Risk Management - Hygiene and Legionella in water systems in hospitals: Relevance for Facility Management and Facility Services

To guide readers properly, it is necessary to say that this article is part of an ongoing research project. It is divided into four sections. For the purpose of introducing into the topic, a concise summary of the contextual framework and theoretical background is presented first. Here the authors introduce on the topic of hygiene, Legionella and risk management in the context of Facility Management and Facility Services. After sharing the perspective from the research project's context, section two reveals findings of a literature review, which worked out a potential search strategy for people new to the topic. It is also useful for people responsible, who wish to get deeper knowledge about the topics 'responsibility of stakeholders' and the ‘process’ of Legionella prevention. With the contents of section three shifting from research to (legal) practice, some responsibilities of stakeholders and the ‘process’ of Legionella prevention are presented. As the field work of the research project is still running, and participants (interview partners) are still needed, the last section of this article informs briefly about characteristics of the research project

Search for Charged Higgs Bosons in e+e- Collisions at \sqrt{s} = 189 GeV

A search for pair-produced charged Higgs bosons is performed with the L3 detector at LEP using data collected at a centre-of-mass energy of 188.6 GeV, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 176.4 pb^-1. Higgs decays into a charm and a strange quark or into a tau lepton and its associated neutrino are considered. The observed events are consistent with the expectations from Standard Model background processes. A lower limit of 65.5 GeV on the charged Higgs mass is derived at 95 % confidence level, independent of the decay branching ratio Br(H^{+/-} -> tau nu)

Tamoxifen accelerates the repair of demyelinated lesions in the central nervous system.

Enhancing central nervous system (CNS) myelin regeneration is recognized as an important strategy to ameliorate the devastating consequences of demyelinating diseases such as multiple sclerosis. Previous findings have indicated that myelin proteins, which accumulate following demyelination, inhibit remyelination by blocking the differentiation of rat oligodendrocyte progenitor cells (OPCs) via modulation of PKCα. We therefore screened drugs for their potential to overcome this differentiation block. From our screening, tamoxifen emerges as a potent inducer of OPC differentiation in vitro. We show that the effects of tamoxifen rely on modulation of the estrogen receptors ERα, ERβ, and GPR30. Furthermore, we demonstrate that administration of tamoxifen to demyelinated rats in vivo accelerates remyelination. Tamoxifen is a well-established drug and is thus a promising candidate for a drug to regenerate myelin, as it will not require extensive safety testing. In addition, Tamoxifen plays an important role in biomedical research as an activator of inducible genetic models. Our results highlight the importance of appropriate controls when using such models.This work was supported by grants from Wings for Life and the UK Multiple Sclerosis Society. M.R.N.K. holds an NIHR CL award and a Sir David and Isobel Walker fellowship. G.A.G. was supported by CONICYT (Becas Chile) scholarship, and M.P.H. was supported by a Sir David and Isobel Walker studentship. Research in the author’s laboratory is supported by a core support grant from the Wellcome Trust and MRC to the Wellcome Trust Medical Research Council Cambridge Stem Cell Institut

Recent Advances in Our Understanding of the Role of Meltwater in the Greenland Ice Sheet System

Nienow, Sole and Cowton’s Greenland research has been supported by a number of UK NERC research grants (NER/O/S/2003/00620; NE/F021399/1; NE/H024964/1; NE/K015249/1; NE/K014609/1) and Slater has been supported by a NERC PhD studentshipPurpose of the review:  This review discusses the role that meltwater plays within the Greenland ice sheet system. The ice sheet’s hydrology is important because it affects mass balance through its impact on meltwater runoff processes and ice dynamics. The review considers recent advances in our understanding of the storage and routing of water through the supraglacial, englacial, and subglacial components of the system and their implications for the ice sheet Recent findings:   There have been dramatic increases in surface meltwater generation and runoff since the early 1990s, both due to increased air temperatures and decreasing surface albedo. Processes in the subglacial drainage system have similarities to valley glaciers and in a warming climate, the efficiency of meltwater routing to the ice sheet margin is likely to increase. The behaviour of the subglacial drainage system appears to limit the impact of increased surface melt on annual rates of ice motion, in sections of the ice sheet that terminate on land, while the large volumes of meltwater routed subglacially deliver significant volumes of sediment and nutrients to downstream ecosystems. Summary:  Considerable advances have been made recently in our understanding of Greenland ice sheet hydrology and its wider influences. Nevertheless, critical gaps persist both in our understanding of hydrology-dynamics coupling, notably at tidewater glaciers, and in runoff processes which ensure that projecting Greenland’s future mass balance remains challenging.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe

