scholarly journals Community-acquired pneumonia: selection of empirical treatment and sequential therapy. SARS-CoV-2 implications Juan González del Castillo, Agustín Julián Jiménez, Francisco Javier Candel

Author(s):  
Juan González del Castillo ◽  
◽  
Agustín Julián-Jiménez ◽  
Francisco Javier Candel

Pneumonia is a major cause of global mortality in developed countries. The adequacy of the antibiotic treatment is essential for the good evolution of the patients. When selecting the antimicrobial, the severity of the patient, the characteristics of the antibiotics, and the profile of the patient to be treated should be considered. Recommendations for the selection of antibiotic treatment may differ between the patient who requires admission and the one who can be treated as outpatient. Beta-lactams, fluoroquinolones, and macrolides are the most widely used antimicrobials in this last circumstance. However, not all are the same in terms of efficacy, safety and ecological impact. This review delves into the aforementioned aspects to improve decision-making and offers concrete recommendations for the selection of antibiotic treatment. Likewise, it includes recommendations for performing sequential therapy. Finally, a brief review is made about the impact of SARS-CoV-2 infection on this pathology.

Paradigm ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 75-90
Author(s):  
Shivendra Singh ◽  
Atul Dhyani

Family is one entity that has complex variables underplaying the consumption decisions, and marketers must understand how couples behave in concert to resolve conflict across major decisions. In this study, the family aspects are investigated to shed more light on spouse attitude towards family decision-making for selection of car and school/college for their ward and assess the impact of attitudinal factor on decision satisfaction. The drop-off/pick-up method was used to collect the data from Northern India. The result reveals that spousal attitude is formed by marital power, assertiveness, subtle manipulation, love, bargaining and being submissive. Results of multiple regression analysis show that subtle manipulation is most and marital power has a negative impact on spouses’ decision satisfaction. Thus, when targeting a family for a significant trades assay, the salesperson should focus on both husband and wife and stimulate a conversation between them to appeal to their conjoint kinship.


Mathematics ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (8) ◽  
pp. 1304 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wen-Chi Lo ◽  
Ching-Hua Lu ◽  
Ying-Chyi Chou

Urbanization is inevitable in developed countries. This study investigated the design of metropolitan parks, which are essential for sustainable cities. The developed model examined the suitability of parks in Taichung City, Taiwan, and explored the three aspects of ecological, economic, and social indicators for park design using De Novo planning tools and the Decision Making Trial and Evaluation Laboratory-based Analytic Network Process. Because the De Novo programming method can redesign budget restrictions, this method can help managers arrange budget programming and reduce the impact of excessive investment on resource utilization in specific projects. After obtaining each factor’s price, the De Novo planning approach can reduce economic and ecological resource input and improve benefits relative to existing resource utilization methods. When assuming a fixed investment of resources, the De Novo planning method moves resources from the economic and ecological aspects of leisure and recreation, thus increasing the total benefit of metropolitan parks. Multicriteria decision-making and multi-objective planning methods can provide an effective solution for evaluating metropolitan parks.


2005 ◽  
Vol 895 ◽  
Author(s):  
Antonia Moropoulou ◽  
Christopher Koroneos ◽  
Maria Karoglou ◽  
Eleni Aggelakopoulou ◽  
Asterios Bakolas ◽  
...  

AbstractOver the years considerable research has been conducted on masonry mortars regarding their compatibility with under restoration structures. The environmental dimension of these materials may sometimes be a prohibitive factor in the selection of these materials. Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is a tool that can be used to assess the environmental impact of the materials. LCA can be a very useful tool in the decision making for the selection of appropriate restoration structural material. In this work, a comparison between traditional type of mortars and modern ones (cement-based) is attempted. Two mortars of traditional type are investigated: with aerial lime binder, with aerial lime and artificial pozzolanic additive and one with cement binder. The LCA results indicate that the traditional types of mortars are more sustainable compared to cementbased mortars. For the impact assessment, the method used is Eco-indicator 95


