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As part of the Human Biomonitoring for Europe (HBM4EU) initiative a human biomonitoring (HBM) survey is conducted in 21 countries. This survey builds on existing HBM capacity in Europe by aligning national or regional HBM studies. The survey targets 3 age groups (i) children aged 6-11 years, (ii) teenagers aged 12-19 years and (iii) young adults aged 20-39 years and includes a total of 9493 participants (3151 children, 2953 teenagers and 3389 young adults). Depending on the age group, internal exposure to phthalates and substitute Hexamoll® DINCH, brominated and organophosphorus flame retardants, per-/poly-fluorinated compounds, cadmium, bisphenols and/or polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons are assessed. The main goal of the programme is to obtain quality controlled and comparable HBM data of exposure to chemicals, prioritized under HBM4EU, with European wide coverage to inform the development of environment and health policies. This paper describes the framework of the HBM4EU survey and the approach that has been applied to align European HBM initiatives across Europe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper aims a comparative analysis of curricula for Bachelor studies in the area of administrative sciences. The objectives of research focused on elaboration of a set of indicators, based on the curricular contents of the programmes from the first cycle in administrative sciences, aiming to size "the Europeanism degree" and the curricular compatibilisation degree between Romanian and European universities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite its relevance for research funding, few comparable data are available in official R&D statistics on the amount and composition of project funding. This paper discusses in detail the methodology developed in the European Network of Excellence on Research and Innovation Policies PRIME for systematically producing indicators on public project funding which allow for comparative analysis between different countries and across periods of time. We introduce the design of the methodology, and discuss delimitation problems and how to develop suitable classifications of project funding instruments, as well as data availability and limitations. We present examples of our quantitative results for six European countries and of the questions they raise for comparative policy analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Given the current lack of interoperability between global and regional land cover products, efforts are underway to link the new European global land cover map (GLOBCOVER) with the existing global land cover 2000 map (GLC2000) and European CORINE mapping initiative. Since both datasets apply different mapping standards, key for a successful implementation is a thorough understanding of the heterogeneities among both datasets. Thus, this paper provides an assessment of compatibilities and differences between the CORINE2000 and GLC2000 datasets. The comparative assessment considers inconsistencies between the thematic legends (using the UN land cover classification system-LCCS), class specific accuracies, and the spatial resolution and heterogeneity of the datasets. The results are summarized with implications for the development of the new GLOBCOVER datasets. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Relatively few comparative studies have focused specifically upon the socio-economic conditions affecting the welfare of older rural Europeans. Such publications as exist are usually confined to single studies. In presenting a European overview of their 'life-world' this paper focuses upon the general conditions of older rural Europeans, living in different types of countryside within a centre-periphery framework. These conditions are largely dependent upon the interconnectivity (nexus) between regional urban centres and the older people's types of settlement. The extent of the global socio-economic flows between urban centres and countrysides is critical, especially for those living in less accessible and remote European areas. Older people's positive and negative outcomes are seen to occur within four possible urban–rural parameters. The first consists of two-way socio-economic urban–rural flows that are more likely to be of benefit to significant numbers of older persons, especially in urban fringe and accessible countrysides. The second parameter arises when there is a long-standing impasse, where the lack of communication between the rural locality and urban centre hampers socio-economic urban–rural flows, isolating older people, particularly in less accessible and remote countrysides. The third occurs when regional and local urban centres block or cut back socio-economic flows to the countryside. The fourth takes place when the rural communities resist socio-economic urban flows that they regard as a threat to their rural idyll. Exemplars within each of the four urban–rural alternatives help to show the applicability and workability of this four-way exploratory approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents reference frameworks which order effective and feasible policies and interventions for the health management of measles, breast cancer and diabetes (type II). These reference frameworks can be used to rapidly appraise regional health policy documents and existing health management systems. Furthermore, the reference frameworks can serve health policy makers for the planning of health management measures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Health-related