The pyFAI package has been designed to reduce X-ray diffraction images into powder diffraction curves to be further processed by scientists. This contribution describes how to convert an image into a radial profile using the Numpy package, how the process was accelerated using Cython. The algorithm was parallelised, needing a complete re-design to benefit from massively parallel devices like gr...

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE The patient package insert is an important source of drug information. The aim of this study was to evaluate and compare the PPI of the anti-infective agents manufactured in Palestine with the imported equivalents. METHOD The selection criteria generated 15 different anti-infective agents available as 36 locally manufactured products and 15 imported equivalents. The d...

In discussions on the development of the institutional framework for decisions on the benefit package of social health insurance in Germany, the English National Institute for Clinical Excellence (NICE) is considered as either a good or a bad example for reform. According to this study, the procedures and criteria applied by NICE for making health care coverage decisions are legitimate. Procedu...

BACKGROUND Contributory social health insurance for formal sector employees only has proven challenging for moving towards universal health coverage (UHC). This is because the informally employed and the poor usually remain excluded. One way to expand UHC is to fully or partially subsidize health insurance contributions for excluded population groups through government budget transfers. This pa...

BACKGROUND Interest in assessing the value of health-care services in Germany has considerably increased since the foundation of the Institut für Qualität und Wirtschaftlichkeit im Gesundheitswesen, IQWiG (Institute for Quality and Efficiency in Health Care). The practical application of value assessment illustrates how problematic the process can be. In all decisions made for the provision of ...

Elements of regulation inherent in most social health insurance systems are a uniform package of benefits and uniform cost sharing. Both elements risk to burden the population with a welfare loss if preferences differ. This suggests introducing more contracted choice; however, it is widely believed that this would not benefit the aged. This study examines the relationship between age and willin...

BACKGROUND It is important that community-based health insurance (CBHI) schemes are designed in such a way as to ensure the relevance of the benefit packages to potential clients. Hence, this paper provides an understanding of the preferred benefit packages by different economic status groups as well as urban and rural dwellers for CBHI in Southeast Nigeria. METHODS The study took place in ru...

The rapid progress in medical technology makes it unavoidable to ration health care. In the discussion how to ration many people claim that principles of justice in distributing scarce resources should be applied. In this paper we argue that medical resources are not scarce as such but scarcity is a necessary by-product of collective financing arrangements such as social health insurance. So th...

We applied a decision tool for rationing choices, with a predetermined budget of about 11 US dollars per household per year, to identify priorities of poor people regarding health insurance benefits in India in late 2005. A total of 302 individuals, organized in 24 groups, participated from a number of villages and neighborhoods of towns in Karnataka and Maharashtra. Many individuals were illit...

There is a growing evidence base for preconception care--the provision of biomedical, behavioral and social interventions to women and couples before conception occurs. Firstly, there is evidence that health problems, problem behaviours and individual and environmental risks contribute to poor maternal and child health outcomes. Secondly, there are biomedical, behavioural and social interventio...