scholarly journals Price, quality, and market dynamics of malaria rapid diagnostic tests: analysis of Global Fund 2009–2018 data

2022 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Rachel Wittenauer ◽  
Spike Nowak ◽  
Nick Luter
Keyword(s):  
Product Quality ◽  
Market Share ◽  
Diagnostic Tests ◽  
Global Fund ◽  
Rapid Diagnostic Tests ◽  
Product Type ◽  
Quality Data ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Over Time

Abstract Background Rapid diagnostic tests (RDTs) for malaria are a vital part of global malaria control. Over the past decade, RDT prices have declined, and quality has improved. However, the relationship between price and product quality and their larger implications on the market have yet to be characterized. This analysis used purchase data from the Global Fund together with product quality data from the World Health Organization (WHO) and Foundation for Innovative New Diagnostics (FIND) Malaria RDT Product Testing Programme to understand three unanswered questions: (1) Has the market share by quality of RDTs in the Global Fund’s procurement orders changed over time? (2) What is the relationship between unit price and RDT quality? (3) Has the market for RDTs financed by the Global Fund become more concentrated over time? Methods Data from 10,075 procurement transactions in the Global Fund’s database, which includes year, product, volume, and price, was merged with product quality data from all eight rounds of the WHO-FIND programme, which evaluated 227 unique RDT products. To describe trends in market share by quality level of RDT, descriptive statistics were used to analyse trends in market share from 2009 to 2018. A generalized linear regression model was then applied to characterize the relationship between price and panel detection score (PDS), adjusting for order volume, year purchased, product type, and manufacturer. Third, a Herfindahl–Hirschman Index (HHI) score was calculated to characterize the degree of market concentration. Results Lower-quality RDTs have lost market share between 2009 and 2018, as have the highest-quality RDTs. No statistically significant relationship between price per test and PDS was found when adjusting for order volume, product type, and year of purchase. The HHI was 3,570, indicating a highly concentrated market. Conclusions Advancements in RDT affordability, quality, and access over the past decade risk stagnation if health of the RDT market as a whole is neglected. These results suggest that from 2009 to 2018, this market was highly concentrated and that quality was not a distinguishing feature between RDTs. This information adds to previous reports noting concerns about the long-term sustainability of this market. Further research is needed to understand the causes and implications of these trends.

scholarly journals Price, Quality, and Market Dynamics of Malaria Rapid Diagnostic Tests: Analysis of Global Fund 2009–2018 Data

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rachel Wittenauer ◽  
Spike Nowak ◽  
Nick Luter
Keyword(s):  
Product Quality ◽  
Market Share ◽  
Diagnostic Tests ◽  
Global Fund ◽  
Rapid Diagnostic Tests ◽  
Product Type ◽  
Quality Data ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Over Time

Abstract Background: Rapid diagnostic tests (RDTs) for malaria are a vital part of global malaria control. Over the past decade, RDT prices have declined, and quality has increased. However, the relationship between price and product quality and their larger implications on the market have yet to be characterized. We sought to use purchase data from the Global Fund together with product quality data from the World Health Organization and Foundation for Innovative New Diagnostics (WHO-FIND) Malaria RDT Product Testing Programme to understand three unanswered questions: 1) Has the market share by quality of RDTs in the Global Fund’s procurement orders changed over time? 2) What is the relationship between unit price and RDT quality? 3) Has the Global Fund procurement market become more concentrated over time?Methods: We merged data from 10,075 procurement transactions in the Global Fund’s database, which includes year, product, volume, and price, with product quality data from all eight rounds of the WHO-FIND program, which evaluated 227 unique RDT products. To describe trends in market share by quality level of RDT, we used descriptive statistics to analyze trends in market share from 2009–2018. We then applied a generalized linear regression model to characterize the relationship between price and panel detection score (PDS), adjusting for order volume, year purchased, product type, and manufacturer. Third, we calculated a Herfindahl-Hirschman Index (HHI) score to characterize the degree of market concentration.Results: Lower-quality RDTs have lost market share between 2009-2018, as have higher-quality RDTs. We find no statistically significant relationship between price per test and PDS when adjusting for order volume, product type, and year of purchase. The HHI was 3,570, indicating a highly concentrated market.Conclusions: Advancements in RDT affordability, quality, and access over the past decade risk stagnation if health of the RDT market as a whole is neglected. Our results suggest that this market is highly concentrated and that quality is not a distinguishing feature between RDTs. This information adds to previous reports noting concerns about the long-term sustainability of this market. Further research is needed to understand the causes and implications of these trends.

