Search

Additional file 3: figure 3.: fused FDG-PET/CT images of a 67-year old male with a T4aN3 oropharyngeal cancer: Tref assessment negative for residual tumor according to all scales

Additional file 4: figure 4. fused FDG-PET/CT images of a 69-year old male with a T4aN2b laryngeal cancer: Nref assessment negative for residual tumor according to all scales

Additional file 2: figure 2. overall survival (Kaplan Meyer method)

Purpose Response assessment to definitive non-surgical treatment for head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC) is centered on the role of 18F-fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG) positron emission tomography/computed tomography (PET-CT) 12 weeks after treatment. The 5-point Hopkins score is the only qualitative system available for standardized reporting, albeit limited by suboptimal positive predictive value (PPV). The aim of our study was to explore the feasibility and assess the diagnostic accuracy of an experimental 6-point scale (“Cuneo score”). Methods We performed a retrospective, multicenter study on HNSCC patients who received a curatively-intended, radiation-based treatment. A centralized, independent qualitative evaluation of post-treatment FDG-PET/CT scans was undertaken by 3 experienced nuclear medicine physicians who were blinded to patients’ information, clinical data, and all other imaging examinations. Response to treatment was evaluated according to Hopkins, Cuneo, and Deauville criteria. The primary endpoint of the study was to evaluate the PPV of Cuneo score in assessing locoregional control (LRC). We also correlated semi-quantitative metabolic factors as included in PERCIST and EORTC criteria with disease outcome. Results Out of a total sample of 350 patients from 11 centers, 119 subjects (oropharynx, 57.1%; HPV negative, 73.1%) had baseline and post-treatment FDG-PET/CT scans fully compliant with EANM 1.0 guidelines and were therefore included in our analysis. At a median follow-up of 42 months (range 5-98), the median locoregional control was 35 months (95% CI, 32-43), with a 74.5% 3-year rate. Cuneo score had the highest diagnostic accuracy (76.5%), with a positive predictive value for primary tumor (Tref), nodal disease (Nref), and composite TNref of 42.9%, 100%, and 50%, respectively. A Cuneo score of 5-6 (indicative of residual disease) was associated with poor overall survival at multivariate analysis (HR 6.0; 95% CI, 1.88-19.18; p = 0.002). In addition, nodal progressive disease according to PERCIST criteria was associated with worse LRC (OR for LR failure, 5.65; 95% CI, 1.26-25.46; p = 0.024) and overall survival (OR for death, 4.81; 1.07-21.53; p = 0.04). Conclusions In the frame of a strictly blinded methodology for response assessment, the feasibility of Cuneo score was preliminarily validated. Prospective investigations are warranted to further evaluate its reproducibility and diagnostic accuracy.

Additional file 6: material. FDG-PET/CT analysis

Additional file 1: figure 1. progression-free survival (Kaplan Meyer method)

Additional file 5: table 1. positive predictive value and corresponding 95% CI of composite TNref for specific scores. PPV: positive predictive value

Per molti decenni, sotto l’influenza degli studi pionieristici di Laslett, l’attenzione degli studiosi si è concentrata soprattutto su aspetti più strettamente riguardanti le strutture delle famiglie e le modalità di coabitazione. Se da una parte si è fornita una base per interpretare più ampie trasformazioni sociali e demografiche avvenute tra età moderna e contemporanea, dall’altra si è forse perso di vista il più articolato sistema di relazioni tra famiglia, individui e contesto socio-economico. In questi termini, un approccio interdisciplinare allo studio della famiglia nel passato risulta auspicabile e necessario. Gli interventi raccolti in questo volume indagano l’evoluzione della famiglia esplorando non solo le aree d’indagine tipiche della ricerca storico-demografica, ma ne estendono ulteriormente il campo di indagine ad altre possibili accezioni di famiglia. In questa breve introduzione presentiamo gli interventi raccolti ripercorrendone il filo conduttore.

In the first decades of the twentieth century, an evident reduction of the infant mortality rate occurred in Italy. In previous studies, less attention has been devoted to the effects of individual bio-demographic and socioeconomic components on infant mortality. We use micro data from births, deaths and marriages civil registers of Granarolo, an Italian rural municipality close to Bologna, from 1900 to 1939. We are able to reconstruct some typical bio-demographic characteristics and the socio-economic status of parents. In these terms, the analysis includes: parity, age of the mother, previous birth interval and child survival, father’s occupations and literacy, season and year of birth. Cox and Piecewise constant exponential models are used to estimate the effects of the selected predictors. We found that still in the first four decades of the twentieth century rural daily wagers experienced a lower level in infant survivor, whereas the upper class registered significantly higher ones.

