A Study of the Relationship Between Health and Subjective Well-being in Parkinson’s Disease Patients

Objectives: In light of the apparent disconnect between traditional measures of societal well-being such as GDP and reported levels of happiness, governments globally are turning their attention to alternative subjective measures of well-being (SWB) to aid policy decisions. In the context of health, there is therefore growing interest in understanding how measures of health-related quality of life (HRQoL), widely used in health technology appraisal, relates to SWB, and whether SWB could provide a sound basis for resource allocation decisions in health and other sectors in the future. This study investigates the relationship between HRQoL, as measured by EQ-5D, and SWB in Parkinson’s disease (PD) and the extent to which patients’ self-reported health can explain (part of) their SWB. Methods: A paper questionnaire including EQ-5D, four key SWB questions taken from the Office for National Statistics Integrated Household Survey in England and other demographic details was distributed to people with PD in the UK. Responses were used to estimate multiple regression models explaining SWB using each of the EQ-5D Index (UK weights), EQ-5D dimensions and EQ-VAS and patient socio-demographic characteristics. Results: 276 questionnaires were distributed and 183 responses received. The EQ-5D Index was a moderate predictor of SWB (adjusted R2 range 0.19-0.38 in OLS models), but EQ-VAS performed better (adjusted R2 range 0.32-0.49). Combining EQ-VAS and EQ-5D dimensions, especially anxiety/depression and mobility, and household status in some cases, yielded the best-fitting models (adjusted R2 range 0.40-0.52). Conclusions: The findings imply that EQ-VAS and some dimensions of the EQ-5D, together with key demographic data, could potentially be used to predict SWB, e.g. via mapping. However, further empirical research into the relationship between SWB and EQ-5D longitudinally, and in different disease areas, is required to corroborate these findings, and further standardisation of SWB measures is recommended

The magnetic reorientation transition in thin ferromagnetic films treated by many-body Green's function theory

This contribution describes the reorientation of the magnetization of thin ferromagnetic Heisenberg films as function of the temperature and/or an external field. Working in a rotating frame allows an exact treatment of the single-ion anisotropy when going to higher-order Green's functions. Terms due to the exchange interaction are treated by a generalized Tyablikov (RPA) decoupling.Comment: 9 pages, 2 figure

Integrating visual and tactile information in the perirhinal cortex

By virtue of its widespread afferent projections, perirhinal cortex is thought to bind polymodal information into abstract object-level representations. Consistent with this proposal, deficits in cross-modal integration have been reported after perirhinal lesions in nonhuman primates. It is therefore surprising that imaging studies of humans have not observed perirhinal activation during visual–tactile object matching. Critically, however, these studies did not differentiate between congruent and incongruent trials. This is important because successful integration can only occur when polymodal information indicates a single object (congruent) rather than different objects (incongruent). We scanned neurologically intact individuals using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) while they matched shapes. We found higher perirhinal activation bilaterally for cross-modal (visual–tactile) than unimodal (visual–visual or tactile–tactile) matching, but only when visual and tactile attributes were congruent. Our results demonstrate that the human perirhinal cortex is involved in cross-modal, visual–tactile, integration and, thus, indicate a functional homology between human and monkey perirhinal cortices

Accelerator measurement of the energy spectra of neutrons emitted in the interaction of 3-GeV protons with several elements

The application of time of flight techniques for determining the shapes of the energy spectra of neutrons between 20 and 400 MeV is discussed. The neutrons are emitted at 20, 34, and 90 degrees in the bombardment of targets by 3 GeV protons. The targets used are carbon, aluminum, cobalt, and platinum with cylindrical cross section. Targets being bombarded are located in the internal circulating beam of a particle accelerator

The health state preferences and logistical inconsistencies of New Zealanders: a tale of two tariffs

Notwithstanding the proposed use of Cost-Utility Analysis (CUA) to inform health care priority setting in New Zealand, to date there has been no research into New Zealanders’ valuations of health-related quality of life. This paper reports the results of a study of the health state preferences of adult New Zealanders generated from a postal survey to which 1360 people responded (a 50% response rate). The survey employed a self-completed questionnaire in which a selection of health states were described using the EQ-5D health state classification system and respondents’ valuations were sought using a visual analogue scale (VAS). Close attention is paid to the quality of the data, in particular to the ‘logical inconsistencies’ in respondents’ valuations. Regression analysis is used to interpolate values over the 245 possible EQ-5D states. Two tariffs of health state preferences, arising from contrasting treatments of the logical inconsistencies, are reported.New Zealand, EuroQol, EQ-5D

Combinatorial Aspects of the Splitting Number

We define the strong splitting number, prove that it equals s when exists, and put some restrictions on the possibility that s is a singular carcinal