scholarly journals The elusive parasite: comparing macroscopic, immunological, and genomic approaches to identifying malaria in human skeletal remains from Sayala, Egypt (third to sixth centuries AD)

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (7) ◽  
Author(s):  
Alvie Loufouma Mbouaka ◽  
Michelle Gamble ◽  
Christina Wurst ◽  
Heidi Yoko Jäger ◽  
Frank Maixner ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Diagnostic Tests ◽  
Sample Selection ◽  
Human Remains ◽  
Rapid Diagnostic Tests ◽  
Skeletal Remains ◽  
Pathological Changes ◽  
Human Skeletal Remains ◽  
The Past ◽  
A Site ◽  
Capture Sequencing

AbstractAlthough malaria is one of the oldest and most widely distributed diseases affecting humans, identifying and characterizing its presence in ancient human remains continue to challenge researchers. We attempted to establish a reliable approach to detecting malaria in human skeletons using multiple avenues of analysis: macroscopic observations, rapid diagnostic tests, and shotgun-capture sequencing techniques, to identify pathological changes, Plasmodium antigens, and Plasmodium DNA, respectively. Bone and tooth samples from ten individuals who displayed skeletal lesions associated with anaemia, from a site in southern Egypt (third to sixth centuries AD), were selected. Plasmodium antigens were detected in five of the ten bone samples, and traces of Plasmodium aDNA were detected in six of the twenty bone and tooth samples. There was relatively good synchronicity between the biomolecular findings, despite not being able to authenticate the results. This study highlights the complexity and limitations in the conclusive identification of the Plasmodium parasite in ancient human skeletons. Limitations regarding antigen and aDNA preservation and the importance of sample selection are at the forefront of the search for malaria in the past. We confirm that, currently, palaeopathological changes such as cribra orbitalia are not enough to be certain of the presence of malaria. While biomolecular methods are likely the best chance for conclusive identification, we were unable to obtain results which correspond to the current authentication criteria of biomolecules. This study represents an important contribution in the refinement of biomolecular techniques used; also, it raises new insight regarding the consistency of combining several approaches in the identification of malaria in past populations.

Shared values, shared health, shared prosperity

2020 ◽  
pp. 83-98
Author(s):  
Davies and
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Private Sector ◽  
Working Conditions ◽  
Shared Values ◽  
Complex Relationship ◽  
Health Security ◽  
The Past ◽  
Individual Family ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Over Time

This chapter looks at the relationship between commerce and health, some of the choices involved, and the impacts they have on total health. Public health specialists and policymakers have only recently begun to explore the complex relationship between commerce and health, what it has been in the past, what it is now, and importantly what it could look like as we re-build society post COVID-19. The role that work and employers play in our individual, family, and collective health, security, and prosperity has developed over time, and the dependence of companies on the health of their workforce, and their vulnerability when employees are ill, has changed too. The private sector can contribute to health in its immediate community, and nationally through the products it promotes, the working conditions for its employees, and the causes it supports.

scholarly journals Anger fast and slow: mediations of justice and violence in the age of populism

2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 169-185 ◽  
Author(s):  
William Davies
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Political Action ◽  
Political Rhetoric ◽  
Perceived Injustice ◽  
Ideal Types ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Status ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Over Time

The rise of populist political rhetoric and mobilisation, together with a conflict-riven digital public sphere, has generated growing interest in anger as a central emotion in politics. Anger has long been recognised as a powerful driver of political action and resistance, by feminist scholars among others, while political philosophers have reflected on the relationship of anger to ethical judgement since Aristotle. This article seeks to differentiate between two different ideal types of anger, in order to illuminate the status of anger in contemporary populist politics and rhetoric. First, there is anger that arises in an automatic, pre-conscious fashion, as a somatic, reactive and performative way, to an extent that potentially spirals into violence. Second, there is anger that builds up over time in response to perceived injustice, potentially generating melancholia and ressentiment. Borrowing Kahneman’s dualism, the article refers to these as ‘fast’ and ‘slow’ anger, and deploys the distinction to understand how the two interact. In the hands of the demagogue or troll, ‘fast anger’ can be deployed to focus all energies on the present, so as to briefly annihilate the past and the ‘slow anger’ that has been deposited there. And yet only by combining the conscious reflection of memory with the embodied response of action can anger ever be meaningfully sated in politics.