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Satoshi Watanabe

<p>In this study, a methodology that uses super ensemble simulation with appropriate bias correction for river planning was proposed. The Database for Policy Decision-Making for Future Climate Change (d4PDF) is a super ensemble experiments that comprise over 1000-year output have been conducted. The d4PDF provides regional downscaling simulation that focuses around Japan. It is expected that the impact assessments of climate changes on various fields considering uncertainly are conducted.</p><p>The impact of climate change on floods is a serious issue. In Japan, all class A river has design rainfall for the river planning that is defined considering historical observations of precipitation that happens once in several hundred years, which the planning year is different depending on the situation of a river. The design rainfall provides the fundamental information for planning river management.  The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transportation and Tourism defines the value of the rainfall in the planning year in each class A river basin by considering the hydro-meteorological and social characteristics of each basin. As the design rainfall was defined in the mid-1900s for most of the rivers, the method to estimate precipitation in the planning year was conducted with limited observation data using extreme statistical value. The super ensemble simulation data is expected to contribute for the decision making with appropriate setting of design rainfall.</p><p>We proposed a method to correct the bias of super ensemble simulation and estimated the design rainfall in 47 river basins selected from class A river basins. The estimated design rainfall was compared between the one estimated with super ensemble simulation and the one estimated with conventional approach. The spread of results oriented from super ensemble simulation indicated that uncertainly of design rainfall estimated with conventional approach was so high that the consideration of uncertainty is necessary for river planning. The experiments indicated that the use of super ensemble simulation with appropriate bias correction could provide knowledge that aids us in understanding the hydrological extremes.</p>


2008 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-23 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christine Chauvin ◽  
J. P. Clostermann ◽  
Jean-Michel Hoc

In this study, the authors aim to determine the impact of situation awareness (SA) in the decision-making process of “young” watch officers of a Merchant Marine training facility. The trainees were shown an ambiguous interaction situation in which they could choose among several actions. The results show that Level 1 SA (perception of the elements in the environment) tends to be of secondary importance in decision making. The major variables of the decision-making process are the interpretation of the rules and anticipation of the other vessel's intentions. Moreover, four different trainee “profiles” emerged. The main difference between them lies in the distance at which they decided to change course, the direction of this maneuver (port or starboard), the way in which they interpreted the other vessel's intentions (is it going to change course?), and whether the trainees referred to the rules. Of the trainees, 55% performed a maneuver that was against regulations, and 34% did so in an unsafe manner. This result provides an incentive to rethink the training course to put more stress on recognizing prototypical situations and choosing which actions to take in situations such as the one presented here.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
ATM Tariquzzaman

<p>The main purpose of the study is to examine whether investors assign importance to corporate governance in making investment decisions. The study involves a 2x2x2 between-participant experiment on real investors that examines the effects of corporate governance structure, financial condition and insider trading on individual investor decisions. The findings of this study extend the literature on corporate board practices and investor perceptions by providing evidence from this emerging economy that strong corporate governance has a positive impact on investor decisions. The study also confirms the findings of prior literature that financial condition of a company positively influences investor decisions. Hence, the results provide insights into the effects of strengthening corporate governance guidelines and of variation in financial condition on investor decisions. The study provides evidence that the common occurrence of illegal insider trading in the emerging market of Bangladesh does not appear to impact on investor decision making, unlike in developed countries.  The results of this study also contribute to understanding of how the quality of corporate governance impacts on decision making. It appears that governance directly impacts the perceived reliability of financial reports and trust in the board and management and that these factors fully mediate the impact on investor decision making.  The theoretical model and instrument developed for this study will be useful for further studies to explore the impact of other corporate governance factors on investor decisions. Furthermore, the theoretical model and instrument will also be useful for further studies in other developed and developing countries, particularly where insider trading is regarded by investors as being a concern and to investigate the impact of other corporate governance factors on investors and financial analysts.</p>


2021 ◽  
Vol 9 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pierfrancesco Biasetti ◽  
Barbara de Mori

Decision making-process in conservation can be very complex, having to deal with various value dimensions and potential conflicts. In fact, conflicts and competing interests between stakeholders are among the most quoted reasons for failure of projects. Ethical analysis can be helpful in this regard. In this paper we present a revision of the Ethical Matrix specifically tailored to decision-making processes in conservation. The Ethical Matrix is a conceptual tool devised to help decision-makers by supplying them with a framework of the ethically relevant aspects involved in decision-making process. It was originally developed for the ethical assessment of agri-food biotechnologies and later has been applied to other fields. The revised version we propose here has been designed for the ethical analysis of conservation priority-setting and impact. As conservation can raise many ethical relevant controversies, conceptual tools like the one presented here can be of help for conservationists, providing a map of the value demands involved. This map can be used to question the reasonableness of the value judgments, estimate the impact of different courses of actions, anticipate conflicts, and rank their severeness.


