Archivio della ricerca della Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna
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Unveiling gender equality: Assessing the impact of board gender diversity approaches in European countries
No full textThe VOLTA thruster: development and ground demonstration of a novel CubeSat-scale air-breathing electric propulsion system
No full textCan people avoid the avoidable co-payments caused by reference pricing for outpatient medicines?
No full textReference pricing is a coverage (reimbursement) policy used in many health systems primarily to limit public spending on outpatient medicines but also to enhance efficiency by lowering prices. Although reference pricing can lead to user charges (co-payments), policy-makers may not be as concerned about the impact of these co-payments on affordable access to health care as they are about the impact of other out-of-pocket payments. This is perhaps because the co-payments arising from reference pricing are seen as avoidable – people do not have to pay them if they choose medicines at or below the reference price. The purpose of this brief is to draw attention to the potential for avoidable co-payments to lead to financial hardship or unmet need for some households. It also identifies the factors that increase avoidable co-payments and highlights policies to reduce them. The brief does not review the pros and cons of reference pricing; rather, the focus is on providing policy-makers with a high-level understanding of the layers of complementary policies that need to be in place to ensure that reference pricing does not inadvertently undermine affordable access to health care
Humans can use multimodal osseoperceptive sensory feedback to enhance their sensorimotor control of a robotic hand
No full textThe somatosensory function is essential for hand motor control, but it is lost following hand amputation. This study explores the potential of osseoperception — auditory and vibrotactile sensations evoked through bone stimulation — to be used as a multimodal supplementary sensory feedback modality for myoelectric robotic prostheses during object manipulation. By stimulating the wrist at the pisiform bone, the feedback system developed in this study conveyed to the user the two types of information from the digits of a robotic hand prosthesis: discrete contact events and continuous but transitory force feedback, evoking either auditory or vibrotactile sensations by varying the stimulation frequency. Able-bodied participants used the prosthetic hand to perform pick-and-lift tasks of a virtually fragile instrumented object with a predefined breaking threshold. The results demonstrated that when osseoperceptive feedback was provided, participants completed significantly more successful trials with improved motor coordination, enhanced task intuitiveness, and reduced cognitive workload. These findings suggest that osseoperceptive feedback, achieved by stimulating distal bones, is a reliable method to improve force control and overall subjective experience when using upper-limb prostheses, showcasing the potential of osseoperception in assistive robotic technologies
Mass-Scale G2B Data Sharing in an Emergency: between the GDPR, Data Governance Act, and European Health Data Space
No full textDuring the COVID-19 pandemic, government-to-business (G2B) data sharing became a vital practice, exemplified by the 2021 Israeli Ministry of Health-Pfizer agreement. This established a large-scale data sharing operation outside of research and data protection regulations and oversight. This paper explores two related questions: (i) whether an EU Member State could replicate this scenario, and (ii) whether EU data legislation provides sufficient protection against excessive G2B data sharing. The analysis of the General Data Protection Regulation, Data Governance Act, and European Health Data Space shows that (i) despite the uncertain definitions of research and personal data, it would be difficult for an EU Member State to replicate this scenario; and (ii) despite its many grey areas and flexibilities, EU data legislation offers protection against excessive G2B data sharing. This highlights the need to explore alternative strategies to facilitate data sharing that can address public health emergencies promptly while safeguarding fundamental rights
Rifiuto di emotrasfusioni per motivi religiosi: l'autodeterminazione del paziente in un’emergenza
No full textCon la sentenza in commento, la Corte europea dei diritti dell’uomo torna ad affrontare il delicato tema
del rifiuto dei Testimoni di Geova di sottoporsi a emotrasfusioni. In particolare, la decisione riguarda il
caso di una paziente che veniva sottoposta a emotrasfusione a seguito di un ricovero d’urgenza,
nonostante la stessa avesse manifestato il suo rifiuto. La Corte condanna lo Stato spagnolo per
violazione degli articoli 8 e 9 CEDU, in quanto il procedimento che ha condotto all’autorizzazione del
trattamento non ha mostrato un sufficiente rispetto per l’autodeterminazione della paziente. Sebbene
il dispositivo della sentenza in commento sia favorevole alla ricorrente, l’argomentazione
sottesa, tuttavia, sembra discostarsi da taluni precedenti della Corte in materia di autodeterminazione
terapeutica dei Testimoni di Geova, assumendo una posizione maggiormente paternalistica, che dà
particolare risalto all’obbligo positivo dello Stato di proteggere la vita e la salute degli individui
