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Objective: The aim of the analysis is to assess the impact of privately employed migrant care workers (MCWs) on the burden of Italian family members who care for a disabled older person. Methods: EUROFAMCARE is a one-year prospective survey carried out to provide evidence on the availability and use of support services by family carers of older people in Europe. In Italy, 990 family caregivers wer

Adverse drug events (ADEs) are an increasingly relevant issue for healthcare systems as they are associated with poorer health outcomes and avoidable misuse of resources. The rates of ADEs are higher in the elderly population, as many older patients have comorbidities, multiple drug prescriptions and deteriorated physical and cognitive functioning. The occurrence of ADEs can lead to a perceived la

This article reviews recent international literature on the opportunities and restrictions experienced by older people to act as volunteers in civil society organizations. Our aim was to develop a conceptual framework applicable to the European ageing society. This aim was pursued through a computerized database search focused on studies analyzing the individual, organizational, and/or societal le

Introduction: Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM) is attracting attention within the context of health care provision in western countries. Patterns of CAM use and related satisfaction were analysed in Italy according to socio-demographic and health variables. Materials and methods: 104,544 individuals (aged. >18) were interviewed by the cross-sectional ISTAT survey on " Health status of

Despite controversies, flu vaccine programs targeted to the older people are highly recommended and represent a common public health policy in industrialized Countries. Although demographic aging will increase the share of population at higher risk of influenza, today economic recession is putting public budgets under pressure. Underfunding of prevention is becoming a larger problem, as prevention

Purpose of review: Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is a high prevalence condition with a significant clinical and economic burden. In elderly people, COPD is often associated with other chronic comorbidities (i.e. cardiovascular diseases), determining clinical complications and requiring frequent acute healthcare interventions. The aim of this article is to review the economic studies

Background: The "Valentino" cross-sectional study is aimed at evaluating the prevalence and pattern of cigarette smoking according to occupational group in a representative sample of workers aged 18-35 years from Abruzzo, Italy. Methods: Randomly selected workers anonymously self-compiled a structured questionnaire containing validated items. Job type was coded according to the International Stand

Currently, more than one instrument has been found to be reliable and valid for the assessment of hospital admission appropriateness. However; data on the level of agreement among these methodologies are extremely scarce. The study was aimed at evaluating whether the percentages of organizational (in)appropriateness resulting from some of the most diffused instruments (Italian Appropriateness Eval

Objectives: Seasonal influenza represents a major threat to public health but vaccination campaigns are strongly recommended to reduce the risks of serious complications and mortality among community-dwelling elderly persons. We investigated on potential social predictors of influenza vaccination among older adults in Italy. Methods: Data analysis was based on the national survey "Health and use o

Background: Flu vaccination significantly reduces the risk of serious complications like hospitalization and death among community-dwelling older people, therefore vaccination programmes targeting this population group represent a common policy in developed Countries. Among the determinants of vaccine uptake in older age, a growing literature suggests that social relations can play a major role. M

Assistive Technologies offer the possibility to develop services aimed at improving the Quality of Life of patients and caregivers. Specifically, this work refers to the case of persons with dementia who can live in their homes but need to be assisted. This paper describes a monitoring kit that provides alarms to the caregiver in case of dangerous situations or unusual events detected by the senso

Purpose: The pelvic incidence (PI) is used to describe the sagittal spino-pelvic alignment. In previous studies, radiographs were used, leading to less accuracy in establishing the three-dimensional (3D) spino-pelvic parameters. The purpose of this study is to analyze the differences in the 3D sagittal spino-pelvic alignment in adolescent idiopathic scoliosis (AIS) subjects and non-scoliotic contr

This paper examines the sources of knowledge workers’ work intensity and the self-leading strategies they apply to deal with it. The paper is based on focus group interviews with management consultants in a Danish management consultancy firm. Work intensity was identified as resulting from a combination of: (1) a results-only focus, (2) vagueness, (3) boundaryless work, and (4) low control of the

Animal flight represents a great challenge and model for biomimetic design efforts. Powered flight at low speeds requires not only appropriate lifting surfaces (wings) and actuator (engine), but also an advanced sensory control system to allow maneuvering in confined spaces, and take-off and landing. Millions of years of evolutionary tinkering has resulted in modern birds and bats, which are achie

In this work, we propose a novel method for quantifying distances between Toeplitz structured covariance matrices. By exploiting the spectral representation of Toeplitz matrices, the proposed distance measure is defined based on an optimal mass transport problem in the spectral domain. This may then be interpreted in the covariance domain, suggesting a natural way of interpolating and extrapolatin

Purpose: The task-based assessment of image quality using model observers is increasingly used for the assessment of different imaging modalities. However, the performance computation of model observers needs standardization as well as a well-established trust in its implementation methodology and uncertainty estimation. The purpose of this work was to determine the degree of equivalence of the ch

In this work, we propose new methods for information fusion and tracking in direction of arrival (DOA) estimation by utilizing an optimal mass transport framework. Sensor array measurements in DOA estimation may not be consistent due to misalignments and calibration errors. By using optimal mass transport as a notion of distance for combining the information obtained from all the sensor arrays, we

Cells and organelles are small units for biochemical synthetic purposes, often the smallest practically feasible unit since they contain coenzyme regenerating system, ordered enzyme sequences, etc.These volumes, besides giving some insight into basic technology (immobilisation procedures, etc.), also sum up the current know-how in this subject area and try to predict some future trends. The term i

The R+-F+-Consistency problem takes as input two sets R+ and R- of resolved triplets and two sets F+ and F- of fan triplets, and asks for a distinctly leaf-labeled tree that contains all elements in R+ ⊂ F+ and no elements in R- ⊂ F- as embedded subtrees, if such a tree exists. This article presents a detailed characterization of how the computational complexity of the problem changes under variou