Global, regional, and national incidence of six major immune-mediated inflammatory diseases: findings from the global burden of disease study 2019

Background The causes for immune-mediated inflammatory diseases (IMIDs) are diverse and the incidence trends of IMIDs from specific causes are rarely studied. The study aims to investigate the pattern and trend of IMIDs from 1990 to 2019. Methods We collected detailed information on six major causes of IMIDs, including asthma, inflammatory bowel disease, multiple sclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis, psoriasis, and atopic dermatitis, between 1990 and 2019, derived from the Global Burden of Disease study in 2019. The average annual percent change (AAPC) in number of incidents and age standardized incidence rate (ASR) on IMIDs, by sex, age, region, and causes, were calculated to quantify the temporal trends. Findings In 2019, rheumatoid arthritis, atopic dermatitis, asthma, multiple sclerosis, psoriasis, inflammatory bowel disease accounted 1.59%, 36.17%, 54.71%, 0.09%, 6.84%, 0.60% of overall new IMIDs cases, respectively. The ASR of IMIDs showed substantial regional and global variation with the highest in High SDI region, High-income North America, and United States of America. Throughout human lifespan, the age distribution of incident cases from six IMIDs was quite different. Globally, incident cases of IMIDs increased with an AAPC of 0.68 and the ASR decreased with an AAPC of −0.34 from 1990 to 2019. The incident cases increased across six IMIDs, the ASR of rheumatoid arthritis increased (0.21, 95% CI 0.18, 0.25), while the ASR of asthma (AAPC = −0.41), inflammatory bowel disease (AAPC = −0.72), multiple sclerosis (AAPC = −0.26), psoriasis (AAPC = −0.77), and atopic dermatitis (AAPC = −0.15) decreased. The ASR of overall and six individual IMID increased with SDI at regional and global level. Countries with higher ASR in 1990 experienced a more rapid decrease in ASR. Interpretation The incidence patterns of IMIDs varied considerably across the world. Innovative prevention and integrative management strategy are urgently needed to mitigate the increasing ASR of rheumatoid arthritis and upsurging new cases of other five IMIDs, respectively. Funding The Global Burden of Disease Study is funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. The project funded by Scientific Research Fund of Sichuan Academy of Medical Sciences & Sichuan Provincial People's Hospital (2022QN38)

Zonación sismotectónica del NO de la Península Ibérica

The northwestern part of the Iberian Peninsula shows a permanent seismicity of low to moderate magnitude within the seismotectonic context of the Euro-Mediterranean region. However, a significant increase of seismic activity has taken place since 1995. Several crises have occurred in Lugo province, with a main earthquake of magnitude 5.3 in 1997. A detailed study of the local seismicity was undertaken between 1999 and 2002, based on the deployment of a temporary network. More than 500 local earthquakes were recorded, with epicentres scattered irregularly over the NW Iberian Peninsula, including the continental platform. The highest concentration of events is located onshore the Atlantic margin, in the southern and eastern part of Galicia, decreasing progressively eastwards. The characterization of this recent activity in relation with the different identified tectonic provinces has allowed to establish a new seismotectonic zonation of the northwestern region. Our results allow to differentiate five main seismotectonic domains with similar structural characteristics and a homogenous seismic behavior. This zonation supposes an advance in the regional seismotectonic knowledge and constitutes the basic document for future seismic hazard estimation in this area.Este trabajo ha sido financiado por los proyectos AMB98-1012-C02-02, REN2001-1734-CO3-02/MAR y CSD2006-0041 'Topo-Iberia’ (CONSOLIDER-2010).Peer Reviewe

Managing knowledge and learning for process improvement: a software-mediated process assessment approach for IT service management

As business users increasingly rely upon services from their information technology (IT) service providers, the demand for process improvements in IT services will continue to grow. Although service outcome measures, such as customer satisfaction, may represent the desired end result of IT services, validated assessment of processes provides an important additional element to process improvement efforts, as they may determine actions that could be taken to improve IT services. In the fast-changing and dynamic business environment, IT service organisations must continue to improve their learning processes, create knowledge and implement best practices that allow them to be able to deliver innovative and adaptive value-adding services to their clients. In this chapter, we describe how we applied the software-mediated process assessment (SMPA) approach to assist IT service organisations to conduct process assessments in a transparent and cost-effective manner. In addition, we introduce a knowledge management (KM) process cycle that illustrates how KM and learning processes may be used concurrently to achieve process improvement within the SMPA approach for maximum impact in the IT service management (ITSM) sector. We introduce and discuss three innovative strategies using the SMPA approach to conduct process assessments in the ITSM sector. The practical strategies include (1) adopting the international standards for assessments; (2) facilitating assessments using a decision support system (DSS) tool; and (3) incorporating process assessments for managing knowledge and learning processes. A KM process cycle along with the SMPA approach is introduced. Key value propositions of the SMPA approach are highlighted