The paper investigates spatio-temporal trends in health disparities through an empirical example. We deal with geographical health pattern in Italy from 1991 to 2010, starting from infant mortality data available at the provincial level and assessing the existent disparity among macro-regions (the conventional Northern, Central and Southern macro-regions). After a discussion concerning suitable inequality indices and their decompositions when dealing with small area data, we propose a model-based approach that allows to properly tackle sampling variability. Results give evidences of persisting spatial disparity in infant mortality along time., REVSTAT-Statistical Journal, Vol. 13 No. 1 (2015): REVSTAT-Statistical Journal

Lo scopo del lavoro è verificare gli effetti delle condizioni climatiche invernali sulla mortalità neonatale, prendendo in considerazione l’area rurale confinante con la città di Bologna durante il secolo diciannovesimo. Studi precedenti hanno infatti dimostrato come, in alcune zone dell’Italia settentrionale, la stagione di nascita e le temperature invernali rappresentassero un’importante determinante della mortalità infantile. Adottando specifici modelli di rischio, si è valutata la probabilità di decesso del neonato entro 7, 15 e 30 giorni dalla nascita in funzione della temperatura e/o della stagione di nascita, tenendo sotto controllo le caratteristiche della madre (età, parità, altri bambini deceduti) e dell'aggregato domestico (professione capofamiglia e struttura della famiglia) ed altre variabili di livello macro come epidemie, tasso di mortalità, prezzi del grano nell’anno precedente (durante la gestazione).

The touristic phenomenon represents a more and more relevant factor for the social and economic development in Sardinia. For this reason, researchers and policy makers need correct data about touristic flows. In this paper, we propose a method to estimate correctly tourist flows and to provide exact measures of the tourist arrivals. In Italy, the National Institute of Statistics measures tourist flows by organizing direct, total and periodic surveys based on registrations of customers in touristic structures like hotels, camping, etc. However the official data are significant underestimated. As a matter of fact, the official source considers only the official tourist flow, since the real flow includes also a non-observed component. This hidden segment mainly comprises tourists in second homes or summer houses that official agencies generally do not take into account. The aim of this study is to measure this hidden component of the Sardinian tourism and to identify the most relevant features of these tourists. The data of the analysis was collected in 2009 and 2010 by using a survey technique based on the Time Location Sampling methodology. This survey has been carried out in the ports and the airports of the Sardinia Island, interviewing tourist before leave. A specific question registered the kind of accommodation in which tourists spent their holidays. By using specific sampling techniques, we will estimate the proportion of tourists that are not included in the official data. These proportions will be provided according to different typologies of tourists (e.g. Italian and foreign tourists) in order to identify which kind of tourists are more underestimated. Basing on some preliminary results, we can say that the hidden component of tourism in Sardinia represents almost half of the official estimations. Moreover, this phenomenon seems to be mainly related to the second houses and the houses for vacations.

A longitudinal, micro-level study of the effect of socioeconomic transformations on fertility mechanisms in the rural hinterland of Bologna between 1818 and 1900 (the beginning of the demographic transition) demonstrates that the premature death of a last-born child reduces the interval between two consecutive childbirths. Thus does it confirm the importance of breast-feeding in determining birth spacing. Women living in complex sharecropping households experienced a significantly higher risk of childbirth than did women in families headed by daily wage earners. In addition, the reproductive behavior of sharecroppers seemed to be substantially invariant to short-term fluctuations in prices, whereas the laborers' group experienced a negative price effect. Both descriptive and multivariate analyses indicate a slight and gradual decrease in fertility levels during the period in question.

There has recently been a renewed interest in the socioeconomic aspects of reproduction during the great fertility decline. While most previous work on the European fertility decline has been macro-oriented, using various kinds of aggregate data picturing of the demographic processes at regional or national level, much less has been done using micro-level data, and specifically looking at patterns across social groups. In this paper we look at the association between socioeconomic status and net fertility in Sweden’s fertility transition using micro-level census data covering the entire population around 1900. The data contain information on number of children by age, occupation of the mother and father, place of residence and household context. Coding occupations in HISCO and classifying them into a social class scheme (HISCLASS) enables us to study the impact of socioeconomic status on number of children under 5, controlling also for spatial variations in social stratification. Our results indicate that the crude socioeconomic differentials in net fertility were substantial in Sweden immediately before 1900, with the elite and the upper middle classes having considerably lower marital child-woman ratios than the working classes. However, these crude differences were partly explained by compositional differences between classes according to age, community context and spatial heterogeneity. Nonetheless, even when controlling for individual and household variables as well as parish level fixed effects, the elite group had considerably lower net fertility than the other groups.

