Association between Economic Growth, Mortality, and Healthcare Spending in 31 High-Income Countries

: This study aims to investigate the association between gross domestic product (GDP), mortality rate (MR) and current healthcare expenditure (CHE) in 31 high-income countries. We used panel data from 2000 to 2017 collected from WHO and OECD databases. The association between CHE, GDP and MR was investigated through a random-effects model. To control for reverse causality, we adopted a test of Granger causality. The model shows that the MR has a statistically significant and negative effect on CHE and that an increase in GDP is associated with an increase of CHE (p < 0.001). The Granger causality analysis shows that all the variables exhibit a bidirectional causality. We found a two-way relationship between GDP and CHE. Our analysis highlights the economic multiplier effect of CHE. In the debate on the optimal allocation of resources, this evidence should be taken into due consideration

Dinamica di popolazione della specie modello Ciona intestinalis sp A (Tunicata: Ascidiacea), nel Lago Fusaro

Ciona intestinalis sp A è un’ ascidia solitaria bentonica sessile che popola acque eutrofiche e contaminate da metalli pesanti ed è un importante organismo modello per studi di biologia dello sviluppo, di genetica, e nell’area del Mar Mediterraneo è considerata un efficace organismo biondicatore o specie “sentinella”. Il taxon alterna periodi di esplosione demografica a periodi di scomparsa dai siti di approvigionamento utilizzati per la raccolta degli individui da utilizzare per il lavoro sperimentale in laboratorio. La dipendenza della sperimentazione dagli individui da allevare ha reso necessario uno studio per verificare quali sono le condizioni che determinano la periodica mancanza della specie e di verificare quali variabili ambientali influenzano l’andamento temporale della specie nel sito studiato. Il progetto è stato portato avanti dopo un biennio di crisi demografica della specie che ha avuto incisive ripercussioni sull’implementazione dei progetti di ricerca dedicati al taxon. È stata studiata la dinamica di popolazione di Ciona intestinalis sp A nel Lago Fusaro una laguna salmastra a N-W di Napoli. Il sito scelto sintetizza tutte le caratteristiche ambientali favorevoli alla biologia della specie, essendo un bacino chiuso con scarso ricambio di acqua marina e fortemente influenzato dagli scarichi urbani e industriali dislocati lungo il suo perimetro. Sono stati individuati tre siti di raccolta per verificare l’andamento temporale della specie rispetto alla variabilità dei parametri ambientali a loro volta influenzati dai fattori climatici. Dal maggio 2010 al luglio 2011 si è provveduto alla raccolta mensile di campioni e alla registrazione dei principali parametri ambientali con una sonda multiparametrica. Inoltre, sono stati raccolti almeno altri cinque individui della specie in ogni sito di campionamento per lo studio istologico degli ovari per verificare l’influenza dei parametri rispetto la maturità sessuale. Lo studio della dinamica di popolazione di Ciona intestinalis sp A è stato portato avanti utilizzando come parametro di riconoscimento delle classi di grandezza il metodo ponderale in luogo di quello lineare perché gli organismi fissati non si contraggono tutti allo stesso modo. Sono stati tabulati per ogni individuo, di ogni sito di campionamento, i pesi umido e secco della tunica e del soma separando le due porzioni per il calcolo della biomassa. Si è inoltre calcolato il Condition Index ottenuto dal rapporto peso secco soma/peso secco totale per osservare l’andamento nel tempo della percentuale somatica rispetto alla temperatura. Questo indice paragonato all’andamento temporale dello sviluppo ovarico conferma che la temperatura è il principale fattore ambientale che influisce sul ciclo vitale della specie. L’importanza della temperatura e della salinità è stata ulteriormente confermata dagli andamenti delle popolazioni studiate che hanno trends temporali sfasati rispecchiati dagli andamenti di presenza e di biomassa che non sono uguali nelle tre stazioni studiate. La stagione favorevole alla specie inizia durante il periodo autunnale con una pausa invernale durante la quale gli individui più giovani resistono alle basse temperature invernali, mentre quelli di taglia maggiore muoiono favorendo l’insediamento di varie ondate di reclutanti che ripristinano le popolazioni. Per ogni stazione si è notato che si hanno tre generazioni all’anno, che si alternano dal periodo autunnale a quello estivo e quando l’innalzamento delle temperature dell’acqua supera i 25°C comincia ad interferire con la riproduzione, si blocca il reclutamento e si assiste al progressivo declino della specie mano a mano che la temperatura aumenta fino a circa 30°C causando la morte degli individui presenti

Distributed Solutions for a Reliable Data-Driven Transformation of Healthcare Management and Research

Modern healthcare management and clinical practice strongly rely on data and scientific evidence. Digital technologies, tools, and services are core components of Healthcare Management and scientific Research (HMR). Data interoperability, security, privacy, and ease of sharing represent fundamental conditions for guaranteeing quality HMR. Current data management solutions in HMR are mainly built on two technological infrastructures: cloud-based (CB) or distributed ledger systems (DLTs). DLTs offer alternative and reliable alternatives for the management and sharing of data in HMR. Their use can help increase confidence and trust in the integrity of data and the resulting evidence. The aim of this paper is to shed light on CB and DLT solutions, emphasizing the potential role of innovative digital solutions based on DLTs in creating a data-driven transformation of HMR, and to describe relevant examples and practical uses of DLT-based solutions for patients, healthcare management, and research activities. DLTs in particular can be increasingly useful for patients to truly have control over their health, for healthcare policymakers to increase the quality of organizational processes, and for research funders, editors and publishers to increase the return on investment, and the reuse and reproducibility of research. In conclusion, harnessing the potential of digital technologies is essential to transform healthcare management and research, by enhancing data quality, reliability, and trust

a novel computational model of the wheat global market with an application to the 2010 russian federation case

