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The objective of this study was to describe the measures introduced at the Hospital Germans Trias i Pujol. Barcelona. aimed at achieving a sin oke-free environment, and encouraging research, training, and clinical approaches with respect to smoking. The experience gained as a center attached to the Catalan Network of Smokeless Hospitals since 2002 shows that preventing and controlling smoking requires a specific agenda developed by a competent committee comprising workers from all hospital areas. Likewise, coordination with other centers in the network is essential as it permits the sharing of experiences. The involvement of hospital management is critical for the effective introduction of health protection and promotion strategies, both in workers and in users. The raising of awareness and the ongoing training of all health workers and coordination with other health care providers in the health network are the main aspects that require strengthening in the future.

Different morphological structures of tin sulfide (SnS2) were prepared by a solvothermal process using the thioacetamide as a sulphuring agent, are explored as anode material for Na-ion battery. All of the as-prepared SnS2 show much higher Na storage capacity and better cyclability along with good rate capability. Particularly, the flowerlike SnS2 (F-SnS2) demonstrates the highest reversible discharge capacity of 430 mAh g–1 at 50 mA g–1 and better cyclability with 97.8 % coulombic efficiency (CE) after 50 cycles. This behaviour is mainly attributed to the unique hierarchical structure and high porosity, which can provide enough space to buffer the volume expansions during the cyclic processes, increase the contact area between the electrode and electrolyte, and reduce the transport lengths of both sodium ions and electrons. The high capacity at high current rate and long cycling makes this porous F-SnS2 a promising anode material for Na-ion batteries.

Background: Postmarketing surveillance studies (PMS) are an important tool for evaluating a drug’s effectiveness and safety in clinical practice. To our knowledge, no PMS on memantine monotherapy for moderately-severe-to-severe Alzheimer’s disease (AD) according to National Institute of Neurological and Communicative Disorders and Stroke — Alzheimer’s Disease and Related Disorders Association criteria has been conducted to date. Objective: The Lombardy Health Office, Italy, promoted this PMS to evaluate the effectiveness and safety of memantine in the treatment of moderately-severe-to-severe AD in clinical practice. Methods: A total of 451 patients with moderately-severe-to-severe AD (mean age 77 ± 7 years; 72% female), free of cholinergic medication, received memantine (standard titration to 10 mg twice daily). After 6 months of therapy, treatment effectiveness was evaluated according to two definitions of response (‘no deterioration’ and ‘improvement’), as measured by changes in baseline scores on the Clinical Global Impression of Change, Mini-Mental State Examination, Neuropsychiatric Inventory and Activities of Daily Living scales. The safety measure was the frequency of adverse events (AEs). Results: At 6-month assessment, 26.8% of subjects showed no deterioration and 3.8% showed improvement. In those showing no deterioration, response to treatment at the 3-month assessment was associated with a greater probability of a response at 6 months (adjusted odds ratio = 8.54; 95% CI 4.54, 16.05). Seventy patients (15.5%) experienced at least one AE and 39 (8.6%) discontinued treatment prematurely because of an AE. Of those who experienced an AE, 27 (38.6%) manifested behavioural and psychological symptoms of dementia. Conclusion: The proportion of responders to memantine treatment in this PMS was similar to that reported in a previous randomized clinical trial (26.8% vs 29%, respectively). The proportion of patients who discontinued treatment prematurely because of an AE (8.6%) was similar to that reported in two previous randomized clinical trials (10% and 12.4%). This PMS provides additional evidence that both the effectiveness and the tolerability of memantine may be transferred into real world medicine, where AD patients receiving treatment are not selected according to strict criteria.

Background: Statins, due to their well-established pleiotropic effects, have noteworthy benefits in stroke prevention. Despite this, a significant proportion of high-risk patients still do not receive the recommended therapeutic regimens, and many others discontinue treatment after being started on them. The causes of non-adherence to current guidelines are multifactorial, and depend on both physicians and patients. The aim of this study is to identify the factors influencing statin prescription at Stroke Unit (SU) discharge.Methods: This study included 12,750 patients enrolled on the web-based Lombardia Stroke Registry (LRS) from July 2009 to April 2012 and discharged alive, with a diagnosis of ischemic stroke or transient ischemic attack (TIA) and without contra-indication to statin therapy. By logistic regression analysis and classification trees, we evaluated the impact of demographic data, risk factors, tPA treatment, in-hospital procedures and complications on statin prescription rate at discharge.Results: We observed a slight increase in statins prescription during the study period (from 39.1 to 43.9%). Lower age, lower stroke severity and prestroke disability, the presence of atherothrombotic/lacunar risk factors, a diagnosis of non-cardioembolic stroke, tPA treatment, the absence of in-hospital complications, with the sole exception of hypertensive fits and hyperglycemia, were the patient-related predictors of adherence to guidelines by physicians. Overall, dyslipidemia appears as the leading factor, while TOAST classification does not reach statistical significance.Conclusions: In our region, Lombardia, adherence to guidelines in statin prescription at Stroke Unit discharge is very different from international goals. The presence of dyslipidemia remains the main factor influencing statin prescription, while the presence of well-defined atherosclerotic etiopathogenesis of stroke does not enhance statin prescription. Some uncertainties about the risk/benefit of statin therapy in stroke etiology subtypes (cardioembolism, other or undetermined causes) may partially justify the underuse of statin in ischemic stroke. The differences that exist between current international guidelines may prevent a more widespread use of statin and should be clarified in a consensus. © 2014 Canavero et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd

The aim of this study is to evaluate memantine effectiveness on behavioural and psychological symptoms of dementia (BPSD) in clinical practice and to identify variables that may predict the therapy effects. The effects of memantine on behaviour were analysed in the database of a post-marketing surveillance study promoted by the Lombardy Region Health Office and involving 43 Alzheimer's disease (AD) Units. From July to December 2005, 399 moderately severe-to-severe AD patients free of cholinergic medications were enrolled, treated with memantine and followed-up for 6 months. BPSD were assessed in a subgroup of 297 patients [mean age 77 ± 8 years; 73% females; mean neuropsychiatric inventory (NPI) score 28 ± 24] for whom the 12-item NPI subscores at baseline, and at 3 and 6 months were available. The 12 BPSD were clustered as follows: affect, physical behaviour, psychosis and hypomania. The main outcome measure was the proportion of individual cluster responders at 6 months of therapy. The proportion of individual cluster responders was 30% affect, 24% physical behaviour, 29% psychosis, 27% hypomania. Patients taking 20 mg memantine daily during the study period had a statistically significant higher probability to experience behavioural improvement than those who discontinued treatment or did not complete memantine titration (affect OR 9.0; 95% CI 3.8-21.6; physical behaviour OR 17.8; 95% CI 5.9-53.6; psychosis OR 23.6; 95% CI 5.1-110.8). The logistic regression analysis was not applicable to the hypomania subsyndrome because of the low cluster prevalence. The standard 20 mg daily memantine treatment regimen was found to be associated with a modest 6-month behavioural improvement in the affect, physical behaviour and psychosis domains in 24-30% of patients.

Productivity is basic statistical information for many international comparisons and country performance assessments. This study estimates the construction labour productivity of 79 selected economies. The real (purchasing power parities converted) and nominal construction expenditure from the Report of 2005 International Comparison Programme published by the World Bank and construction employment from the database of labour statistics (LABORSTA) operated by the Bureau of Statistics of International LAbour Organisation were used in the estimation. The inference statistics indicate that the descending order of nominal construction labour productivity from high income economies to low income economies is not established. the average construction labour productivity of low income economies is higher than middle income economies when the productivity calculation uses purchasing power parities converted data. MAlaysia ranked 50th and 63rd position among the 79 selected economies on real and nominal measurement respectively.

The construction industry is one of major strategic importance. Its level of productivity has a significant effect on national economic growth. The analysis of published census/biannual surveys of construction by the Department of Statistics of Malaysia shows that Malaysia managed to achieve construction labour productivity growth between 1996 and 2005 despite increases in cost per employee. The decrease in unit labour costs is attributed to the value added improvement per worker through the increase in capital intensity. The marginal decline in capital productivity is due to the gestation period and the overcapacity of the industry. The civil engineering sub-sector recorded the highest labour productivity and is the most labour competitive in terms of unit labour cost and added value per labour cost. The residential sub-sectors recorded greatest change in the productivity indicators between 1996 and 2005.

We examined the clinical and histopathologic effects of the instillation of two surgical adhesives in the corneal stroma of rabbits. The adhesives examined in this study included a butyl-2cyanoacrylate (CA) and a combination of a musselderived polyphenolic protein (MAP) with an enzyme polymerizer (COX). In this study, either one of the adhesives or balanced saline solution (as a control) was instilled directly into the corneal stroma following the surgical creation of a perilimbal intralamellar pocket. Animals were examined on a regular basis for a 60-day period following instillation and, at predetermined time points, sacrificed for histopathologic evaluation. The group of animals that received intracomeal instillations of CA consistently manifested early and progressive stromal neovascularization of the affected corneas. Histopathologic examination confirmed the progressive neovascularization, as well as a noticeable inflammatory response surrounding the adhesive. In contrast, instillation of the MAP-COX adhesive produced neovascular and inflammatory responses that were later in onset and milder in degree than those observed with CA. In this experimental model, the MAP-COX adhesive appeared to be better tolerated than did the CA. [Refractive and Corneal Surgery. 1989; 5:302-306].

An association between excessive alcohol use and cardiac rhythm disorders is often difficult to establish in the absence of overt cardiomyopathy. We studied 32 separate hospital admissions for dysrhythmias in 24 patients (20 men, 4 women) with heavy recent alcohol ingestion and prolonged excessive alcohol use. None had evidence of overt heart disease after treatment of arrhythmia. Episodes usually followed heavy weekend or holiday sprees, resulting in hospitalization between Sunday and Tuesday or in proximity to the year-end holidays, a relationship not observed in other alcohol-associated illnesses. Atrial fibrillation was most common, but atrial flutter, atrial tachycardia, junctional tachycardia, multiple APC's, multiple PVC's and ventricular tachycardia were also observed. Transient hypokalemia was present in four of 30. The mean PEP LVET ratio after treatment was 0.412 ± 0.014 (normal 0.299 ± 0.008, P

Little is known about the performance of fouling-release coatings at different geographical locations. An investigation was designed to measure the differences in biofouling and biofouling adhesion strength on three known silicone formulations and an epoxy control at seven static immersion sites located in California, Florida, Hawaii, Hong Kong, India, Italy and Singapore. The study found that whilst the relative performance of the coatings was similar at each site, there were statistically significant differences in the type and intensity of fouling that developed on the coatings and in barnacle adhesion strength among sites. The results emphasize the importance of evaluating potential coatings at more than one static immersion site.