La pluralisation des parcours de vie influence beaucoup les relations entre les individus, surtout dans les pays développés. Les relations a l’intérieur de la famille et entre les générations éprouvent aussi les conséquences de ce fait pendant les deux phases de la vie dans lesquelles la solidarité est particulièrement importante : celle de la sortie des jeunes da la famille et celle de la vieillesse. Dans les pays, comme l’Italie, caractérisés soit par des hautes niveau de vieillissement soit par des fortes liens familiales, la solidarité familial devienne un élément très important dans les phases terminales de la vie, surtout là ou le welfare est pratiquement absent. L’objectif principal du travail est l’analyse des trajectoires de vie de la population âgée en termes des formes familiales : c'est-à-dire les transformation des structures familiales concomitamment aux événements typiques de la vieillesse : la sorties de la famille des tous les fils, l’invalidité ou le décès du partenaire, etc. Par effet de fortes liens familiales in Italie nous nous attendons de trouver des transformation familiales qui permettent une majeur proximité aux maisons des fils , ou qui comportent l’unification des maisons, ou bien, si n’existent pas des parents, qui conduisent vers les structures d’assistance publique. Nous nous attendons aussi de trouver une plus fortes solidarité intergénérationnelle dans les territoires qui ne sont pas métropolitaines et qui sont plus loin des grandes villes. Nous analyserons in optique longitudinale les donnés des registres d’état civil pour suivre, d’année en année, les transformation des familles dans lesquelles la population âgée vive. Le territoire objet de l’analyse est formé par les communes de la province de Bologne (de la région Emilia Romagna, qui est situé dans le nord de l’Italie). Pour la population qui habite ce territoire on dispose des donnés des registres d’état civil pour tous les années à partir du 1999.

This paper aims to describe the sample design and the survey plan used in the survey on incoming tourism in Sicily and Sardinia. The specific goals of the survey are related: a) to the measurement and the analysis of un-observed tourism; b) to the evaluation of tourist mobility within the two Islands; c) to the analysis of some key-factors related to the holyday experience of tourists. It is well known that regional tourists are very difficult-to-reach populations and the problems in sampling human mobile populations derive from the absence of a list of units component units (frame). Despite these issues are well-known in literature under the broader categories of hard to reach, or hidden, or mobile populations, etc., the methodological solutions and most of all the empirical applications in tourism studies are almost poor. The sampling strategy undertaken to analyze non resident tourists leaving Sicily and Sardinia at the end of their vacation is a complex, multi-stage, stratified Time-Location Sampling (TLS). Under this perspective, the availability of information on the distribution of tourism flows by time (months) and space (departure places) for the two Islands was a fundamental prerequisite for the implementation of the sample design. Key words: Hard-to-reach populations; mobile populations; time-location sampling; time-space sampling; frontier surveys, border surveys. Parole chiave: Popolazioni mobili; campionamento spazio-temporale; indagini campionarie alle frontiere.

Book Review

Il volume affronta la questione della dimensione ‘reale’ del fenomeno turistico in Sardegna e offre un quadro completo del turismo esterno (incoming) che gravita su questo territorio. Viene inoltre approfondito il tema della domanda turistica nazionale ed internazionale sulla base di un sondaggio diretto effettuato sui turisti in partenza dai principali porti/aeroporti della regione: si indagano vari aspetti, come la diversità delle motivazioni, la durata della vacanza, la geografia del fenomeno e la mobilità, la soddisfazione complessiva e i livelli di spesa, i profili e le tipologie di turista.

This article deals with the possible existence of deliberate fertility control before the fertility transition. The timing of the fertility response to economic stress, as measured by fluctuations in grain prices, is used as a measure of deliberate, but non-parity specific, control. Birth histories from six German villages (1766–1863), including information on occupation of the husband, are used together with community-wide grain price series in a micro-level event-history analysis. The results show a negative fertility response to grain prices both in the year immediately following the price change, and with a 1-year lag. The response was also highly different between socioeconomic groups, with the most pronounced effects among the unskilled laborers. Moreover, the response in this group was very rapid, already present 3–6 months after the price change. As all involuntary fertility responses to economic hardship (e.g., malnutrition, spousal separation, and spontaneous abortion) come with a considerable time lag, the existence of such a rapid response among the lower social groups suggests that individual agency (deliberate control) was an important aspect of reproductive behavior also before the fertility transition. Cet article s'intéresse à l'existence possible d'un contrôle volontaire des naissances avant la transition de la fécondité. Le calendrier de l'évolution de la fécondité en fonction de la tension économique, mesurée par les fluctuations du prix des céréales, est utilisé comme mesure de contrôle volontaire des naissances, mais non lié à la parité. Des histoires génésiques comprenant la catégorie professionnelle du père, provenant de six villages allemands (1766-1863), sont utilisées en association avec des séries temporelles des prix des céréales au niveau communautaire pour effectuer une analyse biographique au niveau individuel. Les résultats indiquent une évolution négative de la fécondité en fonction du prix des céréales, à la fois dans l'année qui suit le changement de prix et l'année d’après. Cette évolution était très variable en fonction du groupe social, avec un effet maximal parmi les travailleurs non qualifiés. De plus, la réaction dans ce dernier groupe était très rapide, car déjà visible 3 à 6 mois après le changement de prix. Sachant que toutes les modifications involontaires de fécondité face aux difficultés économiques (par exemple à la malnutrition, aux ruptures conjugales, et aux avortements spontanés) ne se produisent qu'après un délai très long, l'existence d'une réaction si rapide parmi les groupes sociaux les plus défavorisés laisse penser que l'initiative individuelle (contrôle volontaire) était déjà, avant la transition de la fécondité, un aspect important du comportement reproducteur.

