Applying personalized medicine to adult severe asthma

2021 ◽  
Vol 42 (1) ◽  
pp. e8-e16 ◽  
Author(s):  
Angelica Tiotiu

Background: Severe asthma is a heterogeneous disease that consists of various phenotypes driven by different pathways. Associated with significant morbidity, an important negative impact on the quality of life of patients, and increased health care costs, severe asthma represents a challenge for the clinician. With the introduction of various antibodies that target type 2 inflammation (T2) pathways, severe asthma therapy is gradually moving to a personalized medicine approach. Objective: The purpose of this review was to emphasize the important role of personalized medicine in adult severe asthma management. Methods: An extensive research was conducted in medical literature data bases by applying terms such as “severe asthma” associated with “structured approach,” “comorbidities,” “biomarkers,” “phenotypes/endotypes,” and “biologic therapies.” Results: The management of severe asthma starts with a structured approach to confirm the diagnosis, assess the adherence to medications and identify confounding factors and comorbidities. The definition of phenotypes or endotypes (phenotypes defined by mechanisms and identified through biomarkers) is an important step toward the use of personalized medicine in asthma. Severe allergic and nonallergic eosinophilic asthma are two defined T2 phenotypes for which there are efficacious targeted biologic therapies currently available. Non-T2 phenotype remains to be characterized, and less efficient target therapy exists. Conclusion: Despite important progress in applying personalized medicine to severe asthma, especially in T2 inflammatory phenotypes, future research is needed to find valid biomarkers predictive for the response to available biologic therapies to develop more effective therapies in non-T2 phenotype.

2019 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 10-18
Author(s):  
Stanley J. Szefler

Only recently have asthma strategies addressed biomarkers in asthma management, for example, as applied in the identification of severe asthmatics likely to respond to biologic therapy. Three biomarkers are readily available for clinical application in managing severe asthma including blood eosinophils, exhaled nitric oxide and serum IgE. While we have a limited number of biomarkers for clinical application, the available biomarkers have ushered in the era of personalized medicine for asthma. These three biomarkers are readily available for application in the clinic setting to select medications and to monitor response to treatment as well as medication adherence. These biomarkers can be used to modify the cost of uncontrolled asthma and also used to select those patients likely to respond to the available biologic therapies for severe asthma.


2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. 177-180
Author(s):  
VERA SHUNYAEVA ◽  

The article is devoted to the research of the youth criminal subculture and its impact on the personality of under-aged. In the course of analysis of this negative impact, a definition of the criminal subculture of under-aged was proposed. The main principles of such a criminal subculture as AUE (the acronym, transcribed from Russian: АУЕ or А.У.Е., comes from «Арестантский уклад един» / “Prisoners Unity (Solidarity)” are defined. The reasons contributing to the development of this negative phenomenon and the typical fea- tures of a minor sharing the ideology of the AUE were identified. The methods for counteracting the AUE were proposed. The method- ological basis of the research is formed by general scientific methods: dialectical, system research method, analysis, synthesis, induction, deduction, analogy, etc., as well as such private scientific methods as comparative legal, formal legal, structural and functional, statistical ones. The authors relied on the results of research by Russian and foreign legal scholars, sociologists, psychologists.


2020 ◽  
Vol 26 (4) ◽  
pp. 796-814
Author(s):  
E.K. Ovakimyan

Subject. The article examines the laws regulating insider trading. Objectives. The study outlines recommendations for refining Law On Countering the Illegal Use of Insider Information and Market Manipulation and Amendments to Some Legislative Acts of the Russian Federation, № 224-ФЗ of July 27, 2010. Methods. The methodological framework includes a general dialectical method, analysis and synthesis, induction and deductions, and some specific methods, such as comparative and formal logic analysis to specify the definition of insider information, structural logic and functional analysis to improve the mechanism for countering insider trading and market manipulation. Results. We discovered key drawbacks to be addressed so as to improve the business environment in Russia. Although the Russia laws mainly mirror the U.S. laws, they present a more extended list of terms concerning the insider information. I believe the legislative perfection should be continued. Conclusions and Relevance. The study helps apply the findings to outline a new legislative regulation or amend the existing ones, add a new mention on the course of financial markets to students’ books, develop new methods for detecting and countering and improving the existing ones. If all parties to insider relationships use the findings, they will prevent insider trading crimes in financial markets and (or) reduce the negative impact of such crimes on the parties.