The Changing Nature of Professional Regulation in Canada, 1867–1961

2009 ◽  
Vol 33 (2) ◽  
pp. 217-243 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tracey L. Adams
Keyword(s):  
The State ◽  
State Agencies ◽  
Professional Regulation ◽  
The Past ◽  
State Research ◽  
Growing Body ◽  
Significant Change ◽  
Canadian Provinces ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Over Time

There is a growing body of literature exploring the relationship between regulated professions and the state. Research has shown that the state is the key source of power for professions, and it has suggested that professions may support and assist state agencies and actors in many ways. Although studies have documented changing state-profession relations across region and era and recent research points to significant change in the regulation of some professions in the past decade or two, there remains much that we do not know about the changing nature of professional regulation over time. In this article I examine professional regulation in four Canadian provinces between 1867 and 1961. The findings reveal distinct eras of professional regulation and definite differences in who is regulated and how over time. There are many more regulated professions toward the end of the period, they are more closely regulated by the state, and their relationships to each other are more closely delineated. The implications for our understanding of state-profession relations over time are discussed.

scholarly journals Why does library holding format really matter for book impact assessment?: Modelling the relationship between citations and altmetrics with print and electronic holdings

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ashraf Maleki
Keyword(s):  
Impact Assessment ◽  
Regression Models ◽  
Weak Correlation ◽  
Follow Up Study ◽  
The Past ◽  
Google Books ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Statistical Results ◽  
Over Time

AbstractScholarly books are important outputs in some fields and their many publishing formats seem to introduce opportunities to scrutinize their impact. As there is a growing interest in the publisher-enforced massive collection of ebooks in libraries in the past decade, this study examined how this influences the relationship that library print holdings (LPH), library electronic holdings (LEH) and total library holdings (TLH) have with other metrics. As a follow up study to a previous research on OCLC library holdings, the relationship between library holdings and twelve other metrics including Scopus Citations, Google Books (GB) Citations, Goodreads engagements, and Altmetric indicators were examined for 119,794 Scopus-indexed book titles across 26 fields. Present study confirms the weak correlation levels observed between TLH and other indicators in previous studies and contributes additional evidence that print holdings can moderately reflect research, educational and online impact of books consistently more efficient than eholdings and total holdings across fields and over time, except for Mendeley for which eholdings slightly prevailed. Regression models indicated that along with other dimensions, Google Books Citations frequently best explained LPH (in 14 out of 26 fields), whereas Goodreads User counts were weak, but the best predictor of both LEH and TLH (in 15 fields out of 26), suggesting significant association of eholdings with online uptake of books. Overall, findings suggest that inclusion of eholdings overrides the more impactful counts of print holdings in Total Library Holdings metric and therefore undermines the statistical results, whilst print holdings has both statistically and theoretically promising underlying assumptions for prediction of impact of books and shows greater promise than the general Library Holding metric for book impact assessment. Thus, there is a need for a distinction between print and electronic holding counts to be made, otherwise total library holding data need to be interpreted with caution.

scholarly journals Adoption of Rapid Diagnostic Tests for the Diagnosis of Malaria, a Preliminary Analysis of the Global Fund Program Data, 2005 to 2010

PLoS ONE ◽  
2012 ◽  
Vol 7 (8) ◽  
pp. e43549 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jinkou Zhao ◽  
Marcel Lama ◽  
Eline Korenromp ◽  
Patrick Aylward ◽  
Estifanos Shargie ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Diagnostic Tests ◽  
Preliminary Analysis ◽  
Global Fund ◽  
Rapid Diagnostic Tests ◽  
Program Data

scholarly journals Corporate governance from the perspective of the past and the present and the need to fill an international GAP

2016 ◽  
Vol 6 (4) ◽  
pp. 96-101
Author(s):  
Tariq Tawfeeq Yousif Alabdullah
Keyword(s):  
Corporate Governance ◽  
Literature Review ◽  
The Past ◽  
Number Of Factors ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Shed Light ◽  
Over Time

Corporate governance (CG) emerged many centuries ago, despite the debate on this subject and the widely-held view that it commenced in the 2000s. Thus, CG is not a new practice and over time it has become a precise system. In this study, the origins of CG are examined by the author in order to shed light on the underlying facts concerning the roots of this discipline and its history. By introducing such facts, it provides the background of the emergence of CG as clear principles and mechanisms. In the organizational sense, this study is considered important for both investors and organizations in applying the principles of CG and its mechanisms in all countries worldwide. The objective of this paper is to provide useful information to both researchers and practitioners in relation to CG including the fundamental principles and its history. This paper will present a solution to fill the gap in the literature concerning the relationship between CG and a firm’s performance in such instances when the results of examining such a relationship are found to be inconsistent. A number of factors have contributed to this author’s desire to research the relationship between a firm’s performance and CG and that includes the author’s experience and understanding of accounting over the years especially in the CG discipline, and also further to an in-depth literature review.

