystyczną analizę danych wykonano przy pomocy programu STATISTICA firmy StatSoft. Wyniki i wnioski. W wyniku przeprowadzonych badań stwierdzono, że badani pacjenci oczekują wprowadzenia narzędzi e- Zdrowia w placówkach podstawowej opieki zdrowotnej w postaci wystandaryzowanego systemu informatycznego czy wykorzystania telemedycyny w procesie leczenia. Pacjenci w przedziale wiekowym 65 lat i więcej, wdowy/wdowcy określający swój stan zdrowia jako słaby nie widzą jednak korzyści dotyczących rozwiązań obszaru e-Zdrowia. Autorzy są zdania, że kierownicy badanych zakładów podstawowej opieki zdrowotnej powinni zamieszczać informacje w prowadzonych przez siebie placówkach na temat systemu e-Zdrowia oraz proponowanych założeń systemowych. Takie działania mogą przyczynić się do zwiększenia świadomości pacjentów dotyczącej nowych rozwiązań technologicznych w obszarze ochrony zdrowia.High quality of healthcare and providing medical service that meets patients’ requirements is a priority task set before healthcare facilities within the European Union. Accomplishing this task is becoming increasingly difficult, which is why healthcare institutions are under pressure to increase the quality and efficiency of the service provided. The aim of the study was to find out the opinion of the studied primary healthcare patients on the proposed e-Health solutions in the Świętokrzyskie province. Materials and methods. The study was conducted between June and December 2011. Patients from public and non-public healthcare facilities participated in the study. The two-stage cluster sampling with facility type stratification was applied. A total of 422 patients based in 20 healthcare facilities in the Świętokrzyskie province were included in the study. The statistical analysis was performed using the STATISTICA software developed by StatSoft. Results and conclusions. The analysis conducted has shown that the patients expected e-Health tools to be introduced, for example in the form of standardised IT system or the application of telemedicine in treatment. However, patients aged over 65 as well as widows and widowers who considered their own health poor see no advantage in e-Health solutions. The authors of the current paper claim that administrators and managers of primary healthcare facilities should put information on e-Health and proposed system solutions on display in their facilities. Such actions could increase patients’ awareness of new technological solutions in healthcare

Utility-service provision as an example of a complex system

Utility–service provision is a process in which products are transformed by appropriate devices into services satisfying human needs and wants. Utility products required for these transformations are usually delivered to households via separate infrastructures, i.e., real-world networks such as, e.g., electricity grids and water distribution systems. owever, provision of utility products in appropriate quantities does not itself guarantee hat the required services will be delivered because the needs satisfaction task requires not only utility products but also fully functional devices. Utility infrastructures form complex networks and have been analyzed as such using complex network theory. However, little research has been conducted to date on integration of utilities and associated services within one complex network. This paper attempts to fill this gap in knowledge by modelling utility–service provision within a household with a hypergraph in which products and services are represented with nodes whilst devices are hyperedges spanning between them. Since devices usually connect more than two nodes, a standard graph would not suffice to describe utility–service provision problem and therefore a hypergraph was chosen as a more appropriate representation of the system. This paper first aims to investigate the properties of hypergraphs, such as cardinality of nodes, betweenness, degree distribution, etc. Additionally, it shows how these properties can be used while solving and optimizing utility– service provision problem, i.e., constructing a so-called transformation graph. The transformation graph is a standard graph in which nodes represent the devices, storages for products, and services, while edges represent the product or service carriers. Construction of different transformation graphs to a defined utility– service provision problem is presented in the paper to show how the methodology is applied to generate possible solutions to provision of services to households under given local conditions, requirements and constraints

Integrating water, waste, energy, transport and ICT aspects into the smart city concept

Open Access articleThe paper presents the partial results of the EU BlueSCities project [1]. The project is developing the methodology for the integration of the water and waste sectors within the ’Smart Cities and Communities’ concept to compliment other priority areas such as energy, transport and Information and mmunication Technologies (ICT). The project has developed the City Blueprint Framework or water and waste and the City Amberprint Framework for energy, transport and ICT

