Male circumcision for HIV prevention in high HIV prevalence settings: what can mathematical modelling contribute to informed decision making?

Experts from UNAIDS, WHO, and the South African Centre for Epidemiological Modelling report their review of mathematical models estimating the impact of male circumcision on HIV incidence in high HIV prevalence settings

a scoping review

Funding Information: This work was partly supported by funds from the EU funded COST Action EVBRES ( CA17117 ) and internal funds from Danube University Krems . Funding Information: This scoping review is part of working group 3’s work within the EVBRES (EVidence-Based RESearch) – COST Action CA17117, funded by the European Union ( www.evbres.eu ). The protocol for this scoping review was published a priori via the Open Science Framework ( https://osf.io/fby54/ ) [11] . Publisher Copyright: © 2021 The Author(s)Objective: We aimed to map the resource use during systematic review (SR) production and reasons why steps of the SR production are resource intensive to discover where the largest gain in improving efficiency might be possible. Study design and setting: We conducted a scoping review. An information specialist searched multiple databases (e.g., Ovid MEDLINE, Scopus) and implemented citation-based and grey literature searching. We employed dual and independent screenings of records at the title/abstract and full-text levels and data extraction. Results: We included 34 studies. Thirty-two reported on the resource use—mostly time; four described reasons why steps of the review process are resource intensive. Study selection, data extraction, and critical appraisal seem to be very resource intensive, while protocol development, literature search, or study retrieval take less time. Project management and administration required a large proportion of SR production time. Lack of experience, domain knowledge, use of collaborative and SR-tailored software, and good communication and management can be reasons why SR steps are resource intensive. Conclusion: Resource use during SR production varies widely. Areas with the largest resource use are administration and project management, study selection, data extraction, and critical appraisal of studies.publishersversionpublishe

Burden of disease attributable to risk factors in European countries: a scoping literature review

Objectives: Within the framework of the burden of disease (BoD) approach, disease and injury burden estimates attributable to risk factors are a useful guide for policy formulation and priority setting in disease prevention. Considering the important differences in methods, and their impact on burden estimates, we conducted a scoping literature review to: (1) map the BoD assessments including risk factors performed across Europe; and (2) identify the methodological choices in comparative risk assessment (CRA) and risk assessment methods. Methods: We searched multiple literature databases, including grey literature websites and targeted public health agencies websites. Results: A total of 113 studies were included in the synthesis and further divided into independent BoD assessments (54 studies) and studies linked to the Global Burden of Disease (59 papers). Our results showed that the methods used to perform CRA varied substantially across independent European BoD studies. While there were some methodological choices that were more common than others, we did not observe patterns in terms of country, year or risk factor. Each methodological choice can affect the comparability of estimates between and within countries and/or risk factors, since they might significantly influence the quantification of the attributable burden. From our analysis we observed that the use of CRA was less common for some types of risk factors and outcomes. These included environmental and occupational risk factors, which are more likely to use bottom-up approaches for health outcomes where disease envelopes may not be available. Conclusions: Our review also highlighted misreporting, the lack of uncertainty analysis and the under-investigation of causal relationships in BoD studies. Development and use of guidelines for performing and reporting BoD studies will help understand differences, avoid misinterpretations thus improving comparability among estimates. Registration: The study protocol has been registered on PROSPERO, CRD42020177477 (available at: https://www.crd.york.ac.uk/PROSPERO/)

Budgetary control for Paint Manufacturers\u27 Association of the United States

Budgetary control is urgently needed in the efficient administration of business for two well defined reasons, as follows: 1. To coordinate the activities of all departments. 2. To centralize executive control. Most concerns do not use a budgetary control system primarily because they either do not understand how to prepare and operate it, or else they do not realize the need of it. From the elementary description given and the reasons cited why the budgetary system should be operated, it is hoped that all members of the Association will review their own requirements and plan some type of budgetary control

Report of the Commission to Study the Adequacy and Equity of Certain Cost Components of the School Funding Formula