quality of life (HRQOL) assessment in children and adolescents with chronic health conditions is increasingly considered as a relevant topic. The aim of the EU-funded DISABKIDS project is to develop, test, and implement European instruments for the assessment of HRQOL of children and adolescents with disabilities and their families. The current paper describes the development and pilot testing of a chronic generic HRQOL measure. Using literature searches, expert consulting and focus groups with children/adolescents and their families, items of the instruments were developed and translated into the respective languages. A pilot test with 360 children and adolescents was conducted. Children and adolescents (8-12, 13-16 years) with different chronic health conditions (asthma, epilepsy, diabetes, arthritis, atopic dermatitis, cerebral palsy, and cystic fibrosis) as well as their families were included. Data were analysed according to predefined psychometric and content criteria. Psychometric analyses resulted in a 56-item chronic generic HRQOL questionnaire with six domains ('Medication', 'Physical', 'Emotion', 'Independence', 'Social Inclusion', 'Social Exclusion') with acceptable internal consistency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the early 1970s, aluminium toxicity was first implicated in the pathogenesis of clinical disorders in patients with chronic renal failure involving bone (renal osteomalacia) or brain tissue (dialysis encephalopathy). Before that time the toxic effects of aluminium ingestion were not considered to be a major concern because absorption seemed unlikely to occur. Meanwhile, aluminium toxicity has been investigated in countless epidemiological and clinical studies as well as in animal experiments and many papers have been published on the subject. It is now commonly acknowledged that aluminium toxicity can be induced by infusion of aluminium-contaminated dialysis fluids, by parenteral nutrition solutions, and by oral exposure as a result of aluminium-containing pharmaceutical products such as aluminium-based phosphate binders or antacid intake. Over-the-counter antacids are the most important source for human aluminium exposure from a quantitative point of view. However, aluminium can act as a powerful neurological toxicant and provoke embryonic and fetal toxic effects in animals and humans after gestational exposure. Despite these facts, the patient information leaflets from European antacids that are available OTC show substantial differences regarding warnings from aluminium toxicity. It seems advisable that all patients should receive the same information on aluminium toxicity from patient information leaflets, in particular with regard to the increased absorption through concomitant administration with citrate-containing beverages and the use of such antacids during pregnancy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: Laparoscopic gastric banding (LGB) is currently the most popular purely restrictive bariatric operation in Europe and many other countries. It has a low operative morbidity, but is associated with a substantial late complication rate. Many late complications have been attributed to technical errors or to the learning curve. The aim of this paper is to present our results with gastric banding after the learning curve in order to disclose the true incidence of long-term complications.Methods: LGB was introduced in our department in December 1995. Thirty patients were operated on until June 1997 using the early banding technique (band within the lesser sac), at which time the surgical technique was slightly modified in order to place the band above the lesser sac. Then another 300 patients underwent LGB using either the Lapband or the SAGB system. This report focuses on the latter patients. All the data were collected prospectively.Results: The series includes 300 patients (257 women and 43 men) with a mean age of 38.3 years (19-64). The mean initial weight was 119.2 kg (57-179), initial body mass index (BMI) was 43.3 kg/m2 (21-64), and initial excess weight was 96.5% (0-191). The mean duration of surgery was 90 min, decreasing over time to a mean of 75 min for the last 50 cases. Early overall morbidity was 6.6%. Major complications occurred in 7 patients (2.3%). Excess weight loss (EWL) was at least 50% in 66% of the patients after 2 years, averaging 60%, with no substantial change until 4 years, and the BMI stabilized between 30 and 31 kg/m2. Forty-nine patients developed a total of 52 long-term complications, of which 23 (7.6%) were related only to the port or catheter. Band erosion occurred in 17 (5.6%), pouch dilatation with slippage in 8 (2.6%), and infection in 4 (1.3%) patients. Fifty-five reoperations were necessary. Twenty-five of these were related only to the port. The band was removed from 26 (9%) patients, of whom 17 were converted to Roux-en-Y gastric bypass.Conclusions: LGB gives satisfactory results in terms of weight loss in about two-thirds of the patients. Even beyond the learning curve, the long-term morbidity is not negligible, but is acceptable compared to other procedures such as vertical banded gastroplasty. Conversion to gastric bypass is possible when complications occur and can be performed when the band is removed in most cases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Convention on Human Rights and Biomedicine, the first legally binding international instrument in the field of bioethics, was adopted in November 1996. In the present paper, following a brief overview of some of the Convention's provisions likely to conflict with national