Study protocol for a cluster-randomized controlled trial of an NCD access to medicines initative: Evaluation of Novartis Access in Kenya

INTRODUCTION: Novartis recently launched Novartis Access, an initiative to provide a basket of reduced price medicines for non-communicable diseases (NCDs) to be sold through the public and private nonprofit sectors in programme countries. This study will evaluate the impact of Novartis Access on the availability and price of NCD medicines at health facilities and households in Kenya, the first country to receive the programme. METHODS: This study will be a cluster randomised controlled trial. 8 counties in Kenya will be randomly assigned to the intervention or control group using a covariate constrained randomisation method to maximise balance on demographic and health characteristics. In intervention counties, public and private non-profit health facilities will be able to order Novartis Access NCD medicines from the Mission for Essential Drugs and Supplies (MEDS). Data will be collected from a random sample of 384 health facilities and 800 households at baseline, midline after 1-year of intervention, and end-line after 2 years. Quarterly surveillance data will also be collected from health facilities and a subsample of households through phone-based interviews. Households will be eligible if at least one resident has been previously diagnosed and prescribed a medicine for an NCD addressed by Novartis Access, including hypertension and diabetes. The primary outcomes will be availability and price of NCD medicines at health facilities, and availability, price, and expenditures on NCD medicines at households. Impacts will be estimated using intention-to-treat analysis. ETHICS AND DISSEMINATION: This protocol was approved by the Institutional Review Boards at Strathmore University and at Boston University. Informed consent will be obtained from all participants at the start of the trial. The findings of the trial will be disseminated through peer-reviewed journals, international conferences, and meetings and events organised with local stakeholders

parXXL: A Fine Grained Development Environment on Coarse Grained Architectures

http://www.hpc2n.umu.se/para06/papers/paper_48.pdfWe present a new integrated environment for cellular computing and other fine grained applications. It is based upon previous developments concerning cellular computing environments (the ParCeL family) and coarse grained algorithms (the SSCRAP toolbox). It is aimed to be portable and efficient, and at the same time to offer a comfortable abstraction for the developer of fine grained programs. A first campaign of benchmarks shows promising results on clusters and mainframes

Scaling of Distributed Multi-Simulations on Multi-Core Clusters

International audienceDACCOSIM is a multi-simulation environment for continuous time systems, relying on FMI standard, making easy the design of a multi-simulation graph, and specially developed for multi-core PC clusters, in order to achieve speedup and size up. However, the distribution of the simulation graph remains complex and is still the responsibility of the simulation developer. This paper introduces DACCOSIM parallel and distributed architecture, and our strategies to achieve efficient multi-simulation graph distribution on multi-core clusters. Some performance experiments on two clusters, running up to 81 simulation components (FMU) and using up to 16 multi-core computing nodes, are shown. Performances measured on our faster cluster exhibit a good scalability, but some limitations of current DACCOSIM implementation are discussed

Noticias médicas

Association d'Enseignement Medical des Hopitaux de Paris Cours de Broncho-Oesophagoscopie. Sur l'invitation du Dr. J. M. LE MEE, chef de service O.-R.L. á l'Hopital Necker-Enfants-Malades, le Dr. CHEV ALlER LAWRENCE JACKSON, Professeur de Clinique Broncho-Oesophagoscopique á Temple University de Philadelphie, commencera, le Ler. septembre 1937, un cours théorique et pratique de Broncho-Oesophagoscopie, avec la collaboration des Drs. MAUR1CE BONNIER, FERNAND EEMAN, A. SOULAS et J. VIALLE, anciens Assistants de la Clinique broncho-oeso phagoscopique de Philadelphie. Les lecons théoriques et les demostrations cliniques auront lieu le matin:dan la nouvelle installation de Broncho-Oesophagoscopie du Pavillon Blumenthal á l'Hopital Necker-Enfants-Malades. Les exercices pratiques auront lieu l'aprés-midi a l'Ecole d'Anatomíe des Hopitaux, 17 rue du Fer-á-Moulin (Dr. ROBINEAU, chirurgie honoraire des H éCpitaux, Directeur). Le Cours sera fait en [rancais et en anglais: il comprcndra 10 lecons et sera terminé le 11 septembre 1937