Author(s):  
Landiswa Seteni ◽  
Pierre Joubert ◽  
Manilall Dhurup

Over the past decade, South African organisations have had to cope with an ever-increasing rate of local and global changes. There have been considerable and ongoing socio-political changes, resulting from new government regulations. Most organisations have experienced some type of downturn, whether due to external business factors or poor internal performance. A typical response to organisational decline is retrenchment. Our study sought to explore employees’ perceptions of the effects of retrenchment on job stress and organisational commitment in a mining company. The study was located within a quantitative research paradigm. Four research hypotheses were posited and data was collected in one region from a sample of 400 surface mining employees, including management, administrators, engineers and artisans. The results showed that the effects of retrenchment did not have a negative impact on job stress (time stress and anxiety). This may be due to the fact that the mining company in question had a planning and consultation process in place for the employees prior to the retrenchment process. The results also showed that job stress (time stress and anxiety) was negatively associated with organisational commitment. To conclude this article we discuss the implications of our findings, outline the limitations of our study and make recommendations for future research.


Author(s):  
Volodina N.A. ◽  
Murzina I.A. ◽  
Retinskaya V.N.

This article is devoted to the study of the image of Executive authorities in modern Russia. The relevance of the chosen topic of the scientific article is emphasized for the present time, when society and the state are developing methods of countering the coronavirus pandemic – not only in the medical, but, no less important, in the socio-psychological aspect. In this perspective, the consolidating potential of a positive image of government bodies and civil servants is noted. Attention is focused on the terminological apparatus of the problem. Based on the analysis of relevant scientific works, the article provides the author's definition of the image of public authorities. The author notes the peculiarity of the image of Executive authorities, which consists in the presence of two inextricably linked equivalent components – the image of the authority and the image of a civil servant. Image formation of government bodies is considered as a multi-factor interaction of three main subjects: government bodies, the population, and the mass media. The main method of implementation is still the mass communication media, which provide a permanent presence of Executive authorities in the information and communication space. It is noted that the basis for the formation of a positive image of the Executive authority and bureaucracy is their effective functioning. At the same time, the perception of citizens, their attitude to the activities of Executive authorities, the level of trust in them is considered as the main indicator of the modality of the image. Based on the analysis of data from sociological studies, the conclusion about a positive trend in the perception of public authorities and officials by Russians is substantiated. However, there is a negative impact on their image of the lack of these changes and, in General, a low level of openness of public authorities.


2020 ◽  
Vol 2020 (9) ◽  
pp. 29-33
Author(s):  
Sergey Bulatov

The paper purpose is the effectiveness estimation in the technological equipment use, taking into account its reliability and productivity for defective transmission units of buses. The problem consists in the determination of time to be spent on repair of bus transmission units taking into account technological equipment reliability. In the paper there is used a probabilistic method for the prediction bus transmission units, and also a method of the dynamics of averages which allow ensuring minimum of costs for units downtime during repair and equipment cost. The need for repair of transmission units (gear box) arises on an average after 650 hours, the average productivity of the bench makes 4.2 bus / hour. The bench fails on the average after 4600 hours of work, the average time of the bench makes 2 hours. In such a way the solution of the problem specified allows analyzing the necessity of time decrease for transmission unit repair to avoid long downtimes of buses in repair areas without negative impact upon high repair quality and safety during the further operation.


Author(s):  
Fred Luthans ◽  
Carolyn M. Youssef

Over the years, both management practitioners and academics have generally assumed that positive workplaces lead to desired outcomes. Unlike psychology, considerable attention has also been devoted to the study of positive topics such as job satisfaction and organizational commitment. However, to place a scientifically based focus on the role that positivity may play in the development and performance of human resources, and largely stimulated by the positive psychology initiative, positive organizational behavior (POB) and psychological capital (PsyCap) have recently been introduced into the management literature. This chapter first provides an overview of both the historical and contemporary positive approaches to the workplace. Then, more specific attention is given to the meaning and domain of POB and PsyCap. Our definition of POB includes positive psychological capacities or resources that can be validly measured, developed, and have performance impact. The constructs that have been determined so far to best meet these criteria are efficacy, hope, optimism, and resiliency. When combined, they have been demonstrated to form the core construct of what we term psychological capital (PsyCap). A measure of PsyCap is being validated and this chapter references the increasing number of studies indicating that PsyCap can be developed and have performance impact. The chapter concludes with important future research directions that can help better understand and build positive workplaces to meet current and looming challenges.