Author(s):  
Oliver J Robinson ◽  
Rebecca Bond ◽  
Jonathan P Roiser

Stress can precipitate the onset of mood and anxiety disorders. This may occur, at least in part, via a modulatory effect of stress on decision-making. Some individuals are, however, more resilient to the effects of stress than others. The mechanisms underlying such vulnerability differences are nevertheless unknown. In this study we attempted to begin quantifying individual differences in vulnerability by exploring the effect of experimentally induced stress on decision-making. Threat of unpredictable shock was used to induce stress in healthy volunteers (N=47) using a within-subjects, within-session design, and its impact on a financial decision-making task (the Iowa Gambling Task) was assessed alongside anxious and depressive symptomatology. As expected, participants learned to select advantageous decks and avoid disadvantageous decks. Importantly, we found that stress provoked a pattern of harm-avoidant behaviour (decreased selection of disadvantageous decks) in individuals with low levels of trait anxiety. By contrast, individuals with high trait anxiety demonstrated the opposite pattern: stress-induced risk-seeking (increased selection of disadvantageous decks). These contrasting influences of stress depending on mood and anxiety symptoms might provide insight into vulnerability to common mental illness. In particular, we speculate that those who adopt a more harm-avoidant strategy may be better able to regulate their exposure to further environmental stress, reducing their susceptibility to mood and anxiety disorders. The threat of shock paradigm we employed might therefore hold promise as a ‘stress-test’ for determining individual vulnerability to mood and anxiety disorders.


Author(s):  
Linda L. Emanuel ◽  
Rebecca Johnson

Truth telling and informed consent are relatively recently established legal and ethical norms in end-of-life health care. This chapter provides an exploratory guide to the evolution of both norms, highlighting some of the benefits, problems, and issues associated with both terms. It also presents a selection of the stepwise protocols and practices which Western medicine has developed in order to deliver patient-centred palliative care which comforts and relieves. In addition, the chapter discusses the impact that constant adjustment to loss can have on patient psychology and decision-making in end-of-life care scenarios and the value of framing that experience in terms of continuous reintegration. Finally, the chapter discusses the lessons which can be learned from the contested place of family within health-care systems where decision-making depends on truth telling and informed consent, and the lessons which can be learned from familism across the globe.


2020 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrea Giovani Lanfranchi ◽  
Suzane Strehlau ◽  
Felipe Mendes Borini ◽  
Pedro Lucas de Resende Melo

Purpose The purpose of this research is to identify the impacts of the country of origin of a franchise chain on its commitment in the destination countries, verifying the institutional particularities between the chains from emerging and developed countries. Design/methodology/approach The research is descriptive and quantitative and involved 724 franchise chains from 10 countries of origin (Brazil, Russia, India, South Africa, Argentina, USA, Germany, Australia, Spain and Portugal), spread over 174 destination countries, totaling 3,513 cases. Findings The results indicate that institutional preferences do not vary according to the country of origin of the franchise chain but rather vary according to the destination country. Research limitations/implications This paper contributes to institutional theory by identifying a set of characteristics that explains the selection of international markets and the commitment of franchise chains. Practical implications The results obtained in the study can help managers of franchise chains to make decisions related to the selection of destination countries for international expansion based on the institutional characteristics of the markets and their compatibility with the objectives of the franchise chains. Originality/value Companies in emerging countries internationalize according to different management logics from those of companies from developed countries. Thus, it is possible that the process of selecting countries for internationalization is also based on different criteria that reflect different institutional preferences. The thesis defended in the paper is that market potential is more important to franchisees from emerging markets, whereas contract enforcement is more important to franchisees from developed markets.


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