enactments already in effect, we shall attempt, on the basis of the materials available in the International Digest of Health Legislation, to analyse the positions adopted by the different states involved and to identify foreseeable conflicts, focusing on the following four issues: human genome; protection of the embryo; scientific research; and protection of live organ donors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the right to health care. Various expressions of this right may be distinguished. These include both individual rights and social rights which could be based upon international treaties and constitutional rights. They may be found in national health legislation and, in some cases, in jurisprudence. To analyze the consequences of limiting the right to health care, a framework for judicial review has been developed which encompasses these expressions of the right to health care. The framework was used to examine legal and health policy developments in three Western and two Eastern European countries. In Italy and the Netherlands the right to health care is protected constitutionally (but on differing legal bases) while the United Kingdom does not have a written constitution. In contrast, Hungary and Poland have for many years seen the state take responsible for the provision, administration and allocation of health care services and the right to health care was guaranteed theoretically but not in practice because of the lack of (financial) means. However, the Polish Constitution explicitly anticipates possible limitations of the right to health care. What all these countries have in common is a cost containment perspective where the future will bring even tighter limits on what resources patients may consume. Despite differences in legal structure between these countries, where they seem to converge is on the consequences of putting limitations on the right to health care. The courts in Italy, the Netherlands and the UK have formulated conditions drawn from the acceptance that this right has to be judged within the context of limited resources. It may be concluded that finding a compromise between the right to health care and cost containment policies could also be an issue, Eastern European countries will have to face in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Condition of democracy continue to be discussed for parts of the world. The inter-war period in Europe with some of the most dramatic breakdowns of democratic systems, provides an interesting "laboratory" for systematic investigation in this respect. This paper summarizes the major findings of a large international research project covering 18 European states. It presents and discusses broader social structural, political cultural, institutional, etc, conditions of democracy against which the impact of the world economic of the world economic crisis of the late 1920s and early 1930s, the respective social and electoral reactions, the political moves of major actor and the final survival or breakdown of parliamentary regimes are assessed. It employs both macro-quantitative and macro-qualitative methods in a cross-sectional and, as far as possible, longitudinal manner. In this way in a "quasi-experimental " systematic comparative design "stricture-" and "actor-oriented" approaches, i.e, the "opportunity-set" and the actual choice and outcomes are brought into a common perspective. The results points to interesting application to the present situation in Eastern Europe and elsewhere. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines some of the conceptual and definitional constraints associated with the use of statistical data on international migration in Europe. It explores the research potential of using large-scale international datasets in qualitative research, with particular reference to migration data in cross-national social research. The approach suggested is to identify specific reference data subsets with the aid of detailed documentation and metadata, and to use carefully selected migration data as indicators in the analysis of global economic, political and social structures, and social processes. Drawing on knowledge of Eurostat's database on international migration, examples are presented in which recognition of the data problems can help the user to identify subsets that aid qualitative research on migration related topics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The geographer's contribution to the study of religious phenomena is of special importance under circumstances in which scholars representing various disciplines tend to make generalizations based on a few, possibly nonrepresentative examples. The understanding of contemporary Western European pilgrimage is currently clouded by lack of generally available data on continental shrines and a tendency toward overreliance on Irish cases without adequate consideration of the highly atypical nature of the Irish pilgrimage tradition. This paper, grounded in data on 5,130 currently active Roman Catholic shrines in Western Europe, provides a cultural-historical explanation for the uniqueness of Irish pilgrimage and analyzes the major structural differences between Irish pilgrimage traditions and those found elsewhere in Europe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present paper reports preliminary results of a pilot study carried out on two samples of females living in two different European countries. The onset of eating disorders is considered to result from females' difficulties in developing a gender-specific identity in a specific social context that provides as supports certain ideals, interpersonal relationships, and attitudes toward them. Thirty-five German females and 20 Bulgarians have been questioned about the way they perceive themselves, the social ideal, the attractivity in women, the problem of individuation and separation, autonomy and social relationship in general. The results indicate that certain social models are more likely to induce identity conflicts in the German sample than in the Bulgarian one. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: With the emerging technologies of the Internet and smartphones during the last decades, the gambling environment has undergone a massive transformation. In Sweden, and Europe in general, online gambling has more than doubled since 2007.Method: The paper studies online gambling venues (OGVs) as relational actors of addiction. By drawing on the actor-network theory (ANT) and assemblage thinking, we examine how OGVs, as actors in specific networks of attachment, enable the development of gambling addiction and facilitate its continuation. The data consists of life story interviews with 34 online gamblers.Results: Online gambling venues extend the scope of gambling opportunities through space, providing an easy portable 24-hours-a-day access to gambling online and on smartphones. This increases the spatial mobility of gambling to diverse contexts. By linking gambling to more unpredictably evolving patterns of relations, online gambling venues also increase gambling's temporal mobility to intrude in the habitual trajectories of everyday life. By enhancing the gambling mobility through space and time, OGVs simultaneously extend the scope of situations in which gambling may transform from a controlled activity into an addiction. It is then that the actor-networks of gambling infiltrate in the actor-networks of work, domestic life and leisure, and start to feed processes where they are translated to serve the interests of gambling.Conclusion: By giving us tools to challenge simplistic and taken-for-granted explanations of gambling addiction and by allowing us to grasp the flux and changing nature of addiction as a relational pattern of heterogeneous contextual attachments, the actor-network theory can help us to understand the complexity and multiplicity of gambling problems. The knowledge on what kinds of contextual attachments in diverse actor-networks enable harmful gambling and sustain unhealthy relations helps practitioners to focus treatment interventions especially on these contextual linkages and their configurations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Great Recession in Europe sparked concerns that the crisis would lead to increased income related health inequalities (IRHI). Did this come to pass, and what role, if any, did government transfers play in the evolution of these inequalities? Motivated by these questions, this paper seeks to (i) study the evolution of IRHI during the crisis, and (ii) decompose these evolutions to examine the separate roles of government versus market transfers. Using panel data for 7 EU countries from 2004 to 2013, we find no evidence that IRHI persistently rose after 2008, even in countries most affected by the crisis. Our decomposition reveals that, while the health of the poorest did indeed worsen during the crisis, IRHI were prevented from increasing by the relative stickiness of old age pension benefits compared to the market incomes of younger groups. Austerity measures weakened the IRHI reducing effect of government transfers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyzes the discourse of historical legitimacy in the duchy of Schleswig and in the Slovenian-speaking regions of Carniola, Styria, and especially Carinthia in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The question as to who had arrived in the area first was never far from the surface, because in an era of national romanticism, duration of stay seemed to allot special claims to possession. Rather than challenging this rationale, all sides tended to focus their efforts on enhancing their local genealogy. Yet the national conflicts of the period were not about political and linguistic history, but about contemporary interests and identities. In both Jutland and the southeastern Alps, national movements tended to focus on select moments in time that corresponded most closely to their modern-day political aspirations. The comparative analysis of two otherwise fairly divergent European regions reveals the pragmatic similarities of historical nation-building. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we show a new technique to analyze families of rankings. In particular, we focus on sports rankings and, more precisely, on soccer leagues. We consider that two teams compete when they change their relative positions in consecutive rankings. This allows to define a graph by linking teams that compete. We show how to use some structural properties of this competitivity graph to measure to what extend the teams in a league compete. These structural properties are the mean degree, the mean strength, and the clustering coefficient. We give a generalization of the Kendall's correlation coefficient to more than two rankings. We also show how to make a dynamic analysis of a league and how to compare different leagues. We apply this technique to analyze the four major European soccer leagues: Bundesliga, Italian Lega, Spanish Liga, and Premier League. We compare our results with the classical analysis of sport ranking based on measures of competitive balance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]