2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Charles James ◽  
Catherine Walshe ◽  
Katherine Froggatt

Abstract Background The knowledge about the experience of informal caregivers who provide care to people with moderate to advanced dementia in a domestic home setting is limited. A consequence of long hours of caregiving in addition to dealing with normal challenges of daily living is their experience of a poor quality of life. Some of their experiences may be described in terms of a feeling of powerlessness to make changes during care provision. This feeling may also suggest an experience of moral distress. The aim of this systematic review is to synthesise qualitative evidence relating to these experiences. Methods This review adopts a narrative synthesis approach. A search will be conducted for studies written in the English language in the bibliographic databases MEDLINE Complete, CINAHL, EMBASE, PsycINFO, Web of Science and Academic Search Complete covering periods from 1984 to present. Included studies will be qualitative or mixed-methods designs. The search terms will be related to dementia and caregivers, and the process will be focused on dementia at the moderate to the advanced stages within the domestic home setting. Reference lists of included papers will also be searched for additional relevant citations. Search terms and strategies will be checked by two independent reviewers. The identification of abstracts and full texts of studies will be done by the author, while the quality and the risk of bias will also be checked by the two independent reviewers. Discussion Psychological distress is cited as an experience reported within informal caregiving. For the caregiver, it is associated with a negative impact on general health. To date, no synthesis exists on the specific experience of informal caregiving for people with moderate to advanced dementia within the domestic home setting. This review considers that variation of accounts contributes to how the informal caregivers’ general experience is explored in future research. This may enable gaps in current knowledge to be highlighted within the wider context of caregiving in the domestic home setting. Systematic review registration This review is registered with PROSPERO (CRD42020183649).


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Malin Indremo ◽  
Richard White ◽  
Thomas Frisell ◽  
Sven Cnattingius ◽  
Alkistis Skalkidou ◽  
...  

AbstractThe aim of this study was to examine the validity of the Gender Dysphoria (GD) diagnoses in the Swedish National Patient Register (NPR), to discuss different register-based definitions of GD and to investigate incidence trends. We collected data on all individuals with registered GD diagnoses between 2001 and 2016 as well as data on the coverage in the NPR. We regarded gender confirming medical intervention (GCMI) as one proxy for a clinically valid diagnosis and calculated the positive predictive value (PPV) for receiving GCMI for increasing number of registered GD diagnoses. We assessed crude and coverage-adjusted time trends of GD during 2004–2015 with a Poisson regression, using assigned sex and age as interaction terms. The PPV for receiving GCMI was 68% for ≥ 1 and 79% for ≥ 4 GD-diagnoses. The incidence of GD was on average 35% higher with the definition of ≥ 1 compared to the definition of ≥ 4 diagnoses. The incidence of GD, defined as ≥ 4 diagnoses increased significantly during the study period and mostly in the age categories 10–17 and 18–30 years, even after adjusting for register coverage. We concluded that the validity of a single ICD code denoting clinical GD in the Swedish NPR can be questioned. For future research, we propose to carefully weight the advantages and disadvantages of different register-based definitions according to the individual study’s needs, the time periods involved and the age-groups under study.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (15) ◽  
pp. 8502
Author(s):  
Polinpapilinho F. Katina ◽  
James C. Pyne ◽  
Charles B. Keating ◽  
Dragan Komljenovic

Complex system governance (CSG) is an emerging field encompassing a framework for system performance improvement through the purposeful design, execution, and evolution of essential metasystem functions. The goal of this study was to understand how the domain of asset management (AsM) can leverage the capabilities of CSG. AsM emerged from engineering as a structured approach to organizing complex organizations to realize the value of assets while balancing performance, risks, costs, and other opportunities. However, there remains a scarcity of literature discussing the potential relationship between AsM and CSG. To initiate the closure of this gap, this research reviews the basics of AsM and the methods associated with realizing the value of assets. Then, the basics of CSG are provided along with how CSG might be leveraged to support AsM. We conclude the research with the implications for AsM and suggested future research.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document