1959: Abilene Christian College Bible Lectures - Full Text

UNTO ALL THE WORLD” Being the Abilene Christian College Annual Bible Lectures 1959 Price: $3.00 Published by FIRM FOUNDATION PUBLISHING HOUSE Box 77 Austin, Texa

Waiting times for diagnosis of attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder in children and adolescents referred to Italian ADHD centers must be reduced

BACKGROUND: To investigate timely access to and the time needed to complete the diagnostic path of children and adolescents with suspected attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) in the 18 Italian Lombardy Region ADHD reference centers. METHODS: Data of children and adolescents enrolled in the Regional ADHD disease-oriented Registry for suspected ADHD who requested their first visit in 2013-2017 were analyzed. RESULTS: The sample comprised 2262 children and adolescents aged 5-17\u2009years who accessed the ADHD centers for diagnostic classification and management. The median waiting time was of 177\u2009days (range 66-375) from the request for the initial appointment to the completion of the diagnostic path, with a three - fold difference between centers. In addition to the center, the strongest significant predictors of long waiting times were age comorbidities, the severity of the disorder, and having already completed some diagnostic procedures provided by the common standard path. CONCLUSIONS: To guarantee an equal standard of care in ADHD centers for all children and adolescents there is a pressing need to reduce the times to complete the diagnostic path. It is the task of both policymakers and each center to optimize the quality of the service and of the care delivered

Italian regional health service costs for diagnosis and 1-year treatment of ADHD in children and adolescents

The main aim of this study was to estimate the costs associated with diagnostic assessment and 1-year therapy in children and adolescents enrolled in 18 ADHD reference centres. Data concerning 1887 children and adolescents from the mandatory ADHD registry database during the 2012-2014 period were analysed. The overall diagnostic and treatment costs per patient amounts to \u20ac574 and \u20ac830, respectively. The ADHD centre, the school as sender, and the time to diagnosis constitute cost drivers. Non-pharmacological therapy resulted as being more expensive for patients concomitantly treated with drugs (\u20ac929) compared to those treated with psychological interventions alone (\u20ac590; p=0.006). This study gives the first and reliable estimate of the costs associated with both diagnosis and treatment of ADHD in Italy. Although costs associated with mental disorders are difficult to estimate, continuing efforts are need to define costs and resources to guarantee appropriate care, also for ADHD

Development of a tool for the analysis and optimisation of atmospheric re-entry trajectories

Atmospheric re-entry relies on different aspects of the space sector, such as the return of manned or unmanned payloads back to Earth, the exploration with landers and rovers of the outer planets with atmosphere, or additionally the demise of satellites at their End-Of-Life; all aspects nowadays of interest both for Space Agencies and private companies. The atmospheric re-entry from space is one of the most critical and complex engineering problems in the aerospace field. Stringent and specific mission requirements shall be satisfied to properly ensure a non-destructive and safe landing of the managed asset. The requirements' severity strongly depends on the type of the hosted payload by the spacecraft: manned or un-manned. Especially in the first case, the stringent mission requirements deeply affect the design of the spacecraft re-entry trajectory or 're-entry corridor', strongly impacting on the spacecraft overall design and mass budget. This paper deals with the preliminary analysis and design of re-entry corridors for manned and unmanned spacecraft. Physical and mathematical models have been developed to simulate the environment (i.e. atmosphere and gravity field) and the aerothermodynamics phenomena affecting the spacecraft along the re-entry phase. To verify the validity of the developed tool, different real missions have been firstly simulated, such as IXV by ESA and AS202 by NASA. The results have been then compared to the real mission data. An optimisation methodology has been further developed and implemented into a flexible numerical program in Matlab language. The program gives the opportunity to set initial conditions like the spacecraft's geometry and mass, and the so-called 'target conditions'. The outputs of the tool provide the users with the possibility to find the optimised re-entry corridors, identifying all the best-candidate Entry Interface Points that shall be achieved by the spacecraft to satisfy the imposed mission requirements. As additional output, structural, aerodynamic and thermal stresses acting on the vehicle are estimated in order to minimize their peak values. Furthermore, the re-entry windows from the parking orbit and the related de-orbit manoeuvres are also estimated, as well as the communication windows with the selected ground stations. Moreover, a sensitivity analysis has been implemented for completeness and to enhance the reliability of the produced solutions from statistical point of view. An applied study will be reported as example, together with the obtained results, highlighting their importance for planning and operating re-entry missions of present and future applications

MASTROcarONTE a Multiagent Adaptive System for Tourist Recommendations Onboard the car, which Observes the Needs and Tailors the hElps

MASTROcarONTE is a multiagent system which provides a car driver with personalized tourist information. The system identifies the user and tailors information according to her model and to the contextual conditions. This paper sketches the architecture of the system and the specific problems it has to deal with, due to the use of a mobile channel and device in a mobile environment