scholarly journals Protección, gestión y ordenación del paisaje salinero en Andalucía

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
María Emilia Román López
Keyword(s):  
Social Background ◽  
Environmental Values ◽  
Public And Private ◽  
The Past ◽  
Economic Significance ◽  
Social Use ◽  
Landscape Heritage ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Over Time ◽  
Specific Management

1 Introducción2 Objetivos de la investigación3 Sal y salinas a lo largo de la historia4 Las salinas. Marco regulador   4.1 Ámbito mundial   4.2 Ámbito europeo   4.3 Ámbito estatal   4.4 Ámbito autonómico   4.5 Ámbito municial   4.6 Salinas y figuras de protección. Aspectos protegidos5 Conclusiones6 Fuentes documentales   6.1 Referencias bibliográficas   6.2 Referencias de internet ResumenLas salinas generan paisajes de características únicas, tanto por sus valores naturales y medioambientales, como por los valores culturales, patrimoniales, históricos, sociales e identitarios. Actualmente se encuentran, en su mayoría, abandonadas y en estado de ruina, olvidando la importancia cultural, histórica y económica que tuvieron en épocas pasadas. Estos hechos manifiestan la urgencia de la apreciación y el reconocimiento de estos entornos culturales como patrimonio común y de aprovechamiento social inmediato y de que sean objeto de una gestión específica para evitar su desaparición. El objetivo principal de esta investigación ha perseguido el establecimiento y definición de un marco territorial, global e integrador, para los paisajes culturales salineros andaluces, que ha permitido identificar, clasificar, analizar y valorar sus principales características y su evolución en el tiempo, identificando las causas del deterioro y desaparición del patrimonio salinero, evaluando la efectividad de las iniciativas, públicas y/o privadas, y de las figuras de protección, así como analizar las relaciones que establecen con su entorno próximo, con los núcleos de población y habitantes a los que sirven. Este texto demuestra que a pesar de la existencia de numerosas figuras, programas y planes de protección en los diferentes ámbitos sectoriales que confluyen en estos singulares paisajes, no están siendo medidas eficaces frente a su progresivo deterioro y desaparición generalizadaPalabras clave:Paisaje cultural / Patrimonio / Paisaje / Medioambiente / Salinas AbstractSaltworks create unique landscapes with both natural and environmental values, due to their cultural, historical and social background, as well as their heritage and identity. Nowadays they are mostly abandoned and in ruins, leaving the cultural, historical and economic significance, they used to have in the past, forgotten. These facts show the urgency for the appreciation and recognition of these cultural surroundings as a common Heritage of immediate social use, so that they become subject to specific management in order to prevent their disappearance.The main goal of this research has pursued to establish and define a global and inclusive territorial framework for Andalusian cultural saltworks landscapes, which has helped identify, classify, analyze and evaluate their main characteristics and evolution over time, identifying the causes of deterioration and disappearance of the saltworks heritage, assessing the effectiveness of public and private initiatives, and protection projects, as well as analyzing the relationship with their surroundings and inhabitants they serve.This text shows that despite the existence of numerous figures, programs and protection plans in the different sectoral areas that converge in these unique landscapes, they are not effective measures against their progressive deterioration and widespread disappearance.Keywords:Cultural landscape / Heritage / Landscape / Environment / Saltworks

scholarly journals Analysis and classification of technical analysis indicators by support vector machines

2018 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 59-66
Author(s):  
J. Oliver
Keyword(s):  
Linear Models ◽  
Prediction Models ◽  
Relevant Information ◽  
Support Vector ◽  
The Past ◽  
Vector Machines ◽  
Output Market ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Over Time

The search for models which can accurately forecast the market trend has developed over the past decades. Technical indicators and oscillators are the most usually employed inputs in the prediction models. These inputs basically rely on prices and the evolution of the index itself, which may cause some problems like multicolinearity and autocorrelation, in the case of linear models, or overoptimization and noise, in the case of neural networks. This paper proposes filtering the inputs to be employed in the models. To this end, their impact on the forecast will be analysed. A support vector machine will be used to this end, in order to characterize both inputs (indicators and oscillators) and output (market trend). Doing this, it can be assessed whether the relationship between the different inputs and the market trend offers relevant information regarding the contribution of the inputs in the prediction process and whether this contribution remains constant over time. Those inputs will be selected, which obtain more stable forecasts in order to obtain more consistent predictions.

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