Measurement of Triple-Gauge-Boson Couplings of the W Boson at LEP

We report on measurements of the triple-gauge-boson couplings of the W boson in $\mathrm{e^+e^-}$ collisions with the L3 detector at LEP. W-pair, single-W and single-photon events are analysed in a data sample corresponding to a total luminosity of 76.7~pb$^{-1}$ collected at centre-of-mass energies between 161~GeV and 183~GeV. CP-conserving as well as both C- and P-conserving triple-gauge-boson couplings are determined. The results, in good agreement with the Standard-Model expectations, confirm the existence of the self coupling among the electroweak gauge bosons and constrain its structure

Legionella and risk management in hospitals - A bibliographic research methodology for people responsible for built environments and facility management

An ongoing research project investigates the roles and duties of persons responsible for the built environment with respect to risk management of water systems and Legionella prevention from a facility management’s perspective. Our literature review provides an approach for selecting and analysing abstracts of initially 177 journal articles, subjected to certain topic-specific inclusion and exclusion criteria. Different decision strategies of either logic ‘yes/no’, Boolean operators ‘OR’ or ‘AND’ and decisions for single counts or cumulative counts of the identified three principal keywords ‘Legionella’, ‘hospital’ and ‘water’, were completed. A final list of ten principal reference articles from 29 journals was compiled. It suggests that the interconnected perspective of water systems, Legionella and hospitals seems to be underrepresented in the field of the built environment and facility management. The term ‘stakeholder’, which would refer to decision-makers, was not found more than once. Our result is a useful summary of established sources of information on environmental Legionella research. The results can be helpful for those new to the topic

EQ-5D in Central and Eastern Europe : 2000-2015

Objective: Cost per quality-adjusted life year data are required for reimbursement decisions in many Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries. EQ-5D is by far the most commonly used instrument to generate utility values in CEE. This study aims to systematically review the literature on EQ-5D from eight CEE countries. Methods: An electronic database search was performed up to July 1, 2015 to identify original EQ-5D studies from the countries of interest. We analysed the use of EQ-5D with respect to clinical areas, methodological rigor, population norms and value sets. Results: We identified 143 studies providing 152 country-specific results with a total sample size of 81,619: Austria (n=11), Bulgaria (n=6), Czech Republic (n=18), Hungary (n=47), Poland (n=51), Romania (n=2), Slovakia (n=3) and Slovenia (n=14). Cardiovascular (20%), neurologic (16%), musculoskeletal (15%) and endocrine/nutritional/metabolic diseases (14%) were the most frequently studied clinical areas. Overall 112 (78%) of the studies reported EQ VAS results and 86 (60%) EQ-5D index scores, of which 27 (31%) did not specify the applied tariff. Hungary, Poland and Slovenia have population norms. Poland and Slovenia also have a national value set. Conclusions: Increasing use of EQ-5D is observed throughout CEE. The spread of health technology assessment activities in countries seems to be reflected in the number of EQ-5D studies. However, improvement in informed use and methodological quality of reporting is needed. In jurisdictions where no national value set is available, in order to ensure comparability we recommend to apply the most frequently used UK tariff. Regional collaboration between CEE countries should be strengthened