Publications

With the changing food allergen landscape in Europe, there is an increasing need for the monitoring of (non-)prepacked food products to improve the protection of consumers with food allergies. Although food allergy is a condition affecting up to 10 % of the consumers worldwide, a European harmonised approach for the management of precautionary allergen labelling, allergen reference doses, analytical methods or food product monitoring is not in ...

One cannot make truly fair decisions using integer linear programs unless one controls the selection probabilities of the (possibly many) optimal solutions. For this purpose, we propose a unified framework when binary decision variables represent agents with dichotomous preferences, who only care about whether they are selected in the final solution. We develop several general-purpose algorithms to fairly select optimal solutions, for example, ...

Background Esophageal cancer (EC) is a malignancy with a poor prognosis and a five-year survival rate of less than 20%. It is the ninth most frequent cancer globally and the sixth leading cause of cancer-related deaths. The incidence of EC has been found to vary significantly by geography, indicating the importance of environmental and lifestyle factors along with genetic factors in the onset of the disease. In this work, we investigated ...

In this article we ask which societal circumstances and individual characteristics make people wish to migrate to another country. Drawing on a large-scale survey conducted in 25 communities in ten countries across Asia, Africa and the Middle East, we conduct multi-level regression analysis, allowing us to assess the effects of diverse individual and community-level determinants on international migration aspirations. This multi-level design has ...

Delivering healthcare to undocumented migrants presents a complex challenge for healthcare providers. Integrating advocacy efforts into their daily practices can be ambiguous in practical terms, stemming from the intricate task of addressing the health needs of this population while simultaneously advocating for their health rights within the constraints imposed on them. This study seeks to consolidate findings from literature regarding the ...

BACKGROUND: The COVID-19 vaccination campaign in several European countries involved collaboration between public health and Primary Health Care (PHC). OBJECTIVE: To highlight the role of PHC professionals in the COVID-19 vaccination rollout, specifically in terms of vaccine administration, communication and contributing to vaccination population coverage. METHODS: A descriptive retrospective study of the COVID-19 vaccination campaign across 28 ...

BACKGROUND: Anaesthetists of all grades who work on a labour ward are likely to be involved in the insertion or management of an intrathecal catheter after inadvertent dural puncture at some point in their careers. Although the use of intrathecal catheters after inadvertent dural puncture in labour has increased in popularity over recent decades, robust evidence on best practice has been lacking. METHODS: The Obstetric Anaesthetists' Association ...

BACKGROUND: In patients with compensated advanced chronic liver disease (cACLD), risk of clinically significant portal hypertension (CSPH) can be estimated by applying non-invasive tests such as liver stiffness measurement (LSM), platelet count, and, in some cases, BMI. We aimed to assess the diagnostic utility of spleen stiffness measurement (SSM) at 100 Hz as a standalone non-invasive test for CSPH and to evaluate its incremental value ...

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE: Persistent prostatic specific antigen (PSA) represents a poor prognostic factor for recurrence after radical prostatectomy (RP). However, the impact of persistent PSA on oncologic outcomes in patients undergoing salvage RP is unknown. To investigate the impact of persistent PSA after salvage RP on long-term oncologic outcomes. MATERIAL AND METHODS: Patients who underwent salvage RP for recurrent prostate cancer between ...