The study takes into account the socioeconomic differences in the reproductive behavior in the north-eastern suburban area of Bologna from the 1820s to the 1930s, considering two rural parishes during the whole nineteenth century and another sample of parishes bordering Bologna during the early decades of the twentieth century. Consequently the period in question continues up to the onset of the fertility decline, while important social, economic and demographic transformations were about to take place. Indeed, during the 1930s, the fertility decline in Italy was so evident and the national birth rates showed such evident signs of reduction that the Fascist regime promoted a policy to increase the number of births (Treves 2001).

L’attività dell’Osservatorio provinciale sugli incidenti stradali e la rete ufficiale di rilevazione. Alcune osservazioni sulla serie storica degli incidenti e le principali tendenze emerse nel corso degli ultimi quindici anni. Le ore della giornata e i giorni della settimana in cui si verificano più incidenti. L’influenza delle condizioni meteorologiche e della segnaletica stradale sul fenomeno dell’incidentalità. La tipologie dei veicoli coinvolti, la natura degli incidenti e le circostanze più frequenti. Il profilo delle vittime e gli utenti deboli. Le strade che registrano il maggior numero di incidenti.

Il lavoro ricostruisce le fasi che hanno caratterizzato il fenomeno migratorio in provincia di Bologna dal punto di vista storico demografico. Il periodo in esame copre i cento anni dall'Unità d'Italia al 1961. Allo scopo di valutare il ruolo della dinamica migratoria nei processi di urbanizzazione, sviluppo e crescita demografica, si presenta una stima dei saldi migratori nei vari ambiti territoriali. A completamento del quadro, infine, si delinea una breve sintesi relativa al periodo dal 1961 al 2001.

Quadro di sintesi relativo alla mobilità giornaliera di studenti e lavoratori nell’area provinciale di Bologna. In particolare, sono stati utilizzati i dati dell’ultima indagine censuaria del 2001. Oltre alle zone di origine e destinazione dei flussi di pendolari, le elaborazioni presentate hanno considerato anche il mezzo di trasporto utilizzato, l’orario abituale di uscita dall’abitazione e il tempo impiegato negli spostamenti. Il dettaglio territoriale dell’analisi svolta include la suddivisione per associazioni e unioni comunali.

In questo lavoro si illustra il percorso intrapreso per la creazione del sistema informativo anagrafico della Provincia di Bologna, dalla raccolta sistematica dei file delle anagrafi comunali alla loro successiva integrazione in un unico database. In particolare, per meglio illustrare le potenzialità della fonte così ottenuta, si mostrano i risultati di alcune elaborazioni. Nello specifico, si considerano la distribuzione territoriale delle seguenti tipologie familiari: i nuclei unipersonali, le famiglie con anziani e bambini piccoli, le famiglie degli immigrati stranieri.

Il quadro delle recenti dinamiche demografiche nelle associazioni comunali della provincia di Bologna. Le componenti dell'accrescimento demografico e l'individuazione degli ambiti associativi che hanno registrato i maggiori incrementi di popolazione. Aspetti dinamici e strutturali della presenza straniera. L'evoluzione delle caratteristiche strutturali della popolazione e la trasformazione delle tipologie familiari nelle varie articolazioni territoriali della provincia di Bologna. Il quadro delle ripercussioni su patrimonio e disponibilità abitativa.

We try to investigate the effects of household composition and SES on the reproductive process of married women by comparing some rural and semi-urban populations of northern and central Italy. At the same time, the local economic context will also be accounted for by introducing proxies for short-term variations in prices. Finally, we consider reproduction as a function of the demographic characteristics of each couple, their reproductive history, the structure of the household in which they lived , as well as individual and household responses to epidemics and short-term economic stress. In this way, we will highlight some of the most important variables playing a role in the transition from the natural fertility regime to the onset of the fertility decline.