The Commission was created by Resolves 2014, chapter 114, legislation that originated with the Joint Standing Committee on Education of the 126th Maine Legislature. Five members were appointed by the President of the Maine Senate; seven members were appointed by the Speaker of the House. The final two members were the Commissioner of Education or designee, and the Chair of the State Board of Education or designee. The names of Commission members and the organizations they represent, are included in Appendix B. What follows are descriptions and materials related to each section of the Resolve and the final recommendations made by the commission for each section. Materials used by the commission during their deliberations appear in a series of appendices

Building capacity for rigorous controlled trials in autism: the importance of measuring treatment adherence

Research groups across Europe have been networking to share information and ideas about research on preschool children with autism. The paper describes preliminary work to develop capacity for future multi-site randomized controlled trials of early intervention, with a specific focus on the need to measure treatment adherence where parents deliver therapy. The paper includes a review of randomized and controlled studies of parent-mediated early intervention from two sources, a recent Cochrane Collaboration review and a mapping of European early intervention studies in autism published since 2002. The data extracted focused on methods for describing parent adherence, that is, how and to what extent parents carry out the strategies taught them by therapists. Less than half of the 32 studies reviewed included any measure of parent adherence. Only seven included a direct assessment method. The challenges of developing pan-European early intervention evaluation studies are discussed, including choice of intervention model and of important outcomes, the need for translation of measurement tools and achievement of joint training to reliability of assessors. Measurement of parent-child interaction style and of adherence to strategies taught need further study

費用法則に就いて

はじめに　〔Ⅰ〕 U字型費用法則　① 特殊経費曲線　② 外部節約　③ 逓降的需要曲線　〔Ⅱ〕 費用不変　① 理想的産出量　② 符号制約　むすび

Estimating the incidence, prevalence and true cost of asthma in the UK: secondary analysis of national stand-alone and linked databases in England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales-a study protocol.

INTRODUCTION: Asthma is now one of the most common long-term conditions in the UK. It is therefore important to develop a comprehensive appreciation of the healthcare and societal costs in order to inform decisions on care provision and planning. We plan to build on our earlier estimates of national prevalence and costs from asthma by filling the data gaps previously identified in relation to healthcare and broadening the field of enquiry to include societal costs. This work will provide the first UK-wide estimates of the costs of asthma. In the context of asthma for the UK and its member countries (ie, England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales), we seek to: (1) produce a detailed overview of estimates of incidence, prevalence and healthcare utilisation; (2) estimate health and societal costs; (3) identify any remaining information gaps and explore the feasibility of filling these and (4) provide insights into future research that has the potential to inform changes in policy leading to the provision of more cost-effective care. METHODS AND ANALYSIS: Secondary analyses of data from national health surveys, primary care, prescribing, emergency care, hospital, mortality and administrative data sources will be undertaken to estimate prevalence, healthcare utilisation and outcomes from asthma. Data linkages and economic modelling will be undertaken in an attempt to populate data gaps and estimate costs. Separate prevalence and cost estimates will be calculated for each of the UK-member countries and these will then be aggregated to generate UK-wide estimates. ETHICS AND DISSEMINATION: Approvals have been obtained from the NHS Scotland Information Services Division's Privacy Advisory Committee, the Secure Anonymised Information Linkage Collaboration Review System, the NHS South-East Scotland Research Ethics Service and The University of Edinburgh's Centre for Population Health Sciences Research Ethics Committee. We will produce a report for Asthma-UK, submit papers to peer-reviewed journals and construct an interactive map

High-Grade Glioma Treatment Response Monitoring Biomarkers (2): A Position Statement on the Evidence Supporting the Use of Advanced MRI Techniques in the Clinic, and the Latest Bench-to-Bedside Developments. Part 2: Spectroscopy, Chemical Exchange Saturation, Multiparametric Imaging, and Radiomics