In this paper, we build a computational model for the analysis of international wheat spot price formation, its dynamics and the dynamics of quantities traded internationally. The model has been calibrated using FAOSTAT data to evaluate its in-sample predictive power. The model is able to generate wheat prices in twelve international markets and traded wheat quantities in twenty-four world regions. The time span considered is from 1992 to 2013. In our study, particular attention was paid to the impact of the Russian Federation's 2010 grain export ban on wheat price and quantities traded internationally. Among other results, we found that the average weighted world wheat price in 2013 would have been 3.55% lower than the observed one if the Russian Federation had not imposed the export ban in 2010

New technologies sustainability: monitoring and evaluation of results of interventions for the promotion of cultural heritage and the human landscape

The relationship between the development of technologies and the history of the cultural and agricultural landscape is linked to the concepts of "cultural landscape", understood as a space in continuous construction that changes with the change of individual, collective, social and cultural relationships of the inhabitants of the territory, or of the "cultural inhabitants", citizens who are producers of culture, rather than users. A vision of the "future as an open place" emerges, understood as a place of usability and sharing of all human, material and immaterial productions.Technologies, within a similar perspective, are presented as the historical evolution of téchne, whose degree of development today allows an extension of the level of human action.This study, in agreement with the scientific literature based on the use of recently developed digital models, demonstrates that the mainly agricultural territory of Basilicata, historically the site of complex social relations, has created a traditional rural society in which the concept of neighborhood and the spatial connotation also had the symbolic value of sharing knowledge and practices, relationships based on inclusiveness and sustainability. The diffusion of 5G technology is generating important cultural transformations. What used to be the neighborhood community in Matera (IT) - also following the activities launched with the CTEMT project and the social consequences of the Covid-19 pandemic - is now becoming a virtual community for sharing knowledge and practices , beliefs and values, including the use and management of cultural heritage, which takes place through the network, and therefore using applications that promote a transformative intervention of the landscape, such as to make it functional to human needs, and, at the same time, sustainable with respect to the perpetuation of ecosystem relationships.The diffusion of 5G technology, is generating important cultural transformations. What in the past was, in Matera (IT), the neighbourhood community - also as a result of the activities launched with the CTEMT project and the social consequences of the Covid-19 pandemic - now becomes a virtual community, sharing knowledge and practices, beliefs and values, including the use and management of cultural heritage, occurs through the network with the use of applications that promote accessibility and sustainability in both the urban and agricultural landscape. As argued by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), the attention to the dynamic conservation of the landscape should not be placed so much to the "culture itself" or to the "nature itself" but rather to the relationship between these two dynamic components has been established, but also from the holistic mentioned many times, attentive to the values of identity and comforted by the knowledge and decoding of the intangible heritage, from which we deduce the active role, shared social behaviours, the mechanisms of transmission of knowledge and transgenerational awareness also thanks to the complex and fascinating universe of uses, traditions, rituals and rites that are an important tool of conscious management of the landscape and its culture. The conscious use of artificial intelligence is the concretion of the virtuous relationship between Humanism and technologies. For the biodiversity it is a support to the recognition of the species, in particular of the native ones, and it allows people to recognize themselves culturally and find into the biodiversity a collective and cultural belonging to the community and to the landscape. Therefore, thanks to the use of new technologies biodiversity becomes an historical-anthropological archive of knowledge and practices of a territory, and new technologies a powerful tool for the conservation of the cultural heritage

Simplified and Advanced Sentinel-2-Based Precision Nitrogen Management of Wheat

This study compares simplified and advanced precision nitrogen (N) fertilization approaches for winter wheat relying on Sentinel-2 NDVI, grain yield maps, and protein content. Five N fertilization treatments were compared: (1) a standard rate, calculated by a typical N balance (Flat-N); (2) a variable rate calculated using a simplified linear model, adopting a proportional strategy (NDVI directly related) (Var-N-dir); (3) a variable rate calculated using a simplified linear model, adopting a compensative strategy (NDVI inversely related) (Var-N-inv); (4) a variable rate calculated using the AgroSat model (Var-N-Agrosat); and (5) a variable rate calculated applying the Agricolus model (Var-N-Agricolus). The study was carried out in four fields over two cropping seasons with a randomized blocks design. Results indicate that the weather remains the main factor influencing yield, as it typically happens in a rainfed crop. No substantial differences in crop yield were observed among the N fertilization models within each year and experimental location. However, in the more favorable season, the low-input direct model (Var-N-dir) resulted as the best choice, providing the higher NUE (nitrogen use efficiency) value. In the less favorable season, results showed a better performance of the advanced models (Var-N-Agricolus and Var-N-Agrosat), which limited yield losses and reduced intra-field variability, with relevant importance given to the increasing frequency of abnormal climate phenomena. In general, all these VRT approaches allowed reduction of the excess of fertilizers, preservation of the environment, and saving money