US Health Care Crisis: Implications for Education, Medical Praxis, and Democracy

This theoretical inquiry sought to critically analyze the various ideological and political aspects of the culture of health care reform in the United States (US) and to investigate the underlying ideologies, values, and purposes of medical practice in a changing democratic society. Using Michel Foucault\u27s cultural studies approach as the theoretical framework for the study, agent and client relationships within the US health care system were examined in efforts to describe the articulation between the health care crisis and the government\u27s social responsibility to prevent the imminent bankruptcy of its health care system. State and national data were collected from governmental web sites of the Department of Health and Human Services, the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, and the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services. This data describes the percentage of the uninsured population in both Georgia and US; total health care costs of the private and public sector in the US; total health care costs in both Georgia and the US; breakdown of health care costs in Georgia; breakdown of health care costs in US; and the Medicare allowables for five random current procedural terminology (CPT) codes. Socioeconomic trends in the US indicate a health care crisis. This study revealed the numbers of uninsured citizens in this country are steadily increasing and the economic impact on these individuals, as well as the rest of the country, is devastating. Literally every hospital in the US is subsidized by the federal and/or state government for indigent and charity care. Therefore, the tax payers ultimately pay for medical care for these individuals. All in all, there is a tremendous financial and health strain to the entire nation because of the uninsured problem in the US. Implications of this study included the following: the health care industry must to do a better job of educating patients on health care issues; catastrophic insurance can provide a useful solution to protect patients from rising costs; patients must begin to think preventive instead of curative; tax deductions should be extended to individuals to pay for health insurance; and a nationwide information system should be implemented

Decentralization in the Democratic Republic of the Congo: Challenges and Possibilities for Democracy

This thesis interrogates the system of decentralization outlined in the Democratic Republic of the Congo's 2006 Constitution. I break decentralization into the categories of political, fiscal, and administrative decentralization in order to compare the DRC's policies with comparable policies in other African nations to provide policy diagnoses and recommendations

Supplementary data for article: Stojanović, M.; Marković, R.; Kleinpeter, E.; Baranac-Stojanović, M. Endo-Mode Cyclizations of Vinylogous N-Acyliminium Ions as a Route to the Synthesis of Condensed Thiazolidines. Tetrahedron 2011, 67 (49), 9541–9554. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tet.2011.10.011

Supplementary material for: [https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tet.2011.10.011]Related to published version: [http://cherry.chem.bg.ac.rs/handle/123456789/1226

Supplementary data for article: Džambaski, Z.; Markovic, R.; Kleinpeter, E.; Baranac-Stojanović, M. 2-Alkylidene-4-Oxothiazolidine S-Oxides: Synthesis and Stereochemistry. Tetrahedron 2013, 69 (31), 6436–6447. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tet.2013.05.087

Supplementary material for: [https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tet.2013.05.087]Related to published version: [http://cherry.chem.bg.ac.rs/handle/123456789/1371

A geographical tool for personal exposure assessment

The European policy in urban atmospheric pollution aims at reducing its impact on human health. This problem of public health is closely related to exposure of citizens during the day. Its estimation through persons activities defines the space-time budget. Sooner or later the local authorities in charge of air quality will provide to the population about their collective or individual exposure. We have developed here a tool that supplies this information. It is based on a multi-source approach. It exploits a Geographic Information System (GIS) gathering information such as individuals mobility, the topographic database, and concentrations of pollutants. Maps and dynamic representations of individual exposure are obtained. They display indoor (home, place of work) and outdoor exposure

Cellular IP₆ Levels Limit HIV Production while Viruses that Cannot Efficiently Package IP₆ Are Attenuated for Infection and Replication

Summary: HIV-1 hijacks host proteins to promote infection. Here we show that HIV is also dependent upon the host metabolite inositol hexakisphosphate (IP6) for viral production and primary cell replication. HIV-1 recruits IP6 into virions using two lysine rings in its immature hexamers. Mutation of either ring inhibits IP6 packaging and reduces viral production. Loss of IP6 also results in virions with highly unstable capsids, leading to a profound loss of reverse transcription and cell infection. Replacement of one ring with a hydrophobic isoleucine core restores viral production, but IP6 incorporation and infection remain impaired, consistent with an independent role for IP6 in stable capsid assembly. Genetic knockout of biosynthetic kinases IPMK and IPPK reveals that cellular IP6 availability limits the production of diverse lentiviruses, but in the absence of IP6, HIV-1 packages IP5 without loss of infectivity. Together, these data suggest that IP6 is a critical cofactor for HIV-1 replication

Adding virtual measuring stations to a network for urban air pollution mapping

International audienceMaps of pollutants concentration are usually generated by means of interpolation and extrapolation methods. The quality of the results depends mainly of the number of permanent or temporary measuring stations. This paper deals with a method for the virtual densification of the network of stations. The method creates “virtual measuring stations”. It aims at improving the quality of interpolation by increasing the number of data on pollutant concentration. The virtual stations are determined by the means of a classification method applied to each pixel of the area under concern. Discriminating elements are pollutants emission classes, land cover types, urban morphological indicators created to this purpose and distance to major roads. A first implementation was made for particulate matter (PM) for the city of Strasbourg (France) using thin-plates spline interpolation method in Arcview 9 GIS. The relative Root Mean Square Error decreases from 49% for five input stations down to 15% for the virtual stations

Urban morphology, remote sensing and pollutants distribution: An application to the city of Strasbourg, France

International audienceThis paper reflects the work achieved for demonstrating the potentialities of Earth Observation data for the knowledge of the atmospheric pollutants concentration fields over metropolitan areas. The interaction of several scales of pollutant observations (points-measurements, streets and urban area) is a particularity of the present work. It is applied to the city of Strasbourg, France. Its objectives are to precisely define the morphological elements which influence the pollutant distribution, and spatialize the measurements with the help of satellite data, taking benefits from previous results