Objective: To summarize evidence for use of advanced MRI techniques as monitoring biomarkers in the clinic, and to highlight the latest bench-to-bedside developments. Methods: The current evidence regarding the potential for monitoring biomarkers was reviewed and individual modalities of metabolism and/or chemical composition imaging discussed. Perfusion, permeability, and microstructure imaging were similarly analyzed in Part 1 of this two-part review article and are valuable reading as background to this article. We appraise the clinic readiness of all the individual modalities and consider methodologies involving machine learning (radiomics) and the combination of MRI approaches (multiparametric imaging). Results: The biochemical composition of high-grade gliomas is markedly different from healthy brain tissue. Magnetic resonance spectroscopy allows the simultaneous acquisition of an array of metabolic alterations, with choline-based ratios appearing to be consistently discriminatory in treatment response assessment, although challenges remain despite this being a mature technique. Promising directions relate to ultra-high field strengths, 2-hydroxyglutarate analysis, and the use of non-proton nuclei. Labile protons on endogenous proteins can be selectively targeted with chemical exchange saturation transfer to give high resolution images. The body of evidence for clinical application of amide proton transfer imaging has been building for a decade, but more evidence is required to confirm chemical exchange saturation transfer use as a monitoring biomarker. Multiparametric methodologies, including the incorporation of nuclear medicine techniques, combine probes measuring different tumor properties. Although potentially synergistic, the limitations of each individual modality also can be compounded, particularly in the absence of standardization. Machine learning requires large datasets with high-quality annotation; there is currently low-level evidence for monitoring biomarker clinical application. Conclusion: Advanced MRI techniques show huge promise in treatment response assessment. The clinical readiness analysis highlights that most monitoring biomarkers require standardized international consensus guidelines, with more facilitation regarding technique implementation and reporting in the clinic

High-Grade Glioma Treatment Response Monitoring Biomarkers (1): A Position Statement on the Evidence Supporting the Use of Advanced MRI Techniques in the Clinic, and the Latest Bench-to-Bedside Developments. Part 1: Perfusion and Diffusion Techniques

Objective: Summarize evidence for use of advanced MRI techniques as monitoring biomarkers in the clinic, and highlight the latest bench-to-bedside developments. Methods: Experts in advanced MRI techniques applied to high-grade glioma treatment response assessment convened through a European framework. Current evidence regarding the potential for monitoring biomarkers in adult high-grade glioma is reviewed, and individual modalities of perfusion, permeability, and microstructure imaging are discussed (in Part 1 of two). In Part 2, we discuss modalities related to metabolism and/or chemical composition, appraise the clinic readiness of the individual modalities, and consider post-processing methodologies involving the combination of MRI approaches (multiparametric imaging) or machine learning (radiomics). Results: High-grade glioma vasculature exhibits increased perfusion, blood volume, and permeability compared with normal brain tissue. Measures of cerebral blood volume derived from dynamic susceptibility contrast-enhanced MRI have consistently provided information about brain tumor growth and response to treatment; it is the most clinically validated advanced technique. Clinical studies have proven the potential of dynamic contrast-enhanced MRI for distinguishing post-treatment related effects from recurrence, but the optimal acquisition protocol, mode of analysis, parameter of highest diagnostic value, and optimal cut-off points remain to be established. Arterial spin labeling techniques do not require the injection of a contrast agent, and repeated measurements of cerebral blood flow can be performed. The absence of potential gadolinium deposition effects allows widespread use in pediatric patients and those with impaired renal function. More data are necessary to establish clinical validity as monitoring biomarkers. Diffusion-weighted imaging, apparent diffusion coefficient analysis, diffusion tensor or kurtosis imaging, intravoxel incoherent motion, and other microstructural modeling approaches also allow treatment response assessment; more robust data are required to validate these alone or when applied to post-processing methodologies. Conclusion: Considerable progress has been made in the development of these monitoring biomarkers. Many techniques are in their infancy, whereas others have generated a larger body of evidence for clinical application