Public health medicine in Malta : past, present and future

This article highlights some of the significant developments in public health including the pattern of disease in past centuries when emphasis was on sanitation and control of epidemics. The improved social conditions as well as health care developments during the past decades have not only changed this pattern, but have also modified the approach to public health. The future presents us with challenges which we must face through appreciation of the issues involved and the use of appropriate strategies.peer-reviewe

Hypercentral constituent quark model and isospin dependence

The constituent quark model based on a hypercentral approach takes into account three-body force effects and standard two-body potential contributions. The quark potential contains a hypercentral interaction, to which a hyperfine term is added. While the hypercentral potential supplies good values for the centroid energies of the resonance multiplets and a realistic set of quark wave functions, the hyperfine splittings are sometimes not sufficient to account for the observed masses. In this work we have introduced an improved form of the hyperfine interaction and an isospin dependent quark potential. The resulting description of the baryon spectrum is very good, also for the Roper resonance, specially thanks to the flavour dependent interaction.Comment: 12 pages, 2 figures, accepted by Eur. Phys. J.

Extra S11 and P13 in the Hypercentral Constituent Quark Model

We report on the recent results of the hypercentral Constituent Quark Model (hCQM). The model contains a spin independent three-quark interaction which is inspired by Lattice QCD calculations and reproduces the average energy values of the SU(6) multiplets. The splittings within each multiplet are obtained with a SU(6)-breaking interaction, which can include also an isospin dependent term. All the 3- and 4-stars resonances are well reproduced. Moreover, as all the Constituent Quark models, the hCQM predicts ``missing'' resonances ({\em e.g.} extra $S11$ and $P13$ states) which can be of some help for the experimental identification of new resonances. The model provides also a good description of the medium $Q^2$-behavior of the electromagnetic transition form factors. In particular the calculated helicity amplitude $A_{{1/2}}$ for the $S_{11}(1535)$ resonance agrees very well with the recent CLAS data. More recently, the elastic nucleon form factors have been calculated using a relativistic version of the hCQM and a relativistic quark current.Comment: 7 pages,3 figures, Talk given at NStar 2002 workshop on the physics of excited nucleons, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, October 9-12, 200

Electromagnetic Form Factors and the hCQM

We briefly report on results about the electromagnetic form factors of the nucleon obtained with different models and then we concentrate our attention on recent results obtained with the hypercentral constituent quark model (hCQM).Comment: 12 pages, 5 figures, Invited talk at 27th Symposium on Nuclear Physics, Taxco, Guerrero, Mexico, 5-8 Jan 200

Screening for congenital hypothyroidism in Maltese newborns using cord blood

Routine screening for congenital hypothyroidism (CHT) has been introduced because clinical features of CHT may not be evident before the baby is a few weeks old and treatment at this stage may already be too late. Since a newborn testing programme employing liquid cord blood for other conditions had already been developed in the University of Malta and the Department of Health, we explored the possibility of implementing newborn thyroid testing using liquid cord blood. A similar programme had been implemented successfully in Finland and Philadelphia. Between September 1989 and August 1995 around 32,000 newborns were tested. This is nearly complete ascertainment. Preliminary testing was by radioimmunoassay for TSH. The sera of those with TSH levels more than 13mU/l were further tested for free T4. If the free T4 level was below 12 pmol/l, the babies were recalled for clinical evaluation and repeat testing. Other babies were recalled for technical reasons, giving a total recall rate of 3.88%. CHT was identified in seven newborns and treatment started within 3 weeks of delivery. One baby was reported normal on screening but was suspected to have CHT on clinical grounds at 3 weeks of age, confirmed biochemically. The incidence of CHT in Malta is therefore 1 in 4500.peer-reviewe