Strong interband Faraday rotation in 3D topological insulator Bi2Se3

The Faraday effect is a representative magneto-optical phenomenon, resulting from the transfer of angular momentum between interacting light and matter in which time-reversal symmetry has been broken by an externally applied magnetic field. Here we report on the Faraday rotation induced in the prominent 3D topological insulator Bi2Se3 due to bulk interband excitations. The origin of this non-resonant effect, extraordinarily strong among other non-magnetic materials, is traced back to the specific Dirac-type Hamiltonian for Bi2Se3, which implies that electrons and holes in this material closely resemble relativistic particles with a non-zero rest mass

Blood-brain barrier function in response to SARS-CoV-2 and its spike protein

The typical manifestation of coronavirus 2 (CoV-2) infection is a severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) accompanied by pneumonia (COVID-19). However, SARS-CoV-2 can also affect the brain, causing chronic neurological symptoms, variously known as long, post, post-acute, or persistent COVID-19 condition, and affecting up to 40% of patients. The symptoms (fatigue, dizziness, headache, sleep disorders, malaise, disturbances of memory and mood) usually are mild and resolve spontaneously. However, some patients develop acute and fatal complications, including stroke or encephalopathy. Damage to the brain vessels mediated by the coronavirus spike protein (S-protein) and overactive immune responses have been identified as leading causes of this condition. However, the molecular mechanism by which the virus affects the brain still needs to be fully delineated. In this review article, we focus on interactions between host molecules and S-protein as the mechanism allowing the transit of SARS-CoV-2 through the blood-brain barrier to reach the brain structures. In addition, we discuss the impact of S-protein mutations and the involvement of other cellular factors conditioning the pathophysiology of SARS-CoV-2 infection. Finally, we review current and future COVID-19 treatment options

The potential of Cittaslow for sustainable tourism development: enhancing local community’s empowerment

The slow movement has recently offered an alternative approach to sustainable tourism development, and this study aims to investigate the potential of Cittaslow philosophy and practices for enhancing local community involvement and empowerment in the tourism sector through which sustainable tourism is better implemented. Qualitative research was conducted on the case of Goolwa in South Australia, the first non-European Cittaslow. The results reveal that not only did Cittaslow accreditation and its accompanying practices encourage local community participation in decision making processes, but also revitalised the locality of Goolwa through promoting local specialities and products, in particular food and wine. A stronger and more effective collaboration among local communities, businesses and residents after the Cittaslow accreditation was noted in the context of psychological and social aspects of local community empowerment, especially for developing and managing tourism. This paper further discusses the implications of Cittaslow through which local community empowerment and sustainability in tourism can be more achievable

Interleukin-4 Alters Early Phagosome Phenotype by Modulating Class I PI3K Dependent Lipid Remodeling and Protein Recruitment

Phagocytosis is a complex process that involves membranelipid remodeling and the attraction and retention of key effector proteins. Phagosome phenotype depends on the type of receptor engaged and can be influenced by extracellular signals. Interleukin 4 (IL-4) is a cytokine that induces the alternative activation of macrophages (MΦs) upon prolonged exposure, triggering a different cell phenotype that has an altered phagocytic capacity. In contrast, the direct effects of IL-4 during phagocytosis remain unknown. Here, we investigate the impact of short-term IL-4 exposure (1 hour) during phagocytosis of IgG-opsonized yeast particles by MΦs. By time-lapse confocal microscopy of GFP-tagged lipid-sensing probes, we show that IL-4 increases the negative charge of the phagosomal membrane by prolonging the presence of the negatively charged second messenger PI(3,4,5)P3. Biochemical assays reveal an enhanced PI3K/Akt activity upon phagocytosis in the presence of IL-4. Blocking the specific class I PI3K after the onset of phagocytosis completely abrogates the IL-4-induced changes in lipid remodeling and concomitant membrane charge. Finally, we show that IL-4 direct signaling leads to a significantly prolonged retention profile of the signaling molecules Rac1 and Rab5 to the phagosomal membrane in a PI3K-dependent manner. This protracted early phagosome phenotype suggests an altered maturation, which is supported by the delayed phagosome acidification measured in the presence of IL-4. Our findings reveal that molecular differences in IL-4 levels, in the extracellular microenvironment, influence the coordination of lipid remodeling and protein recruitment, which determine phagosome phenotype and, eventually, fate. Endosomal and phagosomal membranes provide topological constraints to signaling molecules. Therefore, changes in the phagosome phenotype modulated by extracellular factors may represent an additional mechanism that regulates the outcome of phagocytosis and could have significant impact on the net biochemical output of a cell