Better accounting for long-term health effects in economic assessments: an illustration for air pollution in the Canton of Geneva.

OBJECTIVES: We propose a general framework for estimating long-term health and economic effects that takes into account four time-related aspects. We apply it to a reduction in exposure to air pollution in the Canton of Geneva. STUDY DESIGN: Methodological developments on the evaluation of long-term economic and health benefits, with an empirical illustration. METHODS: We propose a unified framework-the comprehensive impact assessment (CIA)-to assess the long-term effects of morbidity and mortality in health and economic terms. This framework takes full account of four time-related issues: cessation lag, policy/technical implementation timeframe, discounting and time horizon. We compare its results with those obtained from standard quantitative health impact assessment (QHIA) in an empirical illustration involving air pollution reduction in the canton of Geneva. RESULTS: We find that by neglecting time issues, the QHIA estimates greater health and economic benefits than the CIA. The overestimation is about 50% under reasonable assumptions and increases ceteris paribus with the magnitude of the cessation lag and the discount factor. It decreases both with the time horizon and with the implementation timeframe. CONCLUSION: A proper evaluation of long-term health and economic effects is an important issue when they are to be used in cost-benefit analyses, particularly for mortality, which often represents the largest fraction. We recommend using the CIA to calculate more accurate values.

Bulk and Surface Electronic Structure of the Dual-Topology Semimetal Pt_{2}HgSe_{3}.

We report high-resolution angle-resolved photoemission measurements on single crystals of Pt_{2}HgSe_{3} grown by high-pressure synthesis. Our data reveal a gapped Dirac nodal line whose (001) projection separates the surface Brillouin zone in topological and trivial areas. In the nontrivial k-space range, we find surface states with multiple saddle points in the dispersion, resulting in two van Hove singularities in the surface density of states. Based on density-functional theory calculations, we identify these surface states as signatures of a topological crystalline state, which coexists with a weak topological phase.

In situ strain tuning of the metal-insulator-transition of Ca2RuO4 in angle-resolved photoemission experiments.

Pressure plays a key role in the study of quantum materials. Its application in angle resolved photoemission (ARPES) studies, however, has so far been limited. Here, we report the evolution of the k-space electronic structure of bulk Ca2RuO4, lightly doped with Pr, under uniaxial strain. Using ultrathin plate-like crystals, we achieve uniaxial strain levels up to -4.1%, sufficient to suppress the insulating Mott phase and access the previously unexplored electronic structure of the metallic state at low temperature. ARPES experiments performed while tuning the uniaxial strain reveal that metallicity emerges from a marked redistribution of charge within the Ru t2g shell, accompanied by a sudden collapse of the spectral weight in the lower Hubbard band and the emergence of a well-defined Fermi surface which is devoid of pseudogaps. Our results highlight the profound roles of lattice energetics and of the multiorbital nature of Ca2RuO4 in this archetypal Mott transition and open new perspectives for spectroscopic measurements.

[Biological agents in animal breeding: an ancient but still relevant risk]. / Agenti biologici in allevamento: un rischio antico e sempre attuale.

Agricultural activities expose workers to biological risk, due to the close contact that could occur with pathogens' reservoirs, such as soil, animals, manure and animal products. The paper describes factors that have contributed on the reduction or eradication of zoonoses, such as brucellosis, salmonellosis and bovine tuberculosis (monitoring and prevention of animal infectious diseases, industrialization and mechanization of agricultural activities), and on the other hand the emergence of new risks and new diseases (adaptability of microorganisms, generation of new strains, antibiotic resistance, dissemination of vectors). The role of Occupational Medicine in the prevention of zoonoses is discussed.

[Management of "complicated" work fitness judgements among health care workers]. / La gestione delle "idoneità difficili" negli operatori della sanità.

The occupational physician, performing health surveillance within a hospital, may face to some difficulties due to the variety and complexity of the tasks and the health risk factors of the health care workers. One of the hardest issue for occupational physician is to provide judgement on worker's fitness. Moreover, this task could be more complicated when a impaired worker could represent an hazard for his patients and colleagues. The authors will illustrate three critical clinical cases examined in Occupational Health Unit of Luigi Sacco Hospital, Milan; furthermore, the authors will show the difficulties and the applied solutions in order to provide the judgement on worker's fitness.